Oral History Program Virginia Powers Interviewed by Kelli Knight 23 November 2011 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Virginia Powers Interviewed by Kelli Knight 23 November 2011 Copyright © 2011 by Weber State University, Stewart Library 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. 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These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ 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. 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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Virginia Powers, an oral history by Kelli Knight, 23 November 2011, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Virginia Powers circa1941 Virginia Powers November 23, 2011 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Virginia Powers. It was conducted by Kelli Knight on November 23, 2011. In this interview, Virginia discusses her recollections of life during World War II. KK: Tell me where you grew up and how old you were when the war started. VP: I grew up in Provo, Utah and I was seven years old when the war started. KK: What can you tell me that you remember from that time, when you were seven, when the war was going on? VP: I can remember the day that the war started one of our neighbors came running over to tell us to turn on the radio and my mother and dad turned on the radio and we heard the announcement that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. And I don’t remember too much except about how upset my parents were that we were at war. KK: Can you tell me about your brothers and sisters and how many siblings you had? VP: I have eight brothers and sisters. My oldest brother was called to serve in the war and all of the brothers in laws of my older sisters were called to serve in the war. One was in the Philippines, one was in Africa, and I don’t know where the others served, but they all served, except for one but he worked for the railroad. The railroad was a one of the things they couldn’t be taken from because that was an essential function that they needed. So the people that worked for the railroad weren’t called to the service. KK: Can you tell me the name of your brother that fought in the war? VP: Aldon Peterson. 1 KK: What do you remember about him being in the war? Did he send you letters? VP: Well he probably did, but I was young and didn’t read them. I was only in first grade. KK: What propaganda do you remember about the war, growing up? The movies, and the newspapers and what you heard on the radio? VP: Every time we went to the movies we had a world report. I can’t remember the exact name. But they would have people that had been over there and they showed a lot of the, well it’s like on TV now, only it was a news reel back then that they showed in just the theaters. They had people taking pictures of the war story and I remember a lot of things that I saw as a child that were just really horrible. Also there were newspaper articles that I read as I got older. KK: How did the propaganda, do you think, effect your childhood? How did World War II effect your childhood? VP: Well it was horrible seeing terrible things like that in the news reel and I also knew that in most of the house they had a banner in their front window saying they had sons in the army or the armed forces and when you saw a gold star you knew that they had lost one. So, you really don’t understand all that is going on, but it does affect you. We had a day every week that they would sell stamps and after you got a book full of stamps you would get a bond. Also they had “hollywood” people going around from some of the bigger cities and trying to get people to buy savings bonds and savings stamps or war stamps, I guess they were called. I remember there was one person that came to Provo, but it wasn’t one of the main stars, it was somebody called Lynne Barry. So we all went down 2 to see her, she was supposed to be a star from Hollywood selling war bonds and war stamps. KK: How often do you remember seeing propaganda, was it a daily or a weekly thing? VP: Well I went to the movies every Saturday so I saw a news reel every Saturday. Of course, there were pieces in the paper every day. As I got older I would read those and they had some horrible things to read about it gave me a feeling of distrusting the Germans and the Japanese because of the things you heard they were doing. I don’t know if it was propaganda or the truth, but I think it was the truth. KK: Do you remember the cartoons that played depicting the Germans and the Japanese during World War II? VP: I remember one where they portrayed Hitler as a crazy house painter, but I don’t remember too much about it and as children we used to sing songs about, certain little rhymes about, the Japanese and the Germans which I can’t repeat, because I don’t remember them. I remember as a child we had to go canvas the neighborhood for aluminum and we had to go door to door and ask people if they had any aluminum they would give us aluminum pots or anything made out of aluminum and we took it back to school and they used it for the war effort. KK: With your family and your oldest brothers being in the war, how did that affect your family and family dynamics? How did that affect your family? VP: Well in my particular case my older brother was married and had two or three children at the time and his – I don’t know if I should say this – wife abandoned 3 the children and left them with my parents and so that was a dynamic that affected our family because we had a big family anyway and we were given two more of the grandchildren to raise and they lived with us for several years. KK: Do you remember your parents ever being really concerned for your brother and worried about not hearing from him? In today’s world we have so much technology and so we don’t have that same anxiety about that. Do you remember feeling scared you wouldn’t see your brother? VP: Well, I am sure my parents did. But they weren’t open about things like that and as a child I really wasn’t aware of what was going on or where he was. KK: Can you tell me about the play you were in as a young girl, about the war effort? VP: I remember all of the girls were nurses and we had an American flag, I don’t remember what we sang or what we did. I remember the picture of the girls kneeling on the stage in their little nurse’s uniforms waving the flag. KK: As you grew up and became a little bit older, living through the war and seeing what actually had happened, how did it make you feel to know that you had lived through that and had seen all of that growing up? VP: It has an impact on you because some of the pictures, especially in Germany, where they had the concentration camps and at the end of the war they would show the pictures of all the bones and all of the men coming out of the concentration camps were like living skeletons. When you had heard what they’ve gone through it was very heart wrenching. KK: When Pearl Harbor was bombed, you said you remember the day when they turned on the radio, do you remember anything else specific? The feelings or any 4 emotions had in your family, that they neighborhood had, that the area had, how it affected Provo? VP: Well everyone was scared, they didn’t know what exactly was happening and the war in Europe had been going on for a while and people were worried about that. So when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, it just made everybody sure that we were in the war now. A lot of the men just went right down and joined, because they knew they would be drafted and so it was a very patriotic time. Everybody was patriotic and worried about our country. KK: Do you remember anything about the President at that time and how he responded to the national crisis? VP: I remember hearing him on TV in December of 1941. I was seven, almost eight. Having lived through a war, I didn’t know the impact of it at that time. But as time went on and they were doing drives and talking about it, then seeing the news reels -- that made it more real. KK: Do you remember when D-Day happened, when the troops stormed Normandy in France and hearing about that? VP: I don’t know that I can remember that. But I remember when the war was over the celebrations they had at the end of the war. I know that my friends were going downtown to celebrate, but my parents wouldn’t let me go, so I didn’t see the celebrations. Everybody was out and celebrating because it was such a momentous occasion. KK: In your community, how did people celebrate soldiers coming home or how did 5 they mourn the loss of their passing? How did that happen in Provo and affect your community? VP: It affected the community because there was a feeling of mourning all the time and of worry and of stress. Because you don’t know what’s going to happen and I didn’t personally know anyone who was killed. I just knew as my brother in laws served and they eventually came home -- how happy everybody was to be back together again after such a long hard separation. KK: Do you remember anything or any stories that your brother and brothers in law told you, as you got older? Any war stories or anything they remembered from their VP: time in service? My brother in law, Nick Lucas, was injured during the war and he was in heavy fighting in Africa. He had some pretty serious injuries. My other brother in law and my brother weren’t injured. They were in the Philippines after the Bataan Death March and so they weren’t in the heavy fighting like he Nick was. KK: When the atomic bombs were created and further dropped in Japan, do you remember, you were a little bit older then, how that made you feel and your thoughts on that? as you grew older and learned about it in school what was the affect of the bombings on that country? VP: Yes, it was horrible. We looked at it as a way to save the soldiers from the United States, because it was a hope that the war would end. That they would finally give up and we would have peace again. Although you were concerned about the people that were hit, it was also a time when we had hope that the war would 6 be over and that our soldiers would be saved. What was going on at that time was killing a lot of people. KK: As you grew up through the war, I guess you were between the ages of about eight and eleven, do you remember learning in school about what was going on with the war and learning about the fronts, different things like that? VP: No, we didn’t get that in school that I can remember. The news that I got was from the newsreels at the theaters and through the papers. I used to like to read the papers and read the reports, but sometimes it was very sad to hear what was going on. KK: Do you remember seeing any soldiers around or in Provo ever? VP: Yes, I’m sure. I remember the sailors in their blue uniforms. Yes there were a lot around and then when they came home they signed up for the GI Bill and a lot of them went back to school. KK: Can you tell me anything more about your family and any other open stories you might have? VP: During the war we had what they called rationing books and you got one rationing book for each person in the family. Because we had a lot of children, we had seven children at home, plus my mother and dad. So you got a rationing book for each person and gas was rationed, sugar was rationed, meat was rationed. I think that was all, but you could only buy so much gas for each book, so much meat for each book, and so much sugar for each book. You were allowed a specific amount. KK: As you got a little bit older and the war had been over, you met your sweetheart 7 at BYU. Can you tell me what you remember about seeing post war pictures and how you felt after the war? Any post war memories? VP: I can remember some of the images during the war. One of them was “Loose Lips, Sink Ships.” There were a lot of those around and Uncle Sam pictures and he was always saying “Uncle Sam Needs You!” There were quite a few things with Uncle Sam on them. The post war pictures, I don’t remember. I probably wasn’t paying attention. KK: Is there anything else that you can add, any war stories you or your brothers remember? Any propaganda you remember that we haven’t already talked about? VP: Well when they came home they weren’t interested in telling stories about the war because they might have talked to their wives, but they didn’t tell stories to the children. So I don’t know any of the war stories, except that my one brother in law was seriously injured and still has some of the shrapnel in his body that he got when he was injured. KK: About the movie reels, do you remember any specific parts that it talked about, about the Japanese and the Germans? VP: I think there was a lot on the Bataan Death March and there was a lot about the Philippines . There was a lot about when the war was ending and they went into the concentration camps in Germany and the conditions that the men had lived in and how starved they were. That type of thing. KK: If there is anything else you want to add, you can do it now, otherwise we will close the interview. 8 VP: Well it was a time I hope we never have to go through again. We’ve had wars since then but they weren’t as devastating as World War II. So many people were involved and almost every family had someone in there, in the service. I remember a paper of the Germans, a story they had on the Germans and how they were going around to houses and gathering up the Jews and how at one house this lady had given birth to twins and they just threw them in the back of the truck and they died. Horrible stuff like that, I mean it was just never ending. When you would see the war going on in the newsreels, it was terrible. I think you just kind of became immune to it, you didn’t want to see it, you know as a child. I just hope we don’t ever have to go through that. It’s bad enough seeing it in newsreels, but to see it in your own hometown, it was terrible. The bombing, they looked at the nuclear bombs as a way to end the war, because they just weren’t surrendering. They knew that they were beat, but they wouldn’t surrender. So they told them that they had the atomic bomb and if they didn’t surrender they would use it. They didn’t surrender, so they used it. Then they said again that they were going to drop another bomb but if they would surrender, they wouldn’t. But they wouldn’t surrender and so they dropped the second nuclear. The United States was going over there on bombing missions and a lot of them soldiers were being killed. I can remember Lena’s husband Paul, he was in the Philippines and the Red Cross came and they were handing out doughnuts and coffee and they said 9 he couldn’t have one unless he paid two dollars. So he never liked the Red Cross after that. I thought that was strange. KK: Thank you so much for your time Virginia. 10