Author Archives: reklessen

This war surely could go on much longer the way it looks now.

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On the back:
THIS ENVELOPE TO BE USED ONLY MY MEMBERS OF THE U.S. ARMED FORCES.

Camp Ritchie Md.
Nov 19, 1943

Dearest Ruth:

Received your letter this afternoon. This makes two now since I have gotten around to write. Even though we are in nights, it gets late before we have everything ready to move out at 6 a.m. Now it’s 9:30 and I have yet to shower and shave before the daily routine is completed. These days we go out in teams, and then when we get in, take a couple of hours BSn around trying to settle the arguments which ones have had the most experience through the day.

At times it gets almost as interesting as the tales like those old fellows tell. I always like to listen to them telling about what they used to do years ago.

Whereabouts in Minn. is that uncle’s farm of yours? Maybe I might know it cause I’ve almost been all over up there.

You know honey, I was just thinking next time I get home you will maybe have the piano out on the porch < This was at the front of the house, not outside. >

I remember you saying something about moving the radio out there. You kids could play it more without disturbing your mother too much. I don’t think I ever heard you play that I remember of. Are we going to have a piano in our living room or haven’t you found a place for it yet? Now I know what I can use for picture frames.

The boys sure got a big kick out of it. This will be one more to hang on the bulletin board. At times it’s covered with poems and stories so there’s hardly room for what’s supposed to be on there.

I don’t know what to say about that list of things you wanted to have me make, of things I wanted for Xmas. You know Ruth, the more stuff one has the more you have to move around with. There is only one thing I would really like and that’s one of those sleeveless G.I. sweaters. Some had them given to them by the Red Cross. When I came in the Army they gave me a shaving and sewing kit.

WWII_armyvest_RC

< I found this photo of one such vest at http://www.sid-vintage.com. >

You are way behind with your Xmas shopping honey. I done all of mine the last time we were out of camp.

I remember last year it was all sone at the last minute. Here one never knows when you get off. So that’s one thing that’s over with except for the wrapping. I haven’t decided on what color of ribbon to use but I think it’s going to be the lavender. < He must mean this as a joke; he was color blind. >

A little while ago some of the boys were talking  about what they were going to get their girlfriends. I believe Sgt. Williams has an idea. He said he was going to get his girl mad at him till after the holidays. That way he would get out of it. Isn’t that some way to talk about his girl?

He’s about as bad as the Bodens. I sure can’t see why Albert quit a job like his to get to driving a cab. Something like that may be alright for a side line but not for steady. Unless he wants to get acquainted with some other lady soon, then he is on the right track for sure.

This last week we have also been having swell weather. It’s just like when I was home except here we really have a cold gray dawn. So about the first thing we do when we get out in the morning is get a real fire going here. There are woods all over so it don’t take long.

You know honey, I was just thinking that if it would have been this year I would have been at Crowder < Ft. Crowder in Missouri > you could maybe have come and seen me there. Wouldn’t that have been swell? That’s one time a person wants to be home more than any other other time that I know of, but let’s hope that next year we can be together by then. This war surely could go on much longer the way it looks now.

< Occasionally Thorgel was sent to bring back a soldier gone AWOL. Sounds like they got kitchen duty as part of their punishment. >

The way our K.P.s tell us they even look to be back within another year. By now we are getting pretty well acquainted with some of them. It beats all how fast they catch one. After this month two of us CSU men can take one of them along the movie when we wish to. I guess they figure when there are 2 to 1 it’s O.K. Ever since they started working at the Mess Hall were are all getting too fat cause they give us whatever we point to as much as we want.

Well there’s not much space left so I must quit for now. Lights out, 11 p.m.

Love,
T.K.

“Camp Crowder Blues”

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I’m sure my dad got this from one of his buddies, but there are no credits for it. Enclosed in a letter sent to mom just after Christmas, 1942.

CAMP CROWDER BLUES

I am sitting here and thinking of the things I left behind
and would hate to put on paper what is running through my mind.

I have washed a million dishes and have peeled as many spuds.
I have paid as many dollars for the washing of my duds.

The many parades I have stood for is very hard to tell.
I hope it’s nice in heaven, for I know what it is in hell.

I have walked a thousand miles or more and never left the post.
I have studied till the dawning hours for the course I wanted most.

When my final days are over and my life cares laid away
I will do my final dress parade on the golden judgement day.

St. Peter then will grab me, and suddenly he will yell,
“Come in if you are from Crowder, you have served your time in hell.”

A person can’t get a lunch for less than 45¢.

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42-11-25Miami Beach Fla.
Nov 24, 1942.

Dearest Ruth:

Thanks a lot for your letter. It was really a thrill to hear from home. You should see us boys go wild when we have mail call. We have one every evening before chow, like they call it in the Army.

Last Sunday we went for a 50 mile boat ride sight seeing in the largest glass bottom boat in the world. I can’t begin to tell you all we saw but it was a lot of fun. It took 2½ hours for the trip. There were around 200 of us along, we saw Al Capone’s home that was really beautiful. It lays on a little island be itself. Lots of us had cameras along but we were not allowed to use them. I wish we could of (sic). There were many things I would like to get picture of.

I met one of my old friends from Minn. shortly after getting down here. We have lots of fun together discussing the times we had together up there, we are also on guard duty together. We have every night this week from 10 p.m. till 2 a.m.

I wish you could be here and see the place at night. It looks just like some of the pictures you see with a full moon shining over the beach. I have moved to a different hotel now. It’s closer to the drill field. Today we had a real rain shower while we were out there. Everyone got soaked and mud clear to the knees. Still we had to keep on till noon. Good thing it’s nice weather here. I suppose that’s why so many are here for training. I talk to boys from all over the U.S.

You were asking what kind of school it was here. There are several of them. The Government has taken over the whole beach for soldiers. There are very few tourists left here and they are to be out of here by the 1st of the month. The school I go to is a gunnery school. Have 4 hours training on the field in the morning and 3 hours schooling in the afternoon.

I think we walk 20 miles every day and you know how well I like walking, but the only thing is to like it. I really like the afternoon, though we sometimes lay on our stomach for an hour at a time shooting at targets out in the ocean. They are all the way from 200 to 1600 yards away from us. When I get home again I ought to be a pretty good shot. These rifles get plenty heavy handling. They weigh 9½ lbs. Next week it will be machine gun practice. Them are the ones that really mow the targets down.

After next week I am due for shipping orders. You can still send mail here. If I am gone when it gets here they send it on to the next Post. When you write again would you please send Ma Parson’s street number. I am going to send out some Xmas cards. We are supposed to have our Xmas mail sent before Dec 5 if it’s to get home in time.

I haven’t got much more time to write tonight. It’s just an hour till I go on duty. I’m going across the street to get a lunch first. Meals are high here. A person can’t get a lunch for less than 45¢ and dinners are from 1.50 and up. And still it’s mostly fancy dishes and nothing to eat.

The Army food is really good here. I have gained 9 pounds since I got here. We all eat like pigs, they say. Thanks a lot for looking after the Folks. I guess they are rather lonesome. Had a letter from home today. Had some pictures taken last Sunday. They will be ready in a few days. I must close for tonight. I will write again before leaving here. Tell them all Hello! from me.

Love,
Thorgel

address.

T. K.
U. S. Army.
1145th T. S. S. — TS 1226
Miami Beach Fla.

< See the envelope image with the return address for the full name of the training location. And notice the little airplane image in the lower left with the slogan: “KEEP ‘EM FLYING” >

Miami Beach in ’42: “This is the life for a soldier.”

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In the fall of 1942, our dad, Thorgel Klessen, quit his job driving a beer delivery van in SIoux Falls, SD, and enlisted in the Army. Not sure yet what year it was when he was naturalized as a US citizen, but likely in the late ’30s. (His family had been emigrés from Denmark.)

I have a bundle of letters he wrote to mom over the next two years. This is the first one.

42-11-09

Miami Beach Fla.
Nov. 8, 1942

Dear Ruth:

I am now stationed at the Normandie Hotel living like a king. I have a private room and bath. This is the life for a soldier. I am sending a card with a picture of the hotel and a circle around the window of my room.

42-normadie-s1

40 of us came here from Leavenworth, we rode in a Pullman all the way. It took from Tuesday 7 p.m. until Saturday 10 a.m. to get here, had several stops along the way. One night we stopped at Atlanta, Ga. for 4 hours. 5 of us went to watch them bowl. That’s the largest bowling alley I have ever seen, 52 alleys and they were all going. I got a picture of it and sent to Freddie at the Recreation.

It’s beautiful around here. There are 306 hotels along the beach and they are all filled with service men. They say there are 40,000 men here. From my room I can see ships of all kinds going all the time.

9:00 p.m. — all the shades are drawn and blue bulbs all around. No street lights or cars out after dark. It makes one feel lonesome with all this darkness.

We get up at 6:45 a.m. and eat at 7, 12, and 5. From then until 11 we can do what we please. Tomorrow I start with Examination for 4 days, 6 hours daily. I hope I come out as good as at Leavenworth. After that there will be 20 days of training, and then we move again, where to I don’t know.

Well, so much for the Army life. I would rather haul beer anytime, and that goes for all the rest I talk to here. There is another fellow coming in now just as wet as a duck. It rains all night and daytime is so hot, it’s just like it was at home in July.

Well, I think this will be all for tonight. Don’t raise too much hell, course I am saving mine for later. I am going to try to get back to Soo Falls when I leave here. There are only 4 schools like that in the U.S.

Good night and lots of love,
T.K.

Mom describes the 1953 atomic blast

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Looking through another box of letters in the #thingsmomsaved stash. Have to credit her sisters for saving letters as well — otherwise we wouldn’t have the ones _from_ mom sent back to Sioux Falls.

“…it was about the most awe-inspiring thing
I shall ever see, I think.”

Mushroom Cloud From Nuclear Test

This image is in the public domain, at wikipedia, under Upshot Knothole Encore.

I found the letter mom sent to her sister Dorothy describing watching an #atomicbomb go off in Nevada, at the Army’s proving grounds. Our dad witnessed more than one blast, but mom might have seen only this one. Not sure.
From her letter of May 10, 1953…

On Friday, both Kathy and I got up at 4:30, when Thorgel’s alarm went off, and we both stayed up. On the way up the mountain, we could feel it getting chillier, and when we finally got way up on the top, we found about a dozen cars parked, and we got Kathy into her snowsuit, and we donned headscarves, and walked on the footpath to the clearing on top from where we could see the blast. We were up there about 8:00, and all we knew was that it was scheduled any time between 8:00 and 8:30.

< They were on Mt. Charleston. Mom and Kat’n were with mom’s friend Joan, who had a car. Ours was at the Army base. >

We could see a few planes circling around, and the atmosphere was quite tense. We had on dark glasses, and just at 8:30 there was a terrific flash of light, and we could see a big red ball to the west, over Frenchmen’s Flats, and along beside it what looked to me like a dozen rocket flashes (I found out later they were a sort of rocket sent up at the same time to measure the height of the bomb), and then the immense white cloud rose up and mushroomed out, and it was slowly turned into rose and peach and pink, and it was about the most awe-inspiring thing I shall ever see, I think.

There was a tremendous column of dust and smoke that rose up, after it, the stem of the mushroom, and it looked as if the whole area around the flats was covered with dust. Thorgel was viewing it from the viewpoint near the area, and he said it was as if the floor of the flats had been churned into a boiling mass. They saw a big Butler building way up, tossed up into the cloud, and other things flying about. From where they were, it felt as if a hot oven suddenly opened, and they could hardly get their breath for a minute or two.

It was about four or five minutes later when we heard the sound of the blast, sort of echoing around the mountain. Then, the top of the cloud separated from the stem, and started moving along in the wind, and even though it was nearly all white, we could see where it was red with fire inside.

There wasn’t much of an ice cap on this one, probably, Thorgel said, because it was such an enormous force to this one that it was too hot for the ice to form. According to the paper, this was about 1½ to 2 times larger than any blast set off in the continental US. I guess we picked the best one to watch.

< My older sister, Kathleen, was not quite three years old when this event took place. >

Today Kathy got a piece of paper, and an envelope, and told me, “I believe I’ll write a letter to Marion and Art, and tell them that I saw the blast.” Then she marked on the paper, crumpled it up, thrust it in the envelope, licked it, and stuck on some of those gold bond stamps, fore and aft of the envelope, and Thorgel had her take it out and lay it on top of the picket fence, near the mail box. So Marion must write that she got the letter, as Kathy is sure the mailman will pick it up.

—–

This is the link to a government film made on that day, now archived at the Library of Congress:
http://stream.media.loc.gov/blogs/navcc/HouseMiddle_v1_768x432_800.mp4

May 23, 1939 • garden notes

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More from mom’s handwritten notebook…

< Below, an example of Wm. Mohr iris (1925) from Wayman’s iris catalog in 1940. >

wm-mohr-wymn40

Sunday was a beautiful day. We rode at seven — at six I was out looking at my Wm. Mohr iris, which was unfolding its first bloom. By afternoon it was clear out and it is just as lovely as the claim. I never have seen such delicate veining or such transparency on an iris before.

Mother’s Buto bloomed; also its first venture, and the flower was very large for such a small plant.

< Buto was an iris variety from H.P. Sass, introduced in the mid 1920s. >
buto-2a

Today my first Talisman bloomed, and I can’t describe what a lovely blend of apricot and violet it is. Screen Shot 2017-05-19 at 5.33.36 PM

< Source of Talisman image: https://garden.org/plants/photo/290357/ >

We had a sprinkle of rain and during the night and early morning the wind whipped around so that we picked the Wm. Mohr and Talisman to save them and put them in the black vase.

I think they would win a prize at any flower show. I just wonder if any other people in Sioux Falls have such lovely iris as we have.

I can’t wait for the iris catalogs to start to come. Mother said only tonight that Schreiner’s should come pretty quick. I want to get some more iris from them this year as I had such good luck with the others they sent me.

I’m afraid the Carl Salbach iris mother got was too tender for this climate, or else we had an unusually severe winter for iris in 1937.

I believe all of our new iris have bloomed that will, this season Rialgar and Mrs. Valerie West, out by the big stones, are almost too small to bloom. I’ll have to give them some Vigaro to make them strong for next year.

Sunday I weeded in the garden a while and dug dandelions while Marion worked on the north rose hedge, but it was too hot to do much.

So far I haven’t found any leaves on my mulberry trees but they look green at the bottom and Marion says not to worry. At least our silver leaf maples are all doing fine.

Mother is delighted to find that her mountain ask tree has come up from the roots and is growing fine. She knew the honey locust was flourishing but thought the end had come for the mountain ash. The grasshoppers did kill the vitex (??) and the other two shrubs she planted by the Chinese elms, though.

We put our some arsenic grasshopper bait Saturday when the baby hoppers were hatching so thick. It’s poisonous, so Gael < their dog > had to be kept on a leash but Pop says it killed quantities of hoppers. That will give us a brief respite for things to grow strong in before the big ones start to fly here from away.

 

90 (!) varieties of iris!!

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I complied a list from my mom’s notes and her mother’s notes. Between 1936 and 1942 they had planted 90 different varieties of iris in one of the gardens around their house.

I knew they had a lot — way more than mom ever had after the old family property was sold — but this diversity is incredible to me.

Here’s a list, with a few that I questioned — not sure of the handwriting. They came from several different growers/catalogs. Gradually, I hope to find pictures and documentation for these. There are quite a few old/vintage iris catalogs viewable online now. The’ve been digitized into PDF form.

1. Albatross

2. Alta California

3. Ambassadeur

4. Aphrodite

5. Apricot Glow

6. Bagdad (sic)

7. Beau Sabreur

8. Betty Nuthall

9. Black Midget

10. Blackasmoor

11. Blue Banner

12. Blue Velvet

13. Bronze Beacon

14. Buto

15. Cardinal

16. Coerulea

17. Coquette

18. Coronation

19. Crystal Beauty

20. Dauntless

21. Debonair

22. Depute Nomblot (??)

23. Dina

24. Dream

25. Duke of York

26. Edith Robson

27. Elizabeth Huntington (Mrs. ??)

28. Euphony

29. Evensong

30. Fra Angelica

31. Frieda Mohr

32. Gleam

33. Glee

34. Gobelin Red

35. Gold Imperial

36. Gold Top

37. Gorgeous

38. Grace Sturdevant

39. Harbor Lights

40. Imperator

41. Indian Chief

42. Inspiration

43. Japanesque

44. Jubilee

45. Lady Winsome

46. Lord of June

47. Magna Blanca

48. Magnifica

49. Marmora

50. Mary Elizabeth

51. Midwest

52. Mildred Presby

53. Mme. Chereau

54. Mrs. Marion Cran

55. Mrs. Valerie West

56. Morning Splendor

57. Neola

58. No-We-Ta

59. Paradise

60. Persia

61. Picador

62. Pluie d’Or

63. Pongee

64. Pres. Pilkington

65. Prospero

66. Qua (??) Zua (??)

67. Quaker Lady

68. Rameses

69. Rapture

70. Rheintraube

71. Rheingauperle

72. Rialgar

73. Rosex

74. Royal

75. Rubeo

76. Sacramento

77. San  Diego

78. Shah Jehan

79. Shirval

80. Sunol

81. Susan Bliss

82. Symphony

83. Taj Mahal

84. Talisman

85. Thais

86. The Black Douglas

87. True Charm

88. Wasaga

89. Wedgewood

90. Wm. Mohr

Written by Marion in 1954

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Mom’s sister, Marion Elizabeth Davie Serr, was six years older than she was. In 1954, when I my uncle Art was transferred from Sioux Falls to St. Paul, he and Marion relocated there. This was a hard move for her, not only leaving behind her family, but also leaving the house that they had build next door to my grandparents. Marion married Art in 1949, so they had not lived in her new house very long.

 

“Going Away”

And now we move away —
Reluctantly we cast many a backward glance at home and friends we leave.

Perhaps we’d grown to love our little rut too well,
Perhaps we loved out little rut too dearly and so must learn
That we move ever onward,
And that we must relinquish
Things we hold dear
To grow in new directions as the Lord wills
Who watches over all.

 

 

The day I wake to find myself in glory
The music of the spheres will sound for me;
The light that shimmers like a morn in springtime
And garden’s fragrance all about will be.

But when a shining person comes to meet me,
A gentle and a holy form I’ll see
As my dear Mother gives me loving welcome
Then Heaven truly will be home for me.

I am trying a rice pudding

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Addressed to…
Mrs. Mary L. Buswell, R.F.D. #1, Sioux Falls, SD

Toppenish, Wash. • Oct. 16 – 08
Dear Mother,

I received your letter of the 11th this evening. I have been working all the week except Monday a.m. but will finish the job tomorrow.

We are getting along very well at housekeeping. I get breakfast and warm something up for dinner [lunch time] and Mr. L. gets supper, as he gets home before I do. This noon I began to pick up my tools and put them away at 12 o’clock. By 12:15 I had walked home, built a fire, warmed some stew, and sat down to a hot dinner.

This evening I am trying a rice pudding. I put rice and some raisins in a pail and poured a little sugar and some milk over it and put it in the oven. Was that right? I am going to try some baked beans soon.

I got my films back from the photographer. Most of them are good. One or two did not have good light. I got two on one film and the running horses look like a time exposure. I got a very good one of the interior of the Nursery Co.’s stock house where I told you I worked. When I get the things from Montgomery, I will print some off and send them to you.

The house where I live is not plastered. It was just intended for a barn and the man was using it for a house until he could afford to build. The windows are just one sash. There is one on each side except where the door is, and that has a large glass, so we have light enough. I expect to build one for myself as soon as I decide whether I will build a house for rent.

I received the papers you sent. I have been trying the breathing exercises for several years and like them first rate. It rained all night Tuesday and some Wed. night so the dust is all gone now. It has been quite cold at night since. We can see the snow on the mountains now as it snowed there when it rained here.

It’s Sunday now. I found that my rice pudding did not get cooked enough with the quantity of milk I used. So I put in some water and stirred it up and put it in the oven until morning, and then stirred it up again and put in more water and put it back until noon, when it was fairly good.

I forgot to tell you that I saw some apples at the Fair at N.Y. which had been kept by the Cold Storage Co. since 1906 and 1907. The y looked good, but the people who have eaten them tell me that they get dry and mealy, but I suppose that is only intended to show that they can be kept the year around.

I am sending you a couple of papers. I received those ad’s of the magazine and am glad you sent them, as I can save 2 or 3 dollars on it.  I am sending for the Review, McClure’s & American, all for $3.00, regular price $5.50.

Your loving son,
W.J. Buswell

Did I answer Eva’s last letter? [his sister]

The town has a new gasoline fire engine

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Addressed to…
Mrs. Mary L. Buswell, R.F.D. #1, Sioux Falls, SD

Toppenish, Wash. • Oct. 4 – 08
Dear Mother,

I received your letter of the 27th relt [?]. I did not send that magazine I spoke of as I had not read it all and I mislaid it and forgot it. But will send it before long. Please send the C&B and Review, for which I will send you stamps. I am sending you that special edition of the Review that I spoke of. They only got it out yesterday.

I boarded several weeks at Mrs. Rowland’s house (shown in the picture) while working on the canal last winter. Mrs. R. is a very nice lady. I worked for the Cascade Lumber Co. this week building a fence around their new yard.

I went to the fair at N. Yakima one day this week. It was a good exhibit but not as large as the fair used to be in Sioux Falls. The exhibits were of course, principally fruit and poultry second. Hogs showed that they did not live in corn country.

Do you remember the acc’ts in the paper about the old man Ezra Meeker who went from Tacoma to Wash. D.C. & N.Y. with an ox team last year? He was interested in having the gov’t erect monuments to mark the places where the early settlers lived and the principal points of the road where they traveled west. He came west in 1852.

He was at the fair at N.Y. selling some books giving acc’ts of the trip. Had the oxen and wagon there too. The wagon box was made to be used as a boat and he says that he crossed the rivers when coming west in a worse one. He also wrote a book about the early settlers on Puget Sound. I got one of the books about the trip made last year.

The Indians are going to hold a fair in Toppenish this week & next. The expect Indians from 10 tribes in the N.W. The features will be principally horse racing & war dancing.

I do not expect to build a house unless I can rent it, until they begin to build the R.R. Mr. Miller told me that two school teachers wanted to rent his 3-room house at $10 per mo. and let it stand empty thru vacation so they would have it when school began, but he had already rented it. I suppose they are paying 5 or 6 dollars each per week for board & room at a private house, so it would be a big saving.

Mr. Fitts the butcher — (Fitts & Thomas, see special edition, they both boarded where I did last month) told me that they knew of 2 or 3 parties who would rent a house if they could. So I think there will be no difficulty about that.

I have been thinking that it would be a good scheme to buy a lot in this town to save paying rent. The money that I would pay for rent would make the first payment, and in 2 years after the reservation opened I could sell for several times what it cost, 2 or 3 at  least.

I can get lots for $125 to $250 each, pay 1/3 down, 8% int. on balance for as long a time as I want. I can build a house big enough for myself and warmer than this for $20, and when I am ready will make it part of a larger one for rent or sale.

The papers are at the bank ready for delivery and when Mr. Miller comes I will get my deed & abstract. I will send them in a large envelope and you may put them in my box without opening it, unless you want to read them. Will also enclose the paid up policy for 8.80 cents which I received for my dividend.

Do you know that next Feb. is the 100th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth! You may have this Canada 5¢ stamp. The town has a new gasoline fire engine with 2000 feet of hose.

Your loving son,
W.J. Buswell