Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Mattie on the Homefront is a podcast about a father and a son discovering their family. After finding wartime letters from my great-grandmother to my grandfather, I get to read them aloud to my dad, bringing together four generations of our family, week-by-week, in an almost daily look at life in the Twin Cities during WWII.
This is where it gets interesting. Next paragraph. We just had a pretty good smash up out on our corner. Oh. No one was hurt, although the DeSoto car was driven by an old dame about 75 years old.
Hans Buetow:This is a great start. Both cars are a mess. Lots of people around and cops and everything. So I do have a little excitement once in a while. A little bit of hello.
Hans Buetow:Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello.
Hans Buetow:Hello, and welcome to Mattie On The Homefront.
Steve Buetow:Mattie On The Homefront.
Hans Buetow:I'm Steve. I'm Hans Buto, and Steve is my dad.
Steve Buetow:And Hans is my son.
Hans Buetow:Oh, that works out. The math checks out. Wow. And both of us are here because on this podcast, we read from a collection
Steve Buetow:of letters that we have To my father, Ken, from his mother, my grandma, Mattie. Thus, Mattie On The Homefront.
Hans Buetow:We're in October right now of 1942
Steve Buetow:Correct.
Hans Buetow:With these letters.
Steve Buetow:Right.
Hans Buetow:Ken has left.
Steve Buetow:He is only two months into his time in the army.
Hans Buetow:Yep. Mustered in in August.
Steve Buetow:Right. So it is it's it's only about a month and a half. Yeah. And in reviewing what's happening internationally
Newsreel:Navy Papua and Boltman are employed on the United Nations line of supplies here in New Guinea. Rivers are often the only roads.
Steve Buetow:The United States forces are beginning to move into Guadalcanal, which is in the Solomon Islands, down by Papua, New Guinea Mhmm. And way down towards Australia in the South Pacific. And another battle that is long and extraordinarily difficult, famously difficult, is the battle for Stalingrad.
Newsreel:In this red hot hell, appalling bombardment has reduced a noble city to wholesale ruin. Thousands have died in the bloodiest siege of history. Day and night for months on end, the defenders of Stalingrad have fought the most glorious battle in Russian history.
Steve Buetow:Stalin is moving troops at night Yep. Into Stalingrad to not be subject to the Nazi artillery and aircraft. The the
Hans Buetow:day that we're gonna be reading in letter from today is 10/05/1942. And on 10/05/1942, there's things are starting to look up a little bit for the Russians. There's two fronts on which they have pushed, so they have made their way across the Volga once again. But the Germans are pushing back and are have sent a 120 tanks against the lines, and they're fighting over the tractor factory at the moment. But we're talking about thousands of people dying per day.
Hans Buetow:And it's a siege. And it's a siege.
Newsreel:To win two buildings or 50 yards of roadway, the Germans had to sacrifice hundreds of lives. Street fighting on an unprecedented scale decimated the Nazis while the Soviet soldiers held on like grim death. Every square became a battleground, building a fortress.
Hans Buetow:And the Germans are running out of people, and they're starting to send greener and greener recruits up to the front lines. But they're they're still claiming not victory, but, well, definitely the moral high ground, if not the tactical high ground and that they're still gonna gonna prevail, and that's gonna go on for a little while.
Steve Buetow:Stalin with the moral high ground.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. I mean, speaking of moral high ground
Newsreel:It's mere interest with your
Hans Buetow:10/05/1942, Kermann Goring, the number two
Steve Buetow:Yes.
Hans Buetow:Said in a long and rambling speech that if there's any famine coming this winter, it's not gonna be the Germans who starve, that the German workers, the the noble German workers are gonna eat at the expense of the rest of Europe. Oh. Yeah.
Steve Buetow:And then there's one other fact that really pertains to what we're talking about and can.
Newsreel:Army forces going ashore in the Andrianov group of the Aleutian Islands, And so we have a close view of an operation of high strategic importance in a bleak climate stormy waters.
Steve Buetow:The Aleutian Islands in August were attacked and occupied some of the Aleutian Islands. If you look at a map, Alaska has this long, long trail of islands. It's a line like a line of ducks. I think
Hans Buetow:it was middle of the state poking out into the Pacific.
Steve Buetow:Yeah. It it it goes almost to Asia. I'm guessing they can see it from from there Yeah. Just at the end. And it is closer to Japan by quite a bit than it is to Seattle.
Steve Buetow:But it would be an excellent avenue to proceed across the Pacific step by step, island by island Oh, to attack The US Western Coast.
Hans Buetow:Right. And so so what's happening on the Aleutians then?
Steve Buetow:The first two or three of the islands at the end of the chain Yeah. Have been attacked and occupied.
Hans Buetow:Wow. Occupied. Occupied.
Steve Buetow:The the Japanese are there and will be for a year or two.
Hans Buetow:So at this point, the Aleutians in in Alaska itself
Steve Buetow:They are territory.
Hans Buetow:They're territory.
Steve Buetow:American territory.
Hans Buetow:I did not know that the Japanese occupied US territory. US territory. But, I mean, I guess, of course, they did because there's, you know, Guam and there's all these other
Steve Buetow:Oh, that's true.
Hans Buetow:There's all these other spaces.
Steve Buetow:Consider the Aleutians continental. Continental. Yeah. Right. Which I think is a bit of a reach because it's way out there.
Steve Buetow:Yeah. But at this time so the West Coast seems vulnerable at the at the point where Ken is going into basic training.
Hans Buetow:So Ken, who's who's on his way to the West Coast at this point, he's arrived in Seattle. He they are not sure where he's going. He's gonna be headed somewhere along that West Coast. It's so much more clear from you saying something like that how much more of a front it is. We don't think of it now looking back as having been that much of a front.
Hans Buetow:It seems like kind of easy duty. But, like, if they're already in Alaska and the Aleutians moving forward, like, there's there's a real risk. That's a whole another front that
Steve Buetow:could be emerging. The West Coast feels very threatened.
Cartoon:Gosh. I wish there was a blackout. Uh-oh. Blackout. The
Newsreel:East Coast
Hans Buetow:at this moment is also feeling pretty threatened. Yes. On 10/05/1942, mayor LaGuardia of New York City had to announce was forced to announce. He said he didn't want to, but he had to, that outdoor Christmas tree lights this year are gonna have to be extinguished during dim out periods.
Steve Buetow:Oh, not blackouts.
Hans Buetow:Not blackouts, but dim outs. And so you can't have outdoor festivity lights happening in New York City.
Cartoon:Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Black Black oat.
Hans Buetow:A lot of cities along the Eastern Seaboard had this sort of, like, we don't know if they're coming over.
Steve Buetow:Yes. And the the the submarines were patrolling all along the East Coast, the German U boats, and they would surface and just kind of Look. Yes. Look. And and and it also threatened shipping Yeah.
Steve Buetow:Dramatically.
Newsreel:Yeah. In the cardinals' night, the game deadlocked to two all. Walker Cooper singles to right center. A moment later, Johnny Hopp lays down a sacrificed bunt. Cooper goes down, and the red birds have their potential world series clincher on second with one out.
Hans Buetow:In more bad news for New Yorkers on the October 5, the Saint Louis cardinals finally defeated the New York Yankees.
Newsreel:That happens. Kurowski crashes a home run into the left field stand. It's the blow off that caps the climax. Kurowski scores behind Cooper. Saint Louis four, Yankees two.
Hans Buetow:In a four to two win Yeah. To win the world series four games to one. Excellent.
Cartoon:America, land of abundance, learns to mobilize its waste to save its scrap to provide more metals for war.
Hans Buetow:Locally, in Minnesota here, Winona, Minnesota is trying to set the national per capita poundage record in the scrap metal salvage drive. Excellent. Good job, Winona. So Hennepin County leads Minnesota's acquisition of total poundage of scrap metal.
Steve Buetow:Total, not per capita.
Hans Buetow:Not per capita. Total.
Steve Buetow:Okay.
Hans Buetow:Then Ramsey County, which is the capital county, our county. But then Winona is third with 3,072,324 pounds of scrap metal acquired up until that point. And they're getting that much because they're paying higher prices and are determined to get another million pounds before the drive is over.
Cartoon:Wow. Tin cans collected in one citywide salvage drive total more than a million pounds, a 55 carload contribution to the United Nations war effort. When processed, these cans will provide 11,000 pounds of pure tin, thousands of pounds of copper, both vital metals in the production of armament.
Steve Buetow:I don't know if they're being a great source of scrap metal in when I used to live in Winona.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. It's it's a little town with not a lot of people. So with three I don't know what the other ones are doing, but it's third in the state with 3,000,000 pounds, hoping to get another million.
Steve Buetow:Has heavy industry. Duluth Duluth has shipping. Yeah. You would think they'd do better than Winona.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. So everybody's rallying a little bit right now to try to get to support the war effort in what's happening. And it's a Monday. October 5 is a Monday 1942, and Mattie sent Ken a letter. So here, I'm gonna give you the envelope envelope for this one, and go ahead and and read what's on there because I I I did a little bit of research on on what where he is.
Steve Buetow:Private Kenneth h three seven two nine seven eight four nine, and then DEML headquarters company, APO 997, Seattle, Washington. There is no ZIP code because ZIP codes are still forty years away. But what is DEML? What a good question.
Hans Buetow:DEML was a little bit hard to find. There's not a lot of information about it, but what I was able to find out is it's called the detached enlisted men's list.
Cartoon:Oh,
Hans Buetow:detached. Detached. So it's an administrative code that is used for soldiers who are not assigned to any duty in any particular branch.
Steve Buetow:Like someone in the military police.
Hans Buetow:Military police. Exactly. Exactly. So the military police is branch code six. DEML is branch code eight.
Hans Buetow:And so if he was actually a part of the military police, he I don't know if his presence there means that he's not yet a part of it, hasn't yet been assigned to the military police.
Steve Buetow:He's not really been through basic training.
Hans Buetow:Because they don't really do much basic training at Fort Snelling. He was there for a little while, but, you know, he's only two months in.
Steve Buetow:Right. And he's only been a week or so on the West Coast.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. So the DEML is principally for, like, such duties like clerks, chauffeurs, orderlies, stablemen, mess and supply. It's used a lot for jobs that could be civilian, but that the army doesn't wanna outsource to civilians. Okay. And so that is apparently where he is at the moment.
Hans Buetow:So our letter today starts, as nearly all of these do, my darling Kenneth. We received your welcome letter this morning and are so happy you have reached your destination. Are you at Prince Rupert? Prince Rupert is in Canada. Just barely in Canada.
Hans Buetow:Okay. It is across the bay from America. I looked it up on a map. It's definitely in Canada. From all indications, says Mattie, you are gonna like it.
Hans Buetow:I can imagine especially with pines, cedars, and firs, you are gonna enjoy the atmosphere very much. And I think too, it will agree with you, which allergies is my guess. Oh, of course.
Steve Buetow:Yeah. Allergies. Yes.
Hans Buetow:You know we are gonna have an only temperature of 65 degrees in our homes this year, so, of course, insulating is the big boom right now. Oh, interesting. So I found an article in New York Times that is interesting about this because actually, it was an article from October 5. It was an article that detailed an analysis done by members of the American Society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers. Yes.
Hans Buetow:Okay. This is an association that you know?
Steve Buetow:Yes. Yeah. Okay.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. So they worked out an amount for three different types of houses of the same size, but with differing heating efficiency in New York City and what they would receive in the coming year for their fuel oil ration. And so this becomes relevant to what Mattie's saying in just a second. So if you are in New York and you have a house in '19 in the 1942, and you have no insulation, you have no storm windows, no weather stripping, inefficient heating plant Yep. You can expect a 36% decrease in your fuel allocation from last year.
Hans Buetow:That's big. That's big. Yeah. That is so big. If you have moderate insulation, an oil burner of average efficiency, only a 27% cut from the previous year.
Steve Buetow:So if you use more fuel, you have a bigger cut. Yeah. Okay. Right? Oh, that that's yeah.
Hans Buetow:If you have a well insulated house with storm windows and a very efficient burner, they are only gonna cut by 6%.
Steve Buetow:That's a really powerful incentive.
Hans Buetow:Yes. It's really powerful. And so so I think it's really interesting to have Mattie say that he she's been called about insulation. She says, you know, we are gonna have only a temperature of 65 degrees in our homes this year. So, of course, insulating is the big boom right now.
Steve Buetow:And I remember that boiler. It was an oil burner. And so the oil would be delivered. They'd pull this long hose from the from the oil truck that was set on the street, and there was a it's like filling up your car. Only they would fill up the house, and there'd be a it's probably a 200 gallon tank in the basement.
Steve Buetow:Wow. And they would fill it up, and it would burn fuel oil.
Hans Buetow:Those figures that I quoted are all for New York City. So it's unclear how much that would affect the twin cities, but I can imagine in a place where insulation really matters. Is this remarkable? You as an architect, is this remarkable for them not to have insulation in their house in 1942? It's not remarkable.
Steve Buetow:No. Not in 1942.
Hans Buetow:Okay.
Steve Buetow:No. Because fuel oil was extremely inexpensive. Okay. And it's quite surprising that the science of home and home heating didn't really start or get a lot of interest from academic institutions until the eighties, until the energy crisis. Really?
Steve Buetow:I would go to conferences where they would say, well, no one's ever done this research. And so how tight a house is, what humidity does, how the heat and moisture especially transferred through the walls, all of that sort of thing came much later. It might have been known at that time by a few individuals, but it was not general knowledge in the building industry.
Hans Buetow:Well, that is fascinating. It's a thing I just all had assumed had always been forefront in people's minds, especially in a climate like we have.
Steve Buetow:No. And and I've seen a number of houses where insulation in the wall after you take off the outside siding Yeah. Would be a single piece of tar paper suspended between the inside and the outside wall. Toasty.
Hans Buetow:Yep. Yep. Yep. So I wonder if they're gonna get it. This is just a fascinating look into what their expectations are, what they think they can afford, and, like, are they gonna mitigate fuel costs?
Steve Buetow:And the dedication of the homefront.
Hans Buetow:And the dedication of the homefront.
Steve Buetow:And she's not complaining. Yeah. That's right. She's determined that we have to meet these standards.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. So she moves on and says, maybe someday, I hope, we will be able to see the Canadian Rockies. Did you go by boat or train? I know you can appreciate the beautiful scenery as only a few can, loving nature as you do. I shall put the label in my scrapbook, but that won't quench my thirst, will it?
Hans Buetow:Excellent. Mattie continues. There were three servicemen in church yesterday, and it sort of gave me the blues, thinking of you and wished you weren't so far away. We don't get a lot of indications or we haven't so far gotten a lot of indications of how she's feeling about the war. Is she reading about Stalingrad?
Hans Buetow:Is she keeping up on Guadalcanal? Because if you read the paper of the day, that's all there. You can be reading it.
Steve Buetow:Yes.
Hans Buetow:She just not talking to Ken about it, but she's seeing servicemen in the church
Steve Buetow:Correct. Yes.
Hans Buetow:You're right. And getting sad about it. So it's clearly on her mind. Yep. Yep.
Hans Buetow:The next paragraph starts with Bud.
Steve Buetow:Bud. Bud Mickelson. Bud Mickelson. Bud grew up with or spent his teenage years in the same house as Ken. They're the same age.
Steve Buetow:Yeah. And he is Matt's son as Mattie is the parent of Ken.
Hans Buetow:So Ken and Bud are stepbrothers
Steve Buetow:Step in the house. Brothers. Yes.
Hans Buetow:In the house.
Steve Buetow:Yes. So she
Hans Buetow:said that Bud wants your address, so you will no doubt hear from him, which that's nice that they have that kind of relationship.
Steve Buetow:Yeah. They do. Yeah. And, yes, they lived in Bayport. We would go visit them fairly regularly.
Hans Buetow:So Mattie says that she's also enclosing Chuck's letter, which she took the liberty of opening because
Steve Buetow:Of course.
Hans Buetow:I knew you wanted to read it also and felt much safer when I saw he had it addressed to us also. We don't have Chuck Letter. So that got included in this, but we don't see that included in this. So we can't read what that is. But can you tell us who Chuck is?
Steve Buetow:Chuck Gertzon was my dad's best man when he was married years later and a close friend. I they might have even gone to art school together.
Hans Buetow:Okay.
Steve Buetow:I don't know a lot about their history. Okay. I don't know if they went to high school together, but but Mattie knows the Gertsons. Yeah. And so it might have been at church together.
Steve Buetow:Yeah.
Hans Buetow:She says she has not been able to reach missus Gertson. She's evidently working or busy moving. You remember they were going back into their old home the October 1.
Steve Buetow:Yeah. Chuck Gertzon had this mustache with these wonderful big curls on the end of the of the of the mustaches. And I remember him as being single and very warm and loved entertaining children with little tricks of drawing and and writing and things like that.
Hans Buetow:Oh, fun. Mhmm. So then Mattie goes on, we received your postcard from Vancouver on Friday, October 2. That was this past Friday.
Steve Buetow:Okay.
Hans Buetow:And it seems it took just one week for your letter to reach us. Just think, missus Hance has only received one letter from Dick, and it took Chuck's letter almost a month to reach us.
Steve Buetow:Wow. Yeah. But Chuck might be overseas.
Hans Buetow:He might be in The Pacific or something, but it's just really a lot harder.
Steve Buetow:Yep.
Hans Buetow:But now Mattie moves into an outline of what her week has been like. Good. Which was lovely, apparently. She starts it out by saying we had a perfectly beautiful fall week last week.
Steve Buetow:There's nothing like it.
Hans Buetow:As you know, we can have in October, and it looks like it may continue. I hope it will as we wanna go up to the lake on the thirteenth and do a little work before we close-up.
Steve Buetow:The cabin was clearly not winterized. In fact, October would be quite chilly. Yeah. So, yeah, they needed to winterize it.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. So, you know, they got about a week or two left.
Steve Buetow:Yeah. Also, I'm guessing it's pretty easy. I think they kinda just could lock the door, and that would be about it.
Hans Buetow:Right. Because there's no running water.
Steve Buetow:There's no running water. They might have to empty the rain barrel that sits outside. But but no. May maybe get the vinegar out of the off the shelf and stuff like that, but nothing that nothing's gonna freeze and and be damaged.
Hans Buetow:Oh, that's pretty good. Well, the next thing she says is interesting. We will go on gas rationing the November 22, so that will make trips pretty scarce. You couldn't, one of the restrictions that had happened is there was, at this point, speed limit rules that were in place to conserve gas. So you couldn't drive more than 35 miles an hour.
Hans Buetow:So they could only drive 35 miles an hour to get up to the cabin and back.
Steve Buetow:And it's a yeah. That's a that's
Hans Buetow:That's a restriction.
Steve Buetow:A long slog.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. I don't know 1942 how much faster the cars would have gone than 35. So was that a big hindrance or not? I don't know.
Steve Buetow:Well, I had an I had a '49 Plymouth that I was always a little worried over 45.
Hans Buetow:Okay. Okay. So this might not have been a huge hardship. Right. Okay.
Hans Buetow:Chuck, so Chuck Gertzon, him his friend. Chuck writes about bananas and pineapple. That sort of food is a luxury here, but then we don't mind if it will help us get this mess over with.
Steve Buetow:The not there were submarines in The Caribbean, U boats, and shipping has all been changed to getting goods across to England Yeah. In the North Atlantic.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. So Mattie says that on last Tuesday, Lottie and Jerry Falker came to visit us and stayed until Thursday noon.
Steve Buetow:Do not know them.
Hans Buetow:Okay. Lottie and Jerry. Lottie and Jerry Falker came to visit us and stayed until Thursday noon when I washed and got ready for progressive supper we had at the house last night. We served 27.
Steve Buetow:Progressive suppers are wonderful institution.
Hans Buetow:This is a little bit of a tale, so buckle up.
Steve Buetow:I'm ready.
Hans Buetow:Okay. So we served 27. There were supposed to be three hostesses starting with a fruit cocktail or soup. Next, a hot dish, lastly, dessert.
Steve Buetow:And this would be at different locations.
Hans Buetow:So they would move between houses, I'm assuming, in the neighborhood.
Steve Buetow:Right? Neighborhood exactly. Was this a thing that you did? Yes. You did.
Steve Buetow:Yes. We did. When we moved to Crocus Hill after we got back from Hawaii Oh. Where there were there was a very active progressive dinner, and we would have four houses that we would visit.
Hans Buetow:Okay.
Steve Buetow:Yeah. We've met some very interesting people.
Hans Buetow:Is this a thing you continue to do but before then when you lived in the house that Mattie's living in now?
Steve Buetow:I do not remember. No. I only did it as an adult. We did not do it when I was a kid.
Hans Buetow:So that's interesting that they're doing it now. Like, she's a part of that community, but it had by the time you were a kid in that same house, the community had turned over to the point where the or the tradition had changed.
Steve Buetow:Yes. And and it might just be that families with very young children are less likely to participate in that sort of thing. Yeah. That could be.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. That could be. I mean, sounds very com communal. So they're supposed to have three stops. We were supposed to have three hostesses.
Hans Buetow:We had only two hostesses. Starting here as missus Moe didn't want to, and we couldn't get a third.
Steve Buetow:Missus Moe. Oh. Ruby Moe.
Hans Buetow:Ruby Moe.
Steve Buetow:Lived over on Van Buren, a block away. Ruby Moe lived with her mother. Ruby Moe taught Latin at Central High School. Ruby Mo was still teaching Latin at Central High School when I went there thirty years later. Wow.
Steve Buetow:And Ruby Mo would give Ken a ride to high school each morning.
Hans Buetow:Fascinating. Yes. So do you think this missus Mo is Ruby Mo or Ruby Mo's mother?
Steve Buetow:I'm guessing it's Ruby's mother.
Hans Buetow:Oh, I love that. Okay. Great. So so apparently, missus Mo was not down. She didn't want to, it sounds like, start it at least, and they couldn't get a third.
Hans Buetow:So we had the main dish here and the dessert what was to be at missus Nelson's, but it rained at about the time we were to go. So they went home and brought it over here, so the crowd continued on. Excellent. So I played bingo, and we had a very merry time.
Steve Buetow:Oh, good.
Hans Buetow:It was about ten when they left. 27 is
Steve Buetow:a lot because It's a lot. The house was there was a living room. The dining room could properly seat eight at the table comfortably. Wow. That's great.
Steve Buetow:Remember the the wallpaper was kind of kind of minty green, and there were chintz curtains on all the windows that were kind of shiny and and floral patterns. Yeah. And the the the dark woodwork and then the buffet at the end of the dining room. And 27 is a lot of people for that living room dining room.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. Because if they would've, that's where they would've packed, then they're
Steve Buetow:not They couldn't there was
Newsreel:no other place.
Steve Buetow:Yeah. No.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. But it's just, you know, this little neighborhood y feel of all these folks, and then it rains, so they go get
Steve Buetow:the food. That's strange when rainy they weren't outside. Yeah. Yeah.
Hans Buetow:And they go grit the food and bring it back, and everybody, people played bingo. It's just like what
Steve Buetow:It's good.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. It's just it's so good. It's so good. So everybody stays till about ten. Then Mattie continues, dad and I went to communion yesterday.
Hans Buetow:I hope you will find a Lutheran church or services near you. Are you near a city? I haven't spoken to Jin this last week. And so Jin is Virginia Virginia. Who is Ken's your dad's fiance.
Hans Buetow:Yes. I haven't spoken to Jin this last week, but expect she will be calling me that she too has had mail. I will give Wes and Florence your address. Walt and Jean want it also. They were in for just one day, Saturday.
Hans Buetow:He bought a new suit.
Steve Buetow:Yeah. Walt was a close horse. I have his ties. I have, like, 30 Oh, wow. Gorgeous silk ties that I inherited from from Walt.
Hans Buetow:So Walter, Walt, is Mattie's younger brother by about fifteen years. Younger younger brother. Married to Jean Genevieve.
Steve Buetow:Yes. So he would have been about 30.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. And apparently a clotheshorse buying Yes. He got a new suit. I love it. Wes is Ken's brother, so Mattie's older son.
Hans Buetow:Ken is
Steve Buetow:older four years older than Ken.
Hans Buetow:And Florence is Wes's wife.
Steve Buetow:Okay. I doubt I don't remember him.
Hans Buetow:So they're, yeah, they're around in the cities, and so they're around from time to time. The next people we hear about, aunt Ella and Gwen drove to Fargo last week.
Steve Buetow:Aunt Ella. I knew they would arrive.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. Tell me more. Who are aunt Ella and Gwen?
Steve Buetow:Ella is Mattie's sister. Okay. We have some wonderful photographs. There's a photograph of the graduating class of her elementary school about nineteen o four for Saint Stephen's Church, and everybody in the class, all the girls are wearing white, and all the boys in the back row are wearing black. And there are two girls, one with very dark hair, one with very blonde hair, holding hands in the front row.
Steve Buetow:It's Mattie and Ella. Oh. They are just so sweet. And so they're probably 12 Yeah. 13 years old.
Steve Buetow:And Gwen was Ella's daughter and was very close to Ken. You Okay. They were very close to the same age. And Gwen was always impeccably dressed, wore bright red lipstick, had a had a high pitched voice. She I think she was the head librarian when I knew her.
Hans Buetow:With the head librarian of what?
Steve Buetow:Saint Paul. Woah. She was very important within the Saint Paul Public Library, and I would get books. Yeah. Lots of young adult books for Chris.
Steve Buetow:And one year, I got a reading light for Christmas. Gwen and her husband, who we will meet at some point, were my godparents.
Hans Buetow:Oh, it's fabulous. So so Ella, one of Mattie's other siblings, took her daughter, drove to Fargo, and then Mattie says they wanted to take a little fling while they still had enough gas. Of course. It's good. November 22.
Hans Buetow:November 22 is looming large.
Steve Buetow:Yes. Starting October 5. And her husband ran the Ford dealership in Baldwin, Wisconsin.
Hans Buetow:Okay.
Steve Buetow:So that would make a big difference to a car dealer.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. And they had priorities when they had the gas of who
Steve Buetow:needed what. Right. What. So And there were no cars made for five years.
Hans Buetow:That is true. Alright. There's a little bit more about someone that we have met before. Gene Rickard was married on the twenty ninth, and Liz will get married in December.
Steve Buetow:These are the next door neighbors, presumably.
Hans Buetow:So these are the kids. You were saying that you're not sure who the who the kids are, that sounds like the the Yep. The kids. Well, it's a bit controversial. Mattie says that Jean turned Catholic for her husband.
Hans Buetow:Oh, dear. They are touring the North Shore by bus. Missus Rickard asked me to come over to see her gifts, and we'll go sometime this afternoon. I stopped in, but I guess she'd gone out for a while.
Steve Buetow:But it's not that in your Ruth May turned Catholic. Ruth May was was one of Matt's daughters. Yeah. And we had the escapade last time of needing to climb in the upstairs window.
Hans Buetow:That's right. Yep.
Steve Buetow:And so was that Joe?
Hans Buetow:And Ruby yeah. Yeah. Joe came over.
Steve Buetow:Yeah. Well, Joe was Catholic. So that family was Catholic. Okay.
Hans Buetow:Okay. So this is not a contentious thing.
Steve Buetow:Yes. It's contentious, but it's not rare.
Hans Buetow:There you go. That's a good distinction. Just a thing you live with. Yes. Well, Well, that's the end of the letter.
Hans Buetow:She concludes with, well, honey, guess that's about all the news for right now. God bless you, dear, and I hope we'll see you soon. Love, mom. PS. Hope you soon get your watch.
Hans Buetow:This watch has whoo.
Steve Buetow:Yes. We do. So hope he soon gets his watch.
Hans Buetow:Drama. Drama. Drama. Drama with this watch. Yeah.
Hans Buetow:It still hasn't arrived. This is a wonderful letter because the not all of them get this, but this has with a wonderful handwriting of Matt Mickelson.
Steve Buetow:It's beautiful handwriting. Beautiful cursive with dead straight lines.
Hans Buetow:It's amazing.
Steve Buetow:All perfectly spaced blue fountain pen. Yeah. It's beautiful.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. And Mattie left Matt a lot of space on this one, so we get verbosity. Look at all these lines.
Steve Buetow:So many lines. There's a lot of lines.
Hans Buetow:Alright. Yes. Matt says, hi, Ken. Well, when mommy writes, there isn't much to add, but I will say you sure do move around a lot. I hope you'll now be set for a while and that you will like your setup.
Hans Buetow:Maybe your male will have a chance to catch up with you now. This is where it gets interesting. Next paragraph. We just had a pretty good smash up out on our corner. Two cars came together with an awful bang.
Hans Buetow:And so as I was riding at the kitchen table, I looked out and saw this nice new 1941 DeSoto whirling around. Oh. No one was hurt, although the DeSoto car was driven by an old dame about 75 years old. This is a great start. Both cars are a mess.
Hans Buetow:Lots of people around and cops and everything. So I do have a little excitement once in a while.
Steve Buetow:Periodically, I think there were probably three or four of those that happened while I was living there.
Hans Buetow:Okay.
Steve Buetow:Yeah. I just bang. You hear this huge noise, and and two cars would be.
Hans Buetow:You weren't on the corner, but you were close to the corner.
Steve Buetow:We were second house from
Hans Buetow:the corner. Okay. So so that would have been Yeah. Yeah. He concludes by saying, I believe everything that I might have put down here as news has been written.
Hans Buetow:So we'll just say, be a good soldier, and we'll be seeing you shortly, dad.
Steve Buetow:The yep. The obligatory PS.
Hans Buetow:The obligatory it's so good. You know what? He's participating. And I get a sense too from some of these letters that he'll write to Bud, and then he'll pass it to Mattie, and Mattie will write a PS. And then Mattie will write to Ken, then pass it to Matt, and Matt will write a PS.
Steve Buetow:Because they were all the same family. They were all the same family. Yeah.
Hans Buetow:Even though they were they were biologically parents of each of those, they all seem to have really good relationships.
Steve Buetow:Yes. They did. As far as I know, they did.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. I mean, they called you their dad. Dad Mickelson. Yep. Well, that's it for today.
Hans Buetow:Next episode, we're gonna go only three days further. We're Monday now. We're gonna go to Thursday, October 8, and Mattie's gonna be a little bit I'm
Steve Buetow:not gonna say
Hans Buetow:despondent. She's lonely. It starts out, I'm terribly lonesome for you this morning.
Steve Buetow:Interesting. Yeah. Okay. And because we haven't had a lot of her feelings Yeah. At least overtly expressed.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. Yeah. So I'm looking forward to, hearing a little bit about what's making her lonesome, how she's dealing with it, and what her the rest of her week looks like in early October nineteen forty two. That is Mattie's World for Monday, 10/05/1942. Thank you so much for being here and hanging out with us and with Mattie.
Hans Buetow:You can head over to moth.family. That's mattie On The homefront.family, moth.family, And that will give you all the instructions on how to get a hold of us. You can also see some photos. Photos.
Steve Buetow:Yes. There's a wonderful Thanksgiving photo from 1945 Yeah. That shows Matt's entire family.
Hans Buetow:You can also leave us a review anywhere that you listen to this. That always helps the show out just to say nice things about us, if you can. If you hated us, don't do that. Our theme music is by Matt Buto, and our logo and art is by the wonderful
Steve Buetow:Amy Kirkpatrick. Amy Kirkpatrick. Yes.
Hans Buetow:Thanks, Amy. I'm Hans Buto. I'm Steve Buto. And, we thank you so much for being here. Thank you.
Hans Buetow:See you next time.