Joy Neal Kidney's Blog, page 50

Mom’s Famous Potato Salad

Anytime Mom took her potato salad to a potluck, or to her grandson’s high school graduation party, people asked for her recipe. Actually, there are two secret ingredients, or not so secret. The same two that made Doris Neal’s deviled eggs a hit: Miracle Whip (instead of mayonnaise) and candied dill pickles.

Candied dills can be hard to find. To make your own, dissolve 2 3/4 cup of white sugar in 1/3 cup of cider vinegar. Add drained dill pickles and refrigerate about a week.

Doris Neal’s Potato Salad for a Crowd

5 pounds potatoes, cooked, cooled, cut up
8 eggs, hard cooked and peeled
2/3 cup chopped onions
1 jar candied dill pickles, chopped
1/4 cup snipped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon celery seed
2/3 of a large jar of Miracle Whip
paprika
parsley sprigs

Slice some of the eggs and save the best “rounds” for garnish. Chop remaining eggs. Mix with remaining ingredients and spoon into a serving bowl.

Mom also had a signature way to garnish her potato salad, with perfect eggs slices around edge, sprinkled with paprika, and parsley sprigs tucked in. If several potato salads arrived at a potluck, you could always tell which one was hers.

This is the closest I could find to the way Mom decorated her salad, but she arranged the eggs around the edge, with parsley springs, then paprika sprinkled only on the egg rounds.

A poignant story about the importance of the paprika.

Mom grew her own parsley, sharing the abundance with parsley caterpillars that would eventually become Swallowtail butterflies.

Heartbreak House, the Kansas City Quartermaster Depot

I transcribed this article in its entirety since I’ve not had much success in digging up information about the Kansas City Quartermaster Depot, even through Kansas City historians. This seems odd since this had to be a a very important place during the war.

The effects of both Dale and Danny Wilson were sent to the KCQM Depot, from their bases in Port Moresby, New Guinea, and Triolo, Italy. Clabe and Leora Wilson started getting letters from them about where their sons’ clothing, watches, billfolds, stationery, and other items should be sent.

Dale Wilson’s Pidgin English dictionary was among his effects sent home to Iowa through the KCQM Depot.

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‘Heartbreak House’ Clears Belonging of Lost Soldiers

KANSAS CITY, MO (AP)–Every week or so, a switch engine shoves a couple of boxcars up to a big, white, 11-story building, once a national mail order house but now the Kansas City quartermaster depot with two floors devoted to the army’s personal effects bureau.

The boxcars bring here, for distribution to relatives, the personal effects of American soldiers who have died or have been killed, captured or listed as missing–the trinkets they treasured, their letters, their money.

Lieut. Col. John R. Murphy, who under Col. C. J. Black, the depot’s commanding officer, has been in charge of the bureau through its two years of existence, says it takes six months to a year–and three entries in the big files–to complete the final record on many soldiers.

Money.

Their money usually arrives first; next may be the billfolds, pictures and letters they had with them when they died; finally comes the articles left in their quarters when they went out to their last battle.

The bureau has had to feel its way along, for it is without a precedent, so far as Colonel Murphy knows.

During the last war, the personal effects were cleared through Hoboken, N. J., and several others points, and difficulties encountered were almost as great as the variety of articles shipped home. This time it was decided to have one distributing point, centrally located.

Next of Kin.

Most cases cause little trouble. The property is received, the next of kin is found, and the effects are sent on by mail, express or freight. (If the package weighs less than four pounds, the post office department carries it free.)

All this would be as cold and as impersonal as death itself if Colonel Murphy didn’t believe this bureau should utilize something more than just another form letter.

As he wrote to a congressman who inquired about the bureau: “A am ever conscious that we here at the bureau are dealing with wives, mothers and fathers who have made, through the loss of their husband or son, a tremendous sacrifice.”

Letters.

Letters to the bureau display a cross section of life. Some of a son’s belongings haven’t arrived yet, so a father demands:

“I want to know what has been done about the property stolen from my son’s footlocker. The government stole half his check, now all his effects. Nothing could be lower than this.”

A mother, who has received her son’s effects, writes:

“I know, dear people, this is merely routine work, ‘your job,’ to you, but it’s very special and wonderful to us. God bless you all.”

And then there are the problems which make filling out an income tax blank seem easy. A fairly common one: A soldier marries; doesn’t tell his mother. To whom shall the effects be sent?

Investigation.

A father writes that he is sure his son had much more money than was returned, and will the army please hurry the rest along immediately.

An investigation discloses that the soldier neglected neither wine, women nor son, that he repeatedly was absent without leave, that the surprising thing is that he had any money left at all. How should this news be broken to the father?

A girl wrote to inquire what had been done with her brother’s belongings. She knew exactly where everything should go, she said, for her brother had written he was sending them. Queer, thought the colonel, how did the fellow know his number was up?

The answer was simple, but shocking. He had gotten into serious trouble, was court-martialed and executed.

The army tactfully reported he had died “not in the line of duty.” The sister never guessed why her brother knew that death was near.

Understanding.

All this means that 7,000 letters, tactful and understanding, go out of here ach week, for the bureau wants this last contact most relatives will have with the army to be sympathetic. “Very little of the glory of war in this business,” declares the colonel.

To all those who fret because personal effects are slow in coming, there is this assurance:

The army wants to deliver these things as quickly as possible; indeed, it has to keep them moving. For this bureau grows as casualty lists grow, and, as the boxcars keep moving in, packages and boxes must go out or even this mammoth storeroom will have more than it can handle.

The Des Moines Tribune, Mar. __, 1944

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My earlier post about the KCQM Depot.

An Attempt to Locate the Missing B-25 Mitchell

Dale Wilson and five others were on a mission to Wewak/Boram, New Guinea, when they where hit by AA (Anti-Aircraft) fire November 27, 1943.

There has been one serious attempt to locate the lost B-25 Mitchell, but it resulted in a tragedy in 2005 for the main wreck researcher, Don Fetterly. This is the first time I’ve ever shared these details. 

Donald R. Fetterly was an engineer with Raytheon Corp. in Tucson, Arizona, but had a passion for hunting for wrecks in the Australia-New Guinea area. A hobby diver since 1986, he connected with an Australian boat owner. The boat had a side-scan sonar to provide images of the ocean floor.

I was “introduced” to Don in late 2004 by Jim Ragsdale, whose wife is the niece of the bomber’s navigator, John Stack. I met Jim, a reporter and editorial writer for The Star Tribune in the Twin Cities, when we visited our son there in June 2005. I’d already sent information about Dale Wilson, who was the copilot of the missing B-25. He gave me a copy of John Stack’s letters he’d transcribed.

The Wilsons and the Stacks were the only two families, from the six men aboard on that last bombing mission (November 27, 1943), who received messages from the West Coast from people who’d heard radio broadcasts in early 1944 by Tokyo Rose that their sons were Japanese POWs.

Fetterly’s father served during the war and collected books about the war. Don had also researched wrecks in the south Pacific and interviewed men who’d been in combat during the war. His first trip to New Guinea was in late 1989, where he dived a liberty ship in a remote location. Since he did extensive research before attempting a dive, I sent him as much documentation as I’d dug up–maps, photos, casualty reports. Don also gave presentations regularly about his diving expeditions. 

Don asked me not to tell anyone that he was planning the Wewak exploratory expedition for October 2005, with a possible main expedition the spring of 2006. 

Photo: Pacific Wrecks

Photojournalist and documentary filmmaker Ulla Lohmann, from Germany, called to get background information for a documentary about searching for the plane. She was the senior producer. Ulla and Don Fetterly collected tapes of Wewak strikes from the National Archives in February of 2005, to help pinpoint the search location. 

The two big questions: Did any of the crew escape, and how did the Japanese get the detailed information they used on Radio Tokyo? 

Don Fetterly died October 20, 2005, after suffering a stroke on Rod Pearce’s boat in Papua New Guinea. He’d hired Rod for ten days. After first being hospitalized in New Guinea, he was Medevacked to Cairns Base Hospital in northern Australia. Before he died, he told the others, “Complete the mission,” but the mission was dropped. 

The names of the six men lost on this mission are listed, along with more than 36,000 others, on the Tablets of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, Manila, Philippines.

Journalist Jim Ragsdale died in 2014. Mary Ragsdale, his widow and the niece of navigator John Stack, has taken up his mission to write her uncle’s story.

Five brothers served. Only two came home. Leora’s Letters: The Story of Love and Loss for an Iowa Family During World War II.

Small Town Barber (poem)

A Dexter treasure,

he stoops from sixty years 

of barbering, now 

joined by his daughter,

customers in bib overalls,

seedcorn caps, work shoes,

nodding politeness,

with country drawls,

the Simpson Shear Shop 

especially busy 

when it rains and farmers 

cannot get into the field. 

Clint Knee, notable Perry Lawman, part of Bonnie and Clyde Posse

The plaque under the flag says “Iowa State Patrol.” You can see the Wilson family stones just beyond.

At Perry’s Violet Hill Cemetery, when the women in my family took home-grown flowers to arrange into bouquets for Memorial Day, my mother pointed out the headstone of Clint Knee, one of Iowa’s first state patrolmen.

I’ve seen only a few photos of Clint Knee, never smiling, but he had a servant’s heart and was a mentor to at least one man. (See the story with the retirement watch, below.)

His named came up again when I learned that he was part of the posse during the 1933 shootout in Dexfield Park. But he’s been an elusive man to learn much about, a quiet Iowa hero.

C. A. Knee was born southwest of Perry in Dallas County in 1887 and attended Jamaica country school.

For some time he was a stationary engineer on the Milwaukee Railroad in Perry. Knee served in World War I as a private in a transportation unit in France.

He served on the Perry City Council, and was elected Dallas County Sheriff in 1931. He served five terms and was also elected president of the Iowa Sheriffs’ Association.

As sheriff, Knee was part of the posse that arrested Buck and Blanche Barrow in July 1933, when the Barrow Gang hid out in Dexfield Park near Dexter. During the ensuing shootout, Bonnie, Clyde and their driver escaped.

The Iowa State Patrol was created in 1935, originally composed of 50 men. Knee became one of the early state troopers. He was appointed chief of the Iowa State Patrol in 1939. One of his first actions was to establish the Patrol Special Accident Investigation Unit.

Knee died in 1946 and was buried at Violet Hill Cemetery in Perry alongside his wife, Elva Knee.

Source: Iowa State Patrol by Scott M. Fisher, clipping from the Jan. 18, 1939, Dallas County News

From Jeremy Rodman, who found my April 19, 2020 story about Clint Knee in The Perry News: “My wife’s grandfather Richard Shinn of Adel, Iowa inherited C.A. Knee’s gold watch he received for retirement from the State Patrol.  The watch is now under our care. Thank you I have wanted to learn more about this Iowa hero.”

I asked how her grandfather knew Mr. Knee, and asked for a photo of the watch.

Answer: “Richard ‘Dick’ Shinn, grandfather of my wife Daisy Hutzell-Rodman, was taken under Chief Knee’s wing and was Richard’s surrogate grandfather. Richard later owned the Shinn Grocery in Adel Iowa. After Richard’s death a few years ago Daisy and I went to his home now in Estes Park, CO where we were allowed to pick a few items to remember grandpa Shinn. I asked about the gold watch as no one wanted it and was allowed to keep it.”

The inscription reads “To Chief C.A. Knee from ISP 12-25-44”

 

Iowa: Smoky Wigwams of the Dusky Savage Warrior

Obituary of an Iowa Pioneer: John Williams (1807-1885)

Uncle John Williams died at his residence in Jackson township, one mile north of Dale, June 15, 1885.

Dale was between Panora and Stuart. The Morrisburg church and cemetery are a little east of Dale. Georgia Williams Wilson’s children, including Clabe, grew up in that area.

The deceased was born June 26, 1807, in Virginia and had his life been spared 11 days longer he would have been 78 years of age.

He lived in Virginia until 1820 when he moved from there to Guernsey County, Ohio, where he remained in 1854, when he moved to Iowa and has since made his home here. Was married to Harriet Chilcoate in Guernsey County, Ohio in 1828.

Their union was blessed with 14 children, four boys and ten girls. The boys are living three in Iowa and one in Nebraska – of the ten girls, six are living and four have preceded their aged father to a better land. One of the surviving six daughters lives in Nebraska and remaining five are residents of Guthrie County.

The grandchildren living are 61, great grandchildren living 10, and one dead. [Clabe Wilson was one of the great grandchildren.]

Mr. Williams came to Ohio as he did to Iowa, a pioneer, when the wilderness was a mass of howling savage beasts and smoky wigwams of the dusky savage warrior were the only occupants.

First belonged to the Lutheran then the Wesleyan and during his life in Iowa was an active member of the U.B. Church and for many years its class leader at this place.

Children of John and Harriet (Chilcoate) Williams:  (* = buried at Morrisburg)

Eliza Ann Williams

*Elizabeth Williams (married James Johnson, no children)

Samuel Williams (married Martha Barr; grandparents of Clabe Wilson)

Martha and Samuel Williams

*Lucinda Williams (married John Kunkle, no children)

William Ellsworth Williams (married Priscilla Leach, 5 children, ancestor of Della Crowl)

Mary Jane Williams (married Abel Leach, 11 children)

*Rebecca Williams (married Joseph Moore, 9 children)

*Sarah Williams (married Levi Marlenee, 4 children)

*Lewis Williams (married Mary Jane Tuft, 7 children; Civil War, ancestor of J. B. Tiedeman)

Benjamin Williams (married Mary Elizabeth Marlenee, 4 children; m(2) Ann Ellen Williams; Civil War

Charlotte Williams (married John McCool, 13 children; ancestor of Lamonte Kunce)

*Caroline Williams (married Lewis Marlenee, 7 children)

*Ellen Williams (married John McCluen, 3 children; ancestor of Mrs. Hobe Garwood and Helen Keesey)

Adaline Williams (married Alonzo Maulsby, 6 children)

Morrisburg Cemetery, Guthrie County, Iowa

The Guthrie Vedette, June 25, 1885. Also: Lamonte (Williams) Kunce, 1860 Federal Census, Elsie Martinez.

 

“See Jane Run!” by Jolene Stratton Philo

The Novel: In August of 1977, Jane moves out of her parents’ house in Sioux City, Iowa to teach school in Little Missouri, South Dakota. Her mother begs her to come back home when she sees the town of 92 people and hears about the hit-and-run that’s left one of Jane’s new students without a mother. But Jane isn’t letting go of her Mary Tyler Moore style freedom. Just like Mary she’s surrounded by zany characters–from her neighbor Merle Laird and his prize cow Snippy to the glitter-hating school janitor Velma. In such a small town, someone close to Jane is surely the killer.

The Author: Before she became an author, Jolene Stratton Philo taught elementary school for 25 years. Seven of those years were spent in northwestern South Dakota. Their first child was born while we lived there, and our experiences with him resulted in 6 books for the special needs community. Her fiction series, West River Mysteries, draws heavily on her years as an Iowan who landed in cowboy country, who taught country school, and who was adopted and cared for by the locals in the tiny town where she lived.

My thoughts: A plucky young teacher, away from home for the first time, helps solve a who-done-it in small town South Dakota. When a fourteen-year-old student is arrested for murder of another student’s mother, Jane Newell’s problem-solving brain works overtime while she shepherds her class through spelling lessons, hatching monarchs, and glitter projects. With grit, spirit, a great sense of humor and adventure, she also learns to milk a cow and handle a grumpy cleaning lady, all the while pondering clues. The charge against the student is dismissed, and Jane eventually becomes embraced in the arms of this quirky community. I’m looking forward to more West River Mysteries from Jolene Philo. 

It also includes the recipe for Merle Laird’s Non-Skid Pancakes! 

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Here’s a delightful 20-minute interview with Jolene about her books. Toward the end she tells some of the backstories for See Jane Run!

 

Andrew’s View of the Week, Guest Blogger Andrew Reynolds

Friday Wisdom – MedicalPosted on 06/10/2022 by Andrew Reynolds

I had two scheduled medical appointments this week, one with my doctor and one with the dentist. I now know so much medical stuff that I can share the following with you:

Health is slowest rate at which you can die.

Nurses walk quietly near the medicine cabinets so they don’t wake the sleeping pills.

My doctor said the worst time to have a heart attack is while playing a game of charades.

I told the doctor that I was losing my sense of humor. She said it sounded like a case of irony deficiency.

I found this website the other day: conjunctivitis.med — it’s a site for sore eyes.

I told the dentist that I started to suffer from memory loss. He made me pay in advance.

Can an apple a day keep the doctor away? Well, yes, if you have good aim.

I took a banana to the doctor because it wasn’t peeling well.

I called the doctor to tell her I had a sick lemon. She said to give it lemon-aid.

Roverdose: a condition from owning too many dogs.

I had to call the paramedics the other day. I told them that I’d broken my leg in two places. They said to stop going to those places.

My doctor gave me a new kind of cough medicine – I have no idea what to expectorate.

Advice: never tell a lie to an x-ray technician – they can see right through you.

I tried writing a joke about amnesia, but forgot how it goes.

I featured Andrew’s book of poems about going through prostate cancer during National Poetry Month.

Battle of Midway: Memories of Donald Wilson

Ordinarily a six-month repair job after the damage in the Coral Sea battle in May 1942, the USS Yorktown (CV-5) was in dry dock at Pearl Harbor only three days, being patched and welded around the clock. The Navy had decoded a Japanese plan to attack Midway Island. Two dozen enemy ships were headed to Midway.

The Yorktown, its hull patched by huge steel plates, rushed back to sea with welders still at work. Iowan’s Donald Wilson was an Electrician’s Mate First Class on the carrier. 

Two U.S. naval task forces, including the carriers Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown, and their screens of support ships, rendezvoused northeast of Midway Island. Scouter planes spotted four Japanese carriers. About noon on June 4, the Yorktown‘s planes were engaged in a dogfight with enemy planes. They also managed to bomb a Japanese carrier, which later sank.

The ships’ guns filled the sky with black smoke, but several Japanese dive bombers slipped through Combat Air Patrol and attacked the carrier. Several bombs smashed into the ship and exploded below decks, crippling the boilers and starting fires.

About three hours later, while repairs were being made, two more blasts slammed into the carrier. Torpedoes. 

The port side rose, then fell to a list of twenty-seven degrees. Sailors were ordered topside for life jackets. Don Wilson and all those below dashed up ladders with battle lanterns. Soon the blue and white “abandon ship” signal was hoisted. Don scrambled over the lifeline on the fantail. He treaded oily water for an hour.  Air raid alerts scattered the nearby ships three times during the rescue. Don was one of over 2000 exhausted survivors eventually pulled out of the Pacific.

The Japanese retreated, having lost all four carriers–four of the six that had been part of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

On every turn between zero and 17 knots

Donald Wilson, who has served on the CV-5 since its commissioning in 1937, later wrote, “At Midway the ride was very smooth compared to Coral Sea, as our speed was much slower. And, of course, being tuned to the screws, a slow-down or stop comes in loud and clear. And stop we did. In fact, we were on every turn between zero and 17 knots during our lull in the Midway engagement.

“The sad sight of seeing her roll over and sink after our salvage attempt will be with me forever. I am one of the few that abandoned her twice; in fact, my last step on CV-5 was off the fantail where I abandoned ship both times.”

More details.

Salvage attempt

The Battle of Midway took place from June 4-7, 1942. When the crippled Yorktown didn’t sink right away, Donald Wilson was on the volunteer crew to attempt to salvage it. He later received a Citation and Naval Commendation Medal for that service:

United States Pacific Fleet

Flagship of the Commander-in-Chief

The Commander in Chief, United States Pacific Fleet, takes pleasure in commending

Donald W. Wilson, Electrician’s Mate First Class

U.S. Navy

For service set forth in the following

CITATION:

For heroic conduct and meritorious service in the line of his profession as a member of the volunteer salvage crew which attempted on June 6, 1942, to salvage and return the U.S.S. Yorktown to port. Knowing full well that the Yorktown was in a precarious condition of damage received in battle on June 5 [sic], 1942, that she was barely seaworthy, and that she would probably be the target of repeated submarine and air attack against which it would be difficult to defend her, he requested that he be allowed to return to the ship and assist in her salvage. The efforts of the salvage party were so successful that all remaining fires were out, and two degrees of list had been removed when, in mid-afternoon, the ship was struck by two torpedoes fired from an enemy submarine. His conduct was in accordance with the best traditions of the naval services.

C.W. Nimitz

Admiral, U.S. Navy 

Donald still used the U.S.S. Yorktown as his return address on his next two letters home. News reports told about the battle, but the loss of the carrier wasn’t revealed for several months. He finally let his folks know that he’d been assigned to one of the battleships that had been sunk during the attack on Pearl Harbor, which made them more puzzled.

More about Donald Wilson.

All five Wilson brothers are featured on the Dallas County Freedom Rock at Minburn, Iowa.

Their WWII years are remembered in Leora’s Letters: The Story of Love and Loss for an Iowa Family During WWII.

 

Dead in the Water: The USS Yorktown at Midway by Stanford E. Linzey, Jr.

The Battle for Midway was fought 80 years ago this year.  Paul Linzey’s father, who served aboard the USS Yorktown (CV-5), survived the sinking of the aircraft carrier and wrote his memoirs.

Dead in the Water

Stanford Linzey joined the Navy so he could play in the US Navy Band. In 1939, he was assigned to the USS Yorktown (CV-5), serving through the Battle of the Coral Sea and at Midway, where the ship was sunk by the Japanese in June of 1942. During this time he also led Bible studies for navymen.

My uncle, Donald W. Wilson, served on the CV-5 “her whole life,” so I had plenty of details about those battles, but Linzey’s descriptions were so compelling–of playing for each morning’s flag-raising, for the “Last T-Bone Steak in Captivity,” and about how repair parties were conducted. He also writes about escaping from deep in the ship when “Abandon Ship” was called.

The book is also an account of Stanford Linzey’s call to ministry, answers to prayer, and his call to return to the Navy as a Chaplain. He served 8 years as a musician in the Navy, returning as a Chaplain for 20 years. An amazing coincidence was that, after experiencing combat during the Battle of the Coral Sea, Dr. Linzey became Command Chaplain on the USS Coral Sea (CVA-43), another aircraft carrier.

Dead in the Water is inspirational as well as historically important. This is a reprint of a book originally published with the title, God Was at Midway. It has a new introduction by S. Eugene Linzey III and a new afterword by Paul E. Linzey, a retired Army Chaplain, who are sons of the author.

Paul Linzey also wrote Safest Place in Iraq, stories of men and women who experienced God during the war in Iraq, demonstrating that it is possible to remain true to one’s values and calling as a person of faith in a hostile world.

This is a fascinating memoir of one Army chaplain’s experiences during war-time, ministering to his own troops and even those of allied groups from other countries. He is also honest about lingering consequences of living under stress and terror.

One light-hearted chapter is about an “international, interdenominational slugfest” called “Ping Pong with the Priest.”

The compelling book includes an Epilogue, Questions and Topics for Discussion, and a Glossary.