Interview with GORDON SHORT - December 12, 1977

T. = Trisha Short (Lewis)

G. = Gordon Short

T.: Could you tell me some interesting stories that you remember that had something to do with your grandparents or your mom and dad?

G.: Well, the only thing that I can think of now that would be interesting was when we came back from Seattle, and I was about 3 1/2 or 4 years old, and we stayed with my grandparents up in McIntosh ...

T.: Which grandparents were they?

G.: Mr. and Mrs. Jorgen Sannes. Most particular thing that I can remember is that in the fall of the year when we were picking potatoes-actually I wasn't, but the menfolk, were- but I was out in the potato field like all kids would be. They gave me the job of standing in the wagon and holding onto the lines of the horses hitched to the wagon. When pickers would fill their baskets, they'd call to me to move the wagon up to them to dump them . That'd be alright until the wagon began to fill up a little bit, and I was standing up in the front, and they motioned to me to move up. I had seen the menfolk slap the lines on the rumps of the horses before, so I thought I'd be a bigshot, too, so I said "Giddyap", gave a slap to the horses with the lines. They jerked a little bit harder than I thought they would; I lost my balance and fell forward, headfirst right down onto the doubletrees, hitting my head on what they called the doubletree pin. From there I fell underneath the wagon. my right arm ended up extended over my head, and one wheel just scraped going over my head, and ran over that arm. My grandpa saw all this happen, and one of my uncles--they picked me up right away and ran me up to the house. They put me into the car and took me into McIntosh, a small town 1 1/2 miles away to the doctor. The doctor said I was alright--he never checked my arm too much. To this day it's not as straight as the other one. It never hurt me too much. As we came from the doctor's office-grandpa was a great one for peppermints, white peppermints-he always had white peppermints in his pocket. Well, this time he didn't give me one or two peppermints out of his pocket; he went to the store and bought me about a dime's worth of peppermints, and you could get a pretty good size sack for that in them days. Right then and there I forgot all about my hurt; those peppermints were more of a cure than what the doctor could have given me. That's the big memory of what happened when I was that old. I can remember a few things even earlier, about when we lived in Seattle, but that'll be another story later...

T.: Could you tell me anything about your Grandpa and Grandma Sannes, what kind of people were they like?

G.: My Grandpa Sannes, I never knew him when he actually worked in the fields himself, because every time I visited them, their son Knute who lived with them took care of the farming, and I believe Grandpa was retired or semi- retired then. He might have helped in the fields a little in his older age, but the times I can remember he was around the place, feeding the livestock or chopping wood.

T.: What kind of person was he like? people well? Did he get along with people well?

G.: He was a jolly fellow. He was always ... he was a teaser. It was funny to hear him, because he had such a Norwegian I brogue. Whenever he tried to make something sound serious, it ended up sounded pretty hilarious I would say. He tried to make things comes out right but they wouldn't. My grandmother was really a down-to-earth person. She would go to all limits to make you feel at home. She would have all the Norwegian dishes (food), and if you didn't try them all, I tell you, you'd make her feel bad. When I was small and we were staying with them, one of the most interesting places that I can remember going into was what they called the milking room. That's where they had the cream separator. This room had a special smell--it always smelled of cream and milk, and always freshly scrubbed floor. One time I went up there--it was lamb feeding time. one or two lambs gets left without a mother... Bum lambs, you mean. Yes, uh, they were called "bottle lambs". Grandma would say, "Gordon, do you want to feed the lambs?" Boy, I couldn't ask for anything better. She'd fill the bottle with warm milk, and out the pasture we'd go right along the fence. And boy, those lambs really were waiting. And if you've ever seen any young animal nurse from it's mother... same way from a bottle--jerk, jerk, jerk. I don't see how they can drink so fast, but they sure did empty those bottles in a hurry! When we'd get through with that- they always wanted more-but only one bottle per feeding, until the next feeding.

T.: Was there any relative that you seemed to identify with more when you were a kid? One that you liked being around? An Uncle or an Aunt?

G.: When I was about 12, 13, or 14, my favorite cousin was Ray Short. Because he was hired me to come over and herd sheep. I would always have a horse, and an old saddle. Help saddle the horse up for me in the morning and make me a peanut butter sandwich, a couple of cookies, and I'd take along a quart sealer of water, get on my horse, and had what we called a saddle bag but was actually just a sack tied onto the saddle horn. I'd get on this old horse-I guess he wasn't too old-I'd have to go about two miles to the pasture, let the sheep out, and herd them all day. There was times when the sheep would lie down in the afternoons and there wasn't much to do. I got acquainted with another neighbor-his name was Ed Procrobik (spelling unsure-this is how is SOUNDED). He was plowing, so I tied the horse to the tree, and got on his tractor with him. Pretty soon he said, "Hey, would you like to drive?" And I said, "Sure!" I'd never steered a tractor in my life! I was going along pretty good. Pretty soon the wheels- -you're supposed to keep the wheel in the right furrow--they started coming out of the furrow, and instead of bringing it back, I steered it the other way and it got worse! (Laughs) He said, "No, you're going the wrong way..." He allowed me two or three rounds like that, and then he said, "Now I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do, I'm going to get off of this tractor and you're going to make a complete round by yourself." That was the first time, and I had drive that tractor around that field by myself, and had to trip the plow out of the ground at the end and put it into the ground again. That was my first experience plowing with a tractor. I had drove horses with implements much younger, but that was my first experience with a tractor.

T.: Was there anything you particularly liked doing around the farm-chores, things you did around the animals?

G.: I didn't mind doing chores, because we always did them together. Seemed like in the wintertime, when we had chores to do, I always got stuck standing out in the cold weather pumping water for the horses and cows, while the others were in the barn where it was nice and warm! I guess I can't complain too much because I got out of the chores a lot of the time because I helped mother in the house.

T.: I know you're animals were all raised for livestock or for working, but was there ever any animals that you got close to?

G.: We had one young horse, called "Brownie", a mare. She was good at driving in a buggy with shafts. All of us boys took turns driving her. We had her several years. We'd hook her up after feeding and harnessing her, and take the hired men out in the fields. We'd go back about 9:30am with cold water for them. Make another trip at noon. Did the same in the afternoon. She'd make about six trips out to the fields every day.

T.: Did you ever breed her?

G.: No. When you'd put her out in the pasture at night, she was a foxy one to catch in the morning, I tell you! She wouldn't come in alone. You had to drive in the other horses-she'd come in with them, but she wouldn't come in alone.

T.: Just like "Sarina", huh?

G.: Yeah. She always knew when you were going to try and catch her. If you tried to catch her out in the pasture alone, it'd take three or four of you to do it, because you had to corner her.

T.: Tell me little bit about your own parents, anything you can remember, stories, etc.

G.: Mother and Dad, they liked to go places a lot. We used to go into town as a family and shop. The trips were not far away. We lived in Angus, and McIntosh was about 50 to 60 miles away. That was the furthest we went. We'd go and stay two or three days. That was the highlight of our times, going up there by car. I think the most interesting times was during holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's. We never went places then, we'd invite people in to our place. Mostly Uncles, Aunts, Cousins, congregating at our place. After a big meal and getting ourselfs stuffed, we'd get out the card tables and play cards, having two or three card tables going.

T.: When you were a kid, did you ever play any of the old games like "Fox and Geese"--what kinds of things did you do?

G.: With all this snow on the ground, it just seems like yesterday when we'd play "Fox and Geese". You make a circle in the snow, then lines across like spokes in a wheel. As long as you stayed in the center you were free, but if you got out of that circle you were eligible to be caught. If you were a good jumper, you could jump from one line, or spoke we'd call it, and catch the other guy. We'd play that, and we'd play "Leap Frog", and we'd play "Stealing Sticks", and we'd play "Crack the Whip".

T.: What was "Crack the Whipl"?

G.: That was done mostly on ice. You'd get two or three fellows that were on skates, and some that weren't, and if you were on the tail end without skates and started sliding, all of a sudden they let you loose, and you'd go any amount of...

T.: Like a big long "snake", all connecting hands, you mean?

G. : Yeah-the leader wouldn't be going fast wouldn't be going fast at all, but the one at the end would. I always ended up being on the end and had no skates. I knew what was going to happen and braced for it.

T.: Was your Mom or Dad much for going to church? Did you go to church as you were growing up?

G.: No, I'm sorry to say, I never had much church bringing up as you'd call it. I had very little church...

T.: Did your mother go to church more than your dad?

G.: Mother was more interested in us going to church ... we did go to Sunday School a lot, I remember that. I remember going to the Presbyterian Church at Angus. I remember having several Sunday School lessons there. I know Dad would always give us a dime. A nickel was for candy or ice cream, and the other nickel was for Sunday School. We'd take in the church service while in town, too. We'd be gone from 9:30 to about noon. In the afternoons we were free on Sundays. Had lots of things to do--either go out horseback riding, or hunting.

T.: What was your favorite pastime? What did you like to do when you didn't have to do chores?

G.: Before I was old enough to work in the fields, there was a certain amount of chores you had to do that we were expected to do according to your age. When done, you were free to do what you wanted to do unless mother wanted us to help with garden work.

T.: What did you do, though?

G.: Mother would pack us a lunch in a gallon can, putting a sandwich and apple, and a jug of water with us, take some traps and water pail. We'd head out to a neighbor's pasture about a mile east of our place, just loaded with gophers. If they wouldn't come out fast enough, we'd down them out!

T.: I can't think of what to ask you--anything interesting about your childhood before you left home?

G.: I remember when we came back from Seattle we stayed at McIntosh. Dad moved us down to his brother's place, with Uncle Gurney's. We lived there one winter. Right after Christmas my oldest brother and cousin and other brother were getting ready for school. I said, why can't I go to school, too? They said I couldn't go. I was standing by a sled, and my brother was cleaning it out, he was shoveling snow out of the sled. I guess he didn't see me-he turned with the shovel, and the shovel hit me in the lip and cut me real bad but not enough to take me to the doctor. It hurt more than it cut me. It was lucky that the tip was turned over at the edge from hitting on the ground or something-- it was blunt. I was only 5 years old.

T.: Were there any teachers when you were attending school that especially remember?

G.: There was one teacher. She lived on what we called the Big Ditch Road about 1 1/2 miles from school. I can remember her first name real well-her first name was Lena. I'm quite sure her last name was Johnson. She was quite a stout woman, quite short, and about 180 or 190 lbs. She was a very stout woman. But she was a very good teacher.

T.: She cared about you, took an interest in you?

G.: That's right. I was in 7th grade, she said, "Gordon, would you like to take the Eighth Grade examination?" I said, "Yes." Well, I took the 8th grade examinations and I passed. I was one of the highest. It didn't mean anything because I still had to take it next year.

T.: At that time you didn't have to stay in school until you were sixteen, huh?

G.: No, no, you didn't. One of best buddies was my same age, and when he was in the 7th grade and passed them and didn't have to come back until the 8th grade if he didn't want to. But he didn't want to stay at home, so he just came into the 8th grade to be with us.

T.: When you got older and worked in the fields, was there anything you did responsibility-wise you didn't do before?

 G.: You have to go back to when I was about nine or ten years old--the first implement I run then was three horses on a sulky plow--a plow that has one low (?) board, about 16 inches, and doesn't take much of a cut. We had one sulky plow and my brothers had two gang plows. I drove three horses on that. After I proved I could drive them, my dad ... there was an implement called a roller or cultipacker ... it's something that after you plowed and pack it.

T.: Like a harrow?

G.: No, a harrow has points/teeth on it. This was a solid roller. Four horses on that. Then at 10 or 11, they let me drive five horses on a gang plow.

T.: How old were you when you started to hire out to other places?

G.: When I herded sheep for my cousin--11 or so? Another neighbor a mile and a half east hired. His name was Jesse Campion. I herded cows for him one summer. The wages were really cheap. If you got 25 cents or 50 cents a week you were getting a good wage.

T.: What year was that?

G.: I'd say about 1929 or 1930.

T.: How old were you when you left home?

G.: When I really left home to be away from home for any amount of time was when I went to the CCC Camp at Big Fork, Minnesota.

T.: What's the CCC?

G.: The "Civil Conservation Corps". There was a lot of those camps in those days.

T.: Under Roosevelt's "New Deal"?

G.: Under the President's "New Deal" where they put boys to work and gave them jobs. That was in the Depression times.

T.: What did you do?

T.: I was in there in the winter time. We'd go out into the woods in the morning burn teepees, teepees of wood.

T.: Like Eli (Gooselaw?)

G.: The boys in the summertime would pick up dead wood and put them into teepee shapes, and we'd go and burn them in the wintertime, and that was good because that kept us warm!

T.: Did you really feel the Depression that much that you actually had to go to work to make money off the farm?

G.: I don't suppose I had to go out and make money because we got enough to go to shows on and for money.

T.: So your family wasn't really that hard up then during the Depression?

G.: We hard up to the extent that we didn't have much money, but we always had plenty of food.

T.: You always had the necessities?

G.: Oh, yes. Mother raised turkeys. She'd take and sell them in the fall of the year. We'd all pile in the car and go into town to Grand Forks, and we'd buy our fall clothes with her turkey money that she had. One thing I could say about Mother-God rest her soul now-she never spent much money on herself. She always saw to it that us kids got clothes first. Being that there was so many boys in the family and the spread wasn't too much, I always got a lot of hand-me-downs.

T.: What was it like when you first left home--were you kind of scared, or were you excited about it?

G.: I was kind of used to it because I had been away from home two or three weeks at a time before, but the camps were run like a military camp. You had to get up in the morning and go out to a flag raising. Taking it down at night. This happened Monday through Friday. Weekends were free. I had two jobs. At CCC's I burned teepees. Then I went on to be a carpenter's helper. One time one of the night watchman got sick and never came back, so I got stuck with his job! I liked better, because I had more time off for myself. It's funny--you can be off somewhere, and you come home ... this time I got a ride home, having to pay to and from. My folks didn't know I was coming home. The fellow let me off down at the end of the road leading up to our place. I wrapped on the door. Mother didn't know who it was and my heart was just apounding. I was anxious to see everybody. They were anxious to see me, too. This was on a Saturday morning. On Saturday night we all went out to a dance and had a lot of fun. On Sunday this fellow came back and picked me up and back we went. It was a short stay, but we had a lot of fun.

T.: You would say then you were mostly excited about leaving home then, eh?

G.: Yes.

T.: Did you make many plans when you were going away from home?

G.: No, I never made any plans because I just didn't know what I was going to be or do when I grew up. I knew that I was going to go into the military service, whether it was war or not, because one thing that always sticks in my mind is that when I was going to school is a little poem that went like:

"…If you will be a soldier boy, you may come too…"

I don't know what that poem is, or where that line comes from...

T.: "...you will be..." what?

G.: (Repeats line above) ... I don't know from what poem that line is from, but that always stuck with me. I thought to myself when I was little kid, I'm going to be a soldier.

T.: Were you a little scared, though, when the time came? When actual war was going on? Did you ever think that when you got over there, that you might not come back?

G.: When I was drafted, I thought it was an exciting deal. It never occurred to me that we could really get hurt until we were showed wounds, of planes strafing men, and how soldiers were being unloaded from barges and making a beachhead landing and how the enemy could cut you down with machine guns and mortars and everything like that. I got to thinking, "Hey, this isn't a kids' game, this is real!" By then it was too late and was already committed and sworn in and do what I was told. Finally we actually got into the actual phase of fighting.

T.: How long did it take from basic training? You were down in Michigan?

G.: No, it was California, for six weeks.

T.: Where were you shipped to from there?

G.: I was in three training camps in the States before we were sent overseas. From California...I can't think of them in order. One of them was... Fort Worth, Texas?)

T.: Anyways, where was the first place you were shipped to overseas?

G.: First place was New Guinea.

T.: Did you see service there, or was that just a stopover?

G.: There was some action going on when we got there, but it was just about over when we arrived. We weren't there too long before we were shipped to the Philippines. In the Philippines is where we did our fighting. We were first on Layte (spelling?) and then on Luzon, both places we did heavy fighting.

T.: Were you reinforcements or were you ever frontline troops?

G.: We were in the front lines. our company went up in the front lines at least 9 or 10 times. Full strength of 130 to 140 men. Many a time we came back with just 30 or 40 men. The rest were either killed, or wounded and in hospital.

T.: I know about being in foxholes-you dug them yourselves…

G.: That's right.

T.: Is that one of the things they taught you how to do?

G.: We knew a certain way from training.

T.: Did they teach you how to deal with the enemy if you were captured by them?

G.: Oh, yes. You were supposed to just give them you name, rank, and serial number.

T.: They never trained you to withstand torture or whatever. G.: No, that was pretty hard to say. One person can stand more than others. Up to you.

T.: Did you ever see those makeshift medical units and the conditions they had to work in (like a MASH, but pre-MASH)?

G.: Oh, yes. On the front lines you never had a setup like a regular hospital.

T.: They had regular army doctors?

G.: Yes.

T.: Did they have nurses there?

G.: Some did, but mostly Philippino nurses, not U.S. nurses, were near the front lines. One time I walked by, we were walking back from the front lines after heavy fighting and I saw a doctor and a medic actually insert a tube into a person's throat that had been cut by scrapnel so that he could breath because his windpipe was cut off.

T.: Could you ever talk to chaplains? Did you ever get scared and have to talk to somebody?

G.: The only time I ever talked to the chaplain was when your mother got sick and we had to send her home, and we had no money, so I went over to the chaplain...

T.: When was this? Where were you?

G.: This was at Fort Worth, Texas.

T.: This was the time you were on the train?

G.: Yeah. I told him our situation, that we didn't have any money, and if he would help me get money from the Red Cross? He did--he went to bat for me and in a matter of a short time he got the money for us. So I could bring my wife home.

T.: You came right here to St. Vincent?

G.: Yes. From the time we left we left there and got here, a lot happened. It would take quite awhile to tell it ...

T.: Once you told me about something funny that happened while you watched a movie--something about a rat up somebody's leg??!

G.: That somebody's leg was my own! This was over in New Guinea--we were stationed there for awhile, and we had a portable smoking screen set up. Right opposite this screen, some Australians had their camp set up there. it was just one company or platoon stationed there. one night, it was a beautiful night out, we were all sitting there watching this movie.

T.: Do you remember what movie it was?

G.: Seemed like it--I can't remember the name of it--that Deanna Durbin was in it.

T.: Who was Deanna Durbin?

G.: Deanna Durbin, Frank Sinatra ... It was more or less of a...I can't think of what I want to say ... the movie was going on, and of course around the camps there were a lot of dogs. They were chasing each other around the camp, and around this movie area. Pretty soon one dog stopped by me--I thought it was a dog--but I felt something against my leg. All of a sudden another dog come chasing it. Pretty soon what I felt by my leg ran up my leg. I put my hand down and felt a bump. I just held on and squeezed for all I could--

T.: Didn't anyone notice this the whole time it was going on?

G.: Nobody noticed it, and that dog just stood there. Pretty soon, there was a break in the movie, the lights came on, and a couple of my friends-- Wassing from Minneapolis and Alabama--we called him Alabama as a nickname, because he really was from Alabama, a small fellow--they were sitting about two rows up ahead. I hollered, "Hey, Wassing--I bet you can't guess what's up my leg!" And he started to giggle, and everyone else started to giggle, because they took it to mean something different. I said, "No-- there's a rat up my leg, or a mouse." "Come on, Short, you're just pulling our leg." "No sirree," so I hobbled out to where they were and said, "Feel...And Alabama, he felt and said, "By God," he said, "there's something there." He took his handkerchief out of his pocket, wrapped it around his hand, and raced up my pant leg, and said, "By Golly, there's something there--I can feel the tail! Let loose!" I let loose, and he jerked it out from underneath my pant leg. But the thing was dead, because I had squeezed it to death. "Boy, you sure weren't kiddin'!" And everybody was looking- -there was nurses there in uniform, and officers, and a lot of other guys. When that movie started again, nobody had their feet on the ground--put their feet on the bench up ahead of them! They didn't want no rat running up their pant leg. After we got through, one of the Ausies said, "Short, do you want to come over for some tea and crackers?" I said, "Sure!" I tell you--if you ever drink tea made by Australians, you have got a treat coming. You can float an egg on top and it wouldn't sink. It's so strong. They just take a gallon can, put some tea in it, and boil the devil out of it! After two cups of that, and you're not going to sleep long because you're going to the bathroom every 10 minutes. They had some hardtack crackers there, too. I ate a few of them, and drank a couple of cups of tea. That made my night--a rat up my pantleg, drinking strong tea, and staying up all night running to the bathroom (latrine, they call it); the next day I was pretty pooped out!

T.: Is there anything that you remember about being in battle-- something that you remember that stands out in your mind? Once I think you told me that you were going across some field at night, walking across dead bodies or something?

G.: This has happened in the front lines--at night, we would be- -you'd be fighting in the daytime, and at night you would in the foxhole, or standing on top of the ground--whatever was available--during the day you'd be fighting, and at night you'd have time to rest, if you weren't standing guard duty. You'd be on 2-4 hours, then off--it depended on how many were there to take their turns. You were subject to call at any time during the night to be ammunition-bearer, if they needed you at the front lines. Many times I was called, and in this one instance I was called, we were carrying ammunition boxes--I don't know how far--and when we got to the destination, this one sargeant told us where to put them, but he didn't tell us what was in front of us. Lo and behold, pretty soon I was stepping on something soft.

T.: Was there anyone with you?

G.: Oh, yes--there was several of us. I asked the sargeant, "What am I stepping on?" "You're just stepping on some dead bodies that we haven't carried down yet." It gives you an awful funny, eerie feeling stepping on somebody like that, you know, even if the party is dead.

T.: Once you talked about being in the foxholes, during the rain, standing there in the water.

G.: My first experience with that was at the front lines. It was raining--we had our trenchcoats and one blanket. When we dug in that night, we didn't have time to dig in very deep. I suppose my foxhole was about 10 inches deep. I spread my raincoat on the bottom. I thought, "Well, I'll lay on that and I'll cover up with my blanket." Lo and behold, it started to rain--it had been raining,- but it had quit--it started to rain again. You wouldn't believe it, that you could sleep, when it was wet like that ...

T.: Wasn't the coat rainproof?

G.: I was laying on it--yes. The blanket I had was just soaking wet. The hole started to fill up, I kind of welcomed my chance when it came my turn for guard duty. Where we stood guard duty is, we had a 50 calibur machine gun set up, you would squat behind this machine gun that was--it was sitting on top of the whole, and you were squatting down in the hole, and you had strapped on your belt you had a 45 calibur pistol and hand grenades, and had a small arms rifle beside the machine gun, too. T.: Did you ever encounter anybody on your guard duty?

G.: Not on guard duty, but we fired several times when we wasn't on guard duty.

T.: When you are actually fightinq, did you ever come close to the enemy--ever hand-to-hand?

G.: I myself never came to hand-to-hand with the enemy, although there was instances on the front lines there where I suppose the enemy was as close as 25 to 30 feet away from where I was, but they were ... this one, they were in another foxhole, ane they were struggling, and one of the fellows in our outfit was killed, in this foxhole. When the Japanese started running away, he was cut down by another Yank that seen him run.

T.: Didn't it get kind of kind of smoke-filled in the area--how did you know if you were shooting at anything or not?

G.: The only time it gets smoke-filled in the air like that was from your big calibur guns, not from rifle fire.

T.: Yes, but grenades were used ...

G.: Not too often did we have to use grenades, except when we wanted to drive the Japanese out of their foxholes, or probably if we surmised or had a hunch that there was a machine gun nest ahead.

T.: Did you ever use them yourself?

G.: Oh, yes. We used hand grenades.

T.: Didn't you ever get scared that it might stick on your finger and you might not be able to throw it?

G.: No--I had pretty good luck at grenade practice while in the States.

T.: Was it hard?

G.: They were set for so many seconds before they'd go off. just pulled a pin.

T.: There wasn't any safety pin or something?

G.: You They had a safety lever you peeled/held out (couldn't hear tape well here--not sure if "peeled" or "held" is the right word). As soon as you-- you wanted to make sure that you didn't put your arm back and your arm didn't hit a branch of a tree and knock it--drop it. othewise, there were times-- not in our outfit, but in other outfits--actually men sacrificed themselves for their buddies. A grenade would come into the hole, they'd see it and fall right on it, and of course they were killed.

T.: When was it that--what year was it about, when you went over to Japan?

G.: That was in 1945--we didn't go into mainland Japan until 1946 (I think Dad was wrong here, according to all records I've seen--his 32nd was in Japan in 1946, but they came initially in 1945--Dad himself must have been in Japan in 145, because he was discharged in 1945 ... )--no wait a minute, 1945--that's right. I came HOME in December of 1945. We were in Japan for about 6 weeks to 2 months before I came home (NOTE: That would put it about September/October). [NOTE: He didn't get discharged until into 1946, however…]

T.: Was that because that was where it was more intense and they needed more men than other places?

G.: We didn't go to Japan until the war was over, we didn't do any fighting on Japan on the mainland.

T.: You were there for part of it, weren't you? (I am IGNORANT here, not realizing that the U.S. were occupational forces only at this stage, and the war was over ...)

G.: No, our fighting was on other soil in New Guinea and the Philippines.

T.: When did you do there then?

G.: It must have been about October. The summer was when the Emperor surrendered It as more or less occupational forces.

T.: So for two months or so you didn't do any fighting?

G.: No, no fighting there at all.

T.: So, when December came and the war was over, and they let you out, where did you go to? I mean, did you just fly over and take a train home to here or what?

G.: No, we came back on a ship called the U.S. General Haas (Hass, Haws-- spelling?!). I don't know how many days it took for us to get back--I think it was around 14 days ... 12 or 14 days--we landed in Seattle. Yes, it was Seattle. From there we took a train to a camp in Wisconsin where we got our mustering out pay.

T.: Did they give you a suit to wear home?

G.: No, we were allowed to wear our army uniform home. You could wear it for 48 or 72 hours before you were supposed to chanqe over to civilian clothes.

T.: How did Mom take it--did you tell her ahead of time or did you surprise her?

G.: Oh, yes--I called her from Seattle, when we were back in the States. She was living back home here with her folks. When I came home on the train and got off and come to Pembina--

T.: Wasn't there a depot here at St. Vincent?

G.: Yes--Grandpa, her dad, met me at the train, but Harriet couldn't come because she had just gotten over pneumonia, so she couldn't come out of the house, but she sure was glad to see me when I got home.

T.: When you were 19, after you were done working for the CCC camps, didn't you come and work for our uncle here? At the Short's Cafe? Was that right after the CCC?

G.: Shortly after, yes.

T.: What did you do there?

G.: At the Cafe? Wait tables, bartending.

T.: Isn't that how you met Mom?

G.: Yes--she chummed around with other girls in the town, and that's how I met her.

T.: How old was she at the time that you met her?

G.: 16 years old.

T.: When did you actually start going out?

G.: We went out a few times while I was working here, but I think that the first time we started going together seriously was when she worked as a telephone operator in Bemidji and I was living in MacIntosh.

T.: How in the world did you get together when you were that far apart?!

G.: That was only 50 some miles ... my brother and I had a car, and we'd drive down there. Sometimes our friend Arlo Johnson, who had a car, too, he and his girlfriend, my brother and his girlfriend, and I would drive to Bemidji, and I'd wait until Harriet got off of her shift at the telephone office, and we'd go out and have supper, drive around and have fun.

T.: What did you see in her?

G.: It's hard to say what you see in a person, that you just know it, that they're just meant for you in life, and that's the one you're going to marry.

T.: Did you know the first time you dated her or did it take a few times to know that you really liked her?

G.: Well, I don't know whether--at the time that I worked here I liked her, and I suppose ... but the thought of marrying, although she says I asked her, "Let's get married!"--of course she didn't say yes, because she though I was kidding ...

T.: When was that?

G.: That was when I was working here (Short's Cafe). I don't know how things would have turned out in our lives if she'd said yes, and we would have gotten married then. It might have kept me out of the army and maybe it wouldn't have. I don't remember ... Even at the time that I was going with your mother in Bemidji there was other girls that I went with then that I liked real well, at the same time. The fact is ...

T.: Was she jealous of that?

G.: I don't know if she knew about it(!) There was one girl I wrote to, in the service before I was married. At the same time that I was writing to your mother I was writing to her!

T.: So when was it that you actually did ask Mom to marry you?

G.: In 1943, on leave--no! It was before I was in the service (1942), at a dance in Bemidji, before I went into the service. My Uncle Grundy and Aunt Ella, and my Mom and Dad, and another couple, went to Bemidji. We picked up Harriet and went to a nightclub, and were doing some dancing and drinking, that's when I preposed. I preposed to her right on the dance floor. We came back from the dance floor, and the rest of them on the sidelines, we told them what we were going to do. No, we didn't--we held off from telling them. I told Mother in the house (my mom), and went out to the barn and told Dad right afterwards.

T.: What did they think of it? Had they met Harriet?

G.: Oh, yes--they were happy for us. I was in the service, and I wrote and told her to come down to Fort Worth, and we'd get married. She bought her ticket and came down on the train, on her own. That disappointed my mother because they already had a shower planned for Harriet. So she hopped on the train and came, and we got married. Wasn't it a little chapel you got married in? Did you have any friends with you?

G.: No-the only witnesses were the Pastor's wife.

T.: Did you guys ever think of waiting until after the war? Some people didn't want to get married ...

G.: No, it just seemed like we--if something was going to happen--we didn't talk about that. Just seemed like it didn't enter our mind--if it did, we didn't talk about it. I knew it was inevitable that I would go overseas-- we just wanted as much time together as we could get.

T.: After you got back from the war, did Grandpa and Grandpa Fitzpatrick move out of this house right away, or did you live with them for awhile?

G.: We lived here for awhile. They moved out in 1946 or so.

T.: Didn't you keep animals around here for awhile? Did you go to Trade School right away?

G.: The first year, I was self-employed. I had some two cows from my brother, had chickens and pigs, and the big garden in 1946-47.

T.: When was it that you went away to Trade School?

G.: That was in 1947--no--in 1947 I worked on the farm out here, just about 1 1/2 miles east of our place, for a farmer named Warren Griffith, for six months. In 1948 I started working on the Section--Extra Gangs--I worked on the Section in 1948, 1949, and 1950, not steady--all of this time I still had cattle here and raised a big garden. In 1951 is when I went to Minneapolis to the Gail Institute.

T.: Wasn't that on the G.I. Bill, paying for it?

G.: That's right.

T.: How long did it take? I went down there in April and came back in November, a six months' course.

G.: What did they teach you? They taught us how to telegraph, which was quite an art at the time' and basic fundamentals of depot work--what a depot agent had to contend with.

T.: Was is run by the railroad?

G.: I don't think it was run by the railroad, I think it was privately-owned and operated. The teachers were more or less railroad employees that were actually working there on their off-duty hours, or retired railroad employees that were working there full-time.

T.: So after you left school, did you get a job right away with the railroad?

G.: Yes, at the time I went to school, my brother (Robert?) went also. Before we left, one of the teachers called us and said that I have two openings for telegraphers at Three Forks, Montana, and wanted to know if my brother and I would take it. We had a specified time to get there. But when I got home, my wife was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, so I couldn't go.

T.: What was wrong?

G.: I don't know--she had a nervous breakdown. It was more or less because of the situation that she had the sole care of raising the family while I was at school and we were quite hard up as far as money was concerned, and just things in general worried her, and kind of wore her down to a frazzle. --Her nerves were on edge.

T.: Didn't Grandpa and Grandma help her any?

G.: They did--it wasn't to the extent that she was hard up for food or anything, but it was just that, I don't know ... complications of several things ...

T.: So, what did you do then?

G.: I stayed home for while until she got to feeling better, then I wrote down to this teacher and asked him if he had another opening, and he said he did. If I wanted to, I could go down to a place called Persia, Iowa. This was around the first part of December, so I hops on the train and down I go. I got down there and stayed there about two or three weeks, and It was closer to Christmas time, and I had never been away from home at Christmas before (except for the War), and I was getting lonesome I guess, and I thought to myself, and I didn't know whether to call home or ask for money and come on home. So I called, and we decided that I was coming home. So I told the agent that I was staying with that I was bunch it and go home. So I hopped on the train and I made it home just a day or two before Christmas. Shortly afterwards I contacted the Great Northern Railroad to see if they had anything for me close to home. They said that I could go down to Argyle and work there as an agent/operator. I went down there for about three weeks, and broke in, and finally got a notice to go out on my own.

T.: Where did you go?

G.: It was a place out here called Deering, ND. I was only there two weeks. From there I went to a small place south of Grand Forks--I can't think of the name. From then on I went to so many places ... I was a relief man-- two weeks here, two weeks there--the Extra Board.

T.: Somehow or another you ended up in Grafton, ND, didn't you?

G.: I was at Grafton for awhile, at Upham, ND for two months-- at the time, while I was out there ...

T.: Where was the place that you had a lot of flowers?

G.: That's the first agency that I had at Glasston, ND--I was there for six years.

T.: Was is first Grafton, then Glasston? [NOTE: Dad did work in Glasston from 1956 until 1962]

G.: No, I worked at Grafton several times as a relief operator, and did two week jaunts at a time.

T.: Was Glasston your first regular place then?

G.: Glasston? Yes, my first regular place--well for any length of time, not counting Upham for two months.

T.: Was is right after Glasston that you ended up here at Noyes? [NOTE: Sometime in 1953 to 1954, in Noyes, he did work as a 2nd trick (2nd shift) operator]

G.: No, when I left Glasston I relieved my inlaw here at St. Vincent, my wife's uncle (Uncle Dick)--Dick Fitzpatrick at the St. Vincent station. While I was there, I was bumped by another operator, so then I went ...

T.: What does "bumping" mean?

G.: It means that you got displaced by an older man with more senority than you have. Than I went on the Extra Board and had to leave home. I was away from home for quite some time, before I had a chance to get Noyes in. All you have to do is submit your name and rank/senority date, if you're an older man, you get this position. This had been the second time I had bid in for Noyes. The first time I had displaced by somebody else that had more senority. I've been at Noyes now for over 15 years (as of 1977).

T.: Do you enjoy this type of work?

G.: I guess this is the work that the Lord has cut out for me to do with the minimum amount of education that I had.

T.: Do you like it? Does it fulfill what you'd like to do in a job?

G.: It does--after my two days off, I kind of look forward to going back to work again, although some days it gets pretty tiring and aggravating because everything doesn't go true to form. I still like the work.

T.: Let's change the subject to something quite different--when you had Sharon, did it shake you a little bit, knowing you had this responsibility now?

G.: I think that when you're young like that and have your first child, you take everything for granted. Responsibility isn't your main concern right then and there, although you're kind of puffed up, thinking, "Well, I'm married, I have a child..." So, that makes you feel like you've got to get out and strive, and do better. But, there is sometimes where you're foolish and you spend money for foolish things that you're not supposed to and shouldn't do. I think that there's never been a time that we ever spent anything foolishly that we didn't have clothes on our back and food in the house, and someplace to sleep.

T.: What do you plan to do when you retire?

G.: Well...

T.: Do you plan on gardening, or...

G.: No--I don't want to just sit around doing nothing because I think that would be bad for you. I'll have a little garden, mow the lawn. I like to work at something that I like to do. I would like greenhouse work. I suppose I could get some small jobs painting. Sightseeing--no interest in fishing. Because of my laxness in not doing any fishing during my span of life, I don't know beans from applebutter about fishing--I wouldn't know what equipment to buy, what I did buy I'd never use! I'd like to travel around and see historic sites, natural beauty, etc.--that's what I'd like to do.

T.: Could you tell me about some extraordinary things that have happened to you, like the 1950 flood?

G.: We'll have to talk about that another time ...

[END OF DECEMBER 12, 1977 INTERVIEW]

Mom's Corrections to above interview (!):

There are a couple of discrepancies in this tape--Dad said that he preposed to me in a letter written from Camp Bowie in Brownwood, Texas, and that held asked me to come down on the train to Fort Worth, and that's not true. He came home in January of 1943 on furlough, and he asked me to marry him, and I returned with him to Fort Worth at the end of his furlough, and we were married.

The other discrepancy is that he was in the CCC camp first, and then came up to Short's Cafe to work, and that's not true. He came up to Short's Cafe in 1938, and that's when I met him, when he was 19 and I was 16, and he was in the CCC camp in the winter of 1940- 41, and that's when he came out of the camp and helped his Dad with the crop in the spring, and got his draft notice, and was drafted in April 1942.

 Additional Notes:

Friday, 5/14/1993

Dad told me another story of how he and 2 buddies were running supplies or ammunition to the front line areas when an officer told him to stay behind for another reason (pulled him off). The other 2 went on, into an area where they had to 'dig in' (foxhole). They only got to dig in 18" or so when snipers opened up on them. They jumped into the foxholes, which although shallow, did help. However, the sniper cover allowed some Jap troos to come up on them and bayonet them to death. This happened about 2 hours after they left Dad. Dad heard about it later on. Dad said he prayed many a prayer to God then, during the war…He feels even though he wasn't a Christian yet, that God honored his prayers….