Bremerton and Silverdale - Home

This is definitely my view of Bremerton life; how could I write of things so detached from my life as the happenings in the yard?

It is true that C. Allen brought some of his frustrations home and Navy life could be frustrating to an entrepreneur; he was not allowed to make decisions without first consulting...; there were too many people for the amount of work to be done; there were too many forms to be filled out; and it was impossible to move an incompetent except by the endless progress of documenting each detail. It was a loss which the Navy did not understand, putting C. Allen into the junk yard and harnessing him to their methods.

Beside the fact that excess women were holding court on the furnishings of the old Saratoga, that their boss overlooked that problem - after all it was a man's world - because every additional employee in a department added to the prestige of that department head; and 'Big Shot' was just that he was certain. He came to his 'office' well dressed; left promptly at quitting time, putting on his hat and gloves. He had a reputation as a leach amongst the Navy people. After a frustrating day fighting Big Shot, C. Allen would come home to Silverdale and vent his anger digging post-holes. It took C. Allen to document that man's deficiencies, his misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance. The yard men, who came visiting us in Birmingham after the war years, brought the news that Big Shot was gone. The tales of theft of navy goods had been everywhere; that no one took a battleship home was just a problem of sheer size; everything else went walking out of the base under the scrutiny of the Marines. There was the yard employee who took enough piping to irrigate his whole farm (small farm, but just the same - stolen is stolen) only a piece at a time concealed in his trouser leg. Pity that poor fellow had such a stiff leg. What makes people so light-fingered often in the worst of times, times not bad for themselves but for their nation? Old ideas of 'property' were disappearing.

The Bremerton years were interesting years, frustrating but interesting. In the midst of civilization, things could be primitive because of scarcity, interesting because there was always a way to make do, buffered because the Navy people knew the problems which you faced; there was a time when they had had to conquer similar problems in other places, at other times, and they were willing to help. It had something of the same spirit as a barn-raising or the unity which helps the often-moved people of the large corporations and helps the people of any of the service branches while they are settling in a new area. It was not unlike the cogs which make a watch function, each piece dependent upon the proper functioning of all of the others.

The little house on Fourth with the Lux-washed ceilings, was strictly a rental house and had know many service families. The many-layered-pealing paint was an indication of the efforts to make that house a temporary home. Each house down that street was built into the hillside so that your parlor windows looked into the bedroom windows of the next house. Your neighbors on the opposite side were allowed the same privilege. At 1922 Fourth, things were slightly different; between my bedroom window and the basement of the house next door was a cherry tree; a Queen Ann with one cherry to show for a season's growth. I watched that cherry ripen; then one day it disappeared. Mr. Gunnar had picked it; after all it was his.

The Gunnars, our good neighbors, had been good neighbors to many Navy families. They had come, bride and groom, to this land that so resembled their native Finland; they had remained in this one house until their family of three girls were the same age that the parents had been when they first arrived in America. Always they had tried to help the next-door Navy families as they came and went. From her I learned the art of cooking venison: one put a carrot in the pot with the roasting meat; then one discarded the carrot - she did not know why. In exchange, I answered one of their questions: the flattop, Ticonderoga was docked in port: why was it so named? What was, where was Ticonderoga? Even C. Allen had forgotten that one. I could see in memory a picture of Ethan Allen standing, with Revolutionary soldiers behind him, before Benedict Arnold who stood in a doorway, candle in hand, clothed in a nightgown for he had just been awakened. Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain boys (men, really) at Ticonderoga - one important battle of the Revolution. Which has set me thinking these days about my reaction to the Shitte terrorists who to some Arabs are patriots. During that recent period of distress, as I, listened to the TV reports, I wondered if America would ever have another Nathan Hale. Perhaps that unfortunate service man who died violently at the hands of the Shittes is our present-day Hale. He is too soon forgotten.

John had a paper route, very early morning, and, in that town of hills and valleys, very up and down. I would get up with him in the morning; as he walked his route, I darned the socks. Collections were the problem; people held out empty hands - there was no pay for the paper boy. Until C. Allen went along in uniform, stood a distance off but very visible; then the money was found. I have always been careful to have the coins on hand for the newsboy. Campbell became interested in a lucrative business and another paper post was taken - four o'clock by a Navy gate. That was fine; the boys would sell their papers, wait for their father and then go into the yard for a swim before coming home for dinner. That was where they could watch the sailors learning how to jump sinking ship - there are no amateur spring boards as high as the deck of a ship. Now you consider the sailor who comes from an area where water comes in teacups; he has troubles. It is a long long way from the deck to the water.

Some days C. Allen, John and Cam would come home from the yard, pick up the ready-packed brown bag lunch and head out to the forest. That was a pleasure that I could forgo. They seemed to enjoy the outing and went frequently.

Christmas was a problem for, of course, we had not thought of tree trimming when we left Michigan. Here we lived in the land of living Christmas trees and we had nary a bauble. C. Allen bought a tree and was sent out to buy another; they were both scrawny and thin. You tie two trees together and trim them with the paper chains and water bombs which the boys made and add the glitter of curling brass shavings from the Yard shops. You make do. We had only one Christmas in Washington.

Our Bremerton landlord came by with fresh caught salmon, dark red and tasty. It went into the freezing tray of the very old-fashioned GE refrigerator which we had. C. Allen took the boys fishing along with Admiral Haven's son. Fishing tackle for salmon is heavy and strong, and expensive; there is some lying at the bottom of the Hood. The Harlan and the Haven boys put it there.

In the course of his days, C. Allen had found ten acres of land which he simply had to buy although we had no idea of how long we would be staying in the Sound. He should have known on the basis of the history of Navy families that a home was only temporary, that actually one carried one's home with one like a turtle in its shell. That purchase was difficult to explain to the natives and the Navy personnel; eleven miles to drive twice a day! That was no great distance for C. Allen drove further than that twice daily when he was at home. (We probably are the only people who are driven by our cars). Silverdale was a small town with ten acre farms about it; I think of the finger farms of Grosse Pointe although these were nowhere near so grand. Then came the problem of the house. William WIlliams (his parents had absolutely no imagination) lived there with his daughter and her three boys; she entertained any sailor that got that far out from Bremerton; the children lived off the fruit trees; the mice took over the house and left their traces on every level space. Fortunately for me, Navy people knew about an excellent carpenter who recommended an equally excellent painter. Mr. Tischer was understanding when I shuddered about the condition of the house and he changed everything so that in the end there was almost a complete conversion. The painter came and asked for my color choices; I had none and mentioned only that the paint job should consider the coloring of the redwood walls. He did. Slowly the panels of the parlor doors became dusty rose; then the outlining of each panel with ivory followed; then that wonderful man and his paint brush filled each panel with Norway's rose-mahlerung, free hand painting. I was pleased. C. Allen and I returned years later; I filled with concern that, since we had sold the house, the new owners might have covered those panels with another coat of paint. I am always afraid to go back, afraid that things to which I have become attached will be changed; invariably they are. There were my precious doors; the Amundsons had enjoyed them as much as I.

Help had come to C. Allen in the restructuring of the house from the SeeBees. One man came out to help wire the house. He told me, one day, that whoever else was working on the wiring had made a botch of the work above the kitchen; he had straightened it all out; and I thought 'there goes Allen'. Allen had thoughtfully wired the kitchen so that one set of switches would turn on the kitchen light, the sink light and the back door light all from one panel and the switch at the parlor door would turn on both the sink light and the kitchen light. It took the work of one SeeBee and I walked from switch to switch; such sophistication did not exist on any ship nor in most other parts of the country.

Other than the garden produce, for C. Allen had planted a large one, I bought most of our needs in Silverdale. We had rented a freezer (no one owned their own then) for C. Allen had found two calves which he could buy. Nearby there was a SeeBee base and one of the men in the kitchen there had offered to slaughter the calves and prepare them for the freezer. That was an offer which C. Allen could not refuse. What he agreed to pay the man, I do not know. The work began in the heat of the summer; C. Allen kept that worker cool with liquor. Finally finished with the dressing out, I was asked just how I wanted the meat prepared - breast, roasts, cutlets, etc. The calves went off for preparation and then were taken directly to our freezer. C. Allen would stop by town on his way home from the yard, pick up a package of veal; I would open it and find cutlets, only cutlets, ever cutlets. I have decided that the carcasses went back to base, were frozen so that they would be easy to handle, and then were put upon a bandsaw and sliced into cutlets. Oh well! In forty years no one would remember.

That garden was a special delight to C. Allen. He had planted everything and everything grew apace. That land had not been used in years and it was rich. Allen invited Ray and Elizabeth Jones (Commander Jones and his wife) out for dinner one day and laid his plans ahead of time - as I did mine - no cutlets for dinner that night! Allen took John and Cam out to hoe the garden for it had to be in the best of shape when he showed it to Ray. There were plans afoot. One special potato plant had been selected and it had been mined with additional potatoes from other plants; C. Allen was planning to brag to Cap't about his garden and its productivity. The next day at lunch time there was much giggling. Cap't and Elizabeth came that evening; we had dinner. Then C. Allen took his victim out so that he, C. Allen, could brag a bit. The men and the boys walked the garden and talked the garden; until finally Allen decided the time was right. He began to fork all around that special plant and found nary a potato, not even a small one. The boys had robbed the nest. Now you know why there was so much lunch time giggling. We still remember; we still remember and smile.

During this time, Jim was on his way. Being a Navy wife, I would have the loving care of outpatients... I would not have touched some of the women I saw in that waiting room with a ten foot pole which may have been the attitude of the doctor-nodoctor that was in charge of delivery when my time came.

Anticipating the baby, Elizabeth Jones planned a shower at her home. We lunched and then turned to the usual amusement. Joyce and the Barr's son, left to themselves, went out to the water's edge. The Sound there was a distance below the level on which the houses were built. So the children went down the stairs and played along the sandy shore, found a boat in which they could climb and enjoyed themselves. Then the tide started to come in and the Barr boy, knowing something about tides, (Barr was a seaman who wore no gold braid about his cuffs but who had many hash marks upon his sleeve) decided it was time to go back to the Jones's. The children turned to the wall of earth to look for the stairs. There were many sets of stairs, all old, all gray, all unpainted, none that were any different from the others. The children started up one flight and, when they saw that the house at the top was not the right one, down one flight; up another and, after each disappointment, down that one; on and on. Meanwhile we women had missed the children and began looking and calling for them. There were no answers. The next call went to the Navy Yard; Cap't and C. Allen came. They looked. The next call would go to the Marines. Finally two weary, frightened children found the right house. Punishment? Of course not. Praise? Definitely. The courage which it took to climb flight after flight to find disappointment at the top! Both children were tired, weary, frightened; Joyce had a brush burn on a knee; her shoes were scruffed; her clothes were dirty. We were relieved to see them. The Barrs went home and Barr spanked his son. No way! No way!

I was certainly pleased that the Navy nurse was with me when Jim was born. That hospital was staffed with young nurses who had volunteered for duty to save the lives of wounded sailors; here they were taking care of a bunch of pregnant women. Obviously some of the doctors were disappointed too.

Other than C. Allen, Elizabeth Jones and Mary MacDonald, I had a very unexpected visitor before Jim and I went home to Silverdale. The Battleship New Jersey was in port; Eric McGuire, seaman on board, had contacted C. Allen. McGuire, Sr. had probably told his son that, if and when he reached Bremerton, Eric should look us up. Eric did and found life about to happen. That had happened often in the McGuire family; Eric had many brothers and sisters. He came out to the little farm. He had the red Buick to use; he brought some of his shipmates with him. They had a wonderful time chasing about the fields, being free of the restrictions and discipline of the ship; the children enjoyed. Eric even tried washing the large window in the living room. The doors had been opened and the flies, large enough to bridle and saddle, had come in. Once in, the flies settled on the glass longing to be out and then met their fate. What is there about an open door that flies can only find their way in and never out? One night Allen decided that Eric would probably enjoy a chance to go to Seattle; the young man had the car, he had the cash, he had the time. Where did he go? To the hospital to visit me. Amazing the children that some people bring up.

Clyde and Mary MacDonald were interesting people, good friends. Mary ill and at the mercy of that doctor-nodoctor was slowly fading away. With routine changes in duty, a reserve Connecticut pediatrician was head man on the floor, checked Mary's condition and her chart; diagnosed viral pneumonia and changed her treatment. She improved. To me that was just the difference between an indifferent regular service man and the doctor, away from his field, away from his patients, away from everything except his continuing care for the well-being of a patient. Mary and I had a special thing going. John and Cam had decided that fresh peas, no matter how I had handled them, were not edible. The MacDonalds like them so very much that she exchanged with me very precious coupons. Mary and Clyde had the fresh peas; I had canned; the boys were delighted. Clyde invented a business that was almost pure perpetual motion. One developed a sale for cat fur, acquired a growing family of cats, then found a fast breeding type of rat (I thought they all did). The plan was to raise the cats and the rats, kill and skin some of the cats, feed their bodies to the rats, kill some of the rats, fed the rats to the cats; and so on, and so on. We never developed a sale for cat fur. He also had seafaring tales to tell two fascinated boys. One time, escaping from a sinking LST (large slow target - actually a cargo ship), he swam ashore and then paniced for he could not see; fear of blindness gripped him. He decided after a moment of horror that his glasses were covered with dirty oil from the sinking ship. Out of such terror humor can grow. Maybe it was the fact that both Clyde MacDonald and Ray Jones had known rugged sea duty which attracted them to one another.

Then there was the time that Ray Stanley Jones, Jr. came to Bremerton to celebrate his twenty-first birthday with his mother and father. C. Allen had to throw a party at the officers' quarters. I was given a list of names and told to make a seating arrangement. My seating arrangement went to the authority and returned for surely Mrs. Harlan did not mean that. My listing went back: that was intended. I had blown all proper protocol; I had seated the cheerful witty people together; the stuffed shirts sat at my end of the table. If a good time was to be had, I had to make sure. Such disrespect was a normal part of our having come from civilian life; the Navy understood and was tolerant. C. Allen was forever upsetting Cap't by sounding off to his superior officers while Cap't tried to sush him. Allen could have gotten away with murder after all he was reserve. When the Navy years were over and C. Allen had become involved in the Navy League, he threw a party in Washington D.C. and invited some Navy brass. It was below some one's dignity to attend; but, when some one was told to attend, some one did. Juvenal retired as an admiral; C. Allen hired him. He worked in Buffalo for a while; but he was not an outstanding employee. Nice to be able to throw your weight around. There is little understanding between an entrepreneur, a serviceman or a politician; not one of them can ever wear the other's shoes.

Then the Koehns - he was Arthur and she was Dorothy. He had been a navy man, retired; then returned to work at the yard during the war. They lived in Puget Sound, had a house in Bremerton and a cottage on the Hood. We always had pleasant times with them. Their cottage was equipped with an out-door grill which was the top of a kitchen range; it worked wonderfully well. Our gift to the Koehns was to teach them how to roast corn in the husks. They were invited to a party which Allen gave at a little fish house on the Hood; being C. Allen, he had an orchid for each of the women. That was the first orchid ever given to Dorothy Koehn. She wore it until the Christmas Season; it came down for Christmas breakfast a sad blob of brown hanging on a faded ribbon. I wonder if any one has given her a second orchid. She deserved many.

While we were still in Bremerton I had a letter from my school mate and friend of many years, Heloise Travis Campbell. She wrote that her husband, Alan, had died during surgery. She could write and ask me the things which she could not ask of people with whom she was talking. There were tear marks upon the paper. She could write what she could not say because the eyes and voice filled with tears. Why was it that everyone was telling her that she had so much left, when she knew that Alan was gone and that she was alone with only the children? I could write back, with tears, that people, mourning with you, were often embarrassed and could not express all of their thoughts. They meant that she had so much of Alan left in the children. After we had returned from Bremerton, we drove out to the little farm which had been home while Alan was alive. Things had changed little except that the boys had grown and Susan was three, the same age as Joyce. Then Heloise reached to pat the plump hand of Susan and say that it was just like her father's. Heloise had heard and understood my meaning - there was so much of Alan still in the children.

I wept again when the radio brought news that the atom bomb had been dropped over Japan; this would change so many things. Allen, grown frustrated with the way things were handled in the junk yard, had been asking about the possibility of a transfer to another base; he had been advised to go to San Diego, make inquiries there and that might possibly be his next duty station. He had left but the dropping of the bomb changed his plans. He contacted Dan McGuire, asking help to negotiate a release. Being certain that McGuire could move mountains, Allen returned to Silverdale, sold the ten acres and rented a house for the family in Gilberton. We moved again. This time, Allen, being certain that he would be released and using his accumulated leave time, took Joyce and returned to Detroit. There is not much to remember about the little cottage at Gilberton except that the ivy grew through the wall into the parlor, that the drip pan in the stove had an inch of cinder residue (some young Navy wife didn't know that a stove had a drip pan), that answering the grocer's question as to how I was doing with my husband gone (everybody knew everything about everybody in that part of the world), I said that there were no problems with only four of us at home and that evoked a groan from another woman (she had only 'four' and considered that a full time job). The day that the frost was half and inch high, we all rejoiced in 'snow' and I forgot to release the emergency brake as we drove up hill and down on the way to school at Silverdale. Then I drove home, back to school and finally to a garage; the brakes were repaired. I had gone miles in second gear, looking at every telephone pole for a possible braking point. I have always said that C. Allen had angels sitting on his front bumper; I guess I do too.

Some one must have bought the little red Buick. The Navy packed and shipped our belongings - and everything that was not nailed down from the Gilberton cottage. Capt and Elizabeth put us on the ferry; John, Campbell, Jim and I took the train from Seattle. We did not know what would be ahead for us on the way home; we didn't even consider. That train ride had to be well planned for I had a nine-month old baby with me. Fortunately we had a compartment so that I could warm formula and food for Jim by placing it on the warm pipes that were the pullman's radiator. I had brought extra bottles of water, being concerned that a change in water might upset a small stomach. One dinner hour, I went down with John and Campbell (I carried Jim) to the diner - that was a rocky walk even on the best of roads at the best of times; then train service was limited for civilians and the children and I were just that - civilians. We looked at the line of people waiting for a place at tables; I told the boys to stay in line until our turn for a table; then one of them should come for me and Jim. They waited. The head waiter was about to give them a table when a couple pushed in ahead of the boys; seems, from John's report, everybody had been aware of the children and me; glares came from all sides but it did not change the action of the interlopers. Leaving Minneapolis, all heat to the cars was turned off and that meant no warm food for Jim. We arrived in Chicago, chilly and cold. Time then to change trains for the rest of the trip home. The redcap at the station where we waited for the Mercury made certain that all women with children were allowed on the train first but I had trouble finding seats for the four of us because that train had come in from St. Louis. I went ahead to the Club car and there was Dick Robbins, good friend, old friend who took care of us. So home, home to many changes, home to my Mother with no Father there, home to the Birmingham house which the renters had recently left, home to no Mattie; she was still working the the factory. Home for C. Allen had meant a return to the business which he had left, which had been managed by the men that he had involved with him when he first started Harlan Electric Company. He had come home to a schedule which he could control for he was there to stay - Dan McGuire had come through with the requested release.

Dan McGuire was a friend indeed.