Before we left Pendleton, we had sold our car to Marion's Dad
for one thing because we needed the money and we didn't see how
we could afford a car.
After we had the apartment for a while, I became pregnant with
Phil. I continued working for about 6 months, which is also something
hardly anyone did then, but for us it was a matter of necessity.
The pre-natal clinic for Service Personnel was at Walter Reed
Hospital. By that time Marion had completed his training there
and was back at South Post. The trip out there from Virginia
was a real journey by bus and street car and walking in between
to make connections. We decided we would try to buy the car
back from Straud then because we could hardly imagine going all
the way out to Walter Reed by street car and bus if I was in labor.
Marion rode to the Post with one of our neighbors so the car
was available when we needed it.
Before we got the car back and we had enough days off, we rode
the train home. We got on the Jeffersonian in Union Station in
Washington, which was a through train to St. Louis, it went backward
from Washington to Baltimore and then hooked on to the rest of
the train and headed West. It got into the Union Station in Indianapolis
about 9:00 the next morning.
Washington was a very impressive place to live as you can imagine.
There was always something important going on, especially at
that time. One of the more somber things that went on was when
a pilot was killed and was brought back to Arlington to be buried.
We lived so close that we saw it a lot. During the ceremony four
planes would fly over in formation and one plane was missing to
represent the pilot that had been killed.
Before Phil was born, Mother and Daddy came out to visit us and
brought the cradle that Grandma had raised her family in. (Phil
and Gretchen have it now.) Daddy saved it from destruction because
he went to Grandma's one day and she was chopping it up for kindling
because she didn't think anyone would want it. He repaired the
part she had damaged and refinished and brought it to us. (Besides
she liked to chop wood. One of Marion's favorite stories is the
time we went to see her and she was cutting some wood in her summer
kitchen and he offered to do it for her and she wouldn't let him.
She wanted to do it herself.)
There would be partial blackouts, complete blackouts, temporary
bridges over the Potomac, armed guards posted on all of the government
buildings, and on the bridges. Marion would be confined to the
Base because of a possible air raid. A lot of visiting VIP personnel
from overseas, and all of the other abnormal things that happen
during wartime until they almost seem routine.
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Phil is born to rookie parents. |
Mother came out to stay with us before Phil was born for awhile.
Several of us had planned to go on a picnic to Chesapeake Bay
on a Sunday and of course that was when he decided to make his
appearance. He was two weeks late by that time, so we had just
about given up hope. He was born at 7:05 on the evening of July
9, 1944 He weighed 5 lbs. 15 oz. and was dehydrated when he was
born. He lost a pound in the first few days, got Impetigo and
had to be fed through his stomach. We learned later that dehydrated
babies don't have a very good chance of surviving. We had to
leave him at the hospital for several days after I went home.
Mother had to go home so there we were with a little sick baby
when neither of us knew anything about a baby and no one to ask.
It was a real nightmare for awhile, he was so sick and weak that
he couldn't take much of his bottle at one time so it was a constant
battle to get him to eat and then in between trying to get him
to eat and keeping him clean, we had to care for all of the blisters
from the Impetigo and sterilize everything that touched him, but
we finally got him on the road to good health and when he was
a month old he weighed 8 lbs and we thought that was wonderful.
After we finally got him started, he flourished and grew and
became a real cute little kid with blonde curly hair and brown
eyes. He was much like he is today, he never saw a stranger.
When we would come home on furlough, we would make him a bed in
the back seat and leave in the evening, drive all night and be
in Indiana early the next morning, Going back to having no money,
we started home one time with him in the back seat, food for him,
$7.00 in our pockets, two five gallon cans of gas in the car
and a couple of cartons of cigarettes to trade for gas if we could.
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Snow storm on the way home. |
Another time we started home, it was our first Christmas home
after he was born, there was another couple with us from Ohio
and when we got to the Pennsylvania Turnpike they told us nothing
was getting through but trucks, but we thought that if they could
get through we could so we forged on. Snow drifts higher than
the car. You could just barely see the tops of the telephone poles.
We found out later that they had had 20 inches of snow the day
before. Outside of Pittsburgh, in the small town of Mt. Lebanon,
Pa., the gearshift went out on the car at 3:00A.M. The fellow
with us had worked on a newspaper and he said the only thing to
do was try to find a phone and call the police. Marion and Dick
Schick (he and his wife Issy were our neighbors, and wonderful
friends all the time we lived in the apartments) went out on
the search of some one who would let two complete strangers in
the house at 3:00 in the morning to use the phone.
They found a house of people who were kind enough to let them
in, and believed our predicament. They called the Police, told
them our sad story, and asked could they help us. Very shortly
they came and got us, took us to the Police Station where it was
warm. The following morning they towed our car to a station where
they repaired it, charged us very little and we were on our way
again. That trip took almost 24 hours for a trip that would ordinarily
have taken about 12 or 13 hours. Marion had to get a few days
extension on his leave because we couldn't get back to Washington.
Finally the weather report was good enough that we started back.
There was fog so bad on the way back so that trip also took much
longer than usual.
One of the men stationed at the Dispensary with Marion had been
stationed in the South Pacific. He had Malaria seventeen times
and they sent him home. He also cared for the highest ranking
Japanese officer captured there before he was sent home. Another
of the personnel was seriously injured in the invasion of Africa
and they sent him to the Dispensary for duty also. They all
became our very good friends and visited us a lot since we were
the only ones who had a place off the Base and led a more normal
life than most of the rest of them.
Sometimes during these years, a lot of the servicemen came to
visit with us and talk,etc., one of them mentioned that the thing
for us to invest in if we had any money to invest was plastic.
Now you must remember that at that time we didn't know what plastic
was along with a lot of other things that we take for granted
today. Boy was he ever right!!!!! Too bad we didn't have some
money to invest in it even though we didn't know what it was.
Another if dog rabbit.
We saw many interesting things while we lived in Washington.
We toured Lee's Mansion in Arlington Cemetery, went to the top
of the Washington Monument, went to Mount Vernon, we went touring
around the Tidal Basin to see the Cherry blossoms, the car died,
we were unsuccessful in restarting it and some good Samaritan
pushed us all the way home. We saw Washington Cathedral, which
is absolutely magnificent, toured the Capitol Building, which
is one of the most impressive places, and picnicked on the Chesapeake
Bay. We never got to go through the White House because all tours
were canceled because of the War. We saw the first jet plane
come into the airport, saw Nimitz's welcome home and saw his
name spelled out in letters one mile square by planes that went
over where we lived. We also saw Eisenhower's welcome home with
his name spelled out by planes with letters in the sky. We stood
on Pennsylvania Avenue and watched Roosevelt's funeral cortege
go past (That was a terrible and moving thing). We heard of the
first bombing with an atomic bomb. No doubt, it was a terrible
thing, but it shortened the War and saved a lot of our people.
Also don't ever let any one ever try to convince you that the
Holocaust never happened because after the prison camps were freed
by the Allies, life sized pictures of the terrible conditions
were sent back and were on display at the Congressional Library
and we went to see them-it's hard to imagine anything so terrible.
Everything you have ever heard or seen about it is true.
The War on both fronts was finally over so in March of 1945 we
decided to go home for a few days and to take Phil and leave him
at my parents until Marion was discharged which would only be
a matter of days. Then we could close up things in Washington
and come home for good. What a wonderful feeling that was. After
all that time to finally be coming home to stay! When we got
to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, they had again had a big snow and
since we had experienced that situation once we decided to turn
back and we went back to Washington.
The next morning Marion went to the Post to tell them that we
had come back and they told him that they had called home to tell
us to come back. Neither of our parents knew we were coming (we
were going to surprise them) and of course they were worried to
death because no one knew where we were. The reason they were
looking for us was that they were sending Marion to Ft. Meade
Maryland to the Separation Center to be discharged. It took him
a few days to be discharged and while he was gone another couple
who were going to stay bought all of our things, such as they
were, and were going to live in our apartment until they found
something else. He was in the Navy and had been there before and
had been sent out and been discharged and they had decided to
make their home in Washington. They were originally from New
Mexico.
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