Don't Come Between A Kentucky Boy And His Fried Chicken!!

As you probably know, the new Ken Burns film about World War II began playing last night on PBS.  I thought I’d take the opportunity in this blog to post one of my father’s letters from that time.  The letter was written when he was stationed in Leyte, Philippines with the Air Corp’s 49th Fighter Group’s 9th squadron.  At the time of this letter, Jack was 20 years old and had been in the service 2 years.  Betty was 18.    -Mary

Somewhere in the Philippines

Nov. 17th, 44   4:15 P.M.

Betty darling,

I really don’t know how to take it.  Two more swell letters from you.  I really was disappointed when I read the first one and then found that you hadn’t enclosed the photos as you promised.  Then I opened the second letter and the old morale went up 1000% and fluttered there.  Gosh.  I really can’t think of anything I like to get better then pictures of you.  I have quite a few by this time.

Anne sure looks good.  She really can get dressed up in the crazy outfits can’t she?  What was she doing the day that shot was taken?  Bob & Bill really have grown seems to me.

I really am glad you acted that way with Jimmy.   He is a nice boy, I am sure, but ---!  So please be careful.  If you ever see Jimmy’s father tell him I said hello and that I looked for Vernon in New Guinea but didn’t have any luck.

That boy you are with in the one picture sure looks familiar.  Did he ever go to Anchorage?  What is his name?  Maybe I know him.  Tell him to be very careful!!

1 question please.   Where did you get the pretty rings, one on the right hand & one on the left hand ???  Just curiosity.

We went out this morning and traded with the natives (we shouldn’t call them that.)  Filipinos for 2 more chickens and a bunch of eggs.  Also, our duck laid an egg this morning.  We had almost given up hope.

Later (about 9:45 P.M.)

Well Ralph & Don & Bill came in from the strip and were hungry and the dinner at the mess hall didn’t look so good.  We decided to cook 2 of our chickens.  We naturally fried them.  Ralph & Lou killed & picked them & Don started the hot water & got the gas for our stove.  Dick got the flour & salt and pepper and Bill got the bread & cake from the mess which was about all that was any good.  John came in last so we made him clean up the mess.  I cut up the chickens & cooked.  We really had a swell meal.  We made gravy and had bread & gravy.  During the dinner we had a Red Alert but no bombers came over.  We all had a piece of fried chicken when we went to the slit trench.  After a while we would come out, 1 at a time, and dash back to the tent for another piece while the others listened for planes.

It is really like the fourth of July when they open up on a plane at nite.  Thousands of red tracer bullets going up from various angles.<

We ate most of the chicken while we were in the trench sweating out the raid.  Fried chicken comes first with us even over here.

Darling this is getting to be a long drawn out letter that doesn’t make much sense.  I really am getting too tired to write anyway.

I still and always will love you with all my heart.  I really delight in knowing that I have my love returned.  Please have faith in me & I will be home before you know it.  Please study hard on that cooking and don’t practice on any body but Anne & your Mom.  Anybody else could sue you in case of poisoning!  Ha! Ha!  Honest, I’m just kidding, I really want you to do lots of cooking for me after this is all over.  Steady.  Want the job still?????----???????

I love you very very much darling

Yours & Goodnite,

Jack

Give my best to Anne & your Mom.

Robert Hardin Giltner

Bob Giltner, my mother’s cousin, was anxious to be an Air Force pilot and serve in World War II, but he wasn’t quite old enough to join at the beginning of the war.   He worked on finishing high school and took flying lessons.  By December of 1942 he’d had his first solo flight.  By 1944 my father, Jack Riley, was writing home to my mother, asking her to tell her cousin Bob not to be too quick to join up.   He explained that the war would be over soon and that Bob should just stay out of it if possible.  Dad had been serving in the South Pacific for a while by then, and had seen the ugly truth of war.

But in March of 1945, after graduating from high school the previous spring, Bob enlisted in the Army Air Corp Reserves.  He served only about six months, until the Pacific War ended in August of 1945.  Bob then continued his studies at the University of Kentucky, graduating in 1949.  He then worked with his father on the family’s experimental farm, near Eminence, KY.  The farm was operated in conjunction with the College of Agriculture of the University of Kentucky, and was known to progressive farmers throughout the country.

In September of 1950, just after the start of the Korean War, Bob again joined the Air Force.  He received his pilot’s wings about a year later.  A jet pilot, he was part of the 319th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, a unit attached to the Far East Air Forces of the Fifth Air Force.  By early March of 1952 this squadron was sent to Suwon Airbase, just south of Seoul, South Korea.  They flew F-94 Starfires equipped with radar devices.  The missions were restricted to local air defense in order to prevent the possible loss of new technology (airborne intercept radar equipment), over enemy territory.  They were used to maintain a screen, protecting B-29 bombers from enemy interceptors.

On November 15, 1952 Bob and his co-pilot, Second Lieutenant Ralph Dean Ness, were on a routine radar test flight with six other aircraft when their Lockheed F-94B jet disappeared into the overcast and was later found crashed, only 6 miles southeast of the Suwon Airfield.  The crash was determined an accident and not due to enemy fire.  Neither survived.  Bob, by then a First Lieutenant was only 26 years old and Ralph Ness was only 22.    Bob had only been in Korea for about six months, when the accident occurred.  The Air Force lost 28  F-94s between January 1952 and the end of the Korean War, July 1953.  Only one of the 28 was due to any direct enemy action.  

The week before his death, Bob’s parents had received a letter from him while he was on rest leave.  Perhaps it was during this leave, that Bob had purchased a beautiful string of Mikimoto pearls in Japan.  They were supposedly for his future bride.  We don’t think that he had anyone particular in mind but perhaps he was, at age 26, just beginning to look toward the possibility of married life.  His mother kept the pearls, and when she died, they were given to Bob’s niece, June.   When June wears them she thinks of her grandmother’s heartbreak at losing her oldest son. 

Today Bob Giltner would have celebrated his 81st birthday.  I honor him for his service and mourn for a life that was cut short before even having a chance to find his anticipated bride.  War and freedom have a tremendous price tag.

Please add a comment if you have any additional information or stories about Bob.

-Mary
****  YOU HAVE GOT TO READ my update to this story to read what I found out about Bob after posting this article  .....Link to update

      Lockheed F-94B

I Am Woman, I Am Strong

Remember that old Helen Reddy song from 1972?  Well this story is about some strong women that lived about 100 years before that.

To put it simply, these women believed that alcohol consumption was destructive, and the primary contributing factor to domestic violence, unemployment, poverty, family unity, and disease.  And therefore, if it was so bad, then it really should not only be limited but literal made unavailable.  That was the thinking behind the women involved in what is called the “Women’s War of 1874.”  

This movement started in several eastern states but the heart of the “war” was in Ohio.  Charismatic speaker and quack doctor Dio Lewis,  who traveled around Ohio in the winter of 1873 speaking on the importance of exercise for women and also the duty of Christian women to combat the sale of alcohol,  primed these ladies.  He told women to ask local saloon and store keepers to sign pledges that they would cease to sell alcohol.  If refused, he instructed the women to hold prayer and song services outside these establishments.  Well, this seemed to be all these women needed.  It was the spark that set them on fire.  Eventually there were marches in communities across the country.  It worked and many liquor establishments were driven out of business. 

In Troy, Ohio, where some of my ancestors lived, things got going in February of 1874.  Many of the town’s women got together at the Methodist Church to formulate their plans and form the Women’s Temperance League of Troy.  A week later they met to pray for strength to carry out their mission and formed themselves in to nine groups.  Each group was to visit two saloons per day.  

These ladies would arrive at each saloon and demand that the owner sign a statement agreeing not to sell alcohol.  Well, you can imagine that not many were willing to sign away their livelihood!  So….. when refused, the women would circle and begin to pray.  That wasn’t all, they came back each day and stood outside the saloons singing and praying, even in the snow and rain.  This went on for months!  

Many of the tavern owners were Germans whose businesses were often combination grocery stores and saloons.  They couldn’t understand why anyone would think that alcohol was sinful.  Remember that for generations, alcohol was used as a safe beverage in an era when water quality was often suspect.  Even the pilgrims drank alcohol!  But this was an age in which alcohol abuse and addiction was growing.  In fact, by the end of the 19th century the number of saloons in Chicago equaled the total number of grocery stores, meat markets and dry goods stores combined!  

In Troy, Mr. and Mrs. Michaelis, recent Jewish immigrants from Germany, were particularly intolerant of the intrusion upon their place of business.  Mrs. Michaelis published a sarcastic notice in the weekly paper informing the ladies that perhaps they should say their prayers in Hebrew, a language more familiar to the Michaelises.  But the women still showed up each day to pray and sing outside the Michaelises store, with Mr. and Mrs. Michaelis trying to drown them out by banging pots and pans and ringing bells.  But, you know, it worked.  After a couple of weeks of harassment, the Michaelises sold their building and moved to Dayton, Ohio, where they opened up a new saloon.  Apparently the ladies of Dayton didn’t take part in this crusade against alcohol.

The women’s crusade in Troy had some other successes.  The owner of the hotel tore out his bar.  Sylvester Bell who owned a grocery/saloon signed the pledge and closed his saloon.  Eventually the City Council passes an ordinance abolishing the sale of alcoholic drinks.  Of course there were protests by other saloon keepers and a local distiller.  But by August of 1874, even though the legality of the town ordinance was still being questioned, the prayer/hymn session were now held only occasionally in the Public Square to recruit new members into what became called the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.

These events of 1874 helped to fuel the movement for women to have the right to vote, which they were granted in 1920 by the 19th Amendment.  Maybe they had begun to feel a bit empowered with their successes in the war on alcohol.  It also helped set in motion the push for Prohibition, which went into effect in 1920 and didn’t end until 1933.

Whether you agree or disagree with them, you must respect that, in essence, these women felt they were fighting for the preservation of their families.  Their appeals mentioned “desolated homes, blasted hopes, ruined lives, and widowed hearts.”  And like Gandhi, Martin Luther King and other proponents of non-violent movements they saw that even though they had little political power they weren’t powerless.

One of those ladies of Troy Ohio, who was a “soldier” in the Women’s War of 1874, was my GGG Grandmother, Juliet Neale Riley.  At that time, she was 68 years old and a widow.  She served as president of Troy’s Women’s Christian Temperance Union for 7 years and lived to be 86.  I’ve included the only picture I have of her and she looks like she means business.  I hope she’ll forgive me that I do enjoy a glass of wine with dinner and a cold beer on a hot day.

-Mary

“I am woman, hear me roar---- In numbers too big to ignore

And I know too much to go back an' pretend----'cause I've heard it all before

And I've been down there on the floor----No one's ever gonna keep me down again”

“You can bend but never break me----'cause it only serves to make me

More determined to achieve my final goal----And I come back even stronger

Not a novice any longer----'cause you've deepened the conviction in my soul”

The Ohio Historical Society has some great photos of the “Women’s War of 1874”.  I don’t want them to sue me for copyright violations so just click on the link and type “temperance” into their search box.

Ohio Historical Society Photos

Juliet Neale Riley

The Cat Squeezer

I was curious about Emily  Graves.  She was the little orphaned niece of my GG Grandmother, Henrietta Goodall Hardin.  Little Emily’s father died when she was 2 years old and it is likely that after his death, she and her mother came to live with my GG grandparents, Henrietta and Gus Hardin.   Then, when Emily was only 9 years old, her mother died, and after that she definitely was living with her Aunt Henrietta and Uncle Gus.  Henrietta and Gus had one child, Nanine (my G Grandmother), who was about 7 years older than Emily.  By looking at the censuses, I found that Emily lived with the Hardins until her death in 1922.  She died at age 32 and had never married.  

It was a long shot, but I thought that perhaps if I could find out more about Emily, it would give me some clues as to why Henrietta had committed suicide in 1915 at the age of 55.  So, I sent off for Emily’s death certificate hoping for some revealing information.  This week I received the certificate in the mail and found that Emily was a hemophiliac and died of a hemoptysis.  I learned that not all types of hemophilia are inherited.  Sometimes the condition is associate with autoimmune conditions.  I don't think we'll ever know which was the case with Emily.

That news didn’t really give me any solid hints as to why Emily's Aunt Henrietta committed suicide and had suffered for at least a year from “melancholia”, as indicated on her death certificate.  I contacted my cousin Anne to see what she knew.   I learned that Henrietta Hardin had been the caregiver for her ill and elderly mother, Emily Goodall.  Also, I learned, Henrietta suffered from incapacitating migraines.  In addition to that, Anne had a vague recollection that Henrietta's niece, Emily Graves, was connected to a story about a young relative that squeezed a cat to death.  Anne called to her mother, my aunt Anne, to she if she could remember any stories about Emily that had been passed down through the family, and to inquire about the alleged cat-squeezing incident.  

The only story that Aunt Anne could remember about Emily was one that her grandmother, Nanine had often shared.  Apparently, she told the story of little Emily having, as a young child, squeezed a kitten so hard that she killed it.  Little Emily sat there squeezing the kitten and murmuring in a soft voice “I’ll make your eyes bug out…I’ll make you breath hard.”  

Perhaps Emily was a bit of a handful and we’d like to remember her for more than being a hemophiliac, orphaned, cat squeezer, but that’s all we seem to be able to dredge up about her.  And, for all we know Nanine might have exaggerated the story and been a slight bit jealous of this younger cousin, perhaps with significant health problems, who came to live with them.  We’ll never know, but in the end, I’m glad for these family tales, whether they are completely true or not.  They add color to our family story, and as someone once said, there is really no such thing as non-fiction.  

For Henrietta, perhaps the pressures of being a caretaker for her elderly mother and a sickly and possibly difficult niece, along with the burden of unbearable migraines all contributed to her depression and eventual suicide.  We will never know.  Henrietta had spent a previous winter in Florida with relatives, taking Emily Graves with her.  She and Emily spent time at the French Lick Springs in Indiana.  In the summer before her death Henrietta and a private nurse went to Atlantic City for a month.  But, it was reported that none of these cured her of her afflictions, and she only became worse.  There are times when we all probably walk a thin line between coping and not coping with what life throws at us.  On September 29, 1915 Henrietta unfortunately stepped across that line and pulled out a gun, thinking that was her only option.  Her nurse had only stepped away briefly to prepare her dinner tray at their home in Louisville, Kentucky.  The gun was an old one, that had belonged to a relative.  Others in the home didn't even know it was still in the house.  Her husband was at work at the time.

-Mary