Interviewer ---
Where were you on December 7, 1941, Sunday?
Norma ---
At our house, our home, all the cousins were there and we were just hanging around, singing and whatever and it came on the radio.
Interviewer ---
And what were your guys' reactions?
Norma ---
We were all surprised of course, but it didn't seem too real.
Interviewer ---
How come?
Norma ---
Bunch of teenagers, a bunch of kids in high school or just out of high school it didn't really sink in right away, at least not to me.
Interviewer ---
When did it sink in?
Norma ---
I don't know, Dick was in the service and I wondered how it would affect him. Because he was already overseas in Alaska which was overseas at the time.
Interviewer ---
Who was Dick?
Norma ---
My first husband, my boyfriend at that time, off and on. I had been writing to him off and on all the time he was gone.
Interviewer ---
What was his job in the Army?
Norma ---
He was a mechanic, in ordnance. Part of the time he was shop foreman, in the truck garage.
Interviewer ---
We are going to skip to the end of the war first. How do you feel about dropping the atomic bomb, should we have done it, should we have not, and why?
Norma ---
Yeah, I think it was okay, because that's the only way they were gonna wake up. We were just happy the war was over. It was too bad for the people, of course. Nobody knew how much it was going to affect those people that were in the area of the bombs, and it sounded like it just wiped everything off the map, it all just went up in smoke.
Interviewer ---
Living here in Washington as you did, did you have any inkling of what was going on at Hanford at all?
Norma ---
No
Interviewer ---
No clue until the shock of when the bombs went off?
Norma ---
Yeah, I had been gone to Yakima to visit with Elda and Lars [her sister and brother-in-law] and he was working out at Hanford, he was an electrician. But I didn't know what he was doing. And uh, he was doing electrical work. I had no clue.
Interviewer ---
See it just amazes me that they were able to keep that such a big secret
Norma ---
Well maybe it wasn't for somebody else but I had just, just went down there for a vacation for a week, so maybe it was not such a big deal for me, but it was for the people, it made a lot of jobs there for the people in Yakima and the area I'm sure but uh what it was all about I didn't maybe I just wasn't listening actually it didn't I was nonchalant.
Interviewer ---
Where did you work?
Norma ---
I worked at the telephone office in Newport 19 ¼ cents an hour when I started and when I finished my three months training I got a ¼ cent raise so now I made 19 ½ cents. The rent on our apartment was $11 a month.
Interviewer ---
And where was your apartment?
Norma ---
Down on Union [Street], we lived upstairs in a family's home. The bathroom was downstairs, we shared, not so good, because you had to go clear through the kitchen to...we disturbed them quite often I'm sure. Helen [her sister] and I had two rooms upstairs and an outside stairway that we could go, it was in the house but it was off the kitchen, so you could go in and out as you needed to. And our house was just behind the bank, what is now The Bank of America, but it was on the corner, and they would move it over later. We would walk to work about a block and a half which was nice because you had to wear high heels and our silk hose, had to dress up because you were in the public eye.
Interviewer ---
You said you had to wear silk hose. Now as this was a major rationed item, did you ever...?
Norma ---
I don't think they were rationed, well you couldn't get any
Interviewer ---
What you had was what you had?
Norma ---
Later they had rayon, which was awful. To begin with when I first started working we had silk hose which would have been before the war, but they were a dollar a pair and that was expensive, and you got runners in them right away, if you weren't very careful.
Interviewer ---
So during the war, you still worked for the telephone office and you still had to dress up, there were all sorts of silk drives and nylon drives, when nylon came around. What did you do when you couldn't get silk hose or rayon hose?
Norma ---
They had some that were sort of an interlock the silk hose you know ran very easily and then they got some in that didn't run, when you got a snag in them they'd just make a big hole. And I don't know what they were made out of it could have been rayon. The rayon ones were awful they sagged and whatever. We were real glad to have the ones that didn't run so easily. And of course with the silk hose you had to have the seam up the back, and if you weren't careful you would look bow-legged or knock-kneed whichever if you weren't straight and you were constantly straightening your seams.
Interviewer ---
Did you ever paint your legs to make it look like you had hose?
Norma ---
I didn't, I didn't. I tried it once, but it didn't work real good. I was sort of blotchy. Others did, others did, they had the solution that they put on their legs and made it nice and tan, then put the seam up the back with a whatever they used. And if you went to Spokane, you never went to Spokane without having high heels, dressed up, a hat and gloves, always. You took the bus. The bus left from Kimmel's [Drug] it came down from Metaline Falls and picked up at Kimmel's and went into Spokane, and came back that afternoon, you had to catch it again.
Interviewer ---
Was taking the bus preferred to taking the train? I mean, I know the train went to Spokane too.
Norma ---
I took the train occasionally but not that often. If I did, I would take the bus home as a general rule. I was trying to think, I don't remember exactly, but the one going into town stopped at every little milk can along the way. Actually milk cans, they picked up the milk, there was a milk can, or a milk route, whatever you want to call it. Farmers brought their milk to a stand out there, and they picked it up. Sometimes you were lucky and got on the Empire Builder did not stop long enough for you to hardly get on, it just barely would take on water or whatever. But mostly I took the bus.
Interviewer ---
How much was the bus fare out of curiosity?
Norma ---
I don't remember, it was expensive as far as in comparison to now, with the wages they way there were. But I couldn't even guess, it would be less, well it would be a dollar maybe but a dollar and a half would have been pretty expensive for me because I didn't have a dollar and a half to spare.
Interviewer ---
Did you work in the telephone office in Newport the entire war?
Norma ---
No
Interviewer ---
Where else did you work then, obviously this was an essential industry?
Norma ---
Yeah, I started working in 1940, November of 1940 and I worked there until the summer of '42 when I went to Athol and I worked the summer in Athol when Farragut was going in. And then in Fall, last part of August, first of September of 1942 I moved into Spokane and started college and worked at Postal Telegraph in the Davenport Hotel. I went to college three mornings a week and worked every afternoon.
Interviewer ---
While at Farragut, did you work in their telephone office?
Norma ---
Yeah, I worked in the telephone office, it was in a home, in a small house, I should say. The chief operator and myself and my friend Dorothy Small, and a girl named Lydia was the night operator, and Dorothy and I were the day operators. And our switchboard was in the living room part of the house, was very small. But everyday, our circuits would change, but it was still under Interstate Telephone, which was the name of the company, but they would be changing our circuits to get more circuits in and you had to remember which ones were which in the morning then, then came along to change 'em around and to try to get out from Athol and Farragut to get to Coeur d'Alene and where else we had to go through Coeur d'Alene to um, we had a circuit to Coeur d'Alene we had one to Spokane or possibly two, and if you wanted to go farther than that you had to go through different towns to try to get around so that you could get into Spokane. Sometimes you have to go clear around from Athol; you'd go Sandpoint and back around to get to a circuit to Spokane because they were so scarce.
Interviewer ---
Any sort of exciting stories from when you were at Farragut, or did they pretty much keep you in the small office the whole time?
Norma ---
No, we were pretty much right there because, well Dorothy and I started walking down the highway, which would have been [Interstate] 95 I guess now, probably was then too. But we would go out just to get some exercise which was not the smartest thing to do because there was quite a bit of traffic, but we had some kids follow us one time when we went out and they were in a car. We went out in a field to get away from them, and they followed us. And we finally did have a date with them, and they took us to Coeur d'Alene to the carnival-type thing on the waterfront there, that was a bad experience. I would not recommend that for anybody, I cam home and took a cold shower...just skip that part, you don't need to put that in there.
Interviewer ---
What was it like working in the Postal Telegraph Office?
Norma ---
Very interesting, you saw a lot of people going through. At one time, Jerry Kalona and Jack Benny, I guess wasn't it? Came through and they came through the main door right where I was working and had all of their suitcases and all of that stuff right across the hall across the hall from me so it was sort of interesting, you saw a lo of people, usually it was pretty busy.
Interviewer ---
Being that you were down in the Davenport, the Davenport was a pretty swinging place, so lots of people in and out, lots of soldiers and sailors?
Norma ---
All of them were there. There one night there were some Australian soldiers there, and one of them came over and talked to me. It was just real fun talking to him, just listening to his accent. He was a very nice man, and I don't imagine he was that much of a man, I think just a kid. I imagine he was in probably his twenties, which I was too. But we saw officers, and they would stop and talk too. And there was one fella stopped and we went and had coffee in the Davenport's little café, cafeteria-type thing there and we sat and talked. But I didn't have that much time off, so I had to get back, 'cause when I left, I had to close everything up, lock it all down. But I would go out and have lunch, took a break and had lunch, but I would walk down from the Davenport to the east and then down to Riverside and there was a little café down on Riverside that I usually went down and had a sandwich. But I had to make sure that I got the bus to go back home again because the busses quit at 11:00, and if you didn't catch that one you were all wet I guess.
Interviewer ---
Now you lived on the Northside because you were going to Whitworth [College] right?
Norma ---
I lived with Elda's, Lars' brother and his wife and her mother and their daughter, and their daughter was about ten or eleven at the time. I had my bedroom upstairs and I'm sure that they went through everything everyday, I didn't have very much junk there, but I'm sure they went through it. Yeah they were, Ruby was quite, quite a character and her mother, Mrs. Downhoser was nutso. They were strange, they were nice people and Lars' brother was a really nice man. He had his bedroom upstairs also, across the hall from me. Mrs. Downhoser slept in with "Red Ruby." I'm not really sure where Alliene had her bedroom. I think she must have had her bedroom down there, she slept in the same bedroom with them, I think. She had her own bed, "Red Ruby" and her mother slept together, Emil slept upstairs. They was weird, they were a weird bunch.
Interviewer ---
How long did you work in at Postal Telegraph?
Norma ---
Let's see, from in about September until I married in February 1943, from September '43 [1942 actually] 'til because I had to have a job before I could even do anything. I worked in there all that time until in February, the end of February.
Interviewer ---
Let's stay with the work thing, and get that out of the way. Did you continue to work in there after you married?
Norma ---
Yeah, Dick wanted me to come back to Newport, he didn't like all the dogfaces in Spokane. He didn't want me to be around them, he didn't trust them at all. But we had soldiers and sailors and anybody else you know, I mean all Air Force everybody the hotel was busy all the time, there always lots and lots of people there. Then I got married on the 27th of February and I think it was about a week later I went back to school and told them I had gotten married and was quitting school and [laughs] course I had just started school I think that's something that'd I better take with me.
Interviewer ---
That's okay, go ahead and tell them, go ahead and tell them what happened when you went in to go to school at Whitworth. Did you sign up for classes, I mean, how did this happen?
Norma ---
I just went out, Ruby had a car so she took me out to the college and I went out and told them I wanted to go to school and what classes I wanted, and I paid $78 for the classes that I was taking for a quarter and I started school. I didn't apply, I didn't [laugh] I just went. I didn't know you had to sign up or apply, they didn't tell me that.
Interviewer ---
So you went for a quarter? Well almost two quarters
Norma ---
Almost two quarters. I was just short of two quarters. I think the quarter would have ended in March. So I was about two weeks short of the second quarter, so I didn't get any credits for that, I got credits for the first quarter, but I didn't get, and some of my classes were for two quarters, two quarter classes you know you had to go to two of them to get the grade on it. I took the first quarter, I went I took piano lessons, I took [unintelligible], the Book of Mark, I took orientation because it was required of all freshmen, and chapel was required, you went to chapel everyday. So, and Dr. Warren was the president of Whitworth at that time. A really, really great man, and he had a radio ministry that was on Sunday morning. But, and the bus went out Wall, I had to walk about four blocks or five blocks to get to Wall. I lived on Atlanta and Jackson, and I walked down to Wall, caught the bus and Francis was the last terminal, or the end of the line for the bus and from there I would either walked, I always walked, I always walked, because the, the Whitworth bus came down and picked up kids, but I never had enough money to do that, so I walked. And when I got off at noon, I walked back to Francis and then back to where I got off.
Interviewer ---
Quite a long ways
Norma ---
Yeah, it was. I don't know how far it is from Francis to Whitworth, a couple miles at least, at least a couple miles, which was okay because I was used to walking anyway, because when I lived in Newport I walked everywhere, because you, I didn't have transportation, nobody had cars, the kids didn't have cars, so I walked everywhere, which was good for me because I was skinny, [laugh] I stayed skinny.
Interviewer ---
Now when you came back to Newport, you went back to work for the telephone office and you worked there in Newport for the rest of the war, or did you go somewhere else?
Norma ---
I worked from uh let's see, Telegraph February 1943, then I came back out to...'44, Fall '44. Then I went to work for Kimmel's [Drug Store] for that winter until March '45 when Dick came back and we went down to Santa Barbara for R and R. And the last time I worked for the telephone office, I substituted. I was pregnant already, and then I worked 'til, I think the last time I worked was July of '45.
Interviewer ---
Now, when in your mother's diaries, diary, which I read, but I don't think I will include in this, so Dr. Youngs don't expect it, she stated you were down working in another city, another town.
Norma ---
Portland
Interviewer ---
No, it wasn't Portland, but it was someplace else, and that you had, you were trying to switch companies and they wouldn't let you.
Norma ---
That was in Newport, I wanted to get out of the telephone office and go to work for the electric company, Mountain States, and they wouldn't listen, so I quit. That's when I went to work for Kimmel's. Because the electric company paid a lot more and I also had to, I wanted to go into the, go over to the coast, to work in the shipyards and stuff that were over there, but I didn't. I had to go through civil service, and I didn't have a birth certificate.
Interviewer ---
Why?
Norma ---
Because I was born in Canada [laugh] I was never registered. I was walking around for quite a long years and didn't have, I wasn't there [laugh] so, but by the time I got my birth certificate and also a paper stating that the folks had never homesteaded in Canada, that he was just working there, we were still American citizens. But I don't think I would have dual citizenship.
Interviewer ---
I don't know, maybe
Norma ---
I wonder what would happen, I should call or something, or have someone go on the Internet and see whether or not it's possible I might have, do you suppose?
Interviewer ---
I don't know, maybe
Norma ---
I don't know either. I wouldn't be able to vote up there at all, because I've been voting here since I was able. It would be interesting.
Interviewer ---
What was the name of the telephone company, was it just Newport Telephone Company, or was it...?
Norma ---
It was Interstate Telephone
Interviewer ---
I want to make sure I get it right
Norma ---
And then they changed to whatever it is now in Newport
Interviewer ---
Verizon
Norma ---
Really? The telephone company, Verizon? What was it before?
Interviewer ---
GTE
Norma ---
Yes, GTE, that bought out Interstate and Postal Telegraph was part of Interstate. It was part of the company, they went together or whatever. Because anyplace else, you know GTE, Spokane lines would go through the main one that was Spokane was Bell Telephone.
Interviewer ---
What did you do at Kimmel's, when you worked at Kimmel's?
Norma ---
Clerk, just a clerk. They had the soda fountain, and we, I learned how to make sodas and Cokes and whatever else, floats, whatever. And we'd have customers and had an old cash register that we used and it wasn't computerized. [laughs] It was interesting, you'd meet a lot of people, got to of course between the telephone office you met a lot of people and then when I worked at Kimmel's why then you saw those people and got to know them that way.
Interviewer ---
How fun!
Norma ---
Yeah it was, it was very interesting
Interviewer ---
Put a face with the voice
Norma ---
Yes, course a lot of 'em I knew anyway because it was a small town and everybody knew everybody.
Interviewer ---
What was it like living through the rationing system?
Norma ---
At times it was hard, you know you couldn't get everything you wanted because coffee was rationed and I liked my coffee [laughs] I liked my coffee then and the meat of course, the gas didn't bother me so much because I walked anyway, 'cause we didn't have cars. Dad had the car and uh shoes. Course the leather, leather-soled shoes were, that was a pain, you couldn't find, buy decent shoes, but then I got by with about forty-five pair is all. [laughs]
Interviewer ---
How did you accumulate forty-five pairs of shoes? Obviously they were pre-war.
Norma ---
No, no you had different kids of soles on them that weren't rationed, they weren't rubber and I don't know, they were synthetic or something. I had one pair that had little dowels on the bottom and one pair had wooden soles, wooden soles. They were more like they looked like the Dutch wooden shoes, but the tops were made before the war, because I think they were leather on the top, they were hard, they were real hard, but they had wood soles on them. And I can't remember what some of the soles were, you could buy the cheapie-artificial whatever they were, they weren't leather, I don't know what they'd used, I don't know what they used for making the soles on the shoes. But I had a lot of pairs, I had a passion for shoes. [laughs] It was kind of like what's her name, Imelda Marcos, but she had a few more pairs then I did.
Interviewer ---
What did you, obviously you couldn't get red meat very often, or pork because red meat and pork were...
Norma ---
Too expensive...
Interviewer ---
...too expensive
Norma ---
...so I had chicken and rabbit, but they were both good, I liked them. Bob [her 2nd husband] doesn't like rabbit, but I do, I did. Of course the folks had pigs and once in awhile we'd get something from them, but we didn't have a freezer to keep them, we bought, I don't know, we musta had some bacon as some time or another, because I had bacon occasionally, not often because it was just me most of the time. My breakfast was just toast, and my lunch was a sandwich, and in the evenings why if I had company I had meat, but otherwise I ate soup most of the time. I bought canned soup.
Interviewer ---
Now if you bought canned soup, now you had to use your ration points for that, so was it easy to get soup, or was it a pain?
Norma ---
I was living by myself, you know it was okay, but my girlfriend came in and stayed with me for awhile too, and she uh, I don't remember really, we could get real vegetables and had salad and uh I don't remember what we did for meat that much truthfully, right off the top of my head now, maybe tomorrow I'll remember.
Interviewer ---
Did you practice in were called the Meatless Tuesday's?
Norma ---
No, we didn't have to worry about that. Oh I remember, we got salmon, canned salmon. I had salmon, we could get fish, and tuna fish. I don't know they were canned. I can remember making salmon loaf for just myself, that's a lot, so I didn't have a refrigerator.
Interviewer ---
You did not have a refrigerator?
Norma ---
No
Interviewer ---
That's interesting
Norma ---
In the wintertime you didn't have to worry about it, 'cause the house was cold anyway, all the time. When I was working nights, I would come home to a cold house and then would have to start the fire in the living room and the kitchen too. Go out to the woodshed brrr that was cold. [laughs] And then I would sleep in the living room a lot of times because it was close to the heater and it was warmer in there. And my davenport was almost a loveseat size, it was pretty small and I curled up on that and of course one side of you cooked and the other was colder than a wedge. I was not very comfortable.
Interviewer ---
What else was hard to live without during the rationing? I mean, obviously living by yourself you really didn't have to worry too much but, did you have to worry much about the sugar ration or the canned food ration?
Norma ---
Not really, sugar I really didn't use a lot so we usually if I remember right, we gave all our stamps to Mother, she canned and that sort of thing, and we really didn't...the coffee stamps I kept for myself...I was trying to remember when Helen got married in '41, when Dick and I got married and we were living over on Union, and I lived there after he left to go back up to Alaska, I lived there for a month, and then they sold the house out from underneath me. So I had to get a new house, a different house and then I got one over on Scott, but after Helen got married, we had been lived above the theater, she and I, we had moved from the place on Union and had gone up to this little apartment, it was a two room apartment up there too, and Helen and I lived there and after she got married, well then Dorothy Small moved in with me. And we were there for a while and then later that spring Helen and Bob moved out of their little house up on First Street, and Dorothy and I moved up into their house rent free, I believe and when we were there I was day operator at the time and then we, I decided it might be better if she moved home. Her folks lived out on First Street, out further out on Houser Addition 'cause we were not getting along as well as we could've. I was getting disgusted with her because she was sick and her mother and her grandmother came over and I'd come home at noon to have some lunch and her, they would be and Dorothy was sick, she had a cold so I had to make lunch for everybody and then walk back down to the telephone office at 1:00, I had to be there by 1:00. So I thought it would be better if she go home, and I was there by myself after living there by myself a while I found a little house up on Scott Avenue, right on the highway, two or three rooms, a bedroom, a kitchen, and living room, and I moved up there then. I bought it for $350 or something like that. It wasn't very expensive, and I had saved all but $25 so I went to the bank, and asked if I could borrow the $25 to pay the lady off, I don't remember what her name was, it was no problem. I paid it back, and I had my little house, my own house, it wasn't much but it was mine, ours. And after we were married, I we lived on my salary and I put my allotment into the bank to save, and that was $75 a month.
Interviewer ---
When did you get married? And who did you get married to?
Norma ---
Well I got married on February 27, 1943 to Dick Schirmer
Interviewer ---
And this was your on and off boyfriend?
Norma ---
Well I had been going with him from the time I was a junior in high school off and on 'cause he worked in California and when he was down in California, I dated others, 'cause we weren't that serious, I didn't want to be that serious, because I had another year of school to go and I wanted to get finished with that and live a little bit. [laugh]
Interviewer ---
Now before, you told me that he had asked you to marry him a couple times...
Norma ---
Sure he had, his father had died in 1939, and I think that was the first time he asked me to marry him. He had come up from California to go to the funeral, I think that was the first time. From there out, why he probably asked me at least once a year [laughs] or more [laughs]. I would have been a senior in high school, and I still wasn't ready to get married, so we went together when he was home. And when he was back up here he'd come up in November, and then he would go back in early spring when the woods opened up down in California, which probably would have been March and than we went together exclusively. We didn't do anything 'cause he didn't have any money, we went to the show occasionally and otherwise. One winter he lived with us, the folks and I out at the farm, but that was when I was going to school.
Interviewer ---
So you got married in February. There was obviously gas rationing, tire ration, what did you do for a honeymoon, did you go anywhere?
Norma ---
We went to Sandpoint, spent the night in a hotel over there, and then we came back to Newport the next day, and uh let's see we had who's car? We had Wally's car, Wally [her brother] was overseas, but he loaned us the car for a week, and because that was all that Dick had left, he had only had a fifteen-day furlough so we went to Metaline Falls to visit with Margaret and Ernie [sister and brother-in-law] and Helen and Bob, and Anna Merle and Gordon [brother and sister-in-law], who were all working in the mines at that time, and then we came back and then he had to leave again. And I went to Spokane with him and saw him off on the train, and when he left to go back to Seattle again, Fort Lewis.
Interviewer ---
How did he get enough ration stamps to take you all over the place in Wally's car?
Norma ---
Ann and Everett had been saving their gas ration tickets so that he would have some gas money.
Interviewer ---
Who were Ann and Everett?
Norma ---
His sister and brother-in-law, but they'd been saving them because they knew he was coming home, in fact we got married in Priest River in their home. Mother and Helen tried to talk me out of getting married, try to just get engaged and not get married. I said no, I wanted to get married.
Interviewer ---
From Fort Lewis did he automatically go up to Alaska, or was he stationed at Fort Lewis for awhile?
Norma ---
He didn't leave right away he was waiting for a ship to go up or what, I don't know for sure but he was in Fort Lewis for, I don't remember exactly, I would imagine about a week or so before they shipped him back up.
Interviewer ---
Did you ever go and were you ever able to go over and visit him while he was on the coast, before he went back up to Alaska?
Norma ---
After we were married, no
Interviewer ---
How about before you were married?
Norma ---
Well the one time before we were married when that was before, he went to Alaska to begin with in 1941. And he said he was going to be shipped out and to get in contact with Ann and Everett and come over and see him. So we did and I got in touch with them, and he went AWOL for a day. [laughs]
Interviewer ---
More details, I have it already, but I probably better get it on tape
Norma ---
We went over there and went to the gate, and if I remember rightly asked for him and they finally found him and then we went out to Copalis Beach. Went to Aberdeen and picked up his brother John and then went and had a picnic lunch on Copalis Beach on the coast, on the ocean and then we came back, dropped him off and they asked where he had been, "well I've been out on the truck all day," and they didn't question that because they had been going back and forth out wherever. How he got by on that, I don't know, but he did. And then we came back home, that same night. It was a long night. Dave was with us, yeah Ann and Everett, Dave and I, and then we picked up John who was working in Aberdeen and he was a staunch union man, and everyone was disgusted with him because he was so radical. But I think we had our picnic lunch in Aberdeen in the park, yeah, not out on the beach. I have a picture of us out on the beach someplace. I'm not sure, does Peggy [the interviewer's mother] have that in the locket?
Interviewer ---
Yes, it's in the locket. Now obviously he went back to Alaska. Skip ahead a little, what was it like to have your husband gone during the war?
Norma ---
For me it wasn't so much different. The fact was that you'd just about get used to having them around you know, and then they'd leave. Then you'd go back to your normal life that you'd been doing and then he came back about Christmas time that year, '43 and he had a thirty-day furlough at that time, and that was real fun. We had a real good time, we didn't do anything real special, we just in Newport and out at the folks' and whatever.
Interviewer ---
Were you ever worried about him being that he was in Alaska and the Japanese had been attacking the Aleutians?
Norma ---
Yeah, but, and I asked whether you know where he was or something, and he couldn't tell me. His letters were censored, [laughs] "He talks too much"
Interviewer ---
He talks too much? Is that what the censor's note told you?
Norma ---
Right on the end of his letter. [laughs] But they did block out some of it, but he never was in the front lines or anything, he was stationed at Fort Richardson in Alaska, right out of Anchorage, and he was moved around. He was in Valdez for awhile and he was in Galcanna, they moved them around. They were working on the Richardson Highway for awhile, during the wintertime, he had his truck and they would go out and different trucks and stuff that go stuck evidently he had a wrecker kind of truck and they would go out and get them when they got stuck and whatever that is, what it sounded like anyway. But he was in different places there I have a picture of Palmer when he was there and all it was, was a couple of buildings and had a wheelbarrow in front of it. One of the pictures that is in that album, where ever that is.
Interviewer ---
Did he ever, if he wasn't on the front lines, which was understandable, because he was a mechanic, did he ever encounter any Japanese at all or did he, I mean, going back on the ships, obviously there were submarines in the waters or Alaska.
Norma ---
Coming down on one of them they shot depth bombs out, I don't remember how many I think I told you once before how many but I don't remember now, but they had to so evidently there were submarines in the area someplace coming down on the Liberty ships and I think that's the only time he told me about but when he came back the, let's see second time he came back, he came back at Christmas time in '43, he went back up in January and the next time he was thirteen months before he came back again. And that time I went over to Seattle and met him over there I took the train over and met him over there, and he met me at the station and we went and got a hotel room and then we took the bus and came home, over this way. And then when he went back, I don't think I went back over with him when he left from Seattle. I may have taken a bus back and he put me on a bus yes, no that was in Portland, but I went over and met him at Seattle that one time. It almost seems to me like I was over there twice, met him twice, maybe I was when he came back on the bus, we rode all night long or most of the night. But uh, the next time we came back would have been March '45, February or March 1945 when we went down to Santa Barbara for R and R. He was at the [unintelligible] which was fun, really fun! The guys had to go to school in the morning it was a...
Interviewer ---
Like a retraining center?
Norma ---
Well...
Interviewer ---
Or something like that
Norma ---
...what do you call it when you "decode" them
Interviewer ---
A demobilization...didn't, he stayed in the Army didn't he for awhile though, for a while?
Norma ---
He didn't get out no, you were frozen in there, you were gonna 'sposed to be in there for at least eighteen months or something and when the war broke out why you were stuck, you couldn't get out, you were there for the duration. But then that summer after we went to Santa Barbara, we went back up to Portland where he was stationed, in Portland for the summer and uh...
Interviewer ---
Doing what?
Norma ---
He was MP [military police] on the streets for awhile. We found an apartment or a one, basement recreation room, and I worked at Woolworth's. And I was there for two months I think, when he was transferred from off the streets to the railroad and he would go in on the railroad then from Portland to Missoula. And I moved back to Newport then because he would stop on the railroad and he'd would come through in the morning or whatever, well no in the afternoon I guess was the Missoula and the train would stop in Missoula or Newport rather, and we'd go down and meet him and he'd get off the train and he'd come out and kiss us all and go back onto the train [laughs] and go to Spokane, and we'd meet him there, and bring him home. [laughs]
Interviewer ---
Now this was a troop train?
Norma ---
Well it was The Empire Builder, but they had soldiers and so he was an MP on the train, so they had a lot of men on it. They all couldn't figure out how come he could come out and kiss four or five women on the platform and get back on the train, he was the envy of all the guys. [laughs] There was Helen and Margaret and I and the minister's wife, Lou Sanders and sometimes Dory I guess there would be four or five of us. He'd come out and give us all kisses or hugs and crawl back on [chuckling] then we'd go in and get him and bring him back out that was in 1945 toward Fall.
Interviewer ---
What was the end of the war celebrations like?
Norma ---
Oh hey, after the Germans!
Interviewer ---
That's V-E Day
Norma ---
Ann and Everett and Dick and I and seems like there was somebody else, I don't know whether it was Dave or John, musta been Dave, musta been Dave, all went down just to see what it was like.
Interviewer ---
Downtown Spokane?
Norma ---
Downtown Spokane [laughs] it was full, crowded, you didn't dare lose each other because you'd never found each other again. But everybody was celebrating, it was just noisy as I remember, it wasn't I don't know whether there was probably some drinking and stuff but I didn't take part, but I don't know.
Interviewer ---
What about Newport?
Norma ---
I don't know
Interviewer ---
Of course you were in downtown Spokane so...
Norma ---
I don't know what Newport did
Interviewer ---
Okay, what about when the Japanese surrendered?
Norma ---
Um I don't know, I was in Newport and I don't really remember whether there was any kind of celebrations, I didn't, I was just real happy that it was over with and then he was discharged in September of '45.
Interviewer ---
Being that you were in Newport, for most of the war, what do you remember of the prisoner of war camps, the prisoners of war that they brought, that were here?
Norma ---
When I was working in the drug store, they to get them down, the internees, or whatever they called them on twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, they brought them down and some of them were Germans. The ones that I remember were Germans. There were camps at Usk and around Priest Lake I believe and they would bring one bunch in one day and the other bunch on the other day, but they weren't all together, and they seemed to be nice fellas as far as I was concerned, they never gave us any trouble as far as I know.
Interviewer ---
Were they able to buy, when you were working at Kimmel's, were they able to buy stuff at Kimmel's?
Norma ---
Yeah, other than the cigarettes, we put the, like I told you before, we took the good cigarettes, the Camels, the Lucky Strikes, and some of the others, and we put them underneath the counters, and we would give them the cheaper brands [laughs] the Pal Malls, I don't remember the name of some of the others, but and they would buy those. They would sit up at the soda fountain and talk.
Interviewer ---
Did they ever give you guys any trouble? No? I mean as far as...
Norma ---
Well other than the Germans were sitting around on the Northern Hotel steps and when we'd go down to the Post Office which was down past there, which would have been down about halfway a little over halfway down the block. I don't remember who is there about where Just Because is now.
Interviewer ---
Okay, yeah [actually it is the Food Bank]
Norma ---
Other than that, or was it the next one because it had...where's Benson's was...anyway, they would make comments in German as we went past them on the street down to the Post Office, and they would be standing there, sitting on the Northern Hotel steps and standing out on the edge and so you had to go through the middle of them...disconcerting [laughs]
Interviewer ---
You guys obviously spoke German at home often, could you understand what they were saying?
Norma ---
I didn't try to listen [laughs]
Interviewer ---
So you never responded back to them when you knew what they were saying, because you kinda pretty much knew what they were saying though right?
Norma ---
Oh no, they were looking us over pretty well [laugh] Non of them were rowdy as far as I know you and they didn't come up to the telephone office, they were in the drugstore and they could buy whatever they wanted to otherwise in the drugstore.
Interviewer ---
Except for the good cigarettes
Norma ---
Except for the cigarettes
Interviewer ---
Do you remember them ever bringing Mexican workers into work in the woods?
Norma ---
No
Interviewer ---
That's okay, that was one of the things I found in the newspaper
Norma ---
Oh really? They did that?
Interviewer ---
They brought Mexican workers from the Bracero Program to Usk to work on blister rust and fire control.
Norma ---
I don't remember that but if I had been working in the telephone office, I probably would have known it, I probably would have known because you knew everything else because what you didn't know, the chief operator knew anything important but then of course you were sworn to secrecy in there too. You could not, whatever you heard over the telephone lines, you were not to spread any further, it stopped right there. You signed a paper when you went to work, saying that you would not divulge anything you heard over the lines.
Interviewer ---
Did you ever have to...?
Norma ---
I got in trouble once [laugh]
Interviewer ---
Really? And what did you say?
Norma ---
Well I was, I caught some conversation and Mrs. Burnett, who was the newspaper reporter for the Spokesman Review was in the office, and she and Helena were talking and I happened, they were talking about something, and I said, "Well I had heard that ehm," and Helena had to go chase after her and tell her not to let that out because that's what I had heard over the phone and I really felt awful about that, it was bad.
Interviewer ---
Did you ever have to, did you guys ever get any phone calls or whatever about, like the Western Telegraphs that the three guys in Newport were killed. Did any of these come through the telephone office?
Norma ---
I don't know, I don't remember
Interviewer ---
I was just curious
Norma ---
I know that one night not that but one of the fellas was in Hawaii, and they made arrangements to talk to their family in Newport and we had, I was on the switchboard at the time when the phone call came in and the family was in the telephone office and the telephone call came through we had to coordinate it to be able to get them to be able to talk to each other. That was really fun, you know because you could from clear over in Hawaii that was really something else! So Dick called me about twice from Alaska but it was really hard to talk you know 'cause it was the radio and you had to make sure one was finished before the other one started talking, otherwise you got nothin', you know it was cut off, you know its like the CBs you know that was real hard. But he did call me twice.
Interviewer ---
What do you remember most about the war years? I added questions on by the way, these are ones you didn't get asked the first time.
Norma ---
Oh
Interviewer ---
What do you remember most about the war years?
Norma ---
Oh [silence] more of the times when he was home you know, and his letters. We wrote almost everyday and looking forward to having his letters. Probably the rationing and all that stuff I imagine it was difficult but you just looked forward to hearing from him and all that waiting for him. Some of the girls you know would go out and different things you know when their husbands were overseas, but I never did, course that wasn't my way of doing things.
Interviewer ---
What was your best moment?
Norma ---
Hmmm I don't know
Interviewer ---
That's all right
Norma ---
Probably on one of the times when he was coming home you know, and waiting for him.
Interviewer ---
Best friends who were they?
Norma ---
Dorothy Small and I were together a lot, always 'cause she worked in [the] telephone office too when I did, in fact, I trained her or helped train her and we were together a lot. My other girlfriend, my one that I've had for many years, Irene was already in college, and she was going to college, so I didn't see her that often and then I had the friends out at the Mennonite Church out there. But I didn't go to church there you know, when I was living in Newport because I didn't have transportation, I went to the Baptist Church. She was the one we spent a lot of time together not only living together we spent all of our extra time together too.
Interviewer ---
What do you remember most about when the war was over?
Norma ---
I was trying to remember, I musta gone over to Seattle again to be with Dick coming home, but I can't say for sure but I think so and I don't remember how we got home. I honestly don't remember, but I think I musta gone over to meet him over there, when he got out but I'm not positive.
Interviewer ---
What do you miss about that time?
Norma ---
Him [a great deal of silence and thought]
Interviewer ---
What have you done since the war ended? Like I don't know, but hey...
Norma ---
Been a homemaker, had children, lots [7], raised kids. That's about it.
Interviewer ---
You got remarried
Norma ---
Yeah, after he died
Interviewer ---
When did he die?
Norma ---
August 1954, of a heart attack
Interviewer ---
Then you remarried and you moved back here
Norma ---
Moved back to Newport
Interviewer ---
Because you were living in California, came back to Newport
Norma ---
And I bought a house and about two years later on July 26, 1956 married Bob Rednour
Interviewer ---
And how did you meet Grandpa?
Norma ---
Dory and Ted [her sister and brother-in-law] and Helen Phillips. Dory and Helen had arranged it for on a blind date [laughs] and we went to the Sportsman's Show in Spokane and [laugh] coming home we tried to talk and I couldn't hear him at all. [laugh] He was so quiet and I couldn't understand a thing that he said. He has gotten louder since we got married, he's loosened up. I've been a farmwife since we moved out of Newport in November 1, 1957 to the farm.
Interviewer ---
Okay, that's it, anything else you want to add?
Norma ---
No, I don't think so.
| Copyright © 2004 by Kristen Cornelis |