Interviewer ---
One of the things you confused me on is the POW Camp in Usk
Robert ---
The which?
Interviewer ---
The POW Camp in Usk at the Veterans CCC Camp, I had read that they were Germans that were there and Mr. Jared said they were Italians, which was which?
Robert ---
It had Germans to start with and I think there were some Italians came in so we'd had both of them here.
Interviewer ---
Do you remember when they got the Germans in off hand?
Robert ---
In about last of 1945 and part of '46
Interviewer ---
Okay, so I haven't gotten that far in the Miners yet. Now do you remember any Mexicans down there? I found in the Miners yesterday that they had 60 Mexicans they brought up and housed at the CCC camp for blister rust control and they were there from March to November thereabouts.
Robert ---
What year?
Interviewer ---
1945
Robert ---
I don't remember 'em in '45
Norma Rednour (Robert's wife) ---
Those Germans came into the drugstore earlier than that 'cause that was when I was working in the drugstore in the winter of '44 and '45.
Robert ---
Well it coulda been '44 because uh I think we got that potato digger near about '44 and uh so consequently then they were there when I went over there and dug that big patch of spuds on the riverbank, you knew where they dug those ditches across the flat there for the paper mill.
Interviewer ---
I think I know where you're at. I'm just taking notes so that if I miss something, I have it
Robert ---
yeah, and I know the Germans were there then because the people that was on McClarity's place there see Dan and old Jack McClarity owned the place that the Paper Mill is on now and uh they owned the land down by the river and they had a fella that was staying there and he put in about pert near 5 acres of potatoes and he had a couple daughters and the Germans, these daughters had the Germans over there in the shade of the house.
Interviewer ---
So where was, specifically, the Veterans CCC Camp at?
Robert ---
Well they tore the big buildings down. When you go in, just before you get to the railroad, there was a road that went straight back and there was a big houses and stuff on the south side of that road and then on the north side there, a couple of barracks there, and then they had all like the ones that Nelson's, Diesen's, and McGill's there was several of them around that some of the officers and stuff lived in and then just up from Bud Carsten's they had a building there and uh they uh the state took it over later as a office for the Department of Natural Resources and the...
Norma ---
US Forest Service
Robert ---
but when the camp was run there they had their doctor and their medical stuff in that building.
Interviewer ---
Okay, so it's right in there right at the...basically right at the corner then
Robert ---
When you turn there at Bud Carsten's and turn up to the next corner it was right there
Norma ---
between the two corners
Interviewer ---
Between the two corners [on Black Road]. Okay, no one has ever actually said where it was, I just kinda guessed that it was right in that corner area there.
Norma ---
There was a big building across from where the Diesen's live now too there was that Forest Service
Robert ---
yeah
Norma ---
that whole area was
Robert ---
See like I say the road that goes back right there at Diesen's straight to the railroad tracks on the south side of it was office buildings and the higher-ups there and across the road was a big dormitory and a big cook building, they had, well when the CCC was there there was probably 100 to 150 people.
Interviewer ---
That's what I had found record that there was about 150 men there when the veterans were there.
What was this area like...I mean, I'm kinda getting a feel of what it was like from the Miners but not really. What was this part of the county like during the war?
Robert ---
Well during the war, course this little 40 acre piece that this house sits on [on Skookum Creek Road] had been an old homestead and then the land up where all the stumps and across the upper part of the field there was all Panhandle Lumber Company land and then that's how Martin's got it, they bought land for $3 an acre.
Interviewer ---
Wow!
Robert ---
Panhandle Lumber Company and Jess bought some of it and down south of here, well some of the other people that was joinin' it bought some, that's how it ended up with all of it back on Section 11 and Section 12, he bought it for $2 an acre.
Interviewer ---
Good deals. Was this area changed much by the war?
Robert ---
No, not really. In fact there wasn't too many from around here that went to the war that didn't come back. I can't even remember the names of the Indians that didn't come back. They had some of them in that Battle of the Bulge where Roosevelt cut the ammunition off to let the Russians catch up and Leo Peuse was in that game he said he run for he run out of ammunition and Germans started coming back for 'em. I think four days and four nights just on the run.
Interviewer ---
Did you...Some of this is coming from what I just been reading in the Miners here in the last day. Did you, 'cause I know you guys had your own ranch, you had your own cattle, did you have to apply for special slaughter permits? I noticed in the Miner yesterday, I was reading that ranchers, if they were going to slaughter any cattle had to.
Robert ---
Not at that time we didn't, little later we did, but course we didn't have that many to slaughter at the time, so it didn't really affect us, some of the bigger cattlemen it may have but I don't know who to really say.
Interviewer ---
Okay, let's talk rationing for a second here, for a few minutes. How much did rationing affect you and your folks?
Robert ---
Well, course coffee and meat, sugar and some of that stuff was, you only got so much and you had to kinda mix other stuff in to make up.
Interviewer ---
Like what?
Robert ---
We could buy honey to replace sugar and coffee didn't affect me too much, the folks had a hard time and tryin to think, they traded little stamps to different ones, 'cause they didn't use this and they did this and of course Mother always done a lot of canning so she needed quite a little sugar and sugar was one of the main staples that they wouldn't let you have.
Interviewer ---
Now I read that you could apply to get extra sugar rations to can.
Robert ---
Well no they only gave you so much sugar. Gasoline and diesel you had to apply and usually tried to put in a little more than you figured you'd use to be safeguarded on it and uh we done pretty good on figuring out how much we needed and then we could go back to the ration board and apply if something run short. Rubber tires was something that you just was real hard to get. We got one tire for the pickup and I made one trip to Spokane and comin' back, comin' down Cook's Mountain, KABOOM! So I went back to the Ration Board and told 'em what it was, and they let us have another tire. And then, these trailers out here, we uh bought that one old baler in 1942 [chuckle] and uh so during the war we went out and baled for people, put up extra hay and stuff and uh it had steel wheels on it. So we went to the Ration Board and told 'em what we was gonna do that uh we needed rubber tires for these two trailers. Well as luck would have it, they weren't havin' as many calls for tires so they had extra so we ended up with ten tires.
Interviewer ---
Wow! That's a lot at that time.
Robert ---
Two for the baler, and four on each trailer.
Interviewer ---
Are they the original tires aren't they?
Robert ---
No, no
Interviewer ---
Not anymore, I've always thought they looked so old
Robert ---
There might be one tire on them trailers that is a Dayton original
Interviewer ---
The always looked so old like, you know, you've had them for eons.
Robert ---
But for sure kinda lucky in a way because we baled a bunch of hay for Schwab's and Fred Schwab was on the Ration Board.
Interviewer ---
So you had an in.
Robert ---
so we uh, when he wanted us to do something well if we needed something he would help, which is surprising because...you better not put this in there...
Interviewer ---
Oh go ahead and tell me, I can edit it, you want me to stop it? I will if you'd like.
Robert ---
He was pretty onery
Interviewer ---
Was he?
Norma ---
Murial
Robert ---
Who?
Norma ---
Murial was onery too
Interviewer ---
Murial Brigham, the head of the Draft Board?
Norma ---
She was a bearcat
Interviewer ---
That's kind of the impression I've gotten from quite a few people that have mentioned it you know different times, that she was kind of this...
Robert ---
You know they...
Interviewer ---
Onery person
Robert ---
put out a notice in the paper that if you hadn't done the...and uh you had better get int here and talk to the draft board because if some reason or another that they missed ya, you could be thrown in the coop for not showin up, so...
Norma ---
If you had a birthday, you'd better show up...that's when the hit eighteen when they were eighteen.
Robert ---
ehem
Norma ---
That's all I was going to say
Interviewer ---
Okay, so if you didn't check in with them, you were in deep
Robert ---
Yeah, so I checked in, so I checked in, and she reamed me out! "You will be notified at certain, certain dates and don't you come in here again until you get your notice." And this was probably in October or so.
Interviewer ---
Of?
Robert ---
Of uh '43...and so about March or February or March we got our call so there was fourteen of us from the area all went in and had our physicals and found out where we would be placed, but the Ration Board, er the Draft Board only needed three people out of the fourteen. Two of them failed, one of them was the healthiest, biggest kid you've ever seen in your life, but his dad was a veterinary, he give him a shot in the morning and his blood pressure was ... and uh course he took some of us in and he told us "any of you guys don't want to go," he says, "I'll fix it so that they won't take ya." But I thought, no, if they uh, if I'd a went in then I'd a been in the Navy, but consequently Dad run up and moaned and cried to the Draft Board so they deferred me, and I never did have to go.
Interviewer ---
Were you disappointed because you didn't ever go in or were you relieved?
Robert ---
In a way, I'm not sure how I would do in a boat, you know out in the ocean being in the Navy, but uh there was times, I think I kinda would liked to have went. It'd got me away from situation at home which wasn't all that good. But to have a lot of your friends go in and the come home on furloughs and stuff and they braggin about what wonderful times they had and makes ya a little curious of how...
Interviewer ---
Did you ever catch any flack because you were deferred? I mean, obviously you were a pretty healthy guy, and you were deferred because you were needed in the war industry basically.
Robert ---
Some of the guys said some stuff that hurt a little bit, like one guy said, "Oh well he's supposed to help feed the chickens." Just stuff like that you know, that their sons were in there, why wasn't I? This one guy that said that had three sons in the service and one of them never did see any fighting and the other two never said, they were quiet, and this one was kinda mouthy, and he told about all the good times in Hawaii and different places and I kinda took it as part of this.
Interviewer ---
So okay, you stayed at home and worked in the agriculture industry and that was a major war industry according to everything I've read.
Robert ---
Yeah, because where we were raising beef it was essential, and they uh, the Army camps and stuff couldn't get enough beef, so that's the reason for the ration and designated for the Army, Marines, or Navy, or whatever, but it was all...
Norma ---
When you butchered something did you have to turn it in then?
Robert ---
We didn't butcher anything.
Interviewer ---
You sold them in Spokane?
Robert ---
At Stockland
Interviewer ---
At the stockyards, and then they took and did whatever
Robert ---
yeah
Interviewer ---
Did you sell any locally, or were, you able to do like you do now?
Robert ---
No, we couldn't do that
Interviewer ---
It actually, positively had to go into Stockland?
Robert ---
Yeah
Interviewer ---
See, that's interesting, you know, that you absolutely had to send it.
Robert ---
It had to be reported to the government so's the government knew where it was goin and that there was some because the people were rationed so low that you couldn't just sell it to somebody and let them butcher it or that because you'd been in deep trouble.
Interviewer ---
What for you was the hardest thing to live without during rationing? Coffee obviously wasn't a big deal for you, because I haven't ever seen you drink coffee.
Robert ---
Meat and sugar were probably one of the biggest hardships for me 'cause uh we had meat practically every day you know. But you had to go to the store and you had to use your stamps to get certain out of it.
Interviewer ---
Ate a lot of chicken and rabbit?
Robert ---
We ate quite a few rabbits, chickens, and pheasants.
Interviewer ---
Chicken would be okay, but I don't know about rabbit.
Robert ---
Well I can hardly eat any, stomach the thought of rabbit.
Norma ---
And I ate a lot of rabbit
Interviewer ---
Yeah, that's what you said, that you had lots of rabbit.
Norma ---
It was cheaper.
Interviewer ---
Where were you on December 7, 1941? How did you hear about the attack? I'm asking everybody, there's like three questions I'm asking everybody, so you kinda have to deal with it.
Robert ---
Well I didn't hear about it until the evening, I was going to school from 7:00-10:00, and when I got to school, everybody else knew about it, when the Japanese struck, and so that was the first I knew about it. Then from then on, well it was pretty well published. Of course the newspapers then didn't know ahead of time where you were or where they were going, and all that stuff, those were secrets, and they should be now. But the newspaper has gotten so out of hand that...
Interviewer ---
On Sunday? You had night school on a Sunday?
Robert ---
No it'd been Monday.
Interviewer ---
So the attack happened on Sunday and you didn't hear about it 'til Monday. You guys didn't have a radio?
Robert ---
No
Interviewer ---
I thought everyone had one
Norma ---
[chuckle] Nope.
Robert ---
Course it was December of '41, we had electricity then, but why we didn't have a small radio is beyond me.
Interviewer ---
Out of curiosity, when did you guys get electricity, out of my own curiosity?
Robert ---
In '41
Interviewer ---
1941? Wow! That was a long time. When did you guys get electricity out in Spring Valley?
Norma ---
Oh I graduated in 1940, and they didn't have electricity when I got married I know as far as...
Robert ---
You coulda had it out there in '39
Norma ---
No we didn't have it in '39, 'cause we were still using kerosene and gasoline lanterns
Robert ---
Course it took awhile after the lines came in before you got all hooked up and wired up
Norma ---
It would have been after 1946.
Interviewer ---
1946? Wow! See that's wow, that just seems amazing that long course you were closer to the mill, so...that must have helped some
Robert ---
The line came clear through the county from the south end though I know some of the earlier ones towards the south end of the county had it earlier than we up here did.
Norma ---
We may have gotten it in 1946, because when I came in 1947, in the Fall of '47, they had electricity in '47, the end of '47.
Robert ---
The musta not just done it then because uh it was out there earlier
Norma ---
I don't remember
Interviewer ---
That's okay, this is just my curiosity
Robert ---
Your dad was probably was old-fashioned and he wouldn't allow...
Norma ---
[laugh] no, no, no
Robert ---
Modern conveniences
Norma ---
[laughing] No, no, no
Interviewer ---
Okay, the other standard question. How do you feel about the dropping of the atomic bomb should we have done it, and why or why not?
Robert ---
Well I think we didn't do anything wrong by dropping it. Uh I've been told by a lot of Air Force guys that was in that thing that the atomic bomb probably didn't do any more damage than the rest of the bombs that they dropped 'cause they bombed the whole city real hard and then dropped that atomic bomb in the middle of it, and uh of course that just leveled everything for so many distance away from it. But uh there was a lot of regular bombs dropped in the city during that period this one guy that was in on all that, he was a gunner on one of them planes and he told about amount of missions that they went and amount of planes it was in the thousands of planes flew in there during that raid.
Interviewer ---
So you think we were justified?
Robert ---
Oh yeah, definitely, because...
Norma ---
It stopped the war
Robert ---
After Pearl Harbor fiasco, which was planned, and our officials knew about it. And they shouldn't have allowed all of our ships and everything to go into port where they were sitting ducks. No we were justified to drop it.
Interviewer ---
How was this area affected by the prisoner of war camp? Now I know, make sure I get this right, there was the Veterans Camp down at Usk, I had heard there was. I gotta go back to this because it is major of my thing, and there was one at Sullivan Lake, from everything I've read, and there was one at Priest Lake someplace.
Norma ---
Priest River somewhere
Interviewer ---
And who was where? The reason I'm asking you Grandpa is because you pretty much would know, I mean, you were here.
Robert ---
You talk about Italians and this one old camp on the upper West Branch and I forget what they called that, uh Four Corners, or something like that and uh they had a bunch of those prisoners there and I think maybe those were the Italians and uh the Forest Service camp up at Priest Lake I think those were mostly German. And then they had these over here and Bob Beaubier says there never was never any prisoners at Sullivan Lake, I'm not real certain that I knew for sure.
Interviewer ---
I have, I have documentation that there were for a time, right at the beginning of the war, but they were Germans from Priest Lake, up to do fire control or something like that. Now where was the West Branch one? Are we talking West Branch LeClerc Creek, is that where?
Robert ---
No, Priest River
Interviewer ---
Okay, I wasn't sure, there's enough West Branches around, I get really confused.
Robert ---
Sorry about that
Interviewer ---
That's okay, that's ok. You aren't the only one that does it to me, there are a lot of people that do that.
Robert ---
Now there's one Forest Service camp up there that was called Four Corners and it was cleaned out. I think the Germans was about the last ones that was in that camp and then they closed it out. And they had the one at Falls Ranger Station, and I wouldn't know for sure whether they had any prisoners there or not. But these prisoners weren't really prisoners, they were just, well they were taken as prisoners, but they I think enjoyed themselves. It was getting in on the American way of life and they were, they didn't have to fight anymore just they were here to enjoy themselves and do their job.
Interviewer ---
I read that they eventually started calling them internees, they kinda dropped the prisoner of war distinction on 'em and called them internees. Now did any of these fellas get to stay after the war or, that you know of?
Robert ---
I think they all had to go back and then if they came back after that, you know, if they wanted to come back, there was probably a certain amount of 'em that would have been allowed to come back just like any people from any countries.
Interviewer ---
So was this area affected much by these guys?
Robert ---
No
Interviewer ---
No real affect, there weren't any escapee's or anything like that?
Robert ---
No, the in fact the you see practically all the fellas was from here was in the war, you know the servicemen and these fellows just come in and they used 'em at different Forest Service jobs, cleanin some trails and cleanin road right-aways and stuff of that kind and that was just like the C.C.C.'s. You know this road up and over South Baldy, the C.C.C. done all the clearing and fixin of the right-away and...
Interviewer ---
Now were they paid?
Robert ---
Oh yeah
Interviewer ---
Do you know how much?
Robert ---
Well no I wouldn't say that the prisoners of war were paid, no I don't know that, I don't think so. The C.C.C.'s were about dollar, dollar and a half a day and their board and room. I know some of the guys that had been in the service in World War I that had gone into that thing just because there wasn't jobs. In the early '30s well there wasn't any work.
Interviewer ---
Those were the ones that were pretty much at the Veteran's Camp here in Usk were them.
Robert ---
Yeah
Interviewer ---
Now Mr. Jared told me that the ones that were there were really um heavy drinkers. The only reason I'm asking is because I want confirmation, I mean I kind of believe him, but at the same hand I think he was telling stories, but I don't know.
Robert ---
Well there was a lot of them that became heavy drinkers because old Helma would take their paychecks and dole it out to 'em. She was their banker, and she'd dole 'em out to 'em. Well all the drinks that they got out of it she took out of it. So some of 'em ended up good drinkers, so he's right to a certain extent there.
Norma ---
She had the bar in Usk
Robert ---
I don't remember what her name was when she first come here and she married that old Axel that had the tavern or supposedly married him, and then he died of alcohol. She took over and then later in the year married a guy by the name of Bergstrom and then they sold the tavern and they moved to Newport. She was quite an old gal.
Norma ---
She used to have it when you and I were married, still ran the tavern.
Robert ---
But some of the old bachelors around the country well, and then down the crick here you know that little old cabin that's across from the forks of the crick, he uh well he made a little moonshine and stuff of that kind but he didn't drink very heavy until after they got his money, and then just kept him drunk until he died.
Interviewer ---
How, with the logging being so much of an important part to the war effort, how much was this area affected by that? I mean I know there was a mill in Newport, and there was a mill at Dalkena, and there was a mill at Usk or Cusick.
Robert ---
Well, you see the mill at Dalkena burnt in 1936, but during the war then Cusick and Newport were really shippin lumber and all of that was goin for war purposes. All your housing for veterans and stuff, or for the soldiers and stuff was, there was an awful pile of that just like Farragut. You know construction for five years went into that Farragut, the buildings and stuff there a lot of lumber shipped there. There is a few houses around the country that were moved from Farragut over here. Nielson's house out there came from Farragut and...
Norma ---
A lot of them were moved into Spokane, lots of them
Robert ---
They moved a lot of 'em into Spokane towards the end of the war.
Interviewer ---
So did they actively look for people to come and work in the mills, or did they pretty much just take...you know, if you were there...
Robert ---
If you was there...
Interviewer ---
You were there
Robert ---
workin you was froze there. A few of the fellas that didn't have too important of jobs that hadn't signed up and went in the service and of course they all had to register if you was over eighteen years old, and you had to register with the war department they uh...lost my thought...
Interviewer ---
They had to register with the War Department, so if they didn't have a real essential place, they could go...
Robert ---
They could go into the service
Interviewer ---
Okay, so let's say they lost ten employees, did they go out and replace those employees with people from the community? Why I'm asking is I've seen ads from the Alcoa plant [in Spokane] that were actively advertising for workers. Did the mills do the same thing?
Robert ---
They didn't have to advertise because the jobs were there and they had a standard list of people and they were a little selective about just who they hired, if they knew they were going to be good workers, they hired 'em. One for instance that was right close here, Dave Sheridan, they drafted him of course he was overage so he came back and the mill put him back to work. But there was several of that kind around, but if they was willing to work, the mill would hire 'em.
Interviewer ---
What about the mines?
Robert ---
Well the mines were going full blast and I would say that some of those fellows in the mines were pretty much froze to their job, because that was really essential then.
Interviewer ---
Now I haven't noticed any advertisements in the paper for them either but yet towards the end of the war, I see all sorts of articles that say we don't have enough workers, we need more men whatever.
Robert ---
Yeah, well see when the guys came back from the service all them were available they didn't have to advertise for those guys and some of 'em that came back got right on. The mill kinda saved places for some of those that were really, those that they knew when they left. Yeah, the mills and the woods were employed a lot of people in them days, like the Dalkena mill when it was runnin full tilt was probably 400 employees there. But some of that has been cut out since, 'cause the machinery takes the place of a lot of jobs. Just like a lot of lumber that goes through some of these mills there's never a hand that touches it and it drops into a place and the forklift picks it up and takes it to the drying kiln. And it's I don't know, I watched that lumber come off of that green chain and drop, and the stickers would be dropped on there automatically and the lumber cross, and just can't believe how automation had taken over and that was all hand work earlier.
Interviewer ---
What do you remember most about the war years?
Robert ---
When we was hayin on the island and all these big planes flyin back-n-forth and they weren't quiet, you could hear 'em over top the tractors and stuff and just maybe thirty to fifty planes a day flyin overhead and those were all trainin out of Fairchild [Galena] and different places and it didn't matter whatcha did even when we had paper. You know the paper was full of war stuff and it wasn't a secret you knew that the war was goin on, you didn't report those kind of things like they do now.
Interviewer ---
It was obviously not from The Miner, The Miner...there's nothing in The Miner whatsoever about the war, nothing.
Robert ---
No?
Interviewer ---
There's, and that's driving me nuts
Robert ---
Well...
Norma ---
We had the Spokane paper
Robert ---
you couldn't report only so much of it because otherwise...
Interviewer ---
Well yeah, but some examples, when Roosevelt died this is a big deal right, the President dies, you would think there would be something in the paper that Roosevelt died, there's nothing, there is nothing in the paper about that.
Robert ---
They uh, that was politics, uh they had some stuff that they wanted to put through Congress so when they got that all through and supposedly Roosevelt signed it, but he wasn't around.
Interviewer ---
Another example, D-Day, now I'm talking even a month after the Invasion of Normandy there was nothing, not a thing, and after the dropping of the atomic bomb, zilch, for I'm into November now and that, the bomb was dropped in September, nothing, um...
Norma ---
It was in the Spokane papers
Interviewer ---
All of the war news then basically came from the Spokane...
Norma ---
And the radio
Interviewer ---
and the radio
Norma ---
I can remember my folks would, the news would come on at a certain time and they would in the daytime I don't know how many times a couple times a day and...
Robert ---
10:00 at night
Norma ---
yeah, and in the morning also
Robert ---
yeah
Norma ---
Because uh the folks were living in the back of Pressman's at the time and they had a radio and they hovered over it when any of the news was on
Interviewer ---
It was just one of those, you know I'm surprised that there wasn't anything and that brings me to my next question...
Robert ---
We got a radio, I would judge it was '43 or '44 Dad would sit there from 6:00 news until 10:30 at night listening to the...
Norma ---
The folks had a radio, of course they lived in town so they had electricity and I was thinking that they lived in the parsonage when Mother died, so they were there a couple of years before that, so they could have had electricity out in the Valley before that, but I don't know, I don't remember that much.
Interviewer ---
What do you remember the most...what do you remember about when the war was over?
Robert ---
Well there was another thing I had to go to Newport to get fuel in the afternoon and I got up there and the war's over and the rationing no more it was quite the news and we could tank your pickup up and fill it full of gas and get your cans or whatever you had to have.
Norma ---
On E-Day I was in Spokane at the time, and we (Ann and Everett and Dick and I and John and Dave) I think all went downtown Spokane, what a mess, people all over everywhere!
Interviewer ---
Did that happen here in Newport though?
Robert ---
Not a great a lot, there were people excited it was over but I don't remember any big celebrations.
Norma ---
Well there was in Spokane, everybody went downtown. It was a mess down there, everybody was down there, we didn't want to lost from whomever you were with, but I don't remember V-J Day so much. I can't remember where I was, whether I was in Newport or whether I was in Portland at the time.
Interviewer ---
According to the Miner's you were in Portland [laughing]. Sorry that's my information. I think, yeah I think that's where it said you were.
Norma ---
Probably 'cause I was there all that summer
Robert ---
I was, you know went up there to get some parts and some fuel, and I see I had to come back to the field and let dad know that the war was over.
Interviewer ---
But like I said there was obviously you know relief that the war was over, but no big celebrations or it was like "oh good the war was over, but let's go back to work" kind of
Robert ---
That was kind of the attitude around Newport all right, although some of 'em may have celebrated some, I don't really know
Norma ---
I don't remember rationing was cut off that quickly but then...
Robert ---
Yes, they announced it rationing
Interviewer ---
Gas and tires, gas and tires were rations ended automatically, food rations, the meats and sugars...
Robert ---
Was still on
Interviewer ---
kept going, at least into November. Gas, tires, canned goods was ended right away, it was like, the boom war was done, here's all the gas you can have
Norma ---
As much as you want
Robert ---
Yeah, everybody was overjoyed that here all the gas stations and everything was rationing was over so it was just that quick, and they signed the, not treaty, but the...
Interviewer ---
The surrender
Norma ---
When they surrendered
Interviewer ---
What do you miss about that time? I added questions by the way
Robert ---
What do I miss? Well I can't think of anything right off hand. It was nice it was over and we could go back to livin a civil life, but a lot of this rationing 'n stuff was pretty mandatory and uh they said right after that, that if we got into another war, well they were gonna freeze wages too, but that's never happened.
Interviewer ---
Is there anything that you had then that you don't have now, that you'd like to have back?
Robert ---
It's just nice it was over and guys could come back and uh everything was free then and after a few years well everything started raising and they got to raisin too fast, now we're in the situation now where if we can't, the factory can't hire people and people have no jobs.
Interviewer ---
It's gotten too complicated basically - that sum it up?
Robert ---
Well
Interviewer ---
Kinda what you said?
Robert ---
Along that basis, yeah...but surprisingly the timber industry thrived for several years after, after the war because a lot of the housing and stuff that these guys started coming back and they had to have houses to live in and so building industry needed lumber too. That's the reason there's outlying areas around these towns are all full of houses.
Norma ---
A lot of these kids that were young when they went in came back, a lot of 'em came back married and they had to have housing, jobs, and places to live.
Robert ---
Yeah, there was a lot of 'em that met girls around these bases and some of 'em were legitimate and some of 'em weren't but on the average, a lot of these guys got married and brought their brides home, some of 'em brought 'em from overseas and that's how Gerta Easly got here was, Mariane Stuvinga.
Norma ---
She met Harry when she went to a tavern to get her sister who was down there cahootin with the Americans. She went down after her and met Harry, somebody who could talk German.
| Copyright © 2004 by Kristen Cornelis |