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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.
You ready?
Steve Buetow:I'm ready. K.
Hans Buetow:Hello.
Steve Buetow:Although, I'm not sure I'm that enthusiastic. Hello.
Hans Buetow:Hello, dad.
Steve Buetow:Hello, Hansel.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. So we're having fun in the shop tonight. We are having fun. My name is Hans Buto, and this is?
Steve Buetow:Steven Buto. Do you go
Hans Buetow:by you don't go by Steven very often, do you?
Steve Buetow:I sign my checks that way. You do.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. Sometimes you do.
Steve Buetow:Yeah. And my mother, when she was mad at me, would call me Steven.
Hans Buetow:I realized today as I was walking, was saying my name over and over again. Mhmm. Because you and my mother say my name very differently. Oh, really? Yeah.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. Yeah. Hans Buto. Okay. And Hans Buto.
Steve Buetow:Yes. Hansel. Hansel.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. Hans. Hans. Hans. So this is me walking the dog this morning.
Hans Buetow:Hans. Hans. Hans. Hans. That's
Steve Buetow:But but we there was a discussion. Why do we name the boy? Yeah. They won't let him out of the hospital without a name. Yeah.
Steve Buetow:It's been three days
Hans Buetow:Just the boy.
Steve Buetow:We'd met someone who had a little boy named Hans, and she called him Hansi. And so that was vetoed. And the first he can be Hansi. He cannot
Hans Buetow:be Hansi. Mad at that. I'm not mad at that decision. In fact, good job. Good job.
Hans Buetow:Well, welcome to Mattie On The Homefront, a podcast all about me and my name. Let's talk some more about me. I am Mattie's great grandson. Which makes me her grandson. And we, on this show, go through Mattie's letters that she wrote from September 1942 through 1945.
Hans Buetow:So during the World War two years where her son, your dad, was in
Steve Buetow:He? In the army. In the army.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. In World War two. It's right now, late October nineteen forty two, in Mattie and Ken's world. Yep. So October 26 is a Monday.
Hans Buetow:I'm just gonna hand you the envelope. They're starting to look pretty similar.
Steve Buetow:Ah, still to the two hundred and thirty eighth MP company, Seattle, Washington.
Hans Buetow:Still coming from sixteen ninety one Blair, and it will now for a while.
Steve Buetow:And Airmail. Yep. Five bonds.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. So this is Monday PM, 10/26/1942, and it was postmarked. I'm gonna say 9PM. It's a little faded, but 9PM. My darling Kenneth.
Hans Buetow:So happy to get your letter of October 17. Everything's fine, dear. Only this house is lonely without you. MLRs are surely faithful to you, aren't they? My, that is swell.
Hans Buetow:I snapped in there Saturday, bought myself a three piece suit, so I went upstairs and opened a charge account. Saw Catherine Razey, and she said they had gotten the nicest letter from you. She said it was definitely the nicest letter that had come in from any of the boys. I am proud of you, dear. Your letters are swell just like you are talking to me.
Hans Buetow:Alright. So my question is MLR. Rothschild. Maurice l Rothschilds. Yes.
Hans Buetow:That's the extent of what I know about this. This is a department store?
Steve Buetow:It is a department store. There were six or eight department stores, large department stores downtown Saint Paul.
Hans Buetow:Oh, like, just generally, Rothschilds Plus, like, there would have been Dayton's.
Steve Buetow:No. Dayton's was not in Saint Paul until decades later. Right. Okay. Okay.
Steve Buetow:But there was Field Schlick, Schunemann's, The Emporium. I think Powers was a little bit wasn't really in downtown, and they might have been later. There were quite a number of them, and that was how people shop, take the bus downtown, and large department stores.
Hans Buetow:I have never heard of any of those.
Steve Buetow:Yeah. The buildings are still there.
Hans Buetow:Okay.
Steve Buetow:Most of them are still there.
Hans Buetow:Was the Golden Rule one?
Steve Buetow:The Golden Rule was another one.
Hans Buetow:Rule Building, I used to have to walk through when I worked downtown. And so it was always like, oh, the Golden Rule Building. But that was a department store.
Steve Buetow:Was department stores. So most of the department stores were between Robert and Wabasha
Hans Buetow:Yeah.
Steve Buetow:In that whole area there. And 7th Street was a main thoroughfare. So 7th And Wabasha was the intersection of downtown. Yeah. And then 7th no longer goes through.
Steve Buetow:It's been stopped by the park, the building.
Hans Buetow:That's by the Excel Center, by the big hockey center.
Steve Buetow:But there's also the park, the indoor park that's there on Waukesha. Yeah. In Minneapolis. Nicollet became the mall Mhmm. And was quite successful.
Steve Buetow:So Saint Saint Paul's site, well, we will take our most popular street and make it into a pedestrian area, and it'll be wonderful, and it wasn't.
Hans Buetow:So the the Maurice l Rothschild story in Saint Paul was on 7th And Robert. Yes. There was one on Nicolette in Minneapolis as well.
Steve Buetow:Yes. That was young Quinlan Rothschild.
Hans Buetow:That's it. Yes. Young Quinlan. So then it had a y q on it afterwards. I was seeing people referring to those.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. So we're talking about Rothschilds, and these would have been what what should people imagine when they think about Rothschilds? Was this a thing you ever went to?
Steve Buetow:It would have been I was quite young. I didn't ever go shopping there myself. I was tugged around various department stores. I don't know which ones my parents were patronized Loyal to. Above others.
Steve Buetow:Right. But Ken worked at Rothschild.
Hans Buetow:Which makes me think he would have been loyal Yes. To them. So I think there's a chance you've been in it, but Yes. You're not quite sure.
Steve Buetow:And it that was mostly clothing.
Hans Buetow:Okay. Which is what Mattie says of going and buy buying herself a three piece suit.
Steve Buetow:Yes. An upscale place Yeah. To buy clothes.
Hans Buetow:And so Ken was working there. Do you know anything about his employment there? What was he doing?
Steve Buetow:I think that he was a sales clerk. Yeah. I do have a lamp upstairs, which was the first thing that he bought with his first check, and that was for his mother. It's a floor lamp. Oh.
Steve Buetow:That stands up. It's got a click click click for three different levels of light. I think I spray painted it black before I knew.
Hans Buetow:I know exactly the one you're talking about.
Steve Buetow:Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. Do you think he would have been good at that? Would you have bought a suit from a young Ken?
Steve Buetow:Well, he was quite a handsome and I think dapper young man. I totally see that. I don't think he was trying to sell a bill of goods. Yeah. He he believed the clothing was good, and he had
Hans Buetow:a good eye. Ken had strong taste.
Steve Buetow:And pictures of him from that time, from high school and so on. If you look at the photos, he's got very dapper coats and a fedora, which is rather attractive. And people generally were better dressed. Mhmm. I mean, you went to grandpa's for Christmas, you wore a coat and tie.
Steve Buetow:You wore
Hans Buetow:a coat and tie. You wore hats places. Yes. I that's how people should imagine us. That's what we're wearing right now.
Steve Buetow:Correct. Yeah. Right. I'm sorry about this tie.
Hans Buetow:No. That's that's that's fine. It's I wasn't gonna say anything. It would But I'm judging.
Steve Buetow:It was it was uncle Walter's tie.
Hans Buetow:So you might not be the person to ask this, but I'm very curious about I stopped in there Saturday, bought myself a three piece suit. So I went upstairs and opened a charge account.
Steve Buetow:Probably would be charge account just for Rothschild. Yeah. Because there I don't believe there were credit cards generally in the forties.
Hans Buetow:Okay. And she wouldn't have been eligible to have a credit card even if there were ones because women didn't have the right to have credit cards of their own for another twenty years?
Steve Buetow:I don't know. Could be. I I don't know. Yeah.
Hans Buetow:Three piece suit is interesting to me.
Steve Buetow:Three piece suit is very interesting.
Hans Buetow:Because I'm imagining a man's three piece suit.
Steve Buetow:Right.
Hans Buetow:And then I'm imagining it's not what she's buying.
Steve Buetow:So she had a a skirt and a jacket and maybe a Westcott or vest of some Yeah. So she could take off the jacket Yeah. And still be presentable.
Hans Buetow:And have the whole ensemble still work.
Steve Buetow:That's what I imagine that I'm making it up.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. I just want I would love to know, like, what material, what pattern, what, like, what did what would Mattie have picked in 1942?
Steve Buetow:Oh, yeah. Houndstooth or Oh, can
Hans Buetow:you imagine? Oh, yeah. Beautiful wool. Beautiful. It it had to be wool.
Hans Buetow:I mean, I would
Steve Buetow:imagine it was wool.
Hans Buetow:Absolutely. Especially
Steve Buetow:in October.
Hans Buetow:Especially in October. I wonder, yeah, if it's her winter. It's also interesting because she's so self sufficient with her clothes and making so many of her clothes as we will come to find. Right. A suit, though, is a different magnitude of construction.
Hans Buetow:I have a feeling.
Steve Buetow:It's not gonna save you any money to make a suit. The the cloth is so expensive.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. Okay.
Steve Buetow:I suspect it was much different then, but I don't know how it was different.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. I like getting this window into Ken being a likable, very missed, and not just by I mean, she's very effusive about her affection for him. And it really feels like it's in this letter, especially, it really feels like it's starting to get to her a little bit, that he's gone. But Oh, okay. It's just lovely to see him.
Hans Buetow:So many instances of so and so wants to be remembered to you.
Steve Buetow:That's it is wonderful. Yeah.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. Because it's not how I mean, I knew him when he was much older and much more secluded.
Steve Buetow:Yes. And He's very isolated.
Hans Buetow:Very isolated. And so I don't think of him as being terribly social. I don't think of him as being need to be remembered to a lot of people.
Steve Buetow:The life of the party, sort of.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so Mattie continues along here, and this is where it gets a little bit hard to hard to read because of the margins, which, she recognizes. She said, your letter was swell just like you were talking to me.
Hans Buetow:Yes. I can imagine that mail of any sort is welcome. You evidently haven't gotten my package yet. How do you like sentry duty? Isn't that terribly lonely all night alone?
Hans Buetow:Ugh. I can't get the margin much closer, can I?
Steve Buetow:That was one of the few things Ken talked about was sentry duty. Yeah? Yes. He was there to guard the West Coast Of Canada against intrusion from a violent army and noises, foreign sounds. He was probably pacing alone Yeah.
Steve Buetow:In in the dark.
Hans Buetow:In the dark. I mean, I imagine it was dark dark, not just because he's somewhere along the Pacific Coast in a smaller town. We get the impression from Mattie that he was describing that, you know, small town, not many buses, not many cars, but also because they would probably have blackouts or dim outs
Steve Buetow:Of course.
Hans Buetow:Happening because, you know, they're worried about planes coming over. They're worried about being identified. And so it I mean, I'm guessing it was like you had natural light of the moon, and that was about it.
Steve Buetow:And it's the rainiest city in Canada.
Hans Buetow:Well, this is interesting. Interesting. Interesting. Because she's really in this letter trying to figure out where he is.
Steve Buetow:Oh, well, I know because he told me. He told you.
Hans Buetow:Right. But she's not quite sure. So he she asks him first a little bit, so you were on parade? I hope you don't stay up until 12:30 every night, dear, because that wouldn't give you enough rest. Thanks, mom.
Hans Buetow:Thanks, mom. You evidently haven't gotten my letter with Chuck's in it either. So this is a letter that she talked about sending a month ago, at least, where she included a letter from Chuck. And Chuck, of course, is
Steve Buetow:Chuck Gertzen.
Hans Buetow:Chuck Gertzen.
Steve Buetow:Yeah. Dad's very good friend.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. So Gin's news beat mine. Suppose that was on account of being at the lake. Then there's just one sentence. Wesley called the draft board and thinks he will be going about Christmas time.
Hans Buetow:Wow. So Wesley is Ken's brother. Older brother.
Steve Buetow:He is 25? Golly. 26. Right at the top end of draft age. Okay.
Hans Buetow:And so here's where Mattie gets to the supposing. She's put on her detective cap when she says, I just called the post office to find out if they have mailed direct to where I think you are, Prince Rupert. Am I right? But they have no record of it, although the mans of the army have certain methods of which they have no record. But according to your letters, no planes come in direct.
Hans Buetow:You know, you mentioned the day you left Seattle that you were headed for Prince Rupert, but when you said you followed the Fraser River, that threw us off completely. According to the maps, Prince Rupert is situated on the water, and you speak of the mountains. And I noticed on the box in which my gift was in, it was stamped PR, so I take it that's where you are. Hope this letter isn't censored.
Steve Buetow:Well, in fact, it is Prince Rupert.
Hans Buetow:It is Prince Rupert. So do you know anything about Prince Rupert? Where what is Prince Rupert?
Steve Buetow:Prince Rupert is a town with a very good harbor. It's the it's the deepest harbor on the North American continent.
Hans Buetow:That's wow. Okay.
Steve Buetow:It's well protected. It is the very last place along the coast as you go north up the coast that is Canadian.
Hans Buetow:That's Canadian because it becomes that little The
Steve Buetow:Alaskan Panhandle. The Alaskan Panhandle. It begins right there. Yeah. Yeah.
Steve Buetow:Yeah. And it's quite mountainous just along the coast. Yeah. It's very rainy. It is a port city that relies on fishing of about 20,000 people that during the war tripled in size.
Steve Buetow:Wow. It had something to do with the Alaskan Highway.
Hans Buetow:The Alcan, the Alaskan Canadian Highway, which at this moment, like, right about now is finishing. It's, like, September, October, November 1942 that they're finishing this huge intercontinental highway project that they undertook to get all the way through Canada.
News Reel:But the Alaska Highway is much more than a road, much more than a brilliant construction feat. It is the backbone of our military position in the Far Northwest. Its smooth surface provides a safe all weather route for trucks and cars from the transportation network of Southern Canada to the interior of Alaska. Through the 1,600 miles of integrated Kannal pipelines, fuel to supply the road, the airports, and the flight strips is readily available. Now we can press home the attack.
Steve Buetow:It is a major undertaking. But that was the only way to not have cargo exposed to the Japanese Navy. Because you could take the road to get to Alaska, and Japan was now occupying part of Alaska. Right. So I'm guessing that highway ahead was was very important.
Steve Buetow:Was very important,
Hans Buetow:which is why probably they were getting it. It was such a big deal that was finishing And so we think this is where he's we and we actually do know that this you
Steve Buetow:know, because
Hans Buetow:Mattie's correct. Yeah. He's correct. It's on the the packages that he's sending her, so it's not I like the amount of sleuthing that she's trying to do, though. It just has really sweet.
Steve Buetow:Yes. It is. And and you'd feel compelled. It's a mystery to solve.
Hans Buetow:And you wanna picture it. You wanna they they're so Yeah. Eager to picture and understand what his life is. And I I love the line of, like, when you said you followed the Fraser River, that threw us off completely. So I imagine them scouring maps
Steve Buetow:Yes. Yes. And following them up.
Hans Buetow:And, oh, well, what do you think he is now? And, you know Yes. Oh. Like, it's a lovely thing to understand the love between these two. It's true.
Hans Buetow:And so now she pivots as she does in these letters to the homefront, and she lets him know that, remember, it's October 26 right now. We certainly have had one cold snap. It got down to 16 above last night. Oh. One of the coldest nights so far.
Hans Buetow:16 above. October 26.
Steve Buetow:It's early to be that cold.
Hans Buetow:Mattie says that this was dad's weekend out. And Saturday night, I planned on going seeing the wedding. I'm not sure which wedding she was planning on going seeing. No. Yeah.
Hans Buetow:But she was planning on going seeing the wedding, but that Wes, you certainly can't depend on him. Oh, dear. I got the notion that I better call to make sure he had drained your car as they had warned all motorists over the radio, and sure enough, he hadn't done it. Oh, it won't freeze yet, he said. But I was taking no chances.
Hans Buetow:In fact, ours had frozen a little because when I drove out Friday morning, the water immediately shot up to one ninety. So that indicated it had started to freeze. So instead of going to the wedding, I went over to Graham's to drain your radiator and block, but there was no sign of freezing as it ran out freely.
Steve Buetow:I think Ken owned an old Plymouth. They would complain about it. But the idea that you drain when it got cold Yeah. Because presumably there was not antifreeze Right. In the cooling system Right.
Steve Buetow:Of cars.
Hans Buetow:If, I mean, if that busts those internal pipes, all the whatever's in the like, that's that's serious. Right?
Steve Buetow:Oh, it's very serious. It's terminal.
Hans Buetow:Maybe just because he's not driving his because it sounds like she's driving hers.
Steve Buetow:Right. And that heifer's is probably an expense for the car that if you don't have to, why bother?
Hans Buetow:Yeah. But I wanna ask about Wes. I know we know very little about Wes. Mhmm. I put a lot of sauce on that just now reading that.
Hans Buetow:I read this, obviously, to be dismissive of Wes. She's clearly besotted with Ken Yes. Clearly. And doesn't give Wes a lot of grace. And, like, the the way she starts that, but that Wes, you certainly can't depend on him.
Hans Buetow:Wow. And then she's like, yeah. I knew I knew I had to go check up on what he did and didn't do.
Steve Buetow:So she's really on his case. Yeah. It's really hard to know, And we've speculated before that the divorce was extremely hard on him Yeah. As the older child
Hans Buetow:Yeah.
Steve Buetow:And the one who probably knew more about what was going on within the divorce. And, Wes, I think, going to remain a mystery.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. She changes subjects now and says, so you're taking typing. Well, that's fine because that's an art one can always use. Yes. He would type my papers.
Hans Buetow:Aunt Martha has been quite sick, she says. So aunt Martha was uncle Berndt's. Oh, wife. Widow. Widow.
Hans Buetow:Now widow. Now widow. So on our last letter, uncle Berndt died.
Steve Buetow:That's Matt's. Matt's. Her husband's uncle. Correct.
Hans Buetow:Yep. And so Martha's been left alone now. So she says Martha has been quite sick, so I've been busy going back and forth. She took a very bad cold doing some work outside her yard, and, of course, she is alone now. So I felt it was only human to do what I could for her.
Hans Buetow:I had our car taken out Friday night. We finally had to buy a thermostat as dad put it away so carefully that we couldn't find it. That's the third one we had to buy. We spent $18.30 at Wally's service station on the corner. Of course, that included the tires we had vulcanized, two small holes in it.
Hans Buetow:It surely costs like heck to winterize one's car. And if we weren't gonna get gas, it hardly pays to put all the money into it.
Steve Buetow:Good point. If you can't drive
Hans Buetow:it, why ain't winterize it? So what is winterizing a car? This is a thing I don't I'm not familiar with. Cars obviously don't need that now. But what do you think all this means?
Hans Buetow:What is vulcanizing? What is winterizing a car?
Steve Buetow:You probably would put a different weight oil in it. So you drain the oil. And instead of doing 30 weight oil, you might do 10 or five weight oil.
Hans Buetow:It's less viscous?
Steve Buetow:Yes. So it would spin the engine would spin over more easily as you're trying to start it. They didn't have multi viscosity oil. And if the winterizing involved the antifreeze, then that would be maintained, updated, verified. And if the systems are quite leaky, you didn't want to spend all your money on antifreeze that ended up on the pavement.
Steve Buetow:Yeah. You'd probably maintain your battery, make sure that it's got enough water in it Mhmm. And that it's all charged up. And there might be other things. When cars got I'm sure each season, they would get lubed.
Steve Buetow:So put it up in the rack. There'd be 16 places underneath the car that would get a squirt of grease.
Hans Buetow:Oh, interesting.
Steve Buetow:Yeah. Because bearings and so on were not near what they are now. Yeah. So that was a a regular thing that had to be done, and usually the service stations would do that. Vulcanizing, I'm not sure exactly.
Hans Buetow:It's a thing I've heard a number of times.
Steve Buetow:Rubber is vulcanized to make it stable.
Hans Buetow:It's some sort of repair process, hardening process.
Steve Buetow:It's a hardening process, but but the tires are already vulcanized when they get there.
Hans Buetow:Right. So is it, like, extra vulcanization for winter?
Steve Buetow:It might be a sales product.
Hans Buetow:Part of the
Steve Buetow:$18.30.
Hans Buetow:Yeah.
Steve Buetow:Get your tires vulcanized because they have these words. It's like Yeah. It's like brittle cream now with cholesterol.
Hans Buetow:Is that really Yes. Yes. No. Oh, I better get my cholesterol. Oh.
Hans Buetow:Thank god it's got it. I was low on cholesterol. Oh, so my last question is, do you remember Wally's service station? Was Wally's service station on the corner around when you were in that house?
Steve Buetow:There was Shire's station, which is a city service two blocks away that dad always patronized. It was Lou, and Lou was the younger one. It could have been Wally Mhmm. Shire.
Hans Buetow:I mean, a neighborhood shop, like a neighborhood family shop like that. Yep. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Steve Buetow:That was the closest one.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. Yep. Well, she says tomorrow, Tuesday, we are planning another trip to the lake to close-up for sure this time. Underline. Sure.
Hans Buetow:I hope dad gets some ducks. It's warming up now. The temperature is a little over 30 degrees. I didn't even hang out my clothes this morning because it was only 16 degrees, and I felt that was too cold, especially with a strong northwest gale blowing. Oh.
Hans Buetow:Would you care to have some magazines? This is where we get into the not making paragraph breaks. Makes for some very fun transitions here. But before we move on to magazines there, hope dad gets some ducks.
Steve Buetow:I had no idea he duck hunted.
Hans Buetow:It was a letter or two ago that they talked about the ducks being too high in the air, and then the piece being too high in the air. Yep. Yeah. Yep. And so this was not a sign of them you knew.
Steve Buetow:No. I did not know they duck on it. It's interesting. Yeah. Yeah.
Steve Buetow:And it was probably much less regulated than it is now. Right. Like the partridge shooting the partridge in the backyard. Yep. Don't do that anymore.
Hans Buetow:Well, she is asking now about magazines. Would you care to have some? I felt like if you would be there for some time, I would send you a subscription to Reader's Digest. You get it for only a dollar 50 instead of $3 for servicemen. I spent a rather quiet day Sunday.
Hans Buetow:After going to aunt Martha's in the morning, I stopped to get some chow mein and took it over to Graham's. And then I went home about three as it was snowing and blowing, also freezing just terribly, and I was anxious to get the car in because the streets were very icy in the morning.
Steve Buetow:Oh, they had terrible tires. Though they weren't vulcanized yet.
Hans Buetow:I wish they were terrible. She just told us that.
Steve Buetow:Oh, sorry. They were bias by tire tires without any tread on them.
Hans Buetow:But, Graham, it's interesting. This is the second time she's mentioned she mentioned a few letters ago about buying chow mein and taking it to Graham's. Graham would have been her mom. Yes. Julia.
Steve Buetow:And chow mein was a big deal.
Hans Buetow:Even in the forties. I'm guessing it
Steve Buetow:was I mean, it must be, but everyone had their own favorite Chinese place. Yeah. And they would get chow mein.
Hans Buetow:So I guess that's what Graham likes because she's bringing it to her.
Steve Buetow:I wonder if Graham spoke English.
Hans Buetow:That's a great question. She was not born in The United States by quite a bit.
Steve Buetow:No. By quite a bit.
Hans Buetow:It is interesting to think about her at least having an accent. Yes. If not, did she speak English at all? Right. Do you have a sense that Mattie spoke any other languages?
Steve Buetow:Not from talking to her or her German vocabulary, but she went to grade school that was German school. So, yes, she did speak German.
Hans Buetow:Which is another reason to wonder if her mother English was very much her second language, if at all.
Steve Buetow:If at all. Yeah. And I think Ken complained about one one or two grandparents who just never really learned to speak English. Fascinating.
Hans Buetow:Mhmm. Mattie says she sewed her flannel PJs. Would you like some? You don't say much about the weather, or you aren't allowed to. You said you hoped you had a lot of that clear, sunshiny, crisp fall weather that's typical of good old Minnesota.
Hans Buetow:None of that here.
Steve Buetow:Well, he's in the rainiest city in the country of Canada. Oh. They have the fewest sunny hours of any place. Woah. And it doesn't get much above freezing in
Hans Buetow:the wintertime. Wow. Okay. She also asks, what kind of huts do you live in? Can you go into more detail?
Hans Buetow:Are they heated? I hope you won't freeze too much. Missus Edland, parentheses, Minnie, that old friend from Saint Stephen's, called, said she'd been wanting to get in touch with me ever since she saw your name in the paper and wanted to know where you were.
Steve Buetow:And nobody knows. Nobody knows. But name in
Hans Buetow:the paper, I'm assuming that's a deployment. Like, they just list out who's been deployed or who's in the army or, Drafted. Like Drafted? I'm assuming it has to do she's asking because somehow it had to do with his army service. Right?
Steve Buetow:Yep. And he just went in in August. Right?
Hans Buetow:Yep. Have you had any idea what you would like for Christmas? Understand we can't send any more foodstuffs. I'm certainly at a loss. I had quite a visit with Glad Genrich last night.
Hans Buetow:She also took your address. We are going over to their house next Saturday directly from the lake, and Viv is having a party Sunday. She wants us to get back. So we thought we might as well go back Saturdays. We haven't had been with the Ginrichs since our anniversary, October 3.
Hans Buetow:That's a long time. But with going out to the lake and dad's weekends out, it just made it possible. Bob has to go trick or treats with Gretchen for a while, so they want us over there being Halloween. Well, honey, guess that's all the news for now. I have a lot to tend to and hope you get both your packages.
Hans Buetow:God bless you and keep you always from all harm and illness. Love, mom.
Steve Buetow:I can imagine Ken did enjoy getting letters from his mom.
Hans Buetow:I think so. I mean, he seems pretty verbose back
Steve Buetow:to her. He probably has quite a bit of time.
Hans Buetow:And a lot of new experiences, a lot of
Steve Buetow:things to report.
Hans Buetow:Just Yep. You know? How many how many people does he know yet? I wonder how much he's getting moved around, and is he meeting people and staying staying near the people he's meeting? Because, you know, the army's notorious for that.
Steve Buetow:Right. And what are his response responsibilities?
Hans Buetow:And he's got all that time on on patrol at night just to just to think about things. I I would miss my mom if I was in a similar situation even if I was this age and not 21.
Steve Buetow:Yes.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. That is Mattie's World for Monday, 10/26/1942. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here.
Hans Buetow:We always appreciate if you happen to have any feedback for us. You can do it by leaving us a comment. Go to iTunes. I don't They don't call it iTunes anymore. Pod Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
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Steve Buetow:What? Did that really happen?
Hans Buetow:Can give five stars. Another way that you can participate is you can head on over to moth.family. That's the website, and you can find there the contact information for getting ahold of us. Our theme music is by my cousin Matt Buto. And our logo and art is by my stepmom.
Hans Buetow:Amy Kirkpatrick. Wonderful people. Thanks, fam. I'm Hans Buto. I'm Steve Buto.
Hans Buetow:Thank you so, so much, and we will see you next time.