CANTEEN As It Happened
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to the Lincoln County Historical Museum for its contribution to this project.
Dedicated to Jill Claflin
Copyright © 2019 by North Platte Telegraph All Rights Reserved • ISBN: 978-1-59725-832-6 No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the copyright owner or the publisher. Published by Pediment Publishing, a division of The Pediment Group, Inc. www.pediment.com Printed in the United States of America. ON THE COVER FRONT: In this photo from about 1944, service members rush into North Platte's Union Pacific Depot, headed for the North Platte Canteen, from one of the thousands of U.P. troop trains to pass through the city during and just after World War II. BACK: Canteen “platform girls” Dorothy Loncar, left, and Margaret McEvoy present an unidentified sailor with a gift basket in about 1943.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Todd von Kampen is special projects reporter at The North Platte Telegraph, for which he has reported and written at various times during 35 years as a newspaper journalist. He began his career at the Keith County News in his nearby hometown of Ogallala, Nebraska, and also has written for the Des Moines Register, the Scottsbluff (Nebraska) Star-Herald and the Omaha World-Herald. He is the author of “All-Night Theater: The Music and Life of J.E. Thayer” (2013) and “Ron & Carol Cope: A Nebraska Love Story” (2017). Todd and his wife, Joan, The Telegraph’s current managing editor, live in North Platte with the two youngest of their four children.
All photographs, unless otherwise indicated, appear courtesy of the Lincoln County Historical Museum, North Platte, Nebraska.
2 CANTEEN: AS IT HAPPENED
PROLOGUE
T his is a story I somehow didn’t know. I grew up in the 1970s in Ogallala, 50 miles away. I knew North Platte as well as some- one whose family drove there for shopping and movies could know it. But not until I first wrote for The Telegraph in 1987 did I begin to learn this particular story. I can’t believe what I didn’t know. Rae Wilson Sleight, the Canteen’s founder, died six months before I first came. The last great Canteen reunion took place nearly six months after I left in 1988 to get married. The remaining officers had died by my first return in 1995. I had no idea that Ogallala and its people were among the Canteen’s sturdiest backers — or that the last surviving major Canteen figure, a young boy you’ll soon meet, is the father of a fellow Ogallala High School graduate a year older than me. I shouldn’t be surprised. Western Nebraskans don’t talk much. They just do what must be done. As you read, remember that people back then sometimes used words we would not. I’ve edited gently to save space and smooth out grammar,
punctuation and most (but not all) spellings. Square brackets enclose words added for clarity. Until about the 1970s, first names of married women weren’t routinely listed if their husbands were living. I’ve added them where they could be accurately determined, using city directories and online resources, for women from North Platte. This book wouldn’t have been feasible had the North Platte Genealogical Society not launched a searchable database of North Platte’s historic newspapers ( northplatte.advantage-preservation.com ) in 2018. Without it, these stories would still be buried in microfilm. Cecelia Lawrence and her staff at the North Platte Public Library maintain an outstanding repository of local and Nebraska history. This book’s rich collection of Canteen photos is due to the enthusiasm of Jim Griffin, director and curator of the Lincoln County Historical Museum, which lovingly preserves the Canteen story. All photos in this volume, unless otherwise noted, appear cour- tesy of the museum. We’re grateful to Pegeen Perry, Bob Reitz and
everyone at Pediment Publishing for their pro- fessionalism and patience. Thanks to Telegraph Publisher Dee Klein for her faith in me; my retired former colleague Sharron Hollen for her eloquent epilogue; and Bob Greene, author of “Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen” (2002), for offering to write this book’s foreword. My story with my wife, Joan (The Telegraph’s managing editor since 2016), began long-distance my first year at this paper. We’ve worked here together twice now. After 30 years of love, life and journalism, it’s still a miracle. Finally, I tip my hat to all who first told these tales — and always to the late Keith Blackledge, my first Telegraph boss, who never considered North Platte “flyover country.” When Joan and I left in 1997 for 19 years in Omaha, I wrote: “This is a place worth being from, a place worth coming back to.” More than ever, I know why. Todd von Kampen May 2019
INTRODUCTION 3
FOREWORD
W hen I first arrived in North Platte to do the reporting that would result in “Once Upon a Town,” it didn’t take long for me to realize that I had found what I was looking for: the best America there ever was. And when I was thinking about the perfect subtitle for that book, there was one that summed up the whole story: “The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen.” What happened down on Front Street during World War II really was a miracle. And now, in this marvelous new book you hold in your hands, we can all read — for the first time in more than seventy years — the work of the newspapermen and newspaperwomen who, in the 1940s, chroni- cled that miracle day-by-day. They couldn’t have known, of course, just how important the story they were covering would turn out to be. They were seeing it as it unfolded, and their daily deadlines undoubtedly didn’t allow them the luxury of time to sit back and consider
just how astonishing — how miraculous — the events that transpired in the train depot would someday, when it was all over, be regarded. Which is what makes this new volume, put to- gether with love and respect by Todd von Kampen of the current-day North Platte Telegraph, such a gift. By preserving the work of their predecessor journalists — the reporters, editors and photogra- phers who covered the home front in North Platte during the war years — Todd, and by extension his colleagues on the Telegraph staff of the 21st century, are honoring not just the town, not just the Canteen, but the newspaper people who came before them. All of it makes you wonder what those old-time reporters and photographers thought about, and talked about, when they finally went home at the end of their shifts each day. At their own dinner tables, did they try to express to their families just what a wondrous thing they had observed at the depot that day? Or was it all happening so fast that
it would take years before they fully understood the cumulative grace they were privileged to see, and hear, and stand in the midst of? In writing “Once Upon a Town,” I learned that there was one thing, above all others, that the soldiers who once passed through North Platte wanted, in their understated way, for me to say to the people of the town: Thank you, for a job well done. I have a feeling that Todd and today’s Telegraph staff would want to say the same thing, across all the years, to the old hometown journalists whose work you will find in these pages. It’s a sentiment I would echo, both for the long-departed newspaper people of North Platte, and for Todd and today’s staff: Thank you, for a job very, very well done. Bob Greene Author, “Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen” May 2019
OPPOSITE: Canteen volunteers, joined by a visiting soldier named Hansen (back row, first name unknown), pose during the Canteen’s second Christmas season in December 1942. Among known volunteers in the photo are Canteen Commander Helen Christ (back row, to right of “Protect Our Shores” poster), Mae Eshom (in front of Christ), Canteen Secretary Jessie Hutchens (back, to right of Girl Scouts poster), Bertha Sawyer (to Eshom’s right) and Canteen board member Edna Neid (far right).
4 CANTEEN: AS IT HAPPENED
INTRODUCTION 5
6 CANTEEN: AS IT HAPPENED
TABLE OF CONTENTS Prologue.................................................................................................................. 3 Foreword................................................................................................................. 4 Roots (1918–19).................................................................................................... 9 Inspiration (1941)............................................................................................... 19 Evolution (1942)................................................................................................. 31 Honors (1942–43)............................................................................................. 49 Heyday (1943–44)............................................................................................. 69 Victory (1945)...................................................................................................... 87 Endings (1945–46)........................................................................................... 107 Legacy (1946–2019)........................................................................................ 127 Epilogue............................................................................................................. 148 Business Profiles.............................................................................................. 149 Index.................................................................................................................... 157 OPPOSITE: All of the elements that made North Platte’s World War II Canteen famous can be seen in this photo from about 1943: servicemen quickly downing coffee and a sandwich (left); an older female volunteer presenting one of the Canteen’s trademark birthday cakes (right); and a younger woman (top center, behind curly-haired soldier) sharing a few moments of conversation and kindness before the “all aboard” call whisked another troop train away.
INTRODUCTION 7
8 CANTEEN: AS IT HAPPENED
1918 – 19
ROOTS
A lmost from its first days, North Platte’s story has been intertwined with railroads and America’s armed forces. In 1859, as a young civil engineer, Grenville Mellen Dodge recognized the broad valley around the forks of the Platte River as an ideal servicing center for a transcontinental railroad. In 1866, after spending the Civil War repairing and rebuilding railroads for Union armies, General Dodge — now the Union Pacific Railroad’s chief construction engineer — laid out North Platte west of the forks as a “division point,” with ample space for sidings and a roundhouse. When the track gangs arrived that November, the recently renamed Fort McPherson had been guarding the Oregon, California and Mormon trails for three years southeast of town. As they moved on in spring 1867, a U.S. Army company from the fort set up North Platte Station (west of today’s Jeffers Street viaduct) to guard the railroad. This post, which stood until 1878, was first commanded by Capt. Arthur MacArthur, whose son Douglas would be a prominent general in three wars.
North Platte’s most famous citizen, Col. William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, gained fame as an Army scout. His Wild West Show, which toured the nation and world from 1883 to 1913, celebrat- ed patriotism even as it depicted America’s vanishing frontier. And the city’s three main north-south downtown streets, originally named for trees, now honor military or railroad fig- ures: Adm. George Dewey, victor of the 1898 Battle of Manila Bay, and past U.P. presidents William Jeffers and Edd Bailey (of whom more will be told). Americans were relative latecomers to World War I. The United States had remained officially neutral for nearly three years after the “Great War” erupted across Europe in July and August 1914. By the time the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, millions of soldiers on both sides had been slaughtered and northern France rendered a bleak wasteland. It was that tardiness, and the subsequent rush to mobilize a nation’s resources, that spawned North Platte’s first canteen along the U.P. tracks — and its undying “Canteen Spirit.”
OPPOSITE: Volunteers, supporters and even a couple of uniformed customers pose in summer 1918 in front of North Platte’s World War I Red Cross Canteen. Its location, a former telegraph office that served as temporary Union Pacific depot from 1915 to 1918, stood west of the 1918 brick depot that would house the World War II Canteen.
1918–19 9
Evening Telegraph | June 28, 1918 Through the efforts of Mrs. Charles [Anna] Bogue, North Platte has been appointed as a Red Cross Canteen Service station. … Seventy women have enrolled, and the captains of the teams have been selected, so the plans are well under way and they hope to soon be in active service. The Union Pacific has donated the use of the old office building and given the local committee au- thority to use it as they please. It is being thoroughly cleaned, [with] gas installed and other fixtures that are necessary. Vice President [William] Jeffers has very generously said that he would do every thing in his power to make the Canteen Service a success. … Hendy & Ogier Auto Co. have given a Ford Sedan to the Sammy Girls to be auctioned off dur- ing the month of July. The girls have decided that the proceeds from the car shall be given to the Canteen work, thus enlarg- ing their field of labor for the boys. The U.P. “office building,” a former telegraph of- fice west of North Platte’s new brick depot, had been temporary depot since North Platte’s 1869 depot and hotel burned down Nov. 17, 1915. The new depot, dedicated March 15, 1918, would later house the World War II Canteen in its first- floor restaurant and 120-seat dining room. North Platte’s Red Cross chapter had donated $500 to launch the new Canteen, the Semi- Weekly Tribune reported June 28. Canteen fundraising became a significant mission of the
began to feel the strain of moving hundreds of thousands of troops, and trains began to be late, the inevitable emergencies arose: it was not enough to have Army dining-rooms at regular intervals along the route, but the Red Cross must be ready to feed and take care of the men at all stations. … And so it was that when the [1918] armistice was signed there were in the United States 781 canteens where 70,000 women with military organizations were doing yeoman service. They not only gave the soldier a lift when he needed it, but they themselves discovered a new meaning in service and came to the knowledge that life is real and that there is beauty in its reality. The first of Nebraska’s 16 Red Cross canteens opened at Fort Omaha in 1917. The first sugges- tion one might open in North Platte appeared in the Semi-Weekly Tribune on April 16, 1918, crediting U.P. executive C.F. Scharmann with recommending the community to the Red Cross. As the Evening Telegraph (which then also pub- lished a weekly edition) would report, it became reality with help from a North Platte-born U.P. ex- ecutive bound for greater prominence in another war and another Canteen. Telegraph | April 25, 1918 North Platte has been recommended as a station for canteen service for troops passing through. This service, which is in charge of the Red Cross, serves coffee and sandwiches to moving bodies of troops.
It took months to draft and train millions of sol- diers, sailors and Marines and ship them over- seas. The American Red Cross prepared to help doctors care for the wounded and boost morale of healthy and wounded servicemen alike. Henry P. Davison, The American Red Cross in the Great War (1920) Red Cross canteens became commonplace near the front lines in Europe and major U.S. cities. They emerged more slowly among U.S. railroads, includ- ing the vital mainline of the Union Pacific. During the early period of mobilization it was not realized that the services of the Red Cross would be needed at railroad stations. But when the railroads
Company D of North Platte’s World War I Red Cross Canteen volunteers included (front row, from left), Blanche Field, Harriet Hoxie, captain Daisy Hinman, Canteen Commander Anna Bogue and Carrie Barber and (back row, from left) Anna Church, Marion Evans, Pearl Shelver, Edith Gantt, Mary Patterson and Ellen Edwards. This group met as a club after the war until at least 1929, the Evening Telegraph reported.
10 CANTEEN: AS IT HAPPENED
The officers chosen to be in charge of the Canteen are: Mrs. Charles [Anna] Bogue, com- mander; Mrs. Millard [Anna] Hosler, assis- tant commander; Miss Sarah Kelly, secretary; Mesdames [Callie] Davidson, [Mildred] Koch, [Ruth] Cool, [LaVanche] Dickey, [Daisy] Hinman, [Nettie] Tiley and [Winifred] Scott captains. Each captain is in charge of a company of 10 women. Telegraph | July 18, 1918 The war Canteen at North Platte, recently opened, begins its usefulness in a lively manner from the very start, and Saturday evening [July 13] their first big work was to care for three car loads of recruits from the east and destined for some western camp. The canteeners in their pretty uniforms pre- sented a most lovely spectacle as they provided the boys with coffee, smokes, ice cream, magazines and post cards, and their noble work brought forth a rousing cheer as the train left the station. Telegraph | July 18, 1918 The overseers of the North Platte Soldiers Canteen, conducted in the vacated U.P. depot, are earnestly requesting all parties who have later-date maga- zines to call them up by phone and they will come and get them or bring them to headquarters, from where they will be distributed among the soldiers who are daily being transported to the front thru this place.
Telegraph | July 18, 1918 The [doors of the] government branch of the North Platte Canteen for soldiers were thrown open yesterday afternoon [July 12], and a large number of our citizens took occasion to inspect the quarters and pronounced the place to be in every part complete and nicely arranged. The rooms had lately been repainted and repaired, and each department presented a very neat and attractive appearance. One room serves as a kitchen and is provided with an immense coffee urn, three small gas stoves, sink for dish-washing and the necessary tables; another room, the largest of the three, is furnished with long tables from which the lunches will be served; the third room is fitted up for hospital ser- vice, in case a sick soldier should be taken from the train. In each of the windows … hangs a banner with a canteen service inscription. …
Sammy Girls, organized by North Platte High School’s female students. The Red Cross Canteen opened to servicemen on July 13, 1918. ABOVE AND TOP: North Platte’s 1918 Union Pacific Depot, which stood until 1973, appears here in a 1920s postcard (top) and its original floor plan (above). The depot’s restaurant area, at left in the postcard and right in the floor plan, would become the World War II Canteen’s famous home.
1918–19 11
This first Canteen’s approach would be replicated during the next war. So would the stream of thank-you letters and telegrams that began arriv- ing almost immediately. Telegraph | July 18, 1918 The following letter was received this morning [July 16] by Mrs. [Anna] Bogue from one of the Sergeants of the first troop of soldiers that went thru yesterday morning. The ladies are more than pleased to know that the boys are appreciating their efforts, and they are more enthused than ever over their work, if such a thing is possible. Beg to say we are more than thankful for the welcome and kindness shown us while waiting this A.M. and desire to show our appreciation through this little note. We know you are with us boys all the time, and we trust to be able to bring back the winners’ end of the scrap before very long. Again thanking you for your kindness. Beg to remain Enroute Eastward, Aboard Train No. 6 July 15, 1918. All Members of Canteen Station:
Company C Canteen volunteers pose in this photo from about 1919. From left are Esther Antonides, Elizabeth LaRue, Amanda Huffman, Anna Brown, Leona Timmerman, Nettie Robinson, Ella Huxoll, Jennie Buchanan, captain Callie Davidson and Anna LeDioyt. This group met as a club as late as October 1937, according to the Lincoln County Tribune.
western part of the state, and they were a husky bunch of Americans too. They remained in North Platte for breakfast, eating at the various restau- rants and assisted by the good work of the ladies of the Canteen. … Tonight another train will pass thru here, and our own kin and kindred will hit the trail for the powder-burnt regions of the world’s greatest battlefield, France. Evening Telegraph | Aug. 9, 1918 Early this morning a special train carrying about 500 recruits gathered up from Iowa, [South] Dakota and eastern Nebraska arrived in North Platte and breakfasted … and were royally served with edibles, reading, etc., by the Canteen here.
The two sergeants had passed through North Platte the day German forces launched their last bid for victory. This Second Battle of the Marne (the first of which, in 1914, had brought the Germans within 30 miles of Paris) had fizzled by the 18th, when French Marshal Ferdinand Foch — with increasingly critical help from Gen. John J. Pershing’s American Expeditionary Force — be- gan driving the Germans back through France. The four months between the first Canteen’s opening and the Nov. 11 armistice witnessed ever-growing troop movements as the Allies smelled final victory. Telegraph | July 25, 1918 This morning, second train number six brought in 556 raw recruits from various sections of the
Sgt. M.C. Fisher, Co. C, 320 Signal Bn., Camp Fremont. Sgt. W.W. Adams, Co. L 12th Infantry, Camp Fremont, Cal.
12 CANTEEN: AS IT HAPPENED
Evening Telegraph | Aug. 26, 1918 Yesterday afternoon, twenty stalwart soldiers and sailors jumped from [the train] and, with a leap and a bound, were in the Canteen Station. One boy carried a tobacco can wrapped in a Red Cross magazine cover and, followed by the other boys, approached the Canteen workers and, with a … little speech, presented the can, contents and all to the workers. The can was filled with money and tinfoil. The boys were mostly British recruits from San Francisco going back to help their mother country. Among them were a number of our own American soldiers and sailors. Thru the gratitude of their hearts for the Canteen service … they made up the purse presented to the local organization. Tied around the can was the following note: Aug. 25 1918. — This money, tinfoil collec- tion from the passengers, American, British Soldiers and Sailors on train … Let the people of your city give to you for your good work till it hurts.
Evening Telegraph | Aug. 31, 1918 San Pedro, Cal., Aug. 26. — To the Sammy Girls of the Old North Platte. Just a line to thank you for the sweater and comfort kit you presented me before leaving. … You folks at home are surely doing your bit in helping to make things nicer for us in service, and I am sure we all appreciated it probably more than you realize. … CLARK R. PAULSON, U.S.N.R. Training Station, San Pedro, Cal. P.S. I am also glad to say that [Red] Cross Canteen at North Platte is the best in the states. I have met several soldiers that have made that remark to me.
In connection with this, [the] Canteen will add a stack of stationery, stamps, post cards and soft drinks to be sold to the passer-thru, which will also be a great convenience to the boys who are in want of such articles and who may have a few minutes to secure them. In conjunction with the above, the old round house has been donated to the Canteen manage- ment for an exclusive shower bath quarters and will be equipped at once with all the very lat- est and best methods available for the use of the soldier and will be provided with a regular atten- dant furnished by the railroad company, and all expenses will be paid by the [rail]road, even to the laundry work and all other necessary cost.
The Red Cross Canteen wasn’t even two months old when railroad officials upgraded it.
Telegraph | Sept. 4, 1918 Supt. [William] Jeffers was in North Platte the other day, and thru his encouragement, the managers of the Canteen here have been empow- ered to make the new extensive improvements now being made in the way of painting, papering and the furnishing of the vacant rooms not being in use at the Canteen building. The additional rooms will be supplied with tables, chairs and of- fice stationery, and a piano will be installed which will provide a rest room for the soldier boy as near homelike as possible.
Claude Piers, Corporal of British and Jewish Battalion for Palestine. C. Piers, Union Bank of Scotland, 62 Cornhill, London, England.
This letter of gratitude further reflected the NPHS Sammy Girls’ Canteen involvement and made a declaration about the World War I Canteen that would be repeatedly applied to its successor.
This ode to North Platte's Red Cross Canteen workers appeared on the Evening Telegraph front page of Oct. 8, 1918. The North Platte Telegraph
1918–19 13
that the local people should help the ladies get their uniforms. With out them, they will be unable to serve, and this would mean the closing of the Canteen Station, which has put North Platte on the map, for it is known from coast to coast. The ladies have planned a number of ways of raising this fund. Their first effort will be to sell real home made doughnuts and coffee at the [elec- tion] polls tomorrow. A day after Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated, German and Allied representatives signed an armistice in a secluded railroad car at Compiègne, north- west of Paris, at 5 a.m. French time on Nov. 11. Fighting ended six hours later, at “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month,” as picked by Marshal Foch. It was 11 p.m. Nov. 10 in North Platte when the armistice was signed (as the time difference was figured a century ago). About 4 a.m. on Nov. 11, an hour before the guns in France went silent, a man named Hoaglund set off about 40 pounds of dynamite in a city park. Quarantines and bans on public meetings were forgotten as North Platte boisterously celebrated the end of “the war to end all wars.” Evening Telegraph | Nov. 12, 1918 Did North Platte celebrate? Most emphatically and vociferously she did. When the news was confirmed here at 4 a.m. the big doings commenced here and did not cease for ten continuous hours. It was a
Shown are some of the thousands of jubilant North Platte residents who filled downtown streets on Nov. 11, 1918, to celebrate the end of World War I.
As the Great War entered its final month, however, the Canteen workers’ job was tragically complicat- ed. On Oct. 4, the Evening Telegraph had reported North Platte’s official introduction to the deadly Spanish influenza pandemic, then galloping through military camps, cities and towns through- out the nation and the European fighting fronts. Evening Telegraph | Oct. 16, 1918 The Red Cross has prepared a quantity of gauze face masks to be used by those nursing and those coming in close contact with influenza patients. These masks may be obtained by any one requir- ing them at the Red Cross Canteen. Pneumonia jackets for severe cases may also be obtained at the Canteen on a written request from the physician.
The Canteen workers took soup and other food to a temporary “detention hospital” that opened on Halloween in North Platte’s brand-new (and still standing) fire station at Front and Vine streets. They also faced an unrelated problem that never troubled their plain-dressed, independent World War II counterparts. Evening Telegraph | Nov. 4, 1918 The local Canteen Service has been advised from the National [Red Cross] Headquarters that it is compulsory for all Canteen Officers to wear the regulation Canteen uniform. These uniforms are quite expensive and will cost the officers about $300. The ladies are more than willing to give of their time and energy, and it is no more than right
14 CANTEEN: AS IT HAPPENED
Evening Telegraph | Dec. 26, 1918 North Platte will long be remembered by the soldier and sailor-boys who passed thru our city yesterday and partook of Xmas Turkey dinner prepared for them by the local Canteen ladies. The ladies spared neither time nor energy in making the day the supreme success that it was. The Canteen rooms were elaborately decorated. Long tables and benches were provided for the boys. In the large room at the west end of the building, a large tree stood from which each boy received a bag of candy, popcorn ball and a small gift. The boys were loud in their praise for the sur- prise given them. Among the boys on the morning trains were 30 convalescents, and to these men who so valiantly fought for us, there was given a special Xmas package to each. In return for their labor, the ladies felt more than repaid when the boys left the Canteen with smiling faces and repeating the oft-heard remark, “what would we do without the Canteen ladies.”
spontaneous jubilation. Somewhat scattering and disorganized at first, it swiftly gathered momentum until the entire populace of North Platte, wild with joy, were joining in the hullabaloo on Dewey street. Although so entirely impromptu, the demonstra- tion was most spectacular and ear-splitting. The whistling of the different whistles at the [North Platte] Water works, U.P. Shops and other places announced the news first, and the crowd commenced to congregate. The band and drum corps soon appeared, and the singing and march- ing commenced and continued throughout the day. A large bonfire was started at the corner of Dewey and Front streets, and the Canteen ladies were soon on hand to take care of the public in the way of hot coffee and sandwiches. About 2 o’clock a parade was formed which tra- versed the principal streets of the city, after which speeches were made from various places in the city. North Platte celebrated, and it was a celebration which will not be forgotten for many months. The Red Cross Canteen operated for 10 months after the armistice, 2½ times as long as its war- time service. If the volunteers needed motivation, they could read the following letter. Evening Telegraph | Nov. 14, 1918 Camp Mills, New York, Nov. 8, 1918. To the Canteen Ladies of North Platte: I am sorry I did not have the opportunity
of passing through my home town on my way east. I hear many compliments paid you on the kind treatment given the boys while stopping there. They have traveled from coast to coast, and they say that North Platte gave them the best reception. Through the Red Cross they have made North Platte known to most every soldier that passes thru. They boys never forget how they were treated and the place they were treated the best. … Your friend, Sgt. William Ritner, Co. D 8th Ammunition Train, 8th Division. The World War I Canteen also set the tone for its successor’s holiday hospitality. (The Siberian reference indicates the French officers were headed for the Russian Civil War, in which the Bolshevik “Red Army” defeated anticommunist “White” forces.) Evening Telegraph | Nov. 29, 1918 The Red Cross Canteen ladies yesterday served 106 turkey dinners to soldiers passing thru on regular trains. Several French officers were served who were on their way to Siberia. Mr. Warren of this city donated two turkeys, and the Canteen ladies furnished the remain- der of the dinner, which consisted of turkey and all the trimmings required to make a perfect Thanksgiving dinner.
A monthly service report gives an idea of the original Canteen’s activity.
Evening Telegraph | Jan. 11, 1919 The report of the Red Cross Canteen in North Platte, as prepared by Commandant Mrs. Chas. [Anna] Bogue, shows that during that month [of December] 5,980 soldiers and 1,236 sailors were served. This required 324 gallons of coffee and 607 Continued on page 16
1918–19 15
dozen sandwiches. In addition, the soldiers and sailors were supplied 2,000 cigarettes, 200 bars of chocolate and 500 post cards. One hundred and fifty lunches, a box of apples and a box of oranges were served to convalescents who were unable to leave the cars. The expense of the Canteen for the month was $669.02 … Evening Telegraph | March 15, 1919 The local Red Cross Canteen received word last evening that 200 wounded men would pass thru North Platte last evening and asked that special
arrangements would be made for the supplying of these men with milk and other light foods. The [University of Nebraska] experimental farm sup- plied fifteen gallons of milk. … The 200 men were enroute to Ft. [D.A.] Russell convalescent camp [in Cheyenne, Wyoming, later Warren Air Force Base]. Besides these men, 400 overseas men were fed yesterday. Trainloads of healthy and wounded soldiers continued to pass through North Platte during the summer. On Aug. 2, 1919, the Canteen women served a special motorized entourage that included Kansas-raised Army Lt. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the future World War II Allied com- mander in Europe and president of the United States. The convoy was driving coast to coast on the six-year-old, largely primitive Lincoln Highway (the future U.S. Highway 30 in Lincoln County), an experience Eisenhower later credited with spurring his interest in the Interstate Highway System that Congress authorized in 1956. Evening Telegraph | Aug. 1, 1919 With the roar of the 72 engines, the drivers of the Motor Transport Train threw into gear the huge motor train, leaving Grand Island at 6:30 this morning bound to North Platte, [scheduled to ar- rive] here Saturday afternoon at about 3:30. This huge train, three miles in length, under the command of Col. C.W. McClure, contains 72 trucks, 250 men and 40 officers, all of whom will
be North Platte’s guests from the time of their arrival Saturday until Monday morning, when they will leave for Big Springs, the next leg of their journey. … The Red Cross Canteen will serve the men with ice cream and sandwiches at all hours from the local Canteen.
A month later, after 14 months of operation, the Red Cross shut the Canteen down.
Evening Telegraph | Sept. 5, 1919 The executive board of the Red Cross at their meeting Wednesday evening issued the closing or- der for the North Platte Canteen September 15th. This canteen has established an enviable record in army and navy circles for its hospitality and good service, and North Platte owes much to the Canteen workers for the untiring work these wom- en have given in placing the North Platte Canteen on the map as one of the best in the country. Over 6,000 men were served in the month of August, but the army, which has just about been demobilized, will not furnish sufficient numbers of transient soldiers [to] pay to keep the Canteen open any longer. Evening Telegraph | Sept. 22, 1919 In appreciation of the faithful work done by the la- dies of the Canteen, the officers, Mrs. Chas. [Anna] Bogue, Mrs. M.F. [Anna] Hosler and Miss Sarah Kelly, entertained the entire Canteen at a luncheon
Patriotic North Platte residents installed this “Welcome Home Arch,” shown here on Jan. 21, 1919, outside the Red Cross Canteen. Long since torn down, the arch bore the names of 871 Lincoln County men who served in World War I.
16 CANTEEN: AS IT HAPPENED
Saturday afternoon at the Elks Club. … [Bogue] read them a letter of thanks received from Gardner Morris [director of the Red Cross Bureau of Canteen Service] in appreciation of their work. … The Canteen of North Platte has made a wonder- ful record for itself and Lincoln County. The Ladies have closed the Canteen for regular duty but will remain in service and will answer special calls. The World War I Red Cross Canteen served 113,190 servicemen during its relatively brief life, The Daily Bulletin would report on Aug. 14, 1946. Stories like this 1955 article in the Telegraph- Bulletin — which quoted Sarah [Kelly] Taylor, secretary of that first Canteen — have kept its memory alive. Telegraph-Bulletin | July 19, 1955 The first Canteen came to attention this week when Elmer Coates of North Platte found a picture of the Canteen and brought it into the Telegraph-Bulletin office. … Whenever a troop train that was bulging with tired and hungry service men was scheduled to make a customary stop here, the women were notified … “We were all subject to a 24-hour call but had special days and times when we were supposed to be on hand,” Mrs. Verne [Sarah Kelly] Taylor said. Mrs. Taylor was an officer for the World War I Red Cross women. “We didn’t always go by days, but mostly in
Anna Bogue and her Canteen mates served hot coffee and lunches to the crews of five Army planes during a cross-country race on Oct. 9, 1919. They landed at a newly designated airfield east of North Platte that would be named in August 1941 for Army Lt. Lee Bird, killed when his plane crashed in San Antonio on Dec. 6, 1918. On at least two occasions (1926 and 1935), the World War I Canteen workers marched in North Platte’s Armistice Day parade. Telegraph readers were reminded of their importance before the 1926 parade by retired Tribune owner and editor Ira L. Bare, who later would serve the World War II Canteen. Evening Telegraph | Nov. 6, 1926 Ira L. Bare, “A News Reel of City and County” All ladies who were members of the Canteen service during the war period will be asked to be in line for the Armistice Day parade. Certainly they should be represented, for none of the stay- at-homes [during World War I] rendered more ap- preciated service than the Canteen corps and none gave of their time more freely. A parade without them would be far from complete. When America was once more dragged into worldwide conflict, the women of North Platte would remember that first Canteen right away. That memory, and their decision to act upon it, would change millions of lives.
rotation of companies,” she further stated. “We boarded the trains and cared for the ill, along with our food program.” … Of the 13 women pictured, seven are still living. They are Mrs. [Hildegarde Clinton] Richardson, Mrs. [Sam] Bergman, Mrs. [Rae] Ogier, Mrs. [Fenna] Simms, Mrs. [Emma] Lannin, Mrs. Taylor and Mrs. [Mildred] Koch. [Other Canteen workers in the published picture were Almetta Coates, Ada Kelly, Anna LeDioyt, Winifred Scott and Etta Derryberry.] Two of the women, Mrs. Richardson and Mrs. Taylor, helped in the World War II Canteen. North Platte’s 1918 Union Pacific Depot can be seen at right, just below the railroad corridor, in this 1935 aerial photo of downtown. Other landmarks still standing in 2019 include the Hotel Pawnee (right of center), the Lincoln County Courthouse (far left) and St. Patrick Catholic Church (lower right).
1918–19 17
18 CANTEEN: AS IT HAPPENED
1941
INSPIRATION
R ae Wilson loved her family. Her community. Her country. She was a leader who spent every last drop of herself, even to the point of collapse. Such is how the love of one can inspire charity in thousands … and change the lives of millions. Rae was born in North Platte on March 31, 1916, to Union Pacific railroader George Wilson and Blanche (Welliver) Wilson. She graduated in 1933 from North Platte High School, where she was a cheerleader her senior year. She helped organize and was elected president of the Mizpah Club at age 13, the Evening Telegraph reported on May 8, 1929. At 15, she led the Cozy Room Club, a 4-H club that taught young people to develop their “head, heart, hands and health.” At 16, she put on Luther League programs at First Evangelical Lutheran Church. She regularly attended club meetings and parties. Rae clerked downtown at O’Connor Department Store, then Davis Drugs, later Montgomery Ward & Co. She rarely stopped un- less illness struck. And illness struck her hard and often — in 1932, 1934,
1938, 1940. Even so, the dawn of 1941 found Rae far away in Arkansas. Her brother was there, called up alongside his North Platte buddies in his Nebraska National Guard unit in December 1940. She wanted to support them. War had broken out in Europe on Sept. 1, 1939. France had fallen in June 1940. Great Britain stood alone but galva- nized by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who had vowed that “we shall not flag or fail” against the barbaric darkness of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and its Fascist Italian allies under Benito Mussolini. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was steadily preparing his nation and people for war. He knew it might well strike from across not one ocean but two. Imperial Japan, hungry to estab- lish its “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,” was prepar- ing to push aside all who stood in its way. Ten days after her homeland’s “day of infamy,” 25-year-old Rae Wilson was among some 500 townspeople who went to greet her brother’s troop train. Or so they thought. What they and she did next has never been forgotten.
OPPOSITE: Rae Wilson (later Sleight), originator of North Platte’s World War II Canteen, is shown there in 1942.
1941 19
Daily Bulletin | Jan. 15, 1941 Rae Wilson Says Cooking Facilities at Camp Robinson Assure Finest Meals for All
By Rae Wilson
(Note — Miss Rae Wilson, sister of Lt. Denver Wilson, both of whom are widely-known North Platte residents, has written the following account of life at Little Rock, Ark., near Camp Robinson where North Platte’s Company D, 134th Infantry, National Guard, is stationed. Miss Wilson is making her home at Little Rock while her brother is stationed at the camp. Her account is of exceptional interest to friends and rela- tives of the men stationed at the camp.) L ITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Just how would you all like to be running around this morning in light summer clothes, no hat, no coat and no worry about “winter sniffles”? Weather in this local- ity, where Camp Robinson is located, is almost heavenly. My first interest in writing this account of the life here for the columns of The Daily Bulletin is to let the mothers, wives and sweethearts of the North Platte boys at camp get a picture from a woman’s point of view of life at the camp. The camp covers 10,000 acres — in fact it’s a city all in itself. The fellows’ tents are practically homes. There are 4 fellows to a tent, and each has
The North Platte Telegraph
a nice big gas stove in the middle of the tent. They have mattresses and springs on their cots. Most of the boys have pictures, clocks, etc., hanging here and there. Their food is the best ever. They allow 75¢ a day for each man’s food allowance. The mess halls are all new. They seat about 200 each. … I have eaten every evening out at the camp and each evening gather all the mail and bring it in town with me. Also [I do] odds and ends of things the fellows want me to do for them. In fact, half of them are calling me “Ma” now.
There is only one thing I wish the folks, sweet- hearts and people would do for the fellows and that is send them lots of reading material. That’s the only thing lacking now. … If there is anything that any of you mothers want me to do for your son or if at anytime you want to come to see us, just address an envelope to Lt. Denver Wilson and I will be glad to arrange all accommodations. Everybody keep the home fires burning and we will be home in a year, healthier than ever.
20 CANTEEN: AS IT HAPPENED
were entertained Wednesday evening in the home of Miss Rae Wilson. The group plan to organize a club in the near future. Telegraph | Oct. 23, 1941 Miss Rae Wilson, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George Wilson, is reported to be ill in her home on East Eighth Street. In fact, Rae had taken to her bed in August and had been ill for a month while in Arkansas (as she had told Daily Bulletin readers on May 1). She was still in her sickbed on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, when news of the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor broke on America’s radio stations as North Platte residents returned from their churches. (The Bulletin published a “War Extra” that day, but no microfilmed copies survive.) Daily Bulletin Editorial | Dec. 9, 1941 “The Supreme Test” And so it has come at last. War, which Americans have been expecting with more or less certainty sooner or later, is here now. … Groups and individuals throughout the coun- try must get the idea that this is a war by ALL Americans for ALL Americans. No individuals, no groups or classes must be given any idea that for their part or their help or their sacrifices they’re going to be rewarded at the expense of any other groups or individuals. THIS IS TOTAL WAR
North Platte had three newspapers during World War II: the evening Telegraph, founded in 1881; the morning Daily Bulletin, started as a free shop- per in 1932 but a full-fledged newspaper since 1938; and the weekly Tribune, which operated from 1885 to 1963. It was this original Bulletin (not related to the weekly paper founded un- der that name in 2003) that would record the Canteen’s origins. Daily Bulletin | July 9, 1941 Miss Rae Wilson, sister of Captain Denver Wilson, said yesterday in discussing her extended visit at Camp Robinson, Ark.: … “I would like very much to organize a club of sisters, sweethearts and wives and young girls of Company D, who are willing in some way to help furnish the recreation hall. Any who are interested, I wish they would get in touch with me. Also if anybody would like to do something for Our Boys there, such as sending a 6 months’ or year’s subscription to a magazine, or maybe seeing about some of them who don’t have mothers or fathers and could help those boys out by writing or send- ing a cake, if these people would get in touch with me, they could help in a million ways. You would be surprised of how many boys [there are] that do not receive any such mail at all.” Telegraph | July 24, 1941 Sisters, wives and sweethearts numbering 12, of men in the U.S. army at Camp Robinson, Ark.,
The Telegraph’s front page of Dec. 8, 1941. The North Platte Telegraph
AND IT CALLS FOR TOTAL EFFORT BY ALL AMERICANS. … Telegraph | Dec. 8, 1941 A short patriotic service was held this afternoon at 3:30 at the corner of First and Dewey streets, at the request of the ex-service men of the last World War … and following this Mayor George B. Dent Jr. gave a proclamation, stating: “I call upon every citizen of this community to cooperate with the government to the end that we may be successful in this conflict. Those of us who are at home have duties and obligations which we must not shirk. ...” Continued on page 22
1941 21
After the proclamation a half minute of silence was observed for the Americans who yesterday lost their lives in the Pacific. Following the service, the North Platte High School band played the “Star Spangled Banner” and the services were concluded.
KNIFE IN THE BACK Like a gunman who strikes in the night, shooting his victim in the back, Japan has struck the United States — her power bombers opening up hostilities with attacks upon Pearl Harbor. … They are naturally being aided in their nefarious scheme by Germany, and so it is not surprising to read that a Wilhelmstrasse spokesman blames the curse of the entire world on President [Franklin D.] Roosevelt, whom he brands as “The Father of War.” … The news of Japan’s dastardly attack spread like wildfire over the country, and it has created a spirit of national unity not experienced since the days of our first world war. Party lines are being forgotten, as leaders of all groups rally to the support of the President. … Every citizen, regardless of race or creed, owes a solemn duty to uphold the President as Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces. The first question now is the welfare of the nation. All other issues must be submerged. We must see it through to the finish.
Daily Bulletin | Dec. 8, 1941 By Mary Ellen Gutherless
Mothers of North Platte whose sons are in the army and the navy and other services yesterday “closed ranks” with expressions of full support for the war and hope of victory. Following are comments from mothers and other relatives of men in the service: Mrs. A.G. [Alice] Artz — “This will be my third war, but I firmly believe in Franklin Roosevelt and believe that he has done his uttermost to keep us out of this struggle. I agree with the presi- dent when he says the sooner we crush the invader, the better.” Mrs. Artz’ son, George, is stationed with the National Guard at Camp Robinson, Ark., as captain driver. … Mrs. E.A. [Delia] McCraw — “If I had a dozen more boys, they could all go to the navy.” Mrs. McCraw’s son, Jimmie, is stationed with that branch of the service at the Philadelphia Naval Yards. … Mrs. J.S. [Ardis] Richards — “I can only say that I hope for peace but there seems to be but one way to achieve it: war.” Mrs. Richards’ nephew, Edward Scott of Lamoni, Ia., is stationed on the USS Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor. The 134th Infantry’s commander, Col. Butler Miltonberger of North Platte, was hunting turkeys near the eastern Panhandle town of Oshkosh when he learned about Pearl Harbor. After he hurried back to Camp Robinson, his unit disappeared from his hometown’s newspapers for 10 days. When they were next men- tioned, it was as the subject of a false rumor that North Platte would remember forever.
Telegraph Editorial | Dec. 8, 1941
22 CANTEEN: AS IT HAPPENED
Daily Bulletin | Dec. 18, 1941 Kin Of 134th Make Boys Happy On Troop Train
T here was hope, then disappointment, then genuine pleasure all in the space of a few hours yesterday in the hearts of hundreds of mothers, friends and sweethearts of the men of Nebraska’s 134th Infantry. It all came about as a result of the “grapevine.” Early yesterday morning the story got around that a troop train, taking soldiers of the 134th from Camp Robinson to an unknown destination, would pass thru North Platte about 11 o’clock. A small group gathered at the Union Pacific station and waited. Shortly after noon, a train pulled in, but it wasn’t that of the 134th Infantry. Word passed that the boys would surely arrive at 3 p.m. A larger crowd had gath- ered at this time, only to hear that a troop train would not arrive in North Platte until 4:30. By this time, the grapevine had run its course, and no less than 500 rela- tives and friends of local men in the service huddled together at the depot. Baskets of fruit, cartons of cigarettes, Christmas gifts and fruit cakes were on hand everywhere. At last the train arrived. A whoop of joy arose from the throng, as open windows in the train revealed soldiers. Only they weren’t members of the 134th. But the sight of the smiling lads, their friendly spirits and their joy at seeing such a reception was too much for the crowd. They gathered around the boys, burdened them down with the gifts they had bought for their own sons and wished them well. As the train left, the boys waved gaily goodbye, thumbs were sticking up out of open windows and mothers were dabbing their eyes with hand- kerchiefs. Some weren’t bothering about the hankies, just crying and not caring who saw them.
The above Daily Bulletin story “jumped” to Page 3, where it was followed by Rae Wilson’s famous “letter to the editor” (see next page). The North Platte Telegraph
Dec. 17, the day that train arrived, had been Rae’s first day out of bed after her latest illness, Telegraph reporter Margaret Brown would write on March 30, 1946. Denver Wilson, who would leave the Army as a full colonel, commanded Company D under Miltonberger. When the crowd saw all the strange faces, Brown wrote, Rae talked to the troop train’s commanding officer and found out that the soldiers were from Company D — but of a Kansas outfit, not their own 134th. A year before her 1986 death, Rae expanded on her thoughts with Telegraph reporter Rose Mary Buhrman: Telegraph | June 2, 1985 They gave their gifts to the strangers anyway, and Rae Wilson [Sleight] went home with an idea in the back of her mind. “On the way [home] I said to Mom, ‘What did you do during World War I?’ and she said they all folded bandages. So I said, why not have food for the soldiers?” Mrs. Sleight said …
1941 23
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