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Oral history interviews of World War II conducted by Harold Phillips for the Handley Library Archives and the Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society. Today is the 16th of January, 2002. The interviewee today is Miss Arthella Anderson. Mrs. --
Mrs. Mrs.
Where were you born?
Mountain Falls.
In Frederick County?
In Frederick County, yes.
Would you want to tell us the year or is that private?
I was born October the 30th of 1917.
October. I'm an October.
Are you?
Yes. And when did you move to Winchester?
Well, I came to town -- I had -- my oldest sister was living here, and when I was -- I had a private teacher. I had had a surgery on my leg and I couldn't walk to a country school. I never went to a country school. And I came -- I had a private teacher for four years. Then I came to Handley, I started out in the fourth grade at Handley.
Did you graduate from Handley?
1938.
1938.
Uh-huh.
Where were you when Pearl Harbor happened?
I was -- I was in my house. It was about noon -- about two o'clock, I believe, and my girlfriend, one of my girl -- that I graduated from high school with was there visiting me. Her husband was a Marine and she -- he was in Quantico, stationed in Quantico, and he was up -- she stayed with her parents and he was there for the day -- I mean for the weekend.
Uh-huh.
And she was in my house when we heard it over radio. We didn't have TV, you know, we had a radio. And my goodness, everybody was just -- couldn't believe it, you know. And she left immediately because she knew her husband was going to have to go and he did too. And he was shipped out not too long after that to the West Coast.
Were you married at the time?
Yes, I was married. I had a little boy, six months old.
Oh, six months.
To that very day.
To that day. December the 7th.
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
How about that. What was the mood like with neighbors and people around you?
My goodness, everybody was just talking -- you had such a terrible feeling over you, like a dread or something, you know. My goodness, we were in war. We were in war. And it just was -- and Pearl Harbor was just terrible.
Yeah.
I knew a boy that was in the ship Arizona that went down. From Frederick County.
Did you know at the time he was on board that ship?
Shortly after, yes. Yes, I did. But it was just real bad. I mean it was -- the whole town -- you know, we just couldn't believe it.
Did the radio play the news all the time after that?
Oh, yes, yes. Yes.
Continuous. And how about the Winchester Star, did they --
Oh, my goodness, it was in the paper. Everything.
Did they have an extra edition? I think I remember something about an extra paper coming out.
I'm sure we did at that time. We took the Star. You know, we took the Star.
Yeah.
But I -- I probably have that Star too because I've always saved a lot of the papers for things like that.
Yeah, I remember as a kid we used to get the paper in the afternoon and we got the Monday paper in the morning so I think it was an extra edition.
Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was. Just everybody, you know, just -- and then when they started drafting all the boys it was -- I had two members of my class were killed during the war.
Of your class?
My class. Colin Haley (ph), he was a twin. And he was a copilot in -- a copilot and his plane went down over Germany. And then Paul Freese (ph) was killed in the camp where he was trained, in boot camp. I think it was like Kansas or Iowa. I don't know -- you know, in those states.
Yes.
But yeah, due to an accident during boot camp, you know.
Didn't Handley have a corps of cadets at that time?
Yes, they did.
Did you ever watch them?
Well, yes, not much. I was married then, you know --
Yes.
-- and I had a family. But yes, they did.
Drilled up on the parade ground?
Right, right. Yes, they did.
What was your husband's occupation, what was he --
He worked at American Viscose.
In Front Royal?
In Front Royal, and that was a war plant because they made parachutes, you know.
Oh, yeah?
Made the material for parachutes, yes. His mother was real ill. He wasn't called then and because he was in a war plant the little boy didn't keep him out. And she died -- she had cancer. When she died he got his greeting papers about a week afterward. (Laughter) And he went for his physical and this Navy man kept following him around and asking how he would like to be in the Navy. And he said, "Well, it looks like I'm going to be, doesn't it." (Laughter) But don't you know, the Japanese surrendered and he didn't have to go.
He didn't have to go.
Uh-uh.
That's great, yeah. What was life like in Winchester then. How did it change after the war started?
My goodness. All the boys were being drafted and it was a terrible feeling. I mean, you know, you just -- and you just wait for the news to hear what was next and, you know, it was such a terrible feeling about -- you felt like -- well, you just didn't know who you would hear that was killed of the boys that were gone, you know.
Yeah. What kind of preparations did Winchester -- the city make for the war? Did they have air raids?
Oh, they certainly did have air raids. Blackouts, yes, they did. My husband was an air raid warden and he worked shift work at American Viscose, and it seemed to me like every time we had a blackout it was my -- I had to take his place. So you had to go with a flashlight and you had to see that every house was dark. And I had about six to eight blocks to go and sometimes you had a little problem getting people to get their light out, have their lights out.
Did you?
Yes.
What did you have to do, knock on their door or something?
Yes, you knocked on the door and told them it had to be out. I mean out. It had to be black. Now, I had a flashlight that I carried.
Uh-huh.
To see.
Did you have a red shield over the flashlight or just --
No, I didn't. No, I didn't. I could have the flashlight, but they couldn't have the flashlight, not in the house, you know. So I have to tell you this. One night when I went out -- I worked. I worked for Roy Cather's (ph) cold storage out on Valley Avenue?
Yes.
I don't know whether you remember it was there?
Yes.
I worked for Mr. Cather. Well, I had to work that day and I came home and I didn't look at the paper, the Evening Star. My mother-in-law did, she read it. And she meant to tell me something that was in the paper and she forgot about it, but then we heard the sirens after it got dark, you know, and I had to go with my flashlight and she watched my little boy. And I went out the steps and down on the walk and all of a sudden it was just red, the sky was just red. It just looked like it was on fire. And it frightened me, I thought it was the end of time it frightened me so. I ran back in the house and I said, "Hope, come out here and look at the sky, I'm scared to death," and she said, "Oh, I forgot to tell you." She said, "The Northern Lights are tonight." She said it was in the paper and said they would be unusually bright. And it was just this red was right down over you. I will never forget that.
And that just happened that night --
That night. That night. I had no idea of such a thing. I had no -- when the sirens went off you went. I mean I had to go right then, you know. And I had to walk -- I was on Bond Street, those apartments, and I had to go on -- well, it was Main Street then.
Yeah.
It's Loudoun now, and I had to go clear up to Gaunt's drugstore and all around Sanitary Dairy and I had about eight blocks, six to eight blocks.
How did they get the streetlights off?
Well, they cut them off.
Did they? All over the --
Yeah, yes indeed, they went off. All the streetlights went off. It went dark. It was dark.
Yeah. How about traffic, automobile traffic. Did they have to stop?
Well, they were supposed to, yes. Nobody was supposed to be out either, you know.
Uh-huh.
Not out. Not out on the streets, you know.
Yeah.
I had a little problem sometimes on that.
Yeah. And how often did this happen?
Oh, once a month. At least about every six weeks, I think.
Yeah.
And you never knew. So you didn't know. When you heard the sirens, that was when the lights -- right, right. But I did have trouble -- well, I never had to call anybody else to help me, but people didn't want to turn their lights out, you know. Especially if they had little children. I could understand that, you know. That was frightening to them, you know. But it was something. I was so glad when it was over.
Was there anything else like that that the city did?
Well, we had a USO, you know.
Tell me about that.
Well, of course I couldn't go, I was married, but a lot of my friends did. Went to entertain the soldiers when they came back, you know. Be on leave and would come -- a lot of the kids that I knew.
Where was it?
Down on Main Street.
A building that they had?
Uh-huh.
And what did they have, dance bands?
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Oh, that's really nice.
And served food. We served, you know, cakes and -- well, sandwiches and something to drink.
And any serviceman that would want to --
It was free for everybody to come in.
Did they have anything like troop trains? Did they ever take a large group of men from the city by train or anything like that?
I don't think so. I don't remember that if they did, no. But it was so -- we just hated to -- well, you just wondered what boy next would be missing, you know, and...
When did they start restricting the sale of sugar and foods, the rationing and stuff like that?
Not very long afterwards. After -- that was after Pearl Harbor now, understand, not before that.
Yeah. What was rationed?
Well, sugar. The main thing was sug -- and coffee.
Coffee too?
Coffee, yes indeed. And shoes, two pair of leather shoes a year. Tires for automobiles because the automobile companies stopped making cars.
Yes.
Stopped. And then the tires were rationed. Gasoline was rationed. Now, my husband rode in a carpool. They did -- you know, they were five men that rode and it helped. Everybody helped on the gasoline, you know.
Did you get so many gallons of gas depending upon how much you drove, do you remember?
Yes, yes. Yes, it was that way.
And were things hard to find? Were they hard to come by?
Yes.
In addition to being rationed?
Yeah. Everybody just -- you know, as soon as the sugar -- as soon as things were out, you would rush to get it, you know, real quickly. The sugar thing was -- because that was for people canning. You couldn't can very many -- not with fruit. A lot of people, a lot of churches, made apple butter. Well, it takes a lot of apple -- sugar for apple butter, you know. So my father and my mother, he made cider. We sold vinegar. And he made cider and then she took the sweet cider and boiled it down to make like a syrup to start her apple butter with in the kettle.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah.
I didn't think about that.
And -- but everybody just waited when the sugar came. It was so funny. I know after the war was over my father bought a hundred pound bag. (Laughter)
Just because he knew that he could, huh? (Laughter)
Never going without sugar again. I know that coffee -- my mother had to use Sanka coffee. So everybody drank Sanka coffee. (Laughter)
What about victory gardens. Did they push that much here? Victory gardens? Little plots of land?
Well, I reckon so. Everybody had a little plot of land. (Laughter) I know we did, you know, yeah. But then I got things from home, from the farm, you know. We all did. My sisters and things like that. But another thing, my father needed a lot of help to pick apples. We had orchards and had corn, it was a big farm, and he needed help. Well, you know, all the boys in the county were drafted, 18 years. So we had a prisoner of war camp here.
In the city.
In the city, yes. And they were -- the farmers were allowed to get some of these prisoners to help on the farm. Well, my brother came for them. We had five. I think there were five. And he had -- he was a cripple with rheumatoid arthritis but he could drive a car, and he would come to town and get them and they were just as nice to him as they could be. You didn't have to have a guard or anything.
No guard.
No guard, uh-uh.
And he would just drive --
He would drive in -- I'll have to tell you something funny about that. Yes. And they helped to cut corn and helped to pick apples and -- they were given a sandwich when they left. They said they would have their own lunch. Well, it was like two slices of bread and it was like a little tank or something that had a spigot on it, and they would hold those two slices of bread under that and that was when margarine first came out and you had to mix the color in it.
Oh, yeah.
Do you remember? Well, they didn't mix the color in it and it just looked like lard that came out on their sandwiches. (Laughter) And my father thought that was terrible and that's all they had was one sandwich.
For the day's work.
Right. So he gave them -- we had a wash house that was real nice and it had a fireplace in it, and he would make a fire in there and there was benches and a table in there and he would bring them in to get warm during lunchtime, you know?
Yes.
Well, he said one of those sandwiches wasn't enough for them so my mother started giving them another sandwich. He never brought them in the house but up in the wash house.
Yes.
Well, they came back to camp and told about it.
Uh-oh.
And my father got a letter to come in and they told him that he couldn't feed the prisoners and he said, "Well, now let me tell you something." He said, "Those men work hard." He said, "I have apples to pick, corn to cut, corn to pull and haul it in." He said, "They can't work on two little slices of bread with lard in it." That's what he said. "It looks to me like lard." And he said, "They need another sandwich. "Oh, we'll give them a sandwich." So then they got another sandwich.
And they did.
Yes, they did.
Were they able to bring the same five men?
Same five men. But see, when my brother would get there after a few days the rest of them wanted to come too because they told what it was, you know, and what they were having. (Laughter) So they were two -- they were the nicest men. I saw them. Several times I was up home. Two of them spoke English, especially one real well, real well. And I'll never forget, he told us about Russia. He said within two years the United States will have war with Russia. And they did. And we often thought about that, you know, about that. But they were so nice and they were so nice to my brother, and yes, he never had a guard or anything.
Did you ever hear from them after --
No, no, but we would have loved to. My father would have liked to have heard from the one man, yes, because he was -- undoubtedly he was educated in the United States. We didn't -- weren't sure of that but we felt that he was. He was a big man. They were big men. They were Germans.
Yeah.
They were.
True Germans?
Yes. Yes, they were.
And when did you lose them? How long did they stay after the war --
Well, they just worked that one fall.
Just that one fall?
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Do you remember about what year that was?
Yes, my boy was -- that was about '41 or '42.
That early?
Uh-huh. Because my little boy was born in '41 and he was -- and I'd say that was about probably '42.
During the war were you able to go places?
Well, you didn't have the gasoline. (Laughter)
And was there a law against pleasure driving?
No, no, but you just didn't have gasoline.
You just didn't have the gas to go.
Right, right.
What about buses and trains?
Well, we didn't have too much in trains here, you know. Some. Some trains. But yeah, the Greyhound buses, Greyhound buses I'm pretty sure went. I just can't remember too much about that. I didn't travel anywhere, you know.
But you were free to travel.
Oh, sure.
They didn't make any restrictions on travel?
No, no. You just didn't have gasoline to travel. (Laughter)
And didn't have any special kind of identification or anything like that? You didn't have to have a pass to go some place?
No. No. Not that I remember. I know one thing, my husband couldn't buy anything hardly, he wasn't a veteran. And we had bought a house out on Cedar Creek Grade where I live now and we couldn't buy things to build there because he wasn't a veteran. We had a terrible time with that.
You had to get -- have certain points as a veteran --
Right.
-- to get construction stuff.
Right. Right. We tried to get it from Rosenberger. My husband knew Mr. Rosenberger real well and he told him he was sorry. You know, we needed siding and things and we couldn't get it.
What was your major source of news about the war? Was it the radio, the newspaper?
The radio. The radio and the Star, yes. Evening Star, you know, it was called.
Evening Star.
Evening Star, yes.
Who did you listen to on the radio? Who did you like? Did you ever get Edward R. Murrow?
Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
Lowell Thomas?
Lowell Thomas, yes indeed. Yes indeed.
What about entertainment in town? Did the movies stay open?
Yes.
No trouble with movies?
No. If you had the money to go.
Yeah. There was what, two theaters then?
Yes.
The Palace?
The Palace and the Capitol theater.
The Capitol.
Uh-huh.
Why don't we pause for a moment. (A short break was taken.)
Where were the German prisoner of war camps located?
Well, it was in the old fairgrounds and I guess that was in the north.
522 north of town?
Yes, yes.
On the way out of town?
Yes -- well, right -- not where the -- now, not where the fairground is now.
Yeah.
This was the old fairground.
Yes, yes.
Yes.
Still in town?
Uh-huh.
Sort of across from National Fruit?
Right. Right.
In that area.
Right. Right.
Did you personally know of any of the young men that were killed during the war?
Yes, I had -- well, as I said, I knew Colin Haley (ph), he was in the Air Force. He was a copilot and his plane came down over Germany.
And --
Paul Freese (ph) was -- he was in the Army and he was killed in boot camp where he was stationed.
Yeah, I remember now you mentioned that.
Uh-huh.
I remember something about a flag in the window of people who had men in the service.
Right.
What was that? I don't remember it all that well.
Well, there was --
Didn't they have a star in it?
Yes. Yes.
Just a small --
Small.
Small flag.
Right.
And if you had a son in the service, you had a star of a certain color, and if they were killed, the star was a different color.
I think they had a star for if you had several people --
A star for each one?
Yes, yes. I think it was like that. Seems to me like that's what it was.
Yeah, I can remember a little flag in our window at home --
Yes.
-- but I just couldn't remember how it went. What was the news of surrender like?
Oh, my goodness, that was glorious. (Laughter)
Was there a celebration in town?
Well, I know everybody was real happy over that. Oh, my Godness, that was wonderful. That was wonderful.
What about the atomic bomb.
Oh.
The blast in Japan.
That was just terrible. That was just terrible. It really was.
How did they bring the news of the bomb?
On the tel -- on the radio. On the radio.
Did they really mention the damage that was done?
I don't think we knew it just at first.
At that time.
No, not at first. I think it was a little bit before we -- they -- we were told about that.
Do you have any feel for what the overall reaction was to the use of that atomic bomb?
Well, I think everybody thought it was horrible, you know, it was a terrible thing to do. But what else? It's what stopped the war with the Japanese.
Yeah, most thought that that brought the war to an end.
Yes.
And possibly saved lives --
Yes.
-- in the long run.
Yes. But it left a lot of people with sores on their face and, you know, burns and burns, a lot of those poor people.
And after the war was over, what was the recovery like then? How long did the rationing last and things like that?
A little while but not too long. No. I believe -- it seemed to me like it was -- well, I don't know, we were still -- my husband was still having trouble after the war to get anything to put on our house. Even after the war. Yeah, he wasn't a veteran and he was having trouble. He had a terrible time getting shingles for our house.
Yeah, the priority went to the veterans and all that.
Yes, yes. And that's why he said he had wished that he could have been in the service if it was only a year, you know, or something like that.
Did the city grow very rapidly after the war or did it stay about the same?
Well, it took a while now for these boys to get home because, you know, they didn't all just come home right away.
Yeah.
My friend's husband that was a Marine, well, she didn't see him for several -- he was gone several years, you know, because he was on the -- where was he. The Philippines, I believe. He was in the Philippines, I believe he was, yes.
And especially those that enlisted, they had to fill out the term of their enlistment.
Yeah, yeah.
Can you think of anything else that you would like to add?
Did I have this in about Charles Hoover?
Yes, you mentioned that.
Yes.
He was the first one.
Yeah. Well, he was killed in Northern Africa.
Yes.
That's when the -- he was a sentry and they were expecting tanks to have -- to bomb them. They thought these tanks were coming and they were going to have a fight with them. Well, they didn't and a flight of bombers came in and just -- just bombed the place and killed him instantly. He was by himself with a machine gun and it killed him instantly, and they say it just was terrible, very terrible.
Did you at any time feel any real danger here in Winchester? Did you ever feel --
Yes, you did. You did from an air raid, yes.
You thought that might happen?
Yes. Now, my sister, Suzanne's mother, was almost sent to England. A lot of nurses here were sent to England. They were having so many air raids, you know, there?
Yes.
And Thelma had two children, Suzanne and Pat, they were small, but they had already -- they talked to her about it and told her that they could pay -- the government would pay for a nanny to help their father take care of them and she thought she was going to have to go. But then the war came to a close pretty soon then.
Was there any cutback on medical service since the doctors and nurses were gone?
A lot of doctors were going, believe me. A lot of doctors and nurses were going. I knew several nurses that went myself.
Was it actually that scarce then? Did you notice it as far as --
Well, everybody did. We all knew it, yes indeed. My mother had a real serious heart problem and her doctor was gone. And he got back about -- he was here about two or three weeks before she died. Came back and that was Dr. McKee. Maybe you remember hearing about Dr. McKee? Yes.
Yes, I remember Dr. McKee.
But my goodness, no, we needed doctors here.
Did you still have the Apple Blossom Parade during the war?
No. No, we did not.
It was skipped.
It was canceled. Just a couple years it was, yeah.
Well, can you think of anything else?
Well, I'm trying here.
Did you have a job during the war?
Yes, I did.
What did you do?
I first started working for the Red Cross right after I graduated from high school and I worked for them for a good little bit, but -- I could, of course, do their letters because I had taken shorthand and bookkeeping. I had three years of bookkeeping. And typing and shorthand. And -- but I didn't really care for it so much. And I got a job with Roy Cather (ph) at Old Mill Cold Storage and I worked then for a good while. I worked when my little boy was -- till he was, oh, several years old and then I stopped working. And then I went to work for Sears Roebuck, the first store that was here, and I worked 26 years for them. I was an audit manager for them.
Very good. Did a lot of women get jobs?
Yes, they did.
During the war?
Yes, they did. A lot of women went in -- like into the Rubbermaid -- the rubber plant?
Yes.
They had a lot of women in the rubber plant. Well, they needed help there, you know.
Yeah, they sure did.
Yes, I knew a lot of women that worked there.
Did they continue to work after their men came back?
Well, it took a while for the men to all get back, you know.
Yeah.
Yes, yes, a lot of them did, sure, after they had worked there. I mean they weren't laid off, you know.
Yes.
Yeah.
Well, thank you very much for what you've given us. Why don't we take those things in to Mrs. Evert and see if she wants to make a copy.
Okay.
And if you can think of anything more --
Okay.
-- we'll come back and add it then.
[END OF INTERVIEW]