Once Upon a Town

by Bob Greene

  He said he had never figured out just how much driving—and how much devotion—this entailed, but when I asked him, he did the math in his head. “One hundred miles a trip, maybe one hundred times a year,” he said, “and she’s been playing on teams here for six years…what does that come out to? Sixty thousand miles?”

  “Two down, now!” one of the mothers on the baselines called to the team. She glanced toward the scoreboard, which was dominated by a Union Pacific freight-line logo with the slogan WE CAN HANDLE IT. The girls on the field peered toward the St. Louis batter, Pook German cupped the ball in her hand, her father leaned forward, and I realized that these girls at play were only two or three years younger than many of the soldiers who had once passed through this town on their way to war.

  Those two or three years of difference—from mid-teens to late teens—must, in the days of the Canteen, have seemed like centuries to boys just too young to go to fight for their country. At least that is the conclusion I drew after talking with one of those boys, who had helped his mother at the Canteen.

  “I would guess I was fifteen,” said Floyd O. Berke, now seventy-six, who grew up in Eustis, Nebraska, about sixty miles east of North Platte, and who still lives there. “I was a member of the Tri-County Luther League, which was the organization of young people from churches in our area.

  “My mother had gone to the Canteen with the ladies’ group from our church, and when we young people volunteered to help, we met up at the church and each of us brought a gallon or so of gas to help us get there and back. We went six or more to a car.

  “In addition to the gas for the car, we brought cookies, cakes that had been decorated, fried chicken, coffee makings, and breads, meats, spreads and cheeses for sandwich making. When we got to the Canteen the sandwich makers took a slice of bread, applied the necessary fillings, added the second slice and stacked the sandwiches to the side. When the stack of sandwiches was about twelve inches high, one person had the job of slicing them in half. He had a long knife and carefully sliced through the stack while the rest of us stood alongside to catch everything that might be dropping.”

  This was all in preparation for when the moment would come: when young men just slightly older than the sandwich helpers would arrive on the tracks outside. “When we were alerted that a train was coming, we got into our positions so we were ready to serve.”

  Mr. Berke told me that “for a bunch of kids as young as we were, it was fun. We were pretty much in awe of those soldiers and sailors in their uniforms, so close to our own ages. I had a lot of respect for them, just looking at them in the uniforms. The young and old soldiers were kind of mixed together—although when I think back to it now, the young soldiers were seventeen or eighteen, and the old ones were twenty-three or twenty-four.

  “My job was to serve them coffee. I didn’t know if I was doing it wrong or not. I just assumed that you let them pick up the empty cup, and then you filled it up while they were holding it. I think some of the time I filled the cup half-full before they got to it, so I could speed things up.

  “It looked to me like they were having fun. I know that sounds strange, in a time of war—maybe I thought they were having fun because I knew they were going places I wouldn’t have minded seeing myself.

  “For the most part they were all cordial and polite. I think the military had a way of preparing soldiers for active duty so that the soldiers’ minds could be set at ease a little bit. Yes, they sensed they were going to be in danger, but they didn’t seem to think that they would be the Number One target.”

  The Union Pacific depot itself, he said, impressed him and made him feel very small. “I wasn’t so much intimidated by the building as fascinated, I suppose. To me it seemed like such a big, stately depot. Afterward, when I got older and went to Omaha and Chicago and saw the train stations there, I knew that the North Platte depot had not been anywhere near the size of those. But when you’re young, the first train depot you see makes an impression on you.

  “When I would go home at night after helping out at the Canteen, I would remember some of the faces. There were always so many soldiers there, but the faces I would remember were the ones that reminded me of people I knew. I would lie awake.”

  I watched a few innings of the softball game—the hometown Sensations were having a pretty tough time of it against the girls’ squad from St. Louis—and then I said goodbye to Pook German’s dad, and to some of the other parents I had met, and headed out to the parking lot.

  Near the left-field fence, a man in his seventies—perspiring profusely in the heat of the summer sun that had yet to sink all the way below the horizon of the distant farmland—sold tickets to people who were arriving late for this game, or arriving early for the games that would be played later under the lights. “Have a good time,” he said pleasantly to each person who entered the softball complex.

  I took a good look at him, and realized who he was:

  Lloyd Synovec—the young sailor who had played the piano at the Canteen that day long ago, the seventeen-year-old sailor in the old photo, pounding away at the keys beneath the cartoon of Hitler. At seventy-three he was volunteering out here—spending his time in the sun helping the community by tending the ticket gate.

  What was it he had told me about North Platte? That it had never been a big town. But that it seemed to have a good heart.

  Eight

  I wanted to meet some of the businesspeople—the men and women who made the town run—and I heard about a monthly gathering sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce. Always held on a Friday, after working hours, this get-together was meant to develop and maintain friendships among executives and managers of local companies.

  One of these receptions was being held while I was in town, and I stopped by. The first thing that struck me—it made me smile—was the theme of the event. It was a nautical party—a seafaring soiree. Which, in North Platte…

  Well, there may be nowhere in the United States farther removed—geographically and symbolically—from either ocean than this part of Nebraska. The party itself was being held in the appropriately named Sandhills Convention Center. Yet there they were—waiters and waitresses dressed for sea duty, surfside decor all around the room, fishing nets and boat hulls and island regalia. As long as you didn’t look outside the building, you might will yourself into becoming half-seasick.

  But as I got to know some of the men and women from the local banks and real estate firms and retail stores, it was not so much the oceans-in-Nebraska aspect I was thinking about—it was the plentitude of the food.

  Being offered at serving stations around the room, and by wandering waiters and waitresses, were crab claws, peel-and-eat shrimp, bacon-wrapped scallops, smoked salmon, crab rangoon, chicken empanadas, steamed baby red potatoes with cream cheese and caviar, deviled eggs, make-your-own gyros, Jamaican jerk chicken, fruit tarts….

  This was the Chamber of Commerce’s way to emphasize the town’s self-image of prosperity. But as the food was being served, and lines formed at the multiple bars, I couldn’t keep my mind off what I had been learning about the obstacles that had faced the people of North Platte during the days of the Canteen. Because, for all the efforts that were made in the 1940s to feed every soldier and sailor who passed through on the trains, it was done against the backdrop of national rationing. Food was far from unlimited during the war years; groceries, especially certain kinds, were at a premium. Yet the Canteen never missed a day, never missed a train, never allowed a serviceman or servicewoman to go hungry.

  At the Chamber of Commerce reception, I watched the guests fill their plates, and I thought about a woman from the Canteen days with whom I had spoken—a woman who explained to me how she and her fellow volunteers at the depot had gotten the job done, all those years ago.

  She was Hazel Pierpoint, ninety-one, and she told me that her specialty at the Canteen had been “baking angel food cakes—hundreds and hundreds of them. That’s what I did for all those year
s.”

  To bake an angel food cake—much less hundreds of them—eggs are required. And although procuring food was not as difficult in west-central Nebraska during the war as it was in some urban areas—much of the food here was produced on the farms—there still was not enough to go around.

  Thus, Mrs. Pierpoint told me, she had turned to turkey eggs.

  “My cousin over in McCook had a husband who drove a truck that brought turkey eggs to a hatchery,” she said. “When he found out that I was baking angel food cakes for the Canteen, and that I couldn’t get enough chicken eggs, he said: ‘Why don’t you try turkey eggs?’

  “Now, I don’t know if you’re familiar with turkey eggs. They are big. A turkey egg is a like a little kid’s football. Like a peewee football. The white is a bit tough. But it will do, for a cake.

  “Everyone around this area was a little hard up at the time. Those who had chicken eggs either sold them so they could buy groceries, or traded them for groceries. But with turkey eggs—my cousin’s husband gave me the ones from his truck that weren’t going to be useful at the hatchery—I could get by.

  “It would take me only six or seven of the turkey eggs to make an angel food cake. It would have taken twelve chicken eggs to make the same cake. I was making so many cakes for the boys who came to the Canteen that I always asked my husband to help me beat the eggs. We did it by hand, and all that beating of eggs was wearing him out.

  “We didn’t have a lot of money—he was a painter at a garage in town—but he wanted to make the egg-beating easier for me, and for him, so he went to Montgomery Ward and got me an electric mixer. I had never had one before.

  “The first day I had it in the kitchen and plugged it in, I was beating some eggs with it and the telephone rang. I walked eight feet to pick up the phone, and by the time I turned around the cake batter was all over the kitchen! On the stove, on the table, on the refrigerator…I had forgotten to turn the electric mixer off. I didn’t curse, but I felt like it.”

  She said that baking the angel food cakes for the soldiers and sailors had made her feel whole. “I always have baked,” she told me. “I learned to bake when I was eight years old. I lost my father in 1919, when I was a young girl. We had a farm in Wellfleet. He had the flu and was not able to recover. My mother took in boarders to support us. The banker, the lumberman, the teachers, some railroad men—I learned how to bake so that we could feed them at our boardinghouse.

  “So when the Canteen started, of course I said I would bake those cakes. I fixed as high as eight cakes every week. It didn’t cost me much—my turkey eggs were furnished, and so was my sugar. I would use my own cream of tartar, and my own vanilla. I had to make my own frosting—I made it with sugar and milk. We always put ‘Happy Birthday’ on the cakes, but you couldn’t put a name, because you didn’t know the names of the boys who would be coming through. Sometimes I put ‘Happy Birthday’ in red, sometimes I put it in blue—depending on what colors I had. I used those little vials of coloring, and I mixed them with powdered sugar.”

  I asked her how she got all those cakes from her house to the Canteen.

  “My husband had a car,” she said. “We had special boxes to carry the cakes to the Canteen. The ladies at the Canteen would take the boxes out of the backseat of the car, carry them in and lift out the cakes, then bring the boxes back out so I could take them home and make more cakes.”

  She said she remembered one day especially: “One time I took the cakes down to the depot, and everyone was very busy, and they told my daughter and me just to take the cakes onto the train and see who had a birthday. We were always told that you weren’t supposed to go into the part of a train where the boys were sick, and that if you were around sick soldiers, you were supposed to remove your shoes.

  “That day, we forgot. We carried our cakes onto a hospital car of the train, and we forgot to take our shoes off. It was just like any other car on a train, except it had beds and equipment to take care of the sick and injured boys. Their legs were propped up, the boys were bandaged up….

  “The boys saw us and said, ‘Well, you’re the first ones to ever come in here.’ Which is why we knew we weren’t supposed to be there. But they were happy to see us, and they were very happy to be given the cakes.”

  To this day, she said, she feels proud of what she did during the war. “I could bake a cake, and that’s what I could do for the servicemen. They would get letters at the Canteen from soldiers all over the world, thanking everyone for the birthday cakes. I would see letters that said, ‘That angel food was delicious.’ I knew that was me.”

  Speaking of thanks, I said, did the ladies at the Canteen thank her every time she dropped those cakes off in the car—did they express their appreciation for what she was doing?

  “They thanked me, I thanked them,” Mrs. Pierpoint said. “Everybody thanked everybody. We all thanked each other all the time. That’s just how it was around there.”

  She told me that she still baked cakes. Her husband has been dead for thirty years, but at ninety-one she will bake cakes for herself.

  “Last week I was going to fix a chocolate one,” she said. “I was going to get chocolate and powdered sugar and flour and mix them together. But I was tired. I’m not able to do everything anymore. I was going to make it for me or for my neighbors, but I was just too tired to bake the cake. I will, though.

  “Back during the Canteen days, I never got tired. For an angel food cake, you have to take and mix egg whites like you would mix whites for a pie. You have to whip the whites for half an hour. I had a lot of muscle.

  “I had a lot of strength, during the war. There was nothing I couldn’t do, then.”

  The willingness of the Canteen volunteers to simply give away food was even more striking in light of the specific restrictions placed on American families by the government during the war years. It wasn’t just the selflessness of the volunteers, although that was impressive enough; it was their selflessness in the face of personal deprivation.

  While I was in North Platte I found a ration book that had been issued in 1942. It had been signed for by Irene P. McKain, who was fifty years old at the time and who lived on Rural Route 2. In the book—authorized for Mrs. McKain’s use by the U.S. Office of Price Administration—were variously numbered stamps, to be presented to merchants in order for her to be permitted to purchase specific items. The government, on the front of the ration book, warned her of what could happen if she misused it:

  “Punishments ranging as high as Ten Years’ Imprisonment or $10,000 Fine, or Both, may be imposed under United States Statutes…. This book may not be transferred…. It may be taken from the holder by the Office of Price Administration.”

  The instructions were precise:

  Each stamp authorizes you to purchase rationed goods in the quantities and times designated…. Without the stamps you will be unable to purchase those goods.

  Rationing is a vital part of your country’s war effort. This book is your Government’s guarantee of your fair share of foods made scarce by war, to which the stamps contained herein will be assigned as the need arises.

  Any attempt to violate the rules is an effort to deny someone his share and will create hardship and discontent. Such action, like treason, helps the enemy.

  Be guided by the rule: “If you don’t need it, DON’T BUY IT.”

  Yet, in the face of this—with food products so scarce—the people of the Canteen kept giving their own food away. From Canteen records I found:

  Contributions from the Moorefield group yesterday were 25 birthday cakes, 39½ dozen cup cakes, 149 dozen cookies, 87 fried chickens, 70 dozen eggs, 17½ quarts of salad dressing, 40½ dozen doughnuts, 20 pounds of coffee, 22 quarts of pickles, 22 pounds of butter, 13½ quarts of cream….

  Sixteen women of the Paxton community donated 52 dozen Easter eggs, 600 bottles of milk, 2,000 buns, six hams, 12 sheet cakes…one quart of chicken spread…three boxes of apples….

  It never sto
pped—and then, having donated the food they could have used themselves, they diligently prepared it so that it would be waiting whenever a train became visible in the distance.

  And on those trains?

  Riding on those trains were men like U.S. Marine Sergeant Vincent Anderson, a survivor of the Battle of the Coral Sea, whom I found living in Palm Desert, California.

  “I had never heard of it before we got there,” Mr. Anderson, now seventy-nine, told me. “Never heard of North Platte, never heard of the North Platte Canteen. We were four cars on a passenger train—four cars full of Marines. We pulled into North Platte for this very quick stop—and this lady came up to me and said, ‘Is it your birthday?’ I said to her that, no, it was not.

  “And she said to me, ‘I’m making it your birthday.’ And she handed me this beautiful, home-baked cake.

  “I was really…” He tried to find the right word.

  “I was really melted,” he told me. “What I saw them doing at that place melted me. Such kindness. Such kindness.”

  The first he knew that something good might be waiting for him at the railroad station in Nebraska was during a trip from California for training on the other side of the continent. “There were some MPs traveling with us,” he said. “Right before we got to North Platte, they said to us: ‘Here’s a place you’re really going to like.’

  “And boy, were they right. All of the guys on our train—they were all so excited. They just thought it was the greatest thing in the world, the way these people treated us. They couldn’t believe it. Here were these older women, our mothers’ ages—and they made us feel we were heroes. Not all of us were combat veterans—but they made every one of us feel like heroes.”

  He said that when he came back across the country six weeks later, “I said to myself, ‘I’m going to be well prepared and hungry when I get there.’ So I didn’t eat for twelve hours. I really took advantage of what was waiting for me in North Platte. I was looking forward to it the whole train ride west, and it didn’t let me down. I knew it was out there, like a warm spot waiting for me—like a comfort zone.”