Oral History Program Allie Lewis Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 7 July 2017 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Allie Lewis Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 7 July 2017 Copyright © 2018 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The World War II "All Out for Uncle Sam" oral history project contains interviews from veterans of the war, wives of soldiers, as well as individuals who were present during the war years. The interviews became the compelling background stories for the "All Out for Uncle Sam" exhibit. The project received funding from Utah Division of State History, Utah Humanities Council and Weber County RAMP. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Lewis, Allie, an oral history by Lorrie Rands, 7 July 2017, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Melvin Lewis in Basic Training 1943 Melvin at Fort Sill 1943 Melvin, Allie, and Blake Lewis after WWII circa 1946 Melvin Lewis circa 2000s 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Allie Lewis, conducted over the phone, on July 7, 2017 by Lorrie Rands. Allie discusses her life, memories, and experiences during and after World War II. Michael Ballif is also present for this interview. LR: It is July 7, 2017 and we are talking with Allie Lewis who is currently residing in Arkansas for the World War II and Northern Utah project at Weber State University. My name is Lorrie Rands, conducting the interview, and Michael Ballif is present as well. He’s one of our interns here, so he’s going sit in on the interview. Let me just ask you, as a starter, when and where were you born? AL: 8/21/25 LR: So, August twenty-first, 1925? AL: Yes. LR: OK, and where were you born? AL: Out of Pocatello, out in the country in a place called Crystal, Idaho. LR: Is that where you grew up? AL: Until about six, and then we moved to Salmon, Idaho. LR: How long were you in Salmon, Idaho? AL: Until about my senior year in high school. LR: What was it like growing up in Salmon, Idaho? What are some of your memories? 2 AL: Very country. I walked about five miles to school. My aunt worked for the weather service and knew the weather each day. One time, it was forty-five below zero when I was walking to school, and I did not have proper clothes. On occasion I’d raise my hands and feet and legs between my knees and it’d hurt like the dickens when it’d fell out. LR: That sounds awful, walking that far. AL: It was. LR: Were your parents dairy farmers? AL: No. My dad was a carpenter working for the forest service. LR: Who was your father? What was your father’s name? AL: Floyd Denning. LR: Floyd Denning. And your mother? AL: Rissie. R-I-S-S-I-E. LR: Your father was a carpenter. What did your mother do? AL: Raised eight kids. Ten, really, ‘cause my brother brought two home later. LR: Did you guys have a place where you could have your own garden or anything? AL: Oh yes. We always had garden. You had a garden and you’ve got deer in deer season. That’s what you lived on. LR: During the depression, did that help a lot? AL: That’s why you ate. LR: What are some of your memories of growing up in the depression? 3 AL: Well, there wasn’t a lot of food. I know my mother liked fish, but I didn’t ‘cause we’d never really had that much fish. The deer was the most common thing around for food at that time. LR: Where did you fall in the family? AL: The third. Two brothers above me, and I kind of carried the load of the family. LR: What exactly do you mean by that? AL: Well, even from twelve years old I remember being left with a new baby one night. The folks went out to a dance out in the country, and my sister was probably a few days old ‘cause I was twelve years old when they left her with me. She cried all night. LR: That’s a lot for a twelve year old. AL: Yes it is. That’s the way it was done in those days. LR: What did you do for fun when you were in Salmon? AL: Well, there wasn’t a whole lot of fun. It wasn’t all that good when I was home. LR: When you were going to junior high and high school, there was not much to do? AL: Well, we lived quite a ways from the school, and they didn’t have a lot of activity like you do now. I went to church. That was probably my only activity. LR: What would you do with your church activities? AL: Well, the teens, after you were twelve, had a meeting that you’d go to once a week. After that, they had a dance group. In those days it’s known as the dance festival they’d have every other year. They had large, large groups get together 4 in different towns even. We used to do that, with just the starting of it, when I was a teen. LR: What year did you graduate from high school? AL: I didn’t graduate. I got married instead. I planned on it. I went until January of my senior year, but I just didn’t ever get back to do it. LR: What year did you get married then? AL: Forty-three. LR: What are some of your memories of Pearl Harbor day? AL: Well, I just couldn’t believe it. It’s not something you ever hear in your lifetime. I was married in forty-three and was there when, you know, but they didn’t know how serious it was. In fact, my eldest boy was born December sixth. LR: December 6, 1943? AL: Yes. LR: Were you home on Pearl Harbor day? AL: I think so. That’s quite a long time back. LR: I know. Do you remember if any of your brothers were drafted? AL: Both of my brothers were in the service, in the Navy. LR: You had two older brothers? AL: Yes. LR: Were both of them in the Navy? AL: Yes. LR: Where did you meet your husband? 5 AL: In church. LR: Was he part of the service? Was he drafted or anything? AL: He was drafted. But they wouldn’t draft him ‘cause they got married. You know, if they’d just gotten married, they’d leave them home for a year. We were married in January, and he left in March to go to the service and was drafted. LR: So, it didn’t work. AL: No, but I got pregnant during that time. Melvin was actually down here in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He did his basic training, and I came down here for a while with him. We rented from a lady that lived there. I actually think it had been a chicken coop prior to that time. It cost us four dollars a week, for you to sleep there, to live there. LR: But you had a place where you could stay while he was doing his basic training? AL: Yes. LR: Was he in the Army? AL: Yes. LR: Do you remember what he did? AL: He was trying for the heavy equipment, the howitzers and things, but when he got through with his training and headed for overseas, he got boils in the back of his neck. They didn’t call it boils, it was worse and that. They had, I think, about seven of them come from the center and far out in different areas. So he went to the Washington, DC area and had surgery. While he was doing that, all of his group went overseas, so he was alone in a strange group when he got out. It was 6 that way through the whole army, they used injury replace people that didn’t make it. LR: So he was a replacement. AL: Yes. LR: Did he eventually go overseas? AL: He not only went overseas, he was in five of the six major battles over there, in the front lines most of the time. LR: Do you know which battles those were? AL: Well, if somebody says them I can tell you. The Battle of the Bulge was one, and then he went in with the invasion. LR: Was he a part of Normandy? AL: Yes. He was in all of them but one, so you can just about name them all and I can say yes. But one of them was at the same time as the one he was in. LR: That makes sense. I’ll have to Google those and see. So when he came home, did he ever talk about his wartime experiences? AL: Oh yes. It was pretty real at that point. In fact, he came back when he was gone two and a half years. During that time, I had a baby. He came home the last of November, and Blake was a year old December sixth. He was two when Dad came home, within about a week. LR: So he came home in like November of 1945? AL: Yes. LR: So he was overseas for the rest of the war. 7 AL: The whole time, in the front lines. LR: He wasn’t just in one specific unit, from what you said. AL: He was with different units each time, it seems. He was eighteen when we were married, so he was nineteen when he was shot around with all the front lines. LR: It’s hard to contemplate today, being that young. AL: Yes. Kids are kids then, and they don’t take on responsibility like they had to then. LR: We kind of know a little bit about what your husband did. What did you do during the war? AL: Actually, I worked at Second Street in Ogden. LR: What brought you down to Second Street? AL: I drove a truck one, a half stake bed. After we got a prisoner of war in North Ogden, I would go out and get them in the mornings and bring them into work at Second Street each day. LR: Did you interact with the prisoners? AL: Yeah. LR: What was that like? AL: Wasn’t a whole lot of interacting, because they had a guard with them at all times. But you’d see them and speak to them about what it amounted to. My mother worked over there for a while too and I can remember just before the war was over, they got pretty lenient with them. I can remember my mother inviting one over dinner. 8 LR: Was it an Italian prisoner of war? AL: Yes. That one was. LR: Did the guards allow them to interact with you, or was it kind of like - you guys be quiet and let her work? AL: I was sitting in the front of the truck waiting for them most of the day. They were in the warehouses working - then loading. LR: Interesting. You said you grew up in Salmon, Idaho. Did the work bring you down to Ogden? AL: Yes. My dad was able to get a job in Ogden. LR: Did you meet your husband in Ogden or in Salmon? AL: In Ogden. He grew up in Smithfield, Utah. LR: What other memories do you have of working at Second Street? AL: Well, I looked pretty young, obviously, at seventeen and eighteen. There was lots of comments. My first name is Alafair, that’s why I go with Allie. There was an awful lot of comments about that weird name. At times, when there wasn’t enough drivers around, they put the truck drivers on the cars with the officers. I did that a few times. You just did whatever there was to do mostly, but mostly I was on the truck. LR: Where did you learn how to drive those big trucks? AL: Well, they weren’t too much different than a car. I was out there one morning and it was still pitch dark. There wasn’t any of my trucks around and they wanted me to get into one that was twice the size of mine - big, heavy thing that you had to 9 double clutch and do all of that stuff with. The first morning I went out to North, Ogden, all the way out and back, about thirty-five miles an hour ‘cause I didn’t know how to shift with it. My truck had a heater in it, and was about the only one there. LR: On this particular morning, you kind of just got in and winged it, it sounds like. Made the best of a bad situation. AL: Yes. LR: Was that common during this time? AL: Oh yeah. There wasn’t training and, you know, meeting the senators and all that stuff, like there is today. LR: You said you were seventeen-ish when you started working there. AL: I was seventeen when I was married, and he went over within three months so I went to work shortly after that, I think. LR: Did your mother help you get that job, or was it just something that you found on your own? AL: Well, I think jobs were plentiful there. There was a lot of bases around Ogden. LR: So let me ask you this and it’s maybe not fair. During the time, driving a truck is not something that they would typically ask a woman to do. Was it just something you were able to do because the men were so scarce, or was it something that they just said, ok, yeah, start driving? 10 AL: Well, I think I hired on as a truck driver. The regular stake beds, you drove them just like a car, so that wasn’t a problem. We had to back up to the docks every time we’d get in the truck, though, so learning how to do that pretty good. LR: Besides carrying passengers, the POW’s, what type of cargo would you be carrying in your truck? AL: Anything the soldiers needed. Clothes, whatever. LR: Were you taking the supplies from Second Street to the train station? AL: No. It was pretty much on Second Street all the time, from one area to another, I guess, getting loads together and things ready to ship. They had a big military hospital there at the time, and a few times I took loads of guys to the hospital. LR: Up to Bushnell? You would drive soldiers up to Bushnell? AL: Yes. LR: That’s in Brigham City, so that was a nice drive. AL: Yes, it was. I had an interesting talk. It was a colored man and he was studying to be a doctor when he was drafted. Of course, they kind of took all of his opportunities away from him and just stuck him in like a first aid station. That was all he had to look forward to. He come to the front of the truck with me and you know, the rest sit in the back. LR: Knowing about the time that the armed services were still segregated, did he get in trouble, or did you get in trouble, having him sit in the front seat with you? AL: No, that wasn’t a problem. LR: That’s actually the first I’ve ever heard that. 11 AL: It was interesting for me to talk to him and just learn what kind of a situation, he lived in. LR: Were you aware at the time about the struggles going on within the black community? AL: Oh yes. LR: The fact that you remember that means that it was kind of impactful for you. AL: Well, I’ve seen an awful lot since too. Who knows how much I learned where. LR: Fair enough. While you’re doing this, your husband’s overseas. Did you live with your family? AL: Yes. Well, all but about the last six months, I guess. It was hard to rent a place. They just weren’t available. I had a girlfriend in high school whose parents had a couple of rentals, and when she got married there was two empty, and she got one and I got the other. LR: So, up until about six months of the war you were with your family, living with them. AL: Yes. That’s when my mother, well for a while she worked over there. I don’t know at what period that was, but all of my growing up years, a lot of my responsibility was raising the family when they weren’t there. So, they just turned it all over to me. In fact, in Salmon when I was younger, dad would work wherever the forest service needed a building made. I can remember one particular time, it was about forty miles down Salmon River, it was close to the Montana border. They wanted him and other men to put up a building, so they had the equipment during 12 snow time. I would go one week and cook for dad and take care of what he needed and mom would stay home. Then we’d switch places the next week. So, I just was responsible for the kids when they weren’t there. LR: So you had this baby, your husband’s gone. That really wasn’t, because you’d already spent so much time taking care of kids and all of that, it really wasn’t too… I don’t want to make it sound like it wasn’t hard, but it’s almost like you were prepared for that. AL: Yeah, it just seemed like that was my job. In fact, they forgot when I got married and still turned it over to me then. LR: So, you’re not only taking care of your own family, but you’re taking care of your siblings as well. AL: Yes. LR: That’s a heavy responsibility. AL: It got kind of rough. Somebody came from San Francisco wanting welders, and my husband at that time was a welder. So we decided to go down there and try it. I think it’s the best decision we made. He was making quite a little more and I got out from underneath the pressure of parents, thinking I need to take their strife. LR: This was after the war, right? After he’d come home? AL: Yes. LR: Do you remember about when you moved to San Francisco? AL: Fifty-five, along in there. 13 LR: How long did you stay in San Francisco? AL: Twenty-two years, until the shipyards closed down. LR: How many kids did you and your husband have? AL: Five. LR: Were you a stay-at-home mom or did you get a job outside the home? AL: Mostly I was home. A few times I worked in the airport kitchen there at San Francisco, oh a year or so. I needed surgery and that kind of ended that. LR: So you said that it wasn’t too difficult when your husband came home. You guys were just kind of able to pick up where you left off before he left? AL: Yeah. I had a son, two years old, which would go a little different. All the time Melvin was gone, I would have to ride the buses in Ogden. You know, you didn’t have money and you didn’t have conveniences, like your car. Every time I’d get on the bus, when Blake got old enough to talk, which he did very young, he would ask (the bus was always full of servicemen), “Are you my daddy?” He was looking for his dad the whole time he could talk. When he came home, a plane went over. We were sitting at the breakfast table and Melvin dove under the table and upset breakfast. When Blake came back to the table he said, “He’s my daddy. I went out and found him.” LR: That is wonderful. AL: Most of them had trouble getting their kids to accept their dads when they came home. But you know how Blake was pretty young, he acted like he was looking for him the whole time. When he came, he claimed that. 14 LR: That is awesome. That’s a great story. Thank you for sharing that. Let me ask you a question about your time in San Francisco. You were there in the sixties when all of that was going down. Do you have any memories of that? AL: Oh yeah. I raised my kids pretty well there. My boy was twelve when we moved to San Francisco, the oldest boy. And my daughter, the youngest, was three when we moved there. LR: Were your children influenced by the culture of the time, in San Francisco, with all of the movements, you know the love movements and stuff? AL: I think so. The only regret I have is - would they have been different had I stayed around the same religion and things that they were born into. LR: That’s an interesting question. Do you have any other memories of what it was like during World War II, to work and live in Ogden? AL: Well it was quite a ways back. I can remember lots of riding buses and getting to where I wanted to go and trying to keep up the folk’s family too. They had several at home still. In fact, Jeannie, that you talked to earlier, was a baby then. In fact, she’d have been three years older than my son. LR: I meant to ask you, what do you remember about rationing during that time? AL: The one thing that really hits me is that when my husband came home from the war, his white shirts were still there. He said, “What are you doing with those? I thought you threw those out?” I says, you have to save them and have coupons to get them. You hang on to what you’ve got. He was really shocked to see that I still had his clothes there. Sugar was rationed, clothes was rationed, you had 15 coupons for gas. An awful fact, a lot of things were, and that pretty much ruled what you did in those days. LR: Let me go ahead and just ask you my final question. How do you think your experiences and time during World War II influenced and affected the rest of your life? AL: Well, I had an awful lot of responsibility the whole time I was growing up. I think it did make me appreciate things more, basically. My husband liked to build and when he’d get home at night, he was looking for something to do over there, to fix. We bought, actually, I believe it was the chicken coop in Ogden. There was one street that didn’t go through from the main street there, Washington Boulevard. We owned the block through there, so my husband built two apartment houses out of that before we left. He built a home after San Francisco shut down. We were in Los Angeles for twelve years as well, until he retired. He built a new home there, a beautiful Spanish home. LR: So, your husband built these apartment buildings before you guys left for San Francisco. AL: The frame was there. He made the rooms out of them. LR: I see what you’re saying. So they weren’t already built. AL: He built our home here in Mountainburg. It’s on the top of the hill above Fort Smith Lake, water for Fort Smith. It’s a beautiful view and it’s a beautiful home. We worked together on about everything we did. LR: What led you to Arkansas? 16 AL: Well, my sister Jeannie, that you had talked to, had been divorced for quite some time. She had four kids. She found a fella and got married and they wanted us to come back here with them. I was just retired. So we came with them and fell in love with this view, and actually bought the land at that time. LR: So it was just an opportunity came and you snagged it. AL: Yeah, we were planning to go to Washington/Oregon, and we did and we loved it, but this kind of got in front some way. LR: You liked Arkansas better. AL: Well, we liked both of them. LR: I don’t think I asked what your husband’s name was. AL: Melvin. LR: Did you say Melvin? AL: Yes. Melvin Wesley. LR: Is there anything else you’d like to share before we end the interview? AL: I’ll probably think of that after. LR: Yeah, typically that’s how it works. I am so grateful for the stories that you’ve shared. This is really some fantastic information and I appreciate your willingness to talk with us. I’m going to go ahead and turn off the recorder. AL: One thing I might add. When you had a husband in the service, without rank, you only got thirty dollars a month to live on. When my son was born they gave me thirty dollars more. That was what I was expected to live on, so I had to get a job to survive. When Melvin came home and got a job we bought an old, well used 17 car. We were pretty excited to have our first car. I had bought a fourteen square building from my parents and had a bathroom put in before Melvin came home. That was our first home.