September 23rd…..“WHAT UNUSUAL EVENTS, DURING WORLD WAR II, CAUSED YOUR AUNTIE TO HAVE A ROMANTICALLY-INCLINED SOLDIER PEN PAL?”
Bing Crosby was on the family radio singing, “Coming In On A Wing And A Prayer” while Beaulah May Dowd brushed her hair that morning in the spring of 1943. How excited she was to be graduating High School soon AND to be able to do her patriotic duty in her new-found role as a young adult.
Beaulah’s sleepy little hamlet of Scarville, Iowa, being nestled near the borderline with Minnesota, was in full support of America’s global struggle during World War II. Everyone knew everyone in that gentle village which lent to true family feelings of community and loving safety overall for residents who called those tree-lined streets home.
After enduring the frostbitten winter, that rural world was happily warming back to life there across the northern Iowa farmlands on those fine spring days.
As Beaulah stepped from her family home that morning, colorful robins sang along to the cadence of her footsteps and maple trees waved their new young leaves at her as she walked towards her main employment as one of the local telephone operators in her small community. Life as a telephone operator could get hectic while working that switchboard station. Farmers, as well as townsfolk, would spin the hand-crank on the side of their wall-mounted phones to “ring in” as Beaulah responded quickly to yank retractable cords of phone lines from one jack on the vertical switchboard and swiftly plug the jack into the needed port for her citizen’s respective phone calls to go through.
Like any industrious young person of that World War II era, a few extra dollars in the pocket were always a bonus. For our Beaulah, that extra income came in the form of a second job working at the local grocery store performing a task that few young people even know about today. Her assignment was to ‘candle’ eggs before sending them on their way to sell there in the Scarville grocery store or through the trucking and railroad industry to all ports of call around our great nation. Those delicious eggs served the need for feeding everyone from city folk to soldiers fighting for our nation’s freedom. And, for those younger readers who are unaware, to ‘candle’ an egg, a person will put each egg up against a point of light to see if the egg had a chick inside, or not. If there’s no chick embryo inside, the egg is ready to sell for food of all varieties of delightful meals of eggs fried, scrambled, hard-boiled, etc..
As time went on, and I imagine some boredom too, one day Beaulah decided to have some fun with one of her ‘candled’ eggs. She carefully wrote her name and address on that special egg and sent it on its merry way. To her utter amazement, that ‘EGGciting egg’ made its way from her farmlands of Iowa all the way down to a United States Army camp in the State of Florida!!!
A blonde, curly-haired Army Corporal and Company Cook by the name of Bill Krantz was preparing a massive breakfast for the cavernous stomachs of his large Army garrison one morning when, of all things, one egg (among hundreds) jumped out and caught this lonely soldier’s attention. “Well, well, guys!!! Lookee what we have here!!” Said Bill, “Some young lady way up in Iowa State is lonely, ya?” Doing his own version of ‘candling’, Bill held up that potential happy egg to get a clear look at his new-found pen-pal’s address. Thus began a new friendship between Beaulah May Dowd in Scarville, Iowa and a lonely soldier way down yonder in Florida as he served ‘Uncle Sam’ on that Army base. Needless to say, letters began winging their way to Iowa and back to that Florida Army base on a regular basis. 😉
There’s an old saying that goes…….”Be careful what you wish for, you just MIGHT get it!!!”. As life would have it, Beaulah was not only busy writing to her soldier, but, she also fell in love with a local young man by the name of Hubert Orion Martinson there in the local Scarville area. Hubert had proposed marriage to our young lady in this story and she gladly accepted. The problem was, what to do now with her young soldier pen-pal?? Corporal Krantz was not only serving our nation’s call there in 1943, but he was also not one that dear Beaulah could just brush aside.
Into this scenario came a young girl of a mere fourteen years of age that availed herself to Beaulah’s rescue. Beverly June Sletten lived right next door to Beaulah and they were very good friends. One day, Beaulah came over from next-door and Bev could see concern written all over her girlfriend’s face. “Ohhh Beverly!! Can you come to my rescue?? I just know that my fiancé, Hubert, will not understand about my letters to Corporal Krantz. Can you please take over in being his pen-pal? Please??”
Tenderhearted and good-natured as she was (and still IS at 95 years), Beverly took a recent photo of herself that included her baby nephew, Lowell Noorlun, and her elder brother, Marcus “Del” Sletten and sent her first letter off to Corporal Bill Krantz way down in Florida. Needless to say, Bill was instantly head-over heels and twitterpated by this gorgeous young woman in the photograph that had the appeal of a full-grown woman of 24 instead of her actual 14 years of age. Bill’s letters became more and more romantic in nature to the point of asking for Beverly’s hand in marriage. Flattered, but yet in shock, Beverly wrote back to Bill and said, “I just can’t marry you, Bill, I’m ONLY fourteen years old!!” In his next letter, our curly, blonde-haired soldier came back with his response of …….“I don’t care if you’re 14 or FORTY!!! I STILL wanna marry you!!!”
In her wisdom, and as daily life moved on, Beverly decided to slow down in writing her letters and let Bill ‘cool his heels’ there in Florida by not writing much more to him. Her family eventually moved over the border into Minnesota and began life in the city known as Albert Lea. One day, Beverly’s mother, Amanda, noticed a tall, curly-haired, blonde young soldier walking near their new place of residence on Euclid Avenue. Bev was gone on errands that day and only her mother was at home. The young corporal quietly walked up to the front door of their home and began knocking on the door. Inside their home, Amanda was too shy to answer the door while the young man knocked and knocked, repeatedly. Obviously discouraged by no one answering, the young soldier quietly walked away, never to be seen again. Was this the persistent Corporal Bill Krantz who might have traveled all the way from Florida to Scarville, Iowa in search of Beverly’s affections? Did former Scarville neighbors give Bill the Sletten’s new address in Albert Lea? Only the good Lord Himself knows. But, personally, I think Bill returned to the Army life and served out his many years as a cook who had been, in a way, guilty of ‘cooking up’ a romance that was just not to be……….thus are the thoughts of this Norwegian Farmer’s Son. 😉
Norwegian Farmer's Son 