441 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7a6518f5f710cc88a834cca4e7e50126.pdf f71d1447daa7cdc100cc0e25290b8f8f PDF Text Text KEWEENAW BAY 2nd ANNUAL POW-WOW JULY 25, 26, 27, 1980 $5,000 PRIZE MONEY 1/2 MILE NORTH OF BARAGA,MI DRUMMONEY TRADERS WELCOME TRIBAL POLICE PATROLLED NO ALCOHOL or DRUGS ALLOWED NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR LOST OR STOLEN PROPERTY FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL CHIZ BATES: (906) 353-6623 �KEWEENAW BAY IND/AN COMMUNITY 1980 TRIBAL COUNCIL KEWEENAW BAY TRIBAL CENTER BARAGA, MICHtc;AN 49908 Fre,d Dakota. President Phone (906) 353-6623 Donald A. LaPointc, V. Pres. Joan M . BC'mi.s , S«retarv M\'rtlc Toloncn. Asst . SeC. H: James Sr. Arnold , Treasurer Fredt'rk k Gauthier Rose mary Hutaja Frederick Shclifoc Cl\·dc Swartz Ht'lcnc C. Welsh Philnmc na Ekdahl Michael J . Chosa June 19 I 19 8 0 Ahneen Nidge, The Keweenaw Bay Pow-Wow Committee ·would like to cordially invite you to the 2nd Annual Keweenaw Bay Pow-Wow, sch eduled for July 25th, 26th, and 27th. The Pow-Wow grounds will be located at the O}jibway Campground, one-half mile north of Baraga, on US-41. Electrial hook-ups, running water, and outdoor facilities will be available. Admission to the campground and pow-wow is $3.00 for adults, $1.00 for children under 12 years. Buttons will be issued, which will be used throughout the weekend for admission. Contest dancing in both traditional, and fancy dance style will be h.e ld with prize money totaling $5,000.00. Also, $200.00 will be offered to each of the first 10 drums registered. Traders are welcome with only a nominal fee charged. Please, no.import, Indian made only. We hope to see you at the Pow-Wow. filled weekend for everyone. Megwetch, -7-"/~ Ted Holappa TH/bf enc. It will be an event �-- ... � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Native American Publication Collection Subject The topic of the resource Native Americans Indians of North America Anthropology Indians of North America -- Michigan -- Periodicals Michigan Description An account of the resource Selected digital surrogates of published and unpublished materials from the Edward V. Gillis Native American publication collection dealing with different aspects of human culture and anthropology, with an emphasis on Native American people, events, organizations, and activities in Michigan. Includes newsletters, event programs, flyers, posters and other printed materials. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gillis, Edward V. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/446">Edward V. Gillis Native American Publication Collection (RHC-14)</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-02-21 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Relation A related resource Gi-gikinomaage-min Project (Kutsche Office of Local History) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-14 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1958-2000 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/446">Edward V. Gillis Native American publication collection, RHC-14</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-14_keweenaw-bay-pow-wow_1980-07 Title A name given to the resource Keweenaw Bay Annual Pow-Wow, July 1980 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1980-07 Description An account of the resource Keweenaw Bay Annual Pow-Wow flyer, Baraga MI, July 25-27, 1980, collected by Edward Gillis included as part of his Native American publication collection. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Subject The topic of the resource Indians of North America -- Michigan -- Periodicals Indians of North America Michigan Michigan -- Grand Rapids Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/53bd1628392ee5f6f812e88fb54b0d58.pdf 87686276c3d3ab222dfa70ce521e6290 PDF Text Text ~ I '"""' "''•"- 3RD ANNUAL KEWEENAW BAY POW-WOW JULY 24, 25, 26, 1981 Baraga, Michigan Ojibway Trailer Park I � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Native American Publication Collection Subject The topic of the resource Native Americans Indians of North America Anthropology Indians of North America -- Michigan -- Periodicals Michigan Description An account of the resource Selected digital surrogates of published and unpublished materials from the Edward V. Gillis Native American publication collection dealing with different aspects of human culture and anthropology, with an emphasis on Native American people, events, organizations, and activities in Michigan. Includes newsletters, event programs, flyers, posters and other printed materials. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gillis, Edward V. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/446">Edward V. Gillis Native American Publication Collection (RHC-14)</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-02-21 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Relation A related resource Gi-gikinomaage-min Project (Kutsche Office of Local History) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-14 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1958-2000 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/446">Edward V. Gillis Native American publication collection, RHC-14</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-14_keweenaw-bay-pow-wow_1981-07 Title A name given to the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Traditional Pow-Wow, July 1981 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1981-07 Description An account of the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Traditional Pow-Wow flyer, Baraga MI, July 24-26, 1981, collected by Edward Gillis included as part of his Native American publication collection. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Subject The topic of the resource Indians of North America -- Michigan -- Periodicals Indians of North America Michigan Michigan -- Grand Rapids Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f7cf6f1157728ffa81d2216c26639e5c.pdf b73c7b2027332e61552b3bce73e2b064 PDF Text Text · 5TH ,ANNUAL ,,,, KEWEENAW BAY INDIAN COMMUNITY TRADITIONAL POW-WOW JULY 22- 23 - 24, 1983 All Activities At: POW-WOW ARENA OJIBWA CAMPGROUNDS US-41 North 1 Mile North of Baraga, Michigan * * * * - Schedule WEDNESDAY -JULY 20 SATURDAY - JutY 10 a.m. SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE OPENS '23 1 p.m. & 7 p.m. GRAND ENTRY Midnight TWO-STEP CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE WORLD FRIDAY - JULY 22 7 p.m. GRAND ENTRY SUNDAY-JULY 24 , 1 p.m. GRAND ENTRY. .F DRUM MONEY GIVE AW A Y EXPENSE MONEY FOR ALL REGISTERED DANCERS SPECIAL AW ARDS FOR BEST DANCER IN EACH DIVISION MEALS PROVIDED EACH DAY TRIBAL POLICE SECURITY NO ALCOHOL OR DRUGS ALLOWED IN CAMPGROUND - SOUVENIR BUTTONS ON SALE - INDIAN TRADERS ONLY **** Held in conjunction with: TRADITIONAL SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE JULY 20 - 21 - 22, 1983 For Further Information Contact: POW-WOW COMMITTEE: TED HOLAPPA (906) 353-6672 LORETTA HUGO (906) 353-6623 SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE: MYRT SHELAFOE (906) 353-6623 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Native American Publication Collection Subject The topic of the resource Native Americans Indians of North America Anthropology Indians of North America -- Michigan -- Periodicals Michigan Description An account of the resource Selected digital surrogates of published and unpublished materials from the Edward V. Gillis Native American publication collection dealing with different aspects of human culture and anthropology, with an emphasis on Native American people, events, organizations, and activities in Michigan. Includes newsletters, event programs, flyers, posters and other printed materials. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gillis, Edward V. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/446">Edward V. Gillis Native American Publication Collection (RHC-14)</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-02-21 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Relation A related resource Gi-gikinomaage-min Project (Kutsche Office of Local History) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-14 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1958-2000 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/446">Edward V. Gillis Native American publication collection, RHC-14</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-14_keweenaw-bay-pow-wow_1983-07 Title A name given to the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Traditional Pow-Wow, July 1983 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1983-07 Description An account of the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Traditional Pow-Wow flyer, Baraga MI, July 22-24, 1983, collected by Edward Gillis included as part of his Native American publication collection. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Subject The topic of the resource Indians of North America -- Michigan -- Periodicals Indians of North America Michigan Michigan -- Grand Rapids Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/240a0429c798ec7c8d3a2364abed0ee7.pdf 67968c629d648988a1ecd004bd59032d PDF Text Text The Publlc is Welcome to Attend the 6TH ANNUAL KEWEENAW BAY INDIAN COMMUNITY POW-WOW JULY 27 - 28- 29, 1984 OJIBWA CAMPGROUNDS US-41 North - 1 Mile North of Baraga, Michigan - Schedule FRIDAY - JULY 27 6 p.m. - 10 p.m. 8p.m. Registration Grand Entry SATURDAY - JULY 28 9 a.m. - Noon 10 a.m. Registration Fry Bread Relay and Fun Runs Grand Entry Dinner for Participants Grand Entry Two Step Championship 1 p.m. 5:30 p.m. 7:30 p.m. Midnight SUNDAY - JULY 29 10 a.m. 11 a.m. Breakfast for Participants Individual Giveaways and Specials Grand Entry 1 p.m. MASTER OF CEREMONIES: HONORARY MC: F. Browning Pipestem Carl Cameron HOST DRUM: HEAD DANCERS: Smokeytown Singers Kathy Nertoli Joe Barrett FREE CAMPING NO RESERVATIONS ALL REGISTERED DANCERS RECEIVE CASHAWARD NQ ALCOHOL OR DRUGS ALLOWED DRUM MONEY TRIBAL POLICE SECURITY ADMISSION: ADULTS - $3.00 POW-WOW BUTTON Good for all three days CHILDREN UNDER 12 - $1.00 POW-WOW BUTTON Good for all three days CHILDREN UNDER 5 - Free For Further Information Contact: POW-WOW COMMITTEE: TED HOLAPPA, Chairman (906) 353-6623 GLORIA SHALIFOE, Vice-Chairman (906) 524-6534 -,., ~ � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Native American Publication Collection Subject The topic of the resource Native Americans Indians of North America Anthropology Indians of North America -- Michigan -- Periodicals Michigan Description An account of the resource Selected digital surrogates of published and unpublished materials from the Edward V. Gillis Native American publication collection dealing with different aspects of human culture and anthropology, with an emphasis on Native American people, events, organizations, and activities in Michigan. Includes newsletters, event programs, flyers, posters and other printed materials. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gillis, Edward V. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/446">Edward V. Gillis Native American Publication Collection (RHC-14)</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-02-21 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Relation A related resource Gi-gikinomaage-min Project (Kutsche Office of Local History) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-14 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1958-2000 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/446">Edward V. Gillis Native American publication collection, RHC-14</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-14_keweenaw-bay-pow-wow_1984-07 Title A name given to the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Traditional Pow-Wow, July 1984 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984-07 Description An account of the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Traditional Pow-Wow flyer, Baraga MI, July 27-29, 1984, collected by Edward Gillis included as part of his Native American publication collection. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Subject The topic of the resource Indians of North America -- Michigan -- Periodicals Indians of North America Michigan Michigan -- Grand Rapids Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2f8385a967f7e85dcd4ac2dbcc193acf.pdf 992c4853113dcc1aec0f039cff62ec81 PDF Text Text 7TH ANNUAL TRADITIONAL POW - WOW AND SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE JULY 25 - 26 · 27 - 28, 1985 KEWEENAW BAY INDIAN COMMUNITY U.S. 41 BARAGA, MICHIGAN FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL: (906) 353-6623 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Native American Publication Collection Subject The topic of the resource Native Americans Indians of North America Anthropology Indians of North America -- Michigan -- Periodicals Michigan Description An account of the resource Selected digital surrogates of published and unpublished materials from the Edward V. Gillis Native American publication collection dealing with different aspects of human culture and anthropology, with an emphasis on Native American people, events, organizations, and activities in Michigan. Includes newsletters, event programs, flyers, posters and other printed materials. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gillis, Edward V. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/446">Edward V. Gillis Native American Publication Collection (RHC-14)</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-02-21 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Relation A related resource Gi-gikinomaage-min Project (Kutsche Office of Local History) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-14 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1958-2000 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/446">Edward V. Gillis Native American publication collection, RHC-14</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-14_keweenaw-bay-pow-wow_1985-07 Title A name given to the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Traditional Pow-Wow, July 1985 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985-07 Description An account of the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Traditional Pow-Wow flyer, Baraga MI, July 25-28, 1985, collected by Edward Gillis included as part of his Native American publication collection. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Subject The topic of the resource Indians of North America -- Michigan -- Periodicals Indians of North America Michigan Michigan -- Grand Rapids Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/410c8bd50d1a18c699b54f8b8a949f61.pdf df01ac3b746534d412401736b25eda55 PDF Text Text 8th Annual July 24-27, 1986 Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Pow - wow & Spiritual Gathering Held In Honor Of The Teens Home of the Two Step Championship MC's: Browning Pipestem Larry Matrious Honorary Senior Citizen MC Mr. Ed Lafernier Host Drum: Lac Vieux Desert Singers Head Dancers: Andrew Loonsfoot Phoebe [Bear] McCollough Ojibwa Park U.S. 41 Baraga, Mi. If you need more information call: (906) 353-6623 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Native American Publication Collection Subject The topic of the resource Native Americans Indians of North America Anthropology Indians of North America -- Michigan -- Periodicals Michigan Description An account of the resource Selected digital surrogates of published and unpublished materials from the Edward V. Gillis Native American publication collection dealing with different aspects of human culture and anthropology, with an emphasis on Native American people, events, organizations, and activities in Michigan. Includes newsletters, event programs, flyers, posters and other printed materials. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gillis, Edward V. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/446">Edward V. Gillis Native American Publication Collection (RHC-14)</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-02-21 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Relation A related resource Gi-gikinomaage-min Project (Kutsche Office of Local History) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-14 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1958-2000 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/446">Edward V. Gillis Native American publication collection, RHC-14</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-14_keweenaw-bay-pow-wow_1986-07 Title A name given to the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Traditional Pow-Wow flyer, July 1986 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986-07 Description An account of the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Traditional Pow-Wow flyer, Baraga MI, July 24-27, 1986, collected by Edward Gillis included as part of his Native American publication collection. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Subject The topic of the resource Indians of North America -- Michigan -- Periodicals Indians of North America Michigan Michigan -- Grand Rapids Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6cfe0882e4ea0e98774fc2f7fbe4c9f3.pdf af0f6cac0055e4c8115ea3dc5c690cc0 PDF Text Text 9th Annual POW-WOW July 24-26, 1987 Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Pow-Wow & Spiritual Conference Held in Honor of the Women Spirit Conference July 23 Home of the Two Step Championship MC's: Browning Pipestem Larry Matrious Indian Traders Welcome No Drugs or Alcohol Please Ojibwa Park U.S. 41 Baraga, Mi. If you need more information call: (906) 353-6623 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Native American Publication Collection Subject The topic of the resource Native Americans Indians of North America Anthropology Indians of North America -- Michigan -- Periodicals Michigan Description An account of the resource Selected digital surrogates of published and unpublished materials from the Edward V. Gillis Native American publication collection dealing with different aspects of human culture and anthropology, with an emphasis on Native American people, events, organizations, and activities in Michigan. Includes newsletters, event programs, flyers, posters and other printed materials. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gillis, Edward V. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/446">Edward V. Gillis Native American Publication Collection (RHC-14)</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-02-21 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Relation A related resource Gi-gikinomaage-min Project (Kutsche Office of Local History) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-14 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1958-2000 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/446">Edward V. Gillis Native American publication collection, RHC-14</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-14_keweenaw-bay-pow-wow_1987-07 Title A name given to the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Traditional Pow-Wow flyer, July 1987 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1987-07 Description An account of the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Traditional Pow-Wow flyer, Baraga MI, July 24-26, 1987, collected by Edward Gillis included as part of his Native American publication collection. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Subject The topic of the resource Indians of North America -- Michigan -- Periodicals Indians of North America Michigan Michigan -- Grand Rapids Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/eaf398b323824df99c0904d1c53ef0d6.pdf e581bc914e0afb9e8fb7e6b6f9396869 PDF Text Text Keweenaw Bay Indian Community 12th Annual Traditional Pow-Wow July 27-29, 1990 ''UNI1Y'' H on1e of the original Midnight Two-Step World Championship ***DRUM SPLIT ***INDIAN TRADERS/CONCESSIONS ONLY (Pre-Registration Required) ***NO DRUGS OR ALCOHOL ALWWED ***FOR INFORMATION CONTACT: GLORIA (906) 524-6534 GERRY (906) 353-6623 CHIZ (906) 353-6623 Evenings & Week-ends Days Days Ojibway Campground Baraga, Michigan � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Native American Publication Collection Subject The topic of the resource Native Americans Indians of North America Anthropology Indians of North America -- Michigan -- Periodicals Michigan Description An account of the resource Selected digital surrogates of published and unpublished materials from the Edward V. Gillis Native American publication collection dealing with different aspects of human culture and anthropology, with an emphasis on Native American people, events, organizations, and activities in Michigan. Includes newsletters, event programs, flyers, posters and other printed materials. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gillis, Edward V. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/446">Edward V. Gillis Native American Publication Collection (RHC-14)</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-02-21 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Relation A related resource Gi-gikinomaage-min Project (Kutsche Office of Local History) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-14 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1958-2000 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/446">Edward V. Gillis Native American publication collection, RHC-14</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-14_keweenaw-bay-pow-wow_1990-07 Title A name given to the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Traditional Pow-Wow flyer, July 1990 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1990-07 Description An account of the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Traditional Pow-Wow flyer, Baraga MI, July 27-29, 1990, collected by Edward Gillis included as part of his Native American publication collection. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Subject The topic of the resource Indians of North America -- Michigan -- Periodicals Indians of North America Michigan Michigan -- Grand Rapids Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/72a3ef3b1dc91cc471df0b5ba43c309b.pdf 2fee6042fdde7232e0e2b21e9efee44f PDF Text Text � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Native American Publication Collection Subject The topic of the resource Native Americans Indians of North America Anthropology Indians of North America -- Michigan -- Periodicals Michigan Description An account of the resource Selected digital surrogates of published and unpublished materials from the Edward V. Gillis Native American publication collection dealing with different aspects of human culture and anthropology, with an emphasis on Native American people, events, organizations, and activities in Michigan. Includes newsletters, event programs, flyers, posters and other printed materials. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gillis, Edward V. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/446">Edward V. Gillis Native American Publication Collection (RHC-14)</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-02-21 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Relation A related resource Gi-gikinomaage-min Project (Kutsche Office of Local History) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-14 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1958-2000 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/446">Edward V. Gillis Native American publication collection, RHC-14</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-14_keweenaw-bay-pow-wow_1992-07 Title A name given to the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Traditional Pow-Wow flyer, July 1992 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1992-07 Description An account of the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Traditional Pow-Wow flyer, Baraga MI, July 24-26, 1992, collected by Edward Gillis included as part of his Native American publication collection. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Subject The topic of the resource Indians of North America -- Michigan -- Periodicals Indians of North America Michigan Michigan -- Grand Rapids Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4ce1afa4f84658c8a21bd4641af893ec.pdf b37ace768ec555e48285fddcd8964072 PDF Text Text Keweenaw Bay Indian Community 15th Annual Traditional Pow-Wow July 23-25, 1993 "Honor The Children" Home of the Original Midnight Two-Step World Championship • HOST DRUM - SPIRIT MOUNTAIN SINGERS, DULUTH, MINNESOfA • DRUM SPLIT • INDIAN TRADERS/CONCESSIONS ONLY (Pre-Registration Required) • NO DRUGS OR ALCOHOL ALLOWED • NO RAFFLES OR PULL-TABS • NOf RESPONSIBLE FOR ACCIDENTS, INJURIES OR LOSSES OF PERSONAL PROPER1Y • FOR INFORMATION CONTACT: CHIZ (906) 524-6907 Evenings & Week-ends GERRY (906) 353-6623 Days MYRfLE (906) 353-6623 Days Ojibwa Campground Baraga, Michigan � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Native American Publication Collection Subject The topic of the resource Native Americans Indians of North America Anthropology Indians of North America -- Michigan -- Periodicals Michigan Description An account of the resource Selected digital surrogates of published and unpublished materials from the Edward V. Gillis Native American publication collection dealing with different aspects of human culture and anthropology, with an emphasis on Native American people, events, organizations, and activities in Michigan. Includes newsletters, event programs, flyers, posters and other printed materials. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gillis, Edward V. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/446">Edward V. Gillis Native American Publication Collection (RHC-14)</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-02-21 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Relation A related resource Gi-gikinomaage-min Project (Kutsche Office of Local History) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-14 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1958-2000 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/446">Edward V. Gillis Native American publication collection, RHC-14</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-14_keweenaw-bay-pow-wow_1993-07 Title A name given to the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Traditional Pow-Wow flyer, July 1993 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1993-07 Description An account of the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Traditional Pow-Wow, Baraga MI, July 23-25, 1993, collected by Edward Gillis included as part of his Native American publication collection. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Subject The topic of the resource Indians of North America -- Michigan -- Periodicals Indians of North America Michigan Michigan -- Grand Rapids Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0d9ac45d49a947966e3ddbd998a6e4c4.pdf 45b6797d65b82fb56d8e84493f7af091 PDF Text Text ���� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Civil War and Slavery Collection Subject The topic of the resource United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865 Slavery--United States African Americans United States--Politics and government--19th century Description An account of the resource A selection of correspondence, diaries, official documents, photographs related to the American Civil War and to the institution of slavery, collected by Harvey E. Lemmen. The collection includes a selection of documents from ten states related to the ownership of slaves and abolition, correspondence and documents of soldiers who fought in the war and from family members and officials, diaries and letters of individuals, and a collection of mailing envelopes decorated with patriotic imagery. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lemmen, Harvey E. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/472">Civil War and Slavery Collection (RHC-45)<br /></a><a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/470">John Bennitt Diaries and Correspondence (RHC-43)<br /></a><a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/471">Nathan Sargent Papers (RHC-44)<br /></a><a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/478">Theodore Peticolas Diary (RHC-51)<br /></a><a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/476">Civil War Patriotic Envelopes Collection (RHC-51)<br /></a><a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/479">Whitely Read Diary (RHC-52)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1804-1897 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg; application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Image; Text Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1804-1897 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-45_CW16193 Title A name given to the resource R. C. Keyes to Mr. Lucas Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1943-01-19 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Keyes, R. C. Subject The topic of the resource Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 Grant, Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson), 1822-1885 Sherman, William T. (William Tecumseh), 1820-1891 United States--Politics and government--19th century Republican National Convention United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865 Springfield (Ill.) Chicago (Ill.) Oak Ridge Cemetery (Springfield, Ill.) Description An account of the resource Reminsciences about Abraham Lincoln written by a man who grew up on a farm near the Capitol in Springfield, Illinois. In his letter to Mr. Lucas, he recounts his boyhood impressions of Lincoln, of his attendance at the 1860 Republican National Convention, and of Lincoln's Springfield funeral. Mr. Keyes uncle drove the casket to Oak Ridge Cemetery in his horse-drawn hearse. Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Civil War and slavery collection (RHC-45): http://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/472 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f44428bdbaf2a1931243b4780badf5ab.m4v ae6f957fd9952fea53c6dce45da76e29 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/deed70befdf3b38b9a3fc33495bf3e10.pdf 84678250c84c2a830a03bdffb992b967 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University All American Girls Professional Baseball League Veterans History Project Interviewee’s Name: Sue Kidd Length of Interview: (00:30:31) Interviewed by: James Smither PhD, GVSU Veterans History Project, September 27, 2009, Milwaukee, WI at the All American Girls Professional Baseball League reunion. Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, June 22, 2010 Born: Arkansas Interviewer: “Can you begin by telling us a little bit about your own background?” I was born to Marvin and Judith Kidd in 1933 and I was the fifth of six children, three boys and three girls. We lived on a farm at that time, a little place out in the country, and about the only recreation outside of work was playing ball, baseball. My dad was a great baseball player and my two older brothers and as I came along, I started playing also. Any free moment I had, we were playing ball. Interviewer: “Did your father have any professional or semi-professional experience?” He tried out, as a fairly young man, with the St. Louis Cardinals and had not been cut, but since he had a wife and two daughters at home already, he got homesick and decided he would rather be at home with his family and farm even though he loved baseball. 1:11 Interviewer: “When you were growing up and you were playing ball, were there a lot of girls playing ball?” No, I don’t know of any girls that played ball at all except myself. I mean they played basketball, but not baseball. There were no softball teams in that area. Interviewer: “Did you eventually play other sports too?” Yes, basketball and of course with the boys I played football, but just for fun. The coach would have liked to have me play football, but mother was against that. Interviewer: “In general how did people in the community and your family respond to your playing all these sports?” They just thought it was great and of course dad always had to show me off, throwing the ball to any stranger that came around and were interested and let me play with the men against the teams that were easier to beat I’ll say, he let me play. 2:06 1 �Interviewer: “Now how was it that you wound up becoming a professional ball player?” Well, I’ll try to make it short, but in school the guidance councilor was trying to get me interested in college courses and I always told her that I was going to play professional ball and she said, “but Sue, girls don’t play professional baseball”, and I said, “I don’t care”, and I kind of had the attitude that the good lord would see to that and one day in the spring of 1949, probably March, she came down and got me out of class and showed me a magazine. It was a Look or Life magazine, I can’t remember just which one, to show me about this league in the Midwest, so she quit trying to talk me into going to college. In June, Manis professional baseball scout, that my dad sent my older brothers to baseball school and would have sent me, but they had no facilities for girls. 3:06 He came up to make sure my dad took me to Little Rock, which is seventy-five miles south, to this game that these two girls teams were going to be playing because he thought I should tryout, so that’s where we went. I tried out before the game one afternoon, they wanted to sign me to a contract and send me home to leave with them after the game the next day, so we drove home, mother washed and ironed all night, found a suitcase to pack my luggage in, clothes in, and I had to get back to Little Rock to go through the vital statistics to get my birth certificate and luckily one of the home boys worked there and was kind of a supervisor in some department and he walked me through and he could vouch to when I was born because he lived in that community, so I was able to get it in one day. 4:05 Interviewer: “You didn’t actually have a birth certificate, one the doctor made for you?” No, I didn’t have a Social Security number until they were ready to pay me the first check, we were in Oklahoma somewhere and Lenny Zintak, the manager and one of the chaperones took me to someplace, I don’t know where it was, and I got a Social Security card. Interviewer: “When you were doing the tryout, were there a lot of other girls trying out or just a few of you?” I don’t really remember anybody else except myself that particular night. Interviewer: “How did they actually do the try out? Did they just put you up on the mound and say pitch?” No, they warmed me up on the side with a catcher, in fact I think it was Wimp Baumgartner and she was quite excited that I could throw the ball, throw a curve and then they let me tryout on the mound a little bit and hit a few balls and that was—they were ready to sign me. 4:59 Interviewer: “Some of the other players have told me that it was not all that common to pick up or add players in the middle of a barnstorming tour. Basically 2 �you have these two teams that are traveling around, just playing all different places and then they give tryouts, but you tried out and you got in there, so you must have been pretty good.” Everybody thought I was and I guess I had them fooled. Interviewer: “Once you signed up and joined the team, how old were you?” Fifteen. 5:26 Interviewer: “How did they take care of a fifteen year old girl?” Well, there were other fairly young ones and there were older ones. Of course we had chaperones and we had a terrific bus driver that was like a grandfather to us, and they assured my folks that I would be taken care of, I’d be supervised, and I was. I’m going to get off on a tangent now, but in the summertime my mother usually just cut my hair like I had a bowl on my head because I either played ball and had a ball cap on or I was swimming in the creek or horseback riding, so she didn’t try to curl it, so the first week on the tour some of the older ones said, “Sue, we’re going to take you to the beauty shop and get your hair curled”. I mean it was stuff like that and they helped me buy other clothes because I didn’t even have a lot of dresses and you really needed skirts and blouses to be able to change back and forth in. You could ride on the bus in blue jeans or shorts, but if you got off, you had to put on a skirt and I mean even at midnight. 6:33 Interviewer: “When the league started there were an awful lot of rules about conduct and dress and all of this. Were all of those still in place when you joined?” Not as many, you didn’t have to practice walking with a book on your head and stuff, but as far as the dress and being at curfew and stuff like that, drinking and smoking in public and stuff, they were pretty much in—but of course, we sneaked around and smoked, some of us. Interviewer: “Alright, where were the people on your team from? From all over the place?” Yes sir, all over and on the tour team I know we had them from the east coast. I don’t remember any people off hand from California. Most of them were already good enough to be in the league and of course these traveling teams were sort of like “rookies” teams for practice and sometimes they would even call one up off of the tour when there were injuries. 7:28 I remember Wimp Baumgartner, she was catcher, and Peoria’s catcher got hurt and she was shipped up to catch the rest of the season. Things like that did happen. Interviewer: “On this tour how far did you go or how far off did you range while you were going around?” Well, after they picked me up they traveled around to twenty-five different states. We went on—when they picked me up we went to New Orleans and circled back through 3 �Hot Springs and out through Texas, Oklahoma and I don’t know whether we came back through—it seemed like we went to southern Arkansas and went down to as far as Pensacola, Florida and wandered up the east coast to Virginia and some of those places and clear up into New Jersey and around in that area and finished the tour in West Virginia, Labor Day week-end. 8:23 Interviewer: “In the process do you actually—did you play in New York or go in New York City?” We got to go to the Yankee Stadium and see a couple of innings of games before we went to play in New Jersey and what I remember, now you have got to figure me a little country girl and we’re out here in New York, never been there, never been to that large a city, and we had a rained out night or something and one of the older ladies had been to New York City and she said, “I know how to take the subway”, we were staying in New York, New Jersey and we had to take the subway, and we were going to go over and see Times Square and some kind of show. There were twelve of us and six of us got on and the one that knew her way around didn’t make it and the six of us were scared to death, but somebody had enough sense to say, “let’s get off at the next stop and wait on them” and that’s what we did and we got back together. 9:25 The good lord was watching after us. Interviewer: “So basically the teams spent the whole season on the road going from one place to another?” All the traveling teams, yes. Interviewer: “You get to the end of the season and what happens?” Well you just—some of them—the bus was originally from around the Fort Wayne area and unless you left there, which I did and we brought the girl from Shreveport, Louisiana back, my brother, and my sister and her husband came to pick me up because I wouldn’t have known how to catch a bus back. I guess I could have been told, but my folks weren’t going to let that happen. We gave her a ride back to Shreveport, but the rest of them, a lot of them rode back to the Midwest on the bus and disbanded then. 10:13 Interviewer: “Now how did you communicate with your family while you’re traveling around to all these places?” Telephone and writing. Of course the folks had a schedule of where we were going to be and they sent a letter ahead by week or something like that. Interviewer: “That makes sense, so you’d get the winter off? You would go back home then for the winter?” Well, I had another year of high school. 4 �Interviewer: “So you go back to school. Does the season start then before the school year’s over?” Yes, I got permission to get out of high school to go to spring training. Interviewer: “Where did they hold spring training for you?” The first year that I went to spring training was in Cape Girardeau in Missouri. Before, when it was really going, a lot of fans before the war was over, they got to go to Cuba, Biloxi, Mississippi and a lot of places. 1 1:07 I got to go the first year to where did I say? Cape Girardeau in Missouri, but after that South Bend usually went ahead and practiced at home. The season got to starting a little bit later. That first year I went into the league, it started in April and after that it started more like in April, the first of May. Interviewer: “You moved from the traveling team, the barnstorming team and junior level teams, to one of the regular teams in 1950 and you had kind of a crazy set of assignments that year. Can you explain what happened to you that year?” 11:47 Okay, I went to spring training with Muskegon, we trained in Cape Girardeau with the Fort Wayne Daisies and I know my dad was thrilled to death to get to meet Jimmy Foxx, he was a professional and coached the Daisies. We played ball, we stopped off and played at different towns on our way back north, well, by the time we got to Muskegon, Michigan, they had us younger kids, at least two or three, staying with a family, they had rooms, and we didn’t even get to play the first game because they disbanded the Muskegon Lassies team. 12:30 As I understand it and what I can remember, is they had done away with men’s baseball during the war, that’s one of the reasons the league was formed, and they decided to bring minor league baseball back. That was my understanding and I could be wrong, so we had to move on. They sent me to Peoria, Illinois, the Red Wings, and I was there maybe five or six weeks and I had some very good games, I pitched a sixteen inning game I lost and it ended two to one and pretty soon South Bend traded for me and of course I didn’t know what was going on when they told me to report to somebody. They put me on the bus and I reported there myself. 13:12 Interviewer: “Did you spend most of your career with South Bend?” Yes sir, except I was on loan to Battle Creek one time for ten days or so. Interviewer: “How did that work, being on loan?” Well, I was disappointed at first, but I went over there and old “Mudcat Grant” was a former professional pitcher and he had a lot of confidence in me and he wanted to pitch me every chance—as soon as I had two or three days rest and wasn’t pitching, he put me in another position, so when South Bend called me back I was a little unhappy at first, but then we went on and won two championships and in the long run I was happy I went 5 �back to South Bend. I did get to play some first base and some other places before it was over, even in South Bend. 14:03 Interviewer: “When you were in South Bend, what kind of living accommodations did you have?” Well, the first year I roomed with another lady, a widow lady who had rooms there. After that four of us were able to get an upstairs apartment. One of the ladies, Wimp Baumgartner in fact, had a car and three of us didn’t, so we kind of paid to help with expenses and all. It gave us two bedrooms, a kitchenette and bath and everything. Interviewer: “The league did not have a problem with that in terms of supervision or anything?” No, because well, Wimp was a little bit older than the others and I was—I must have been seventeen that first year I lived in an apartment, but you were still supervised to a certain extent by the family who owned the building even when you were that young. We had to go through their front and up the stairs. 15:02 Interviewer: “Talk a little bit about your pitching career. You mentioned you had a sixteen inning game you pitched, did you pitch any no hitters?” I pitched a no hitter on tour, one error light of being a perfect game. Interviewer: “The record books also mentioned that you pitched the most innings of anyone in the league in 1953.” I don’t know, I pitched a double header too and won both games. Interviewer: “Now, you mentioned you were on the team for two championship seasons, can you tell me a little bit about those, what went on or what helped your team get ahead?” Of course the first one we won we had a full team and good pitchers and I had my starts and everything and I kind of hate to talk about the second one, but I will since this is history. The second championship I played on we had a terrific team. 15:56 the last game of the season we had a second baseman that she and the manager didn’t get along greatly and he was trying to rest her and some of the starters because we were already in the playoffs and I think it made her mad and she was sitting on the bench and had her spikes off and everything and I think I got on base and he called for her to go in as pinch runner and she wasn’t ready. Of course he saw it , that’s why he did that exactly, and they had a big dispute and he kicked her off the team for good. I mean the playoffs were going to start in just a couple days and it ended up that we lost seven players, five of them starters. Left fielder, center fielder, second baseman, first base pitcher, third baseman and another pitcher that walked off to support her and left us with twelve players. 17:06 6 �Interviewer: “So then what did you do?” We won the championship. Interviewer: “With just twelve?” Yes, with just twelve. When I wasn’t pitching I was playing right field usually and one night when I was pitching and I got in a little trouble, I had a left hand batter up that had hit me pretty hard and the manager’s wife, Jean Fout, a great star anywhere she played, was playing third base, she had to play third when she wasn’t pitching, and Elwood called time and put her in to pitch to the left hander, put me on third base, the only time I ever played third base in my life, and my knees were just shaking and he said, “you play in half way and don’t let her bunt one. We got her out and the next inning I went back in to finish the game. 17:56 That was—my knees couldn’t have shaken any worse. I would be threatened to be killed playing third base, right in on top of the batter. Interviewer: “But it was just for that one batter at least.” One batter and I don’t think I could have made it back out the next inning to play third base. That’s kind of a hot corner. Interviewer: “Over the course of time that you were playing with the league, what kinds of changes seemed to take place with it in terms of fan support or other things?” Well, the people had more things to do, television started coming in and attendance started dropping and that was eventually what killed the league of course, but also the baseball, I guess it was ten inches when I first started, and in the last year we played with just a regular baseball, which was in my favor because all my life I had played at home with a regular baseball. 18:56 I loved the little ball much better. Those were the main changes and I think things got a little bit looser as far as chaperoning and making sure you did this and you did that, but it was still a good game. Interviewer: “Were you planning on going back and playing in 1955 when the league shut down?” Yes sir, I could have cried my heart out. I just turned twenty at the end of that season and I figured I had a good nine or ten years left if it had gone on. I was just starting—I had a pretty good temper, I could get mad and I was starting to get to control it a little bit better. I would have liked to have another five years; I’ll put it that way. 19:47 Interviewer: “Were you surprised that it shut down or were you kind of expecting it?” Well, there had been rumors, yes. I know some of the trips we made that last year that we played, some of the time we were taken in cars instead of a bus, so yes. 7 �Interviewer: “What was the fan support like in South Bend?” It was real good when I first began playing and it started dropping off as it did most other places. Interviewer: “Now when the league itself shut down, what did you do at that point?” Well, I had already played basketball in South Bend with the South Bend Rockettes in 1953 and 1954, so I went home a few weeks and I had put my application in at Bendix Aircraft on that break and was called up in October for a job. I wanted to play basketball that year, but I needed the job, so I stayed on in South Bend and played basketball and worked at various jobs until 21:00 I promised my dad in 1959 that I would come back to Arkansas the next year and go to college. My younger brother started college, Church College, and he wanted me to go and I promised him in November. I went back to South Bend, I choke-up on this I’m sorry, but I promised him and that was the last time I saw him alive. He dropped dead of a heart attack on January the second, so I figured it would take me—I didn’t figure I could go then and pay my way, but I worked one more year and saved my money and I had some savings bonds and I said, “well, I promised him”, so the second year after he was gone I did go back, but I went to Arkansas State Teachers because it was cheaper and I could get some financial help after I went a year and realized I could make it because I had been out of high school—I was twenty-six then see. 22:02 When I decided I could make it, I was able to get loans and since I did go into education, I didn’t have to pay a lot of that back, so I was able to make it. Interviewer: “How does that work? You say you didn’t have to pay a lot of that back?” If you taught school, they were crying for teachers at that time, and if you went into teaching you only had to pay a very small percentage—I think I paid it off in about five years, so I worked also too. Interviewer: “You mentioned you were playing basketball and you were working for a company, did companies sponsor teams or how did that work?” No, they just tried to get you jobs with the—our business manager would ask around and get the players a job that needed them. I worked at Bendix, but then Bendix—there was a nose dive again, was it in the late fifties? 22:57 The economy kind of got bad, but I was lucky enough to always be able to get a job especially during basketball season. Interviewer: “Then how long were you a teacher?” Twenty-five years. Interviewer: “Where did you teach?” 8 �Well, I started out in a country school in Cass County, Indiana, out of Logansport and I went home for the summer and the superintendent from Logansport had a friend of mine that knew that I played softball with called me to see if I would come back and teach summer school, they needed another summer school teacher, so I was with my mother, but I had a sister living in Mr. Pleasant, Michigan with her family and brought mother back to visit up there and I taught school about five or six weeks. Before the summer was over the superintendent wanted me—he moved his staff around here in town because he wanted me to teach school in Logansport because he was for girls athletics and they were—that was before they really had teams and he was interested, it was through GAA and stuff, but he was interested in them being taught the rules and the skills of different sports, so then I taught in Logan the last twenty-four years. 24:15 Interviewer: “When you think back on your career as a baseball player, are there particular events or things that happened to you or people that tend to stick out in your mind or that come back to you that you haven’t really talked about here yet?” Well of course Lou Arnold was a fascination for me and an encourager, and I still give her a lot of credit. What I remember about her, about the first year of spring training there, of course I was use to playing with boys remember, and I was kind of who could get the ball first you know and one day when we were ready to warm up and everything, I dived in to get the ball and Lou just kind of said, “now Sue just slow down, there’s enough to go around, just take your time”, she was just always trying to encourage—on manners, “thank you”. 25:10 Raised on a farm with boys it’s kind of rude how we— even though I had a good mother and father , good disciplinarians, you still, you fought for what you thought was yours, so Lou helped me in a lot of things like that, I’ll say that. 25:25 Lenny Zintak, who was on the tour, and when I was on the tour I, was teased a great deal for of my southern accent and my hillbilly ways. I didn’t mind a great deal except sometimes I would almost be in tears. On my sixteenth birthday, when I entered the bus, he grabbed me and gave me a great big kiss, of course my face turned all read and I was about half way—he said, “now Sue”, he didn’t say it right there in front of people, but he said, “ I want you to realize when people kid you, they like you, so take that as a compliment”, and I always think that now too and I can thank Lenny Zintak for that. 26:08 Interviewer: “Going back at your career, how do you think that wound up affecting you, either the person you became or the kind of life or career you went into?” A great deal, I might never have left the state of Arkansas and I doubt that I would have even gone on to get a college education. All the friends you make and all the places you go and I kept in touch with a great deal of those friends and then when we started having these reunions—when would I have ever had a chance to be a small part of a movie like “A League of Their Own”, and get to pitch batting practice with Penny Marshall and stuff like that. 26:56 Interviewer: “How good of a hitter was Penny Marshall?” 9 �Well, she could hit the ball. It was not like some of the others that I had to hit the bat for them, the older boys. Interviewer: “What did you think of the movie it’s self? Do you think it did a good job?” I thought it did a good job and of course part of it was Hollywood. The Major never would have gone in the locker room and wouldn’t have been drunk like that they wouldn’t have allowed that. A lot of people thought that they never would have had a little boy like that, but Jean Fout and the manager were man and wife and sometimes if they didn’t have a baby sitter their little Larry was with us. I’ve got a picture of he and I on the steps of the dugout in Kalamazoo I think it was. I was tying my shoe and he was standing there helping me. 27:54 People that I’ve heard—I saw the movie and been a lot of places and given a little talk, even though I’m not a good speaker, about it and when somebody would bring up that I would say, “oh yes, there’s nothing false about that because we ourselves had a little boy and he traveled part of the time”. He had his own little uniform and that was based on him probably. Interviewer: “Speaking of pictures, I heard there was a publicity picture of you on a donkey, could you explain that?” Yeah, well it was during spring training and the manager said I was going out to so and so’s farm in the afternoon to have my picture taken on a donkey and I think they had a suitcase for me, I don’t think I had to take mine. 28:42 It was just for publicity and that was probably in 1952, it might have been earlier, when attendance was dropping, anything for publicity, we had to do anything, but I was supposed to be coming in for spring training riding my donkey and I was a little irritated because it wasn’t at least a saddle horse as I said, but that’s alright. They had a night, I guess it was baseball, running, pitching for accuracy, and they brought that darn donkey out and I had to ride him to the mound, there’s no pictures of that, but that crazy thing balked on the third baseline and I had to get off of him and lead him across and get back on him. I did because I was stubborn too and made him take me to the mound, but anything to try to help attendance. 29:39 Interviewer: “Now, do you think they ought to come and try to create a women’s national baseball league again?” That would be great for women who love baseball as much as I did and the rest of these ladies. Interviewer: “Do you think that’s something that’s likely to happen at some point?” I don’t know, you have got to have sponsors. Interviewer: “Do you pay much attention to like, women’s basketball for instance, there’s a professional league out there now?” 10 �Off and on, off and on--they play good basketball and I’d of liked to been able to play on that because I love basketball during basketball season like I love baseball during baseball season, so it would have been hard for me to choose, I’d of liked to play them both. 30:21 Interviewer: “Anything else you would like to add to the record here before we close out the interview?” I think we pretty well covered everything. Interviewer: “You tell a good story, so thank you very much.” 30:31 11 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Interviews Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was started by Philip Wrigley, owner of the Chicago Cubs, during World War II to fill the void left by the departure of most of the best male baseball players for military service. Players were recruited from across the country, and the league was successful enough to be able to continue on after the war. The league had teams based in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, and operated between 1943 and 1954. The 1954 season ended with only the Fort Wayne, South Bend, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, and Rockford teams remaining. The League gave over 600 women athletes the opportunity to play professional baseball. Many of the players went on to successful careers, and the league itself provided an important precedent for later efforts to promote women's sports. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-58)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Sports for women World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American All-American Girls Professional Baseball League--Personal narratives Oral history Baseball players--Minnesota Baseball players--Indiana Baseball players--Wisconsin Baseball players--Michigan Baseball players--Illinois Baseball for women--United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-58 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-10-02 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-58_SKidd Title A name given to the resource Kidd, Sue (Interview transcript and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kidd, Sue Description An account of the resource Sue Kidd was born in 1933 in Choctaw, Arkansas. She got her interest in baseball from her father and two brothers who she played with regularly as a child. Growing up, Kidd played other sports too like football and basketball but eventually decided on a career in baseball following a meeting with her high school guidance counselor. In the spring of 1949, Kidd, at age 15, was scouted and tried out for a pitcher position in Little Rock, Arkansas. Beginning her professional career in 1950 Kidd played until 1954 when the All American Girls Professional Baseball League ended. At the start of 1950, Kidd played for the Muskegon Lassies, Peoria Redwings, and South Bend Blue Sox. In 1951, she played for the South Bend Blue Sox but then was on loan for a brief time with the Battle Creek Belles. From 1952 to 1954 she stayed with the South Bend Blue Sox. In that time, she pitched and won two double headers in 1953 and won two championships. She played pitcher, first base, and right field during her time with South Bend. When the league shut down in 1954 she went on to play basketball with the South Bend Rockettes until 1959 when she went on to pursue a career in teaching which did for twenty-six years. She wraps up the interview by discussing how baseball impacted her. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) Video recordings All-American Girls Professional Baseball League--Personal narratives Baseball for women--United States Baseball Sports for women World War, 1939-1945 Baseball players--Michigan Baseball players-Illinois Baseball players--Indiana Women Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-09-25 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-55)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7bc92d384b2ae6f129e4889d2b61b059.mp4 4a13c7164c4374f08a50cf7f4e0e879e https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d9c88bb92f0e9027f4e0dc6624229216.pdf ea32e3044767623375a3d1a6ec0eeb17 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Tim Kidd (00:28:16) (00:25) Background Information • • • • • Tim was born in Michigan on August 20, 1951 He grew up in a close knit family His parents were from Ohio and his father’s family have immigrated to the US from Ireland in 1746 Tim went to school at John Hill elementary and graduated from Hill high school in 1970 He was involved in the choir and played many instruments (5:40) Life After High School • • • Tim had attempted to join the Air Force, Marines, and the Army He was drafted into the Army and graduated from basic training at Fort Knox, Tennessee in July of 1971 He traveled to California for supply training (7:20) Vietnam • • • • • Tim was sent to Vietnam in a plane and arrived in an area that, to him, looked just like another American military base He began working in security on tankers and ships, doing some supply work He had to watch the civilian population to prevent them from stealing any of their supplies He also did security work checking Korean convoys and a bit of guard duty Tim enjoyed his work in Vietnam, but could not stand the heat (11:50) The “Bad Boy Platoon” • Most of the men in this platoon had messed up in the field or got caught doing something wrong • Many of them became alcoholics and began using drugs • Tim was in this platoon, and while he did not get addicted to drugs, he did drink a lot more during his time in the platoon (13:15) Back to the US • Tim traveled back the US in an airplane in 1972 • He was sent to a fort in Texas and worked on testing new equipment before it was shipped out • Tim was completely done with his service in 1973 (14:20) The Nave • Tim was bored with civilian life and joined the Navy, expecting to have a military career �• • • • • He had a choice to take classes or directly board ship; he chose the latter He found this was a bad choice because he was on a ship for two years straight and often sea sick He witnessed many large storms near Cuba with 20 foot waves Tim made many great friends in the Navy He traveled to Saint Charles, Jamaica, Naples, Spain, Rome, the Vatican, and Guantanamo Bay (18:50) Finished with the Navy • Tim was finished in 1975 and was on unemployment for a year • He joined the Reserves and was part of the 309 Civil Affairs Unit in Michigan • He was then decommissioned and joined the 176th Support Unit until 1984 • Tim continued supply training while in the Reserves (24:08) After the Reserves • Tim had diabetes, which kept him from working often and he retired in 1991 • He is now living in the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KiddT Title A name given to the resource Kidd, Timothy A. (Interview outline and video), 2006 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kidd, Timothy A. Description An account of the resource Tim Kidd was born in Michigan on August 20, 1951 and graduated from high school in 1970. Shortly after graduating, Tim was drafted into the Army and went through basic training in Fort Knox, Tennessee. Tim then had supply training in California and was then shipped out to Vietnam. Tim did mostly security work in Vietnam, guarding ships and inspecting convoys. After Tim was discharged from the Army, he felt that he did not enjoy civilian life and joined the Navy. Tim spent time in the Reserves after the Navy, but had to retire in 1991 due to his class 1 diabetes. He now resides in the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collins Sr., Charles E. (Interviewer) Collins, Carol (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Army United States. Navy Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2006-12-12 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f90c93193a0f6d13fd3227ceedad0ff1.pdf 3debf9bcd8edd91082086a7c4ef991bd PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran's History Project Vietnam War Paul Kieda Total Time (00:11:19) Introduction (00:00:17)  Paul Kieda was born February 8th, 1949 (00:00:30) ◦ He served for the United States Maine Corps during the Vietnam War; his highest rank achieved was E4 or Corporal (00:00:43) ◦ Right before the war, Paul was in high school working part time at a gas station (00:00:55) ▪ Paul thought it was his duty to join the war effort; his grandfather served in WWI, his dad was in the Navy in WWII, and his uncle served in the Army in WWII (00:01:23) ▪ His younger brother went into the Marine Corps after he did (00:01:37)  Although Paul joined the Marine Corps, he still received his draft notice from the Army (00:01:54) Training Camp & Beyond (00:02:00)  Paul notes that boot camp was hard; he arrived in San Diego, California- after they got off the plane and onto the bus, the training had started harshly (00:02:21) ◦ The physical training was tough: push-ups, sit-ups, running everywhere, and if recruits did anything wrong it resulted in push-ups (00:03:16) ◦ (From (00:04:03- 00:05:16) Paul shows how some punishment was dealt out to recruits & explains quonset huts)) ▪ After California, Paul went to Camp Pendleton in San Diego, California for advanced infantry training (00:05:28)  After being sent to Memphis, Tennessee, he was sent to Lakehurst, New Jersey where he went to school for launch and recovery (00:05:52)  After New Jersey, Paul went to Beaufort, South Carolina; following South Carolina, Paul volunteered for service in Vietnam (00:06:27)  After being sent to Okinawa, Paul mentions half the crew went to Japan and the other half went to Vietnam- unhappily, he was sent to Japan in 1968 (00:06:44) ◦ While in Japan pilots were trained, aircrafts were launched, additional training as well (00:07:39) ◦ Paul communicated with letters, commenting that they don't have like they do now as far as communication goes (00:07:53) ▪ He remembers the Red Cross calling when him and his wife had their first child; that was their only phone call in 15 months (00:08:11) Coming Home (00:08:15)  Paul notes that the veterans back then were not as popular as they were today; he saw a sign that said “dogs and servicemen keep off the grass” (00:08:38) ◦ He came back during the middle of the night so protestors couldn't see him (00:08:47) ▪ Paul received 30 days leave once he got home; his daughter was six months old when he first seen her (00:09:24) ▪ He was assigned to El Toro, California; he bought a car and drove out there and got �▪ himself an apartment (00:09:42) He doesn't regret enlisting and was glad he went (00:09:50)  He was in a project through Ford Motor Company which tried to rehabilitate servicemen to civilian life; he worked part-time everyday in a body shop (00:10:20)  Paul was back at home in Michigan when the war ended; he felt really sorry for the guys who were in the war then (00:11:05) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KiedaP1513V Title A name given to the resource Kieda, Paul (Interview outline), 2013 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kieda, Paul Description An account of the resource Paul Kieda was born in 1949 and enlisted in the Marine Corps after high school. He trained as an aircraft mechanic and volunteered for Vietnam, but was assigned to Okinawa instead. Here he serviced aircraft used for training as well as combat missions. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fennema, Lauren (Interviewer) Caledonia High School (Caledonia, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American United States. Marine Corps Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-05-26 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f9e9258c62c2caad4196a47dfbfc743a.m4v 93d1e455bc49490845b28365c1e3d93c https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ddcdcf4496651d2fb1fb70409cee0527.pdf 74ca1c2e038626ac126acb78152e27a4 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans' History Project Donald Kiefer Vietnam War 54 minutes 41 seconds (00:00:13) Early Life -Born in Delta, Colorado on December 20, 1948 -Family moved to Fort Morgan, Colorado -Lived there for a couple years -Moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado when he was in the first grade -Lived there until he got drafted -Father worked in construction -Mother stayed at home -Completed high school -Completed two and a half years at college -Started at Phillips University then went to University of Colorado-Colorado Springs (00:01:33) Getting Drafted -Got drafted when he was at University of Colorado-Colorado Springs -Didn't have enough credits to be a full time student -Meant that he didn't have a student deferment -Reported for duty in February 1970 -Received a physical in Denver, Colorado -Everybody there cooperated -Found out later that if he weighed five pounds less he wouldn't have been drafted (00:02:47) Knowledge of the Vietnam War -The Vietnam War was a major topic in college -Knew a fair amount about the war -Gulf of Tonkin Incident -Presidents of South Vietnam -Didn't agree with the war at all -Considered going to Canada to avoid the draft (00:03:37) Basic Training -Sent to Fort Lewis, Washington for basic training -Sent there via bus from Denver -Felt like it took forever -Arrived at Fort Lewis at 2 AM -Matter of fact greeting with no yelling from drill instructors -Assigned a place to sleep -Did a lot of testing -Wound up being assigned to the infantry -Given a uniform -Trained with the men that he was inducted with -Most were draftees �-A lot of physical training -Learned how to read maps -Received rifle training -Learned about the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) -Military law and punishment -Emphasis on discipline -Woke up before dawn and began training -Physically adjusted well to the Army, but had trouble psychologically adjusting -After a few weeks realized that his life was no longer his own -Remembers one recruit that just could not adjust to being a soldier -Hopes that that soldier was not deployed to Vietnam, because he would have died -Basic training lasted eight weeks (00:08:01) Infantry Training -Stayed at Fort Lewis for Infantry School -Focus on combat skills -Learned more about the M16 rifle, M79 grenade launcher, LAW, M60 machinegun -Received Escape & Evasion Training and more map reading -Had to go from one side of a wooded area to another without being "captured" -Found the exercise easy -Instructors tried to make it seem at least a little like Vietnam -Practiced assaults on "Cheeseburger Hill" (reference to Hamburger Hill in Vietnam) -Fake booby traps set up -Instructors fired rifles at them with blank rounds -Almost all of the instructors had been to Vietnam -Given passes to Tacoma while at Infantry School -Nothing to do except go to bars (00:11:02) Deployment to Vietnam -Given 30 days of leave -Reported back to Fort Lewis after leave -Sent to Overseas Replacement Station at Fort Lewis -Got a haircut, got his bags checked, and waited for a flight -Stopped at Clark Field, Philippines (00:12:14) Arrival in Vietnam -Landed at Cam Ranh Bay, South Vietnam in the middle of the day on July 1, 1970 -It was extremely hot -Assigned to an in-country orientation program -Lasted about one week -Went to classes and learned about how to survive in Vietnam -Received a little cultural training and that the Vietnamese people were not the enemy -Had to adjust to the climate -Remembers hearing an air raid siren -No one seemed to care -Learned that it was for incoming mortars �(00:13:48) Assignment to 101st Airborne Division -Sent to an in-country replacement station to get his unit assignment -Heard that the 101st Airborne Division needed replacements -Assigned to the 101st Airborne Division at Camp Evans -Flew up to Hue then took a truck to Camp Evans -Arrived there between July 13 and 15, 1970 -Assigned to Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment -Given weapons, ammunition, flares, and gear (00:15:40) Operating around Firebase Ripcord -1st sergeant wanted to go to Firebase Ripcord then go into the field -Soldier that had been there knew that it was not a good place to go -On July 18, 1970 he flew out on a helicopter for a resupply mission and joined Alpha Company -Most of the trip was peaceful -As soon as they got to the landing zone they started taking machinegun fire -He expected to take fire as soon as they stepped off the helicopter -Fell out of the helicopter and landed on his face -Assigned to 2nd platoon under the command of Lee Widjeskog -No one in 2nd platoon talked to Donald -Moved to a new area at night, set up camp, and sent out patrols -Alpha Company moved as a unit and operated as a unit -Company commander was Chuck Hawkins (00:18:57) Siege of Firebase Ripcord-July 18, 1970-July 21, 1970 -On July 18, 1970 a helicopter crashed on Firebase Ripcord and destroyed artillery batteries -Found a North Vietnamese communication line and tapped into it -Unit made contact with a North Vietnamese patrol and shot a tall, blonde soldier -Note: Most likely a Soviet advisor -Heard gunfire every day -Saw explosions on Ripcord -Moved with a squad (00:21:11) Siege of Firebase Ripcord-July 22, 1970 -Eventually, North Vietnamese units moved on their position and they engaged on July 22, 1970 -They were moving off the hill they were on and encountered the North Vietnamese -Within the first five minutes of fighting he got shot in the arm -Moved up a trail to join a defensive position -Lee Widjeskog sent him to a defensive position and told him to shoot anything beyond the line -Used up all of his ammunition during that fight -Saw muzzle flashes and movement in the grass -Saw an enemy soldier stand up to throw a grenade -Firefight on July 22 lasted six hours -At nigh fall he rejoined Alpha Company -Told to dig in for the night �-Received support from gunships -Dropped flares to illuminate the enemy positions -Knew that there were a lot of badly wounded men -Donald was wounded, but still able to fight -Didn't have any contact the night of July 22 (00:28:04) Fall of Firebase Ripcord-July 23, 1970 -The next day Donald helped collect the American dead -Placed on perimeter guard until Delta Company rescued Alpha Company -Able to watch the evacuation of Firebase Ripcord -More helicopters than he had ever seen -Delta Company came up to his sector on the perimeter -Had to create a new landing zone in the jungle because the other landing zone was under siege -Had to take the men out in waves -Severely wounded men were taken out first -He was among the first men out -Took 15 to 20 minutes to get back to Camp Evans -Remembers the men at Camp Evans cheered as they returned -Handed over the radio he carried out of the field -Took a shower and went to an aid station to get his arm treated -Told to go to the field hospital -At the field hospital they wouldn't treat him because it wasn't severe (00:32:18) Treatment for Wound -Sent to the hospital in Phu Bai to get his arm treated -Received stitches and his arm got infected multiple times -Wound up spending 70 days in various hospitals -Helped on work details at hospitals -Sent to an Air Force hospital and it was very nice -Sent to the 6th Convalescence Center at Cam Ranh Bay (00:34:22) Rejoining Alpha Company in the Field -Rejoined Alpha Company in October 1970 -Didn't know anyone in the company except the company clerk -Sent to Marksmanship School at Camp Evans for a week until A Company returned -Alpha Company returned for a stand down then he went into the field with them -There was no activity in the field -Walked from one area in the field to the next -Found abandoned bunkers, but no North Vietnamese soldiers -Operated in the field with Alpha Company until February 1971 (00:35:58) Stationed at Camp Evans -He was "short" so he was placed on perimeter guard at Camp Evans -Note: "Short" means that his time in Vietnam was coming to an end -Slept in a bunker on the perimeter at night -Worked for half the night and half the day -Noticed rampant drug use at Camp Evans -Use of marijuana and heroin �-No drug use in the field -Remembers one sergeant was addicted to heroin, but handled it well -Huge divide between black and white soldiers -Not bad on the perimeter because they had been in the field -Being in the field allowed for soldiers to bond better -In the rear there was definite racial tension -Disrespecful to each other -No fights though -Stayed at Camp Evans until mid-June 1971 (00:39:38) R&R -Had the chance to take R&R out of country, but declined -Wanted to save his money -Had an in-country R&R at Eagle Beach -Lots of alcohol -Filipino and American women performed for them (00:40:40) Leaving Vietnam Pt. 1 -Had "estimated times of departure" -Meant that there wasn't a solid date for when he left -Hoped that he would get out six weeks early -Got out two weeks early -A few days before he left he knew he was leaving (00:41:50) Contact with Vietnamese Civilians -En route to Camp Evans he saw Vietnamese civilians -Felt that they were just regular people -Never had any contact with Vietnamese people at Camp Evans -Went on patrols around Camp Evans and encountered civilians -Tried to sell the soldiers trinkets and drugs -Just trying to make a living -Never worked with South Vietnamese soldiers (00:43:04) Leaving Vietnam Pt. 2 -Sent to Cam Ranh Bay to wait for a flight out of Vietnam -Stayed in roach infested barracks -Eventually got a flight and flew out of Vietnam (00:43:46) Coming Home -Arrived at Fort Lewis, Washington -Given new uniforms and any medals that they deserved -Given a brief speech about coming home -Reminded about social niceties -Told they could get a free flight home if you wore your uniform -Didn't encounter any harassment or protestors -Landed at Stapleton International Airport in Denver, Colorado -Someone picked him up and brought him home (00:45:15) Stationed at Fort Riley -Allowed 30 days of leave then had to report for further duty -Still had six months of service to complete -Reported to Fort Riley, Kansas and was assigned to the Military Police �-Job consisted of riding around in a jeep or standing at a gate -Responded to only two complaints -Base was basically empty when he reported -Unit was responding to protests in Michigan -He was assigned to the 5th Army MPs -Lived on base and had a regular, eight hour schedule -No major discipline issues at Fort Riley -Only two instances of theft that he had to investigate (00:47:32) End of Service -No effort to make him reenlist -Army wanted soldiers to get out -Got discharged in early October 1971 (00:47:55) Life after the War -Moved to Boulder, Colorado and looked for a job -Work was hard to find -Took a couple months to find a job -Worked a job as a night security guard until he fell off a building -Parents owned a remodeling business in Colorado Springs so he went to work for them -As of 2015 still lives in Colorado Springs (00:49:19) Readjusting to Civilian Life -Took a while to readjust to civilian life -First 4th of July was difficult due to the fireworks -Didn't feel that he had changed, but people around him said that he had -Sleep was difficult due to nightmares -Wife tried to wake him up from a nightmare and he accidentally punched her -In 2010 he started receiving treatment for PTSD -Tremendously helpful (00:50:48) Reflections on Service -Gets a disability check from the Army every month, but doesn't feel that it's worth it -Doesn't feel that there were a lot of positives from serving in the Army (00:51:19) Ripcord Association -Wanted to know more about the Battle of Firebase Ripcord, but no one knew anything about it -Found a book that briefly talked about Ripcord -Looked for more information on the internet -Discovered the Ripcord Association -Connected with the men he served with at the annual reunions -Chance to validate his memories and know that what he experienced really happened (00:53:39) Treatment of Veterans -Didn't talk about his experiences in Vietnam after coming home -Learned that it was best not to talk about being a veteran -Glad that new veterans are treated better and welcomed home by their communities � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_KieferD1889V Title A name given to the resource Kiefer, Donald David (Interview outline and video), 2015 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-10-09 Description An account of the resource Donald Kiefer was born on December 20, 1948 in Delta, Colorado. He was drafted while at University of Colorado-Colorado Springs and reported for induction in February 1970. He received basic training and infantry training at Fort Lewis, Washington. He was deployed out of Fort Lewis and arrived in Cam Ranh Bay, South Vietnam on July 1, 1970. He was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division at Camp Evans and arrived there in mid-July 1970. He joined Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. On July 18 he went into the field and joined 2nd Platoon. He operated around Firebase Ripcord during the siege of the firebase from July 18 - July 23 and was evacuated to Camp Evans after Firebase Ripcord fell. He spent seventy days in various hospitals recovering from a wound to his arm and rejoined Alpha Company in October 1970. In February 1971 he was assigned to guard duty at Camp Evans and stayed there until mid-June 1971. Donald returned to the United States and served at Fort Riley, Kansas until he was discharged in early October 1971. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kiefer, Donald David Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/x-m4v application/pdf https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bbfbe8b5d3ea961249bee80f8cd206f0.mp4 ed24d4ef369e3617e8bc7dec2831041f https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/90c7712fe8113fcfb1d57bd9980d9652.pdf 0bab37e033b7c4c677fce360b25a909c PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Greg Kiekintveld Vietnam War Interview Length: (01:44:25:00) Pre-enlistment / Training (00:00:12:00)   Kiekintveld was born in Holland, Michigan in May 1949 (00:00:12:00) o While Kiekintveld was growing up, his mother was a stay-at-home mom who sold Avon products on the side and his father worked for the post office, first as a mail carrier then as a supervisor (00:00:24:00) o Growing up, Kiekintveld attended public schools and graduated from Holland High School in 1968 (00:00:43:00) After he graduated from high school, Kiekintveld spent some time building houses before he was drafted into the military (00:00:57:00) o Kiekintveld had a 1A draft status all the way through high school, although he should have had a student deferment; this meant that once Kiekintveld was out of high school, colleges and universities did not even look at him (00:01:07:00)  Kiekintveld and his family argued with the draft board that he should have a student deferment but they eventually gave up when they were told that they could not sue the draft board (00:01:33:00) o Initially, Kiekintveld tried to join the SeaBees (Naval engineers) because he figured they would be easier than enlisting in the Army; however, there was a long wait list of draftees trying to join the SeaBees (00:01:50:00) o Kiekintveld does not remember exactly when he received his draft notice but he was officially drafted in March 1969 (00:02:04:00)  Kiekintveld had already gone through a military physical while he was still in high school (00:02:26:00)  While at the physical, Kiekintveld does not recall anyone trying to actively beat the system and get a draft status other than 1A; mostly, the men were complaining that they did not want to be drafted (00:02:54:00)  Once he was officially drafted, Kiekintveld went through another physical and he recalls the man behind him asking if he could cut in front of Kiekintveld so he could stand by his friend (00:03:04:00)  Kiekintveld did not care and let the man cut him; however, the recruiters eventually counted off one through ten and had the tenth man step forward to join the Marine Corps and lo and behold, that man was the tenth man (00:03:15:00)  Kiekintveld recalls another man had a bad limp because one of his legs was shorter than the other; however, the man was still drafted because the recruiters said the man could be a clerk (00:03:43:00) � Following the second physical, Kiekintveld and the other draftees spent the night in Detroit and the following day, they were bused to Fort Knox, Kentucky to begin their basic training (00:04:05:00) o The reception that Kiekintveld and the other draftees received at Fort Knox was the typical reception that all new draftees received; the draftees were now the military‟s and they were told to forget their civilian lives (00:04:16:00)  It was not the reception that Kiekintveld was expecting but he kept his mouth shut and did as he was told (00:04:36:00) o The training company that Kiekintveld was with did a lot of physical training, going through a PT test almost every day before supper (00:04:59:00)  The physical training did not bother Kiekintveld too much because he was in pretty good physical shape, having played football in high school and having done construction work before being drafted (00:05:23:00) o There was a large amount of emphasis on discipline, with push-ups being the most common method of punishment for breaking the rules, such as back-talking the instructors or breaking formation (00:05:48:00)  During the first couple of days, the drill instructors made it clear that they were going to break the civilian habits of the new arrivals and were going to instill military minds into the new arrivals (00:06:14:00)  Because of his long last name and the fact that very few of the drill instructors could pronounce it, Kiekintveld was very seldom called for assignments such as KP (00:06:35:00) o Adjusting to life in the military was kind hard for Kiekintveld at first because he was not used to taking orders from others; however, he reasoned that if everyone else could, he could as well, so he put his mind to it (00:07:08:00) o On the whole, the drill instructors tended to pick on the trainees who were not as cooperative with the training (00:08:04:00)  On some occasions, Kiekintveld felt sorry for those trainees, but it was mostly for the soldiers who did not have the physical abilities to keep up with everyone else (00:08:15:00)  If a trainee really could not keep up with the rest of the group, he was often recycled to the next class, with the instructors trying to build the soldier up physically (00:08:43:00) o During his first basic training session, Kiekintveld ended up coming down with pneumonia and was in the hospital for two weeks (00:09:09:00) o Once he got out of the hospital, Kiekintveld had to start the basic training all over again; although he was somewhat bummed out by that, there was nothing he could do about it (00:09:18:00) o There was a mixture of people from different backgrounds in each training company; there was not a black company and white company (00:10:22:00) o Kiekintveld and the other trainees went through a series of aptitude tests and two of the questions were where they would like to be stationed and what they would like to do (00:10:58:00)  Kiekintveld does not remember where he put that he would like to go but he remembers putting that he would like to do construction (00:11:12:00) �   The basic training lasted for around six to eight weeks and towards the end of the training, Kiekintveld found out he would be going to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri for his AIT (Advanced Individual Training) to be a combat engineer (00:11:27:00) o While at Fort Leonard Wood, Kiekintveld trained to be a floating bridge builder, to erect massive floating bridges (00:12:01:00)  Originally, the soldiers in the program built their bridges during the day but towards the end of the training, they had to build a bridge a night using massive spotlights (00:12:18:00)  Apart from training to be a bridge builder, Kiekintveld also received some training in demolitions and using various weapons; however, most of the training still focused on the bridge building (00:12:34:00) o When compared to basic training, AIT was not nearly as physical and not as degrading to the trainees (00:12:58:00)  The instructors treated the trainees a little bit better but the instructors still gave orders (00:13:08:00)  For the most part, the trainees had a fairly regular daily schedule compared to basic training, when the trainees were sometimes woken up at three in the morning to make five mile marches (00:13:27:00)  While in AIT, the trainees were allowed to leave the base a couple of times on weekends; however, there was not a major city near the fort for the soldiers to visit (00:13:45:00) o The drill sergeants during basic training were almost all Vietnam veterans and they constantly re-enforced the idea that the trainees needed to kill their enemies, mostly by downgrading the enemy to something that was less than human (00:14:17:00)  The drill instructors left the task of explaining the conditions in Vietnam to someone else; they were focused on killing the enemy (00:14:57:00)  On the other hand, the instructors at AIT were a combination of professional engineers and soldiers who had served in Vietnam; a handful of the instructors had been to Vietnam but most were akin college engineering professors (00:15:36:00) o About a third of the instruction at AIT was in the classroom, with the remaining two thirds used for hands-on instruction (00:15:58:00) Prior to actually going to Vietnam, Kiekintveld did not know too much about what was happening in Vietnam; he did not pay too much attention to the news stories bout it when he was growing up (00:16:18:00) o Kiekintveld had a couple of friends in high school who wanted to join the Marine Corps together but Kiekintveld declined (00:16:59:00) Kiekintveld completed his AIT in about another six weeks, after which he returned to Holland for two weeks before leaving for his deployment to Vietnam (00:17:39:00) o When he initially started to deploy to Vietnam, Kiekintveld first flew to California, although he does not recall where exactly (presumably Oakland) (00:17:50:00)  While in California, Kiekintveld and the other soldiers stayed in a massive warehouse divided into large cubicles labeled “A”, “B”, “C”, etc.; every so often, a cubicle would be called out and all the soldiers in that cubicle �o would board buses to go to the airport for a flight to Vietnam (00:18:03:00)  At the time, the President said he was only sending fifty thousand new soldiers to but in reality was sending sixty thousand; Congress eventually found out about the extra ten thousand soldiers, so Kiekintveld stayed in California for an extra two weeks until Congress let up the pressure on investigating the situation (00:18:47:00)  Kiekintveld does not recall where exactly the warehouse was located because he and the other soldiers were confined to the building (00:19:15:00)  The only things the soldiers could do was lie around their cubicles reading magazines; they were not allowed to write letters to their families or even go outside (00:19:46:00)  Once Kiekintveld‟s cubicle finally received their call to board the buses, it was almost a relief (00:20:01:00) Once Kiekintveld and the other soldiers in his cubicle finally did leave for Vietnam, they flew aboard a chartered civilian aircraft (00:20:11:00)  The flight over to Vietnam stopped in Hawaii to refuel; when in Hawaii, the soldiers got off the aircraft and went into a warehouse while the ground crew refueled the plane (00:20:22:00) Vietnam (00:20:44:00)  Kiekintveld believes he arrived in Vietnam at Cam Ranh Bay but he is not exactly sure (00:20:44:00) o Kiekintveld remembers that when the aircraft arrived, the soldiers hurried off and boarded buses with steel meshing over the windows to stop grenades from coming into the bus (00:20:56:00) o Kiekintveld remembers that it was nighttime when the aircraft arrived in Vietnam and when they opened the doors, the heat and the smell just overwhelmed the soldiers (00:21:18:00) o Kiekintveld and the other soldiers spent the night on the base and the next morning gathered in formation and received assignments to their new units (00:21:41:00)  Kiekintveld was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, so he and the other soldiers who were assigned to the division were taken to a division training area near Cam Ranh Bay (00:21:51:00)  Kiekintveld and the other soldiers spent two weeks at the training area where they received additional training as well as their jungle fatigues and their weapons (00:22:11:00)  Kiekintveld remembers that at one point during the training, he and some other soldiers were on a large bridge over what the soldiers noticed was a dry riverbed; it started raining soon after and when the soldiers later crossed over the bridge again, there was about three feet of water covering the bridge (00:22:24:00) �  The bridge had been built on a floodplain and as the soldiers crossed back over, Kiekintveld was carrying his wallet and camera in his pants pockets and they were both ruined (00:22:45:00)  At this time, Kiekintveld only knew that he was being assigned to the 101st Airborne (00:23:09:00) o After the two weeks of additional training, the Army assigned Kiekintveld to the 326th Engineer Battalion (00:23:14:00)  The additional training consisted of the soldiers learning about enemy tripwires and booby traps, training for when they encountered ambushes, and several other types of tactical training (00:23:36:00)  Kiekintveld had received some tactical training while at Fort Leonard Wood but because he had been an engineer, he did not have all the infantry training (00:23:53:00)  However, once in Vietnam, everyone received a refresher course in the infantry tactical training, regardless of whether the soldier was infantry or not (00:24:13:00)  Looking back, the course did quite a bit of good for Kiekintveld (00:24:30:00)  Kiekintveld remembers that when the soldiers were called to formation at the end of the training and he was assigned to the 326th Engineers, a couple of other soldiers who he had been with at Fort Leonard Wood were assigned to a mortar company and an infantry company (00:24:38:00)  When the soldiers complained that they had been trained as engineers, the instructors said that they needed mortarmen and infantrymen (00:24:57:00)  Once a soldier was in country, his AIT did not really mean anything because the Army placed soldiers where they needed soldiers (00:25:07:00) After receiving his assignment, Kiekintveld first reported to the battalion headquarters and as assigned to “B” Company, so he reported to the B Company headquarters at Camp Evans (00:25:21:00) o After spending a couple of days at Camp Evans, Kiekintveld went into the A Shau Valley to join his platoon, where his platoon leader assigned him to be a demolition man (00:25:31:00) o When Kiekintveld said he only had a couple of hours training as a demolition man, the platoon leader said Kiekintveld was going to learn (00:25:41:00) o Kiekintveld reached the battalion headquarters onboard a deuce-and-a-half truck that was part of a larger convoy traveling from Cam Ranh Bay to the camp; the distance between the two camps was so long that the convoy ended up having to stop overnight (00:26:09:00) o Kiekintveld did not actually receive his weapon until he joined up with B company in the field (00:27:10:00) o To actually join B company, Kiekintveld flew out aboard a resupply helicopter flying out to the company, which was stationed on Firebase Rendezvous, although when Kiekintveld arrived at Rendezvous, the firebase was being taken apart because monsoon season had been fast approaching (00:27:22:00) �  When he flew over the mountains and into the A Shau to reach Rendezvous, Kiekintveld thought it was a beautiful place, apart from the bomb craters caused by the B-52 strikes (00:28:17:00)  Rendezvous had been built on a flat area located between a couple of mountains that American forces also occupied (00:29:01:00)  Kiekintveld remembers that one of the tanks being pulled out of the A Shau ended up getting stuck in the mud up to its turret, so that was when Kiekintveld learned how to blow up a tank (00:29:41:00)  Other engineers had built a dam near Rendezvous and as the American forces pulled back, the commanders wanted the dam destroyed, so Kiekintveld received orders to blow the dam up (00:30:11:00) o Kiekintveld arrived in Vietnam towards the middle of August and joined his company around Sept. 1st (00:30:31:00) o For the most part, during the dismantling of Rendezvous, the enemy left Kiekintveld and the other engineers alone (00:30:55:00)  During the last couple of days, most of the other personnel were off the firebase, which meant Kiekintveld and the remaining forces had to work during the day then stay up at night to provide guard duty; during a fortyeight hour period, none of the soldiers on the firebase received any sleep (00:30:57:00)  The first day was not so bad but by the second day, the soldiers were wondering if they would be able to work, then pull a twohour guard duty that night (00:31:11:00)  Kiekintveld and another soldier ended up spending the entire night in a foxhole talking back and forth to keep each other awake (00:31:22:00)  Kiekintveld and the other engineers were the last ones to leave the firebase, along with the remaining contingent of infantry (00:31:53:00) After leaving Rendezvous, Kiekintveld and the other engineers returned to base camp for a brief period before deploying to other positions (00:32:04:00) o Kiekintveld was stationed on numerous firebases and helped build numerous other firebases (00:32:13:00) o During the monsoons, the engineers did “life-saving missions”, which involved going into an area and creating a two-helicopter sized LZ (landing zone) for damaged helicopters or troops needing to be picked up (00:32:20:00) o When creating an LZ, the engineers normally had aircraft bomb two or three different hilltops before actually going into the area (00:33:01:00)  Once the engineers finally did go into the area, they would make one or two false entrances in order to spook the enemy before making their real entrance (00:33:21:00)  With the bombings, the initial LZ was large enough to fit a single helicopter (00:33:29:00)  Once on the ground, the engineers would set demolition charges on the trees that the bombings had blown down and any others around the LZ to expand the entire LZ (00:33:35:00) �  Kiekintveld normally tried to create an LZ that could accommodate three or four helicopters because during a combat assault, the more helicopters that could land at an LZ meant more soldiers on the ground at one time (00:33:44:00)  Eventually, Kiekintveld commanded a three-man demolition team and they would often work independently of the other engineers in clearing an LZ (00:34:14:00)  Normally, the initial assault on a location for an LZ consisted of the engineers‟ helicopter plus an additional two helicopters of infantry to be used as support and security while the engineers finished setting up the charges around the LZ (00:34:35:00) o There were a couple incidents where the engineers came under fire while going into an LZ; however, it was often not critical that an LZ be made in a certain location, so the helicopters would simply pull out if they were under fire and go to another area that was prepped (00:34:55:00)  Sometimes, the enemy waited until the engineers were actually on the ground before attacking (00:35:18:00) o However, the engineers always had Cobra gunships circling overhead while they worked to provide support, as well as jet fighters on stand-by (00:35:23:00) For the most part, Kiekintveld and his demolition team operated out of Camp Evans and worked largely with the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, which supplied the infantry forces to protect Kiekintveld and his team when they were building the firebases (00:36:03:00) o Camp Evans was a fairly good-sized base and Kiekintveld remembers that once inside the main gate, to the right was a heavy engineer unit and then Kiekintveld‟s unit, with the helicopter area behind them (00:36:30:00)  A civilian engineering company was located on the base and they worked to supply the power and water to the base (00:37:08:00)  While at the base, Kiekintveld and the other engineers slept in Army cots covered in mosquito netting inside a hooch; the walls of the hooch were partially plywood, with the remaining top being screen with black rubber on the inside that the engineers rolled down at night (00:37:43:00)  Outside the hooch were fifty-five gallon barrels filled with sand so that if a mortar round struck near the hooch, the barrels would catch any of the shrapnel (00:38:14:00)  Between each hooch was a bunker where the engineers could go in the event of an enemy mortar or artillery strike (00:38:32:00)  Kiekintveld‟s hooch was divided into two rooms; one room was reserved for the squad leader and the assistant squad leader (00:38:38:00)  During the monsoons, Kiekintveld and the other engineers did some work for the SeaBees, building a rappelling tower so the SeaBees could keep in shape (00:38:46:00)  Kiekintveld and the other engineers ate with the SeaBees when they worked with them and noticed that the Navy food was markedly better than the Army food (00:39:06:00) � o Towards the end of the construction of the rappelling tower, Kiekintveld and the others managed to get hold of a Navy uniform, so they took one of the SeaBees‟ deuce-and-a-halfs and loaded it with cot mattresses (00:39:20:00) o The engineers painted their company insignia and numbers out the truck, so the SeaBees never found out who had taken the truck or the cot mattresses (00:39:49:00) o Eventually, the company commander came in for an inspection, so the engineers had to drive the truck to another part of the base so they would not get into trouble for having an extra truck (00:40:02:00)  Kiekintveld‟s company had its own club where the engineers could drink beer and on the outside was a blank plywood wall where they were able to show movies (00:40:32:00)  Kiekintveld remembers that one of the movies they watched was John Wayne‟s Vietnam film “the Green Berets” and everyone laughed at it (00:40:45:00)  The seats for the movies were helicopter blades that had been too damaged to be re-used on a helicopter and were placed on cement blocks (00:40:54:00)  Enemy mortar and rocket attacks were a common occurrence while Kiekintveld was stationed on the base (00:41:15:00)  The base had a radar system intended to sound a warning before the mortar rounds hit but to Kiekintveld, it seemed like the mortar rounds usually hit before the sirens went of (00:41:20:00)  For the most part, the mortar and rocket strikes did not phase Kiekintveld too much; if the rounds started to get closer to where Kiekintveld was, then he became a little more nervous, but not too much (00:41:42:00)  From what Kiekintveld could tell, the attacks were targeting the flight line and the helicopters, which meant the helicopter unit stationed behind the engineers tended to get attacked more than the engineers did (00:41:57:00)  The mortar and rocket attacks often did not do too much damage, although one time, Camp Eagle was hit and the engineers had to go in and help re-organize and repair the base (00:42:21:00)  There were a handful of Vietnamese civilians working on Camp Evans, mostly in the PX and as barbers (00:42:52:00) Kiekintveld himself did not spend too much time in Camp Evans, preferring to spend time in the field (00:43:02:00) Firebase Ripcord / End of Tour (00:43:18:00) � The monsoons lasted for a couple of months and once they ended, Kiekintveld and the other engineers began taking part in numerous operations, including Republic Square and Texas Star, which Firebase Ripcord was a part of (00:43:18:00) o Once the monsoons ended, American forces tried to push back into the A Shau Valley but they never made it; instead, they had their butts kicked by the enemy forces in the valley (00:43:53:00)  American forces would make a combat assault into an area but would have to pull out after only a day because many times, they were overrun by the sheer numbers of enemy personnel (00:44:41:00) o The fighting around Firebase Ripcord represented the last major involvement that the 101st Airborne had in the area and that battle ended up dragging into an extremely long campaign (00:44:56:00)  Kiekintveld himself spent time on Ripcord itself and on several smaller firebases that surrounded the main firebase (00:45:28:00)  Here again, Kiekintveld and the other engineers spent much of their time building additional firebases using the previous method of having fighters bomb the intended area where they would then build the firebase (00:45:41:00)  The first thing the engineers would do once they were on an LZ would be blowing any remaining trees off the hilltop and hopefully, by the afternoon, they would be able to bring artillery onto the firebase (00:45:57:00) o As the artillery would be coming in, the engineers would still be placing charges on the trees surrounding the firebase to blow them out as well (00:46:12:00) o Sometimes, the engineers worked for several days blowing trees out of the different fields of fire for the firebase, eventually clearing a one- or two-hundred yard expanse around the firebase (00:46:25:00)  Once the trees were taken care of, the engineers would focus on helping set up the perimeter defenses for the firebase (00:46:40:00)  For the first couple of days, the only protection and shelter the engineers had were foxholes with a tarp occasionally stretched over the top (00:46:48:00)  Off and on, the engineers would come under enemy mortar attacks while they were working, so the engineers would try to make it to a foxhole for protection (00:47:06:00) o Some of the hills where the firebases were made were very rocky, making it difficult to dig a foxhole, so the engineers used shaped-charges and cratering rounds to create the foxholes (00:47:26:00) o The 101st did a combat assault against Ripcord in March but were thrown off and made another assault on April 1st, although it too was unsuccessful (00:48:53:00)  During the second assault, Kiekintveld‟s best friend ended up being killed (00:49:06:00) � o o o At the time of the second assault, Kiekintveld was working on a smaller firebase nearby, Firebase Gladiator, which had artillery positioned on it meant to support Ripcord (00:49:07:00)  Kiekintveld and the other soldiers in Gladiator could see the smoke from the enemy rounds on Ripcord during the second assault on April 1st (00:49:18:00)  Once they began hearing the sounds of the fighting at Ripcord, Kiekintveld and the others stopped to listen to the radio chatter and casualty reports from Ripcord (00:49:46:00) A third combat assault was made against Ripcord in May and Kiekintveld took part in that assault (00:49:57:00)  The third assault was fairly successful and was when the engineers actually began building Ripcord (00:50:04:00)  Kiekintveld helped make the foxholes before a bulldozer was brought in to build bunkers and gun pits for the artillery, which originally just sat on top of the mountain (00:50:13:00)  The bunkers normally consisted over several layers of sandbags as protection and often, three or four bunkers were interlocked and connected (00:51:17:00)  The bunkers were well put together and could protect the occupants from about anything the enemy fired at them (00:51:37:00) o It took a lot to actually destroy the bunkers whenever the Americans pulled off a firebase (00:52:17:00) While Kiekintveld was stationed on Gladiator, the enemy launched a ground assault and while Kiekintveld was stationed on another firebase, the Americans had to call in the “Puff the Magic Dragon” gunship (00:52:54:00)  Puff was a AC-130 aircraft that had two miniguns mounted onboard that fired several thousands rounds per minute as the aircraft circled the firebase, laying down a continuous stream of gunfire (00:53:10:00)  The aircraft also dropped flares that burned brighter than normal sunlight (00:53:43:00)  It was terrifying to watch the tracer rounds, which looked like a constant stream of light going from the aircraft to the ground (00:54:16:00) Another time, a B-52 strike was called on a nearby location and all the soldiers were told to hunker down in their foxholes, although many disregarded the order (00:54:54:00)  Kiekintveld and some other soldiers were sitting on the side of the hill when they began to feel the ground shake; also of the sudden, they heard a “thunk” sound and looking down, they saw a piece of shrapnel eight to nine inches long between them into the mountain (00:55:07:00)  Needless to say, all the soldiers got into their respective foxholes (00:55:33:00)  One of the soldiers had never drunk or smoked before then but after the shrapnel, the other soldiers could not get him to stop; Kiekintveld was � scared but he had never seen someone shake so bad in his life (00:55:37:00) o Kiekintveld himself only ever saw dead enemy soldiers; whenever the enemy attacked at night, the only thing Kiekintveld could see were the muzzle flashes from the enemy weapons (00:56:45:00)  Because of their location, Kiekintveld and the other engineers only dealt with NVA (North Vietnamese Army) forces, never with the VC (Viet Cong) (00:57:01:00)  Often, attacks at night involved enemy sappers, who sometimes were almost naked when they attacked the firebase (00:57:15:00)  To slow the enemy attacks, the engineers placed tanglefoot all along the side of the mountain; tanglefoot was twisted barbed wire placed several inches off the ground with trip flares mixed in (00:57:23:00)  However, at one point, an enemy sapper who had surrendered showed how he and the other sappers could crawl underneath the wire using bamboo sticks as props (00:57:49:00) As his tour continued, the only real change that Kiekintveld noticed about himself was that he started counting the days until he could go home (00:59:01:00) o Kiekintveld did not care about the people or why the Americans were in Vietnam; he just wanted to go home (00:59:10:00) o While he was in Vietnam, Kiekintveld honestly did not think that he was going to make it home for several reasons (00:59:20:00)  The largest reason was because of the work he had to do; he had several close encounters with explosives, including the single time he ever used a timed fuse (00:59:24:00)  At other times, Kiekintveld carried an M-60 machine gun and machine gunners were one of the first people that enemy soldiers liked to shoot at (00:59:36:00)  When he was using the timed fuse, Kiekintveld and his team were clearing an LZ and although they normally used detonation cord and an electric blasting cap to set off the explosives, at this LZ, all they had were timed fuses (01:00:27:00) o With the timed fuse, Kiekintveld first cut a chunk off and lit it with his lighter to gauge the burn time (01:00:45:00) o Once he had everything figured out, he readied explosives to detonate after three or four minutes; however, ten minutes went by and nothing happened (01:01:04:00) o Half an hour went by and Kiekintveld was just getting out from under his cover to check the fuse when the explosives finally went off (01:01:09:00) o Kiekintveld was injured once while working on building a firebase after someone accidentally fell while carrying a roll of concertina wire that rolled down to hill (01:01:56:00)  When the roll hit Kiekintveld, it broke his nose and cut him up to the point that he was in the medical center for several days (01:02:13:00) � o o o o o While on stationed on Ripcord, Kiekintveld was once blown into a foxhole and another time, he does not know how it happened but he was standing in a foxhole when a good-sized rock hit him in his right hip (01:02:41:00)  Being 21 years-old, Kiekintveld thought he could just walk the pain off and be black and blue for a couple of days; however, as he got older, Kiekintveld has had trouble with his right hip (01:02:57:00)  The blasting from the explosions ruined Kiekintveld‟s hearing to the point that he has needed to use hearing aids since 2005 (01:03:21:00) The process of rotating soldiers in an out of units did not work for Kiekintveld; he was in the field until one or two days before he returned home (01:04:12:00)  The company First Sergeant was an African-American and whenever another African-American soldier joined the company, the First Sergeant assigned the soldier jobs in the rear area (01:04:24:00)  When the Army offered Kiekintveld an early out if he would stay in the field for an additional two weeks to teach the replacement soldiers, Kiekintveld said “no” (01:04:36:00)  Instead, Kiekintveld did his six months of stateside duty, although it was extremely boring (01:04:54:00) When Kiekintveld first joined his unit, some of the older soldiers taught Kiekintveld what he needed to do (01:05:03:00)  For the most part, Kiekintveld usually worked with the same two soldiers as part of a three-man team clearing LZs (01:05:11:00)  When the engineers needed to clear firebases was when they joined together into larger squads and platoons (01:05:29:00)  However, even in the larger groups, Kiekintveld remained incharge of doing the demolition work (01:05:35:00) For the most part, Kiekintveld hung out with the other soldiers in his sections, although the section often hung with a group of infantry soldiers and a bond grew between the two smaller groups (01:06:03:00)  At one point, Kiekintveld volunteered to go on a night ambush with the group of infantry; Kiekintveld almost did go on the ambush but his platoon leader was on the firebase at the same time and he stopped Kiekintveld from going (01:06:26:00)  As one of Kiekintveld‟s friends became short-timed, the friend did not have any field experience, having served as a jeep driver, and although Kiekintveld tried to talk him out of it, the friend was part of the combat assault against Ripcord on April 1st; for years, Kiekintveld has had survivor‟s guilt but has slowly overcome it (01:06:54:00)  Kiekintveld and the other soldier were very good friends, with the other soldier having clean clothes and cold beer waiting for Kiekintveld whenever he came out of the field (01:08:01:00) Morale amongst the soldiers in Kiekintveld‟s unit was pretty good, with almost all of the soldiers getting along with one another (01:08:25:00) Doing the job and doing the job right were very important to Kiekintveld and he made sure that the others did the job right as well (01:08:40:00) �    Kiekintveld would tell the soldiers which trees needed to come down and if the tree did not come down after the explosion, then the soldier who set the charge was given an axe to finish the job (01:08:49:00)  There were soldiers who did not want to do the work but if they chose not to work, then there were consequences (01:09:30:00)  Most of the soldiers would adapt and Kiekintveld would not allow drugs or alcohol in the field (01:09:48:00)  As far as Kiekintveld knows, there were not any drugs harder than marijuana being used by soldiers on the base (01:10:49:00) o Towards the end of Kiekintveld‟s tour, he began to notice more racial tension amongst the soldiers (01:11:35:00)  Most of the tension resulted from the newly-arrived soldiers, who were carrying over the sentiments prevalent back in the United States at the time; Kiekintveld himself did not know too much about what was going on back home (01:11:45:00) o Where Kiekintveld and his men were stationed, they never received any news about what was happening in the United States (01:12:23:00)  Camp Evans sort of felt like a “no-man‟s-land”, with the camp receiving what seemed like everyone else‟s leftovers (01:12:54:00) When he was stationed in the rear area, Kiekintveld had the opportunity to go to a Bob Hope show (01:13:47:00) o One day, Kiekintveld was sitting around when someone told him to board a deuce-and-a-half to go to Camp Eagle but did not say why (01:13:56:00) o Once Kiekintveld was at Camp Eagle, he and the other soldiers sat in a specially built rotunda, where the was a sign that said “Bob Hope” (01:14:01:00) o Kiekintveld and the other men from his company ended up sitting quite far back but one of the men received permission to go up to the front rows in order to take pictures of Bob Hope (01:14:21:00) Twice, while his unit was on stand-down, Kiekintveld was able to watch Filipino rock bands that had been brought in as entertainment (01:14:50:00) o The first time, Kiekintveld‟s company had been in the field for sixty days, which was a long time, to the point that uniforms were rotting off soldiers‟ backs, and when they landed back in the company area, the company commander, having seen the condition they were in, sent them to the rest area at Eagle Beach (01:14:57:00)  By the time the soldiers arrived at Eagle Beach, someone had arranged for clean clothes and all the soldiers were allowed to take showers (01:15:28:00) o Later, Kiekintveld had another opportunity to go to Eagle Beach as part of another stand-down (01:15:34:00) o While at Eagle Beach, the soldiers could attend USO shows involving the Filipino bands, although they could not understand what the bands were singing; for the most part, the soldiers were drunk the entire time they were there (01:15:40:00) Towards the end of his tour, Kiekintveld went on an R&R (Rest and Recuperation) to Thailand (01:15:57:00) �o   Initially, Kiekintveld had an R&R scheduled to go to Hawaii to visit his parents and fiancée but that trip was canceled (01:16:05:00) o After the scrubbed R&R, Kiekintveld decided he was not going to take one; the fighting was so intense that if he could get out and go somewhere, if even for a week, Kiekintveld decided he would take the R&R (01:16:13:00) o Getting away for the week did not really help Kiekintveld because he still came back to the same stuff that was happening when he left (01:16:54:00) The fighting to retake the A Shau Valley was extremely intense during 1970; no matter where the soldiers turned, it always seemed like it was three or four companies on a firebase surrounded by around five enemy battalions (01:17:05:00) o Kiekintveld believes that the removal of the 1st Marine Division further exacerbated the problem because the division‟s withdrawal spread the remaining forces even thinner (01:17:49:00) o Most of the soldiers knew that the enemy vastly outnumbered them and for the most part, the odds were stacked in the enemy‟s favor (01:18:34:00)  Word would spread around a firebase that the enemy might outnumber the soldiers as much as fifty to one (01:18:37:00) o Building the firebases was almost more dangerous than actually serving on a finished firebase because while Kiekintveld and the other engineers were building a firebase, the only protection they had were fields of fire; there was not any barbed wire or perimeter defenses around the firebase (01:18:53:00) Kiekintveld‟s primary method of communication with people back home was in the form of letters, although he did do a cassette recording one time, after which he vowed never to do that again (01:19:24:00) o With a letter, Kiekintveld could read the letter, then burn it and be done with it; when he listened to the cassette tape, Kiekintveld heard the voices from back home, which made him homesick and it took him days to get over the feeling (01:19:44:00)  Kiekintveld does not understand how soldiers today are able to do it, being able to get on a computer and talk with their families or make a telephone call to their families (01:20:05:00) o Kiekintveld did receive some care packages from home, with his mother sending cookies and candy (01:20:44:00)  However, Kiekintveld did not eat a lot of candy, so when the packages did arrive, he often shared them with the rest of the soldiers (01:20:52:00)  Kiekintveld‟s mother also sent grape-flavored Kool-Aid for the water and WD-40 to help clean Kiekintveld‟s rifle (01:21:05:00) o In his letters home, Kiekintveld tended to generalize his experiences and did not say too much about what was actually going on; in their letters, Kiekintveld‟s family would talk about home and what was going on there (01:22:32:00) o At one point, Kiekintveld received a letter with a newspaper clipping saying that an old high school friend had been killed in the fighting (01:22:03:00)  Kiekintveld did not even know the friend was serving in the military and for several days after he received the letter with the newspaper clipping, Kiekintveld was in a very foul mood (01:22:11:00) �     Because he and the other soldiers did not receive a lot of news based on where they were stationed, Kiekintveld did not know there was a large anti-war movement going on in the United States (01:22:37:00) Periodically, Kiekintveld and the other engineers would be called in to recover downed helicopters (01:24:03:00) o Depending on the situation, during some of the recoveries, the engineers attached the remains of the downed helicopter to another helicopter to be pulled out; other times, the engineers had to destroy the remains of the helicopter (01:24:21:00) Kiekintveld‟s impression of the helicopter pilots and crews were that they were a crazy group of people; the crews did numerous pieces of remarkable flying, both in flying the soldiers in and out of areas using Hueys and Chinooks and in providing support to the soldiers using Cobras (01:24:38:00) o Without the helicopter pilots and crews, Kiekintveld and the other soldiers would not be around (01:25:26:00) Most of the officers in Kiekintveld‟s unit were decent; a couple of the officers were shake „n bake or ROTC and they tended to do most everything by the book, even if that method was not always the safest (01:26:52:00) o However, there was one officer about whom Kiekintveld himself sent in paperwork accusing the officer of desertion (01:27:19:00)  Kiekintveld‟s unit was going into a hot LZ and the officer refused to get off the helicopter (01:27:27:00)  Once the fighting ended, Kiekintveld got onto the radio and requested desertion paperwork for the officer (01:27:36:00)  When Kiekintveld got back to the company, the officer was not around, which Kiekintveld took as a sign, although he does not know exactly what happened (01:27:45:00) o During his tour, Kiekintveld had two company commanders and two platoon leaders (01:28:01:00) o If anything, Kiekintveld spent more time working with the officers commanding the various infantry units than with the officers from his own unit (01:28:54:00) Keeping a “short-timers” calendar was not allowed in Kiekintveld‟s unit, although Kiekintveld does not understand why (01:29:11:00) o However, because Kiekintveld had his own room, he was able to keep a secret calendar for himself (01:29:19:00) o As he became a short-timer, Kiekintveld continued doing the same things he had previously done; Kiekintveld knew he was getting close to the end of his tour but he did not actively count the days until the tour ended (01:29:44:00) Post-Vietnam Military Service / Post-Military Life (01:30:01:00)  Once the time actually came for Kiekintveld to leave, he was sent to the rear area, where he turned in all his equipment and weapon and picked up the necessary paperwork (01:30:01:00) o The initial route took Kiekintveld from Bein Ouit to another chartered civilian aircraft for the flight back to the United States (01:30:24:00) �o    During the flight, once the announcement was made that the aircraft was no longer in Vietnamese airspace, all the soldiers yelled and cheered (01:30:49:00) o Kiekintveld slept for most of the flight back to the United States (01:30:59:00) o While Kiekintveld and the other soldiers were loading onto the aircraft to go home, they saw another aircraft arrive carrying fresh soldiers (01:31:06:00) The flight back from Vietnam landed in Oakland, where Kiekintveld processed out and received a free meal, what ever he wanted to eat (01:31:31:00) o Kiekintveld ordered a steak dinner but it stayed in him for all of ten minutes; his body was not used to that rich of food (01:31:45:00) o When the flight landed, all the soldiers were allowed to take showers and were given clean clothes; while the soldiers ate their meals, their dress uniforms were tailored with their individual patches (01:32:05:00) o Kiekintveld remembers walking down a hallway at the airport and it was almost like he had the plague, because people would walk around him; Kiekintveld and the other soldiers did not receive any verbal taunts (01:32:39:00) o On the flight from California, Kiekintveld initially wanted to fly to Grand Rapids, Michigan but could not, so he ended up flying first to Wisconsin then on to Muskegon, Michigan (01:33:01:00)  During one of the flights, was a couple was sitting on one side of the aisle and their young son was next to Kiekintveld on the other (01:33:29:00)  The couple talked to the stewardess and Kiekintveld was escorted to a seat in the back of the plane because the couple did not want their son sitting next to him (01:33:37:00)  Kiekintveld sat in the back of the plane by himself but the stewardess had small bottles of whisky on the beverage cart and told Kiekintveld to help himself (01:33:47:00) Kiekintveld had a very short leave to be at home before having to finish out his enlistment and during the leave, he married his fiancée (01:34:12:00) When he reported back to the Army, Kiekintveld went to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, where his entire company consisted of Vietnam veterans and they all received training in riot control (01:34:44:00) o Apart from the riot control training, Kiekintveld was sent to work in a small carpenter shop on the base (01:35:01:00) o Kiekintveld lived off-base and one night, he and his company were called onto the base and told to get into formation, where the soldiers were assigned their weapons (01:35:23:00)  The soldiers were told that they were going to Washington D.C. because the Black Panthers were in the city and government officials were worried about the possibilities of riots (01:35:34:00)  The soldiers asked where the ammunition was for their weapons and were told that they did not get any (01:35:43:00)  The whole company dropped their rifles of the ground and said that they were not going and when the officers threatened to court martiial them, Kiekintveld pointed out how bad it would look if they court-martialed an entire company (01:35:50:00) �    All the soldiers were Vietnam veterans and they refused to die in the streets of Washington D.C. with an empty rifle (01:36:06:00)  Instead of issuing ammunition to the soldiers, the officers sent the entire company home (01:36:13:00) o Kiekintveld‟s wife was able to live with him and they rented a small mobile home that actually cost more than Kiekintveld made in an entire month; therefore, it was good that the couple had some money stored away (01:36:36:00) Kiekintveld finally left the military in Spring 1971 (01:37:33:00) o After he left the military, Kiekintveld was unemployed for a while before his father got him a part-time job working in the post office (01:37:35:00) o Eventually, Kiekintveld found a full-time job working in construction, building houses, where he stayed for twenty years (01:38:01:00) Around 2002/2003, doctors diagnosed Kiekintveld with having PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) after Kiekintveld began having problems with nightmares and flashbacks to Vietnam (01:39:01:00) o Kiekintveld then began traveling to Grand Rapids to consult a psychiatrist and to attend PTSD groups (01:39:10:00) o In 2004, Kiekintveld went to the north side of Chicago to attend a six-week, inhouse PTSD seminar; by 2005, Kiekintveld received full disability due to the effects of PTSD (01:39:15:00) o While Kiekintveld had been stationed at Fort Belvoir, the Army had not made any effort to provide assistance to Kiekintveld and the other soldiers who had mental struggles with their experiences (01:40:02:00)  Prior to his discharge, a doctor asked Kiekintveld if there were any physical problems; however, if Kiekintveld said there were, it meant he would have to stay for another six weeks so even if there had been, Kiekintveld would have lied, just so he could go home (01:40:09:00) o Once he returned home from his service, Kiekintveld did not say too much about having been in the service and having been to Vietnam (01:40:43:00)  Kiekintveld knew in his heart that there was something wrong inside but he feared saying anything out of fear that he would be locked up in a mental institution (01:40:51:00)  As the years went on, the situation stayed the same until all of sudden, Kiekintveld could no longer control it, which was when he began having the nightmares and flashbacks (01:41:23:00) o For two years, one of Kiekintveld‟s friends kept saying that Kiekintveld needed help and needed to talk with someone (01:42:32:00) Kiekintveld notices that with the soldiers returning home today, not only are the soldiers being welcomed home, but there is so much more information about PTSD that it is only a matter of getting the soldiers to ask for help (01:43:02:00) o Kiekintveld makes it a point of shaking the soldiers hands and point out that the VA is there for them (01:43:35:00) o Kiekintveld‟s philosophy is that if he can help one veteran, then he is doing his job; he had one veteran help him and he is continuing the assistance (01:43:55:00) �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KiekintveldtG1349V Title A name given to the resource Kiekintveld, Gregory (Interview outline and video), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kiekintveld, Gregory Description An account of the resource Greg Kiekintveld was born in Holland, Michigan in May 1949. After graduating from high school in 1968, he worked in construction until he was drafted into the Army in March, 1969. Following basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky, the Army sent Kiekintveld to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri for advanced training to be a combat engineer. Once Kiekintveld completed the training at Fort Leonard Wood, Kiekintveld deployed to Vietnam and joined B Company, 326th Engineer Battalion, 101st Airborne Division. While with the 326th Engineers, Kiekintveld had two primary assignments. First, he oversaw a small team tasked with creating landing zones in advance of an assault by infantry from other units in the 101st Airborne. Second, as part of a larger unit, either platoon- or company-sized he helped with construction and demolition of hilltop firebases for the division. His unit was based at Camp Evans, and operated in the hills and valleys of the northern part of South Vietnam. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-03-06 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c630011abb715331e09c97427fd056df.mp4 59bd8554cec864dbdf9b96767b3bc626 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8deeb5c6141098a35f8d251e71475434.pdf bbc171173ad4b99553d3880ea6afd065 PDF Text Text ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW DORA KILMER Born: 1924 in Plymouth, England. Resides: Grand Rapids, Michigan Interviewed by: James Smither PhD, GVSU Veterans History Project Transcribed by: Claire Herhold, January 17, 2013 Interviewer: Dora, can you begin with some background on yourself? To start with, where and when were you born? I was born in 1924 which makes me 88 next June, and my father was a deep sea fisherman. The whole family, for generations, were deep sea fishermen, and he would go away for a week and come home for a day and a half, and it was always exciting every week to be able to see him. Interviewer: And what port did you live in? Plymouth. During the war, my father was commandeered, called up even though he was forty something because of his knowledge of the sea, because the young officers didn‟t really have it and so they just really liked him because he was able to help them so much. 1:03 And he was made a warrant officer, and then after the war he went back to his living again. But five years after the war, his ship hit a mine that had never been swept and they all disappeared. And his brother was on the ship too. But anyway, he had a hard life. You know, fishing is a hard life. Interviewer: During the 1930s, you have the Depression and the economic problems and so forth. Because of the nature of his job, could he always make a living? Yes, yes. And my mother was a wonderful manager and she…Before the war, like you say, we knew it was coming and they were digging air raid shelters in 1938, and then it started in 1939. 2:03 Interviewer: And what kind of education did you have? �Well, I had elementary school and then, at ten or ten and a half in England you all take a scholarship, and if you pass the scholarship you get to go to high school. And it‟s sad really, because children even committed suicide over it, you know, and it divided sisters and brothers. But fortunately my sister, she passed and I passed, and we went to Plymouth High School which was the top of the list, because depending on where you passed was which school you were eligible to go to, so I was very lucky there. But we had to wait three months for the results, and believe me…I knew I‟d passed the math but I wasn‟t so sure about the essays and all that. But anyway, my mother was scrubbing the floor because it was a Monday and she…after the washing and all that, she‟d scrub the floor. 3:06 And she was scrubbing the floor and I came home, and I guess I was a bit of a devil, and I said, “We got our results but I didn‟t pass.” And she was scrubbing harder and she said, “Well, if you did your best that‟s all you can do.” And here I did very well, really. So, anyway. Interviewer: So how did you finish that then? Well, you were supposed to stay then until you were like 18, 17 and take your O-levels and everything like that, but my sister who was two years and eight months older than me, she left school when she was 15 and she worked in an office and was making money. And I was so jealous that I kept on to my father all the time and he finally took me to Prior‟s Academy and I took a twelve month course there, which I finished in six months because I was so thrilled. It was shorthand and typing and business. 4:00 And then I worked for a gas company for the next six years. Interviewer: My original question was, you were playing a trick on your mother. You came home, you said you didn’t pass. Now was there a punch line? �Oh yes, because then I told her right…what I was so tickled about was she just said, “well, if you did your best.” I always remember that. And then I said, “No, no, mum. I did pass.” They had a lot to put up with with me, I think. Interviewer: When the war actually starts then, in ’39, how long was it before they called up your father and made him go in? I think it was maybe a year or two. I‟m not sure exactly, but I think it was a year or two. Interviewer: Was he involved simply with training people or did he go out on ships? No, no, he was actually on a … you know, we had a lot of convoys around England because, you know, we didn‟t have enough food for everybody, even rationing. 5:05 And he was on an escort vessel, anti-submarine, and many a time, many a time, he would be…his ship and a couple of…because the Germans used to come over on E-boats from France, because they were in France, and they would glide in on their engines so the radar stuff didn‟t do any good, and they would, you know, just destroy the ships. And he was lucky that way, but he went through a lot. But what was so awful is that he didn‟t know what was happening to us while he was gone, because we had such bad air raids, and one time they came… he came into our port and they couldn‟t come in to land because of the devastation of the bombing and he didn‟t know. I remember his face, it was utterly gray when he came and found we were all right, because it was such a bad raid. 6:05 And so, it was hard. Interviewer: Was he sailing on Atlantic convoys, or just convoys along the English coast? Just around the coast. And they had commandeered a private ship for the Navy, the one he was on, and then fitted it out with all their equipment, and because of my father‟s age he was demobilized immediately when the war ended and they had a skeleton crew on it going back to �its owners, its civilian owners, and it collided with a destroyer and went down, and after it had been through all that time. Interviewer: When he was on that duty, how long would he be gone? Oh, sometimes several weeks because they went into different ports, I guess. He went over on D-day as an escort ship too. 7:03 But his life was cut off when he was fifty…fifty six he was, it was in 1950. Interviewer: Once the war started, how quickly was it before the Germans started to attack Plymouth? Our first air raid was in June, the next year. Interviewer: 1940? 1940. And from then on it got to be relentless. We had in our town, we had 70,000 houses bombed. That‟s a lot. And fifty churches. And a lot of people killed, and the worst raids were in 1941, in March and April. April was the worst and then they just flattened the whole business section of the city. In fact, after the war they were able to just redesign the whole thing. Interviewer: Where did your family live? We lived in a district…you know, they‟d go by churches then. 8:02 We lived in a district, St. Jude‟s, and it was about, I would say, about a mile from the city, so you know, we had…I know we had our windows shot out of our house, one side, you know, from when they hit a church that was close by and we had fire bombs that we used to put out with stirrup pumps and we got so good at that, because they used to drop them in what, like, you call baskets, thousands at a time, and we got so good at that that the Germans put an explosive nose in some of them, but you never knew which it was so you couldn‟t go out with your stirrup pump. You had to use sand bags, and wait to see if it was going to explode or not. Well, we got pretty good at that too, so �then they bombed us with phosphorous bombs. You‟d think you‟d got it out and the next thing it would flare up again. I don‟t understand how that works, but it did. 9:01 Interviewer: What did your family do if the air raid sirens went off? And you eventually were an air raid warden, so you’re working, but what did the family do when the raids happened? Well, the government, they would reinforce a cellar in every so many houses because we were row houses, you know. And they would reinforce and they were supposed to do ours. Well, the day they were supposed to do it, my great-uncle who lived in the same house as us, died suddenly and so they did the next door. But my mother always said later that she wished they‟d gone ahead and done ours because she had…my brother was only three at the time, three or four years old, and she‟d have to get him up and she used to try to get…well, she made me get up. I‟d rather have stay in bed, I was always so tired. But we used to, several families would come there, and I used to just lay on the floor with a cushion, you know and we‟d stay there. 10:08 I hated that. In fact, I didn‟t realize it, when I became a warden I was glad to be out and see what was going on. You know, when the bombs…the bombs come down like this. Well, when the plane comes toward you, you can be… if you‟re going to be scared, be scared then, because when it got overhead and passed by you didn‟t have to worry anymore until the next wave came around. And I liked…when you‟re in a shelter, you don‟t know what‟s going on. All you hear‟s all this racket and the whistles of the bombs and everything. Interviewer: How long would the raids last? Oh, several hours. And a lot of times, they would be just alerts because they would be passing over, probably to go to Birmingham or something and so…but, I don‟t know, we kind of used to �try to judge whether we needed to get up and go to the shelter, but that was only at night. 11:06 We never did during the day. We just carried on with everything. Interviewer: When the war started, you were working in an office in the city at that point? Yes. Interviewer: What business did you work for then? It was Plymouth & Stonehouse Gas Company, and the gas works were in Plymouth, not where the offices were. And our office was a great big building in the middle of the town, and when the town was destroyed they bombed…ours was completely destroyed, but we had a strong room downstairs that we used to keep all the ledgers every night. And the men firewatched during the night, so they got a lot of stuff out. And so, then we had to go find…all these businesses had to find places, private homes and all that, but we had a little shop it was, actually. 12:00 It was a four story tall, like a row building too, and it had … and that‟s where we moved to, but I didn‟t know that when we were first bombed out. You know, you didn‟t have telephones and so you just had to kind of try to find somebody who knew whether we‟d set up business again. And then when we moved there, the men firewatched at night and the women, of which there weren‟t very many because before the war it was just men in the office because they would start a boy from one of the high schools on his career, and they told me it was a temporary job when I first got it. And then about a year later, the secretary (that‟s really the head one), he sent for me and said my job was permanent. 13:02 That made me feel good. Interviewer: How did you wind up becoming an air raid warden? Well, one of the boys in the office, he was called up later, but he and I used to go to movies together, we were just really good friends, and so he suggested that we went to these classes. Now he lived in a different area than I did, so we didn‟t go to the same post but that‟s how I �became an air raid warden. But that‟s not a full time job, you see, but every time the siren went off at night you had to go, or you went, you know. Interviewer: What did the classes consist of? What were they teaching you? Well, first aid and make sure everybody‟s light was out, you know. You had to patrol to see all the lights were blacked out in the houses because you couldn‟t show a chink of light and then they also…we had to take of elderly people and get them to a shelter, and things like that you know. 14:09 Patrol the street, things like that. But yet the air raid post itself, we had our…we used to play table tennis in the next building that this was adjoined to, and we used to have dances every once in a while and social gatherings and so, even then, we made fun of that. In fact, I dated a boy from there that was one of the air raid wardens, and he used to see me home and then we‟d do our smooching outside the back door and then later on, after the raid was over, he‟d see me home again. And my mother used to say, “That air raid, that siren, you know, the all-clear went off a long time ago. What took you so long?” It was all, you know, very innocent. Interviewer: When the air raids were actually happening, would you be outside? 15:04 Yes. Interviewer: Ok. So you were at that point trying to help people get to shelters. Yes. We didn‟t go into the post at all during the air raid, but we had certain times of the week we did duty there, you know, just in regular time. But the nearest I was to a bomb was, the air raid post I was at was in the recreation area that had once been kind of marshy, I guess, years ago, and they dropped this, I don‟t know if it was a land mine…it was a heck of a big bomb, and I was seeing this elderly lady to the shelter and the blast, it was from here out to the end of Zena‟s house out in the yard, that far. Just that close, and the blast blew us down the steps into the shelter. We were alright, but we were covered with all the wet silt stuff, like or mud…no �mud, it was black, it was wet. 16:04 I guess it was the bomb went so deep that it got up the marshy stuff underneath. Interviewer: And actually it’s quite possible that the wet soil might have something to do with why you didn’t get more badly hurt. Yes, well I‟m sure of that, I‟m pretty sure of that because we were pretty close to that bomb. Interviewer: At what point did Americans start coming into Plymouth? That was in nineteen forty…maybe the end of 1943, and then I met Harry in early ‟44. And it was such an unusual way I met him because we had companion posts and there was the other post that was a companion to ours and the head warden there was, his son was going to be eighteen and was going to go off to the war next day, so they had rented, or not rented, they had had his party in the school and he wanted more girls there. 17:04 But I didn‟t know there were going to be Americans there, I never once dreamed, you know. But in his private life his was a news agent and his son used to go and deliver papers and he got friendly with these Americans. Well, this other girl at the post, she said, “Well, I‟d like to go but I‟m not going to go unless you go.” So I thought, well ok. And so I put on a red silk dress and then went to pick her up on the way, and because I was late, I‟m always late, her mother said, “Well, she‟s gone already.” And I can remember standing there and thinking, I don‟t really want to go. But I did because she was kind of a fussy girl and I thought that she‟d be mad at me. So, I went and there were these Americans there and I remember Harry and two others sang a trio, they sang “Carolina Moon” because that‟s where one of them was from, and they did a good job. 18:04 And then we played all these games and he partnered with me every game. And so, then after it was over, that was that. I went home and then the…we had such good eats and you know, anytime you could get good eats during the war it was good so we … the next day, they sent a message over to say to �come over to the post there because they had some of the good eats left, so I went. Well, I didn‟t know that Harry was going to be there and he was and so he saw me home and then we dated and then from then on… Interviewer: What kind of assignment did he have? What was he doing there? He was a motor machinist mate, and they had in the…in Plymouth, a bay, it was called the sound, Plymouth Sound. 19:02 And they had all these landing craft that they used to, they really got to know every bit of it because they repaired them, they conditioned them, they kept them up and ran around in them and everything. And that‟s… they were in Quonset huts down below one of the bridges, and that‟s what they did and then when D-day happened then that was a really important job, you know, because they had to dig a trench and had these little pup tents over it up on top of the hill, oh I forget the name of the beach. And they had to clear the beach and fix them. Interviewer: You mean, over on the French side? Yes. Interviewer: So probably Omaha beach because there’s a big hill. Omaha, that‟s it. Interviewer: So he gets sent over there for a while to work on that? Because for a long time they were using Omaha to move men and supplies back and forth, they kept using the landing craft. 20:08 Yes, he was on that beach for a while, when they…mostly for the first, all the waves going in. But then he went to Saint-Malo and was there for a while, and so he had some experiences. But then his mother had a stroke and after, oh it was in 1945, it was in the spring of 1945, when things were starting to get better, and he was sent home. Well, by that time we were engaged, �and he was sent home because his mother had a stroke. But then he was able to come back again because our wedding had been planned. 21:00 Interviewer: What did your parents think of him? Well, she [Zena Smith] said it all, they didn‟t approve at all, but they liked him, but they didn‟t approve at all, because they didn‟t want me to go away. In fact, people had a hard time asking after me, after I left, because my mother would just break down in tears. It was hard. You see, when you‟re young like that, you‟re in love and that‟s it. You don‟t realize what it‟s like to leave your country and your family. It‟s awful. I don‟t recommend anybody do it. Interviewer: Before we kind of get farther into that part, tell me a little bit about, sort of, daily life in Plymouth during the war. Well, we were rationed and, but fortunately until my father went into the Navy then he brought fish home. 22:02 We always had fish for two days. We didn‟t have any refrigeration so you had to eat it. But it was wonderful. I never got tired of fish, and I think that‟s why I‟ve bee so healthy most of my life is because I had such…fish. We used to eat it for breakfast sometimes even, and I loved it. Interviewer: What did you do when he was off in the Navy then? Well, then there was one of my uncles that was still fishing. He‟d bring us some sometimes, you know, not all the time. And then we had the rations like everyone else. My mother was so good at managing the rations. She really was, because we used to get two shillings and six pence, which I think at that time was a half a dollar. And we used to… you know, if you had five, say, in the household you‟d get a joint on Sunday or maybe a little bit of other meat, but that‟s not very much, you know. 23:01 And then we had one egg a week, sometimes more in the summer. And we had an ounce of butter, two ounces of margarine, two ounces of lard, because we always �made pastry with lard in England, it was used quite a lot. And then we had…I mean, even candy was rationed. You got used to it, you know. You just got used to it. But I didn‟t know about under the counter stuff, like you asked. If that went on, I didn‟t know it. Interviewer: What proportion of the population…did people leave and go other places when Plymouth got bombed? Did other children, people go into the country or elsewhere? Yes, actually, they only had very little evacuation from Plymouth. I don‟t know why. But I know that one time, I think it was in 1944, my father, at that time he must have been out, you know, in the Navy, and he was so worried about us with all the raids and everything, he made us go to the country for two months. 24:14 We couldn‟t wait to get home. My mother said, “I look out one window and I see cows and I look out another and I see cows.” I used to go back to Plymouth every day on the train to my job, and a lot of other people. Well, we packed it after about six weeks, but it gave him the peace for that length of time. Interviewer: Did Plymouth become a target for the German buzz bombs or things like that? Or just the regular planes? No, that was just London, London mostly. And I was in London one time when they had buzz bombs come over. You never knew where they were going to fall. They got used to that too, you know. 25:00 We just carried on during the war, and … I don‟t know, that‟s the time…the age I was then, that‟s the time you‟re dating. Now, it was horrible not to be able to have much clothes. I know my father, when he was in the Navy went to the officers‟ club and got my sister and I the smallest men‟s good pajamas so we didn‟t have to spend coupons on that. And then boyfriends sometimes would give you a few, not for any favors though. Interviewer: When did you actually get married? 1945. �Interviewer: When? After the war was over or while it was still on? Well, it was just about ending. In fact, it was the day after…I didn‟t realize it „til Zena said, it was the day after she got married „cause I was married on August the 2nd. Interviewer: Did the Americans help out with the ceremony? Because Zena got her cake from them. 26:07 No, they didn‟t have anything to do…of course, he was in the Navy, you know. But my mother, I mean, there was a restaurant that used to cater some. You can get, I think…maybe we were allowed extra coupons, I don‟t remember, but that‟s where we had our… oh what am I trying to say? Interviewer: Reception? Yes. Geez, old age. And I was married in the parish church and Harry‟s, one of his buddies was best man. I have a picture here. My sister was bridesmaid. I didn‟t have anybody give me, or lend me a wedding dress. 27:00 Interviewer: Did he have to go home first and leave you behind or how did that work? Yes, he did. Because when the war was over he had to go home. Well, in the meantime I got pregnant and I had, I couldn‟t go until the following April, May because of the age of the baby. She was just a couple months old. And so then we were delayed because we had to go to a seaside resort before we went to Southampton to go get all together and then they had a dock strike in New York and so our ship didn‟t go so we were a couple of weeks in that hotel. And then, I wasn‟t lucky enough, well I don‟t know about lucky after hearing… wasn‟t on the Queen Mary or the Queen Elizabeth. I was on the E. B. Alexander, and it took fourteen days. 28:02 And then the babies, young babies had to be kept in the nursery on the boat, because they weren‟t allowed in the cabins, the little tiny ones like mine was. So they had a sick bay on the �ship and unknown to me during the voyage but I found out towards the end of the voyage, three babies died. So after we got into New York I saw a couple of different babies near my daughter‟s crib and I said, “Oh, I haven‟t seen them.” They said, “They were in sick bay. They‟ve closed sick bay.” Well, what do you think happened then? My daughter got sick. She almost died. She went down to below eleven pounds when she was…by the time she was six months old she was below eleven pounds. I don‟t know how much less than that she was before. And but see, I wouldn‟t have been exposed to that because my husband was going to come to New York to meet me and they told us when we were in Bournemouth with that delay not… they strongly advised us to let the government see us to our destination, not have our husbands meet us, which doesn‟t make sense a bit to me. 29:18 And I had to call him on the phone to tell him this and he said, “No. I‟m coming to meet you. I‟ve got it all arranged.” And I said, “No, no.” You know how you want to do what you‟re supposed to do, do what you‟re told. And if he had met me, she wouldn‟t have gotten sick. They wanted to put her in a hospital in New York, and all I wanted to do was get out of there and get to where I was going and see about it then, so they let me take her, they said if I‟d call a doctor as soon as I got there, which of course I did. And then the doctor was going to put her in hospital and people, Harry‟s friends said, “Oh don‟t let them do that because they‟ve got staph there.” Well, of course I didn‟t even know what staph was. I thought he was talking about … Interviewer: The people and not the infection. 30:01 And then the first meal I had there, these friends had a meal for me and somebody said would you care for some sweet potatoes? And I thought, “Oh my god, they even put sugar in their potatoes.” Now I love them. Interviewer: Do you know what was wrong with your daughter? �Well, yes. It was dysentery. And what they did to, they finally got rid of…I think it‟s called kaopectate. Whatever it is, it‟s some kind of clay that goes down and takes the disease away, and that‟s how…she, it‟s a wonder she didn‟t die. Interviewer: You got very lucky there. What was your husband doing now that he was back from the war? Over here? Well, he was a great mechanic and it fared him well through life. 31:00 But he started, you know, just as a mechanic and didn‟t make very much but before I came over he had…with whatever they get, or whatever he had sent home to save, he was able to put a down payment on this little house. And so we couldn‟t move into it for about two months because right after the war, housing was so short that even if you sold your house you could live in it „til the people got out…it was like a … So I got there in May and we moved into our house in July and I remember we bought some furniture, and the way we did that was …we always did this, if we had to borrow money for furniture we go on that four months, 30, 60, 90, and you didn‟t have to pay any interest. We did that with the department store there and that‟s the way we furnished. Interviewer: And where were you living at that time? 32:00 In Fairmont, West Virginia, which, believe me, was a … well, you know, you go to a coal mining state, and you‟ve been raised by the sea, lived by the sea and that‟s all you‟ve known and then to…that was hard. I‟m not going to say that wasn‟t hard. Interviewer: How long did you stay there? Well, I stayed there for, let me see, I guess forty years. And I didn‟t realize…you know, I always felt I wanted to get out of West Virginia and so I left a lot of friends there that probably, if I‟d had hindsight, you know, I wouldn‟t have left there. But I wouldn‟t have met Zena and it‟s �been so wonderful to meet these war brides. That‟s the highlight of my month to have lunch, and there‟s only so few left. 33:01 Interviewer: Did your husband eventually have his own garage or his own business? Oh yes. He had his own business. He worked…after he was, after about a year, maybe a year and a half, he got a telephone call and it was from some business, automotive, you know, rebuilding business, and offered him a job as over them all, and he wore a suit to work then. And he did very well and eventually he started his own business and he also invented a wonderful thing that, they used to call it, the “methane buster.” And it got patented and it was this machine, this big machine that he invented. They‟d go put it down in the mines and it would turn the methane into regular fuel, so it was a dual purpose. 34:03 A lot of mines use that in West Virginia. Now they couldn‟t use it in the real, real deep mines but they did…they still have it now. And so he was really, really knowledgeable about engines. There wasn‟t a thing he didn‟t know about engines. Interviewer: When you went out to West Virginia, how did the people out there treat you? His family or the ones around? His family were in another town. We were in a town about twenty three miles…his mother was still living and she came and stayed with us for a while. He had two sisters, and his mother spent most of her life with one of them. I mean, most of her later life. And then, it was when I had my third child that she had a stroke just before that, and I was only able to visit her one time and then I had my last child, and so I always know exactly, you know, when she died, because she died… 35:11 But I saw her, and I gave her, fed her some ice cream and things when she was in the hospital, but that was sad. �Interviewer: But were the people in the community welcoming to you? Or did they just think you were strange? Yes, very nice, very nice. I had some funny episodes, you know, things happening. Things I‟d ask for at the store and they‟d scratch their heads. And the bus…I remember the bus was two or three blocks away and I was used to it stopping outside my door in England, a double-decker bus, you know. Oh, and I didn‟t tell you, I wasn‟t supposed to have another child for four years because my first child‟s birth was so difficult but the doctor, he said you probably won‟t get pregnant because your womb is tilted. 36:07 Well, I thought I wouldn‟t get …well, right away. Now here comes number two child. I couldn‟t drive, we didn‟t have a car, not for several years, and so I used to take them both up two or three blocks to get on the bus to go into town. But it was different, you know, just very, very different. And another thing is my husband was a workaholic and I don‟t know but…you know, when you meet someone in a different…you don‟t know that you‟re not really the same, you know? And I can remember always at home you were always there at meal time unless you were gone somewhere else that they knew about, and he would not come home. And we had a phone, I thought that was wonderful, and he wouldn‟t even take the time to call. 37:02 Now, I wasn‟t used to that. And I remember going to the door, you know, I wanted to be a perfect little wife and had the meals nice and I would be at the doorway, furious. So that was hard to get used to, but I got used to it. You get used to anything eventually, if almost as bad as World War Two. And if I called him to say, “Are you going to be home?” because he did, he worked really hard, he was always a worker. And he‟d say “I don‟t know, I don‟t know yet.” I‟d say, “Could you give me an idea of the time because I need to know.” And he‟d say, “Oh sometime between seven and nine.” So it was hard, but as I say, I got used to it. Now I had two children and so I just dealt with it, you know. �Interviewer: Did you get to go back to England? Well, that‟s another thing. Because of the difficult birth of my first child, and the second birth after it, I had terrible inflammation. 38:00 I was in pain. I used to pass out almost on the middle of the floor, and I had two children to take care of. So I went to the doctors and they wanted to operate. Well, I didn‟t have anyone to take of the two children, although my neighbors, I know the neighbors we were so friendly with would have, but there was two of them and I…so I elected to go home and have it. And so I took the two babies home and I went on the Queen Elizabeth and it didn‟t have stabilizers and they got seasick, I got seasick, Jennifer came down with a whooping cough on the way over. And so when I went through customs in Southampton the officers, you know, they used to really look in your bags then and he started to open it up and I saw my father over behind the barrier and I started crying. He just x-ed everything and sent me on my way. 39:01 Then I went home again in ‟56 and the girls were nine and ten, or … yeah, nine and ten, and my little boy was four years old. And one of our friends said, “when you see somebody over in England you say to them „up your bloody buckets, jocko.‟” I said you shouldn‟t tell them that. I guess they were over in England and somebody had said that or something. It‟s “up your buttocks,” actually, but “buckets,” so here‟s Tommy saying, “up your bloody buckets, jocko,” and they‟d say, “what did you say, my dear?” I had good friends, they were just mischievous. Anyway, and then I didn‟t get to home again until 1961 when I went by myself then because the bishop of West Virginia was taking some ministers and their wives over with them on kind of a pilgrimage where they‟d go into parishes over there. 40:06 And they had some seats left over and I got to go over, fly over, that‟s the first time I flew for $125, and then I went, you know, down to my home then and while they were doing their thing. And later on �some of those parishes, they did the same thing from over there, and I helped to entertain a really nice minister and his wife from somewhere in England. Life goes on, doesn‟t it? Interviewer: Yes, and thanks for a good story here. Anything else you’d like to add to the record here, before we close out? Well, for the record I would like to say that in 1944 Glenn Miller performed for the troops in Plymouth at the theater and, Harry was in France, so it must have been later in ‟44, and so one of his buddies that didn‟t go over took me to this because it was for servicemen, you know. 41:11 And oh, that show was fabulous. Glenn Miller, I mean, he played “String of Pearls” and all this stuff and then he signed autographs, but I didn‟t go up and get an autograph. I wish I had, but whoever was taking me needed…and so, the picture was in the paper, and then that was the last performance he ever gave. And you know, he was famous, Glenn Miller, and they made a movie about him after. But his plane was on the way over to Paris to arrange for the band to come over to entertain the troops and never got there. God, that‟s horrible isn‟t it. 42:00 Interviewer: Well, thank you very much for taking the time to tell me your story today. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KilmerD1343V Title A name given to the resource Kilmer, Dora (Interview transcript and video), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kilmer, Dora Description An account of the resource Dora Kilmer was born in Plymouth, England, in 1924. After high school, she worked for a gas company in the office and eventually worked as an air raid warden. As an air raid warden, she patrolled outside and assisted others in getting into the shelters during the raids. She met an American soldier stationed there and married him in 1945 towards the end of the war. Eventually, she went back to the US with her husband and lived in West Virginia, and eventually Michigan. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-02-01 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/652f293ce983671966727471eb85c729.pdf 9672da2bedc655390997fc73846423a6 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran's History Project General Dave Kim Total Time (00:06:21) Background  Before Dave joined the military, he did security both armed and unarmed in Arizona (00:00:52) ◦ He felt he had to go into the Marine Corps and tried once back in 1983 and was disqualified as a result of a minor injury; he turned down two police department jobs in late 1985/early 1986 and went into the Marine Corps (00:01:19) Marine Corps (00:01:24)  Dave mentioned he lucked out on being sent to Camp Pendleton rather than Camp Lejeune because the sand fleas were terrible there; Camp Pendleton in California has Mt. Mother which is a tough hill to train on (00:01:55) ◦ Dave loved working as a machine gunner and the weaponry that went with it (00:02:40) ▪ Dave occasionally wrote letters to friends and family to keep in touch and that it was different back then without intense internet access (00:03:38) Post Military (00:03:55)  Dave advises those that want to join the military to do it and that it is not supposed to be easy or simple and that it will be hard but it's ultimately worth it (00:5:26) ◦ He did not join the military for a paycheck and advises against joining it for that reason (00:05:36) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KimD1512V Title A name given to the resource Kim, Dave (Interview outline), 2013 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kim, Dave Description An account of the resource Dave Kim joined the military after doing security in Arizona. He tried to enlist in 1983 but was disqualified due to a minor injury and finally was accepted between late 1985 and early 1986. Dave trained at Camp Pendleton in San Diego, California where he trained and worked as a machine gunner. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kim, Devon (Interviewer) Caledonia High School (Caledonia, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American United States. Marine Corps Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-05-16 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c4aaca68f5daa2940eee9707a9840425.mp4 e5c5f374bf75a387b943fcf818eaaba8 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6db4bbcc5e5f0474beafcc040b5c01c5.pdf b9279c3a8baed70e8c7e7bfc6c357707 PDF Text Text ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW DENTON K. KIME Born: Niles, Michigan March 11, 1942 Resides: Interviewed by: Richard Massa, GVSU Veterans History Project, Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, February 7, 2014 My name is Denton Kime; date of birth is March 11, 1942. Once again, my name is Denton Kime, date of birth 3/11/1942. Interviewer: Today is Thursday, January 14, 2010. We are at Lake Michigan College in Benton Harbor, Michigan and our interviewee is Denton Kime. Denny was born on March 11, 1942 in Niles, Michigan. The interviewer is Richard Massa. We are performing this interview as part of the Veterans History Project being conducted by Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. Denny, let’s start with a little background. Where were you born and where did you grow up during your high school years? Niles, Michigan was my home town. We lived east of Niles in Howard Township of Cass County, a little resort area called Baron Lake. 1:06 I grew up in the neighborhood at Baron Lake, I went to high school at Niles. I graduated from Niles in 1960, and was active in athletics, student activities, after school work, week-ends etc. I went off to college and went to Albion College. My interest was pre-medical, I had visions of becoming a doctor, but basically I went to Albion, because I was able to play football there. I wasn’t able to play football at Notre Dame where I wanted to go, but I wasn’t big enough, or good enough, so Albion was a good choice for me. I had four years there, I failed to graduate on time, I neglected to complete a couple of graduation requirements, 1 �so once I was no longer a student at Albion I received a draft notice. 2:01 I was invited to join the United States military. They ordered me to report for the Army and I went to the draft board with a plea to be allowed to join the Marines. I had always looked up to the marines. I had a neighbor who was in the Korean War, with the Marines in the Korean War. My father had always talked about serving in the military, he had missed both WWI and WWII, and his favorite branch would have been the marines. If he could have gone in, he would have gone into the Marines, so I was kind of leaning towards the marines. The draft board said, “If they’ll have you, that’s good enough for us”, so then I went to the marine recruiter and the rest is history. Interviewer: As a college graduate, do they offer an officer candidate program, or anything like that? Yes they do, but I wasn’t a graduate. 3:00 I missed graduation, as I say, I hadn’t completed a couple requirements. I was short two semester hours of credit and I had failed to complete a second year of the foreign language, so in my case I would have been eligible for officer candidate school after a tour of duty in Vietnam. That was the way it was set up with the Marines, you come in, go through your basic and do your tour of duty, thirteen months at that time, and then you can make application for OCS, or various other schools that require a college background. In my case, I was interested in flying. The neighbor marine that I mentioned was a pilot and I thought that I would like to fly. Another fellow and I, at the college, had gone to the Air Force school—not the Air Force school, but the—I guess they call it the assessment center, and we had come away with very high scores. 4:05 So, I did the same thing with the navy flight assessment program and received high scores there, so I would have been eligible to fly at that time, had I 2 �graduated, but it didn’t work out. I didn’t graduate, so I couldn’t fly right then, I had to serve a tour in Vietnam, so I ended up going the hard way. Interviewer: Where did you go for the basic training? San Diego, recruit depot, San Diego Interviewer: How long was that? My basic was twelve weeks. Interviewer: Then did you go into any specialty training beyond basic? Advance Infantry Tactics, my military specialty was 03-11, which was a combat infantryman. Following basic training I had about a fifteen day furlough and that was right around the Christmas holiday, Christmas and New Year’s. 5:04 I reported back to, in this case, Camp Pendleton, and we underwent what was called advanced infantry training. It was small group training with platoon and squad activities, fire teams, and we were involved with that kind of training for about four weeks. Then they sent us off to staging battalion, this was at Camp Pendleton as well, and we were there about three weeks before being deployed to Vietnam. Interviewer: Did you have any—were you married at the time or still single? No, I was a single person. Interviewer: In this final bit of training, was that done as a squad that then went over in a whole unit, or were individuals scattered? That’s a good question. I went as an individual replacement, and I was nicknamed an IR, as Individual replacements were. Our training was all small weapons, or small squad tactics. 6:03 Teams of four, eight, twelve, sixteen and then we multiplied sixteens, you know, thirty-two and then another thirty-two to make a platoon. There were four squads 3 �for a platoon, the way the Marine Corps had it set up at that time. The people that I trained with, however, went different directions once we got to Vietnam. We went over on a ship and I was one of the lucky guys that got to ride a troop ship for twenty days with about eighteen hundred crazy marines. I got to read a lot of books, a lot of PT, scrubbed a lot of rusty walls, rails and things like that, trying to maintain some of the ship. After twenty days we arrived in Da Nang, and we were all individual replacements except for one group. There was one company of marines, I don’t remember what the designation was now, but they went together. 7:04 The rest of us were individuals and when we got to Da Nang we split and went in different directions. Interviewer: Do you remember your send off? Was there any kind of a ceremony? Did you have family in your fifteen day furlough? No, no, my dad put me on the train in Niles after my basic training furlough, and rode the train—there was no one, just my dad was with me at the train station. I rode the train into Detroit, there was a pick-up there from Fort Wayne, and there was a processing center at that time in Detroit. We stayed overnight in Detroit and then we were bussed out to the Detroit Metro Airport the next morning, and we flew, then, from Detroit to San Diego. No hoopla, no send-off, just get up and go. Interviewer: On your troop ship going across the Pacific, did you get to stop in Hawaii or anything? No—yes we did. 8:04 We stopped, it was Hoka Reef, we stopped in Naha, Naha Harbor in the Philippines and we had twelve hours of short leave for those who wanted to go. So, two other marines and I went in and we found a little restaurant and had some food, some Japanese food. A little while later we were overnight in Pearl Harbor taking 4 �on supplies and fuel and picking up some officers that were going to Vietnam, but we were not allowed to get off the ship at that time. So, I had fourteen hours in Naha and no hours in Pearl Harbor and that was it. Interviewer: Do you recall when you landed in Da Nang; you said it was, what was your feeling, or impressions at that time? 9:00 Well, we all floated in Da Nang, just a big kind of gangplank kind of thing, down and back and I remember thinking, “This is the place where I’m going to die”. I was thinking that, because I landed in Da Nang on the tenth of March, my birthday was the eleventh of March and I was going to be twenty-four years old. For years, and I don’t know why, I had always thought I’d be dead before I was twenty-five. I just—something was going to happen, car wreck, a tree is going to fall on me, something, and I don’t know why I felt that way, but I did. When I landed in Da Nang on the tenth of March, a day ahead of my twenty-fourth birthday, I said, “This is it”. This is where I’m going to die. Then I just went on, I got met by the people who I was going to be assigned to and we went from there. 10:02 Interviewer: What kind of a group was that? Was it a squad or a platoon? Well, I went as an individual replacement, a fellow that was there ahead of me, in that particular slot, had rotated back home, he had served thirteen months. He was gone and I didn’t see him. I was assigned to a squad and then, subsequently, I was assigned to a fire team within the squad. All of our tactics, like I say, were wrapped around the squads, squads and platoons at that time. I was the only one to go into my particular platoon from the group that had been on the ship, from the group that had been at Camp Pendleton, so I didn’t know anybody. There were people there who had been there since 5 �the marines first landed in Vietnam in force, about 1965, in October [March]. 11:00 A couple of the fellows had come in--a sergeant and a staff sergeant had come in with the first group. My squad leader was a corporal and he came in November of 1965, and I don’t know when the rest of them came in. They were all fresh in country, actually, and hadn’t been there a year yet, and this was in March of 1966. The first deployments of large company, or battalion, size groups came in October of 1965. I was during that buildup time. Interviewer: Did your twenty days of travel on the ship count toward your thirteen months? Yes, it did, it did, which was good news. Interviewer: Once your squad started going out as a fire group, what type terrain were you in? Was it in lowlands, or up in the mountains? 12:02 Da Nang is right on the South China Sea and there’s a large river that comes in there. It was a deep water port and it also had a very large airbase. It was in a huge valley, a huge river valley. That valley had to be two miles across and as flat as could be. Of course it went inland, probably twenty-five, or thirty miles and then it started narrowing down and getting close to where the hills began. But, in the Da Nang area itself, where we were, it was pretty flat. Across the river there were a couple mountains, one was called Monkey Mountain and one was called Marble Mountain and they were there on what would have been the south side of the river. 13:00 Then to the north, a couple miles out of town, there were a series of hills of fairly low elevation, and that was the early, interior border of the valley, but basically it was flat. It was rice paddies; it was vegetable fields, lots and lots of little hamlets where people had been relocated from the interior to get away 6 �from the Vietcong, to get away from the fighting that was going on interior. These relocation camps were set up around Da Nang and it was a relatively secure area when I was there. It became a little bit more unstable as time went on and the Vietcong began to put pressure on Da Nang, because Da Nang was—it was critical to the United States as a supply area. 14:00 There were no highways to bring materials into Vietnam across terrain from other countries. We had Laos on one corner and Cambodia on another corner and both had claimed neutrality. North Vietnam, of course, on the other side of the DMZ , so the only way to bring supplies in was either with aircraft, or with the navy, you know, the vessels, aquatic vessels. We were the deep water port and the big airbase, all weather, all vehicles, airbase in the northern part of South Vietnam. Interviewer: So, you were always in the Da Nang area? My service was always in the Da Nang area, yeah. Interviewer: What did your patrols do? We—the company that I was assigned to, Delta Company; we were tasked with the security of the airport on the south end of the airport, and there was another marine company that had the north end of the airport and we just—we had a perimeter that had been established and our work was to reinforce that perimeter. 15:03 That meant building of barriers of concertina wire, engineers put in mines, and we did clearing operations where the vegetation was removed, so we had clear fields of fire. We relocated villages and buildings that were in the free fire zone, or the cleared zone. Work parties every day, nighttime patrols, and listening posts. We would go out, and not every night, if we weren’t on a nighttime patrol outside the perimeters, we were on firing positions, at the perimeter, and that was every day. During the day, if we weren’t 7 �involved in a work party, building barriers, or barricades, or developing new ones that were there, we were in the perimeter firing positions, the gun positions. 16:01 it alternated, but it was around the clock, it was twenty-four seven. We’d catch sleep when we could, and about the only regular thing was an afternoon meal. Chow hall was available to us around five, between five and six o’clock in the afternoon. If we were going on daytime patrols and leaving in the morning, we could catch breakfast in the chow hall. the lunch was always C rations, no matter where—we were either out on patrol, or we were working , but in either regard, we had C rations, but we did have one hot meal a day, that was a good thing. Interviewer: Now, the patrols that were outside the concertina barrier there, can you describe what would go on with that? Did you encounter the enemy within that range? 17:00 When I was there the Vietcong had not got, in large numbers, close to Da Nang, they were moving in that directions down the valley, and that was to the west and the southwest of the city. They hadn’t gotten there in large number, so what we encountered was, basically, some booby traps. For the most part it was a relocation area where civilians had been moved to get them out of harm’s way and our job was to make a presence and let people know that we were there. We were, however, looking for the booby traps, material that could be used for weapons, caches of arms, food, any of those kinds of things, and trying to make contact with the civilians to let them know that we were on their side. 18:00 We did encounter a few, what we called, suspicious persons. The interesting thing was, at that time when you would go looking for people, you would find old people, lots of old people, and you’d find lots of young people. Young, meaning 8 �up to about ten, eleven and twelve and after that you didn’t see any young people and they had gone off to be in the military, the ARVN, the Republic of Vietnam, South Vietnam army, or they were serving with the Vietcong and they weren’t home. If you went into one of these little vills and found a man of age twenty, twenty-one, or twentytwo, you want to be suspicious of that person, because he shouldn’t be there and he should be with one of these other designated units. 19:00 Well, they had identification cards and they also had access to fake identification cards and all we could do was check their ID’s and if they had a valid ID, we let them go. If there was any question, we would bring them back to the company area and there were some Vietnamese interpreters there and they would be interrogated. We did find people, and we did bring them back and I can’t tell you what happened to any one of them, I know they went through an interrogation process and chances are some were released and some were detained, it just depended on the answers they gave at the time. But, it was a relatively quiet time and I served in the Da Nang area airbase from March until the end of April and then we packed up our stuff and moved to an area called Hill 55, which is about ten, or twelve, miles southwest of Da Nang, it’s out in this valley that I told you about. 20:00 The hill was not really a big hill; fifty- five means that it was fifty-five meters above sea level, and that was the highest elevation point on that hill. It was high enough that you could see out across the valley. Another marine company had been there and they rotated with us, so now we’re at Hill 55, and this other Marine company came back and took up positions at the south end of the airbase, and then things changed dramatically. Now our task was not a perimeter security situation. Hill 55 was a firebase, there was some artillery pieces set up there, big artillery, 155 mm, 155’s, and then there were some 9 �smaller tubes there as well. Some tanks that were set up—it basically was an artillery firebase to provide support to the units working the valley. 21:02 The area of the valley that we were going to be working was called “Dodge City”, and it was called “Dodge City” primarily because of a reference to the old western, “Dodge City”, with the vigilantes, the bad guys, and the good guys, the shootouts in the streets and the rough and tumble way of life. All of the “Dodge City” area was a free fire zone, anything there was fair game, but we had to be careful, because there were little hamlets. As long as the people were in the hamlets it wasn’t a free fire zone, but if they were out away from the hamlets, then they could become targets. That put them in jeopardy, because that’s where the rice fields were and they had to come out and operate their rice fields. 22:00 So, we had a tough time, sometimes, deciding about valid targets, and most of the time we erred on the side of caution. These people had to make a living, work the fields, and we walked through the fields the same as they did, you know, on our search and clear missions, and that was our new task. Once we got to Hill 55 our task was to clear the Vietcong from the area, find and destroy anything that would give them support, weapons, food, caches, explosives, anything like that. Interviewer: Did you find those things often? Every day, we found stuff every day, and lots of it, and one of the side effects of that was, the area was infested with booby traps. If you look at the history that goes with that, the Vietcong had been fighting the French for many, many years. 23:03 Finally they had kicked the French out in the middle fifties and the United States, wanting to shore up South Vietnam, provided support to the South Vietnam military and government. We had instructors there, these were the Special Forces people, and other instructional 10 �personnel, but they were viewed the same as the French by the Vietcong and by the North Vietnamese. These were foreign people and they weren’t welcome, so there was a continuing—once the French were defeated, the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese continued—they had a goal of reuniting North and South Vietnam. 24:00 The country had been split by the peace accords of 1954 or 1955, I forget the year, after the French were defeated. There was a mission from the north to reunited North and South Vietnam, and because we were, the United States was, and some of the other foreign countries in there, helping the South Vietnamese government, we were then targets. They wanted us gone like they wanted the French gone, so they continued their war effort, even after the war with the French stopped. Well, when the marines came into the area in 1965 and 1966, the Vietcong had a ten year head start on them, on this buildup of defensive and offensive weaponry, and they were very good about the booby traps, there were all kinds of things that they were very clever about. 25:00 Interviewer: If they set so many booby traps around, how did they manage to avoid them when another group that wasn’t a part of the ones setting the traps? One of the interesting things was the hamlets, the little villages, were pretty much selfcontained and the peoples stayed in those villages and they knew where the booby traps were. Interviewer: Did we find out the code to how you know where there is a booby trap? What it looks like or how to avoid them? Yeah, yeah, there were some tells [?] on some of them that helped us find them, but the Vietcong would put these booby traps in place and they would inform the locals and say, “This is an area where you want to stay away from”, and the locals did. Or, in the case of 11 �the one that injured me--this was a foot trap on the—there was a path between two rows of banana palms. 26:00 We were--in the United States we tend to travel on the right side of the road, in vehicles, and we also tend to travel on the right side of the road when we’re walking on paths and sidewalks, and the Vietcong knew that. They’re smart and they watched us, so they put booby traps, not on the path, but to the side and they put them to the side, so where, if you’re walking on this, because we were told, “Don’t walk on the paths because there’s booby traps in there”. Well, they’re one step ahead of us and now the booby traps off the path where we’re walking. Sometimes you could see them and the one that got me was a foot trap and it was covered with a woven bamboo cover sprinkled over with dirt and I didn’t see it until I stepped in it, and it was rigged to blow up. 27:00 But, sometimes those, if they’ve been there for a while, would kind of get swayback, so as you walk along you’re scanning the ground and you’re looking for little depressions, because the ground was pretty flat and it is clay, it’s hard, I mean firm. A little depression in a clay area, or a flat area, shouldn’t be there and that was one of the tells. Along the banana palms you just look for trip wires and you had to be real careful, because they were clever about hiding trip wires. With the bamboo, they would split bamboo lengthwise and put the explosive charge in between the two halves of the bamboo and let it come back together naturally and then there would be a trip wire. A lot of times these were placed shoulder high with the trip wires up here, and we’re, of course, looking for the ones that are down there on the ground, because we’re use to finding them on the ground, so then you run into it with your head. 28:02 Interviewer: Having to be real careful walking along, how far could you go, in say, an hour? 12 �I never really measured that and I don’t know. We’d go out at first light and we’d come back when the sun was going down and we’d be on the move most of the day with the stops in between. If we found booby traps, we’d blow them up. The engineers were with us and they’d just put composition C-4 on it and it would blow it. If we found spider holes, they were little holes in the ground where snipers would jump out, we’d blow those. A lot of those spider holes, we found out later, I found out later after I was back home, that they, actually, were connected to underground tunnel networks. We didn’t realize that at first when we were there, we thought they were just holes dug in the ground and the snipers would get in these holes at nighttime, and then when it got daylight an the Marines came by, or the United States forces came by they would lift the lid up enough to get a rifle shot off and then they’d drop back in the hole. 29:08 Well, these are all located in tree lines and foliage, so they’re not easy to see from any distance. If you’re not looking in the direction where the spider holes are, you don’t see the lid go up and down. Occasionally the lid would come up and you might be able to get a visual on that particular area, but most of the time you didn’t see them. So, it was probing, you know, we’d know that they were there someplace, so we’d go and we’d probe with the rifles with bayonets, and we’d just kind of poke and look for something, and these covers would come loose and we’d put explosives in them and destroy them. Interviewer: You mentioned that was you were out on one of these patrols, you actually stepped on one of the booby traps and did you have medics as part of your patrol group” 30:07 We did, we had a navy corpsman and he was attached to our platoon. He went with us whenever we went out, in fact, he was with us all the time, he was kind of like our base 13 �doctor. If we had any medical issue, we’d go and see Doc Cooper. We never knew his first name; we just always called him Cooper. But, he was with us on all of our field operations and I will tell you, he was busy every day. We took casualties every day. As a matter of fact, the unit I was assigned to, Delta Company of the 1st Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment. 1-9, the 1st Battalion of the 9th, had the nickname “The walking dead” and that came directly from Vietnam. That unit, that 9th Marine Regiment, had over ninety percent casualties during its tour in Vietnam, during its two and a half years that it served in Vietnam. 31:07 Of the people assigned to that regiment ninety percent, well, it was about ninety two percent, that were injured, or killed. We held the record for the Marines and about eighty three or eighty four percent of those casualties were from booby traps, and most of them came from Hill 55 and the—well, Dodge City. Then there was another area and I forget what that was called now, but that was a little farther south and a little bit more to the west, but it was also very hot as far as booby traps were concerned. Interviewer: Out on these patrols, did you ever encounter ambush situations? No, while I was there, the only encountering we ran into was snipers and booby traps. 32:00 No firefights, no rockets, no mortars, it was pretty quiet most of the time, except when we triggered something. Now, you asked a little earlier about medevac and the medics. We had medical support, we had corpsmen with us, and in the case of injuries we always would call in a medevac chopper. They responded and were with us very shortly, in five or—well, closer to ten minutes. People were transported to a field hospital somewhere around Da Nang; I’m not sure where that was. In my case I was injured, medevac came in, and they took me to this field hospital. The doctors did a quick look at me, made an assessment and said, “There’s nothing we can do here for this 14 �one, he needs to go to the hospital ship”. 33:00 At that time, Hospital Ship Repose was stationed just off shore at Da Nang and it was in the South China Sea. So, I was put back on the medevac and out to the hospital ship. I was there for about ten days and then I was transferred back to the United States on an air force C-130 I believe it was, Star Lifter. I don’t know what the number is, but it was a big ship that was rigged up as an inflight hospital. It took a load of casualties back to the states. Interviewer: Once you were out at Hill 55 then you didn’t have an opportunity to go back to off the lines area, you went directly, due to your injury, on the way back? Before you went out to Hill 55 did you have an opportunity for any leave, or recreation? No, R&R was available after about six months, roughly, to the Marines at that time. 34:05 I was only there two months before I was injured, so I missed going to Bangkok and Pearl Harbor, and Honolulu and Saigon. Actually, Saigon was a destination city and I didn’t get to go there either. Not like Bud Baker, his story, and it was an R&R town also. But, I was never eligible; I hadn’t served long enough, so I didn’t get any R&R. Interviewer: The first couple of months did you interact with the local, the natives, to any extent? Not much, and of course, when we were on patrols, you know, we tried to leave a soft footprint, we tried to do our job, yet not disturb them very much, although our presence was intrusive. 35:00 The little people were fascinated, the young ones, the children, were fascinated by the American military and primarily because of the size. The Vietnamese people are very small and the American military’s—we had a lot of big guys. The Vietnamese were very sensitive to skin color. In their own ethnic groups skin color 15 �is very important to them and they were fascinated by the black Americans, they wanted to touch the black Americans and the American Indians, Native Americans, because they had kind of a rusty orangish kind of complexion, and the Hispanics. They were just curious about that, it was something they hadn’t seen, so they were fascinated by that. 36:02 The little ones would come up and they would put their hands up, they wanted to touch. Of course, they were poor and so, they were always looking for handouts. Some of the early military people had handed out gum, or candy and so, the word got around that the Americans are coming along, you come up, put your hand out and maybe you’ll get something, it depends on the individuals. We were told to not do that and, “don’t encourage that kind of thing”. It was, really, a sadness, because they were beautiful little children, very poor, but yet, if they were around us and somebody started shooting at us, they were in the way as well, so it was better for them to just not to be where we were. 37:00 They were curious and they would come a running. Interviewer: During the time you were in Vietnam di you communicate regularly with your family back in Niles? Yah, I tried to write, I tried to write a couple of times a week. We didn’t have any particular time when we could do it, just a few minutes now, or then. We had mail call about every other day and it took about ten days for a letter to transfer from Vietnam to home, or from home to Vietnam. My mother was real good about sending care packages, cookies and gum, some things that made the day go along, you know, some deodorant, some razor blades, safety razors, and that kind of stuff. We always shared that with everybody. 38:02 If I got some cookies, whoever happened to be around, we’d pass those around. We did not have the kinds of set ups that are here today, there was no e- 16 �mail, there were not computers, there were no telephones. There was a military channel available for emergencies that would hook into shortwave radio setups in the United States and in foreign countries and they could patch communication s through from Vietnam back to the US, but that was a real cumbersome thing, it was difficult to get it together and it was almost not available to everybody. It was just a very serious emergency kind of contact, but it did work, so we relied on letters, cards and letters. Interviewer: Now, when you wrote your letters and did your communication, did you get the family and accurate picture of the dangerous situation you were in, or did you try to keep a lighter face on it? 39:08 Well, I tried to be positive about it, but I told them what was going on and some of the things that were hazards. They knew, when you’re in a combat situation, people have a general understanding that it’s a dangerous place. They may not know the specifics of what’s going to cause the cause the danger, or what might be the concentration. You know, I can talk about a booby trap , but maybe in their minds, you know, they think of booby traps as being everyplace, no matter where you step, no matter where you stand, no matter where you sit down, or what you touch. It’s a perspective kind of thing, so it’s difficult, sometimes, to not create fear, or alarm, but at the same time, I try to be accurate. 40:08 Telling about what was going on, telling about the people, the plants and the animals, and the food that we were eating, and the work that we were doing. I invited them all to come to Vietnam on a visiting tour when the war was over, it’s a beautiful country. Interviewer: Have you gone back? I went back in April of this year, yes sir, an absolutely beautiful country. 17 �Interviewer: What was your feeling as you landed there this time? It was a little different and, actually, I was glad to go back. I went with a group of other veterans and our spouses and we got into Vietnam, it was a guided tour, guided by people who had been there before, a group of United States Marine veterans that started a company out of Texas and they take groups back to Vietnam. 41:00 We were curious, all of us who had served there, we had the curiosity of what was it like now compared to what it was like in the sixties , or seventies, when we were there and, of course, there were very few relics, or remnants of the war, it’s mostly gone, except in certain areas that are set aside kind of like museums, little museums and you could go there and see some of the artifacts that were collected during the war. For the most part, it’s a vibrant country, it’s got new buildings, everything was destroyed during the war—I can’t say everything, but most everything was destroyed in the war, so in the last thirty-five years, or so, all this is new. The population is very young, as an average, and all of the young people came after the war, so their memory is of different things. 42:03 The older citizens remember the war and we had occasion to talk to a lot of the older Vietnamese people, those that had lived in South Vietnam, some that had lived in North Vietnam, we talked to North Vietnam army soldiers, veterans, and we talked with Vietcong veterans. Interviewer: How did that interaction go? Surprisingly, it was a very comfortable setting. We kind of thought they might hold anger and have a retaliatory sense about them, but not at all. They were—the Vietnamese people—well, a large part of the population is Buddhist, not all of them by any means, but a large part is Buddhist and there is a sense of living in the present. 43:01 They live today, they cherish their history, in fact, we saw buildings there that were two and three 18 �thousand years old and still being used, religious structures, but these folks tend to live in the present and they had moved beyond the war. They said the war was over. Their goal was achieve, the North Vietnamese goal was achieve, that is, get the foreign powers out of the country, get them out, and of course they did, so they were successful and they were happy with their victory, and they claim it as such. The liberation forces won, according to them, and that was true. They reunited the North and South Vietnam into one Vietnam. South Vietnam’s government crumbled and was taken over by the communists. 44:03 But, the people, they’re hard working, their industrious, they’re clever, they have a beautiful sense of humor, they’re, in a modern sense—it was interesting to see, they pack cell phones like we have cell phones here and they—you go out through the countryside and you see a straw, or a palm thatched hooch, house, and up on top of it is a satellite dish. They’re living the old way, yet they have the new things incorporated. Interviewer: Now, as part of your traveling around, were you able to, or did you have a desire, to go back to some of the areas you patrolled? We did indeed; Vietnam Battlefield Tours sponsored our group. They inventoried us before the trip and they said to us, “Where did you serve? Do you want to go back to where you served? Is there any other place in Vietnam you want to see?” 45:05 they tailored the trip so everybody who went, got to go wherever they wanted to go and they hit it one hundred percent. Every vet got back to where he had served and we had one guy that had served in five different places and we got all five of them. The tour people put it together. They took me back to Da Nang, and actually spent two days there, not just because of me, but because of the surrounding area. We were standing on Hill 55 19 �again and it’s significantly different today, it’s just a lot of grass and weeds, small brush and things like that, all the military stuff is gone. All the bases are dismantled, all firebases are gone, all the landing zones are gone, and all the observation posts are gone with the exception of a few of the air bases that the Vietnamese army is using. 46:02 they’ve maintained the runways and they have the buildings looking sharp, they’ve got them clean and neat, “strack” they call it, and they really take care of it. Interviewer: Getting back to you exit from Vietnam, where did you enter back into the United States? Well, from hospital ship Repose, I was transferred back to—I had my choice of a hospital in California, near Clark airbase, or Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland and I chose Bethesda, because it was closer to Michigan. I figured my family would have a better chance of coming to see me, being in Bethesda, as opposed to being in California. I could have gone either place, it was my choice, so I was at Bethesda and I spent about three months there and then I was released to go home. 47:00 Interviewer: Did your family make it out to Maryland? They did, my dad and mom were out, my sis came a couple of friends from college who lived not too far away came over and there was a gal from high school who had moved and was living in Virginia, not too far away, she came to visit. As I got a little better on, after things started to heal a little bit, I was able to get out of there on week-ends, so I was invited to go to a couple of different locations and be guest of the family, these were folks I’d gone to school with. Interviewer: Do you remember the feeling of what it was like to be back on American soil, relief or achievement? 20 �Well, it was interesting, because I came back—when I left the hospital ship I was pretty much blind. 48:00 I could see light, I could see dark, but beyond that I couldn’t, so I knew that it was daylight leaving the hospital ship. When I got to the United States it was dark time. I don’t know what time it was, but it was, as it turned out, sometime in the morning, two o’clock, three o’clock, four o’clock in the morning, something like that, and I was transferred immediately from the airplane, into the ambulance, to the hospital, and through the in processing and into the big squad bay where there were, probably, thirty beds. It was something like that, it was a big long room with beds on either side and there were ten, or twelve, beds on either side, maybe a little bit more. That all happened at night, it all happened when I couldn’t see very much, so my first recollections were just sounds. 49:01 Sounds of the airport, sounds of the ambulance, sounds of the people talking and equipment being moved around and so on, and then I was in bed. It was weeks, literally, before I could see well enough to even know what the room looked like, or have a chance to look outside. It was summertime, it was, probably, July by then and that was, probably, the first time where I could look out and see grass and green trees and recognize them as being part of the United States and not bamboo, or banana palms, which were the dominant vegetation in the Da Nang area. Interviewer: Now, then you say your rehabilitation there took three months? Roughly Interviewer: Then once you were released from the hospital, was that the end of your obligation in the service? 50:03 No, no, I’m still receiving treatment. I had damage to both eyes and my ears. I go once a year to the Kellogg Eye Center in Ann Arbor for assessment. I just had a laser procedure 21 �done on my right eye here in October, late October last year, to remove some scarring that occurred a long time ago, but it was getting worse on the little membrane that cover the lens , which is inside the eye. So, I had that work done and I’ve had corneal transplants, I’ve had an inner ocular lens put in one side and the work has all be, basically, to my eyes. 51:01 I’ve lost a little bit of hearing, but I’m not bad enough yet that I have to wear hearing aids and I’m okay with that right now, but it’s an ongoing thing. I put eye drops in every day, my left eye, which is the one we did the corneal transplant, that’s on going, that’s forever. I was pretty fortunate, with the damage that was done; the doctors did a pretty good job of salvaging me and the eyes and then actually rebuilding one of the eyes. I use my left eye now, primarily, my right eye is kind of a spare, it goes with me, but it doesn’t do much. I’m trying to encourage it to come back on line, but so far. Interviewer: After the three months in the hospital though, were you released from the Marine Corps? I was put on medical reserve. The technical thing was, I was reassigned and they didn’t want me to go back on active duty, because of my injuries. 52:02 I was put on medical reserve and about a year later I had to go to a VA hospital in, I went to Southfield, which is southwest of Detroit and went through a physical examination there. It was determined that the injuries I had were permanent, so at that point I was discharged, well following the paperwork process, I was discharged for medical reasons. It’s not the same, technically it’s like an honorable discharge, but it’s not. I mean, there’s no penalty associated with it, they don’t call it honorable because it wasn’t honorable it was because of medical. I got a medical discharge and that was the last time I was there. 53:01 22 �About five years after that I had to fill out some paper work and send it through, with a statement from an optometrist, no an ophthalmologist, an eye doctor, regarding the condition of my eyes, but I haven’t heard anything from them since. I get disability compensation ever since, well, ever since I got back, it started right away. Interviewer: Then when you were released you came back to the Niles area? Actually, I came back to Niles only for a very short time. I had earned some GI Bill benefits, I hadn’t graduated from college, so I went back to school with the idea of graduating and I didn’t do a good job of it, I failed, flunked out again, so then I went to work. I was in Albion and I went to work in a factory there, just labor, punch presses and spot welders, and things of that nature, and not knowing what I was going to do. 54:09 I’d pretty much burned my bridges at Albion and I didn’t have a degree, I didn’t have anything I could market, as far as job training was concerned. My vision wasn’t good. I thought at one time I might go into the state police and that was before I was in the service, but I thought about doing that, but I couldn’t go into the state police now, because of my visual impairment, so that was not available to me. So, I just kind of got a job and got through the day and paid the bills, you know, just lived day by day not knowing what I was going to do. Then I had an opportunity to go to a wedding, my best friend's brother was getting married. 55:01 I was invited to his wedding and it was going to be in Lansing. I was seeing a young lady at the time, so I asked her if she would go with me to this wedding. She said she would, so we went up to Lansing. We were there enjoying the day with our friends, my friends, and she was just meeting these people. Well, as it turns out, my friend's dad worked in the school system and he had become friends with the superintendent in that school system and the superintendent had 23 �been invited to the wedding. While I was there we got into a conversation with my friend's dad about needing some teachers to fill certain positions in the school, so my friends dad said, “Well, you need to talk to Willy Bill”, and that was the girl that I was dating, “she’s a teacher, maybe she’ll come and teach for you”. Well, the superintendent did talk to Wilma and she said, “I can’t, I’ve got a contract for this year, but you should talk to Denny, he’s got a science background, you’re looking for a science teacher and he’s got a major in Biology”. 56:09 So, the superintendent came to me and said, “would you be interested in teaching high school Biology?” I had never thought about doing that and I said, “I’ll have to think about it”, and he said, “Well, you come down to our school on Monday about two o’clock and you can meet with the high school principal and you can let us know and in the meantime you think about it”. So, I did and I went in and met with the principal and he said, “Here, let me show you the room you’re going to work in”, so we went to look at the old-- and this was an old high school. I went to look at the old science lab and he said, “I have to go, I have to meet with some parents, and when you’re done go see Janet”, who was the secretary. He said, “She’s got a contract there and some books that you can take a look in”. 57:04 Well, this was in August and school started about two weeks later, so I signed the contract. I had no idea what I was going to do , but I was eligible to teach in Michigan at that time, under the law. I had over a hundred and twenty semester hours of course work, I was a double major and I could qualify as a full time substitute under the guidelines that were in effect then. Quite honestly, they were looking for most anybody that would walk in off the street, the way it worked out. I went to school there, I taught three years and then I had to go back to school, because the state laws changed and now teachers, who were full time teachers, 24 �had to be fully certified. 58:00 So, now after teaching three years I had to go back to school and get certified to be a teacher, which I did. I went back to Albion, and I had written them a letter and asked them if I could come back and finish up, and they were gracious enough to give me another chance. So, after being a senior four different times, I graduated. Then I had to do student teaching, which I did, and then I was a full time teacher, although I continued to take education classes. I had to get twenty some hours of education work to make my license permanent, so I did that in the first two years that I was teaching. I mean it would have been the fourth and fifth year, and then I continued on and I was a public school teacher for thirty one years before I retired. Interviewer: Back in this area? In Eau Claire, yes, I was teacher, coach, councilor, vice principle for three and a half years, and adjunct faculty for Lake Michigan College. 59:01 I taught biological science, I had a pretty good career as a teacher, and I, quite honestly, I fell into it because of being at that wedding, the superintendent of Eau Claire being there at that wedding, and the gal that I was dating having already signed a contract, otherwise it might have gone a different direction. Interviewer: So, did your military experiences help you any with your life afterward? Yes, self-discipline, getting through Marine Corps boot camp and AIT was a challenge, it was a serious challenge and it pushed me beyond what I thought my limits were. Vietnam was another serious challenge and that put me way beyond what I thought my limits were. 60:00 The discipline that developed out of that and the awareness that you can go farther than you think you are able to go, I think helped out, especially in the 25 �coaching end of things. It was easier for me to encourage the young people to work hard and to keep working hard even though things might not be going their way. Try to be positive about stuff and look for a way to get the job done and don’t complain about what you’re doing. If you got a job to do, find a way to get it done and do it legally and do it fairly, do it within the rules. Yeah, it helped that way. Interviewer: Is there anything else you would like to recall? Only that every once in a while I get a pang of guilt about not serving thirteen months. That was the tour duty and I only served two months. 1:00 Interviewer: That passes pretty rapidly though doesn’t it? I’ve learned to manage it, but it didn’t seem right, you know, three months in basic training, a month in AIT, and almost a month on the ship going over. Almost four months in the hospital after being injured and I was only in country two months and somehow it doesn’t balance out. But, that’s one of those existential karma things that I don’t spend a lot of time with. I’m a very fortunate person, I could have been dead, I could have been maimed in such a way that my life would have been way different and it just turned out that I had a pretty good life, so I’m okay with it, and we get to do these things too—be good people. Going back, if you’re interested in going back, get in touch with this “Vietnam Battlefield Tours” group. I can get you a contact if you want to find out about it. 2:00 It was a very interesting experience. It was fun, it was educational, we saw lots and lots of stuff that was cultural, and we got into places that the average tourist couldn’t get into, because they, over the years, made connections with the Vietnamese government. We had to have certain permissions; we had government provided interpreters, tour guides, which was real interesting, because these people have 26 �to be very careful what they say, because they work for the government. Although it’s not intrusive, it’s interesting to note that the world in Vietnam is controlled by the communist party. For example, if you want to vote in an election, you’re welcome to vote. You register like here, you go to the polling place, you can cast your ballot and you can vote. 3:03 However, you do not have a choice as to who the candidates are going to be, there are no primaries. The party politic picks the people who are going to be the candidates and you can vote for them, or not, but you only get to vote for one person, because that’s the only candidate that’s going to be on the ballot for that job in that location. You can work, you can earn a living, you can keep most of it, you have to pay taxes like we do here, but you can gain wealth and it’s a pretty interesting country. The food is great—beautiful tourism; there are beaches, beautiful beaches on the South China Sea. The hotels we stayed in were all four star, five star hotels with several floors, six, seven, eight, nine floors. They’re all new within the last thirty years, or so. 4:02 There is hot water, all you want, refrigeration, air conditioning, television, e-mail, internet, and it’s a buzzing town with lots and lots of street vendors, and they love to sell you stuff. You’ve got to be careful with the street vendors, because there are so many of them and they have—they’ll sell you whatever you need and they come from everywhere. We were out at this one observation post, I don’t remember where it was now exactly, centered in the central part of Vietnam, and we were headed south on our bus. We stopped here just because it was a spot that use to be pretty important in the war and now it’s just overgrown with grass and vines and stuff, but there were still a couple of French bunkers in there and there were still a couple of—they’re knocked down pretty much now, but firing positions that had been put together. 5:05 27 This is out—no villages, no �hamlets, there’s nothing, you got this road going down through this open area, and here’s this hill off to the side. We stopped and went up the hill and we turned and looked back down and where the bus was and around the bus were about fifteen, or so, of these street vendors on bicycles. Where did they come from? There were no buildings; there was nothing around where they could have been hiding. I don’t know where they came from, but there they were and, of course, they wanted to sell us stuff. It’s fun, it really is, and I’d say to go, you pay one money, it pays your room, your travel, all your food, and the only expenses you have in addition to that would be tips for the drivers if you wanted that, or stuff that you buy from the vendors, or at meals if you want an alcohol cocktail or a drink, that’s not included. 6:10 Teas is included in the—soft drinks are included; water is included, bottled water, so if you don’t drink beer, or whiskey you save a lot of money. I’m done unless you have other questions. Interviewer: No, I don’t think so and thank you very much. 6:31 28 �29 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KimeD Title A name given to the resource Kime, Denton (Interview transcript and video), 2010 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kime, Denton Description An account of the resource Denton Kime was born on March 11, 1942 in Niles, Michigan. After graduating from high school in 1960, Kime attended Albion College, although he did not graduate because he failed to complete some of the graduation requirements. Once out of Albion, Kime received his draft notification and after joining the Marines, went to the Recruit Depot San Diego for training. After completing his basic and advanced training, Kime deployed to Vietnam and spent his entire tour in the area around the city of Da Nang. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Massa, Richard (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Marine Corps Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-01-14 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4ff324ff20bdecd158c6524e9e6dd6cd.pdf de88fc3eefc4d3aa6de2a21f05fde250 PDF Text Text 1 Grand Valley State University Special Collections Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23 Mr. Charles MacLear Kindel Interviewed on March 13, 1975 Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com Tape #49 (52:27) Biographical Information Charles MacLear Kindel, known as “Chuck” was born in Denver City, Colorado on 29 March 1899, the son of Charles J. Kindel and Jessie M. MacLear. He died in Grand Rapids on 10 September 1982. It was on 8 November 1924 that he married Katrina C. van Asmus probably in Illinois. The father, Charles Joseph Kindel was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on 13 June 1872. He was the son of Gabriel Kindl and Marianna Herkommer. Charles J. married Jessie Matilda MacLear on 8 June 1898 in Denver City. Jessie, born in St. Catherine’s, Ontario on 27 August 1876, was the daughter of Thomas MacLear and Mary E. Reynolds. The father, Charles died in Grand Rapids on 28 July 1962, and Jessie died on 19 July 1956 in East Grand Rapids. ___________ Interviewer: I’m at the residence of Mr. Charles Kindel, 1900 San Lu Rae; it’s Thursday, March 13th, 1975. Mr. Kindel, recently in the local newspaper I read that you had gone to Washington and that many years ago you were President Ford’s Scoutmaster, and you started to tell me about coming here and that you’d been in scouting before. Kindel: We came to Grand Rapids in nineteen thirteen from Wilmette, Illinois and I was a scout over there when I became twelve. And when we came to Grand Rapids I was a First Class Scout. Scouting was just starting in Grand Rapids, and I joined Troop One at Sigsbee School and worked at the boys scout camps in the summer time and I became the first Eagle Scout in Grand Rapids. Then after I returned from England, where I was production manager in an English furniture factory I got married, and had a boy on the way and I felt that I should return some of the service that adults had given me. As you know an adult gives a lot of service to the scout movement. So I became the Scoutmaster at Troop Fifteen which was at the Trinity Methodist Church on Lake Drive. And Jerry Ford, who was called Junior Ford at the time, joined the troop, and naturally he seemed to have the ability to make friends and was of course, very athletic, [and] very well liked. Interviewer: What year was that? Kindel: That was in the year of nineteen twenty-five. I had the troop for one year, and then they made me commissioner of the district of scouting which comprised of eight troops which I kind of oversaw with the help of the troop committees and the various troops. And as you can imagine �2 a troop is only as good as its scout master, and a good troop committee gets a good Scoutmaster. So my brother then took the troop over for a year. Jerry became an Eagle Scout in nineteen twenty-seven, and luckily he was appointed by Governor Green to be one of the Eagle Scouts to act as a color guard at Mackinac Island. Interviewer: How old was he about then? Kindel: And he must have been fifteen or sixteen. Then when the Boy Scout national headquarters looked up Jerry Ford’s records they found that I was his first Scoutmaster and they felt that for the annual meeting of scouting in Washington where they were holding a oratorical contest from boys all over the United States, which was sponsored by the Reader’s Digest, they had semifinals in Washington the night before I got there, and there were just the two boys left in each category that the C Scouts the Boy Scouts and the Explorer Scouts. Well then, I was flattered because I was introduced as the President’s Scoutmaster by everybody in Washington that I met connected with the Boy Scout movement. The next day I was told to meet the head that was handling the expedition to the White House to be at the front door of the hotel at eleven o’clock. And as we boarded the bus; the boys were all in the bus, about twelve - fourteen Eagle Scouts the man who was handling this as I entered the bus he said to the boys, “This was the President’s Scoutmaster.” Well they gave me a big hand as you can imagine, some of these scouts came to me and said “I just want to shake the hand of the Presidents Scoutmaster,” which I got a kick out of naturally. Then we went to the White House. Interviewer: When was this exactly? Kindel: That was on Tuesday the twenty-fifth, of February. Interviewer: February. Kindel: And, we went to the White House and were ushered into the Teddy Roosevelt room in which I’d never been in. It had a big picture of Teddy Roosevelt and his Charger, the Rough Rider. It was a lovely conference room with lovely furniture of course. Then we went in to see the President and the minute I walked in, because I headed the procession more or less, Jerry spoke right up and said, “Well there’s Chuck Kindel,” and we shook hands. The boys were welltrained, cause they went up to the president and said, “Mr. President, it’s nice to see you, my name is so and so from Houston, Texas” or wherever they came from. Jerry was just himself, he, no pomp and ceremony. We presented him with the collage, which was a painting that was done by an artist in New Jersey, depicting some of the activities that Jerry took part in as a scout. And then as we, he of course was very nice and responded and remembered some of the boys that were in the troop with him, as a matter of fact he mentioned two of the boys, Engle B and Engle A were twins, who were both admirals in the Coast Guard. �3 Interviewer: What were the last names? Kindel: Engle, E-N-G-L-E. I lost track of those boys, but they tell that Engle, one of the Engles is head of the Coast Guard now and the other one’s retired. Interviewer: I wonder if they’re any relation to Engle Whinery. Kindel: No relation to Engle Whinery that I could find. I tried to find out more about the family, the Engles. I did talk to several of the boys that were in the troop with us. Most of them had done pretty well, Jerry reminded me of these different boys and I was amazed that he remembered their names, because I was thinking back at some of the boys who were in my troop early, and I don’t remember many of those names, that’s so long ago; you want to remember this was fifty years ago. Interviewer: Can you remember some of the people some of the boys that were in Jerry’s troop? Kindel: Oh yes, there was Richard Cassidy; his father had a drugstore on Lake Drive and Robinson Road. And then there was Ed Perch who was a tool maker. Well I looked up quite a few of Wiersmas; there were three Wiersma brothers that were in the troop the same time. And of course a Behler, Gerald Behler, he was the chairman of the troop committee, the BehlerYoung company, and his boy was in the troop, too. He’s out in Colorado now I found out. Some of the boys are scattered around the United States. But, Jerry seemed to remember that really amazed me to see that he would remember so much of it. He talked about it to the other boys, who were there how we handled scouting in those days. And of course, the troop committee is the most important part. The church has done a wonderful job in getting good troop committees. It’s the men’s club activities for the Trinity Church and Roger Chaffee who was the Astronaut that died in the accident at the in the missile, was an Eagle Scout from the same troop. At the conclusion of the presentation, we all filed out. I happened to be at the tail end of it, because I had been the first one in. As we were going out, Jerry said, “Chuck wait just a minute, stay here will you,” so we were alone in the oval room together and he asked about our family, because he’s a friend of Ted and Nancy’s out in Vail, and I told him how much Ted’s kids appreciated the gold brackets that he gave them for Christmas. Then he pulled out of his pocket a pen with the Presidential seal on it and he said, “I’d like to have you give this to Katrina.” And then out of another pocket he brought out another box, and in it was a pair of cuff links with the Presidential seal on it for me, which of course I’ll appreciate. Then we said goodbye, we got back into the bus, went back to the big luncheon that was being held at this oratorical contest. And although I don’t like publicity, and being the front, I was a presented as being the President’s Scoutmaster which of course, pleased me but it was quite a crowd there. I had a lot of people come up to me and ask me if I would just shake their hand because I was the President’s Scoutmaster. Interviewer: Let’s go back to the beginning of your life, and ask some questions about where you were born, and sort of vital statistics, of that sort if I could. And then why don’t you take this up �4 to as far as you’re coming to Grand Rapids, and tell us about your father and the first furniture business he had here. Go back and start from the beginning. Kindel: I was born in Denver Colorado, because my father had a bedding and upholstery business in Denver. But in, he took the attitude that Denver would never be anything but a health resort. And so he decided when the World’s Fair was in, to be in 1904 in St. Louis, he sold his business and moved to St. Louis because he felt that the incoming people to see the World’s Fair would be good for the bedding and upholstery business. So while he was in St. Louis he invented the sofa bed, which incidentally all the sofa beds made today are on his original patents which he held, but of course they run out many years ago. We stayed in St. Louis, then that business grew, the sofa bed business and we went to New York, and he established a factory in New York City. We stayed in New York about two years. Then we went up and built a plant in Toronto, Canada for the Canadian Trade; which incidentally, was the most profitable of all of them from the dollars and cents stand point. Then we moved to Chicago, because he had to build another factory in Chicago for the Middle-West trade. Interviewer: What year would that have been? Kindel: That was in nineteen hundred and ten. Then the business was expanding so fast, and they were putting wood ends or arms on the sofa beds at that time, and he came to Grand Rapids because of the woodworkers in Grand Rapids. As you know Grand Rapids then was probably the best known for the woodworkers than any place in the country. He had many offers to go to other cities, but Grand Rapids seemed to be the most desirable from the woodworkers standpoint. But yet the city of Grand Rapids at that time didn’t want him to come to Grand Rapids. They were trying to keep industry out of Grand Rapids it seemed. And he bought the lot on, between Division and Jefferson on Garden Street. And the city did not cooperate in any way with him; as a matter of fact, there were three streets projected in the plot, they even charged my father for that land when the street were closed up cause they dead ended into railroad tracks. Then he had to have a water main come up from Division Street for high pressure sprinkler protection, and they did not do that, he had to pay for that. Interviewer: Why didn’t they want him to come, what was the reason? Kindel: Well, there was quite a clique in the woodworking games at that time, there were a great many furniture factories of course. And they, back there as I understand it they just didn’t want any industry to come into Grand Rapids because they were jealous of the establishment that they had made. As you know, in nineteen eleven they had a rather severe woodworker’s strike which was difficult to break, and they were afraid that industry coming in here. My father came in spite of that; and in nineteen hundred and fifteen, because Kroehler, the noted upholsterer, was building a sofa bed and infringing on my father’s patents. And although Peter Kroehler was friend of my father’s because my father had been president of the Upholsterers Association, and he told, as he said, told us he said to Pete Kroehler. One day he said, “Pete you and I are going to �5 go to the mat because you know that you’re infringing my patents and as soon as I get straightened around we’re going to take and have a suit.” And Pete Kroehler said, “No we’re not going to have a suit Charlie, I’ll buy you out.” And my father said, “Pete you can’t afford to buy me out,” and Pete Kroehler said, “Well, you name a price.” My father named a price and that was the final sale. So my father sold out and retired at the age of forty-two. And for ten years he agreed to stay out of the bed business. Interviewer: Was he in any other form of furniture business? Kindel: No, he couldn’t go into any furniture business for ten years. Interviewer: When did he resume? Kindel: Then in nine years and nine months the Foote-Reynolds company was available because… Interviewer: When was that? Kindel: In nineteen hundred and twenty four. On January tenth, nineteen twenty-four, Seal Reynolds, who was running the Foote-Reynolds plant died. Mrs. Reynolds was trying to carry on with the business, but she had enormous losses. And when I came back from England then I was to go to work for Kroehler in California, but Mrs. Reynolds wanted to sell the plant. My father [brought in] fact both my brother and myself in the business. Then we bought the original plant that he’d had built here in nineteen thirteen. Interviewer: Did that Foote-Reynolds business have any direct relationship with Mr. Stuart Foote? Kindel: Yes. Stuart Foote of course was a brother in law; and Clare Dexter was a brother-in-law. And Clare Dexter and Foote and Reynolds they bought this factory, and they made four poster beds. Interviewer: But they were also in the business? Besides Mr. Reynolds. Kindel: Well, they financially they were. Stuart Foote you know had the Imperial Furniture Company and then he backed his son Vernon Foote in what they called the Stuart Furniture Company, which is now the Oliver Machinery Company plant on the west side. Interviewer: What was Mr. Dexter’s business? Kindel: He was the President of the Grand Rapids Chair Company, and that was the original Foote family business, the Grand Rapids Chair Company. Then Stuart Foote broke away from that and built the Imperial Furniture Company, to make tables. And of course, it was much more successful than the Grand Rapids Chair Company. �6 Interviewer: Now let’s go back, to where your father started up here in about nineteen twentyfour. What kind of furniture did he manufacture? Kindel: Well we went on making the four poster beds for some time and then we made a convertible day bed. But before, I must go back here Lee, my father’s contract with Kroehler was that he would stay out of business for ten years, and we bought this plant in nine years and nine months. My father called Pete Kroehler and told him what he was doing and that he wouldn’t buy the plant for us if he would violate that agreement. Pete Kroehler said, “Go ahead Charlie, buy it,” that’s the way it worked. And we went on and made day beds that would convert from a day bed to a double day bed. And then in nineteen twenty-nine, we started to make our own case goods, that is the dressers, the chests to go with our four poster beds, and then we expanded into making just bedroom suites. Interviewer: Now the term case goods is, of course, a well known furniture term, but for people who don’t know anything about furniture, can you give us an approximate, a good idea of what that term means? Kindel: Case goods means, a piece of furniture with drawers in it. Interviewer: I see. Kindel: Sometimes we take with liquor cases. Interviewer: Was that included, the bed set, the complete bedroom suite? Kindel: The complete bedroom suite, with night stands, a chiffoniers, chests, dressers, and even the long cheval mirrors. Well then about nineteen fifty, we went into making… we added to our line and made dining room furniture; and we made mahogany exclusively, till about nineteen fifty-five when we felt that the mahogany craze was to be substituted by using lighter furniture like, so we in to make cherry. So we made cherry exclusively up until nineteen sixty-six when we sold the business to the Ball brothers of Muncie, Indiana. Of course, my father died in sixtythree and he was never really active in the management of the business. He always told us, my brother and I, “make your mistakes while I’m living, don’t make them after I’m gone.” Which was, he let us have all the rope we wanted; it was a great association. Interviewer: He lived to a rather advanced age. Kindel: He was ninety-one. Interviewer: Where was he born? Kindel: He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, of German parentage. Interviewer: You mean Kindel is a German name. �7 Kindel: It’s a German name, unusual spelling because the immigration officer made the mistake when he came into this country at Ellis Island; he spelled the name Kindel, where the original German was Kindl. That’s the same name, so there are very few Kindel’s in this country, that you’d run across. Interviewer: Well now, Mr. Kindel I’m not quite old enough to remember the Depression too well but I am certainly aware of the, that the Kindel Furniture Company continued to manufacture furniture at least during most of that period, and right up until its sale and even thereafter, and apparently was very well established firm and didn’t seem to encounter all the troubles that some of our, many of our furniture companies did and certainly didn’t go out of business as some of them did. To what do you attribute this success of Kindel Furniture Company? Kindel: Well, we were a profitable business and when the Depression came along, luckily we were always trained to take and put anything away that you possibly can. So we started in the Depression with a pretty well capitalized business, because we had been always told that more businesses fail for lack of capital than anything else, and so we did everything to preserve our capital. And another thing, we were told never to let a bill go by, always get the discount, which we did. And so when the depression came along we really modernized; we replaced a great deal of our machinery. Of course I was the factory man, and my brother was the sales end of the business. And we practically replaced a great deal of the machinery for higher speed ball-bearing equipment, and we took business just to keep going. Luckily we had enough capital that we could afford to do it. I don’t think any furniture factory worked more consistently, as we did, we never worked less than four days a week, and we never had a lay-off. So, that we kept pretty good industrial relations with our help. And we were never unionized, because our boys claimed they were getting benefits that the union shops weren’t even getting; so that we had very good industrial relations, as a matter of fact. I just had a girl call me last night that worked for us for twenty-five years; she’s up in, living in a small town in the north up near Cadillac. She just called me to see how I was. And she say, “You know Chuck, we never had a layoff in all the twenty-five years I worked for you, and you were probably the best boss a guy could have.” Well it made me feel good, naturally. We still have an association with…, I see a great many of our men who worked for us for so many years. Interviewer: How many people did your company employ? Kindel: Well during the war, when we were building aircrafts we got up to three hundred and sixty employees, but I’ll say we averaged around two hundred employees as a rule. Interviewer: Now when I was here interviewing Mrs. Kindel two or three weeks ago, time goes so fast, you started that week to talk a little bit about your role during World War Two, and some of the things you did at time. Why don’t you talk about those things right now? �8 Kindel: Well when World War Two came along; it appeared that there would be very little for the furniture companies to do, because it was so different than any other war, material that was being purchased. We came on the idea that we could build parts for aircraft made of wood. I was president of the local Grand Rapids Furniture Manufacturer’s Association at the time, and we called a meeting of the members of the association and we formed a corporation of fifteen of the leading furniture factories. We all put in ten thousand dollars apiece, and with that capital we went scrounging around for business. And luckily when I was at the University of Michigan, in engineering school, I had taken a couple of courses in Aeronautics because it was a hobby with me. That more or less gave me enough nerve to think I knew something about aircraft. As you know [with] an aircrafts you’re fighting weight all the time. And I went out to Fairchild [Aviation Corporation] in Hagerstown, Maryland, and also to Cessna Aircraft and Beech Aircraft in Wichita. Cessna Aircraft got an order for a thousand gliders. That was the CG-4A glider that would carry fifteen men and a howitzer or a jeep. It was a big job and I got an order for a thousand sets of wings. And we came back and started to go through all the blueprints, and you can imagine what it meant to go through a bunch of blueprints in the lot for various factories and the different parts to make. Some of the smaller plants, they made small parts. The Widdicomb Furniture Company, they made the spars, the front spar, which is a rather big chunk of wood. And then the Kindel plant made the rear spars. Then we made the ribs, which were all laminated with plywood and spruce. They, different parts were sent to different assembly plants and then the final assembly was at the Imperial Furniture Company, where these big wings, which were twenty-five… over all the width of the airplane, the width was eighty-five feet. But the longest wing section was twenty-five feet and then there was a shorter one which was about sixteen or seventeen feet long that went on to make the wings of this glider. We ended up making forty-five hundred sets of wings for the glider and we made them for eight of the prime contractors who were building these gliders. And Gibson [Manufacturing] of Greenville [Michigan] was one of these companies, Timm Aircraft of California, the Robertson Aircraft Company in St. Louis, General Aircraft down in the east part of Massachusetts, the Babcock Airplane Company down in Florida, we made their wings for them, and shipped them out of here in great big boxes. The Nicholson-Cox Lumber Company was a member of the firm; they built the… all they did was build boxes to hold these wings. And they were assembled and finished at the Imperial Furniture Company and then boxed there. Then we also had the order for the Stinson L-5 Liaison plane, which we made about four thousand of those, sets of wings for that. And we made every piece of the wood that went in the airplane, that was the emponze(?) of the tail services, even the map cases. We made map cases for the B-29’s; we made parts for the navy. [We] Even made ships wheels, steering wheels. We made numerous parts for other aircraft companies, like ribs, we made the spars for the Taylor Aircraft Company as well as Piper Aircraft. Anything with wood we were specialists in and we did an outstanding job, because our woodworkers were so good here. Then after, when the war ended we had to liquidate it and at that time we were in pretty good cash position, we discussed whether or not we should take and build a dimension plant, that would bring the lumber in and dry it, and cut into small pieces for the different factories, but �9 because we had a bunch of rugged individualists it seemed as though that wasn’t practical because they took the attitude well, you’ll do it for this but you won’t do it for me, and so that never matured so we liquidated it. Interviewer: How many manufacturers were involved in this operation? Kindel: Fifteen factories. Interviewer: There were fifteen factories. Because there were fifteen who put up ten thousand and they all stayed in it? Kindel: Fifteen factories, even little Willie May Burke Company was one of them. Interviewer: I see. Kindel: Bower Furniture Company, William-Kimp Furniture Company, there was both Widdicombes, Mueller Furniture Company, Valley City Desk Company, and of course Kindel had a part in it too. And I was in charge of all production for the plant because that’s the part I like in the furniture business. Interviewer: I was interested in your using the term rugged individualists, describe some of these people some these men in the firm industry at that time, now you had an association with the furniture industry in Grand Rapids for fifty years or there abouts. Who are some of the men you remember best over that period of years who were you might call them giants in this industry in Grand Rapids? Kindel: Well we didn’t have any real giants; Robert W. Irwin probably was one of the most rugged individuals of the lot, and Stuart Foote, of the Imperial Furniture Company and Clare Dexter of the Grand Rapids Chair Company. They were the rugged individualists I would say that wanted to go their own way, and were jealous of anything anybody else did. Interviewer: Now we all know that much of the furniture industry has left Grand Rapids, the companies have either gone out of business or they’ve moved out east, what do you think is the chief reason we have lost so much of total industry to other places? Kindel: Well Lee, I, liken the furniture business to the woolen industry of New England, and the weaver’s in New England, as you know they moved south because of the cheap labor. Grand Rapids I think lost a great deal of their business because the labor rates in the south were so much less, as a matter of fact over the years we used to make surveys and the furniture trades wages were probably forty percent less than the Grand Rapids wages. Grand Rapids of course is noted for its quality and I think that the only survival of the business in Grand Rapids would be only in quality furniture; because we, with our skilled help we can make quality, down in the south they can make quantity. But they just don’t put the quality in that made up here. So people �10 buy Grand Rapids furniture in the most part they are getting their money’s worth, for that’ll be the antique’s of the future. Interviewer: That’s a good way to sum it up. I thought we’d go back and talk about some of the early years when you first came to Grand Rapids; you just mentioned that you built your first car in nineteen twelve. Kindel: Well it was a one cylinder on a car with a twenty-four inch wheel tread and a seventytwo inch wheel base. I remember it so distinctly and my father bought me a second hand motorcycle engine for fifteen dollars and we built that into a car and I learned an awful lot building that car, and I still got the drawing on it. Because my father wouldn’t buy the engine until I made an inked in drawing, and he taught me very early to make a drawing before you start any project. And we moved to Grand Rapids and I still run into people who say they remember the car that I used to drive around here. A little one cylinder putter, but I had a lot of fun doing that I’ve always been a car nut over since. I’ve had all kinds of them and only wish I had some of the old ones now because they’d be classics. But I worked in the machine room, in the tool room as working on milling machines, and shapers and blades between summers because I just loved that kind of stuff. I graduated from Central High school, went on to engineering school in Ann Arbor, and took some automotive courses as well as aviation courses, because it’s my hobby; and then I learned to fly in nineteen hundred and twenty-seven. As a matter of fact I was the first one up to Lindbergh’s plane when he came in here on his tour of May nineteen twenty-seven, because I just a well I’ll admit I’m a screwball. I learned to fly and of course I had a plane, a nice little Stinson plane that I flew for about six years. They say you have to be a little bit crazy. My Father used to say, “It helps.” Interviewer: Where did your family live when you were younger? Kindel: Well we lived at twelve twenty-five Lake Drive which is now the Jonkhoff Funeral Home. Interviewer: That was quite a ways out. Kindel: Yes it was a long way to Central High School, but it didn’t bother me because being a car nut I had a car all the time, a model-T Ford, all the time I was in high school. I remember your mother in school whenever the piano had to be played she was it. Interviewer: Go back to that house the Jonkhoff Funeral Home. Your father built that? Kindel: No, that was built by Orin Starr, Starr was the name and he was as I understand it he was the one who built the Majestic theatre. Interviewer: How do you spell his last name? Kindel: I think it was Starr, if I remember right. �11 Interviewer: It was pronounced stair? Kindel: Stair, and then when we all went away to school my father and mother thought the house was too much of a care and they built this house at seven thirty Plymouth; it was the second house on the block. Interviewer: Who lives there today? Kindel: I don’t know that’s house, my father sold it after my mother’s death to the manager of the Detroit Ball-Bearing Company and then his father who was the organizer to the Detroit Ball, then his father dies and he moved to Detroit, and it was sold to somebody with the telephone company and I’m not sure of their last names either. My father used to say his house isn’t the best; it’s next to the best house, when he talked to Mr. Fitzgerald, who built the house on Plymouth and San Lu Rae. Interviewer: I remember when that house was built, because when the Fitzgeralds lived in the house where we live and they rented it from the Perkins for I don’t know how many months, I remember we moved in November of nineteen twenty-eight, and so by that time Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald must have finished that house. Kindel: Yes, Owen Ames Kimball built that house and they moved from my father’s house over to the Fitzgerald house. Owen Ames Kimball built also the Blodgett house. That was previous to my father’s house. Interviewer: I sort of recall my father bringing me out here as just a little boy to see that house under construction, so it must have been something to behold. Kindel: Well, it was beautifully constructed, it’s a beautiful home. So my father used to say I don’t have the best house, I live next to the best house. Interviewer: Where did you and Mrs. Kindel live when you were first married? Kindel: Well when we were first married we married in nineteen twenty-four, and we lived at three thirty-three Briarwood, which was called the brides street at that time, because Chuck Sligh built a house across from me, one of the Keeneys lived there, next door to us, and Clifford Nelson was down the block, and Chucky and Don Steketee also lived on that block. We had a very nice house, and we lived there until nineteen twenty-eight, when we moved over on Cambridge, at four thirty-one Cambridge. We lived there twenty-two years, and then we built this house in nineteen forty-eight. Interviewer: This is a beautiful house. Did you design this house? Kindel: I hate to say I designed it, I laid out the floor plans we wanted, and Ralph Demmon who did this type of architecture we felt the best, we looked over the different architects work. We felt he did this type of house best. I would have liked to have had it all stone but Ralph Demmon �12 talked us out that, he said it was too expensive, and those types of masons are gone. So we only had the front of the house in this Pennsylvania stone. We always like the Pennsylvania type of houses when we’d drive though Pennsylvania and said that’s what we want. And we laid out the house really what we wanted having Ralph Demmon do the real architecture work, because I do know a lot of drafting I’m no architect. Interviewer: Did you previously plan the woodwork? Kindel: Well a lot of this woodwork was made in our plant; all of the woodwork really was done in our plant, like the pine paneling that we have all of the casing moldings, they’re all special. Interviewer: Is there a good deal of Kindel furniture in this house? Kindel: Everything that we could get in that Kindel made is here. Although we have quite a bit of Baker and the rest of the furniture is really Baker. I’ve always said this in my estimation, maybe I’m wrong but Hollis Baker probably was the greatest furniture man in our first half century. He was a real connoisseur. Interviewer: He knew a great deal about furniture and I think he could sell it too. Kindel: Oh, he was a marvelous salesman. But he could take he was discriminating, he knew what was nice. For instance, that octagon table there, you know there’s one out at the club like that and there’s a table over there which House Beautiful said was one of the real classics, that little table right there. Interviewer: That’s a beautiful table. He was a very interesting man; he’s one of the most interesting people I ever knew. Kindel: Well he, we enjoyed him very much and as you know the Huntings, the Bakers and Kindels all bought the Exhibitors Building. Interviewer: That’s right. Why don’t you tell us about that, I’d forgotten that? Kindel: As you know that was the original Fine Arts Building built by Gus Hendricks. And during the war, he had financial troubles, and the city took it over. Then during the war the weather school took that building over for training meteorologists. And the building was in pretty bad disrepair in nineteen forty-five or six, and we got together and bought it from the city, the three of us. And we reconditioned it and we put a hundred and ten thousand dollars in before anybody moved in to it. [End of Side 1] Interviewer: We’re talking about the, what we call the Fine Arts Building across from the Civic Auditorium, and you’ve come to the point where you’d purchased it, and what year was that? �13 Kindel: The latter part of nineteen forty-five we bought the building from the city, because it reverted to them for taxes. And we had Ken Welch do a great deal of the architectural changes that we made in the building and of course, because of its being in despair there was a great deal of plastering to be done, and remodeling the building. And luckily, we were all in the furniture business, we had three spaces rented immediately, because Dave Hunting moved the Steelcase line into the Exhibitor’s Building, and Baker Furniture Company took the second floor, and Kindel Furniture took half of the third floor, and Widdicombe took the back half of the third floor. We brought in come outside exhibitors and it was a success from the start. The furniture market faded out, and Baker Furniture used it as a show room so did John Widdicomb Company, and several other furniture people that used it more as a place where a decorator could take his customers or clients as they call them, and to select furniture. Knapp and Tubbs took over part of the building and then we rented a half of a floor to Aves Advertising Company, another half to the Court of Appeals, which was awaiting the building of the State Building. And of course we had to put in a lot of air conditioning. And we went along very well until Hollis Baker sold the Baker Furniture Company – [I’m] talking about Hollis junior. He decided that some of his wealth should be put in to real estate, and he bought the Kindels and Huntings out. So it’s now wholly owned by Hollis Baker. Interviewer: I want to go back into Grand Rapids furniture history for a minute because I’m sure you could shed some light on some of the famous names of furniture. I’m not talking about individuals as much as I am about companies at this point. Of course one of the names that constantly comes up when you’re talking to people about furniture is Berkey and Gay. Now that company I believe is no longer in existence, but you must remember when it was. And could you tell us about the company and what sort of happened to it? Kindel: Well that’s an interesting saga of course. When I came out of the university my first job in the furniture business, because my father had retired, was at Berkey and Gay Furniture Company, and as you know they had five plants. And if I remember they had about twenty-four hundred employees. It was a big company, of course Bill Gay had died, and the plant was taken over by the three Wallace brothers. They were all salesman, none of them were mechanics. Interviewer: So that was Oliver Wallace and Edward Wallace…? Kindel: No, that was, in the same family, but Ed Wallace and Oliver Wallace were still in school It’s a generation back. And these Wallace brothers were typically fine furniture salesman, but knew nothing of manufacturing. And they got into financial troubles in the early thirties and then the business was auctioned, most of the equipment was auctioned off, and then Frank McKay, he got interested in it and started it up again. That didn’t succeed, and there was another auction. And me being a factory man, I went to all the auctions and did buy some equipment, but I’ve always thought an auction to me was like going to the circus. I loved it. Of course the Luce Furniture Company was very successful before the Depression. That was run by Martin Dregge, and Hamp Holt. Hamp Holt was a good manufacturer. Dregge was a good salesman. They �14 absorbed the Furniture Shops, which had previously been the John D. Raab Chair Company. And they were quite successful and they also took the Michigan Chair Company which was a successful upholstery company. Interviewer: Who owned that company? Kindel: That was owned by Luce Furniture Company, and I’ve forgotten the name of the man that owned the Michigan Chair Company at the time. Then of course, the Sligh Furniture Company, they employed about eight hundred employees at one time. Interviewer: Really? That many? Kindel: They were a good size operation, and very famous of course for their bedroom furniture. I don’t think they made dining room furniture, but they were a big outfit. Interviewer: Eventually Mr. Chuck Sligh went to Holland and went into business will Bill Lowry, but what happened to the Sligh Furniture Company? Kindel: The Sligh Furniture Company was being run by Norman McClave, and somehow or other he and Chuck didn’t get along too well. Chuck Sligh went down to Holland with Bill Lowry, who is a one of the top production men and an engineer, and they started the Sligh Furniture Company in Holland. Guess they called it the Sligh-Lowry Company, and they’ve been very successful. Chuck Sligh of course is a fine salesman, and I admire him very much. Interviewer: As I recall it they made some really beautiful desks? Kindel: No, they weren’t beautiful desks. I don’t agree with you on that, they were production desks. Interviewer: Production desks. Kindel: And not the kind you’d see in the White House. Interviewer: Did you see any Grand Rapids Furniture in the White House? Kindel: I don’t know, there are some beautiful breakfronts down there, but I think most of those pieces are antiques. Interviewer: I guess they have the Sousaski[?] rugs? Kindel: Well I didn’t notice the rugs; I was looking more at the furniture, because your furniture is in your blood. Interviewer: Resuming our discussion of present furniture factories that are in existence in Grand Rapids, we started to mention a few of them and I suggested you talk about some of those. �15 Kindel: Well we still have the John Widdicomb Company, and they make very fine furniture. The Master-Craft Furniture make occasional pieces. Interviewer: And they’re the company still owned by the family? Kindel: And that’s still owned by the family. The John Widdicomb Company is owned by Hickory Furniture Company, Hickory, North Carolina. The Johnson Furniture Company who are famous for making quality furniture is owned by Holiday Inns now. The Hekman Furniture Company, which started in about nineteen twenty-three or four is owned by Beatrice Foods. The Imperial Furniture Company is owned by Chicago Musical Instruments Company. The Kindel Furniture Company is owned by Ball Brothers of Muncie, Indiana that make mason jars, part of their conglomerate. I understand Colonial Clock Company from Zeeland who have a plant in the old Berkey and Gay, Plant One has been sold recently to somebody else and I don’t know who bought it. That’s been sold but, there are very few family businesses left and the only one that I can think of that really amount to very much is Mastercraft and Ralph Morse Furniture Company is owned by Jim Alexander, and he also owns Fine-Arts Furniture, which makes very nice occasional pieces. Interviewer: These companies are relatively small I would assume. Kindel: Well, there are no big plants, no big companies in Grand Rapids left now, I don’t think there’s any plant that employs more than three hundred people. Interviewer: What would that be? Kindel: That might be Imperial Furniture Company who are making organ cases and jukebox cases, and some television cabinets. I guess the next or second one would be John Widdicombe; they probably employ two hundred and twenty-five or so. I don’t know how many Kindel has now, but KindelError! Bookmark not defined., we bought the Valley City Furniture Company plant at auction for our chair operation and that is still being operated by the Ball Brothers as Kindel Plant Number Two. They make dining room chairs and also they are making a line of occasional tables which are very nice. Then they rented a part of the Allen Calculator Company and that is their upholstery division. They’re making upholstered furniture. Interviewer: Well let’s leave the topic of furniture for a minute and, you mentioned a while back when we were talking with the machine off that you had collected barometers and stored some of them and put them in good working order. How did you happen to get interested in that? Kindel: Well barometers have been a hobby of mine for the last 25 years. I bought the first one in Canada, in Toronto at an antique shop; it wasn’t working and I made it work. And then I picked up a couple more and on a trip in nineteen forty-nine to England, I brought ten of them back in the trunk of my car, and the customs officer said to me, “What are you going to do with all that junk?” Well that’s part of my hobby and I fixed them all up, restored them and made them work; �16 then I’ve had some shipped in from England since. And everybody in town thinks if their barometer’s not working they can call Chuck Kindel. I had a call one day from a woman friend of ours here, I didn’t know her but I knew him and she said she bought a barometer in Chicago and the porter had tipped it over on the train coming back and broke the mercury tube and she said if my husband knows how much I paid for that and then broke the tube he’d shoot me. So I immediately fixed her barometer for her that same day, and when he came back from his fishing trip he saw the barometer and never knew that it had been busted. Then Marshall-Fields when they would sell an antique barometer in this territory they would expect me to service it for them. I got a call one a day from the head of Marshall-Fields antique department, and said that they had a customer that had bought a barometer and wouldn’t pay for it because he said it wasn’t working. And they gave me the name and so on my way home from work that night I stopped and it happened to be Bennett Ainsworth’s wife Emily who I had been in school with, Emily Hine, and I said I’m from Marshall Fields, she said, “Chuck Kindel what are you doing working for Marshal Fields?” Well I said, “I service the barometers.” I took it and fixed it for them. Interviewer: Did they ever pay you for this service? Kindel: No it was part of the courtesy when you do business with Marshall-Fields, you do those things. Interviewer: You were doing business with Marshall-Fields? Kindel: Yes, Marshall-Fields were very good customers of ours. Interviewer: How much volume did you business do? Kindel: I believe at the time about four million, four and a half million dollars a year. Interviewer: That’s respectable. Kindel: Yes, if you can make it profitable. Interviewer: Well I think that this has been a delightful afternoon and I have enjoyed talking to you. Kindel: Why don’t we have a drink? Interviewer: That sounds like a good idea why don’t we shut her off. �17 INDEX A Ainsworth, Bennett · 18 Ainsworth, Emily · 18 Allen Calculator Company · 17 Aves Advertising Company · 14 Fitzgerald, Mrs. · 12 Foote, Stuart · 6, 10 Foote, Vernon · 6 Foote-Reynolds Company · 5, 6 Ford, Jerry · 1, 2, 3 Ford, President · 1 Frank McKay · 15 Furniture Manufacturer’s Association · 8 Furniture Shops · 15 B Baker Furniture Company · 14 Baker, Hollis · 13, 14 Ball Brothers · 16, 17 Behler, Gerald · 3 Behler-Young company · 3 Berkey and Gay Furniture Company · 14, 16 Blodgett house · 12 Bower Furniture Company · 10 C Cassidy, Richard · 3 Central High School · 11 Chaffee, Roger · 3 Chicago Musical Instruments Company · 16 Civic Auditorium · 14 D Demmon, Ralph · 13 Depression · 7, 15 Detroit Ball-Bearing Company · 12 Dexter, Clare · 6 Dregge, Martin · 15 G Gay, Bill · 15 Gibson Manufacturing · 9 Grand Rapids Chair Company · 6, 10 H Hekman Furniture Company · 16 Hendricks, Gus · 13 Herkommer, Marianna · 1 Hickory Furniture Company · 16 Holt, Hamp · 15 Hunting, Dave · 14 I Imperial Furniture Company · 6, 9, 10, 16, 17 Irwin, Robert W. · 10 J John D. Raab Chair Company · 15 John Widdicomb Company · 14, 16 Jonkhoff Funeral Home · 11 E Engle brothers · 3 Exhibitors Building · 13, 14 F Fine Arts Building · 13, 14 Fitzgerald, Mr. · 12 K Kindel Furniture Company · 7, 9, 10, 14, 16 Kindel, Charles J. · 1 Kindel, Charles M. · 1 Kindl, Gabriel · 1 Knapp and Tubbs · 14 Kroehler, Peter · 5, 6 �18 L Lowry, Bill · 15, 16 Luce Furniture Company · 15 Reynolds, Mrs. · 5 Reynolds, Seal · 5 Roosevelt, Teddy · 2 S M MacLear, Jessie M. · 1 MacLear, Thomas · 1 Marshall-Fields · 17, 18 Master-Craft Furniture · 16 McClave, Norman · 15 Michigan Chair Company · 15 Mueller Furniture Company · 10 Sligh Furniture Company · 15, 16 Sligh, Chuck · 12, 15, 16 Sligh-Lowry Company · 16 Starr, Orin · 11 Steketee, Chuck and Don · 12 Stuart Furniture Company · 6 T N Trinity Methodist Church · 1, 3 Nelson, Clifford · 12 Nicholson-Cox Lumber Company · 9 V O Valley City Desk Company · 10 Valley City Furniture Company · 17 van Asmus, Katrina C. · 1 Oliver Machinery Company · 6 Owen Ames Kimball · 12 P Perch, Ed · 3 R Reynolds, Mary E. · 1 Reynolds, Mr. · 6 W Wallace, Edward · 15 Wallace, Oliver · 15 Welch, Ken · 14 Widdicomb Furniture Company · 9 Wiersma brothers · 3 William-Kimp Furniture Company · 10 Willie May Burke Company · 10 World War Two · 8 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/413757ff7cc64b85bb815e3535674eed.mp3 a84d6c1084d1aef3ff4e72a4ade2de03 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_49Kindel Title A name given to the resource Kindel, Charles MacLear Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kindel, Charles MacLear Description An account of the resource Charles Kindel was born in Colorado in 1899. His father was in the furniture business. He married Katrina C. van Asmus in 1924 and eventually took her place as trustee of the Starr Commonwealth. He was President Ford's boy scout leader in the 1920s. Subject The topic of the resource Michigan--History Local histories Memoirs Oral histories (document genre) Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Grand Valley State University Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1975 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a513f0e0a21751c37e8c719d5ae082d3.pdf 4ce6a2ec41c82e5d996448f3eacdbf0f PDF Text Text 1 Grand Valley State University Special Collections Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23 Mrs. Charles Kindel Interviewed on February 10, 1975 Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010- bryant@wellswooster.com Tape #48 (54:23) Biographical Information Mrs. Kindel was born Katrina Cup van Asmus on 13 August 1904 in Evanston, Illinois. She was the daughter of Edward Cup van Asmus and Helen Hurlbut Long. Katrina married Charles MacLear Kindel on 8 November 1924. Mrs. Kindel died in Grand Rapids on 1 April 1987. Mr. Kindel died in Grand Rapids on 10 September 1982. Edward Cup van Asmus and Helen Hurlbut Long were married in Grand Rapids on 16 September 1897. Edward was born 10 January 1871 in Grand Rapids, the son of Henry David Cup van Asmus and Marie Elizabeth Vanderfield. Edward died on 20 June 1941. Helen H. Long was born on 25 August 1872 in Grand Rapids, the daughter of George H. Long and Catherine Sheller. Helen died on 7 November 1951. For the Kindel family, see Mr. Charles Kindel’s Oral History transcription. ___________ Interviewer: Mrs. Kindel before we started I was able to take a quick look from a book called Illinois Lives which contains a biographical sketch of yourself and other natives of Illinois. I must say I was surprised that you were not born in Grand Rapids. Although before that you told me that your grandfather came here back in the middle of the nineteenth century. Why don’t you go back to that period and tell us about your grandfather if you can remember much about him or tell us about what brought him to this company and a little of that history. I can hold this for you or whatever you want. Mrs. Kindel: Both my grandfathers came here from other places the Dutch grandfather came here at the time, after the Civil War and married and settled down in Grand Rapids. And my other grandfather came from Pennsylvania. Lewistown Pennsylvania. He was in the lumber business in Michigan and he married here and lived here and had ten children here. And they lived here until adulthood; some of them went elsewhere. Some of them remained here. I don’t know too much about the two grandfathers. The one in the lumber business was very successful and the Dutch grandfather founded the Board of Trade. He was the first secretary of the Board of Trade and he was a very cultured man well educated and understood fine paintings and prints and horticulture all the lovely things. Interviewer: What was his name Mrs. Kindel? �2 Mrs. Kindel: His name was van Asmus. HDC Henry David Cup van Asmus. Interviewer: And the other grandfathers name? Mrs. Kindel: The other one was George B. Long. L O N G and they lived on Sheldon. Sheldon then was a lovely street with beautiful trees, and Victorian homes. Now it’s a CIO Headquarters. Interviewer: Is the house still standing? Mrs. Kindel: No the house came down when CIO went up. Interviewer: I guess that was quite a nice street the Caufields lived down there and many of the old people. Mrs. Kindel: Burnses and the Caufields, and the Sinclairs, Doctor Sinclair, and the Longs. Interviewer: You must be related to the Duffys then? Mrs. Kindel: Yes. Mrs. Duffy was one of the sisters, my mother’s sisters; and Mrs. Homiller and Mrs. McPherson. They were all sisters. Interviewer: That’s right. I used to here the Caulfield sisters talked about. Of course they lived down the street. Mrs. Kindel: Yeah. They were a great family. Lots of fun. The Woodcocks lived on the corner across from the Caufields. There were two Woodcock boys. And then the Sinclairs; that was Jean Sinclair who became Mrs. Curtis Interviewer: Doctor Sinclair brought my mother into the world. Mrs. Kindel: Probably. Interviewer: I don’t remember it but I remember my mother talking about it. Mrs. Kindel: That’s interesting. Well then kitty-corner across was the Burnses you know. Interviewer: Tom Burns. Mrs. Kindel: Yes. I couldn’t think of his first name. Interviewer: I think that was his name. Mrs. Kindel: yeah. Interviewer: Well however were you born in Evanston? Mrs. Kindel: I was born in Evanston, Illinois and moved away from there when I was two years old, and lived in a number of different places. I was raised in New York really, about fourteen �3 years in New York City. And I lived in Denver, I lived in Kansas City, Missouri, moved around, until I was married I never lived in Grand Rapids. Interviewer: Did you come here for visits? Mrs. Kindel: Came here to visit with aunts and grandparents and so forth. That’s when I met my husband. Interviewer: What went on when you came for visits? Mrs. Kindel: Oh boy. I just loved it because I lived in New York where we didn’t have a nice little social life and I thought it was great to come here where there were parties every morning noon and night and tea dances. Boy we put on Christmas seasons that would shame this generation, we had a good time and I loved it very much. I loved the young people. Well I just sort of feel like I belong to Grand Rapids, after all, my mother was born here and raised here and my father was too. But they never lived here after they were married. Interviewer: What did your father do? Mrs. Kindel: He was an investment broker. Interviewer: And he moved from place to place? Mrs. Kindel: Yes. Except, well New York was the longest place we stayed in one place. I went to Horace Mann School in New York which as I look back on it is a perfectly marvelous school. And then I went to Dana Hall in Wellesley and I never went to college. Got boy-crazy about then. Interviewer: Was Dana Hall a Junior College or was it a finishing school? Mrs. Kindel: No it was a finishing school. Interviewer: I think it’s a junior college now but I’m not… Mrs. Kindel: Pine Manor is. Interviewer: Oh it’s Pine Manor. Mrs. Kindel: Yeah, Pine Manor. Interviewer: Well now you were married in what year were you married? Mrs. Kindel: Twenty-four. Interviewer: Twenty-four, and you had met Mr. Kindel before, on one of your visits to Grand Rapids? �4 Mrs. Kindel: Yes. Yes but he asked me to marry him the first date we ever had. Interviewer: Oh really. Mrs. Kindel: And we were married six weeks from the next day. So that was a whirlwind courtship. Interviewer: I’d say so. And Mr. Kindel has always been in the furniture business I believe. Mrs. Kindel: Yes. He graduated from Michigan and worked for Berkey and Gay; and then his father bought back this plant that he had built originally and Chuck became production manager and remained there until he sold it. Interviewer: Now that’s a very famous name in Grand Rapids furniture. Mrs. Kindel: For quality it is. Interviewer: Quality, bedroom furniture particularly? Mrs. Kindel: Yes they started with just they call it case goods and then they branched out. They made dining room furniture; they don’t make any upholstered pieces. Just dining room and bedroom tables, and occasional tables. Father Kindel invented the folding davenport bed that you’re familiar with. The Kroehler bed. All those patents of his were his. He sold them to Kroehler. Interviewer: Well that’s interesting to know. I think that someone once told me that Mr. F. Stuart Foote invented the coffee table. Mrs. Kindel: Did he? Interviewer: He just cut off the legs of a table of sorts. Mrs. Kindel: Well that was easy. Interviewer: When you came here when you were married and started to live here, how long did it take you before you got interested in the organization in which I and many other people associate you, mainly the Kent County Humane Society? Mrs. Kindel: Well, my mother and I have been interested in New York in humane society work. As a girl twelve years old with a pigtail down my back I used to solicit money for different humane societies at the Madison Square Garden entrance to the arena when they’d have the horse shows on. I’d had a table out there with some of mother’s friends chaperoning and I started doing that. Then I, after I was married, it wasn’t very long when I heard such distressing stories, there was no society functioning in Grand Rapids. There was a society the Kent County Humane Society but it wasn’t doing anything. So I always had a lot of nerve I guess. Mr. Talmadge, a very delightful old gentleman, Bill Talmadge, was the president. I went down and called and �5 made an appointment and went to see him and I told him what I thought in no uncertain terms that they should have a functioning humane society and so forth. So we talked it over and he said you know I’ve just been waiting for you. He said we need young blood; we need somebody to do something. Well so we decided that we would reorganize and he would name half of a board of directors and I would name half. Very informally done. This is the way we started, restarted, the Kent County Humane Society which is one of the oldest in the country. I think it was started way back in the sixties or seventies, I forget now. But it’s a very old one. Anyways we started off and such wonderfully fine men and women helped us. We had Chief O’Malley on the board for a number of years. He was a great police chief and a wonderfully fine person. We umm what’s his name, Mr. McPherson an attorney in town, of great ability, a great horseman. And Mrs. G. A. Hendricks was a club woman who knew how to run publicity and do things… I learned so much from the men and women who came on that board. It was a great group of them. Interviewer: Well what year was this? Mrs. Kindel: Well, I think it was in the late twenties, it was about nineteen thirty I think. Interviewer: About nineteen thirty? Mrs. Kindel: Um Hum Interviewer: But they’d actually been in existence for sixty or seventy years. Mrs. Kindel: Yes. Interviewer: Doesn’t look like they’ve done very much. Mrs. Kindel. They had a small amount of money. The Michigan Trust kept it intact and they paying the legal aid office four hundred dollars a year, I think that’s all they realized on this little investment, they gave that to the Legal Aid Office to answer the telephone which was listed Humane Society. Well that was perfectly ridiculous to pay them four hundred a year for half a dozen calls, you know. So we severed that arrangement and started on our own. We did pretty well through the years; we never had a shelter but we wanted one and needed it badly so George Welsh was city manager and Ad Carroll was chief of Police and both of them were friends. So I went to them with my tale of woe and they were then using for the pound a lean-to down on the public market. It was just an awful shack. Cold and hot, with summer, cold in the winter and so forth and they ended by giving me supervision of it. The city commission voted that me as supervisor of the pound, at a dollar a year I was a “dollar a year man”, and we met I don’t recall just how long we continued that way, but as long as we did. And then W.P.A. labor came in and they arranged to use that labor and build a pound and they let me plan it. And when Mr. Kammeraad [Peter Kammeraad] was city manager and he’s very kind, he let me come down to city hall and we really built what was a nice animal shelter. It was modern and up-to-date in every way. And I had three men that were working for me and two cars. That was my equipment. �6 I had to do all the buying through the purchasing agent of the city. And be responsible for all that went on and we, we had a rabies epidemic during that time and I had to put an unlisted phone in, the public became so irate over certain things and they’d take it out on me. I had a strenuous time with that pound, but it provided us with a humane shelter. And a number of years went by and unfortunately I had osteoarthritis, with severe headaches I just couldn’t continue. So I asked on my board who would take over that appointment if I could get the City Commission to name one of them as supervisor so we could still keep hold of that. Nobody would take that responsibility, nobody would do the work. So I had to bow out and just let it go as it went. Well fortunately it had some ups and downs and troubles but right now it’s going very nicely and they had a drive, raised two-hundred thousand dollars and built a lovely modern shelter with every convenience and everything they need. And they seem to be functioning, raising money well and I’m awfully pleased and happy about them. Interviewer: Has this been a private agency? Mrs. Kindel: They always Interviewer: But you did your purchasing you said through the city. Mrs. Kindel: Well that’s when I managed the pound, when the pound was my shelter. Interviewer: Where was that located? Mrs. Kindel: Down across the river where, down where the big public market is. Do you know where I mean? Interviewer: Well, I’m not sure. Mrs. Kindel: Gee I can’t think. Grandville Avenue. That, down that way. Interviewer: Where is the new facility? Mrs. Kindel: The new one is, is out, my memory. It’s west… Interviewer: On the other side of the river? Mrs. Kindel: Oh yes. It will come to me I think. Interviewer: Maybe I should know. I can’t think offhand. Mrs. Kindel: Yeah we both should know. It’s on the, I’ll put it in when I get it. Interviewer: Well you can always look it up. Mrs. Kindel: Yeah. I can look it up in the phone book, right here. Interviewer: Ok. I’ll just switch it off. �7 Mrs. Kindel: Northwest. Interviewer: What was that address again? Mrs. Kindel: Eighteen ninety Bristol Northwest. Kent County Humane Society. Interviewer: And how much of a staff do they have today, I presume they have a director. Mrs. Kindel: They had a women manager, a Mrs. Pullen. I don’t know what their staff consists of, I’m ashamed to say. I haven’t been out there lately, in the last year. I don’t know. They have several… Well it takes, I think they have two cars; they’ve had two cars, two drivers and then shelter people to keep that place clean and feed the animals. And put them to sleep when their time is done and so forth. It takes quite a few. Interviewer: How large a membership? Mrs. Kindel: It takes money; I don’t know what they’re doing now. I’m not at all involved in it. I send them a check. I’ve done so many years of it I just keep out. Interviewer: Pretty close to forty years, I would say. Mrs. Kindel: Yeah. Interviewer: That’s quite a record. Mrs. Kindel: Well I didn’t even stop there you know. Then I got the bright idea that it would be nice to have a state federation of Humane Societies. So about a year or two after I got this one, I sent out letters to every society in the state that I could find and asked them to come here to a meeting at the YMCA; and we incorporated that day the Michigan Federation of Humane Societies. And it had quite a history. We did a lot of different things. We put wayside zoos under a law to regulate them. We had a member of the state police. Captain Scavarda was appointed by the police to serve on our state board. And he was just of great value. He came to every meeting I think and brought us always a report of how many humane cases the state police handled during the interim. And of course that was terrific coverage. We just went to town on it. We had trouble with Mackinaw Island. They don’t have any… they have a lot of horses up there, you know, and they never had a veterinarian on the island. And these horses were overworked and underfed and everything. We had an awful time for many years. I went to governors about it and I tried to get on a Island Commission to fight Murphy, asked him if he’d appoint me on it and a newspaperman from up north somewhere told him not to do it. They didn’t want a nosy woman on the Park Commission so I didn’t get on it. But there were problems all over the state that had to be taken care of. In nineteen thirty-four, that was drought year. I don’t know whether this is going to shut me up. Interviewer: No, no. this is exactly what we want. I’m sure. �8 Mrs. Kindel: In nineteen thirty-four was a drought year and Michigan was declared a secondary drought area which meant that reduced rates on shipping of animals but no additional feed was shipped into here. And we had starving animals and farmers were just crazy. I was swamped with phone calls and letters and help, help. So what to do, I didn’t know how to get enough money to handle it. So I wrote Eleanor Roosevelt and she moved like chain lightening. She gave my communication to, what was the man who was head of welfare? For her? Well I’ll have to think of that again. Gave him this and he wired me and said no farm animal need starve. And he released immediately three-hundred thousand dollars in federal Relief money in the state of Michigan to buy feed for the cattle which was just a god send. That was the, I received national recognition for that little job which was very satisfying and all due to Eleanor Roosevelt. Well anyway the Michigan Federation went along through the years and next month they’re having a meeting, I’ve just received a notice and I felt so happy when I saw it because it’s so well thought out and planned. They’re functioning as I would like to have them do and it makes me feel happy about it. So that was that. Then I got the bright idea, our national association was sort of monkeying along and not doing a great deal and a man from the east whom I knew well in the work, and I were both disgruntled about it. So we called a meeting in Chicago of seven states, the seven states surrounding us here. And we organized what we called the Midwest Humane Conference. And these states, we had an annual meeting and then we had directors’ meetings in between. But they took they furnished fresh ideas and programming and, and helped to the struggling societies through the seven states. And that also is still going. They’re having their annual meeting in May this year. So those are my babies. I served as their president for the first years. So that’s what I did. What else have I done? Then I got interested in Starr Commonwealth through Mr. Floyd Starr, who was just a saint of course, he was a marvelous person. And I served twenty-odd years on his board and as a few years as vice-president of the school. Interviewer: Why don’t you tell about that because I’m sure that there will be people in future years who will be interested to know and may not be familiar with it. So why don’t you talk about the Starr Commonwealth a little bit. Mrs. Kindel: Well, Mr. Starr as a young boy got the idea that he wanted to take care of boys. And he had a farm with quite a bit of acreage. He named the little house Gladsome Cottage, and he had a handful of boys to start with. They were [came] through the courts, some come through their parents, and some through agencies, but they’re boys with problems. And he has had a phenomenal success. At one time, it was a ninety point two [percent], I think, success; those boys never repeated or went into further crime. He loves these boys and he has an understanding, a natural psychology, of handling them so that he brings them into real manhood. We have ministers and writers and teachers and all sorts of professions among them. And the school is just, it would do credit to any private school. The campus is simply beautiful, and the buildings are lovely. He never builds a building unless he has the money right in his hands to do it. Interviewer: And where is this located? Mrs. Kindel: Albion, Michigan. �9 Interviewer: In Albion, yeah. Is it out in the country? Mrs. Kindel: Yes. I don’t know what the total acreage is. It used to be twenty-five hundred acres. He’s bought up farms when they would be in the distressed sales, you know. He’s built these cottages, he calls them, but they’re really brick, English-type houses and he has a house pair, a father and mother, house parents, in each cottage. And the school system is, has to be, of course, meet the state qualifications and requires a very high type of teacher, which makes it very costly too. We have to have better teachers than the public schools would have. And the same thing now is true with Social Service. We didn’t used to have to conform to that, but we do now; he has quite a Social Service department. And it has beautiful gymnasium and beautiful auditoriums. And friends of his in Detroit built his home, which is a beautiful home that he used to live in for life on the campus. And he believes in prayer and the efficacy of prayer for everything. And these boys have been taught to pray when they needed anything, even when there was just a handful of them. They needed a school building, and he had women he employed that would go around into the different towns and solicit money for schools, or for the school. And this one, who came into Grand Rapids, went to see Mrs. Emily Jewell Clark one day and tell her about what was going on and what progress had been made and what they needed. And they needed a school building. And Mrs. Clark said, “Well have you got the plans for it? What did you want, how did you want it?” “Well,” she said, “there are plans down at school.” And Mrs. Clark said, “Well you get them and come back.” So this lady went and got the plans and came back to her with them, and laid them out, and Mrs. Clark studied it and she said, “I’ll build that building for Starr.” So, in those days many, many years ago it was about five hundred thousand dollars, now I suppose it would be a million. It was a beautiful building. But the interesting thing is that Mr. Starr had this little group of boys pray for the school building. They needed it. He said, “We need that now, and we’ll pray and ask God to give that to us.” And that’s what they do. The people who gave him his home, the man was very ill in Florida one winter and they phoned back to the school and they said, “Floyd, get your praying group together.” And he had those boys, he organized them so they prayed all day and all night, right around the clock, he had this group going. And this man recovered. And he was so pleased of course, the family was so happy, that they gave him his lovely home. Well the place is full of stories like that. Interviewer: Sure. Mrs. Kindel: It’s just an inspiration to be with him. Norman Peale dedicated the chapel, which is a lovely one, and when he was talking to the boys he said, “You know there’s a term that I don’t use lightly in talking, but,” he said, “I must here.” He said, “Uncle Floyd Starr is Christ-like.” And that’s really what he is. He is a very spiritually-minded man. He’s ninety-one years old and just as sharp as he can be. He wants to run everything, which is a little bit difficult right now, at that age you know, so we try to keep him busy off-campus, send him on trips and so forth. But he’s a remarkable person. And it’s enriched my life so. Mrs. Ruth Rhoda, Ruth Bryan Rhoda, was a trustee for several years and became a dear friend of mine. I enjoyed her so much. And Jesse Stuart, the contemporary writer, is another friendship I have made through there. All interesting people; very worthwhile. Interviewer: You spoke of the, Mrs. Clark’s gift of the, of one of the first large buildings I take it. About when do you suppose that was made? Back in the twenties? Or before that? Mrs. Kindel: It was before I knew them, any of them down there. So I imagine it was the twenties. Wasn’t that a lovely thing to do? �10 Interviewer: Yes. You know she did quite a lot for the Art Museum, when it was called the Art Gallery. Of course, many people still do call it that. And very often I see a painting which was given by her, or in memory of her. There must be a great many of them, especially American paintings of the early twentieth century, late nineteenth century. Mrs. Kindel: What was Mary Perkins’s maiden name? Interviewer: Wilcox. Mrs. Kindel: Wilcox. Mrs. Wilcox gave Wilcox Cottage to the school, and that’s sort of an interesting story. Her son Raymond, the landscape man, was a member of a firm in Detroit. Mr. Starr never hesitates to ask for anything and he usually gets it, and he went to this landscape outfit and told them he’d like to have this property landscape planned. And they assigned him to young Mr. Raymond, who I guess was a young man then. And so, he drew these plans up. And he took them home to his mother’s one time. And he said, “You know Mother,” and he showed these to her and told her the story and everything, “There’s something you could do.” “Well what could I do?” “Well,” he said, “you see where this spot is right here?” He said, “You could build them Wilcox Cottage.” And she did. It’s a lovely home there, still functioning. But he did a lot; the landscaping is just beautiful, the whole place. Interviewer: Well I guess he was a very noted—or is, a very noted landscape architect, he’s still living. Mrs. Kindel: Well Mr. Starr just walks in and says, he went in to a gentlemen, I don’t know his name and I don’t know him, Mr. Kindel does, but Floyd knew about him, and he, one afternoon, was in his town, so he went to the door and introduced himself as Mr. Starr. And he said, “I wonder if I could take the opportunity of telling you about my boys.” Cold turkey this is, no appointments or anything, so in he goes and sits down and tells this gentlemen all about the boys and about the school and everything. [He] goes out with a check for seventy-five thousand dollars in his hands, clutched firm. A building. I used to sit at a board meeting, Frank Dean, do you know Frank Dean from Albion? He’s an architect. Interviewer: No, I don’t know him. Mrs. Kindel: He built Evelyn Avery’s house, he was that architect. Well, he’s lots of fun. He used to sit next to me at board meetings. He’d say, “Now wait a minute, he’s going to open that middle drawer and there’s going to be a check in there for a hundred thousand.” Well, truly, everything comes to this man. He’s something really remarkable. Michigan—I don’t know they know or appreciate him. He’s very different. Interviewer: I think he’s probably one of the best known citizens in the state, and has been for a great many years. Mrs. Kindel: He’s a darling. Interviewer: Are you still on that board? �11 Mrs. Kindel: No. Teddy served on it, and Chuck served on it, and I served on it. We’re all off of it now. But we’d go down there quite frequently. We’re very fond of him. And he comes up here; when things get going and he doesn’t like it and he can’t understand some modern ideas, he comes up here and cries on our shoulder. [To dog] Joey! Interviewer: [to dog] Sit down. Mrs. Kindel: It’s an inspiration to have known him and to be associated with him. We think it’s a real privilege. Interviewer: How many boys do they have at Starr Commonwealth? Mrs. Kindel: An average of a hundred and seventy-five. Interviewer: So it’s not really terribly big. Mrs. Kindel: No. Interviewer: But it gives them a chance to work closely with each boy. Mrs. Kindel: Yeah, they have to have them in smaller groups I imagine. They have some tall stories; they have murders, they have thievery, rape, arson, you name it, book’s thrown at them and everything. But they sure handle it. I’ve walked with Mr. Starr around campus, and the worst he’ll ever say about a boy is, “He’s a pill.” He’ll put his arm around a boy and say, “Katrina, now he’s just a pill.” Never anything worse than that. But he just expresses such love, it’s remarkable. Interviewer: Just taking a look at our tape here. I think, oh yes, we have quite a long—a few minutes left on this side. I don’t want to keep you all day. In the, I’ve known of course that you, at one point, had quite a large collection of Lincoln books and letters and papers of all sizes, types. How did your interest, where did you interest in Abraham Lincoln develop? Mrs. Kindel: Abraham Lincoln? Well that’s World War II. My son was going to be inducted, and I thought I’d take him over to Chicago, we’d go see, Oklahoma was the big musical show you know, we’d go over and get cheered up a little, because I was blue as blue could be. So, over we went and I had read somewhere an advertisement for the Abraham Lincoln Bookshop. And I’d always enjoyed reading things about Mr. Lincoln, I didn’t know very much, but, we decided we’d look this shop up. So we went down in the Loop in an office building, way up on some high floor were these three little rooms, about ten by ten all of them, no bigger, and the young man who owned this bookshop, Ralph Newman, the enthusiast of all enthusiasts and a brilliant intellect, wonderfully interesting person, greeted us. Well, we just had about an hour; it was perfectly wonderful listening to him. And he said to me, “Why don’t you collect Lincolniana?” “Oh,” I said, “I don’t know enough to do a thing like that.” I said, “I’m not a college woman,” I said, “I haven’t been educated that way, and I don’t know that I’d know anything about it. I couldn’t collect a thing like that.” “Well,” he said, “there’s nothing to that.” He said, “I’ll make a checklist for you and as we get each item we’ll check against it and,” he said, “I’ll help you.” Well, that sounded reasonable. So I said Ok, I’d start. And I think I bought two or three books. And then I bought a little memo, Lincoln wrote many of them, similar ones. This one says on it, “I suppose there be a charge against this man, but if there is none, let him be discharged.” Signed A. Lincoln and dated sixty-three I think. So we bought that. And that was our �12 introduction to Lincoln. And Ted went off to the wars and I continued with the Lincoln collection. Well when it grew to be about seven hundred volumes and I loved it, I enjoyed reading it and enjoyed handling it, but of course, a collection like that has to go under the Fine Arts Policy and has to be catalogued in duplicate. There were mechanical things about taking care of it that got me as my hands got worse with arthritis and I foresaw that it was beyond me, it was getting beyond me. So I sent out the word to a few places that I wanted to dispose of it. Well a librarian came from Iowa Wesleyan and one from Central Michigan, and Calvin, that’s three that came here, all wanted it. And then I talked with my son. I didn’t think he was interested to take care of it. I said, “Teddy. What about it now, seriously? Think of this. Do you want it? You have to take the responsibility of taking care of it. It isn’t just like other books that sell for a couple of dollars here and there.” Trying to impress upon him. Well he said, “Mother, I always thought it would be mine.” And he said, “Just because it’s yours, I’d want it.” Well that settled it. I said alright. So by-golly I wrapped up each little volume and we shipped them out to Ted. And he has them in Vail, Colorado. And the joke on him is that people know he has it; so, right now he was telling me on the phone last week that he has three speaking engagements on Mr. Lincoln as his birthday approaches on the twelfth. So he has to go and speak in the schools now; this, I don’t think he’s too crazy about but it’s part of being the owner of that library. So that’s where the Lincoln Library is. And then I, Mr. Newman suggested, he said, “Why don’t you collect books by the women? About and by the women of the Civil War.” Which I am doing. And I don’t know, I haven’t counted them. I think there’s about two, three hundred there. And it’s very interesting reading. They’re smart girls, those women were. And I have a number of letters; I’ve got several letters of Mrs. Lincoln’s, I have a letter of Mrs. Jefferson Davis, and I have Mrs. Lee, and Mrs. Freemont, General Freemont’s wife. What other ones do I have? Well I have several letters of those women, I’d like more. So that’s what my collection business is now. But I’m always buying books, my book bills are something. I love poetry. That first section is all poetry. Interviewer: This is a very beautiful room. What are the dimensions of it? Mrs. Kindel: It’s forty-five…is it forty-five or thirty-five? Oh Lord. Honestly, my memory dearie. I couldn’t tell you. Interviewer: Well, it’s at least thirty-five, maybe a little longer than that I’d say. Mrs. Kindel: Yeah. It’s twenty, the bay window from there over here is twenty, I know that. That’s twenty. And this is less. Interviewer: It breaks into nice individual units. Mrs. Kindel: Yeah. Well we built it this way, because in our other home, we had what was a sunroom, it was that vintage of a house, and we made it into a little library. And everybody always sat in the little room; no one ever sat in the living room. So we thought when we built this we would put the books and put everything in here, and this is it. We sit here for all occasions. Interviewer: I think you could almost take the visitor around the room and tell a story about literally scores of items in the room. Mrs. Kindel: There are some interesting things— �13 Interviewer: Because I’m looking behind me at the moment and here’s a case full of Chinese figures and other—here, I think your telephone is ringing. Mrs. Kindel: Well Chuck can answer it. Interviewer: Oh I see. Anyway, you have all kinds of objets d’art and statuaries and little statuettes and teapots and— Mrs. Kindel: Copenhagen ware in there. That gentleman that’s up in the top shelf, that odd looking bit, is from the bay of the Gold Coast; Bay of Bimini is it? He’s carved of ivory. Interviewer: Oh up there, I see. Mrs. Kindel: Yes, in the center. Interviewer: What’s that, a gigantic Toby jug? Mrs. Kindel: Toby jug. No, he’s a regular size. He looks big sitting up there I guess. He’s a regular one. Some of my nice pieces in there, the piece of carved jade on the top shelf. I had a friend in school in New York whose father was a German comedian at the Metropolitan Opera House for many years, and at the end of the war they went, returned to Germany. And at the end of World War II her husband had been killed by the Russians. She’d had a child, and her father was gone and so forth, and she could reclaim her citizenship. She’d been born in this country, on one of their trips over here and if she had American money to get out of Germany she could come over here and get her citizenship back. So Chuck arranged it all and we brought her back. And that stone head is off a full-size figure, she brought me that. All her nicest things she could salvage. Her family were the Hagenbeck family, I mean she married into the Hagenbeck family in Germany, the great animal people for the zoos and the museums and the circuses and all that stuff. And they sold all these beautiful things explorers brought from all over the world. So she gave me some of my nicest pieces, they came from Hamburg. Interviewer: Let me turn the tape over a moment. We’re recording again, I hope we are. I’m pretty sure we must be. I’m not going to bother to check it again, I just…Yes, yes, we must be, because the little needle is moving up and down. So we were talking about some of the things in your room and I wanted to come back to your collection of Lincolniana. Did you ever exhibit it? Mrs. Kindel: Oh I had an awful experience. The museum, our museum downtown, wanted an exhibit one time. So they sent somebody out to go through my material and see what they would like and so forth. My letters are of a material, I forget the name of it, it protects them, you can read them and handle them without touching the letter, you know what I mean? They’re all protected like that. So I loaned her these. My dear, they took them all out of those protecting envelopes they were in and put a thumbtack through that handbill, that’s an original old handbill. They had thumbtacks up in the top of that one, and they had these letters just lying in the window with nothing. I’d never loan again. Interviewer: I don’t blame you. Mrs. Kindel: After that, I thought—you’d think that museum would know better, wouldn’t you? �14 Interviewer: Maybe they do now. Let’s hope. Mrs. Kindel: Let us hope. Interviewer: I’m interested in that handbill; it says Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Is that the first night, or just one of the earliest? Mrs. Kindel: Eighteen sixty-four. Interviewer: Eighteen sixty-four. Mrs. Kindel: March tenth. Interviewer: I think it was made into a play before that probably, I think. Mrs. Kindel: I have a first edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Interviewer: Of course, that came out long before the Civil War, or several years before the Civil War didn’t it? Mrs. Kindel: Yeah. Do you know about books, you know they ruined, well not the value completely, but they detracted from the value by binding these. Interviewer: Was it originally a two volume set? Mrs. Kindel: Yeah. Here’s what the cover was. Interviewer: The original cover, yeah. Mrs. Kindel: There’s the end piece. And there’s the other. Interviewer: They preserve it, but they do, it does lessen the value. Mrs. Kindel: That took just half the value away. Interviewer: Let’s see what year. What year do you—? Mrs. Kindel: Eighteen fifty-two. Interviewer: Alright, I thought it was about that period. Mrs. Kindel: It’s a lovely binding. Interviewer: Yes it is. See, it was bound in Boston, well it says Boston eighteen fifty-two, but that’s the year of the publication not the binding. Very handsome indeed. Well, there must be some other— We talked a little about Oriental art, and things you’d like to, if you were to start all over again collecting. �15 Mrs. Kindel: Well that’s a George Inness painting over the mantel, which is one of our treasures. Father Kindel gave it to me. When I came into the family I kept raving about it so, he said, “When I go, you have that.” Interviewer: That was Mr. Kindel Senior? It’s a lovely painting. Mrs. Kindel: Yes, it is a beauty. Interviewer: Would you say that much of the furniture in this room is original antique or some of it reproduction? Mrs. Kindel: No, it’s all reproduction. Interviewer: Is it mostly Grand Rapids? Mrs. Kindel: Except that wine cooler over that. Yes, it’s all Grand Rapids. Interviewer: That speaks well for our, the quality of our design in Grand Rapids. Mrs. Kindel: Oh yes; we’ve got Chinese tables over there. ---two Chinese. Interviewer: What, who did that painting of the ship? Mrs. Kindel: That’s a museum piece, that’s Clays. He’s a Belgian artist. C-L-A-Y-S. And that has an interesting story. When I was little girl it was in the apartment of friends of ours and I always loved it. I evidently did an awful lot of talking about everything, because when I got married they sent it to us for a wedding gift. And I do love it, I think it’s a real beauty. And we have down there the picture of the three Kindel men: C.M., Ted, and his little son now. Interviewer: How long has Ted been out in Vail? Mrs. Kindel: Eleven years I think it is. Yes, I’m quite sure of it, eleven or twelve. Interviewer: Wonderful place. Mrs. Kindel: He’s quite the pillar of the post out there. He’s so busy, my gracious, he’s on the Board of Education and he’s an Associate, [the] Board of Associates control Vail, they’re the governing body, and he’s on that. When the president was out here this winter, Christmastime you know, he was so busy, he said, “I’m ready to fall on my face,” he said, “I don’t know how the president takes it.” They had a party every night and skied every day. And then the Cabinet came out at some point to see Jerry. And Ted said, “Gee, I got so I knew some by first name.” It was so interesting you hear little tidbits of conversation about things that you read about. It was, they’d had Jerry and the family for several Christmases now. They started it back when Jerry rented Ted’s house one Christmas holiday and ever since then they have them for Christmas Eve dinner. They had thirty this Christmas; they had to have six Secret Servicemen with them. And before the president and his party came in, a group of eight men came to the door, Teddy didn’t know who they were, unannounced, they’re called a Bomb Squad. And they came in the house, they went through every bureau drawer, every clothes closet, every cupboard, everything before the president was allowed to enter. And I said, “Was that �16 just your house that they did that too?” “No,” he said. All week, or two weeks, every place he went into, that Bomb Squad went ahead of him. Interviewer: That’s interesting, I never heard of that. Mrs. Kindel: I’d never heard of that. Interviewer: I knew that the Secret Service was very much in evidence whenever he appears in Grand Rapids or wherever it is, but I never knew about the Bomb Squad. Mrs. Kindel: I never did either. That amazed me. Well they had the Secret Service for dinner too, and they had friends of the Fords from Utah with five children, and of course Nancy and Ted have five children, so that was ten children at the dinner party. But they had a good time anyway. We called out there and talked to Jerry. And I said, “Good evening, Mr. President” and then I laughed and I said, “Jerry, I can’t call you Mr. President.” And he said, “Well Katrina, you don’t need to. You call me Jerry.” But he is a nice person, I mean regardless of how you think of him as a president, and I have some reservations, he’s a very fine man, he’s a nice, good man. Thank God after what we had. Interviewer: We went through quite a lot. Mrs. Kindel: So they had real fun. Nancy got herself on the Today program. I was watching it kind of idly one morning and I thought, that voice sounds so familiar, and I looked and here was Nancy with Jerry Ford in the main street at Vail, well she was throwing her arms up around his neck because he’s so tall and big, she was hugging and kissing him, and she says, “Welcome Mr. President!” Interviewer: We should explain that Nancy is your daughter-in-law. Mrs. Kindel: Oh yes, Nancy my daughter-in-law. Interviewer: It’s interesting; many of us, many, many people of course in Grand Rapids have known Jerry, rather informally, for a good many years and now it’s quite different. Mrs. Kindel: I know, now we feel like we have a personal share of him. Interviewer: Yes, of course. Mrs. Kindel: Well he is a nice, good guy. And Betty is. Betty and Nancy have become good friends. Interviewer: I want to just shut it off for a second; I want to take another look at your book here. We’ve just been talking about President Ford and of course this is a very highly Republican area, at least we have always thought that it is. And in looking through this book, this book of biographies in which you appear, I notice that you apparently are identified as a Democrat. And I’m curious to know how you, was your family a Democratic family or were you? Mrs. Kindel: Yes, my father was always a Democrat, however I worked for Jerry Ford Senior one year. He put me in charge of the three wards out here in East Grand Rapids, told me get the vote out. And I did it for the Republicans and also served as a toast mistress for their dinner and if he didn’t have the nerve at the dinner to tell this story about me. When I was getting the poll list copied, I had �17 volunteers of course go out to East Grand Rapids, and I said now, the names that have R after them, those are the ones we want you to copy. So we come to find out that R meant Removed and D meant deceased. And Jerry Ford Senior told this before this big dinner about me, I was so embarrassed I almost died. My Republican, I worked hard, I did a good job for them, but I am a Democrat. Interviewer: Well of course we have a Democrat as a congressman now which is a new twist after so many years of a Republican. Mrs. Kindel: Well I tell you, Dorothy MacAllister got me terribly interested in going in the Democratic fold. I admire her so tremendously and enjoyed being with her, oh what a brilliant woman she is. And that’s how I got going at it actively. I was chairman of the Radio, Radio State Chairman for Radio. That Democratic party was organized like nobody’s business. And the women had all these different…Piggy Bank, and the Radio, and different things and they had State Chairman and then they had County Chairman. And you were give money from the central treasury to carry on your work with and everything, it was just fabulous the way they operated. So I was part of that. Interviewer: Well, what do you think about our city? Mrs. Kindel: I love Grand Rapids. Interviewer: You like Grand Rapids. Mrs. Kindel: I’ve always loved it. Interviewer: I wasn’t trying to get that kind of a response necessarily. Mrs. Kindel: Well I do. I think it’s a nice place to live, I always have. I think the climate’s miserable, but— Interviewer: Especially today. Mrs. Kindel: Yeah well, the summer’s are hot and humid and all that, but no, I think it’s…I lived in so much bigger cities as a girl and all, and I envied people who lived here. I was glad to come here to live. I think it’s a great place to live for families. Still, when they grow older they’re kind of bored, it isn’t a very stimulating town is it? Interviewer: Well I think it’s more stimulating now than it was ten years ago, with the development of the new colleges, especially Grand Valley— Mrs. Kindel: I guess so. Interviewer: and I think there are more things going on. I had it—oh, one thing I wanted to bring out, I noticed in this book again that you are a member of the Marble Collegiate Church in New York City, of which Dr. Norman Vincent Peale is the minister. How did you happen to join that church? And when did you happen to join it? My two questions. Mrs. Kindel: I don’t really know. Mr. Kindel and I were both raised in the Christian Science Sunday School and Church, and we got pretty far away from it, practicing it, although it’s a philosophy that I �18 think stays with us pretty much, and we’re happy to have it, but I wanted to belong to a church, and I didn’t want to belong to the Christian Science church. Norman Peale had become a friend, we’ve had him here as a houseguest, he’s been in this house several times and Ruth, his wife, too. And I like his philosophy and his positive thinking, and so I joined it. And I’ve never been sorry. And he’s so painstaking; when I was ill this fall I had such a beautiful letter from him that he and Ruth were praying daily for my complete recovery. This isn’t just perfunctory with him, he’s, he really… Interviewer: He’s a real genuine person. Mrs. Kindel: Yes, he knows what he’s saying and why. He’s a remarkable person. My, what he, what good he does, those sermons broadcast and that beautiful church it’s so mellow with age you know, it’s over a hundred years old. Have you been in it? Interviewer: It’s way down on Fifth Avenue. I know where it is, I’ve never been inside it. Mrs. Kindel: You should, it’s an experience. Twenty-ninth street and Fifth. It’s a beautiful old church. Interviewer: It’s a lovely church. Mrs. Kindel: It’s the oldest Protestant church in this country. It’s quite a record. Interviewer: I didn’t realize that. You mean the parish goes back farther than any other. Dutch church, I presume, originally. Mrs. Kindel: Oldest Protestant church in the country. Interviewer: Well unless there is some other topic you think we— Mrs. Kindel: Well my grandparents, my Dutch grandparents, were the second couple, the first couple, married in the Dutch Reformed Church in Grand Rapids. In eighteen sixty-seven. Interviewer: Where was the church located? Mrs. Kindel: I don’t know. It’s the, well the big church up on College, that’s the outgrowth. Interviewer: Of course, it was down originally; when I was much younger it was on the corner of Fountain and Barclay. And that church burned. And then they moved to the corner of College and Fulton Streets. So I remembered that church, but whether, I’m sure it wasn’t originally there. I think it came, it was in some other location. Mrs. Kindel: Of course you know the Marble Collegiate is Dutch Reformed? Interviewer: Yes, I know that. Well, you’ve stuck with your Dutch ancestry you see. Mrs. Kindel: Yeah. The Dutch will show up. �19 Interviewer: Well, this has been very pleasant. And I think, as I say, unless you have something else to add? Mrs. Kindel: No dearie. Heavens, you’ve got me talking a blue streak. Interviewer: Well that’s pretty good. That’s fine. Thank you very, very much, and I’m sure that a hundred years from now, somebody will be interested to hear this, I hope. Mrs. Kindel: Why yes, maybe they will. They’ll say, humane society? Well now what was that? Interviewer: They may still use that word, let’s hope. Mrs. Kindel: The millennium will not come too soon. Interviewer: No, I can agree with you there. Mrs. Kindel: No. A H Avery, Evelyn · 11 B Hagenbeck Family · 14 Hendricks, Mrs. G.A. · 5 Homiller, Mrs. (Aunt) · 2 Berkey and Gay · 4 Burns Family · 2 I C Carroll, Ad · 6 Caulfield Family · 2 Clark, Emily Jewell · 9, 10 D Dana Hall (school) · 3 Dean, Frank · 11 Duffy Family · 2 F Foote, F. Stuart · 4 Ford, Betty · 17 Ford, President Gerald R. (Jerry) · 16, 17 Illinois Lives · 1 K Kammeraad, Peter · 6 Kent County Humane Society · 5, 7 Kindel, Charles MacLear (Husband) · 1, 4, 11, 19 Kindel, Nancy (Daughter-in-law) · 17 Kindel, Ted (Son) · 12, 13, 16, 17 L Lincoln, Abraham · 12, 13 M MacAllister, Dorothy · 18 McPherson, Mrs. (Aunt) · 2 �20 Michigan Federation of Humane Societies · 8 Midwest Humane Conference · 8 T Talmadge, Bill · 5 N Newman, Ralph · 12, 13 U Uncle Tom’s Cabin · 14, 15 P Peale, Dr. Norman Vincent · 10, 18, 19 Pullen, Mrs. · 7 R Rhoda, Ruth Bryan · 10 Roosevelt, Eleanor · 8 S Starr Commonwealth · 9, 11 Starr, Floyd · 9, 10, 11, 12 Stuart, Jesse · 4, 10 V van Asmus, Edward Cup (Father) · 3, 17 van Asmus, Helen Hurlbut Long (Mother) · 2, 3, 5 van Asmus, Henry David Cup (Grandfather) · 1 W Welsh, George · 6 Wilcox, Mrs. · 10 Wilcox, Raymond · 10 Women of the Civil War collection · 13 Woodcock Family · 2 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7debdc962f2b5a9a9ea486d6aa6c2dcd.mp3 62a2338b9d2568fbdb0413c8bf12a3ed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_48Kindel Title A name given to the resource Kindel, Katrina Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kindel, Katrina Description An account of the resource Katrina Cup van Asmus was born in 1904. She married Charles Kindel in 1924. She was heavily involved with the local and national Humane Society and was instrumental in forming the Michigan Federation of Humane Societies. Mrs. Kindel managed construction of the WPA project to build an animal pound on Grandville Avenue in the early 1930s. She served as a trustee and vice president of the Starr Commonwealth, a nationally-known training school and home for disadvantaged boys near Albion, MI. Mrs. Kindel collected rare books and had a large collection of Lincolnia. She died in 1987. Subject The topic of the resource Michigan--History Local histories Memoirs Oral histories (document genre) Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Grand Valley State University Women Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1975 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c4dc9660c140b041f1f0ec2388efb7b9.mp4 78ef562682b3364ab4a50a5dc169d7ec https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/80523c3cb27c8a3eb5db615793e76377.pdf fb68aeb0943d6561199f72f5c0556b4d PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Vietnam Elaine Kines Total Time – (40:42:18) Background · She was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1954 (00:48) · Went to Byron Center High School (00:58) · Her mother was a homemaker and her father drove a truck o There were 5 members in her family · She graduated in 1972 (01:15) · She paid a lot of attention to the war - remembers moratoriums and wearing black bands (01:38) o Didn’t understand the politics of the war, but it was popular to be against it · Her oldest sister had many friends that went to fight in Vietnam · After high school, she worked at the Meijer warehouse (02:12) · Tried to go to school and work full time – was not able to do it (02:20) Enlistment & Training – (02:29) · Was always interested in the Air Force o The Air Force was not actively pursuing women who wanted to join (03:07) · Recruiters did not know what to do with her until she tested (03:28) · She went to the recruiters office at Rogers Plaza and told them she wanted to sign up · Was sent to Detroit, Michigan, for testing and to get a physical (04:06) o She hand carried the test results back to the recruiter and waited to see where she was best fit (04:40) · The recruiter told her that she would be good with electronics (05:03) · She was smoothly moved to be excited about weather equipment repair (05:24) · She was sent to the Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas for basic training (05:41) o There were roughly 2 separate barracks for women for basic training · She was flown down to the base (06:10) · Was part of a “flight” – 30 individuals in a “flight” o Group that she trained with – all women (07:08) · Basic training was not very difficult (07:29) o There were different standards for men and women § Men’s push-ups vs. women’s push-ups �· · · · · · · § Men run 3 miles and the women would run 2 Learned about the Air Force in course work (08:05) Did a lot of marching and paperwork in training She was required to sign a pre-printed postcard to family (08:39) Discipline was highly stressed o Inspections were very important There was no kind of hazing throughout training She had a male and female instructor (09:43) Basic training lasted six weeks – until they received orders of their MOS (10:15) Active Duty – (10:18) · She received orders for Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois (10:28) o For weather equipment repair and weather observation · Flew on a commercial airplane to the Chanute Air Force Base o Chanute was much smaller than Lackland (11:16) o Now in a co-ed class of nearly 15 (11:45) · Stayed in a women’s barracks for all of the Army, Navy, Marine, and Air Force women (12:10) · Many of the other women were very young (12:32) o There were African Americans among other sorts of diverse women · The electronics training program was six months long · Worked with cloud height measuring equipment, radar, wind gauges, and many others (14:22) o Did not gain much “hands-on” work – did a lot of book work (14:55) · She had to wake up very early every morning · Went to school with Iranian technicians that were there to learn weather equipment (15:50) · Free time was spent doing laundry, taking walks, hanging out together (16:19) · She believes that the smaller environment helped the men to see her as just another classmate (17:58) · After the six month training, her job responsibilities were still wide open (18:17) · Her first assignment was in Minot, North Dakota (19:00) o She did not want to go there because it was the headquarters (19:10) · She met her future husband at Chanute and was able to get a join spouse assignment, which moved her to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina (19:50) · She got an entry level job as a weather maintenance person (20:17) o There was a good deal of OJT · The reception was that the males did not know how to handle a woman (21:04) o They changed the way they talked and did certain things o They were always polite and treated her kindly · She did a lot of preventive maintenance – strict with how the equipment was �· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · taken care of (21:46) o Worked on the flight line at this point Worked at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base for just over 3 years (22:45) She believes that the members of the Air Force truly wanted to be there (23:06) The Air Force treated her as an Airman and extremely equal (23:25) o She was sometimes referred to as “babe” (25:07) § She had to tell them to stop and they would She lived off base with her husband (25:59) They were all required to be wearing a full dressed uniform, off base, if they were to be in uniform (26:27) o She was allowed to wear her fatigues if she was traveling to and from work (26:49) She worked for a man that had been involved in the Vietnam war (27:55) o He did not talk of the war – He said that it was awful, hot, and nasty (28:10) Many of her comrades were there to make a career out of the Air Force (28:30) It was extremely challenging being a female o Was “hit on” all of the time (29:10) o The woman’s presence in the Air Force was sometimes misunderstood There were some men that resented having women on base (30:00) Being married helped her status among the men (30:45) There were many administrative women, but very few maintenance working women (31:45) Believes that it is brilliant to have women in the service (32:30) o If men are to be drafted, women should be able to be drafted as well The women felt as though they had more to prove (33:30) Recalls a story of a young man that jumped to his death because he had re-thought his entry into the service (34:40) She had terrible homesickness when she was there (36:14) After the Service – (36:27) · She left the service because her husband had been discharged and it was not practical to stay in (36:40) o In hindsight, she regrets not doing “20 and out” · After the service, she worked and her husband went to school (36:55) o She drove a hi-lo for Meijer (37:02) o If you served in the military, you were granted the same position, superiority, etc. when you returned · She had a daughter who served in the National Guard (37:49) · She sees that the situation of having women in the service has opened up o Women no longer have to explain why they are there (38:33) · Encourages women to join the military because of the many opportunities and that �they expect excellence (39:36) · Her military experience gave her a greater sense of self and she accomplished things that she could have never dreamed of doing (40:15) o Set her on a trajectory for her life – brought order and a sense of accomplishment � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KinesE1371V Title A name given to the resource Kines, Elaine (Interview outline and video), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kines, Elaine Description An account of the resource Elaine Kines was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1954. She graduated from high school in 1972, and continued on to become a college student and full time employee at the local Meijer warehouse. Unable to maintain her employment and schooling, she decided to join the Air Force. After passing her testing and physical examinations in Detroit, she was sent to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas for basic training. She received her orders after the six-week basic training, and reported to Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois where she worked in maintenance for weather equipment repair and weather observation. She was able to evade her first assignment to Minot, North Dakota by gaining a join spouse agreement. This agreement allowed her to be re-assigned to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina where she worked for over three years. She remembers both the hardships and benefits of being a woman in the service and left the Air Force once her husband was discharged. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Byron Area Historic Museum (Byron Center, Mich.) BCTV Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Air Force Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-04-11 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0ea7da36f4a4fd6221e75f9a95dec5c9.mp4 7d23f986f083912f51b25e74c3eee8fa https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ed759e3e78f486e7bb871158ec2ba835.pdf fd5678392bcbab1784ac5f710a1b5d93 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Carl King World War II Total Time: 54:33 Childhood and Pre-Enlistment (00:00) • • • • • • • Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1924. (00:45) Father was a furniture maker before the depression and then became a farmer until 1936, when he went back to the furniture business. Attended High School and graduated in 1942. He knew about the war in Europe before Pearl Harbor, but it didn’t really affect him. He remembers them announcing the Pearl Harbor attack in church Many of the people that he worked with were drafted. (04:05) He went to the draft board and requested to be drafted into the Navy the next time the draft came up. (04:45) He had a physical in Kalamazoo, Michigan and then had a week at home before he was sent to Great Lakes Naval Station in Chicago, Illinois. Training (05:54) • • • • • • • • • He took basic training at Great Lakes Naval Station, where they were taught basic procedures and marching. He was able to stay out of trouble, as did most of the people there. (07:15) Many of the men in his company were from Tennessee and Kentucky. (08:07) Boot camp took 12 weeks. (08:20) He signed up for Machinist Mates Service School after boot camp. (09:15) They were taught to run basic machinery at the school, which took place at Great Lakes as well. He was assigned extra duties during service school because of his prior knowledge of machines. (10:25) He got liberty every other weekend while he was in service school. He spent liberty at home because he was able to make the trip to Grand Rapids in 1 day. (12:04) After Service School, he was able to choose where he would be assigned. He signed up for PT Service School. (12:45) They had to wait in a warehouse in Boston for PT Training. After the wait, he attended PT School in Bellville, Rhode Island. There, they lived in Quonset huts and spent a lot of time on PT boats in the Narragansett Bay and the North Atlantic. They spent very little time in the classroom. �Active Duty (15:30) • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • He was assigned to the PT Training Squadron as an instructor. He did not enjoy this very much. He began this job in late 1943. (16:48) He was then transferred to a squadron in Miami, Florida where he was assigned to work the base force, which worked on the boats while they were at base. (18:30) He spent 2 weeks in Miami, and was assigned to the base force. He was then sent to an island off of the Pacific end of the Panama Canal. There, they continued training and waited to be shipped west. (20:15) He then boarded an LST and eventually reached the New Hebrides islands in the South Pacific. They were just passengers on the ship, however he was able to talk his way into engine room duty to alleviate the boredom. The trip took around 4 weeks. (22:50) They were based on a coconut plantation in the New Hebrides, and were housed in Quonset huts. (24:15) He met very few people who were involved in PT before training. He was acquainted with John F. Kennedy during his training, but he did not get along with him. (25:35) He was in the New Hebrides as a waiting point before being sent to Guadalcanal. He eventually flew to Guadalcanal, only to find out that his squadron had shipped to the Treasury Islands just a few days before. (26:15) He was loaded onto an LST in Guadalcanal and shipped to the Treasury Islands. (27:34) They were then assigned to a tender, which carried all of the supplies for the PT boats, so he was no longer on shore. (28:20) They were then shipped to Palau, where they participated in a number of different activities, including protecting a fleet anchorage. They were there for a couple of weeks. (31:00) At one point, a minisub was detected in the fleet anchorage, but they were never able to find it. (31:48) A Japanese soldier was swimming towards the USS Yorktown with a floating mine, but the mine was hit by rifle fire and exploded before he could get close. (32:20) They were then sent to the Leyte Gulf in the Philippines, and arrived there 2 days after the invasion. When they arrived, there were still many Navy ships in the gulf. (33:45) They were allowed liberty in the Philippines a number of times. They often went to a small village of around 1500 people. (35:35) They were then loaded into LST’s and taken to Okinawa. (38:50) Most of their work on Okinawa consisted of rescuing downed airmen whose planes were too damaged to land. They were stationed in a small harbor that had served as a Japanese submarine base. It was located on the northern side of the island. They had very little trouble with the ground based Japanese troops, but were attacked by Japanese aircraft. �• • • • • • • (40:50) They saw a kamikaze attack on one of their supply ships. (42:25) They occasionally shot at Japanese aircraft, and he believes that they were able to destroy 3 fighter aircraft. (44:10) They were stationed at Okinawa when the war ended. He remembers hearing about the dropping of the atomic bomb while he was there. (45:20) He had been in the South Pacific for 2 years by the time the war had ended. They did a number of things during their time off, including playing sports and listening to the radio. (46:53) They were again sent to the Leyte Gulf a couple of weeks after the war ended. They scrapped their PT boats while they were there. They were only there for a short time. (50:15) He then boarded a boat which took them near the Aleutian Islands and then down to Seattle, Washington. They were loaded on railcars in Seattle and shipped to Great Lakes Naval Station where he was discharged in February 23rd, 1946. Post-Service (51:50) • • After his discharge, he came back to his job at the General Motors plant in Grand Rapids. He retired from General Motors in 1982. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KingC Title A name given to the resource King, Carl (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource King, Carl Description An account of the resource Carl King was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1924 and served in the Navy during World War II. He was drafted into the Navy upon his request, and attended training at Great Lakes Naval Station. He joined the PT corps and worked as a machinist throughout his time in the service. He spent most of his time in the service in the Pacific theatre, serving in the New Hebrides, Guadalcanal, the Philippines, and Okinawa. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Byron Area Historic Museum (Byron Center, Mich.) BCTV Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Navy World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-01-06 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3fbffba61c1630e77bf5e9ed365db0ad.mp4 fdd106cc08064bbd7c68172a090e1452 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a94faae28837cf20ad8a1e2e60b06811.pdf c62733aa78ea5d2ac2d96b11112eac34 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Interviewee’s Name: Don King Name of War: Other veterans and civilians/Persian Gulf War Length of Interview: (00:12:09) Childhood and Pre-Enlistment (00:05)  Born in Albion, NY in 1963 Graduated High School and enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1980 at age 17.  Joined the Marine Corps because his father and grandfather were Marines Training (01:23)  Attended Boot Camp at Parris Island, SC and then to Camp Lejeune, NC for further training Active Duty (02:43)         After training, was sent to Twenty-Nine Palms, CA, the Philippines, Japan, and several other bases in the US. He was reactivated as a reserve in 1990, and sent to fight in the Gulf War. They were shipped over, and they were sent to a staging area. (05:18) They were able to return to the United States with all but one of their original members. (05:40) Life on the base was very much regimented. In their free time, they would train physically, but they rarely got off the base. The food was OK, and served buffet style. (07:07) He made a number of friends while in the service. He was able to stay in touch by mostly letters, but also the occasional phone call. (08:30) They were sent to Japan and then the Philippines to help evacuate bases. They were then shipped to California and then Michigan. (11:32) They trained with the Japanese in cold weather during his time in Japan. Post-Service (9:00)   He attended therapy after the war to help him readjust to civilian life. His career in Real Estate was not influenced by his time in the military. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KingD Title A name given to the resource King, Donald, Jr. (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource King, Jr., Donald Description An account of the resource Don King served in the Marine Corps during the Cold War and Gulf War years. He served overseas in the Philippines and Japan during his original tour in the early 1980s, as well as in the U.S. He joined the reserves and was mobilized for the Gulf War and sent to Iraq in 1991. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource King, Morgan (Interviewer) Crist, Sofie (Interviewer) Forest Hills Eastern High School (Ada, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States. Marine Corps Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-06-08 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives