Arnie's mother, Mary Hazel Nevis, writes with news about the family and about what is in bloom in the large garden at their home in Glendale — sitting on a double lot with a veritable grove of citrus trees, plum and apricot trees, and flowers, as Hazel was an avid gardener.
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first post in Arnold's Story July 1943
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Ralph Winger wrote from Pasadena with news about classmates and his Cal Tech commencement. We learn that Arnie recently had the mumps.
On leave from Army Air Forces training in Connecticut, Arnie visited New York City to see the sights and attend church services. I am not sure which church he would have gone to, as the only church near Rock Center is St. Patrick's Cathedral, and it seems unlikely he would attend a Catholic mass.
next post March 23, 1944
previous post March 2, 1944
first post in Arnold's Story July 1943
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Arnie must be in the Winchester Hospital in West Haven, Connecticut started in 1918 as a tuberculosis center, now the West Haven Veterans Administration Medical Center. (This hospital was established and named for William Wirt Winchester, who died of tuberculosis, by his wife Sarah Lockwood Pardee, who also acquired and built the Winchester Mystery House, cited earlier in this blog.) He may have had the mumps at this time.
next post March 12, 1944
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first post in Arnold's Story July 1943
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February 12, 1944, letter from a Cal Tech pal named "Dix" to Arnie. Parris Island, South Carolina, is a Marine Corps recruit training center. An important ship building company during World War II, Kaiser Shipyards were a cluster of shipyards on the U.S. west coast, mostly around Richmond, California.
next post February 6, 1944
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first post in Arnold's Story July 1943
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February 6, 1944, letter from Arnie Nevis to his family in Glendale. Arnie is in Seymour Johnson Field (now an air force base), North Carolina, having recovered from a recent illness in the hospital, possibly the mumps.
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January 27, 1944, letter from Dolly Nevis to her brother Arnie:
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A letter from Charles "Chuck" Cutler in September 1943:
next post November 5, 1943
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The previous posts were all about my Uncle Leonard and his experiences in World War II. Today I start posting about my father, Arnold Hasting Nevis. Leonard is the older of the two brothers, and there were two younger sisters as well. My dad went by Arnie his whole life, except that his parents nearly always called him Arnold, rarely Arn. He was born in 1921, so he was twenty when the war started for the United States. Like his brother, he was keen to sign up and defend his country and to see battle against the enemy. As his son, I was truly surprised at his youthful fervor to serve in the military since later in life he seemed rather embarrassed by it and rarely spoke of his time in the Army. I learned of his eagerness to sign up only from my mother.
Arnie graduated from Herbert Hoover High School and was attending California Institute of Technology at the beginning of the war. His parents convinced him to finish college before enrolling in the Army. But he first had to clear up an attendance problem with his physical education class.
He enrolled in Officer Training for the U.S. Army in July 1943. The City of Glendale honored his enlistment:
The earliest letters to the family have not turned up; the first is from November 1943. But a letter from Charles "Chuck" Cutler dates from July 20, 1943:
