Seals, Sharon Beachum

              Eric Walz History 300 Collection
Sharon Beachum Seals – Life during WWII
By Sharon Beachum Seals
October 4, 2003
Box 3 Folder 22
Oral Interview conducted by Chelsea Lea Seals
Transcript copied by Maren Miyasaki December 2005
Brigham Young University – Idaho
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CS: What is your name?
SS: Sharon Beachum Seals.
CS: You have to speak up a little bit more.
SS: Sharon Beachum Seals.
CS: ‘ Kay, when were you born?
SS: Born in September 15, 1926.
CS: Where were you born?
SS: Cedar City, Utah.
CS: Cedar City, Utah? How old were you on December 7, 1941?
SS: I was trying to… I guess I was fourteen.
CS: Fourteen? What do you remember about that day?
SS: I’d, we didn’t have radios out in New Castle— we didn’t have radios, so I didn’t hear it on the radio, but I remember being over in school, and I was in high school, so, I guess maybe I was fifteen ( laughs).
CS: ( Laughs) It’s okay.
SS: But I wa…
Douglas Seals: She was thirteen. ( All laugh)
SS: Well, I graduated when I was seventeen in 1944, so you’ll have to figure it out ( Sharon and Chelsea laugh).
CS: But I remember they, they called all the young people in high school into the gymnasium, and we listened to President Roosevelt declare war— that’s what I remember the first time I’d ever heard that. And it was— we were all young, and it really didn’t sink into me how serious it was, ya know, it was just everybody was around there, and, and then after that they had, they trained Cadets up at the— BAC, it was a Branch Agricultural College that was across from the high school. And I remember that was pretty impressive, because there would be hundreds of young men ( Sharon and Chelsea laugh).
CS: You liked the young men ( laughing)?
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SS: Up there ( laughing). But we’d used to watch them drill, ya know, and then they’d— they were Cadets learning to fly.
CS: What did you think when you heard about the attack. I— you kind of answered this already, but—
SS: Yeah, I, well that’s it— I’d— I really didn’t think much, ‘ cause I didn’t realize the im- impact or the importance of it, so I wasn’t stunned like you hear a lot of people say, because we was— there was just a bunch of all, well all the high school kids went down to the gymnasium, but, the teachers were letting us know, ya know, how serious it was.
CS: Yeah, what kind of things did— were the teachers pretty upset while you were there, or…?
SS: I, they were…
CS: Did they seem like they were a little bit more somber about it?
SS: They… I don’t remember that. They were somber about it. They were, ya know, ‘ cause they wanted the school kids all to hear that broadcast, which wa— was good for us all to go down and we heard when the war was declared.
CS: What was your image of Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito during the war?
SS: I don’t remember thinking much about that. I formed opinions— I mean, I thought— I though that the Italians were more, ya know, they were kinda laid back, and I think Hitler really influenced them, but I thought the Japanese were evil.
CS: ( Laughing) You thought the Japanese were evil?
SS: And I didn’t ( laughing), I didn’t know that much about, about Hitler, ya know…
CS: Until after the war?
SS: Until afterwards and they come out— the horrible things he had done.
CS: What was, what’s your opinion of Japanese and Germans now?
SS: Well, since the war I made friends and— with a Japanese woman that was in one of these internment camps that was moved out of California— and she worked here at Tooele Army Depot afterwards— after they were— could leave the camp after the war.
CS: Did she stay in the camp in Tooele?
SS: She came here… No, it was up in Idaho.
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CS: Oh.
SS: I don’t know what the name of the camp was, but I remember her telling about that. But she was a— really one of the best friends I’ve ever had. It was Lucy Emi. And so my, my impression of the Japanese people changed a lot, ya know. I think that some of them are bad and there’s bad in all people.
CS: Good. Good outlook. How did your life change as a result of World War II?
SS: Well, I was seventeen years old when I came up here, and they needed people in the Defense Plants. And I— I had just graduated from high school on the eleventh of May 1944. And myself and thirteen other girls just come up here. They— Captain Garret and a girl, that ha— I knew from school that was a taxi driver— she’d come up here and had a job as driving a taxi. And they come down and, and there were a group of us who had taken typing tests, and if we passed the test we were assured of a job up here— at what was Deseret Chemical Warfare Depot at that time. And so, as soon as school was out, they came down with kind of a van- like vehicle and picked— there was, fourteen of us came up here and on the way up here, instead of going around through Salt Lake we, we cut off over by Lehi, on, and come across Mercur, which was about, oh ( laughing), about one- way road. It was up over the mountains and come down into, to Tooele or to Deseret Chemical Depot. And I remember when we, we were in there and we were going up this road, and I thought “ this is bad,” ‘ cause it was a dirt road and up over this mountain, and we— it made a hairpin turn. And that van couldn’t go. It just stopped, so all of us girls had to get out and push it up top the top of the hill ( laughing).
SC: And then it rolled down in, and they got it down into the Depot, and I remember all that. I don’t know if you want me to tell you all of this.
CS: I do want you to tell me all this.
SS: But it, when we went in there, the— what they had told us when they come down to Cedar City to the school— that there was bowling, and dancing, and swimming, and all kinds of activities. And when we come into ( laughing) that depot— this was in 1944, and there was barracks, all barracks that we were gonna live in. And there was— I remember there was tumbleweed blowing all over and— and it was a good thing that we were friends and we had friends there, or [ it] woulda been pretty bleak, but it turned out to be…
CS: So it was false advertisement ( laughs)?
SS: ( Laughing) Well, their swimming was they had buses that would take us to Blackrock Beach, and Sunset Beach, and over to Saratoga Springs. But they had [ a] club, they had a civilian club and an officer’s club on the depot where they had dances all the time, and they had a bowling alley that we could go to on the depot.
CS: Is that where you met…? 5
SS: But the, no. I met Doug ‘ cause he used to drive a truck, and he’d come around in the morning and picked up laundry. And I— some of the girls that had been there the year before knew him, and I remember when we were in this, in the washroom there where we took showers and, well, it was really the bathroom. These girls yelling out the window and telling him “ hi” after we got back, ‘ cause they’d known him from the year before ( laughs). So that’s really the first time I saw him. Then after I got to know him he’d stop by and pick me up and take me down to where I worked at Shipping and Receiving every morning.
DS: I worked ten hours and she worked eight.
SS: And he’d, and I lived, I worked, I guess about three or four blocks from where the dorm was. And I’d cut through a field to go down to this ware— Shipping and Receiving warehouse— where I worked as a clerk typist. And it was, it was good for me, because I— ya know, I had no, no way of going on to college and I didn’t have any, any desire to go on to college. So, really, at that time I guess I’m— I’m sorry that it was a war. So many people got wounded and hurt by it, but it was a time that, that I got to learn. It was like going to school, ‘ cause I went there and I didn’t know anything. I knew how to type ( laughs). But I’d learned by doing, ya know, and I, and eventually I got a good job and, and it worked out.
CS: Worked out? How did you contribute as an individual and to your community toward the war effort?
SS: I don’t know that I done anything, other than just work at the Defense Plant. And when we were in high school, and all the young men and all the people had been drafted while I was a junior and senior— they used to let us out of school in the afternoon to go up to the Turkey Plant and plick— pick turkeys. And that was the help for the war effort ( laughing). We didn’t get paid for it, it was just, ya know, ya done it ‘ cause there was nobody else to do it. I never will forget that, ‘ cause those turkeys that’d come around and we’d have to pluck all the feathers off of them.
DS: Well, I thought they’d pay you.
SS: No, they didn’t pay us. There was…
CS: Did very many people show up for it?
SS: Oh yeah, well they had to or stay in school, ya know, if they…
CS: ( Laughing) Oh that was a good way to get out of school— come pluck turkeys ( laughing).
DS: They would give you so much a turkey…
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SS: I know, well Bessy’s mother used to… I don’t know if she done that. I guess she done that and got paid, but the kids that went up there— volunteered like that— didn’t get paid. And I remember going in with my good friend Bessy Hamilton. I stayed over in Cedar with her, ‘ cause my home was in New Castle, and I had to ride a bus thirty miles every day to get to school. And so I stayed with Bessy, and a lot of the times we’d go up there after they’d picked the turkeys and then they’d have to wrap their head up in paper. And I remember going up there, because Bessy would do that at night. I, I guess her mother got her a job there doing that or something ‘ cause she was an only child and her father had passed away, so…
CS: Oh, well that’s good. What kind of things did you do to entertain yourself? You talked about dances and swimming a little bit.
SS: That was about it.
CS: That was about it? You didn’t…?
SS: Well, we used to— the girls in the dormitory where I lived— we’d go down in the, in the reception room and play the piano and sing and, and we went to movies. And then we used to ride the bus into Salt Lake every payday and go shopping. We had a lot of fun doing that. I remember walking all over the streets. And I remember at Christmas time in 1944, yeah it would’ve been 1944, we had gone in to— on the weekend— and I remember walking down the streets in Salt Lake there, on Mainstreet and “ White Christmas” playing over the radios, ya know, from the stores.
CS: Uh- huh.
SS: We’d go to the… We had a lot of fun. We’d go in the stores and try on hats and shoes, and it was kind of a pass- time.
DS: And spend your money ( CS and SS laugh)…
CS: Spend your money?
SS: Yeah.
CS: What kind of food did you have?
SS: About the same as Doug did, ‘ cause I ate at the, at the— we’d call it the mess hall.
CS: Uh- huh.
SS: In fact, when we’d come down there that day— I told you when we come down in, into the depot with all the wind and the tumbleweeds, one of the first things they did was issue a card that gave us permission to go over— that’s if we come with no money or anything, ya know— they gave you a card and it was a— as you ate a meal they would 7
punch out. And then on payday they’d just deducted that card from your check. But that took out your rent, and then you had a card to. What’d they call those cards?
DS: Meal tickets.
SS: Meal tickets, I guess, yeah.
CS: So how much money did you have left over after they pulled everything out for rent and food and stuff?
SS: I don’t remember, not very much because we didn’t make very much ( laughing). I made… I, I was working at a drugstore down at the Cedar during the war. I made twenty- five cents an hour. And when I told Mr. and Mrs. Cowley that I was gonna come up here, they wanted me to stay there, and they offered me thirty cents an hour, but they were paying fifty cents an hour up here in the Defense Plant. So, I’ll have to let you figure that out. It was fifty cents an hour for forty hour[ s] a week ( laughs).
CS: Goodness. What do your, how’d ya, how do you think the war effected, or wait, I forgot to ask you… What do you remember about rationing?
SS: I remember, I didn’t have to deal with that because I just, I was just young, ya know? And I’d come up and I’d never had, but I remember Momma [?] for sugar and my dad. We had a farm, so I think farmers got an extra ration of gasoline for their farm equipment. But I remember Momma had to be careful, and— because she had the tickets for all of us kids— and, of course, she had mine— stamps for…
DS: Shoes— for shoes.
CS: Shoes?
SS: Yeah. You’d have to get a stamp to buy shoes. I’d forgot about that. So, I guess Momma probably sent me my stamps to get shoes, ya know, but for the food and that, my, those stamps just stayed at home and I guess my mother used them for— to buy sugar and things that you had to have stamps for.
DS: And you had gasoline they’re rationing on too.
SS: Yeah, but I, I think you had to be able to drive. I don’t know if they would give stamps for us kids, ya know. They… I think for Dad being a farmer he probably got more, like your dad did [ referring to Doug], probably, because he lived on a farm. But I, see I wasn’t home. I was, I was, from 1942 really I wasn’t home very much, because I… when I was fifteen I went out to Caliente, Nevada and stayed out with my sister for the summer and helped her ‘ cause she had a little baby. And then in 1943 I went out there again, because she had another little baby and I worked there. Then I worked in [ the] beanery for the railroad— me and my sister, Zella— after I’d helped the other sister, Florence— after she’d had the baby, then we went and worked there in the summer time. 8
Then I come back over to Cedar to finish school— went to high school over there. And then as soon as I got out of high school, all that year that was working in high school, I worked in the drugstore in Cedar and I lived in Cedar. I had to pay ten dollars a month for rent and breakfast ( laughs).
CS: That’d be nice.
SS: And I’d go home on Thursday nights and then, come back on the school bus Friday, and, and I’d work on Saturday and then I’d… that’s where I left, from Cedar City, to come up to Deseret Chemical Warfare Depot at that time.
CS: How did the war affect the community where you were?
SS: There weren’t that many people in New Castle— that was my hometown— that went to war. But I had two cousins, Harold Nell and Cain Christensen, that went into the war. And it affected them. I don’t think either one of them was ever the same after they came back, and I… I remember my Aunt Cassie was really coming up home, because Cain was listed as missing, her older son. These boys were quite a bit older than me, and I did… they were just my cousins and I knew them, but I don’t know about any of the others there in New Castle going to war. I remember those two, but they were, come back. One of them was an officer— I think Harold and he couldn’t kinda cope after he come back ‘ cause he was blaming himself for, for… he was responsible for these boys that were under him going out and getting killed. And I think it, it hurt a lot of men that could never overcome what they had seen and what they’d had to do.
CS: Yeah, well you just answered my next question ( laughs). How, how did the community cope with losing men? You said that they didn’t lose very many.
SS: Well, I, I was gone. They didn’t lose any that I know of in the war. These two boys come back and you could tell they were…
CS: Different?
SS: They were, ya know, had suffered the consequences of what they had seen, really.
CS: So they… maybe post- traumatic stress or…?
SS: Well, I— might’ve been. ‘ Cause Harold, I think that they both started to drink quite a bit. And I— Harold was coming home from Cedar one night and just run off the road into a gulley, and I don’t [?] he done it on purpose, but he, he died. And the Cain, I think Cain got married, but his life was pretty hard after that.
CS: Yeah. What was it like to have all of the young men gone off to war?
SS: Well, I don’t remember that much, because— like I say— I just left out of high school and the— the boys that I knew when I graduated from high school, if they left for, and 9
they were drafted. I know there were some older. I remember, while I was still there, there were twins, Clark and Claire McFarland that had gone into the war together. And I remember that making an impression on me, because they [ went] into the war and I think they were killed. And that’s probably why I remember that, because I didn’t… after I came up to Deseret Chemical I wasn’t really that worried, I guess you could call it. I guess I was too young and not that smart ( laughs).
DS: She was a girl and wasn’t gonna be drafted.
SS: Yeah, but I don’t… see, any of the boys that I knew in New Castle that I grew up with, as far as I know they weren’t drafted.
CS: Did you have any friends or rel— like, you said you had cousins…
SS: I’m telling you things…
CS: No, it’s okay. It works. Wha… did you write them letters while they were at war, or did you keep in touch with them at all?
SS: No, no.
CS: No? What are some of your vivid memories about World War II— your most vivid.
SS: Well, my life really changed because when I had lived in New Castle there it was— the population was one hundred, and I was related to almost everybody in town. It was a small Mormon community. And so, there wasn’t opportunities there to— for jobs ya know. And I had worked in Cedar, so the war coming along really gave me opportunities for a good job and to learn a skill. And as bad as war is, it helped me to gain the skills that I now have that I wouldn’t have been able to. Because I had no plans to go on to college or anything. And I, I got to know a lot of different people, and then I met Doug up here, so that changed my life quite a bit. He had come out here with his brother, Guy, they were on their way to Alaska. And they stopped off at the depot out there and got a job. And so, I met him and that made— that changed my life ( laughs).
CS: Yeah. What do you think America’s goals were during the war?
SS: I think they were really horrified at what Japan done when they come and bombed Hawaii. And they could see that if they didn’t get involved to stop this evil that was spreading through the world, they, they could very well come to our continent. And so I think their goals were just— stop it from spreading to the United States, and to liberate people that had been tortured and that were being bombed and hurt overseas. I think they could see that needed to be stopped; similar to what we’re going through right now over there with Iraq. If they don’t stop these terrorists, that can spread all over the world, which is to some extent.
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CS: Yeah. How do you think your religious views helped you cope with whatever you went through during the war?
SS: I think... I, I never did think that I was a deeply religious person, but I always believed that things were going to be okay, ya know. And I, I’m that way. Maybe it’s, maybe it’s naïve, but I always feel like I have religious beliefs and that things are gonna be a certain way and ya know, you’ll be protected. See, I guess I am naïve ( laughs).
CS: No, you’re a religious person ( laughs). Okay, well, is there anything else you’d like to say?
SS: No, I think I’ve about talked you out now ( laughs).
CS: Whatever!
DS: You did a real good job too.
SS: But I jumped around.
CS: Oh, that’s okay.
< Later additions>
CS: Here’s a little bit more…
SS: When I, after I come up to Deseret Chemical Warfare Depot— that’s what they called it at that time— I was in a typing pool in Mail and Records there. They had an Administration Building, and then all we girls that come out there together they put into different offices where they needed type- clerk typists. And I got to go down to Shipping and Receiving. It was a big warehouse and every morning the fellows would come in that worked down in the area where the mustard gas and stuff was that they stored. And they’d have to come in… there was an area where I’d go have to go and issue them clothing and I still remember, they’d had to turn in what they wore the next day and they’d had mustard gas on their clothing and you could smell it.
CS: Ugh.
SS: But they had this, this… what did they call those clothes that they used to… was it impregnated?
DS: Yeah.
SS: Clothing, that ya know, protect them from what they were doing down there.
And another thing I’m gonna tell you, I don’t know if you wanna use it on this… Doug said during the war when he first come out he worked down in the area down there, but he did get a job driving a truck. But before that there was— they needed help so bad that 11
they went over to the American Fork Training School, where people who were handicapped worked, ya know that— and they brought them over there to help unload these trucks and things that come in with this gas on it.
DS: Called ammunitions.
SS: And they, and yeah— ammunitions ( laughs). I, I shouldn’t laugh, I guess, but he said that some of those fellows, ya know, didn’t have everything altogether and when they, if they— they’d just let go of things sometimes, and whoever was on the other end kinda got ( laughs)…
CS: Kinda got ( laughs)…
DS: They used [ to] also empty all the jails every Monday.
CS: Every Monday?
DS: All the jails and get…
SS: Convicts to come and work.
DS: Guys that got drunk and stuff and they’d come out there to work off their fine.
SS: Yeah.
CS: Yeah?
SS: Yeah, there was several out there that I remember that were older people that were really alcoholics, ya know, and they lived… they had a job, but they needed them to work. But I, I was thinking of that the other day, and Doug said that one fellow that was [ a] friend of his was helping unload this mustard gas, and some of it leaked out and down on his back and he had great big burns on him— as a big around as your fist.
DS: That big around ( signs the size of a baseball). As big as… baseball.
CS: That’s terrible.
SS: It was, but see, at that time I was seventeen and I wasn’t worried about these things I think now; took me awhile ( laughs).
CS: ( Laughs) Is that it?
SS: That’s about it.
CS: Are you sure?
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< Later additions>
SS: When the war first started, the first thing that I didn’t say that impressed me was, where I lived out at New Castle— and I was, I guess we decided I was thirteen or fourteen ( laughs). And it was when they started moving the Japanese out of California and putting them in these internment camps. And there were some families that must’ve moved themselves, and they come up and they were a few Japanese families that lived out on— we called it the desert. It was Berl and Modeina— out west of New Castle. And I remember this little Japanese woman used to come up home and it was really strange to me, ‘ cause I’d never seen a Japanese. I’d lived in this little Mormon community all my life and I’d never seen anybody different than the mostly relatives around me. But she would come in from the desert and come up, I, I guess to buy eggs or something from Momma. And they, they were people that had been new. They were going to be rousted out of their homes, but they came up there. They didn’t have an internment out on the desert there, but these families, maybe one or two, and maybe… one of the boys that was a young Japanese boy used to ride our school bus. He come up, and I remember he was really a good athlete, and they were nice people these people were. But when you see some of these movies about the atrocities that they done, but then you see that all through history. It’s sad.
CS: Yeah.
SS: Now, I guess that’s about all.
< Later additions>
CS: Tell me about the Italians.
SS: Something that I didn’t tell that I was going to was, the Italian prisoners out at Deseret Chemical Warfare Depot, after they were there for a while— I believe they said some of them that wanted to could pledge allegiance to the American flag, and they’d let them come out to the dances and things. So they’d be down to the civilian club when we had dances. Some of them that were out and just like everybody else. And a couple of the girls that— from Tooele, I don’t think there were any from, that come up with me— but a couple of girls from Tooele married these Italian prisoners after they got to know ‘ em.
CS: Yeah, they married the dancers?
SS: Yeah, well they weren’t dancers…
CS: Oh, well at the dances.
SS: They were just people that went to the dances. That’s where I saw them. I guess they met them other places. And then they had, the Italians also were cooks in the mess hall where we ate. And they were some of the best cooks that I’ve ever, ya know, they 13
fixed really good meals. But they had all the stuff to do it with, because the Army furnished it. But I just thought that might be something you’d be interested in.
DS: They also built cigarette lighters and sold them up there.
SS: Oh, did they make them there?
DS: Yeah, they made them handmade them and sold them out there to anyone that’d buy them.
SS: And they had some of the German prisoners of war out in another camp. There weren’t any of them, I don’t think, that, like I— signed the pledge of allegiance or whatever they did. But they, some of them— they were out working and they were… the German prisoners are the ones that Doug had that he took around and found different jobs to do. And I remember there was [ a] young man that come into Shipping and Receiving there, where I worked, and I was thinking at the time, ya know, he was so far from home, and he was a prisoner, and he was really anxious to talk to anybody that would talk to him.
CS: Yeah.
SS: But the men that worked there, they were all good, ya know, to him and worked with him. He helped out there. I can’t remember his name or anything, but I remember thinking I hoped that the boys that we had over there that were prisoners were being treated as well as the ones that were out on the depot there. But then, of course, later on we found out they weren’t.
CS: Mm- hmm. That’s too bad.