An Interview With Charles Dulin

On 6/18/15 I interviewed Charles Dulin, a WWII vet born in 1923.  I always like to say that 1923 was an unlucky year to be born.  If you were born in 1923, you would have been 18 in 1941; the year when Japan attacked the US and when Germany attacked the USSR.  While WWII technically started earlier, it was 1941 when things got really big.  Charles was in both the luckiest and unluckiest position that a soldier born in 1923 could be in.

Unlike other vets, he never left the US.  He was an "Attached Unassigned" which meant that he had no particular assignment.  He served for 3 years and remained a private for all 3 of those years.  He spent his time doing the jobs that nobody else really wanted to do.  He usually worked with planes, refueling and fixing them up.  Sometimes he would fly them/fly in them, but that didn't happen quite as often.

His story was rather interesting to listen to mainly because of how odd it was.  He was originally in training to be a meteorologist, but he was kicked out of meteorology school.  After that, the army never really assigned him to do anything so he remained a private for the rest of his time in the service.  He still performed his service though and he used the GI bill to get a Master's Degree in chemistry, so it wasn't all for nothing though.  Even if his story wasn't quite as exciting, it was still neat to document.

--Elijah

Jack Stenger: WAC After the War

On 6/17/15, Joe and I interviewed Jack Stenger.  I did not handle the audio equipment this time and I think I did a better job as the head questioner than the last time I took on the position.

This interview felt a lot simpler than many of the previous interviews that I've done.  Jack wasn't the kind of person to move from topic to topic without being prompted and the interview was a little shorter than other ones clocking in at roughly 27:00.

One interesting thing that he talked about that hasn't been discussed in other interviews I've been in is the effect of the returning GIs and the postwar environment.  He was a Washington College student and he recalled a lot of older GIs attending college thanks to the GI bill.  He joked about how the older men dominated the dating scene; it was a neat thing to hear about.

He was 16 years old when WWII ended so he didn't serve in the war.  He did serve in the Korean war though where he flew what he called the "BSD" or Big Steel Desk.  He was in the intelligence service.

This interview was different from the other ones.  He didn't have much to say about the Second World War, but he had a lot more experience with the effects it had on the world after it.  It was a pretty interesting thing to hear about and I will admit, I did not see that coming.

--Elijah McGuire-Berk

From Kent County to North Africa

On 6/16/15, Joe and I interviewed Patsy Skirven. Skirven is her maiden name, but she prefers it over "Reihl" because she like to keep connected with other people in the Kent County area named Skirven.


The story of hers that really struck me the most was the one where she visited her Uncle's grave in North Africa.  Throughout that part of the interview, she was tearing up and almost started to cry. What happened was, her Uncle was one of the first to be drafted and fought in North Africa.  In early parts of the war, American soldiers were relatively ill-prepared and he died.  Due to all the commotion at the time, he was buried in North Africa.  They just couldn't ship his body back.  It was tricky and took nearly a year, but she and her husband were able to visit his gravesite because a cruise stopped in Tunisia.


The thing about this gravesite was that it wasn't visited often.  She recalled the Normandy cemetery being the most famous of the WWII cemeteries.  The North African American Cemetery was harder to visit.  As the guide pointed out, she and her husband were its 4th visitor.  I don't know if it was 4th that year or 4th total, but it's still a number that is a lot lower than the visitors to Normandy's.  It was interesting and sad to hear about a near empty yet well maintained cemetery that not even I knew about until the interview.

This interview was probably the most emotional interview of the ones that I conducted.  Even though it was long, I still enjoyed listening to it again to index and transcribe it.  Even if I forget the rest of the interviews I do, I don't think that I'll forget this one.

--Elijah McGuire-Berk

Learning Process: Interview with the Gills.

On 6-11-15, Abby and I interviewed Charles Gill and his wife, Frances Long Gill.  Charles is in his 90s and is a WWII vet.  Frances is also in her 90s and was a Washington College student during the war.

Unlike the other interviews I did this week, Abby was the one who held the microphone and I was the one who asked the questions. I'll admit, I'm better at holding the mic and Abby does a better job at probing with questions.  It was a bit of an awkward interview in my opinion as we had two different people with two different stories both being interviewed at once.  There was a lot of moving around in terms of getting both stories in.  Sometimes they'd say things that linked, other times they'd say things that didn't, one time we were each talking to a different person, making the scenario just a bit awkward.

I learned that I'm not the best at probing questions.  I had a tendency to stutter a lot and lose track of which question I was on as well as which one I was going to do next.  Similarly, Abby had her own issues with the recording, dropping the device at one point.

This post is focused more on the general reversal of roles in the interview rather than what I learned in the interview because, to be honest, a lot of what I learned came from no longer being the person who handles technical things.  I learned that it's more difficult than it looks to probe people for questions and that it's not easy being in the spotlight.  Granted I already had an idea of a lot of that but I never really experienced it until now.

--Elijah

Interview with the Slagles

On Thursday, June 12th, 2015 Abby and I interviewed Walter and Charlotte Slagle as well as Rene Coxon.  The five of us, as well as their two children (7 in total) all sat in a room in a nursing home as Abby covered most of the questions and I tired my best to capture all the sound that was bouncing around the room.

My personal favorite stories that they told were of the reactions to winning the war.  Rene recalled that she had graduated high school only a few days before the war was over.  She said that during her senior year, everyone had to write an essay about when they thought the war was going to end.  If I were in her shoes, I'd probably be shocked to hear that it ended only a few days after I graduated.

 One of the funnier stories that resulted was when her brother celebrated by firing a shotgun into the air and hitting a transformer.  It made for one hell of a flashy celebration, that's for sure.   They said that lots of people celebrated with guns; it reminded me of when the Capels said that people celebrated with fireworks.  It must have been a loud celebration.

One thing that I didn't really account for when I listened to the interview is how 7 people in a room will result in some interruptions as well as people talking over each other.  I wouldn't be surprised if I mislabeled who said what, because it wasn't always easy to recall what people sounded like after only speaking with them for about an hour.  Hopefully my transcription won't have too many mistakes.

--Elijah

Interview with the Capels

Allen and Virginia Capel.

Yesterday, Abby and I interviewed Allen Capel and Virginia Mulligan Capel.  These two were children during WWII and they had their own sets of stories to tell.  They each were born and raised on farms, so they had similar stories to tell about their experiences.  One of the interesting experiences that the both were able to talk about wasn't war related, but rather their memories with the radio/movie theater.

Allen talked about how there was a movie theater in town that showed one film continuously for about 2 weeks.  The admission was 10 cents.  Compared to today, that would seem pretty limited (but extremely cheap!) so for more variety, people would turn to the radio.

They described their radios as huge mainly because of all the tubes and lights and such that would fit inside it. They talked about some of the things they listened to, with a particular emphasis put on The Lone Ranger which seemed to be a personal favorite of both of them.  It reminded my of my paternal Grandfather who also loved to listen to radio shows, with his favorites being Superman and Captain Midnight.

They talked about how people would watch the radio as if it were a TV and that they'd use their imaginations to see what was happening.  It was definitely the most fun part of the interview.  I could tell that both Allen and Virginia were happy to talk about some of the more fun aspects of their childhood, especially in the midst of an interview about wars and whatnot.  All in-all, it was quite fun.

--Elijah

Elijah on the interview with Milford Murray

On June 4^th, 2015, I was part of a group of people who interviewed local Chestertown Resident Milford Murray.  What impressed me most about him was his ability to recall stories from various points in his life and relate them to the more modern time period in which he lives.  As a guy who lived in New Jersey for most of his life, I don’t know a lot about Chestertown.  Milford’s interview helped me learn a good deal more about this town’s recent and older history. 

He had a bit of a pessimistic attitude for the future of the town, claiming that there are plans to try to turn it into a retirement community, citing the lack of blue-collar work as well as the decline in the local African-American population.  He was a good talker; able to eloquently explain just about anything that was brought up as well as a few things that weren’t brought up.  One thing I'm supposed to reflect on is whether or not I have any additional questions that I didn't get to ask, but to be honest, I don't have any at this point, he covered everything.  

I guess I can say I have one issue and that is that he's willing to give tours of the Civil War Museum on First Friday, but I have a training session that day from 6-8.  I may be able to make it but I'll probably be late or just too tired to head in to town.  Sorry about that Milford, it's just an awkward timing thing going on.

All in all, it was an interesting experience and I hope to interview more people.

--Elijah McGuire-Berk

Archival Friday: Terrence M. Burrows, Jr.

Terrence M. Burrows Jr.

The man I researched was Terrence M. Burrows Jr.  He was born in Baltimore on March 23^rd, 1923, and boy was he born in a bad year.  If you were born in 1923, you would’ve been 18 in 1941, the year when Japan attacked America and Germany attacked the USSR.  He spent one year as a freshman in Washington College; I was only able to find a few blurry pictures of him in group yearbook photos.  It was a way to learn a bit about him.  For example, he was a freshman in 1942.  He was also in the Classical Society, a pledge for the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity, and a member of his local YMCA.

While in the armed service, he served in the 390^th bomber group as well as the 569^th bomb squad, flying in a B17 Flying Fortress.  The plane’s serial number was 43-38173.  He died on December 24^th, 1944 after being held by the Germans as a POW.  While the exact location of his prison is tricky to determine, it’s likely he was on a boat that was shot down by American planes.  He currently has a grave in Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Talbot County, Maryland.

Citations for this post are the Washington College 1942 Yearbook, the Find a Grave website (http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=20711112), the American Air Museum (http://www.americanairmuseum.com/person/208401), and a website listing POW information (http://www.ww2pow.info/index.php?page=directory&rec=818)

--Elijah McGuire-Berk