- my history
About Metamorphosis
A collection of poetry
Life Forms on Mars
A short story
THE WAR YEARS
Letters from Home
A recreation of life in Guadalupe, California in 1944 from
comments in letters by my mom to my dad and from personal memories.
To be added later.
The 165 days in the combat zone, Luzon, The Philippines, 1945. A limited recreation of what my dad faced and experienced from whatever comments I can find in letters from him to my mom and from a few memories of comments he made about his war experiences.
When my dad was reassigned to overseas he was in the 274 Rep. Co., 14th Rep. Bu. As of March 26, 1945 his unit became Co. F, 161st Infantry. He saw 91 continuous days of combat in Luzon, the Philippines, from early March into early June 1945. He was rotated to a resting area and was part of the occupation forces in Japan at which time he was assigned to Co. 4, 4th Infantry.
Letters from home
Letters to home
The Souvenirs of War
Letters to home
My dad had came from a background of being the only child of a marriage between the youngest son, Austin, in a large family of 5 sons and 2 daughters, with Austin being borned some five or so years after the next youngest child. My dad's mother, Pearl, also came from a moderately large family of possibly five children with perhaps three daughters and two sons (to be confirmed later). The Copelands and the Sellers roots were in northern, central Texas.
My mother was borned at the family home near Lenna. She was borned into a large family of some four daughters and two sons. A younger daughter was to follow bringing the entire family up to ten, including Major and Carrie Morrison, her parents. Her home was out in the country and had no electricity, no running water, and no in-door toilets (this remained unchanged even into the 1950s except they did get electricity). There was only 2 bedrooms for them all and the spread in years was probably ten years between the oldest and the youngest. Two siblings borned to Carrie Morrison died in their infancy.
My mother then was raised and educated in the immediate area of her home. Her best friends were her sisters and she did make a few others in the very small school house at Lenna. Her interaction with the outside world came from whatever she was taught in school or learned by mouth. Travelling in those days was rather limited as the roads were dirt and impassable in wet weather. Lenna was more of an intersection than a town with only a school and a general store that housed the post office and had a gasoline pump.
My dad, on the other hand, was somewhat more travelled than mom.
I believe he was borned in Texas. The family moved about in search
of work and often lived in a tent.
I believe that Marshall and his parents had moved into the area
where my mother lived to work picking cotton when he was at the
age of enterring high school. Stidham High School was the only one
in the immediate area of that part of McIntosh County, Oklahoma.
Times being such as they were (difficult and a bare-bones existance), not only did my newly wed parents accompanied Austin and Pearl (along with one of her sisters, Alice, with her husband and son) as they headed out to California to find more gainful employment and a better life, but some of my mother's sisters with their husbands also headed out to the Golden State in the hopes of bettering their lives. One of her sisters headed on up to the Sacramento area and two other sisters moved into the Bakersfield area. The Copelands and the Benefields (Pearl's sister Alice, her husband George, and their son Eugene) went on over to Guadalupe, California.
Then nearly at New Years I was borned. Six months later in June 1943 my dad got his draft registration papers and was classified for the draft. He was then 19; mom was then 20.
Having found a job at the California Pine Box Company in Guadalupe, my parents settled down in at Walker's Motor Court which sat just west across Guadalupe Street from the Pine Box. My dad eventually became a framer and ran a machine that made wooden crates for packing vegetables (probably lettuce, celery, and broccoli). It was a good living for those times and allowed my dad the chance to save money at the local bank.
The town of Guadalupe was not a noteworthy place at all during those days of the 1940s. My dad did not think much of the town as it seemed to be a series of bars and liquor stores with open drunkenness. There were a few havens found in the downtown of Guadalupe: the Royal Theater, Ray's (a fountain/hamburger shop-I believe just north of the theater), the drugstore (in my youth called Wolf's Drugs), and the train depot where mail was posted. Groceries were generally purchased at Caligari's, a general store that sat just east of Walker's Motor Court fronting Guadalupe Street, though at times some shopping was done downtown at a Filippino market where the prices were cheaper.
With the advent of my parent's second wedding anniversary soon came the birth of my sole sibling, Michael Ray, in March, 1944. It was not long afterwards when my dad got his notice to appear for induction. He left home in early August (Aug. 3), 1944 for Fort McArthur and then was sent to Camp Hood in Texas for training.
That August 1944 was a difficult month for my mother. Though she was living with her in-laws in a cabin at Walker's Motor Court, she was alone with two young infants to care for. Her mother-in-law was working off and on at Pine Box and her father-in-law was either running around or otherwise indisposed. She began immediately that first night of being apart from her young husband in writing him a daily letter with comments on her and the kids state and on what little news she encountered in her day. She apparently did not read the papers nor did she seem to have any friends in the area, though she knew vaguely a few of the people in the court. She was basically dependent upon the charity of her in-laws for the roof over her head and for whatever transportation was available.
Life, however, was not all that difficult as she did attend shows at the theater, frequently in the company of her in-laws or of Pearl's sister, Alice and/or her family. When Austin was unable to mail her daily letters down at the train depot, she would walk down to it pushing the kids in Mikey's buggy. She had finally gotten a cabin to herself and her young ones. Her major complaint was the loneliness she felt.
While her letters to my dad (at Camp Hood) ended in mid December 1944 I have extrapolated what was transpiring during the first five months of 1945 from the correspondence that my dad wrote to her from the Philippines. Apparently after my dad's Christmas furlough in December 1944 and his departure to Fort Ord for departation to the front, my mother began to experience continued loneliness and anxiety. Compounding this oppressive emotional state was the turmoil surrounding a needed operation on me so that my mouth could be further repaired so that I could began learning how to talk as all I did was "blubber". The operation had been approved by the County Health Department and so the cause for delay was unknown but a sore that festered into dread. She did not know if she would have to pay the cost of it.
To fight her loneliness she often attend matinees at the Royal Theater and even began reading the Bible (New Testament) and attending church on a sporadic basis. Occasionally a neighbor would drop by and visit. She soon learned to enjoy the visits by Pearl who was often left home alone when she was not working as Austin began developing the reputation of being a ladie's man and of having a slothful nature (some truth to both but perhaps not as true as many would have thought-my opinion from my personal knowledge of him).
Sometime in March or April of 1945 a bowling alley opened up in Guadalupe, about a block north of the Royal Theater. This provided an opportunity and a suitable pastime to while away the boredom of her loneliness. I would not be surprised if it was Alice Benefield that got my mother into bowling. This first real social venue was soon to be the springboard for other social opportunities for her. However, her inclination to participate in other social venues became a matter of contention between her and her husband.
So at the age of 21 my dad wrote what I consider to be one of the most outstanding letters I have read. While my mother, age 22, was in turmoil and distress over the situation of raising her children on her own and anxious about when, or even if, her husband would come home from the war, she related to him her distress and her desires in coping with her anxiety. My dad's response would surely have set her mind aright as to what were the real priorities that she should be attending to.
July 8, 2007
© Jerry Copeland