Beryl Walther

              Eric Walz History 300 Collection
Beryl Walther – Life During WWII
By Beryl Walther
October 21, 2004
Box 6 Folder 27
Oral Interview conducted by Boyd Soule
Transcript copied by Luke Kirkham December 2005
Brigham Young University – Idaho
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BS: When were you born Grandma?
BW: April 8, 1922 in Chicago, Illinois.
BS: Did you live in Chicago your whole life?
BW: I live here, except for traveling and trips, until the end of 1943.
BS: How old were you on December 7, 1941?
BW: I believe I was 19 years old.
BS: So three years later you left Chicago?
BW: No that… No I stayed there… Ok ’ 41 and all of ’ 42 and in the beginning of 1943 I
went to Washington to work for the government.
BS: Did you decide to work for the government because of what happened?
BW: Yes that’s part of it.
BS: December 7, what do you remember about that day?
BW: Ok, I was at home, I was getting ready to go to Chicago Stake Conference at
Auburn Square there was a stake calling of a President and I think I had to give a talk at
one of the sessions; the radio came on and announced the attack on Pearl Harbor. I was
so shocked and I felt like it was cataclysmic and I knew it would change my life and I felt
that way and I felt kind of despondent and felt that in a sense that my life was over.
BS: Really?
BW: But, yes, but I knew that we would win and I had no doubt about that, I knew we
would win, then after that that feeling kind of left and I went on with life is what I am
trying to say.
BS: Sure.
BW: I went onto college and I graduated and got a state job but everything changed.
BS: So you heard about the attack and a couple years later you worked for the
government?
BW: No just one year later, I kept on going to college and finished in December of ’ 42
and I took a big civil service junior professional assistant examination downtown at the
big Chicago post office, I think it was the biggest in the world, and there were thousands
of people taking this examination, a lot of them were older and I was one of the first ones
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finished, and I got a very high grade and it was in the civil service, one of my professors
had been one of the heads of the civil service some years before and he encouraged me to
go to Washington DC government job there.
BS: So after the examination, that’s how you got your job.
BW: Oh yes that’s how, I went to DC and then what you do is go from interviews to
different departments and they take the top three and I was one of the three, the civil
department wanted me when I got there but they did not have their funding and they were
waiting for their budget to be passed then when I was there a few weeks I got a call from
the war department and they asked me to come down for an interview, my name was on a
list I guess, I went down to the Pentagon, which is where I worked, and I knew when I
walked into that department that I was going to have that job, I just knew it, it turned out
to be the one, they did not need to worry about funding so they hired me right away.
BS: So what did you do in your job?
BW: Well, I had a classification it was a classified job, I worked with personal and so
some of the things were confidential and you know they checked your background and
your patriotism and so on you know so that did not have anyone who would be a spy or
anything like that, it was very interesting.
BS: So were you typing papers up for people.
BW: No, no I would not type I would go and interview people and then give the papers to
a typist to type up, I did not do that at all, I guess now a days you would have a computer,
but then we had a typist to do that for us.
BS: So your job was… to?
BW: I was the brains, ha- ha, I was the brains for the interview and to write up the reports
and then give it up to the typist to make up and then it would be classified and so on
that’s about it.
BS: Did you make a lot of friends in your job?
BW: Yes, I lived with three girls, one was my sister in a very nice apartment and
beautiful area on 16th street I think it was 2440 16th NW, and that was the street the
playhouse was on at the end of the street, we were all LDS girls and we had a very nice
apartment and we would share our duties and we would each take turns cooking for four
days each just the main meals we would cook and did the shopping too, to share the cost.
BS: Did you all work at the same place?
BW: No we worked different places, my sister worked at the department of agriculture,
another young girl, I think she worked at some place in the war department but I never
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knew where and I don’t remember but we did not work the same places at all, we had lots
of friends and people over and cooked dinners and so on, and do you want to know about
what type of cooking we did?
BS: Sure.
BW: Do you want to know about rationing points?
BS: Sure.
BW: Alright when the war hit us I don’t remember how soon… I think very soon they
started a point of rationing. You couldn’t just go buy what you wanted, the things that
were rationed that I can remember were sugar, juice, meat, can goods, tires, gasoline, I
don’t know what else, the cooking things if you bought fresh vegetables you did not need
points but if you bought fresh meat or canned meat you had to pay points plus your
money, so you couldn’t just get all that you wanted, so it was nice that with four girls that
we had our points together so we had enough and we had very nice dinners, we had a lot
of fresh vegetables we did not use very much cans because of the points.
BS: Was it common to use can produce back then?
BW: Yes, frozen things did not come out until after the war.
BS: What kind of foods did you eat?
BW: I wrote several menus down to my husband during the war, oh we would have roast,
sometimes ham, several vegetables like acorn squash, potatoes, green beans, several
vegetables for the main meal and then the meat but not always, one time I made chicken
noodle you know the real good stuff not canned and that type of thing, then for breakfast
and for lunch we ate at the cafeteria but breakfast we ate at home.
BS: Did you go without a lot of stuff or was it not that big of deal because there were four
of you?
BW: We seemed to have enough, but when I was married and living in Boston and when
I used my points to buy my husband was in the service and would come and visit me like
weekends or when ever he could get off because he was in Rhode Island and I would try
to cook for him and it was very hard because only one ration book that was mine he did
not have one because he was in the service and I would save up my points to make things
for him, like meat and things like that.
BS: So how did you meet your husband?
BW: I met him in Chicago on August 2, 1942 on the church steps a friend introduced us,
a mutual friend, and on November 13, we were engaged so we had a very wonderful
courtship, did lots of wonderful things in the city.
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BS: So did he get shipped off and you stay home?
BW: No, he was transferred after we were engaged at the time he was going to a school, a
navy school at the navy pier in down town Chicago and then he was shipped out he had
been in the service since March or maybe earlier and he finished that and they shipped
him to Rhode Island, Quonset point, RI. Some of the company was shipped to Brazil and
other places in the world but he was shipped to RI and so when I went to Washington DC
to work, he would come down on the leave or anytime he could get off to make the trip,
he would stay at a YMCA hotel and take me out in DC for dinner and so on.
BS: What kind of things did you do for entertainment?
BW: In Chicago?
BS: Yes.
BW: Oh, we went to plays, to the Naval ballroom dancing, world famous and a couple of
movies and the biggest circus in the world, the Ringling Brothers Barnum combined huge
one and to the 1942 escapades, still famous they kept on for years they did ice skating
and you know entertainment and they took me out for dinners, one was to the Normandy
house which does not exist any more, from that place you could see the, I think it was
called the water tower that had survived the big Chicago fire. And we also had guests at
my house together and we always entertained a lot of service people because everyone
wanted to be very patriotic and wanted to do things for the military and he came to our
house often with friends. Also, my sister and I gave a giant Halloween party and it was
very marvelous party and at the end of it I asked him to give a ghost story, we weren’t
engaged at that time but about two months later we were engaged, that was kind of fun.
We had a spook house, we had a big three story house and had big carved pumpkin on
the front porch lanterns and spooks and we had 35- 36 people more service men than girls
but we had a wonderful time and wonderful refreshments.
BS: What type of refreshments did you make with the rationing?
BW: Well my mother made pies and sandwiches you did not need for pumpkins so we
made pie and candies. I don’t remember them being rationed and cider and bread and
everything was very pretty.
BS: So after grandpa was in Rhode Island, did you keep in contact with him there or did
he come down and visit you?
BW: Well I tell you what he did, before he left Chicago, he got an unexpected leave to go
out west to see his family for the Christmas season and it was a terrible snowy winter. I
believe and so he got to go to Elko on the train and there was to much snow to go to the
ranch but his parents came into the town so he was able to see them you know and then
he came back on the train and stopped in Chicago both times and stayed in a hotel not to
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far from where I lived and I was thrilled because I did not know when I would see him
after we were engaged and so I saw him twice then and then when I went to DC we wrote
to each other and he wanted to make a trip when he could and he came down and visited
me about 4- 5 times. I have it written down but I can’t remember, and so that was a very
nice thing to do. And when he came to DC one of the things we would do was go to
church if possible and mutual if possible and we would go sight seeing, the capital
building, the Washington monument, the art museums, and things like that I can’t
remember all of them, but those I remember because they were quite outstanding
memories and I would meet him at the train station and that was a very, if you seen any
of those romantic pictures of World War II, why we could have [ poised] for them.
BS: ( Chuckles) that sounds neat. Did your father or any of your family members ever
serve in the war?
BW: I had cousins in the war, my brother had three children and was married and the
service people called him up to examine him and they did not take him because he had a
football injury from his high school days. He played football and he injured his knee and
so that’s why they did not take him even though he had three children they would have
taken him otherwise, but for his wife and children sake it was a pretty good thing he did
not have to go, but I think he had, the work he did which I didn’t remember was at the
time, but he had to use his car to get to work, so I think he had a little more gas rationing
and when I went back after my husband shipped out. I went back home, he and his wife
took me to the hospital and we had our first child so he had the gas, my father got very
little gas points otherwise so he just put his car in the garage and did not use it until the
war was over. He had a great big Packard and it used a lot of gas so we just used public
transportation.
BS: So public transportation, is that like taxis now in Chicago?
BW: No, street cars were the big thing and there was an elevator system like a subway,
they have now and like a trolley car which they don’t use not like buses but they were
very common then. And all the service men could go free on the street cars.
BS: Did you know any school friends that went to war?
BW: Yes, I had some school friends that went to war, and I also had some cousin who
went to war who died in the Normandy invasion. And his brother paid a visit in the
service and the family was quite devastated over that. Then we had a navy friend ho died
in the service, but I don’t know how that happened, but it was at sea.
BS: How did their families cope with it?
BW: Well my cousin’s family, I think they took it very hard, so I don’t think they took it
very well and the other one the navy friend, it was very hard on his widow, they were a
young couple but after a year or so, she married again. She would write to me, we were
friends and we wrote, it was very, very hard.
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BS: Did the community take it well?
BW: I don’t know, Harold had lots and lots of cousins in the war he had a large family,
but I don’t think any of them died.
BS: Ok, so were you nervous when Harold got shipped out?
BW: Oh very much so, but I always had confidence that he would return, but when I
went home we were going to have a baby at that time, I was going to stay in the
provenience area and my parents suggested that I come home and after I had the baby I
could see how wise that was, I don’t know how I could have ever survived alone
financially or just physically just because of how hard of a job it was, they had this big
house and they wanted me to come back so I did and went back and paid room and board.
I did not want to live off of them, but… and I appreciated it and Harold felt more at ease
too.
BS: So did you send pictures when you had the baby to your husband.
BW: Oh yes, photographs, he sent film because it was very hard to get film but he could
get film so he would send it and I would take the pictures, and I some… I had a
professional photographer take them well several times and I sent them. And then his
father died during the war in a ranching accident and the baby was four months old at the
time and so Harold got a Red Cross leave which was kind of an emergency leave at that
time and he said I did not need to come because it was too much, but I immediately made
plans to meet him out there and so I left Chicago on a train to Elko and he came but he
got bumped all around and he finally got to Reno and he took a bus to Elko so he
wouldn’t get messed up, but we both missed the funeral, but he got there and he got to
see the baby and he was there two weeks and he did get to see us and help.
BS: So in a way it was kind of a blessing.
BW: Yes, but it was very sad because it was very unexpected, it was machinery, so, he
had one brother who was deferred from the war to be on the ranch to keep the ranch
going, there were to be deferments for essential work and also for certain farms and so
on.
BS: Did grandfather try to get deferred as well?
BW: No, as soon as Pearl Harbor hit he went to enlist in Salt Lake and they told him to
go home and they would tell him when to come back, so about a month later he was told
to come back and he was sent to San Diego for boot camp and he was there for whenever
and there he was tested and was decided he was to go to school in Chicago for metal
smith work because he knew a lot about tools and how basic things work, they had huge
teaching programs to get people to do these specialized work.
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BS: So what was his rank and assignment?
BW: When he started, what do you call them, he was a seaman hardly anybody and then
he went up after he graduated from metal school, he became aviation metal smith 3rd
class and he took more tests and studding in Rhode Island and he became 2nd class and in
Puerto Rico, he became 1st class and then he kept studying to become chief, he did not
know if he would make it because so many wanted to be that, but he became chief in the
end which was the highest ranking non- commission officer. So he did a wonderful job.
BS: How long was he stationed in Puerto Rico?
BW: He was stationed there almost two years; he was in the service almost four years. A
lot of his life.
BS: Back then what was your opinion of Hitler and the Japanese Hirohito and Mussolini
during the war?
BW: Well you know they had some songs at the time, praise the Lord and pass the
ammunition that was one of them and the other one was some comical ones making fun
of Hirohito and Hitler, but I think generally people felt very anti- Japanese and not so
much anti- German because there were so many Germans in the states.
BS: Did you have any German or Japanese friends in the states?
BW: I don’t remember having any Japanese friends and not particularly any, oh one thing
I did do when I was a girl was a German tumbling society, but I did not really have any
German friends. My sister and I would go and she was good at it and when I got better, I
competed with the group in the city and I performed on the ringers, or that’s what I called
them when I got more strength, and that was a very fun thing to do.
BW: What are your opinions of the Germans and Japanese now?
BS: Now? Well my husband is of German decent you know and I have some German in
me I think, maybe Swiss. The Germans, in my opinion, are very scientific people and I
think, and generally they’re very stubborn people in my opinion and they are very
friendly, outgoing, cordial with my experience with the relatives, the Japanese, I don’t
remember having any Japanese friends, but I have Japanese relatives.
BW: Do you remember when you first heard about the German concentration camps?
BS: I don’t exactly remember when, I did hear about it I think it was after the war, I don’t
think people knew about it as much, but I had my husband’s brother who was in the war
and was working in the communication department and he was one of the ones who
opened or rescued the concentration camps. I can’t remember the name, maybe Dashall
or something, I can’t remember and he told us personal stories about it afterwards it was
horrible, just horrible.
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BS: How did you feel when you heard about it?
BW: I felt it was a good thing we had the war they did terrible things from things I heard
from the people who lived through that time a lot of people knew about it and that they
didn’t admit it which I didn’t know.
BS: How do you say your life changed as a result of the war?
BW: Well, I consider it changed… who I married, because I would have married
somebody else, because I was semi- engaged at the time and I felt like that my life would
end and also it made a difference in what kind of work I went into and then of course it
was really quite exciting in many ways for me to get out and work in the war effort. I’ll
tell you some funny expressions you hear about the World War II people, they talk about
the war effort, that they use over and over, they also talk about for the duration, I just saw
these things I wrote them down, I never talked about my work at home in my apartment
with my roommates because your never supposed to talk about your part or anything like
that because you never knew if you would be giving a hint to somebody or someone
overhear you and I never talked about it but it was kind of exciting and I went down to
New Orleans part of the time and I got to go to many places that many people did not get
to go. So it was very interesting and I got to go to Boston and I lived there and my
husband would come and visit me, and in Boston I did not have a very nice apartment. I
had a room that I rented it was a very elegant room in a former mansion on Deacon Street
that I rented at first, but it cost so much $ 11 a week that I couldn’t afford it, I told my
husband. So I got one in the upper floor, I was going to move away and I looked and
looked but there was nothing any better so I moved to the third floor and I had a room up
there that was simpler and I think it cost about $ 8 a week or something like that and I had
kitchen privileges so I could go down to the kitchen and I had a little share of the ice box
and a space in the pantry I could put my kitchen supplies, I only cooked occasionally, a
lot of the time I would eat out at the restraints with my friends from work and you didn’t
need points if you ate out.
BS: So it sounds like a lot of good things happened to you because of the war in your life.
BW: Yes, I think a lot of people feel that way it was very, very disruptive, it was
dangerous and exciting, it was, it mixed the whole country up and around the world it
was educational in some ways, of course some people died, I’ll tell you one sad, sad
thing, one day when I was going to work, the office was down by the water front, and so
one day I was walking and there was a lot of service men and there was a young fellow
who had crutches, a navy boy, and I can still see him and one leg amputated, that just cut
me to the bone and I felt so sad and so another thing my husband and I would go to
military hospitals after the war because he had some health problems later and we would
see a lot of people who had gone through a lot so you don’t really see all the results all
the stories of what happened, its not all good some sad, sad, sad things had happened but
on the whole we saved the country and we saved the world, I firmly believe that and
people were very patriotic everybody I knew. I never knew any one who was treasonous
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or anti- war. There may have been some, but I never knew any, the whole country, in
general, was very, very supportive and were willing to sacrifice and go without things
which we did and as time went on the things were less and less available in the stores, the
scarcity would show up.
BS: Do you remember any blackouts in Chicago?
BW: Yes, well I don’t remember in Chicago, but I certainly do in Boston.
BS: What was that like?
BW: Well, its scary because there are no lights on so my practice was if possible to get to
my place where I lived, directly from work or as soon as possible like if I went out to eat
because I knew it would be completely black out and then its black out so you know you
can’t see so its scary ( chuckles) and then you have to get your windows covered you
know but it was definitely spooky.
BS: Did you feel there was a fear of being bombed?
BW: No, I never felt that we would be bombed, now we know we have these terrorists
against us, I have thought of it, but at that time even thought Pearl Harbor was attacked,
and even though Alaska was attacked and we did hear some of these things of course
Pearl Harbor we heard a lot, but and we heard what was told on the radio a lot so that was
in part of everyone’s best interest, but I personally did not feel like we would be attacked
however we had friends who were in the navy and they had experiences with the U- boats
and they were a very great threat to the whole country and to the whole eastern sea board
and I believe the west to but I did not think or hear of that much and so there were a lot of
sinking of commercial ships and navy ships and so on so yes, it was a great threat and it
was a very, very dangerous time, very dangerous, but we all felt a lot of confidence in
President Roosevelt and I think that the war dragged on a long time, but finally it ended.
BS: What are some of the most vivid memories of World War II to you now?
BW: Now!? Oh I think of when it ended it was VE day which was May 8, 1945 and that
meant victory in Europe when I heard that my mother said go to a movie because I was
spending a lot of time with the baby and she said she would watch the baby and I
remember the movie was “ Gaslight” at the Avalon Theater in Chicago, when I came out
of that movie, it must have been a matinee because it was still light, and when I came out
there was all kinds of paper all over the street, and I thought what was happening, what is
this and then I found out then about the war had ended and I just felt a huge load roll off
my back, and that’s when I realized the amount of tension and stress that I had been
under all those years, so that was a really vivid memory and then VJ say was victory over
Japan and that was when the atomic bomb went off and I felt very relieved then because a
lot of friends in the Pacific were going to go there, and Harold could have been shipped
off there any time and of course that’s another area of danger and I thought that that
wouldn’t happen so I was happy for that, and I was happy that the war ended and Harold
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wrote the most beautiful letter home, oh there is peace in the world again and we can live
our lives again, it was so wonderful. And another big memory I have is meeting my
fiancée at the Washington station that was a big thrill.
BS: I bet it would be. Well you did a great job and I thank you Grandma.
BW: Ok, you’re welcome.