World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, American; World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German
The little sheepherder's wagon was very interesting and as it was 10
degrees below zero we were glad to get inside. There was Just room
for the four of us and the stove made it very warm. He insisted we
stay for dinner and grabbed an axe, went outside and cut some chunks
of meat off one of the dead sheep. He cooked it in the little stove
and between the heat and the smell of that mutton cooking we would
have been driven out if it hadn't been so cold. As it was, we lost
our appetites. We did squeeze into the narrow aisle with a board an
our laps for a table and had mutton with hot biscuits and honey. To
this day I can't stand the smell of lamb cooking.
On one of the trips to Utah we left Lynn with her grandparent and
went on to California by train to spend several days with Neil Ullo
and his wife in Walnut Creek, California. He had started an
electrical business and was selling and installing appliances in that
area. I went with him one day and helped him install a washing
machine. Neil remembered all his hungry days in prison camp and was
very strict with his children at mealtime, making them eat everything
on there plates. It was almost an obsession with him. We had a good
visit and several years later they made a trip east and stayed with
us when we lived an Telyea Street. We took the train back from
California and were lucky to travel in one of the first Vista dome
cars. The country was especially beautiful through the Snake River
canyon.
Sometime during the 1950s we needed a new car and the Clarks in Utah
could get a better deal. We had them purchase a new Chevrolet for us
and Mrs. Clark and Jeanie drove it to New York for us. They got stuck
in a big snowstorm in Ohio and I left by Greyhound to meet them. The
bus got stuck in Erie, Pa. and we had to walk the last quarter mile
to a train station. After a long wait I was able to get a train to
Cincinnati, Ohio. They were about fifty miles to the west of there in
a motel. I stayed in a hotel for two days and we talked back and
forth by telephone. The parking lot outside my hotel room was full of
cars with nothing showing but the aerials. Finally traffic started to
move again and they were able to come ahead and pick me up. We got
stuck again in Fredonia, N.Y. by a two foot snowfall and had to spend
the night in a tourist home as all the roads were closed. The next
morning we struggled for hours to got the car out of the parking lot
and were able to get the rest of the way home. In those days there
was very 1ittle snow removal equipment and these were hard trips to
make.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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