Arnold's Story: 1945 Salt Lake Temple

By October 1945 Arnold was back in California, assigned to Camp Pinedale. Here are some photos of the Salt Lake Temple in Salt Lake City. There is no date on them, but I am guessing he took them on route by train from the East Coast to California. He might have arrived at night or the wee hours of the morning at the Salt Lake City training station and then walked around downtown during the layover. (These might instead be from his cross-country trip in June 1948 or an excursion that same month when he was working at the McCloud River Lumber Co.)

Salt Lake Temple, circa 1945 (photo by Arnold Nevis)

Salt Lake Temple, circa 1945 (photo by Arnold Nevis)

Salt Lake Temple, circa 1945 (photo by Arnold Nevis)

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first post in Arnold's Story  July 1943

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Arnold's Story: 1945 misc

I discovered this letter a bit late to place in order for 1945. The envelope shows it is from Arnold's Boston days and seems to describe activities from his lumberjack time in northern California.

Here is a July 12, 1945, envelope from Harry Schmidt, whose contents I could not find, but the envelope shows Arnold now six or seven hours up the road from Glendale at Camp Pinedale, Fresno. (I lived about a half mile from there between 1990 and 1995 when I taught at California State University Fresno, a factoid I just calculated right now.)

I am not sure who Eva is, but here is an undated photo and note from here. The ranch she mentions might be the Elmer's logging camp; that is of course a complete guess on my part. The photo and note  may be from a year or two earlier.

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Arnold's Story: February 17, 1945

Hazel mentions scarcity of goods such as shirts during the war. And she uses points from her ration cards to purchase beef steak. 

next post  April 19, 1945

previous post  February 9, 1945

first post in Arnold's Story  July 1943

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Arnold's Story: February 9, 1945

Dolly chastises her brother for not writing except when he needs a favor. Ouch! 

Bob Mello is Wilfred Mello, brother of Edwin "Ed" Mello.

next post  February 17, 1945

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first post in Arnold's Story  July 1943

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Arnold's Story: February 8, 1945

I remember from my years in Fresno, California, that people there spoke about "having weather" as if it was not constantly around us. One Fresnan said "we have weather, too" in comparison with the Midwest and East Coast, but meaning that it sometimes rained or rarely snowed or frequently fogged up, but most of the year it was sunny and cloudless. (I guess that is when they did not "have weather".) I see Hazel uses "weather" in the same way.

The U.S. Post Office was extremely efficient in the 1940s, perhaps more than nowadays, some 75 years later. Although I see from this letter that they now have home delivery only once per day instead of the previous twice. I suppose that is why she no longer puts "AM" or "PM" on her letter dates.

God Is My Co-Pilot was a 1943 memoir by Gen. Robert Lee Scott Jr. about his exploits in World War II with the Flying Tigers and the U.S. Army Air Forces in China and Burma. The book was adapted as a film of the same name, released in 1945. The Nazarene was a 1939 novel by Sholem Asch.

Ted W. Lawson wrote Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo as a memoir of his participation in the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo in 1942, which ended in a crash, from which he was rescued by friendly Chinese and then repatriated to the U.S. The book was subsequently adapted into the 1944 film of the same name starring Spencer Tracy, Van Johnson and Robert Mitchum. 

next post  February 9, 1945

previous post  February 2, 1945

first post in Arnold's Story  July 1943

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Arnold's Story: February 2, 1945

Perhaps Hazel is talking about the Battle of Manila, in which the U.S. Army landed unopposed at Nasugbu in southern Luzon in the Philippines on January 31 and began moving north toward Manila, but Leonard was actually in northern Luzon at this time having landed instead at Lingayen Bay in mid to late January.

Crawford's was a small grocery chain in the Los Angeles area and had a market in Glendale.

next post  February 8, 1945

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first post in Arnold's Story  July 1943

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Arnold's Story: January 23, 1945

ROAL is the Reserve Officers Association League. 

next post  February 2, 1945 

previous post  January 15, 1945

first post in Arnold's Story  July 1943

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Arnold's Story: January 15, 1945

Ralph Winger writes with news of their Caltech classmates.

next post  January 23, 1945

previous post  January 13, 1945

first post in Arnold's Story  July 1943

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Arnold's Story: January 13, 1945

Merriam Webster's defines the Navy's use of  cat fever as a respiratory infection accompanied by fever.

next post  January 15, 1945

previous post  January 10, 1945

first post in Arnold's Story  July 1943

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Arnold's Story: January 10, 1945

Apparently Arnold sent them Paul Bunyan's humorous pictorial map of the United States Depicting Some of his Deeds and Exploits by R. D. Handy. Laura's Land of Make Believe may be the 1930 map by Jaro Hess. Sholem Asch's The Apostle, 1943, was a novel based on the life of Saint Paul.

next post  January 13, 1945

previous post  January 4, 1945

first post in Arnold's Story  July 1943

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Arnold's Story: January 4, 1945

Winged Victory was a 1944 film directed by George Cukor as a joint production of 20th Century-Fox and the U.S. Army Air Forces; it was based on the 1943 play with the same name by Moss Hart. One of the characters in the play/film wants to become a pilot but washes out because he fails his eye test. That reminds me that Arnold, too, wanted to be a pilot but could not on account of his blue-green color blindness. And come to think of it, Arnold did later admit to cheating on the vision test, too, by memorizing the Snellen chart in use at the time, but then could not overcome the color blindness test. 

I smiled when Hazel repeats 12-hour clock time in Military time.

next post  January 10, 1945

previous post  January 1, 1945

first post in Arnold's Story  July 1943

first post in blog  Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943