YOUR TOWN AND MINE Some 15 years ago, almost to the date, I was traveling on a troop train on my way from Great Lakes [Naval Training Station] to a ship in San Francisco. Being transferred in a group, there were naturally hundreds of other GIs on the train with me, and I’m sure they all experienced the same gratitude as I did. … During our five-day trek across country, we had occasion to stop at many cities along the way and were treated very nicely indeed, between stops, that is, but our stop in North Platte was the most exciting and rewarding one we made in our entire three and one-half years in service. ... As Telegraph editor from 1967 to 1992, Keith Blackledge labored to highlight and preserve the Canteen’s legacy. The Scottsbluff native, who served in the Philippines at the end of World War II, joined the Telegraph-Bulletin as a reporter in 1951 and was managing editor when he left for nine years in 1958. Blackledge relayed this letter in an early installment of his column “Your Town and Mine,” which he would resume upon his return and write until his death on July 5, 2010.
Reunited Canteen workers are honored during one of their summer 1967 revival weeks marking Nebraska’s statehood centennial.
Wells, who was living in Portland, Maine, during World War II, passed through North Platte on a troop train in October of 1943, on his way to the Grand Island Air Base. He visited the Canteen at that time. Then he returned for his second visit in September of 1945. Since that time, he has married and returned to make Nebraska his home. He has a son, Douglas, with the Navy in Boston and a daughter, Sharron, with the WAVEs in Maryland. … Mrs. Jessie Hutchens, one of the original Canteen workers, was at the registration desk, and she is also a North Platte Navy Mother, the group who is serving on this first day of the re- opening. … A highlight of the opening day of the Canteen reunion was scheduled to take place at 2 p.m. when Lt. Col. Richard Smith of
Norman Miller … La Grange Park, Ill. Telegraph-Bulletin | June 14, 1958
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