FREEDOM TRAIN,submitted by Ann Rhein Alsup,1953

         
BOB HYLTON,1951 started it with his memories of WW ll.

Bob Hylton wrote: OK, I'll have to weigh in here. Yes, Jim, I sure
remember the taste of the milk -- though, since the whole town
sometimes featured the beet odor, it may have been influenced by our sense of smell.

What I also remember well is that during The War (WW II, that
would be), the Experimental Farm (doesn't sound quite right) up
near the Country Club, had some beets out to grow in various
gardens, ours among them (I think one beet per gardener, but not
sure). Somewhere along the way I got a taste of one that we grew and it was not the high point of my day. To this day, I think it
miraculous that sugar is made from them, my skepticism generated from that early (awful) taste of sugar beet.

I also remember some of the teachers volunteering to work the beet fields as part of their war effort. My dad did and I would bet that Mary Alice's dad was right next to him. Dad was pretty much done n by the work, although he grew up on a farm, and had nothing but admiration for the regular beet workers' endurance.

Clara Blakeman Lehman:
I was only nine years old when the war ended in 1945, but I have quite a few random memories. We saved all of our tinfoil candy wrappers, gum wrappers, food packaging,-any little scrap,and wadded it together until we had a big ball.Then Mom took it somewhere that collected it and recycled it forthe "war effort". I remember the older girls, high-school and college
age, saying "I'd die for a pair of silk stockings." Once my mother
and aunt got a couple of used parachutes. I have no idea where
they got them. But they were "in seventh heaven". They cut them
up and made new slips- real silk slips! They made the scraps into
neck scarves.

I remember buying 10 cent stamps to fill up a book to get a $25.00
bond.

Those troop trains going "North" out of Sheridan were mostly going on west. Many of those soldiers were going to Ft. Lewis, Washington.Some went to the Air Force base in Great Falls, Mt. also . One of the only "lectures" my dad ever gave me made a lifelong impression and it involved the troop trains. Some other kids were buying candy bars for a nickel and selling them to the servicemen at thestation for a dime. I thought that looked like a good idea and askedmy dad if he would loan me some money to get me started. Henearly exploded! He let me know what a rotten idea that was! Hetold me I could buy some and GIVE them to the soldiers, but I certainly wasn't going to make any money off of them. Dad wasn't one to talk a whole lot, but he took several minutes to explain to me what those men were doing for ME, and, as I said, I've remembered it all my life.

I remember when the Star Grocery (down on 5th Street near the
Sheridan Inn) suddenly closed overnight. I asked why , and was just told the people who ran it were sent away because they were
Japanese. I don't remember their name. I heard many years later
they were sent to Heart Mountain near Powell, and I don't think
they ever returned to Sheridan.

I didn't go the movies often, but I remember seeing some of the
news stories and pictures during the war. They really frightened me because I knew several young men who were in the service, and I always wondered if that was where they were. One such friend, who considered me his little sister, was stationed in Australia. While there, he collected small, matching sea shells to make me a bracelet.
There was a downed Jap Zero plane on the beach, and he cut some aluminum and plastic from it to make the connectors and fastener.I still have the bracelet. He married an Australian girl and moved to Australia. They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last year. He is well into his eighties now, but still writes to me.

Last of all, I remember V-J Day. Kate and Gin Demchok, Dazey
Maxwell , Martha Hasse, and I and a few others I can't think of sat
in Demchok's back yard and beat on old tubs with heavy sticks,
honked the horn of an old truck sitting there, and clanged together anything we could find to make noise. We spent several hours doing this. The cars passing by on the street were all honking their horns,in celebration of the end of that long war.

Barbara Bentley Pisaneschi added:
I also enjoyed your bit onmemories of World War II. I remember the troop trains, rationing stamps, blackouts and victory gardens. My father got drafted and he had to go someplace for his physical. My sister cried because he would be gone for his birthday, but lo and behold , he turned 36 on Sunday and they sent him home on Monday because he was too old.

Ann Rhein Alsup wrote:
 My dad was so patriotic. He was an only
child, born in Lander, and his parents sent him to Kemper Military
Academy in Boonville, Missouri from 7th grade through 12th. Afterthat he joined the Army and was stationed in Virginia Beach,
Virginia. This was WW1. He was an active member in the American Legion in Sheridan and I remember helping make sandwiches to give to the soldiers, when the troop trains came through and giving them candy and gum from my Dads store. Our neighbors on Brooks Street were the Pullens. Their son was killed in the war. My parents smoked, and my sister and I used to take the foil from their empty packages and roll them in balls to turn in for some use. We had a victory garden on Brooks which in now a parking lot for Champions.My Dad is buried in the Veterans' Cemetery at Custer Battle Field.  Ann

Clara Blakeman Lehman wrote:
 And what about the big, life-size,placards or statuettes of our uncle in his full red, white and blue regalia in front of the post office, saying "Uncle Sam Wants You!"

Lolly (Kelso) Jolley:
How about the posters in restaurants and public
places in Sheridan that said "Loose lips sink ships." Trust me, no
spies lurking in the Lotus Restaurant ever heard me let slip any
information about troop movements or sub positions.

Mary Alice Wright Gunderson wrote: I, too, remember standing in
the hall at Linden, a damp dime clamped into my fist. The stamp I
bought somehow, magically, was supposed to turn--along with
others-- into $25; I didn't quite know how that worked. Once, going to Stop and Shop Grocery (still going strong, at the end of Griffith Street) I lost the family's ration stamp book; fortunately, Basin Dean found it and we got it back. I remember that we had contestsfor which room brought the most, for the scrap drives. dad accidentally gave me my grandparents' new shovel--which
contributed to the war effort, but wasn't supposed to have...Those kids who held the school doors open for us to go in sometimes softly hummed a popular song of the day. " Open the Door,Richard." It went, "open the door Richard, open t he door and let me in. Open the door, Richard. Richard , why don't you let me come in?" --anybody else remember that one?--I listened to the radio allthe time and still know lyrics to those Jo Stafford songs, "Don't Get Around Much Anymore," "I'll Be Home for Christmas. " Bunches of others we got an old tape of, Frances Langford, Harry James...

Grant McCloud, a great friend of my parents', had a fantastic
collection of guns, some from the Civil War , at his cabin. His wife
hated them, and either she did it, or nagged him enough so those
were given to a scrap drive. All the men were just sick about it; they wondered just whose collections they ended up in.

For me, WWll was the movies, the March of Time, Van Johnson and all those that you still see sometimes, today. One of the most
stunning movies was the one about the Japanese -Americans who enlisted, and at the end all of them had been killed. One Japanesefamily, I believe their name was Sato, lived out on Big Goose. Dad and I would go out and buy vegetables from them--corn and tomatoes and melons. They were "relocated' and I still have a letter he wrote to my dad after his release from one of the sites in California. He had been dad's student or possibly played on a basketball team. He thanked Dad for his interest and support.Another student we went to visit at Ft. Lewis, Washington. I have a memory: Carolee Ramsey--a friend who played a very large part in my Sheridan years, because of her creativity and thefabulous , not necessarily great according to adults--ideas and projects she got us into. She decided one day to write to Pres.Roosevelt, so we got an old letter, cut the stamp off and she wrotehim a letter. The mailman brought it back to her parents, but he wasn't mad --said he was glad kids were thinking, and not just putting rocks and sticks into the mailboxes. We were together, also,the day FDR's death was announced. We had gone down afterschool to some kind of Game and Fish exhibit, a truck that toured around with bobcats and mountain lions and badgers, etc., on display in cases. AS we came onto Main Street by the then-First National Bank, we saw people all along the sidewalks, buying papers from newsboys, reading the Sheridan Press. Many were crying, a traumatic thing for a kid to see adults crying.. .someone said, "He's dead.

back to Sheridan. My cousin Betty, twelve years older than I,
(daughter of Wilbur and Hazel Wright) helped with enlargement of
the Sheridan County International Airport, driving a tractor over
the surfaces to even them out. There were both day shifts and
nights shifts for workers, many of them teenagers. She was fired
once for causing an accident, but later rehired when it was
determined it had been the other tractor-driver's fault.

There were air raid drills at school where we sat out in the hall,
with our jackets over our heads . I hadn't the slightest
understanding of what this was for. My dad was a neighborhood
air-raid warden, and said he "patrolled all the pot holes up and
down Griffith Avenue." I remember one home drill in which it was
emphasized that there would be no light...so...guess who turned on the bottom portion of a lamp? Big spanking with a hair brush.

V-JDay was announced while my parents were visiting my brother,Dick, in Basic--some kind of pre-officer's program down at Laramie.
I went all around to the neighbors and honked their car horns. I
vaguely remember Emperor Hirohito's surrender message...my
brother stayed in for his 4 years, and came home when I was 13, in 1949, after serving in Germany. One story he used to tell was that he and another man from Montana were called in and had no idea what for. They were informed all men from western states werecowboys, and to get on out to take the rough out of the horses which officers were going to ride in a parade. Military saddles, not Western... He had ridden quite a lot, but really hated
horses...probably never rode again after that. Bob Hylton and I rode horses from the 3B stables, at Story, though most often we were scouting for Indians, not Germans.... I have a published short-short story--mostly fiction--I wrote about the little Japanese girl, Lily...

Teresa McCarthy Shriner wrote:
 World War II : I remember standing in line in front of The New York Store to get silk stockings for mymother because she had to work. I had to giggle at the tinfoil.Remember soaking the paper off the back so you could get the foil to wrap around that ball? I went to Holy Name School. We had a big pile of scrap metal that I guess we were collecting "for the war effort". One day some kid went out there and grabbed a knife & threatened one of the nuns. My folks smoked Wings cigarettes. They had those way cool airplane cards in them. Then they started rolling their own in a machine they ordered from Sears. I guess cigarettes were scarce because they all went to the service men. I can remember troops trains coming thru & my mom & some club she belonged to would go down to the depot to serve doughnuts to
the service men on the trains. I went with her once & couldn't
understand why she wouldn't let me have a doughnut! Boy, is all
that a long time ago?

Faith (Urion) Tetrick Does any one else remember the way we used karo syrup in place of sugar when all the sugar ration coupons wereused up and it wasn't yet time for more? And did your mothers try to use saccharin for canning fruit? yuck!

There was a grocery store in our neighborhood ( Billings) that was owned by a friend of my father. When he would get a shipment of bubblegum he would call my folks and tell them he was saving a piece for each of us kids. When the word went out that there wasbubblegum at the store, the lines that formed would be blocks long and each child was allowed to buy one piece.

My oldest brother was in the navy and fought on Okinawa. IÊ too
remember the day the war ended and the honking cars and people banging on anything they could find to make a racket. Our
neighborhood had lots of kids and we made a long parade and
marched around as far as our parents would allow us to go. I
expected my brother to come right home, of course, but it was
several months before he was home.

I remember seeing the little flags hung in windows... the silver stars indicating that your loved one had been wounded and the gold stars indicating a death. It was very sobering to one day see a flag in the window where there had not been one before. It made it pretty personal.

My dad, bless him, had a huge patch of strawberries in our victory garden. We had the usual vegetables of course, but it made theweeding more pleasant when you considered that there were somany strawberry plants. Yum! One time during the war there was a big convention at our church. There were some Japanese people atHeart Mountain from our denomination who got permission to cometo this meeting. The leader of their group was a man named Mr. Ito,the father or grandfather, (I'm not sure which, now...one of my senior moments) of Judge Ito who tried the Simpson case. Some of the young ladies came in their tradiional kimonos. They were gorgeous! Mr. Ito made sukiyaki for the entire convention. I love it
now but I remember being put off by someone saying that you
break a raw egg over the whole thing. Is that really how they do it?

Shirley Bohlin Genereaux:
Wow does anyone out there remember the Ice Box Grocery on Coffeen Avenue??? I spent many an hour there
waiting in line for my mom and dad for their Lucky Strikes . LSMFT Lucky Strikes Mean Fine Tobaco. I have a very vivid memory of just coming in from Sunday School and my Mom said "Oh No" and I asked what was wrong and she told me the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. Our next door neighbor was in the Navy in thoseyears and my very favorite Uncle was also in the Navy and heserved in submarines stationed on the Norwal. I remember when all the horns started honking and how very happy people were to hearthat the war was finally over. Our next door neighbor and my uncle both came home safe. My grandparents were so happy to have their son home. My grandfather would always want my food coupons and
little red meat discs if I ate at their house, I always thought he was
serious. I also remember walking home for lunch from Coffeen and the radio station always played "Home Home On the Range" in honor of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Sometimes my dad would give me a nickel to spend at the Ice Box and I do remember it would fill a whole sack. Silly Memories ,

Bing Broulette wrote :
Back to the WWII thing: My most vivid memory was the arrival in
Sheridan of the biggest airplane I ever imagined. I still don't know
what it was doing there but my grandad was a deputy sheriff and
assigned to keeping curious locals from messing with it. He had my mother bring me to the airport to see it and it was a B-29 bomber! While we were there a real live General got out of a car and came to the plane. He went in for something and when he came out heasked me if I wanted to see the inside. I can remember a gazillion instruments and a bombay that looked big enough to hold a bus. I was particularly fascinated by the machine gun turrents. His autograph was one of my most cherished possessions for years. Hewas General Hoyt Vandenburg! Bing

JoAnn Boyd Scott : I vividly remember a scene in the Western HotelCafe in Sheridan. There were American flags in each sugar bowl with a note that said, be patriotic, use only one spoon of sugar. We watched two men near us pour 4 spoons of sugar apiece in their coffee. My dad went over to them and chewed them out for being so unpatriotric. I thought sure there would be a fight but they just shrugged and went on drinking coffee.

I also remember my grandfather Boyd on the ranch out of Wyola.
He was a State Senator (a naturalized U.S. citizen, born in Scotland) and very patriotic He grew sugar beets and some other food crop to donate to the war effort. The government was to process them butno one ever came and they rotted in the fields. I remember him saying--It is that @#%#^&*@# NEW DEAL. That is what happenswhen you get a Democrat like Roosevelt in office. I was intrigued,NEW DEAL, what in the world was that? Years later I read everything I could on it. Welcome to the world of politics!

My mom tells a story that when I was about 5, the rationing books
came in the mail,but someone had torn out the coupon for my
shoes . My grandfather was so incensed he drove from Beaver Creek to Hardin , (long trip in those days) and demanded a shoe coupon for his granddaughter. She was not going to go barefooted! He got the coupon.

It was always a hassle for the ranchers because they had to feed so many men. The hired men would bring their ration book with them but often most coupons had been torn out. My Mom was a very creative cook and managed to feed everyone. Such different times then. Jo Ann Boyd Scott

If you would like to add to these stories or have questions please
contact Jo Ann Boyd Scott,1953

BOB WAKEFIELD, CLASS OF '57

My Dad, Frank Wakefield, is a living reminder of Sheridan's
contribution to America's war with Germany and Japan. He was in his early thirties and could have
claimed a deferment, but he allowed himself to be drafted, and my mother took Gene and me to
Johnstown, Colorado in 1944 to live while Dad served in the United States Army in the south Pacific. He
was the oldest soldier in his unit, being called "Gramps." While he was gone to war, Larry and Mary were
born in June, 1944, in Greeley. Dad returned to the United States in a hospital ship in December of that
year, eventually spending rehab time at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver. Since then, Dad has been
a Disabled American Veteran but worked despite his bad back as a manager for twenty years with the
Veterans Canteen Service in Sheridan and Cheyenne. Twice he served as Commander of the Sheridan
American Legion, and for many years as Scoutmaster of the Legion troup. Brother Gene served twenty
years with the United States Air Force, enduring losses of friends in missions over Viet Nam. I joined the
U.S. Army June 23, 1958, serving in Munich, Germany, for two years in an Honest John Rocket battery.
My son, Todd, served two years with the United States Army at Fort Hood and in Honduras. Dad and
Mom still reside at 251 Carlin in Sheridan. Young men today do not realize how fortunate they are to not
have to face the draft, unlike me and my friends in Sheridan in the 1950s. Then, when a young man
reached 18, he faced a six-year military obligation. He could wait to be drafted for two years, join for 6
months active duty and 5 1/2 years active reserve, or join the Army, Navy, or Air Force for 3 or 4 year
tours. It was truly a test of one's patriotism. I am exceedingly proud to be part of three living generations
of United States Army veterans. The love of country that I share with my classmates has recently been
amplified by knowledge that my son, Mark, will soon be flight engineer on the new Boeing 777 that will
transport the Vice President around the world from Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. I am
thinking of these things because I was honorably discharged 40 years ago today, May 12, 1961, at Fort
Hood, Texas.

Bob Wakefield, Class of '57.