Foregoing their own exchange, the students decorated shoe and other boxes with colored crepe paper, pasting hearts on them, and made valentines in their art classes to put in the boxes. The boxes were filled today and delivered to the Canteen for distribution on hospital trains today and tomorrow because, as the students declared, “What if there aren’t any hospital trains on Valentine’s Day?” U.S. Marines had landed on Iwo Jima four days before the North Platte papers reported Good Neighbor honors for the Canteen itself and the tiny Keith County community of Roscoe — and a table-turning tale about Gene Slattery. Daily Bulletin | Feb. 23, 1945 The Roscoe community, recipients of the Ak-Sar-Ben “Good Neighbor” award, served at the North Platte Canteen yesterday with the Baptist
women of North Platte. Thirty-four workers from the community, which boasts of 81 population, were on duty. … The Roscoe group brought 2,000 buns, 600 bottles of milk, six hams, eight sheet cakes, 131 dozen cookies, 56 dozen eggs, nine birthday cakes, 16 quarts of cream, 18 pounds of butter, four loaf cakes, six quarts of pickles, pickle juice, two chick- ens, salad dressing, cigarettes, playing cards, nut bread and cigarettes. Telegraph | Feb. 23, 1945 Gene Slattery, North Platte’s ardent Canteen supporter and Nebraska’s outstanding junior “Good Neighbor,” returned Sunday from Bell Gardens, Calif., where he and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Ben [and Margaret] Slattery, and younger brother, Larry, went to visit their daughter and sister, Evelyn, 21, who has been a member of the WAVEs for the past year and is stationed now at San Pedro, Calif. Gene expected a quiet but happy visit with his sister but found that his popularity preceded him and he was feted as the celebrity he has become. J.I. Jackman, of Warner Bros. Studio, presented Gene with a pony named “Babe.” Gene’s first impulse, of course, was to bring the pony back to North Platte and sell it at the sale barn for the benefit of the North Platte Canteen. Fearing just that, Jackman decided to keep the pony in California until this summer and bring it to North Platte himself. “Gene’s generosity with his
possessions is a fine example of what American youth can and do contribute to the war effort,” Jackman said, “but this is a gift and I’d like him to keep it.” … To Gene, the return trip to North Platte was more exciting than the California visit. The train was jammed with sailors coming home from overseas, and Gene and the sailors soon became acquainted. Learning through the North Platte papers what he has done for servicemen, the sailors took him and his parents into every canteen and U.S.O. along the way. With the North Platte pa- pers serving as his introduction, the procedure now was reversed and Gene collected sandwiches and cake from the canteens. He found, too, that the papers were his calling cards and he had to leave them at the canteen. Arriving in North Platte, Gene resumed his role as the North Platte Canteen’s “biggest little boost- er” and took the sailors in the depot and showed them around, making sure that they received their share of the Canteen’s hospitality and homemade food, proving to them that it is the “best canteen anywhere.”
Telegraph | Feb. 28, 1945 Daily Bulletin | Feb. 28, 1945
Omaha, Neb. — Radio listeners from coast to coast will hear a description of the famous service men’s Canteen at North Platte, Neb., to be fea- tured Sunday (March 4) on “Your America,” the Continued on page 92
Soldiers walk down North Platte’s U.P. Depot platform to the Canteen.
1945 91
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