Adeline Backman

              Eric Walz History 300 Collection
Adeline Backman
By Adeline Backman
Fall 2004
Box 6 Folder 1
Oral interview conducted by Stephanie Kay
Transcript copied by Victor Ukorebi August 2005
Brigham Young University – Idaho
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SK: Where were you born?
AB: I was born in Wilton, North Dakota.
SK: And what year was that?
AB: 1923.
SK: And how old were you on December 7, 1941?
AB: 1941? Let’s see. I was born in 1923 and in 1941, it would be 18.
SK: What do you remember about that day, when there was the attack on Pearl Harbor?
AB: Oh… confusion. We didn’t leave the radio. We didn’t have no T. V. but we had the
radio. We sat by the radio and couldn’t believe what had happened.
SK: What did you think when you heard about the attack?
AB: We couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it that it had happened to Pearl Harbor.
SK: Did you serve in any military organization during the war?
AB: No, but I worked in the defense plant.
SK: And what was that like?
AB: That was just… I don’t know how to explain it. It was just getting up and going to
work and being there.
SK: What did you do exactly?
AB: I was working in the electrical department.
SK: What was your image of Hitler, or Mussolini, or Hirohito during the war? What did
you think about those men?
AB: Oh… I just hated them. I shouldn’t say that, it’s not a good word, but I didn’t like
them.
SK: Did it change your opinions of the Japanese or Germans as a people?
AB: Yes it did.
SK: How did you feel towards them?
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AB: Oh… oh I felt, how should I say it, animosity to them. I just felt… there was this
Japanese person that was in this area, of course they were in defense, oh what…
imagination places they were, but I didn’t like them.
SK: Has it changed your opinions of Japanese and Germans now that you meet?
AB: No, I feel better towards them now.
SK: How did you feel about the Japanese internment camps here in the United States?
AB: Well, I didn’t think they needed to have them here in United States. If they were
born an American citizen here, they didn’t have to have those intern camps[,] no.
SK: Did your family feel a certain way about them?
AB: Yeah they felt the same. They felt like there was no need having to have that.
SK: How did your religious beliefs help you cope with the affects of the war?
AB: Well, I just felt like we had to go along because it was with the things they had
provided for us because it was for our good. I just felt like God was in it.
SK: How did you contribute as an individual in your community to the war effort?
AB: Oh… my parents and I worked in the defense plant and we went along and had to
have the shades had to be darkened and we had a ration book for food, and we went along
with all that[,] that the Government provided us.
SK: So what did you do to entertain yourselves during the war?
AB: Oh we went to movies. I belonged to the USO that you serve… you went down and
helped the servicemen write letters home, or just to be with the servicemen that were
here.
SK: So did that include dancing and things like that?
AB: Yes.
SK: What kind of food did you eat during the war?
AB: Oh so many things were rationed. We had to buy our meat with a ration with a
coupon. Chicken and lamb and fish were rationed, so we ate a lot of chicken and a lot of
fish and a lot of lamb. Mostly like meat and potatoes and a vegetable because sugar was
rationed, flour was rationed. So we had, there was four [ of] us in a family that each had a
rationing book and we had to go buy [ by] those ration coupons.
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SK: Did you have to be a certain age to have rationing book?
AB: Oh I don’t know. I couldn’t say that. I know I was 18 or 19 the rationing book
came to my parents to their home on how many that were in the family then she had to
buy coupons for.
SK: Was there certain foods that you missed during the war that you wished you could
have had?
AB: Not really. We were provided pretty well with meat and potatoes.
SK: How did the war affect your community as a whole?
AB: Well, we lived in an area where… in a government provided home for us over in
Kirkland and that is a little hard to answer.
SK: Were community activities postponed? Was there less activity that way? Did you
have to stay in more?
AB: Things were kind of a blackout you know. So we didn’t get out at night like we’d
like to had. We were pretty well provided with entertainment. There was a lot a lot of
servicemen in this community so we’d try to help them out by taking them to dinner, or
taking them out to like Thanksgiving dinner[,] something like that.
SK: Did you know any young men who did not return from the war?
AB: My husband’s cousin went down with a ship to Pearl Harbor: the Arizona.
SK: How did the family cope with that?
AB: Well, we weren’t very close to the family, so it was hard on us, yes. We had to
accept it though.
SK: What was it like to have a lot of the young men gone to the war?
AB: It was pretty sad. We had to keep busy with other things to keep our mind occupied,
so we didn’t think of them being gone.
SK: Did you have a father, brother, or boyfriend serve in the war?
AB: My boyfriend was. He was in the medical department of the Army and he was gone
for three and a half years. We became engaged in October of ’ 42 and he didn’t come
home until December of ’ 45. I didn’t see him once within that time.
SK: How did you guys keep in touch?
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AB: By writing letters. And then they were… you had to be careful what you would write
about because they blank it all out. V- mail, it was called v- mail letters.
SK: Do you still have those letters?
AB: I have some of them, yes.
SK: So what types of things would you write about to each other?
AB: Just what I was doing and just thinking about different items that was going on.
There wasn’t much you could write about. You had to be so careful with what we said.
SK: How did what you would hear on the radio affect your fears and concerns about him
being out there in the war?
AB: Well, it was kind of rough. Because there what they called… was a woman they
called “ Tokyo Jo” and she was telling things that were not true. And so that was hard to
listen to her. “ Tokyo Rose.”
SK: So were you always concerned that we wouldn’t come home?
AB: I never let that get in my mind. I never let that, I just felt like he was going to come
home yes.
SK: What are some of the most vivid memories from World War II that stand out in your
mind?
AB: Oh the day the peace treaty was signed. I can’t recall really… you know that was a
few years ago. That’s really what stood out in my mind.
SK: Do you remember the day your fiancé came home?
AB: Yes.
SK: How was the reunion? What do you remember about it?
AB: That was such an exciting day. I had just got a new job, when I got the phone call
that he was coming. He was out here in Seattle, sitting out in the harbor area where they
were going to… what do they call it, when they were confined to the ship till they,
everybody was taken care of to see that no disease was coming into the port. Then he
came to Fort Lewis. And that was where he was discharged. But he called and we went
down to Fort Lewis and picked him up. That’s the way it was. We couldn’t go down to
the waterfront ‘ cause he was taken right to Fort Lewis. And we had a car, but we had a
ration coupon for gasoline. But we got extra gasoline to go pick him up that day. It was
just before Christmas, December 23rd, and he spent Christmas with us. Oh it was so
exciting. Oh, it was so exciting. But he was… he had malaria, and he was so yellow from
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taking the medicine for Malaria. He was on the ship that was going in to invade Japan,
when the peace treaty was signed. But the ship went into Japan, and then he was in the
Tokyo area for a while before he come home.
SK: What was Christmas like during the war? Was it a lot different?
AB: Oh it was so different, yes. You couldn’t have lights on your tree. You could have a
Christmas tree, but you couldn’t have light on them because everything had to be in a
blackout. And things were hard to buy, but we tried to go on with our Christmas dinner
with what meat we could buy. But we got along with what family we had out here.
SK: How old was the youngest in your family during the war?
AB: Oh let’s see. The youngest, LeRoy and Mary Jane, about eleven.
SK: Did you try to cover up the affects of the war on them so that they could have
somewhat normal childhood?
AB: Right, we would try to go on like there was no war. But there were so many things
that, you know we had, there were so many servicemen here in this Seattle area that it
was hard to know. You know there was sailors and soldiers and marines all here on the
coast. And we tried to lead a normal family, you know, go to church on Sunday morning,
and have our dinner on Sunday afternoon. Carry on, but it was hard. We left our home
back in Dakota, and come out here, and it was hard. It was not easy ‘ cause you leave all
your friends.
SK: When did you move from North Dakota to Seattle area?
AB: We left in October of ’ 42.
SK: Did World War II have an affect on your life that you would say has changed your
life in someway?
AB: Well, it made me grow up faster. It made me think about what we have. We could
get along with a lot less that what we do now.
SK: Where [ you] ever afraid that your younger brother would have to serve in the Army
in the war? Did you think the war would last that long?
AB: We didn’t think the war would last that long. It was a surprise. We never gave it a
thought that he would be able to go.
SK: How was travel affected during the war? Could you travel, or go on vacations or
anything?
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AB: No, because gasoline was rationed, where if you had to drive back and forth to work,
you had a gasoline coupon an “ A” or a “ C” coupon, and if you got caught, you got fined.
And we couldn’t travel by airplane; we couldn’t go by train, so we didn’t go on
vacations. There was no way. Nobody went on a vacation.
SK: Did you spend time going to the parks or going on hikes or anything for family
recreation then?
AB: Oh yeah. We would go for walks, and hikes, and bicycle riding, and things like that.
But we were busy doing things like that with the family. We knew it was war time and
we had to abide with all the rules and regulations they gave us.
SK: Did you agree with the government in the regulations that they set? Would you
agree that that was the right thing to be doing?
AB: Yes, they had to in order to. We couldn’t buy nylon stockings or anything like that
because they made the parachutes with them. And all the rationing, the rationing was
hard, but you could get along fine. I know that my mom had to get extra shoe stamps
because my youngest brother was hard on shoes. She had to fill out papers for extra
shoes.
SK: Did your wardrobe change during the war?
AB: No, that didn’t seem to change any of us, the type of clothing that we wore during
the war.
SK: Were there happy memories you remember during the war that just stood out;
something fun your family did, or something that was neat that you were able to do
during the war that brings back good memories from that time?
AB: No, I don’t remember of any good memories that happening then. We just lived day
by day. And I was able to take my grandmother back to North Dakota. I did get her on
the train, and get her back. She needed to get back to her family. That was during the
war. I took her back to North Dakota, then I stayed with her for a while, then I came
back home. I had to have a special permit to be able to get her on the train, and a special
permit to leave my job, to take her. For some reason, I can’t remember, she had to go
back to North Dakota for some health reasons, something in her family. It’s been so
long, it’s hard to remember.
SK: Was there a difference in the atmosphere in North Dakota and the Seattle area during
the war?
AB: Well, no. I don’t recall what difference was, just that I know, like I said, gas was
rationed, you couldn’t get around. You had to use the bus, and taxis and things like that.
But I can’t recall what really was different then.
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SK: Now with Seattle being on the coast, were you more concerned with the war in Japan
than in Europe?
AB: Yes. We were. We were very concerned.
SK: What types of things did the radio tell you about the war? Were they specific, or was
a lot of the information censored?
AB: A lot of the stuff was censored. We didn’t really know what was going on.
SK: So what types of things did they tell you? Would the[ y] only report victories, or
would they sometimes report defeats?
AB: Defeats, yeah they would report defeats. They didn’t really tell us too much about
what was going on, but the papers would have a lot of things in them that we would read.
SK: Did they show a lot of pictures in the newspapers?
AB: Yeah, they did. And we didn’t know whether to believe them or not. That’s the
problem with like the radio. Was it true or wasn’t it true? You know, we didn’t know.
A lot of things were hidden from us out here. We didn’t know how close we were until
after the war was over.
SK: What do you remember about the bomb being dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki?
AB: All I know is that it was a great surprise. That’s all we knew about it; just when it
happened; that it was a surprise. We knew nothing about what was going on, that they
were building it, or going to drop a bomb.
SK: Did it give you hope that the war would soon be over?
AB: Yes, it did. It gave us great hope.
SK: Now at the time, did you think the bombing was a good thing?
AB: Well, there were pros and cons about it. I thought it was a good thing, and then,
what really bothered me was the of the children that were hurt in the bombing and the
homes were destroyed. But I kept thinking, “ Well they bombed Pearl Harbor, they didn’t
think of us.” Then I had to get that out of my mind.
SK: What helped you get that out of your mind?
AB: Oh, I just had to think of getting my mind on something that was more, oh I don’t
know how to answer that really.
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SK: You talked a lot about the rationing of gasoline and food, was there anything else
that you had to do without that you remember?
Edited to Here, 10- 14- 05
AB: Well, one incident, well, this was after the war, sugar was still rationed, and we got
married out here after Leonard came out of the service. And I had to go to all the
neighbors to see if I could get extra sugar coupons so I could get sugar so I could get the
bakery to bake me a wedding cake. That was one incident. And it was hard with the
meat rationing. The meat was the hardest. We’d run out of meat where we would have
to eat chicken or fish or lamb, and you got pretty tired of it.
SK: How long did the rationing last after the war was over?
AB: About a year after the war was over the rationing was still, not the rationing really, it
was just hard to get like certain; diapers were rationed. When I got pregnant, then with
that, going to have a baby, then that was rationed. Flannel, they’d make diapers, certain
things. Took a long time to come back to order. Like you could go and buy flannel or
nylons or a white shirt or something.
SK: Now during the war you worked, and you also said that your mother worked, after
the war was over and men started coming home, were you willing and happy to leave the
work field and return to the home?
AB: Yes. Well, after the bombing, and the signing of the peace treaty, well then they let
all the workers go, ‘ cause they were not going to make ships any more. And so my mom
came home. She stayed in the home then, but I had to support myself, so I had to go out
and get another job then.
SK: After you got married did you return to the home?
AB: After I got married; we got married here in Renton Lutheran Church, then we went
back to Dakota to the farm. Did a lot of work on the farm.
SK: Did your mom enjoy being able to be back in the home?
AB: Yes she was. She loved to cook and bake and stuff like that. It wasn’t hard to give
her job up, no.
SK: What did your dad do after the war?
AB: He went to work in the hospital as an engineer in the plumbing department of the
hospital. Yes, the public hospital after the war. That’s where he stayed till he died. It
was hard to find a job after the war.
SK: What made finding a job hard?
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AB: Well, they did not make anymore ships or airplanes, or things like that. And they
didn’t need. That’s when life changed for women. Women were used to staying at home
and taking care of their home, well all these defense plants needed women and workers.
And the women started to go to work, and they were able to buy things that they could
never have before.
SK: When the war was first started, do you remember a lot of boys wanting to run off and
join the war right away to enlist in the Army?
AB: No, not really. They were drafted. Like I don’t think that my husband would have
even went to war if he hadn’t been drafted.
SK: Were there ways to avoid the draft?
AB: Well, like the boys on the farm, if their parents needed them to help work on the
farm, they got deferred, like they called it. Or if you had an illness, but not very many
people were let go because it was just because of some illness or if you needed to support
your family.
SK: Now marrying someone that just came back from the war, was it difficult, did he
have trauma, did he relieve memories; was that something you had to work through?
AB: Well, the first year it was pretty rough because he would never talk about what went
on. Never, but he had malaria when he went in to Japan, and he came home and he’d get
bouts of malaria, with a fever, and sweats and things, and that was hard to live with. But
he never talked about the war ever.
SK: Was that hard for you, him not talking about it?
AB: Yes it was because I wanted him to talk about it, and get off his [?]. But he never
did. He just kept it to himself.
SK: Has he since talked about it?
AB: Oh yeah, he talked about it after. Yeah, he’d talk about it. You’d ask him questions,
and he’d answer you about it.
SK: Does he still hold back certain memories?
AB: Yes, he still holds back some things, but he talks about it more often now than he
used to.
SK: Would he wake up in the middle of the night with nightmares?
AB: Yes.
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SK: What would you do to help him with that?
AB: He would wake up. The things that bothered me was he’d kick so bad at night. He
just kicked me out of bed. He’d kick so bad, and then he’d wake up, and oh he was so
sorry, he was having nightmare. And what the nightmare was all about, I never did
know.
SK: Would you just try to comfort him to go back to sleep?
AB: Yeah, and then we’d talk about it. We’d get up and maybe and have a glass of hot
milk. Then we’d go back to bed. And he’d go back to sleep.
SK: Were you ever concerned that your children would have to fight in another war?
AB: No, I didn’t.
SK: Is there anything else from that time period that you can remember that you would
like to share with me?
AB: There was a lot of things that went on in that time that I; it’s hard to remember these
things.
SK: Are they painful memories?
AB: Oh, some of them are yes. The painful thing was when we left all of our friends and
came out here and stayed then and lost all of our friends. Like, all the people that I
graduated with from high school, all came to California or Washington to work in
defense plants. And they never came back. They just stayed out [ t] here. We’d have a
high school reunion in the summer time, and everybody’d come back, and it was such a
fun time.
SK: Is that why you moved to Washington; to work in a defense plant?
AB: Right. We came out here then. My dad worked in a coal mine, and he decided it
was time to get out. Leonard had gone into the service, and I just came with them then,
and I just stayed with my parents until after he got out of the service. We were to get
married. We became engaged on my birthday that year in October, and we were going to
get married on his first leave home, and he never had a leave home. He was just eight
months, and then he was gone overseas. So we never got married until after he got back.
Three and a half years.
SK: Were you able to send him packages or anything?
AB: Oh yeah, we sent him packages, but it had to be packed a certain way, and what they
really liked to have over there were these little packages of Kool- Aid. So we sent him a
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lot of Kool- Aid, and no cookies or candy ‘ cause it took so long to get there. It was like
shaving equipment and little books and things that they could read.
SK: Did you send him some pictures of yourself?
AB: Oh yeah. A lot of pictures we could send, a lot of pictures.
SK: Would he send pictures of himself to you?
AB: Yeah he was able to. Like he was in New Guinea and he took pictures of himself
and the boys on the beach. Of his tents that he lived in. And he caught a little whale, and
a little shark, and he took pictures like that. That was another thing that we sent to him
was camera and film. We could send that to him. Some times he’d get it, and some
times he won’t.
SK: Was he able to develop the film over there, or did he have to send the film home to
be developed?
AB: No they got them developed over there. How they did, I don’t remember. My mind
is getting short.