Laura Tunbridge

              Eric Walz History 300 Collection
Laura Tunbridge – Life during WWII
By Laura Tunbridge
February 16, 2003
Box 2 Folder 18
Oral Interview conducted by Amy Thompson
Transcript copied by Alina Mower October 2005
Brigham Young University – Idaho
AT: February 16, 2003. This is an interview of Laura Tunbridge by Amy Thompson.
Okay, where were you born?
LT: I was born in Park City Hospital in 1926 and Dad said that when my… When he took
my mom to the hospital, the snow was so deep that he almost didn’t get there, but he
made it to the doctor’s fine.
AT: How old were you on December 7, 1941?
LT: Better turn it off on me… 1941… fifteen.
AT: Fifteen? Wow. Do you remember that day?
LT: Oh yes. Yes, that’s the day we didn’t look forward to. And it was a shock. We were
wondering why Pearl Harbor had to be bombed.
AT: Did you have church that day?
LT: We were in church.
AT: You were in church when it happened?
LT: Yes.
AT: Wow.
LT: And they, they decided that they best send everyone home, so they closed church and
we all went home and listened to the radio. It was kind of frightening because we knew
that there was a lot of people we knew that would be going into the service.
AT: Oh, really? So it was frightening? Was it frightening?
LT: Um- huh.
AT: Before the attack on Pearl Harbor, how did you feel about the war in Europe?
LT: Well, you heard a little bit about it on the radio and… we didn’t have a TV. And
people would talk about it a lot, but we never dreamed that it would come soon… and it
fooled us. It was just, we felt bad that people over there, the people were being killed and
left hungry and homeless and different things, but it never really did much for you ‘ til, ‘ til
you actually got into it.
AT: What did you imagine Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito ( do you remember those
guys)? What do you feel about those people?
LT: They didn’t know what they were doing! Hitler, I don’t think anyone thought he was
nice. They had a lot, they had a few movies on him, and… would show pictures of him
and everything. He just didn’t look like a kind man at all. And… he, he knew what he
wanted and what he was after. And that was to rule the world.
AT: At the time, what were your feelings toward Japanese and Germans?
LT: Well, to be honest with you, I had no feelings at all. I loved them. We had Japanese
students that went to school with us and I had three, three Japanese friends throughout
high school, and you couldn’t have asked for nicer people than they were. They were so
respectful, and they were invited to my home, and to my folks’ home, and… just really,
really good people. In fact the one, two of them, the one had lived there for years, the
other two had come when they started the camp over here. And… it was kind of hard for
them, they didn’t live in a camp, they lived away from it, but there were a lot of people
that were, “ You’re friends with the Japanese?” I remember my brother, he was in the
service too, he wrote home, I was telling him about these new people that we were
friends with, so, “ How can you be friends with the Japanese when we’re fighting them?”
To me they weren’t, they weren’t enemies because I knew them. And they were, they
were good people. And it was, it was really hard on them…‘ cause they were really,
really, good people.
AT: When did you first hear about the German concentration camps?
LT: Oh, in high school we talked about them. We had a social liberties teacher that really
taught us whatever he knew. And… he told us quite a bit, what he knew. And, oh, the man
I eventually married was over in Germany. He worked in the concentration camps. And
when he came back, he had pictures of them and oh, they weren’t, they weren’t any good.
AT: How did your life change as a result of World War II?
LT: Well, it changed, it changed quite a lot, course, course we had the Depression before
that, but… when the war started in some ways it was better, in some ways it was harder
because gas was rationed, sugar was rationed, produce wasn’t easy to get unless you
raised it your own. And… Dad had to get a little more gas than some people because he
had a truck and hauled things. But most places we walked. If we, I was in the band at the
time, in high school, we would walk over to band practice twice, twice or three times a
week sometimes, and that was three mile both ways, or one way. And… come home in
the dark. There was usually about four or six of us that would go, and we’d come home.
But we walked to town, we walked to church, we walked to lots of places. And we had to
save all the grease, lard, anything that could be used as grease. And… time and again, we
would also… rolled bandages oh at least once or twice a week. And they were sent
overseas. That was fun because a lot of people would get together and just talk and roll
bandages and put them together, it was all ages, the young and the old.
And… when we decided we wanted to have a, kind of a party, ‘ cause we used to
have parties kind of a lot, and… when we wanted a party one of the kids would bring,
maybe a half cup of sugar, somebody would bring a cup of Karol, and somebody would
bring… nuts, or whatever they had, they would bring a little bit of it and then we would
mix it all together, and my folks were lucky, they had cows and so we had plenty of milk,
and other people would make ice cream. And then we’d, see, if we made cookies we’d
bring some flour, shortening, things like that, and everybody shared, and then we shared
whatever we made. Usually we’d put puzzles together or play games… tell stories… we
played a lot of board games, house games, and of course in the summer time we’d play
baseball and things like that outside. And then the… one of the kids, well some, one or
two of the kids would have a car or could get a car, maybe we’d go for a short ride
someplace, and whole groups would go, I mean whole groups, the car would be loaded
down. Movies at that time cost, with a bottle cap, you’d get in some of the theaters for ten
cents, and sometimes we’d walk to a movie. And sometimes we’d just play games at
home or whatever, just sit and talk, visit people, we also had, oh… during, during that
time too, they let, in the schools, they let the, in the summer time, or the spring and the
fall, when the farmers needed extra help, well it was needed with the fellow in the
service, they didn’t have enough help, so they would let school, we started school real
early, usually started at eight- thirty, and we’d usually go into the school by seven and we
would get out about one in the afternoon, and we were expected to go out and help the
farmers with the wheat, or plant, or pull weds, or pick fruit, or whatever. And we were
busy, but it was fun.
AT: How did your religious beliefs help you cope with the war?
LT: Well… personally I did a lot for me because… without, without that faith that they
were doing what the Lord wanted them to do, protect our country, protect our families, it
would have, it would have been really difficult. My brother and a number of cousins were
in the service, and we, we wanted them to come home from the service. One of them
didn’t. Well he did, but he didn’t make it too long afterwards. But we just had a good
time and the strength in my belief of my Heavenly Father and in the fact that we were
doing what we should do made it easier to accept it. We also, oh… yes, we also
bought… so anyway, we bought bonds, sometimes I would put in a quarter… whatever,
buy five stamps and then you go down and buy a bond, buy a war bond. It, it brought
people closer together really in most cases that’s because we learned to work together and
to… appreciate one another and… to just, oh we all wrote letters to the soldiers and the
sailors and whatever, and they enjoyed the letters and we enjoyed writing to them. It was
fun to get letters back from them, see what they were doing, or what they could say at
least. Some of them were on ships, some of them were, now my brother was in England
and then he went over to Germany, some were in Japan or Italy and they all had different
things they were doing and it was really neat, and then, course at the time… when
Roosevelt died and Truman took over, he came through Provo and I was going to the
vocation school at the time. And they let us all go up to the train station to see him. They
stopped at Rocky Mountain Point. And that was a, that was an exciting thing to be able to
see him… say that we got to see the president of the United States. He was quite a, quite
a man. He got out, he just said, “ Hello,” to the people and talked for a couple of minutes,
and got back in, but it was really, really rewarding to see him. ‘ Cause he took over in a
real hard time.
AT: Yeah. You mentioned you had brothers and friends, your brother and your friends
and cousins were in the service. Were there any times where like mail wouldn’t go
through?
LT: Oh yes. Sometimes, sometimes Jack would write home and say, “ I haven’t heard
from anyone for so long, are you sure you’re still alright?” Sometimes it was the other
way around. We would, we would wonder where, if he was alright because we didn’t get
his mail, then all of a sudden we’d get maybe three or four letters at a time. Yes, it was, it
was difficult because they had to sometimes wait ‘ til they got to a place where they could
post their letters.
AT: What were your feelings when the war ended?
LT: Oh… everybody was going to, getting in their cars, going to town. I lived in Provo at
the time. And they were honking their horns; they were doing everything they could to
make noise. And I said “ Mother, we’re going to town.” And she says, “ No we’re not.”
And I said, “ Then I’m going alone.” And so, she went with me. And we went down the
streets with all the rest of the people, honking the car and, or the horn, and just waving
and shouting. Everybody was screamin’, “ It’s over, it’s over, it’s over!” And punning, it
was a funny way to do it, but it was exciting to know that they’re coming home… course
it took a while, but it, but they did.
AT: About how long?
LT: Well… after it was over it took, I think it’s what, was it three? Well, my brother went
over, he was supposed to get a leave before he went overseas, most of them did, but he
never did get one, so we never saw him from the time he left ‘ til the time he came home.
And he was there for probably a couple months before he caught the leave and could
come home and then he had to go back to it for a while. And he was released. But… some
of the others got out a little bit quicker, some of them got, was in a little longer. Some of
them stayed over, like in Germany, some of them were quick to leave, they had to stay in
Germany for six months to a year, just in case. It was… it was kind of like a military
coverage of the area so that if they have any trouble that they could take care of it, like if
the war started on or something. It was kind of hard for some of them to come home.
AT: I know it was, the war was probably just big on your mind when it was happening.
What were, as you had discussions about the war, what were your, like your parents’
views about it? What was, were your views about it?
LT: Well, we all felt like, after it started, that it really was, it was something that was
necessary because we couldn’t just let them… bomb us and do nothing about it. But they
had attacked us; we didn’t attack them. And that was the thing that I think made the
difference, was because we didn’t start the war; we didn’t want the war, but when they
come and start bombing your things and your home, you’re going to fight back. And that
was the one thing I think helped with the Church was because we were told that, that we
were supposed to protect our homeland, and our, and our homes, and our families. And
that’s the way we felt that we were doing it. We didn’t get out an awful lot because you
just didn’t go out and spend, spend, spend, but we didn’t do that anyways, so it didn’t
make too much a difference.
AT: Can you tell me more about rationing?
LT: Rations? Yeah, they, I used to have some; well I haven’t got them anymore. They
were just… kind of like little stamps and they would come in a book, and we’d have so
many we could use. If you used them all right away you went without for a month or so.
They’d usually come out once a month and you had so many that you could use. And that
was the way we got sugar, and gas, and… basically that was the two things. I remember
we had to save old tires ‘ cause they, we used the rubber. We had to save all the grease,
drippings, and stuff from the meat and whatever. And… they used that and whatever,
there was something else, something about my parents, we saved everything. Oh… car oil
too, things like that. We used and reused things like that. Uh… sugar we were careful of,
the gas you were careful of. You used the, we used the car when we absolutely had to.
When we could walk, to go to church it was about a mile and a half, probably a three-mile
walk both, or one, or both ways. So that would be about a mile and a half, but it
wasn’t bad, we just got up a little earlier. And everybody was walking, so you walked
with them and it was fun.
AT: So did you ever go visit someone, like far away, or did you just not go?
LT: Very… I don’t remember going anywhere while the war was on, except, no, I was
trying to think if we went to Colorado one time. No, because you just didn’t have the gas
to do it with. You had to keep that for farming or whatever. That was another thing.
While my brother, my dad did a lot of spray work for people with a, he had a big sprayer,
and we’d go out and spray the fruit trees and things. And usually I drove them while the
team, while my brother and my dad would spray. When he was gone, Dad didn’t have
anyone to help him, so I helped him. I learned to use a spray gun and spray trees too.
And… everybody was doing things like that to make it easier.
AT: Did the crops that you grow change at all during the war?
LT: No, just harder to keep up to. We… we had a, we raised peas for the cannery. And so
when the peas were on then Dad could use the truck to haul them down to the cannery.
We would, we would pull of the vines and all. Sometime we had to go off the peas, and
sometimes we didn’t. Depended on what they wanted them for. If they wanted to use the
peas then we had to pull off the peas and they took them separately. Sometimes we just
did the vines. Sometimes they took it all. And tomatoes, they raised and canned them.
And everybody just pitched in and helped. And at that time the Church had a lot of farms.
Some were grapes, some were tomatoes, some beans, some potatoes, onions. That’s the
main ones that I can think of. And the wards would take turns going out and working in
the fields with the produce: either weeding, hoeing… or harvesting. That was fun when
we’d get all the people out there. And we just had a ball.
AT: So you mentioned that the war kind of brought the community together. Did it have
any negative affects on the community?
LT: Not, not to my knowledge. I can’t remember any in… we had a, quite a few Jewish
people in Provo at that time. And… I don’t even recall the Jewish people being ignored of
anything. They had a store of their own. And it was run completely by, it wasn’t just one
family, but they would come, the Jewish people were there, and they would come in and
they would all… invest in this store. And I don’t, I don’t remember anyone ever putting
them down. We had some Italian people, some German people, and different
nationalities, and I don’t recall any ever having any trouble with it. Even the Japanese
people were treated basically good, other than people who were in the camp. And we
didn’t, we didn’t like the way that they were treated sometimes. They were, they lived
here, they were born here, a lot of them, not all of them, but a lot of them, and yet they
had to stay in this camp because we were told they were an enemy. And that was
difficult. And other than that, that was the only thing I could think of that was, in my
eyes, was negative.
AT: What was it like to have all the young men go off to war?
LT: Oh, that was, to see them in the uniforms, it was, they looked so neat, so clean, so
grown up. But it was very, very difficult. We knew they were going off for a good
reason, and we knew that they, you just prayed that they would come home. But it was, it
was hard. But they all, the guys themselves, I don’t, in fact I have one cousin that was
left, nurse, she was a nurse. And I don’t remember any of them ever regretting that they
had gone. They didn’t, none of them really talked about the service a lot once they got
home. There’s things now with my brother that I bet ya, you could ask him now and he
wouldn’t… probably talk about it. But… they came home, they were glad to be home. It
was exciting, it was exciting for them to go, and yet it was pro… but I don’t think there’s
one of them that minded to go.
AT: How did the war change your future plans?
LT: Probably not as much as it would have done had I been older. But at the time… well I
think it helped in a way because it helped you to stop to realize that you don’t always
know what was going to happen tomorrow. And you had to, you had to learn to be
prepared for, in some, in some respects it made you, it made you, kind of look ahead a
little bit and think, “ Now what do I want to do with myself? Do I want to just… do I want
to get married and have a family? Do I want to work first? Just what do I want to do?”
Course when the war was over everyone wanted to get busy and do what they could to
help. And so, that’s one reason why I went into vocation school, rather than college,
‘ cause I could get, I could finish the course in a years time, and then I could go to work.
But I’ve never regretted it. I, I had good… training and a good teacher, good teachers.
And they drilled us. I learned more in time, it was fun. She, she’d play music and we’d
type to the music, you had to type in rhythm, and it was so much to learn than school. I
learned farm work. I learned far more than what you get at school. Anyway that I could
go to school on timing, most of us know that we had good schools. And the teachers were
really, just to show you, my brother had not graduated from high school, and he had to go
into the service and so, he wanted to graduate, so the teachers got together, and they
planned a course for him that if he could do while he was overseas, if he could do this,
then they would let him graduate, and he did it, turned it in, and he was able to graduate.
AT: Did they mail him a diploma or anything, or to your parents?
LT: No, they just gave it to us to keep. It was neat.
AT: So, while you were going to school, were there any young men going to school also
at the vocational school?
LT: Oh yes, yes there were, there were a lot of them at… they called it the four F’s, in
other words they, they had health problems of some kind. Some of them couldn’t hear so,
too well, some of them had health problems and there were many different things that
they kept out for, they just called it four F. So they would, stayed home, and some work
in the factories, some of them worked in the farm, some… just whatever they could do.
They did their share… in a different way.
AT: Do you remember many of the women going into the factories or…?
LT: What… there were quite a few, yes, especially the last part, towards the later part of
the war. There were, there were quite a few of them, but not like there is today. Today,
most of them work, in one way or another.
AT: When the war ended, how was it, how long did it take, or how was it just trying to
get back into the normal routine of life?
LT: Oh, it was difficult. We knew for, oh I’d say probably four or five years actually,
before people really, really felt at ease and felt like they could maybe do a few things or
have the money to do a few things with. And… could… plan on, oh maybe like building a
home. Now during the war… we, Dad had bought a piece of ground, and they told us that
we could bring the electricity over. Well then, the war started before we got very far
along with it, and we could not, we could not bring electricity over. So we used canola
lamps to see with. And to wash with we had either used our scrubbing board or we had a
thick wooden washer we turned by hand. And we had to haul all our water because we
didn’t have water over there either, and we would haul it in barrels or we’d carry it up
over the hill. And… once a week we would wash, usually on Saturday, ‘ cause that’s when
all of us were home. We’d take turns turning this washer. Then eventually Dad did get it
fixed so that it had some kind of a motor on it so that it would turn a little bit easier. And
that wasn’t too bad. But we, we had a battery radio, and… canola lamps. So we could
hear, we could listen to the radio, and we just had a good time.
AT: What were your… how did you feel about the atomic bomb that was dropped?
LT: I don’t believe that there were too many people that were actually thrilled. I mean
they were thrilled that the war ended, but it was a horrible, horrible way to have to end it.
To see all those people that were killed and a lot of them didn’t want the war anymore
than we did. And to see the destruction of it, that it caused, it was really difficult. And I
don’t think anyone would ever wish it on, to happen again.
AT: Is there anything else you would like to share specifically?
LT: Not, oh you mean on the war?
AT: Uh- huh.
LT: No. I think that’s about the extent of it. I can’t think of anything, other than, like I
said… oh, we still had dances in the church house.
AT: Really?
LT: Usually once a month. And… if the kids were too little they sat on the benches and
watched. If they wanted to join when they got big enough to dance they could, if they
wanted to they could just sit and watch. Their parents would dance, but it was all very
simple things that didn’t take a lot of money or time. We didn’t have time, but you still
had to keep life going and enjoy it a little bit too.
AT: Did it… how did the war affect, I guess, family traditions?
LT: Probably, if anything, it made people how, like for instance, for Christmas we
would… I remember we made cookies and sent to a lot of the family members, or to our
friends, but by the time they got the cookies, of course they were crumbs, but
nevertheless, they said they enjoyed them. But it was, that was a fun thing to do: to give,
to get together. And we knitted socks for them, we did scarves, little things like that to
give, and quilts, we’d get together and make quilts. They had, what we called quilting
bees and… the ladies in the neighborhood would get together, sometimes it was family
members, sometimes it was ladies in the ward would get together, and do a quilt for this
one, and then they’d do a quilt for somebody else, and then somebody else. Things like
that. For the new born babies, and… it just basically brought people, brought families
closer together, so that this family would do something with that family and, or two or
three families. Uh… we had over three or four families that got together quite often.
Maybe go out to the cabin, go just out in the backyard, and have… what we called a
picnic, and each person, each family would bring something, and then we’d all play
games and whatever. And oh… it… could, just brought people closer together because you
were concerned about each one, and when they would, whenever anything would happen
to someone who was in the service or overseas, especially, they would announce it in
church and tell everyone what had happened and how they were, or whatever. It was a
good thing. It had its good things and it had its bad things, but that part of it was good. It
was good. It brought us together, people.
AT: Was there anyone specifically close to you that dies during the war?
LT: Yes… I had a friend that died in the service, and I had a nephew that died shortly
afterwards and they said it was basically service related, and so… then I had another
cousin that was injured in the service. He suffered much, the rest of his life, but that’s,
there were a lot of people I knew that were killed.
Okay, they had, in, in mutual we had, in order to get the young people an
opportunity to have some outside recreation, after mutual we would all get together for, a
group of the older kids would get together, and one of the leaders would take them over
to the skating rink and we would, we would go roller skating. And sometimes, after
roller- skating, we’d go to someone’s home and have a drink of hot chocolate or
something like that. And we also had in mutual, it was called mutual then, we had Golden
Green Balls once a year, someone was chosen to be the queen, someone different each
year. One year I was chosen, and oh, that was exciting. I didn’t ever dream that I would
get to be, but that was fun, to be the queen of the night. And they always had a dance, a
nice big dance. And the only thing they served would be cookies and punch. And
sometimes, if they couldn’t get that, they just had water. But we had a really good time
doing that, then… they also started having what they called the Sweetheart Golden Green
Ball, and they chose different ones for that. And I was chosen to be that one year. That
was fun. But, one thing I did thoroughly enjoy while, especially while the war was on,
was being in the band in high school. And because, course the bus would take us to Salt
Lake, and we’d march in the Fourth of July Parade, and the Twenty- fourth we’d march in
Provo, and… so we had to practice all the time, so we learned to walk. And we had the
best band teacher. We couldn’t believe, Elvis B. Terry, he was really a good band
teacher. That was one of my, the highlights of going to school, was to be in the band. I
thought that was great. I played the clarinet.
AT: Did you?
LT: Uh- huh. I played for a long time after school. But I finally sold it.
AT: What kind of music did you play?
LT: Oh, we played every kind of music, but mainly, a lot we played like Sousa and a
march, march music and it was really good. And we played a lot of other kinds, and we
had, usually we had at least two concerts during the year. And sometimes, most of, most
of them were free, but once in a while, when we wanted to, one year we wanted to get
new uniforms and we charged one, a couple of dollars per family. It wasn’t very much
‘ cause people just didn’t have a lot. And then we all saved up our money and got new
uniforms. But, it was a good thing, to do that. And the teachers, the teachers in school
were… really, really good. I remember I had appendicitis one year, I think I was sixteen at
the time, and I was in the hospital for ten days, then I went home for another ten days.
They kept sending my work home for me so I could keep up. Then, when I got to school
to, [ it] was really hard to climb all those steps, and they’d say, “ Don’t worry if you don’t
get up here on time, that’s fine, just come.” So the teachers were really good. We had
one, one… we didn’t have days off.
AT: When you took band trips to Salt Lake and Provo, how did you pay for the gas for
the bus?
LT: Well, we each put in so much, and… when… on the bus, that was, oh that was so fun.
We saved all summer long just to go.
AT: Can you tell me a little bit about bond rallies?
LT: The bond rallies?
At: Yeah, the bond rallies.
LT: When, when they’d get kind of short on the money, which was most of the time, they
would… a group would get together and call, have what they called a bond rally. We
would get together and, usually it was in the school house, and then people would go up
and either try to buy a whole bond or just a few stamps to put in, in the bond book they
had, until they got enough to buy a bond. And they would, they would advertise it, they
would play music at it, then they would usually have some songs and a, kind of an
entertainment. Oh, and, and then they would go ahead and let the people circulate and be
friends while they were buying the bonds or the stamps. And then, too, they
had… bond… anyway, dances that you could go, if you wanted to, you could go, and the
soldiers stationed, they would go to these dances and… the girls would go, and they
would all just dance, and they’d go home. I never did go to any of them, but there were a
lot of them that did go. And they thoroughly enjoyed themselves. It was those they
eventually married. Most of them were, they called it the canteen, anyway, they had what
we called the canteens. And that’s where they’d end up going dancing. And that was, that
helped the soldiers, you know, make it easier, comfort them. We just had a couple of
dances.
AT: How did the media change? Like, did you guys listen to the radio every night or…?
LT: Oh, oh, we’d listen to the radio every night, every morning usually. Before we’d go
to school and even when we’d come home. But, ‘ course with the battery radio you had to
be careful, and when the battery would run out, well the people who had electricity were
not a, were not, well it wasn’t. But it was fun to listen to those. The things you could get.
Sometimes you get stories about the war, and sometimes Ma Perkins was more funny, the
Little Orphan Annie, and… Do You Not Dream of Roy Rogers. Some of the westerns,
movies and things like that. But… it was, it was just a way of life. We’d save our money
‘ til we got enough to go to a movie, and a few of us would get together to go, or family
would go. They always had a cartoon, then they had a movie, or they’d have war news,
then they’d have a movie. And so you got to see some of the pictures and things that they
could show about the war. On the radio, of course you just had to sit and listen to it. But,
oh, when they announced D- Day, oh, that was great. And VE- Day, that was an event.
AT: So during the whole war, what do you think was your happiest moment?
LT: When they came home! Actually, I would say that we learned an awful lot. We
learned to be happy, we enjoyed life, really enjoyed it because we had to work hard, we
had a, the news, it was hard when we heard of someone that was hurt or killed, but there
was still a lot left for us to do. And we would, we had to do it if we would get the rest of
it done. And… to do our share. So it was fun. It was good to go out with other people and
learn to pick cherries, or strawberries, or gooseberries, or whatever. And work in the
onion fields and different things. But to work on the Church farms was really, really
interesting. We all worked together and string along a row. Even to the little tiny tots
would go with the families. They may not do much, except follow along with you, but
they, nevertheless, they went. And it was a family thing. And there were a lot of family
things, family get- togethers and families doing things. It was just a, something that you
looked forward to. You felt like you were helping those that were ever in the war that
were in the thick of it. To me, it was worth it.
AT: That’s great. Thank you.
LT: You’re welcome.