December 17, 1942-Afternoon

Dec 17, 3:40
Union Station

Dear folks,
Well I’m still here. A couple of the other fellows and I went downtown for a little while. We walked so we didn’t get very far. We took in 8 floors and the basement of “Marshal Fields”, I guess its one of the largest department stores in the world. I had my first escalator ride, not bad.
Several of the boys had friends or relatives here so the day was probably enjoyed by all. The only difficulty is that we may run short on meal tickets. We had enough for 1 extra day and we have used up some of them already and aren’t across the Mississippi yet. I’m a little low on money but I think I’ll make it if need too I can borrow some from some of the fellows.
They have an electric organ here in the waiting room and there has been a guy playing Christmas music nearly all the time, its really swell.
You’d probably like to know more about why my sudden decision to go to Oregon. Well here’s the story. Our project Supt. is doing his best to keep the camp there. The strategy they tried to use was this: We sent in a bit (?) of the 39 men that would go to Oregon Sun. afternoon. Well I came darn near going then but they got though(?) so I wrote and told you that I wasn’t going.
I suppose you got that card yesterday. (Sentence crossed out) Wait, I left out something. Mon. morning our project Sup. wires to his betters in Wash. that they were letting a lot of good men get away he named 15 of them. About ½ of these men were really important and the rest of them were first bluff. Then things strung along till about the tue noon and both the Project and Technical Supervisors got a telegram telling them not to sign a release for those 15 men. So then the camp had to find some men to substitute for them. That’s when I came in. We had had some pretty favorable information about the Oregon Project and it looked like our camp was doomed cause S.C.S. seemed to think we only needed 50 men and that was the least that A.F.S.C. would ever consider keeping a camp open for. As I said on my card most of the good men were leaving either to Oregon or on detached service. If the camp is kept after it will mostly consist of fellows that are interested in the research part and a few that work on camp maintenance. I could have qualified I guess, but I wasn’t crazy about being stuck there with so few men. I had first started on a new job tue morning which would have put me in the research department. I was taking frost samples (meaning ---- frost and the depth of snow), not a bad job. But I lost interest when I came to the conclusion that there wasn’t much future there.
You see our project Sup. figured that one of the main reasons was that the rest of S.C.S. was jealous of him cause he had been turning out better work then they had and they were out to squeltch him. That may be partly conceit, but that with the fact that a certain Congressman McGigber(?) had promised to have us out by election day adds up to no camp Coshocton. So I am Oregon bound and glad of it. Except that I’ll be about twice as far from home. The way I feel about it now I’ll be looking for a detached service project of some kind next spring or summer. I still hope to get home next spring if it isn’t too expensive.
One thing I sure hated to do was go off and leave that printing press we had back there. I really enjoyed fooling around with it and I still think I could have done C.P.S. some good with it but maybe there is something more important in Oregon for me to do.
I left some very fine friends too. You get to know fellows pretty well that you live with for four months. I hated to leave Ab too but it is better for him to be closer to home if possible. I think he would have liked to go if it wasn’t for him being an expectant father.
There is another Iowa man going—Clarence Morrison. A good guy too. He’s from Ames. I told you about him a long time ago.
The project out there is a forestry(?) service project. I really think that it is more important than Soil Conservation. There are now 22 men out there now and so we will be practically the same camp. The capacity of the camp is 200 so some of the new fellows may get sent thro to maybe Warren.(?)
We couldn’t have picked a worse time to travel in the last 10 years. The last we hear there weren’t any more Pullmans. So I --- we will have that stinky old coach all the way. It is terribly old and dirty. If they would give us a good one it wouldn’t be as bad but I suppose the army get all the good stuff. This whole thing has only t been on foot for about 9 or 10 days so it is a little wonder that our arrangements for cars and railroad connections aren’t working out. O, well, we are having a grand time and we get along well together so I guess we can put up with a little inconvenience like sleeping on the cushions. We have plenty of room so that we can take the back of the seats and stretch out across two of them it isn’t too bad.
We go out through Minn. N. D. to Seattle and then Portland. Elkton, I understand is about 30 mi. from the ocean with an elevation of 100 ft.
Well, keep your chins up, God’s with us.
Yours,
Bernard

Off to Oregon

I know that I have been posting for awhile, but I feel a lot of the story begins now as Dad heads off to Oregon. I'm not sure how much of the country he had seen before this but I do not think he had been outside of the midwest. I believe that they would go to Chicago to sell cattle. These postcards were typed, some on the train. I try to picture what that would look like. I remember taking my typewriter to college in 1969 and it was considered a portable. What was the size of a typewriter in 1942? Then compare that with the labtops we carry around today.

December 17, 1942

Thurs; 9:30 A.M. Union Station Chi.

Surprise!! I’m on my way to Oregon. It seemed to me that camp #23 was about to collapse. They needed more men to fill out their car so I thought it was the wise thing to do. Most of the nicest and best men were going to Oregon or to attached service and if the camp was to be kept open at all there would only be a few good me and some of the ---- left so I’m off to Oregon. We spent last night in a coach but if we layover here till 11:00 P.M. we get a Pullman. So I get to spend the day in Chicago. O boy. More cards to follow.
Yours,
Bernard
Ab stayed

December 14, 1942

Sunday Nite
Dear Folks,
I’m not going to Oregon this time but the chances are that I will get shipped west sometime. There is a small chance that this camp will be kept open but with only about 60 men.

The load that goes is to leave Wed morn. If I have to go in the next load it may be to Sandemas Calif.

I’ll write when anything happens.

Yours
Bernard

Jeannette Rankin and WWII

Along with this letter of Dec 11th 1942, Dad included a copy of the Congressional Record with Congress woman Jeannette Rankin's speach on Dec. 8th 1942. She spoke on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor and as a congress person who voted against US entry into WWII. Her remarks are very interesting and ask questions about wether the US and Britain worked to provoke the Japanese into attacking the US, so that the US population would accept the idea of declaring war and help the British Empire out in the pacific. It is interesting that part of her argument is the use of 'economic sanctions' as a prelude to war with a nation. She quotes one source as saying " Japan has no choice but to go to war or to submit to economic slavery for the rest of her existence." She also includes a quote of Congressman Sumners of Texas on April 4, 1942 "We have been a very foolish people, which has made it possible for ___ politicians to get away with murder. This blaming the Peal Harbor tragedy on the Japs is like the fellow who had been tickling the hind leg of a mule trying to explain his bunged-up condition by blaming the mule for having violated his confidence." It reminds me of the phrase "Chickens coming home to roost" after the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, used by a professor at the University of Colorado, who was highly criticized for his statements. We seem to be less open to critics of our foreign policy than we were in 1942.
Congresswoman Rankins speech is 3 pages and rather interesting to read.

December 11, 1942

C. P. S. #23
Coshocton, Ohio
Dec. 11, 1942

Dear Folkes,

I don’t have time to write much, but I’ll make it good. Things have really been happening around here. The camp is to be cut down to 35 men very soon, there is to be a bunch of 39 men to leave here the last of next week for a camp in Oregon. They hope to get enough volentiers, but most of us are pretty happy here. We knew that this was coming sometime but hoped that some of our men in Washington could avoid it. The reason seems to be professional jealiousy and a polititions promise to have us moved out of here before election. He didn’t get in done that soon but we have been getting better work done here than was done when it was run by Gov’t men and CCC boys. Nobody knows the exact reason but that is the most popular guess.

I’m going to be one of the 35 if possible. If I have to go west I hope to get in a camp quite similar to this one at San Deimis Calif. I don’t want to go to Oregon very bad, however if it cam to drawing names out of a hat I would go if I was drawn.

If I have to go west this winter would you like to have me take my furlough before I go or wait till next spring? I think I would be about twice as far from home as I am now either place in the west. Maybe I could help with the corn if you don’t have it done by now. I have about 8 days now and next spring I will have about 20. If I come now I will have to get back here before Christmas as all of the Christmas furloughs are taken. Personaly I’d just as soon wait till spring then I’d have more time to be home and wouldn’t waste as much traveling. I think I’ll know pretty well whether I’m staying here or not by the first of next week I’ll write a card if anything of importance happens. Paul Furness is coming Mon. and he should know how things stand. Some think that they will move this camp completely but we don’t know.

I’m rather sorry to hear that Harry is quitting school. What I wonder is if he is going to be a CO? If he is I would think he might have time enough to get another semester while they fool around making him appeal. He needn’t worry about getting a V*E. There are some pretty wild guys here that got by, of course they didn’t have our board. Harry has a lot more reason to be in a CO camp than 75% of the fellows here. There is one guy that got out of the navy a couple years ago and another that was working in a defense plant when he was classified.

Well keep your chins up and write me a few cards if you can’t get time for a letter. I’d like to know how the corn situation is as soon as possible.

The cookies sure taste good and I am to thank you for all the guys in the dorm. There are about 5 or 6 of us that get cookies and stuff about the same amount too so we have plenty to eat at our bedtime snack parties. That chocolate sure is welcome it will last for a long time, what did Dad do buy out some store’s supply? The thing I’m afraid of is that our little bunch will be broken up. There are nice people every where.

Yours,
Bernard

P. S. I’m still surveying, it is sort of cold sometimes and we don’t get out much.

Attached: Congressinal Record, Proceedings and Debate of the 77th Congress, Second Session and “Strange Things Happen” a Christian flyer)

Grandma's Cookies

Reading this postcard of Dad's about the cookies and planing a trip up to Colorado reminds me of Grandma Aldrich's cookies. When we were children our Aldrich Grandparents would come out from Iowa twice a year usually in June and November. They would drive from Iowa and bring cookies and eggs, a whole crate of eggs and between Aunt Eileens family and ours we would eat them up. I now use the egg crate to hold magazines and some of the hoard of catalogs we get. But I was thinking about cookies. Grandma made wonderful cookies and I think I liked them better than anyone else. My favorite were the banana chocolate chip ones she would bring from Iowa. She often put them in a bag and they would be a bit crumbly and mushed together after the two day trip. I was so happy once I got the recipe and made them myself but they didn't taste quite right to me so I put them in the cookie jar. A couple days later when they had stuck together and crumpled a bit they were just right.