Ref:  MAT2_B02

Part B –2

2.      North American Society & Movement

Excerpts & Historical Context: Parallel Lives in Perspective

<<<go back to Paper Table of contents page<<

 

Quotes from interviews of Wanda and Jack

 

Wanda’s Early Life:

 

 We actually moved into Edmonton because our farm had gone under.  Three years in a row we were hailed out.  And it was time for Dede to go into high school.  Because she went into grade nine when we were there.  And it meant she would have to go to Clyde and board with somebody or go to Edmonton and board with somebody.  And my father decided he would get a job in Edmonton and we would go to Edmonton and she would go to high school. – Wanda D. Keefe

 

Wanda with Colleagues  in the Yukon

 

We [Wanda & 3 co-workers: Wink, Jerry & Glenn] are going down the mountain.  And Jerry stands up and she is screaming.  And Wink and Glenn are still trying to maneuver so they can get a hold of the wheel.  And Jerry is screaming.  And I smacked her in the face, and said: shut up! And I'm sitting there going "steer into the side of the mountain!"  And that's how we were stopped; they steered into the side of the mountain. But, it was a horrible experience. – Wanda D. Keefe

 

Jack in the Yukon

 

The Russian subs were there[west coast of North America].  The Russians were up there too because Whitehorse was one of the places they would ship planes to Russia.  They'd [the planes] come to Whitehorse, to Fairbanks and then I suppose they'd jump over.  But I've seen the Russians up there   , I think they had the pilots maybe in Fairbanks, Alaska.  And then they[the Russian Pilots]  would fly them over [to Russia]. I can remember the planes coming through in Whitehorse and I happen to be down at the airfield a couple of times. They would have to check out every thing once they landed.  I can still see the Army mechanics going out there, taking their gloves off.  Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.  So cold they would put their gloves on again and they'd run back in to get warm.  – Jack Keefe.

 

Wanda as Foreigner entering USA

 

JJK:                 [Wanda went] to Montreal, and when she came back my mother said to her: Wanda what was it like?  Oh, she said, It was just a lot of foreigners and me.

 

WDK:              I was disgusted with how they treated the others -- because there was a lot of Russians coming into the country and a lot of other people coming through.  And they treated me very nicely because I spoke English, I was Canadian.  But some of those people who couldn't speak English, that were coming across, they really treated them like cattle.  And I was telling Mom about how disgusted I was.  And I said: "a terrible way they treated the  foreigners" and his mother started to laugh, she said “what do you think you are?” I said you know, you're right, I never thought of that. (Laughter)

 

Interview Abbreviations:   JJK  =  Jack [John Joseph] Keefe;       WDK  =  Wanda Davis Keefe;      AKK  =  Adhiratha Kevin Keefe

 


 

Table of Contents

 

2.     North American Society & Movement.......................................................................................... 1

Jack & Wanda's Parents and Relatives............................................................................................................. 3

Wanda’s Cabinet Maker Father & Great Aunt Athabasca Trail Driver................................................................ 3

Wanda's Relatives served in the Civil War]........................................................................................................... 4

Movement  during Depression and Before War:............................................................................................... 4

Selling family furniture to survive during the depression...................................................................................... 6

People moving, taking odd jobs  “Honey Wagon”, Relief & Welfare.................................................................... 7

Wanda's Schooling and sports................................................................................................................................ 7

Adjustment From One room schoolhouse to city /school -WDK......................................................................... 8

High School Career Planning l  –WDK.................................................................................................................. 8

Polio, Jack Schooling and Sports Illustrated presentation.......................................................................... 9

Principal wanted Keefe to go to a special school................................................................................................. 11

Jack and Wanda’s Yukon Work Experience................................................................................................... 12

6.  Midnight Recreation Picnics........................................................................................................................... 13

Train Travel and Jack & Wanda’s meeting.................................................................................................... 13

.10.      Troop ship reaction to beans, coffee & lecture on patriotism................................................................ 14

11.      Riding on the narrow gage railroad.......................................................................................................... 15

7. Dapper Dan, Jack first day in Whitehorse – meets Wanda............................................................................. 17

12       Jeep backwards down the mountain, Wanda takes charge..................................................................... 18

Radio...................................................................................................................................................................... 18

U     1920's Radio - Happiness Boys Programs................................................................................................. 19

V     Chicklets & Barbeso................................................................................................................................... 19

Film......................................................................................................................................................................... 19

8. Going to Whitehorse, Food, Movies............................................................................................................... 20

Recognizing Films by the tune............................................................................................................................. 20

9.     An Irishman’s story: The great contractor uses the elements.................................................................... 21

War Production Locations -mostly South and West...................................................................................... 21

Jack and Wanda describe their Yukon co-workers:.............................................................................................. 22

19. Soldiers in Yukon: American, Canadian, Russian.......................................................................................... 23

20. Working outside in the cold Yukon................................................................................................................ 24

Communities......................................................................................................................................................... 24

Not returning to Canada.................................................................................................................................... 25

Immigrants............................................................................................................................................................. 26

 

Jack & Wanda's Parents and Relatives

Jack and Wanda were raised in America and Canada in the years preceding the Second World War. During the interviews they spoke about their early lives and some of what they knew of their parents and grandparents families. During the Depression years which preceded the Second World War and continuing through the War Years, many families in North America were uprooted as their members went in search of employment. Jack and Wanda both were part of this pattern of travel in search of work. 

 

Some of the interview stories illustrate that Wanda’s family had a history of mobility dating back to before the USA’s Civil War. This family “history” possibly helped prepare her for her own migration. The next section begins with Jack sharing a bit about Wanda's Relatives:

Wanda’s Cabinet Maker Father & Great Aunt Athabasca Trail Driver

[excerpt for full see jw00au14.rtf para 20]

JJK:                 [Wanda's father] started in life as an apprentice cabinetmaker.  As a matter-of-fact we have the cabinet which he made when he was about 14 years of age.  And it was all made with hand tools.  None of the electric tools or anything like that.  And of course he had been a farmer for years near Clyde in Alberta, [Canada].  Most of the family farmed up there, the brothers and sisters and brothers-in-law. In Clyde, everybody knew everyone else. They came from Halfway Lakes.  They were on the Athabasca trail.  And when [Wanda] would tell me about the Athabasca trail, I would think a big wide trail.  It's a little two by four dirt road.  It goes from Alberta up to Athabasca [see map below]. 

 

 

JJK:              One of your grandaunts, [Wanda’s] Aunt Ella, as a youngster was very blond of German extraction.  Her father was a drover and transported material from Edmonton up to Athabasca, along the Athabasca trail.  And this was back in the 1900s.  She would be one of the drivers. She was a kid about 12 to 14.  And I said to her,” Aunt Ella where did you sleep nights?”  And she said: “Oh, we just slept under  the wagons.”  And they got up to Athabasca where there were just Indians. They had never seen a white woman before.  Since she was very blond, they  would rub her hair for luck.  (Chuckle) [Aunt Ella]  came down to New York when she was in your 90s.

 

Wanda’s immediate family lived in western Canada. However a part of the interview shows that Wanda’s Great Great Grandfather was from Tennessee and had been involved in America’s Civil War. His descendants, therefore like many North Americans, obviously had some mobility.

Wanda's Relatives served in the Civil War]

[Except see jk00ap16.doc para 3 & 4

Common Families involved, Great, Great Grandfather/

AKK                What do you think and specifically about how the common families were involved? [in the USA Civil War]

JJK.                 Well we can look at that from the standpoint of your mother's[Wanda’s] family. Her Great, Great Grandfather was a man by the name of Willoughby. He at the time of the Civil War was a slave holder in eastern Tennessee.  But he loved the Union . And when war was declared, he freed all his slaves and then joined the Union forces. He was in a family that was definitely brother against brother. Some members of the family fought for the South. Other members of the family fought for the North. And he fought for the North and was member of the mounted infantry. There was a 19-year-old who signed up for the South - another William Willoughby. And he was in many battles. His last was the battle of Gettysburg.  On the retreat he was captured at 19 years of age. He was imprisoned in the Baltimore area of Maryland and he died in prison. And that was just one member of the family. But there were many, many of them. There was one member who was a Major. He never fired a gun in combat. He was a Major in the Infantry. For the North. He would go into combat only with a Saber, his thinking being if he fired indiscriminately, he might have killed one of his brothers or his cousins. But if he could see you, he could cut your head off and not have to worry. He knew it was no relative. This is your mother's Great, Great grandfather, Willoughby – on her maternal side.

 

 This next section provides excerpts of stories and secondary source comments which may give some of the flavor of the times .

Movement  during Depression and Before War:

Wanda's parents and siblings were similar to others who had to move around during the Depression in order to find work and keep the family together. Jack and Wands were well aware of the devastation

 

[excerpt: see jw00se30.rtf para 15]

 

AKK:               There was a lot of movement during the war too?  People moving across country.  Jobs were better here -- there.

WDK:              Oh Yeah. Well, that had even started before the war.  Because of the Depression.  Whole families were packing up and leaving.

JJK:                 Sure, the Okies [Oklahoman, Texans and others trying to escape the devastation caused by dry weather in the Dust Bowl and farm mechanization]. They  picked up and went to California.

WDK:             The rest of the country, I mean California was very uninhabited for long time until the big storms, the dust storms and everything in Kansas and --

JJK:                 They used to call it the dirty 30s.  The dirty 30s.  Because of the dust storms.

WDK:              The world really changed tremendously with the second world war.  And it was a terrible war but it also changed the whole economy.

 

[jw00se04.doc para 3]

 

AKK:               You lived by yourself.  And then Gwen [Wanda’s Sister] came and joined you when you were working in Edmonton?

 WDK:             Right. When I finished up at the hospital, and went to work on the south side at the Treasury Department.  In the bank.  My mother and father then went up to Lessor Slave Lake. My father got a job working on the highways. What they called the superintendent of the highways at that point?  A big fancy name. All the roads were gravel and he had a grader and he went up-and-down the roads keeping them in shape all the time.

 AKK:              But, it was pretty good pay for that time?

 WDK:             Yeah, for then it was.  And Gwen and June went with them first and then Gwen had to finish high school, so she came and lived with me

 

 

The Davis family had to sell their furniture when times were bad. The Depression was difficult for families in Canada as it was in USA.

Wanda Davis Keefe, Davis Family

Figure 5 = 4.d       1929       Fred, Wanda, Gwen, Wildie & Stanley Davis                The Davis Family before Babe June was born. Wanda's quote - me in t he bee bonnet & knock Knees. At side of family car - model T?

 

Figure 6 = 4e         1931        Dede, June, Stanley, Wildie, Gwen, Wanda, Fred               A candid Shot of the Davis family before they left the farm in Canada

 

Selling family furniture to survive during the depression

[excerpt see jw00se04.doc para 4]

 AKK:              When was the time you told me it was really tough, where you would get some money together and then you would buy back the beds you sold?

 WDK:             0h, that was when we lived in Edmonton when I was growing up.

 AKK:              That was during the Depression?

 WDK:             Very much so.  After we first moved in there.  We actually moved into Edmonton because our farm had gone under.  Three years in a row we were hailed out.  [Hail killed the crops in the field before they could be harvested] And it was time for Dede to go into high school.  Because she went into grade nine when we were there.  And it meant she would have to go to Clyde and board with somebody or go to Edmonton and board with somebody.  And my father decided he would get a job in Edmonton and we would go to Edmonton and she would go to high school.

 AKK:              And at least she wouldn't have to board then too.  And you would be together?

 WDK:             Right, right. And be with the family. And that's why we moved to Edmonton.  My father had different jobs in Edmonton.

 AKK:              And that was pretty common to everyone at that time for what I hear everybody was moving around and...

 WDK:             Oh, yeah!  It was terrible.  Jobs were scarce.  That's when men were really selling apples on street corners.  I even remember that.

 AKK:              All the way up there?  I know in the big cities down here they were, but up there too?

WDK:              Yeah, they were doing the same thing there.  And they were riding the freight trains.  Wasn't surprising at all to see somebody at your back door asking for sandwich or a cup of soup or something.  And they moved from here to there just trying to get by, trying to live.

 AKK:              And it wasn't considered sort of unrespectable at that time, it was just what did you do.  At least they were moving around trying to get work?

 WDK:             Right, right, right.  And they would come and say "Can I chop wood for the day for a meal?" and all that. No, it was tough, it was very tough times. People are more familiar with it in the United States but it was the same in Canada.  It was exactly the same.

 

 

 

People moving, taking odd jobs  “Honey Wagon”, Relief & Welfare

[excerpt see jw00se04.doc para 5]

 

  AKK:             Basically, people were moving around.  They were doing anything.  They put all their belongings from the farm on the car or whatever and moved to the next town and tried to get something?

 WDK:             We also lived on, what you call here Welfare. We call it Relief there.  But the men worked for it.  They would give them city jobs going around picking up garbage and junk.  They would work so many days for that.  Then they would get tickets for clothes and money for the family.  They would get, vouchers. So my father worked at jobs like that.

 AKK:              Since they did not have something like running sewage from the outhouses, did they have to go around and clean them out?

 JJK:                The honey wagons.

 WDK:             That's right.  They had to go and pick that up.  That was a terrible job. 

 AKK:              Did they have honey wagons down here too?

 JJK:                Not to my knowledge, no. They probably had been in different parts of the states. They just didn't have them in Brooklyn where we're brought up.

 AKK:              But you knew about the honey wagons and you had heard her stories.

 JJK:                Well I heard her stories...

 WDK:             We didn't call them honey wagons up there though.  No, but they had lots of funny stories about it. But the outhouses were built for it, with the trap door that came up in the back.

 JJK:                Sure, when I went with her and met members of her family before we got married they had the back houses right there.  Still there, this is in the city of Edmonton and of course up on Lesser Slave Lake they had the same thing.

 

 

The interviews provided a glimpse of the different type of background and experiences Jack and Wanda had before they met in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory.  The early school experiences may have been the most different.

 

  Wanda's Schooling and sports

Wanda was originally in a one room school house. But at 11 years of age, she moved to the capital of the Alberta providence, Edmonton. Wanda had some initial trouble adjusting to the city but by the time she reached high school she had the opportunity to be considered for a feeder team to the famous Canadian girls Olympic  basketball team.

Adjustment From a One room schoolhouse to city /school -WDK

[excerpt for full see jw00se04.doc para 02]

 AKK:              We were talking about you going from a one room schoolhouse to having 40 children in class.  What was that like for you?

 WDK:             Scary, it was really overwhelming.  When I look back. I didn't like it.  I was very unhappy for quite awhile.  I did not want to leave the farm in the first place.  You leave all the animals ,including  your horse which you rode all the time. All the great things about a farm you leave to go to the city. And then of course there are all the city kids that are making fun of the hicks from the farm.

 AKK:              How old were you?

 WDK:             Eleven.

 AKK:              They all had bicycles when you had a horse?  Some of them had bicycles?

 WDK:             Not all of them.

 

  High School Career Planning l  –WDK

WDK              So, I finished up at the Eastwood school.  I finished there and went to start grade nine, which was high school at Eastwood.  I went there for two years, grade nine and 10.  And then talked my parents into letting me go to a commercial high school.  To switch. Because I wanted to take commercial courses.

 

 

 

Schlesinger reports that in 1935 in New England, basketball was regarded as primarily a pastime for girls [B02-N01]  Wanda has an interesting story about a long-legged Canadian girl drawn to the sport but withdrawing because of some unwanted attention.

 

Basketball  –WDK

[excerpt for full see jw00se04.doc para 03]

 

 AKK:              You knew you weren't going to go to the University so you thought...

  WDK:                        I didn't want to be a teacher, I didn't want to be a nurse.  My father really wanted me to be a nurse.  I had no desire to be a nurse at that time.  And I certainly didn't want to teach.  I wanted to get secretarial skills, which I did.  I went to commercial high school and graduated from there.  We had the Olympic girls basketball team came from Edmonton.  The Edmonton Grads, and they played all over the United States.  Because girls basketball was very much in for those years. I wanted to play and I did play on the team, but they made so much fun of my long legs, and we wore short shorts, so I quit playing.

  AKK:             Was this the other girls who make fun, or the boys?

 WDK:             No, the guys. They would be whistling and would be calling us “snake hips” and all these remarks, and I just hated it.  So I just quit playing basketball.

 AKK:              Was your father encouraging you to play?

 WDK:             Of course. He thought I was stupid when I quit.

 AKK:              You enjoyed it. It was just that other part of it?

 WDK:             I didn't like everyone looking at me and making fun of me.

 AKK:              Did they travel some too?

 WDK:             0h, yeah.  They went all over.  They went all over the United States.  And as I said, I don't know where they did the Olympics.  1936 I think.

 AKK:              Then that was the last one.  The didn't get canceled for the war then?

  JJK:               They canceled out 1940.

  AKK:             So, did you travel with them at all?

 WDK:             No, no, I just played on school team there.  But some also [later played on the Grads].

AKK:               That was the feeder teams?

 WDK:             Right. Right.  The principal of the school was coach of the basketball team

 AKK:              So he was encouraging you.  Were you considered tall?

            WDK:              I was five foot six.  Which was quite tall in those days I guess? But, I was all arms and legs and I didn't like the comments.

               

Polio, Jack Schooling and Sports Illustrated presentation

Schlesinger notes that summers of his youth were haunted by the specter of infantile paralysis, as polio was then known. Children were forbidden from swimming pools and crowded places. [B02-N02]  As Jack Keefe puts it, he was one of the "lucky ones" who contacted polio during that time. The following  excerpt based on an interview for a popular sports magazine in 1987 tells this story best. Jack’s parents resisted placing him in special schools because of Jack’s polio produced disability to his leg. They believed in keeping their son in the “mainstream”. He walked with the aid of crutches or braces and was a very active youth. Eventually Jack excelled in swimming related sports on his high school, college and national ranked community teams.

 

Jack Keefe Family

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Figure 1 = 4.a        1918        Jack and Bessie Keefe with 3 Children: Tom, Frank, & Jack    Jack would be teased later to say his father had the ventriloquist's dummy on his lap

Figure 2 = 4.b       1927       Jack Keefe, in Scout Uniform                Bath Beach, Brooklyn

 

 

Excerpt of Jack's  Story as reported in SPOTLIGHT 23 March 1987, Sports Illustrated

A MASTER OF A SWIMMER :  Undeterred by Polio, .Jack Keefe is a top backstroker at 71

  By RICHARD DEMAK Excerpt:

[for complete text see jk87mr24.doc]       

Jack Keefe always sits with his right leg crossed over his left. That's the way he has sat for nearly 70 years. In October 1916, 18 months after he was born, the poliomyelitis virus withered his right leg It made the leg 4'/i inches shorter than the left one and no bigger around than a the left one and no bigger around than a  Little League bat barrel. Recalling the illness that would change his life, Keefe says quietly, "There were other children in our family, plus all the kids that I played with—the Schlesinger kids and the Greenfield kids, right next door to us. No one came down with polio except me. I was the chosen one.” The chosen one went on to become a superb swimmer with powerful shoulders and arms and a muscular torso that tapered to a slim waist.

 

Keefe was one of the best high school swimmers on Long Island in the early 1930s and later one of the best water polo players in the country. He was, and is, a physical man. He bench-pressed 354 pounds in 1937, when he weighed only 147 pounds. In order to strengthen his upper body, he lifted logs over his head and walked down flights of stairs on his hands. He played baseball, football and Handball. Today at 71, he's one of the best masters swimmers in the country.

 

 After not swimming competitively for almost 50 years, Keefe began entering masters events three years ago. Since then he has rarely finished out of the first five in national championships, and for the past two years, he has ranked in the top 10 in the 70-74 age division in variety of backstroke events. At the 1985 Empire State Games in Buffalo, Keefe won the 50-, 100- and 200-meter backstrokes. He got two fourths and a fifth at the National Masters Championships in Gresham, Ore., last August.

 

His routine there was the same as it is at every meet. He sat on the concrete deck surrounding the pool, his back propped against the stands and his crutches and brace laid at his side. When the time came for one of his events, he hobbled to his lane, his right hand clutched around his right knee so that the arm could thrust the leg forward. He slid into the water, turned around and wrapped his hands around the railing of the starting block. He drew his left knee toward his chest while the foot pressed against the pool wall. The leg was poised to uncoil when he heard the gun. His right leg hung limply beneath him.

 

 [photo Caption page 1 of article: At meets Keefe supports the religious bent of one of his kids. Pictured wearing "Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team" sweatshirt]

 

 

During a race Keefe's backstroke looks like everybody else's, but the splash from his leg kick is smaller. "I try to get some kick out of both legs," he says. "I have a pretty powerful left leg, but the other leg dangles. Someone joked that I might be better off if they had amputated that right leg so that I  could lessen the drag. I guess he's right, but the hell with it."

 

 On July 4, 1983, some 11 months before; Keefe had begun swimming in competition again, William Rynne and his wife, Virginia, hosted their annual Independence Day cocktail party at their home in Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Rynne won the Distinguished Flying Cross in World War II, during which he shot down five planes and later was shot down himself' and tortured as a prisoner of war. Rynne knows something about heroism. But when Rynne introduced his friend Keefe to his guests, he told them that his hero was Jack Keefe.

 

 Says Rynne, "People have given me many medals and dinners, but what I had was just physical courage. It doesn't compare to the spiritual courage of Jack. He's a genuine hero."

 

 Although Keefe's leg kept the hero's hero out of World War II, it didn't stop him from competing in sports. "He was always first over the fence at the Valley Stream pool," recalls Jack Farrell, who has known Keefe since their boyhood days in Queens and was a teammate on their high school and college swim teams. "He used his crutches to vault over." Keefe was part of an athletic family.

 

"My father never pushed us, but he always had all the equipment ready," Keefe says. "He would play catch with me by the hour. I told him I was going to be a big leaguer. He never said anything but 'O.K.' " Before playing basketball at Seton Hall, Jack's younger brother, George, was a starting guard on the New York City championship team  from Andrew Jackson High, the same  school that produced guard Bob Cousy.

 

The best athlete in the family might have been Charlie, another brother. He died at age 14 while exercising in the basement of their house. He was doing chin-ups when he caught himself on a wire and was strangled. For weeks Jack's father would go to the basement and scream. Twenty-nine years later George was killed in a car accident, and that, too, traumatized Jack's father. "It was not exactly the kind of life that my father had envisioned," says Jack. "Two sons were killed and another had polio."

 

 

Principal wanted Keefe to go to a special school

 When the Keefes moved to the St. Albans section of Queens in 1928, the principal at the local public school wouldn't accept Jack; he wanted the boy sent to a special school. His parents didn't believe in special schools. Fortunately, Jack was already too good an athlete to be labeled "disabled," and he gained admission to another public school. As a high school senior in 1933, Keefe won the 100-meter backstroke at the Long Island inter-scholastic championships

 

 [Page 2 Photo Caption: Keefe consistently finishes in the top five in  his age division in national championships Pictured doing backstroke in the pool].

 

 Keefe, however, knew that his leg would prevent him from ever becoming a top-flight collegiate swimmer. So at St. Francis College in Brooklyn he turned his attention to water polo, which required less speed but more stamina. He played goalie on the Central Queens YMCA team that won the Junior Nationals in 1935 and finished second in the Seniors the next two years. He also practiced with the powerful New York Athletic Club team. "When I first met him, the first day of college, he was on crutches, with his  shriveled leg dangling like a dead leaf," says Rynne. "One day he said he'd like me to come over and watch him work out at the New York Athletic Club. I laughed. What was he doing at the NYAC? I went and saw that he was playing water polo with some of the best players in the world. And he was good. That's when I began to evaluate what kind of person was in there. He had the heart of a lion.

 

 

Jack and Wanda’s Yukon Work Experience

 

 

Jack and Wanda met and worked together in the Yukon. I have used their words to give a sense of what it was like for their colleagues to arrive in this new place, adjust and establish new friendships and experiences.

 

 This first story illustrates the long summer nights of the Yukon and that people born in various places who came together in remote locations to work during the War found or created opportunities for recreation

 

Midnight Recreation Picnics 

 [excerpt for complete see jw00se04.doc Para 6]

J.K.                  Now, why don't you tell him [the interviewer] about the dancing and so forth up there in Whitehorse?

 WDK:             He wanted to know about the first date when we met.  That's what you're waiting for.

JJK:                 Right!  (Chuckle) but before that she was in Whitehorse for about six months, it seldom got dark.  So the people up there availed themselves of the opportunity to go partying and to go dancing.  Right Wanda?

 WDK:             And on picnics,  up to Lake Kluane. You'd work until 10 or 12 o'clock at night sometimes overtime and then we would take a picnic lunch with us.  I was very good friends with the baker.  We would  tell him what we wanted, he would pack us a picnic lunch and then we would go up to Lake Kluane or somewhere else.

 AKK:              That was ten miles away or something?  Did you go by horse?  Or did you have a car?

 WDK:             No, some 50 or 60 miles away.  No, no, no that's when we had jeeps and command Cars and things [from the company]

JJK:                 And army jeeps.

 WDK:             And army jeeps.  No, I had quite a summer.  Because it just never got dark.  (Chuckle)

 AKK:              So, you are get home 3:00 in the morning and have to be up at eight?

 WDK:             Yeah, you would get real tired but then you would get your second wind. And it was like... .  Okay, but I was young too.

 AKK:              How old were you there?

 WDK:             21.

 JJK:                By the time I got there in October, it was getting dark most of the time and beginning to get a little bit on the chilly side.  So, her forays into the dancing field in the evening were ended by then.

 WDK:             No they weren’t.  I still went to the dances.  I still went to the dances.

 JJK:                Oh, oh yeah but it was dark.  It would get dark about five and six o'clock.

 WDK:             Right, right that was the bad part of the winter because it was dark most of the time there.  Summer was great.  But in the winter we went to work in the dark and we --

 JJK:                It got light at 10:00 and got dark again at three in the afternoon

 

Train Travel and Jack & Wanda’s meeting

Train travel was an established form of transport for long distance in North America at the time. In A Life in The Twentieth Century, Arthur Schlessinger describes his family’s great travel adventure in 1933. They left by train for Montreal, where they picked up the Canadian Pacific railroad, spending three days on Lake Louise before crossing the majestic Canadian Rockies and going on to Vancouver. [B02-N03]  This western part of Canada was the site where Jack and Wanda met during the War and they also experienced the expansive beauty that Schlessinger described. Lake Louise was specifically mentioned by Wanda and Jack. Like others who served during the war they were in an isolated community. However, they were surrounded by immense natural beauty and their youth led them to explore their surroundings. Some of the stories and interviews touched on their experience of rail at the time.

 

Jack had recently just returned to his home in New York form South America where he had been working in support of the war effort. He now had to travel some distance by train and ship to the Yukon in northwestern Canada where he was to begin work. His story illustrates that some of the conditions of government sponsored travel were not always to the liking of the civilian employees.

Troop ship reaction to beans, coffee & lecture on patriotism

[excerpt, see jw00se30.rtf para 10]

 

JJK:                 So on the way up to Skagway, Alaska, on a troop ship  it was raining and we were getting soaked. And they would give us our beans and coffee.  And these men were in their 40s and '50s, these are guys who are really patriotic.  They were too old for the service, but they wanted to do something to help the war effort.  So, we're are going up there, and its raining to beat the band.  Some of the guys started to protest. So Capt. Brown, he is in charge of the ship, all of the contingent.  He is not the ship captain, but he represents the army, who was bringing us up there.  And some of the guys started to protest.  And he gets up and gives us a big speech on patriotism.  But in the meanwhile it's raining and we are getting soaked and the seagulls are dumping on us.  And he is underneath the tarp, and he is not getting wet at all.  So he keeps going like that.  And all of a sudden some guy yells out "watch out Capt. Brown or those seagulls will make you a major". (Laughter) and with that, he gets mad and he says "Well, you son's of bitches can go to hell.".  And then they took and threw stuff at him and everything.

AKK:               You mean their food, their beans?

JJK:                 And we feel,  we really showed the army today.  We showed the army. But the army showed us..  When we got to Skagway, we got off the ship.  And they could have brought the buses right up to the ship.  The buses were about a quarter of a mile away.  And this Colonel gets up there and says: "Alright you bastards, start walking!"  (Laughter) and we start walking, and its raining, and we are carrying all our gear.  So then the first thing you know, we take the narrow gauge railroad and we go right into Whitehorse.  We get into Whitehorse in the morning and then we got all our gear and so forth, and so on.  Then we march into the office where we are going to be assigned.  And that's how I met your mother.  (Chuckle)    

 

On discussing their experience of traveling to Whitehorse Jacks final leg of his initial trip was mentioned. That stretch of railroad was notorious.  The track was a narrow gage and the train went along the steep side of the cliff..

Riding on the narrow gage railroad

[excerpt, see jw00se30.rtf para 11]

WDK:              And the other day we talked about riding on the narrow gauge (railroad).  And I said to him, oh I'm glad I didn't make the trip.  I never wanted to.  How could you stand it?  He said, it was dark I couldn't see anything..  (Chuckle)

JJK:                 Couldn't see anything, I slept through it (Laughter)

AKK:               Because it was known to be really steep?

WDK               Not only that, it was about this wide across (arms width).  With the wheels, on the train, and you would just look straight down.

AKK:               You mean it was like a single track, and didn't have seats on either side?

JJK:                 No, and it's the big, you know, valleys, deep, deep.

WDK:              No, no, it had sides on the train and everything, but I'm saying, the windows were down that low, and there was nothing on each side.  But the track was there and it dropped. But it was on both sides.

AKK:               Were the trains, narrow trains too?

WDK:              Yeah, and the train could only go one-way.  There was only one set of tracks.  So it got there and then it would turn around and go back. With other people -- traffic, so you couldn't meet anybody.  If you met them (trouble) --.  All these years I didn't know, you know, why he wasn't that much upset about it.  He said, I couldn't see, it was dark. (Chuckle)

AKK:               Because everybody else, who had done the trip, when they told you about it, it was --.  Had you done that trip too?

WDK:              No, no.  I had no desire to do it.

JJK:                 You could see it, you know, when we went along the road.  You could see it.  Later on we saw it.

WDK:              Yeah, oh I could see it, and everything.  It pulled into Whitehorse.  It didn't run for many years

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack and Wanda meet :   

The first meeting of Wanda and Jack also illustrates some of the procedures undertaken:  files reviewed, weather specific clothing issued, the organization of the shared office space  and  how the staff all ate together in a mess hall.

 

 

Dapper Dan, Jack first day in Whitehorse – meets Wanda 

[excerpt for complete see jw00se04.doc Para 7]

 

AKK:               You [Wanda]  saw a number of people who would be coming in and their files.  So you knew that this Mr. Keefe was coming who had been involved in things in South America?

 WDK:             Right, and I also knew he wasn't married, from the [payroll]  files because that's what I had learned to look for.  Because a lot of a the guys who came up there pretended they weren't married or tried to get away with the fact they were married.  But he [Jack] came into the office about 10:00 that morning, because you had already gone to personnel and got things straightened out there?

 JJK:                Yeah, we rode all night over the White Pass and Yukon Railroad. We only got in about six o'clock in the morning into Whitehorse.

WDK:              You, came into the payroll office, and I remember you standing at the counter you had a gray stripe suit on.  Did you have the Hamburg?

 JJK:                And the Hamburg!  (Chuckle)

 WDK:             [To see that sight] You would expect him to come in twirling a cane..  (Chuckle) and I looked up and I thought oh my God!

 AKK:              So, you knew it was him immediately?

 WDK:                         Pretty immediately.

 AKK:              He must have been pretty tan too if he had just been in South America? 

 WDK:             Oh, he was real dark.  And his hair was real dark then too.  And he was so tan.  And I said oh boy, tall, dark and handsome. But then winter came.

 AKK:              Lose the tan.

 WDK:             Right.

 JJK:                And I looked over there and I saw her in the files.  And I said:  Oh, Oh, look at Blondie.  (Chuckle)

 

 

WDK:              And he must have been impressed.  Because we went over -- Kathy Wetteland then was working in the personnel and he checked in with her, I guess they assigned you and then you went and got your clothes.

JJK:                 I had to get all our winter gear and get rid of  my Hamburg.

WDK:              And your blankets for your bed and all that. We used to go for lunch in a big Quonset hut that was a mess Hall.  And we would wait outside until they opened the doors.  I was talking to Kathy and a group of other people and he was with two or three other guys over at the side.  And the next thing I know I hear him going "Oh Kathy, Kathy" you know like Heathcliff?  (Chuckle) and all the time he's doing that, he's looking straight at me. So he comes over and then Kathy has to introduce us.

 JJK:                We were formerly introduced. She used to call me Mr. Keefe.

 AKK:              Kathy did too?  Or just Mom [Wanda]?

 WDK:             No, but he wasn't the only one, I called everybody Mr. And then he came back and they assigned him. My file cabinets were set up, three of them, tall filing cabinets with about this much space [a few inches] in between each one.  And they were trying to organize everybody, people would come in three or four at a time. They put his desk right there behind my file cabinets.  So every time I go to do my filing, there would be this eye looking at me through this (space between the filing cabinets). 

 

Wanda tells a harrowing experience she had while out driving in a Jeep with co-workers:

 

Jeep backwards down the mountain, Wanda takes charge

[excerpt, see jw00se30.rtf para 12]

JJK:                 But, your mother nearly got killed when she was up there.  Tell him the story.

WDK:              (slight laughter -- with hesitation or chagrin)

AKK:               What do you (JJK:) know of the story?

JJK:                 Well, just what she told me you know.  She was in a Jeep.

WDK:              We [Wanda & 3 co-workers] were in a Jeep going up the mountain.  Two soldiers [Wink & Glen]  and Jerry, one of my friends, and I.  And Jerry and I were in the back.  And the two boys were in a Jeep in the front.  And we were like halfway up the mountainside and the roads were gravel roads, and this side of the mountain is here (pointing to one side) and the road is cut into it.  And down here (pointing to the other side) is just -- you know, way, way down.  And Glen, and Wink (spell) decided to change, without stopping the car to change drivers.  So one is going over with the other and the car started backwards down the mountain.  How it shifted like that, (I have) no idea, but all of a sudden we are going backwards down the mountain --

AKK:               Oh, he probably put it in to neutral.

WDK:              Probably, I don't know, I never got that detail.  And we are going down the mountain.  And Jerry stands up and she is screaming.  And Wink and Glenn are still trying to maneuver so they can get a hold of the wheel.  And Jerry is screaming.  And I smacked her in the face, and said: shut up! And I'm sitting there going "steer into the side of the mountain!"  And that's how we were stopped, they steered into the side of the mountain. But, it was a horrible experience.

AKK:               But, you knew to slap the girl and to tell the guy what to do.

WDK:              Right.  (Laughter)

AKK:               "You shut up!  And you do your job!"

WDK:              We were four, scared people after it was over.

 

 

Radio

The Radio was an important medium of communication in the pre war years and it was effectively used by President Roosevelt for his “Fireside Chats” with the American people. Jack’s story illustrates that only some families had a radio when he was very young but that many more were part of a growing audience. By Jack’s teen years his family did have a radio and it was a main source of entertainment. The Radio made a deep impression and Jack even remembers the theme song of a program from 70 years ago as well as various advertisement jingles. During the War Jack implies there was not much new happening with Radio programming.

1920's Radio - Happiness Boys Programs

 [excerpt, see jk00ap16.rft, para U]

52. JJK            Now I was born in 1915. And we didn't have radio until the middle of the 1920's.  And I remember we had little crystal sets and you have a little pointer. And you would try to get this station. And you get WDAK from Pittsburgh and that was it. And then all of a sudden in 1928, the radio came out. And I remember in 1927 listening to the world series in October. At the Schlessingers’ House [Jack’s neighbors in Bath Beach, Brooklyn]. They had a radio. We didn't have a radio and it was great to hear it.

53. JJK            Then of course we moved out to Saint Albens [Queens, NY]  where we had a radio and we would be in front of the radio and you would have certain programs coming and you would just wait.

54. JJK            I remember one program back in the late 1927-1928. The Happiness boys. And I still remember it. We would go to choir rehearsal at eight o'clock. And the Happiness Boys would come on about 7:30 in the evening. So the Schlesinger's were about 60 to 70 feet closer to the church, so we would go over there to listen to the radio. And we would hear the Happiness Boys.

                        How do you do everybody, how do you do?

                        How are you everybody, How are you?

                        Don't forget your Friday date, 7:30 until 8

                        How do you doodle, doodle, doodle, doodle, do!

                        Hello Billy, Hello Billy Jones and they were on the air.

 So then we would hear the last seconds coming on. We would run like heck it was two minutes to eight. We would run down to the church and just walk into the choir room about eight o'clock.

Memorable Advertisers Chicklets & Barbeso

[excerpt, see jk00ap16.rft, para V]

55. JJK            And then there was another one. Singing Sam the Barbersol man

                        No brush, no lather, no rubbing

                        Just wet your razor and begin.

                        Hello folks this is singing Sam the Barbasol man.

56. JJK            And there was another one. [Sing song]

                        Any time your feeling blue,

                        And you don't know what to do.

                        Chew chicklets and cheer up.

                        There is a fresh and minty flavor - and it goes on [ chuckle]

            And then before the war you had..

57. AKK          This is about 75 years ago?

58. JJK            This is going back to 1938. You had programs on Eddie Canter, Fred Alen, Jack Benny, Bing Crosby. And they had them programmed and people would sit around waiting for them. And Mrs. Goldberg. Hello, Molly Goldberg. We would all listen and wonder what was going to happen the next week. We would all be around the radio. Then of course the war came along and everything was static. Then the first thing you know we went to TV.

            Film   

During the 1930's & 1940's film played a great part in reporting on and shaping the North American culture. Movies also confront historians with difficult challenges in the reading of evidence.  It had impact on how stereotypes were made or changed  For example, the satiric woman cheered everybody with her affirmation both of identity and of competence.--[by 1944) Lauren Bacall carried the type from farce into drama and furthered the impression that the liberated female could cope with anything.  Film monopolized public attention. In 1936, sixty nine percent of the population went to the movies at least once each week - a figure that understates the consumption since most movie houses showed double features. [B02-N04] 

 

                While Jack was traveling, even if he didn't go to the evening film showing in town, he could tell what was playing. People returning home from the film would be singing the songs which had been part of the showing. A few of the interviews illustrated that Jack and his colleagues appreciated sharing good food and a well told story as well as going to new movies when possible. 

 Going to Whitehorse, Food, Movies

[excerpt, see jw00se30.rtf para 8]

JJK:                 I remember when we went up to Whitehorse we left New York in a RR troop transport, a train, and we rode a couple of days and we got to Edmonton.  And I'm telling you, we were in camp 150 in Edmonton. And it was the greatest chow I ever had in all my life. It was wonderful.  I couldn't get over it.  I thought, boy, this is really something.  But I got my come-up-ins.  We went from camp 150 to Prince Edward, which is right out near Prince Rupert on the West Coast.  On the train ride there, you had no place to sleep at all and all they gave you was beans and coffee, twice a day.  When we got to camp Edward the food there was pretty good.

 

Recognizing Films by the tune

JJK:     I remember there were movies at that time.  When we were in Edmonton we went to the movies.  What the picture was I don't remember now, but the song was "Buckle down Windsocki, buckle down.  You can win Windsocki, if you knuckle down."  So, I thought was a nice picture.  But then they asked me to go when I was in Prince Rupert.  And I said, “Nah, I don't care to go”.  But I knew what the picture was because when the guys came back they were singing "Buckle down Windsocki, buckle down. You can win Windsocki, if you knuckle down." [Chuckle].  So then we get up to the Skagway, Alaska.  On the way up, we're in a ship called the Ann Henifey, which they used to transport horses in before we got there.  And  it really stunk by the time we got there. Oh, boy, it was something! 

 

 

 

An Irishman’s story: The great contractor uses the elements

[excerpt, see jw00se30.rtf para 9]

JJK:                 So, anyway we would have again beans and coffee twice a day.  So on the way up we were in the inland waterway.  And it was beautiful.  Glaciers and all that stuff.  And there was one big Irishmen from New York, John Flynn. He was two hundred and 50 pounds on the hoof.  And he stood about six feet and he was solid.  We were talking about the construction jobs that we had worked on.  And amongst the group they had been practically all over the world.  And John pipes up and he says,”There's the best god damn contractor of them all”.  And I said,”You dumb Irishmen, who the hell is that?” He says: "Old man nature, old man nature.  The best contractor of them all".  And he says "But it's only right, because he has all those people working for him.".  I said “Who is that?”  He said "All those elements, all those elements."

 

JJK:     So then we get to Skagway, Alaska and they asked me to go to the picture show.  I said I am a little too tired, I think I will just read a book. I knew what the film  was, because when they come back it was "Buckle down Windsocki, buckle down.  You can win Windsocki, if you knuckle down." 

 

 

            War Production Locations -mostly South and West

During the War the biggest growth was in the south and west of the USA. This is where most of the military and production centers were built to support the war buildup. [B02-N05]  Jack and Wanda's work was related to the war effort. However, Jacks work was outside of the USA first in The Caribbean and South America and then in the Northwest of the American continent - Yukon. Wanda's was in the Yukon.[North W] and then in New York. So they both were not part of the areas of the biggest war buildup. In that sense, the stories may necessarily differ from other workers who moved in connection with the War effort. I did not find much in the reference works I consulted about overseas civilian jobs outside the USA. [Check list for references]. This could be an interesting query for future research but outside the scope of this project.

A forty page booklet titled the "Alaska Highway" has been preserved by Wanda and Jack. [B02-N06]   It includes an interesting narrative by Don Menzies and  photos provided by the Alberta Government, National Film Board, Ottawa, Canadian Pacific Air Lines, U.S. Signal Corps and the Edmonton Journal. It is dedicated to the highway builders. In the spirit of the war time, the inside cover assures the reader that "All the material in this book has been approved by the Official Sensors". It reports that at the official opening in 1942, War Secretary Stimson summed up the initial achievement: "Ten Thousand soldiers divided into seven army engineer regiments and 6,000 civilian workmen under the direction of the Public Roads Administration completed the job ..."

 

Jack and Wanda describe their Yukon co-workers:

[excerpt for full see JW00se04.So4.htm para 18]

WDK:              0h, it was a wonderful experience.

AKK:               Were there many people from other countries there?  Or was it mostly just Americans and Canadians?

WDK:              Mostly Americans and Canadians.  There weren't any[others]

 JJK:                That's all.  We had a couple of Eskimos up there.  As a matter-of-fact, I had some Eskimos in my barracks.  And every night they used to beat the hell out of one another.  And we would get in there and we would separate them.  And the next night they would be out there plugging away.  And finally we said well let them… kill one another, you can't stop them.

JJK:                 They probably had something to do with construction.

 AKK:              Why would they start to fight?

 JJK:                It's hard to say.  I really don't know.  Because we didn't speak too much.  We didn't know their language.

 WDK:             The Canadians were from all over Canada.  And the Americans were from all over the United States. But a lot of them were from Kansas City.  Near Kansas City.

 JJK:                Oh, yeah because that's where the job corporate offices were.

AKK    :           The headquarters?

JJK:                 But a lot from Minnesota, an awful lot from Minnesota.

WDK:              Yes, and a lot from New York too -- when you look back.

AKK:               So it was really typical of many peoples war experience?  In that a lot of people had moved to another part of the country.

 

 

Soldiers in Yukon: American, Canadian, Russian

[excerpt for full see JW00se04.So4.htm para 19

 WDK:             Then of course all the soldiers that were stationed up there too.

AKK:               How many soldiers stationed around there?  What were they doing?  Were they guarding?  Or --

JJK:                 I think they were -- didn’t we hear something about 20,000 soldiers?  You see they had a lot of camps all around there.  And they had about 200 women.

AKK:               Was it mostly Canadian soldiers?

WDK:              No, no, Americans.

JJK:                 United States soldiers.

AKK:               But this was all Canadian territory? Were they supposed to be guarding the road?  Was it supposed to be a national supply  route?

WDK:              They were working together.  They were Canadian soldiers too.  But not Canadian soldiers to the extent there were American soldiers.

JJK:                 There were a lot more American soldiers up there.

AKK:               Were they lightly armed? 

WDK:              They were training as well.

JJK:                 They were engineers, and then they were I guess maybe some infantry men.  Because the thought was, there is always the possibility that the Japanese may come through and we had to stop them.  Of course they never got closer then Attu (Aleutian chain), which was thousands of miles from where we were

 WDK:             Yeah, but the Russian subs were right there.  And even though Russians was --

JJK:                 Yeah, the Russian subs were there.  The Russians were up there too because Whitehorse was one of the places they would ship planes to Russia.  They'd come to Whitehorse, to Fairbanks and then I suppose they'd jump over.  But I've seen the Russians up there.

AKK:               Would the Russians go across? In your camps? Or passing through?

JJK:                 No, no, I really -- they would just be a couple -- and maybe they just come in for a plane.

AKK:               Oh, they'd come in and pick up the planes and fly them across.

WDK:              Yes, yes.  The airport was there in Whitehorse.

AKK:               In Whitehorse, not too far from where you were?  So the Americans would fly the plans there, then they would fly over a bunch of Russians pilots, they'd pick up the planes and fly them across.

JJK:                 Yeah, I think they had the pilots maybe in Fairbanks, Alaska.  And then they would fly them over.  You know.  But I can remember the planes coming through in Whitehorse and I happen to be down at the airfield a couple of times.  And they would have to check them out and every thing once they landed.  I can still see the mechanics there, the Army mechanics, going out there, taking their gloves off.  Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.  So cold they would put their gloves on again and they'd run back in to get warm

 

Working outside in the cold Yukon

[excerpt for full see JW00se04.So4.htm para 20

 WDK:             Well, they also had those big like-- you probably saw the pictures of them in the depression, when they have them out on the streets with the homeless people?  Like the big 50 gallon drums and they would make the fires there.

AKK:               Right, with the wood in them. And they would go and get their hands warm because they had to use their hands.

WDK:              I was in the hospital up there, and the pipes went that night underneath the hospital.  One of the water pipes broke.  And they had those [fire drums], it was so cold.  And they are out there and I felt so sorry for them.  Because you could only stay out about 10 minutes working on stuff and then you had to warm up again.

JJK:                 They had to dig down through all the dirt, which you know was frozen.  And then they had to get to the pipes and get to the leak.  And I was in there talking to some of my friends.  And I thought to myself, geeze, I'm glad I'm not a plumber tonight. Going under there and do what they could.

            WDK:              When I look back of over my life, and look at the different sections of it, it would be hard to say what was the most interesting. And yet it was so diverse.  It was so different

 

            Communities          

During the War effort new communities were created. Usually the established community had some suspicion of each new group entering a production locality. But in most communities, as the newcomers were observed to be hard workers and good neighbors, differences faded and a sense of sustainable community prevailed. [B02-N07] 

 

Jack’s South American Friends in Yukon

[excerpt for full see JW00se04.So4.htm para 09

 JJK:                There were a lot of people with the United States engineering department that I had worked with in Trinidad.  After they left Trinidad they went up to the Yukon and so I saw them again.  And we renewed our friendship.  As a matter-of-fact, one of the guys I roomed with in Trinidad, Jules  Kaitul.  He was up there so we got together again.  And Wanda became a very close friend of his after awhile and his wife.

WDK:              They are the ones that we stop with, when we went to Canada in 1965.  .

JJK:                 I know Michael was a little fella. --

WDK:              Again in 1969 and 1970,  on the way back we definitely stopped to stay overnight with Jules and his wife, Helen, in Wisconsin [1969]

 

10. Close Friendships, Canadian and Americans

 AKK:              So he made some friendships that lasted quite a while? Was part of it because there was such close living arrangements too and you worked --

WDK:              Very, very [close friendships].  I don't think that (because of close living arrangements).  It was just nice people from all over.

 

 

            Not returning to Canada

.               Farm Population decline,        

The farm population declined dramatically during the buildup and war years. Roughly 1/5 of the population left for war and production centers. [B02-N08]  Wanda mentioned her experience and why some family members  left the farm after 3 years of crop failure during the Depression Years. 

            New Devices on the Farm       

The introduction of  new devices &increased use of tractor speeded migration from the farm to the city in postwar years    [B02-N09]  Wanda and Jack comment that when her family left the farm when she was 11 years old they didn't have a tractor. After the War most farms did have much more modern "labor -saving" devices and equipment.

 

Once in the production centers or urban environment the young people found many of the trappings o f the modern life they had missed in the countryside and they were reluctant to return. [B02-N10] 

There seems to have been a number of contributing factors for Jack and Wanda not returning to Canada to raise the family as they had planned. One may have been their lack of secure job opportunities and amenities which they were reminded of while they were visiting Jack’s family and friends in NY. The Keefe myth of returning  "to live in Canada" was played out in various years. There were a number of summer visits by members of the NY family to be with the extended family of relatives in western Canada. Jack and Wanda's first daughter [Elizabeth] settled in Edmonton area, married and raised four children there. George, their fourth son worked in the area for a time.

 

 Staying in NY, Wanda has Visa Problem

[excerpt for full see JW00se04.So4.htm para 21]

 AKK:              It must have been quite a shock to stay in New York City if you thought  you're going back to the Yukon or Alaska.  You were very happy there, you know what it's about, you've just gotten married, you are planning on going back together. All of a sudden it didn't happen, and it's a whole different thing that you hadn't expected?

WDK:              Not only that, he had to get a job before - to keep me here.

AKK:               So, it looked like you might be split up?

WDK:              Oh yeah, I had a month's visitors permit.

 AKK:              And even though he was your husband?

WDK:              Even though we were married, when he decided that we were not going back to Alaska we had to find a job here.  Then I had to go back up to Canada, to Montreal.  To get a visa to come in.

AKK:               0h, because you had come in as temporary.  If you had originally knew you were staying, it would probably been okay.  Right?

WDK:              Right, but we didn't plan on staying here.

AKK:               So, did you go all the way back to Edmonton or you just went over the border?

WDK:              To Montreal.

 

 

            Immigrants  

The fate of different immigrants [especially from axis power] during the war was mixed. Italians and Germans were generally accepted. The Japanese most often received harsh treatment of separation to camps away from the west coast. There was some definite stereotyping reinforced by films & magazines. [B02-N11]

During the interviews Wanda shared her experience of how she as a Canadian and other  "foreigners" were treated when as she came over the boarder traveling alone without her American husband.

 

 

[Excerpt – for full see [jw00se04.doc para.21]

JJK:                 [Wanda went] to Montreal, and when she came back my mother said to her: Wanda what was it like?  Oh, she said, It was just a lot of foreigners and me.

WDK:              I was disgusted with how they treated the others -- because there was a lot of Russians coming into the country and a lot of other people coming through.  And they treated me very nicely because I spoke English, I was Canadian.  But some of those people who couldn't speak English, that were coming across, they really treated them like cattle.  And I was telling Mom about how disgusted I was.  And I said: "a terrible way they treated the  foreigners" and his mother started to laugh, she said “what do you think you are?” I said you know, you're right, I never thought of that. (Laughter)

AKK:               They were coming through Canada to come into the U.S.?

WDK:              Yes, yes they were coming across the border.

AKK:               Some of them probably were war refugees?

WDK:              Oh, yeah

 

 

 

Jack and Wanda formed some very close friendships in the Neighborhoods they lived before or after the war. It seemed most of the contact was maintained with the newer friends over the years by initiatives from Wanda and her female friends.  Jack maintained more close contacts with his early friends from his old neighborhood, High School or college and sports buddies. In Seaford Long Island where Jack and Wanda raised most of their children, families were largely from Italian, Irish and other European descent. A future interview could explore in more depth the friendships within the neighborhoods, commuter population and community associations. This could include experiences with Political Clubs, the short lived Block Mothers for Nuclear Alert, Roman Catholic Church,, Schools and after school activities for the nine children such as Scouts, Dance Lessons, Altar Boys, Sports Teams, paper routes and other working arrangements for part time or summer jobs. 

 

END Note list for B-2

 

End Note [EN] Part-Sect-Note

Author

Source

Abbreviated reference to Source

Page

B02-N01

Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.

A Life in the 20th Century

AL20C

Pp 117

B02-N02 

Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.

A Life in the 20th Century

AL20C

Pp 060

B02-N03

Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.

A Life in the 20th Century

AL20C

Pp 094

B02-N04

Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.

A Life in the 20th Century

AL20C

Pp 142, 146, 152

B02-N05

Jeffries, John W.. 

Wartime in America: The World War II Home Front

WA

Pp 073

B02-N06

Menzies, Don. Editor.

The Alaska Highway, A Saga of the North.

AHSN

Pp 001-040

B02-N07

Jeffries, John W.. 

Wartime in America: The World War II Home Front

WA

Pp 087

B02-N08

Jeffries, John W.. 

Wartime in America: The World War II Home Front

WA

Pp 071

B02-N09

Jeffries, John W.. 

Wartime in America: The World War II Home Front

WA

Pp 077

B02-N10

Jeffries, John W.. 

Wartime in America: The World War II Home Front

WA

Pp 080

B02-N11

Jeffries, John W.. 

Wartime in America: The World War II Home Front

WA

Pp 120-133

 

 

 

 

 

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