WWII – Valerie's Voice

A Treasure Hunt

I do well with order. I like to keep a tidy house, with a place for everything and everything in its place. However, right now I am living in the “messy middle” as my friend calls it, because I am charged with going through many boxes of my late aunt’s possessions. “I’m going on a treasure hunt,” of sorts.

My aunt Ag & Florence – in 1984 I believe. Most photos lack dates and identification!

My aunt died is 2004, but her long-time friend and housemate lived in the house they owned together since 1968. The house was passed on to Florence when Auntie Ag died. Florence lived another 16 years in that house (after Ag’s death), and Florence died in their home at age 99.

So it was up to Florence’s family to clear out, and clean up, the house. They carefully put all the items that belonged to Aggie in boxes to be given to our family. I was chosen as the point person, so over a dozen hefty boxes were delivered last week, to my doorstep. Each individual box to be sorted, organized, and then distributed.

My house is a mess! I have tablecloths and linens on the dining room table…my grandma’s wedding dress hanging in the office,

my kitchen table and counter tops full of old photos, another room with a table set up and all kinds of Norwegian folk art and other miscellaneous items on top of it. There is a large box of jewelry, and another large box of pictures off the walls, a box of books and a box of Christmas plates…and more boxes in the garage…

So for now, I am going through her stuff, one box at a time, and setting it out for her niece and nephews (my cousins) to pick out what they want from the collections. In my effort to declutter my own things I’m in the mindset to not keep much. I hope I don’t regret it but I think a few mementos, and some photos, will suffice.

That being said, I did succeed in finding a most valuable treasure within the boxes. I opened up an inconspicuous, old, Fanny Farmer candy box and discovered it was full of hand-written letters, from my father to his mother and father, and sister and brothers.

My father sent these letters back home from the army during WWII. I did not know the letters existed, all dated 1942 or 1943. I’ve been reading each one and learning a bit about this man, my father, who died at a young age (55 years old). I was 20.

I enjoyed that some letters were tied up with ribbon.

These letters are precious. They will be kept, read and reread, and cherished.

I set out on a treasure hunt, and found a fortune.

Old School Cafe and the SPAM Museum

Antique, pull-down maps, chalk boards, pictures of George Washington and Abe Lincoln, and an aged, class photo decorate an old, country school building converted to a restaurant in Mantorville, Minnesota.

Front view of the Old School Cafe with bell tower.

The old school house is now the Old School Café, with good cooking, and a popular spot for town folks to eat. The portions were generous and the food was tasty and the ambiance was nostalgic and cheery.

Outside was also inviting. There were old wooden benches and a school desk on the wide, front porch. There was a bell tower with the bell intact and rope hanging from it. Sculptures of children were placed around the grounds…a lovely idea for a school house yard.

The children on the slide was my favorite sculpture.

Another sculpture of children at a drinking fountain.

There were many, pretty flower pots scattered throughout the yard. On one side of the café was a charming, old wooden house dated 1855, that looked occupied, and the other side of the cafe was a garden area. It was fun to look around, and a delightful way to start the day.

I love whimsey. This little troll was attached to the 1855 house outside wall.

An outdoor seating area along side the cafe, between the cafe and the old house.

There always seems to be a kitty cat hiding in gardens.

Our next stop was the Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota.

A well-done sculpture of a farmer and two pigs, outside the SPAM Museum.

An interesting, fun (and free!) museum dedicated to the story of Hormel’s specific product SPAM. Hormel began in the late 1800’s but SPAM was created in 1936 and became popular in WWII when the military ordered lots of SPAM to provide for the armed forces overseas… because it was convenient, and the shelf life was lengthy.

A life-size figure, a screen projection, was lamenting how he felt he had an overabundance of SPAM while in the army.

Some in the military might say the government overused SPAM. But it continues to sell today and there are multiple flavors of SPAM, and it is sold in multiple countries all over the world.

An interesting story on how SPAM got its name.

Free samples of SPAM were offered. We tasted the hickory smoked version and it was very good.

Of course, there is a gift shop featuring all things “Spam”, including flip flops that spell out SPAM when you walk in the sand!

A parting shot…a stunning blossom in the gardens of the Old School Cafe.

God Remembers Me

The room where we met was the kitchen…wallpaper – circa 1970.

We sat at the vintage kitchen table in the new addition of the old farmhouse. There was plenty of light; one large picture window facing south, that overlooked the driveway and the cornfield. Out the other window, facing west, you could see the barn and other farm buildings. There were always a lot of cats hanging around outside the back door by their food dishes, and birds at a birdfeeder right outside the front window. There was life.

The farmer and his wife, really a city girl converted to a farmer’s wife, were in their late 80’s when we first met. We attended the same church but we didn’t know each other until we began our coffee visits. We started to meet regularly.

The coffee cups were cracked and mismatched but we didn’t care. The coffee itself was very strong but ready upon our arrival to their place. We always provided sweet treats, which they liked. After awhile I started to set the table when we arrived, and served the coffee, since it was getting harder for them to get in and out of chairs. We settled into a comfortable routine.

It all began when I heard he wanted a regular visitor for his wife. He had been living with cancer for over 30 years. Mayo considered him a miracle. He was starting to have other health issues; she was in the beginning stages of memory loss.

So I called to ask her out for coffee. In our initial conversation she asked, “Just me and you?” I laughed and said, “Well, I think my husband would enjoy visiting with you and your husband, how does that sound?” “OK.” And so our visits with the four of us began.

They were engaging folks…they had a lot of interesting stories to tell and yet they were always curious about our lives too. We met for a couple of years on a regular basis. We enjoyed each other immensely. For my husband and I, it was nice to have elders in our life once again since all our parents had passed away.

As time went by they slowed down more and more until he died at age 90 leaving behind his wife of 69 years! They had four children. Their son was their neighbor, living conveniently on the next farm over. The other three daughters lived in the cities but were able to come down often to visit and care for their mother. She was loved.

I continued to go and have coffee visits with her after her husband died until Covid-19 reared its ugly head. She moved into her son’s home and we were all in lockdown.

After March 2020 I tried calling her but I usually had to leave messages on her answering machine…she picked up once or twice and the conversation was just a few minutes long…”how are you? fine”…and I know she understood the pandemic situation. Then that stopped. She didn’t pick up any more. I would send her notes telling her I was thinking of her so she would know I hadn’t forgotten her.

I had her son’s phone number. Six months went by and one day I called and left a message with him. His sister, one of the daughters, called me back. She said their mom was doing ok, had more bad days than good. Thankfully she did know all her children and grandchildren but unfortunately, according to her daughter, she no longer remembered who I was.

And that changed everything. I confirmed to her daughter that I would no longer call or send notes. It felt like a rejection. In my head I know it’s not but in my heart I was very sad.

It was hard to think that my special friend no longer remembers our conversations about her 35 dresses in her closet when she was a child, and about the Young-Quinlan Store in downtown Minneapolis. We shared memories of both growing up in the city of Minneapolis, and then she moving to the farm and I moving to a small town near her farm and our paths crossing at church. She doesn’t remember showing me the photo of her dearly beloved grandfather E-V-E-R-Y-T-I-M-E we were together…”He was born in 1856 and died in 1955, just think of all the changes he saw in his lifetime” she always said. She no longer remembers our chats about her beautiful dishes…and our mutual fondness of dishes and her showing me all her dishes.

But I remember…I remember hearing the stories of this city girl who grew up to be a strong woman…she liked to drive fast cars and she was one of the first women to work at the air traffic control center in Farmington for 27 years. She was also a farmer’s wife, fixing tractors and driving tractors and helping on the farm. Oh what a life she led…

She knitted beautiful sweaters. She learned to knit in elementary school – quilt squares for soldiers in WWII – and she never stopped knitting. She had four children who “she never had to worry about.” I was privileged to get to know her story a little bit…and I grew to love and care for this woman very much, never realizing the sadness it would cause when she didn’t remember me any more.

I cherish the memories. I smile a little when I remember our good times together, then I cry a little when I remember she doesn’t remember them, or me, anymore.
I have more empathy for those sons and daughters whose mothers do not remember them.

But thank God – He remembers me, and He will never forget me.