Paris, France

Colonel: You'll find some interesting customs in Paris.

Michelle: Like what?!

Colonel: Dogs. Sitting on the bench. In restaurants. You take the dog in with you and the dog sits on the bench next to you.

Sara: Why that would be nice! Wouldn't that be fun! I'd love to do that! I love my dog!

Colonel: I know you do!

Michelle: When did you go to Paris?

Colonel: I went in briefly at the end of WWII. That was a very limited, restricted and so on. I don't remember the year that we went, hmmm. But it was part of a tourist group that we went to Paris and spent time there. During the war, it was after the war actually, I was scheduling a truck from where we were, loaded up to GI's going to Paris. Go to the city, spend the day and so on and so on. So they had the experience of seeing Paris. We got up to the first level of the Eiffel Tower. I saw the first level, ya know, it goes up and then up - that was as high as it went. It was undergoing construction.

Sara, Country Gal.

Michelle: I'll be going to New York City with work in January.

Sara: I'd like to take out New York City. Put something better in!

Michelle: Why?!

Sara: I just don't have a good feeling about New York. Its too much of a city! I'd rather have the country any day. With a swimming pool, and water, and a lake. New York - I don't want any of that stuff. Put me in the country!

Department Stores

Colonel: Litz and Wanamaker’s. These and one more were all the major stores at the time we were growing up. And my mother would take my sister and me into Philadelphia from Valley Forge and we would see Santa Clause and in the meantime, she was somewhere shopping in the store, having presents delivered to the house by mail.

Michelle: How old were you?

Colonel: I don’t remember. I might have been 10, my sister might have been 6, something like that.

Michelle: Did you ever go to the parade?

Colonel: Thanksgiving Day parade? Just once. It’s a great day! At the time it was sponsored by one of the Martin’s stores, but I’m not sure which one. It could have been Wanamaker’s – they were the biggest of the stores. January the 1^st – New Years Day, the Mummer’s Day Parade. It was great! All the bands, and everything, the fancy parades. They put a tremendous amount of effort into that parade. I think they’ve changed it somewhat, I don’t know. I think the fancy divisions are now held inside in the convention center or something of that nature, because of the weather. They put a lot of effort into preparing these fancy costumes. They use the convention center I think!

Uniforms: 24/7

Colonel: 

When I went into the service, you NEVER wore anything but a uniform. I had just military clothes, thats all. Everyone! When I went in the service, I kept one suit, gave all the rest away. When I came back, and dug that suit out of my mother's and father's closet in the bedroom... didn't fit! 

Meeting the Parents

Michelle to Trish: Did you know Colonel didn’t meet Sara’s brothers before their wedding?

Sara: Andrew or James?

Colonel: I know I didn’t not see Andrew. I’m trying to think if I saw James. He may have gotten off… They were both in the service and Andrew was in the Fiji Islands. And uh… I don’t think James had yet gone to Attu. I think he was at the wedding. But military, you don’t know when you’re going to get off. I’m trying to think – yes! Yes! James was at our wedding!

Michelle: But you didn’t meet him before that?

Colonel: No, no. heh! Heh!

Trish: Do you remember meeting her parents?

Colonel: Not reeeeeally. I know I did!

Trish: You weren’t too nervous?

Colonel: No, heh, heh.

Sara: My parents would have never made him nervous. They were just so sweet and good. They wouldn’t have made him nervous. Probably not as nervous as I made him!

Colonel: It was wartime and we were pretty much deciding things ourselves. But like I told you – the Army decided when we were going to be married. If we wanted to take a vacation or trip or honeymoon to Florida and they determined when I could have the time off! I just didn’t take it except when they said I could!

PSU Pride

Even at 97 years old, and on a walker, he still shows his Penn State pride!

College Summers

Colonel: They have changed the college times over the years – semesters to the quarters and so on. What is this?

Trish: We’re semesters, so we go August to December. So we just have fall semester and spring semester.

Colonel: We were on semesters but we start until Labor Day. And we concluded the first semester at the end of January. And then we ran January through June.

Michelle: Did you have off for the holidays?

Colonel: Yes. Briefly, but yes we did.

Michelle: Did you ever take summer classes?

Colonel: I had to go to school in the summer for academic reasons. In other words between my freshmen and sophomore year, I had forestry classes at Mont Alto. Wait, I had those mixes up… Between my sophomore and junior year I had forestry classes all summer. Between my junior and senior year I had military. I went to an Army base in the summer. I worked one summer at a spring water plant. Bottling water. I remember the day I cracked up a 5-gallon bottle of water. Water all over everywhere! The owner wasn’t very happy with me. The water bottles would come out of the washer and be filled and they were wet and the label was thrust onto the side of this wet bottle of water. That was the way it stuck.

Michelle: It was glass?

Colonel: Oh yeah! It had an adhesive so when you slapped it onto the bottle of water, it stuck!

Michelle: So you return the bottles and wash them? Like milk was circulated?

Colonel: Oh yeah! They all came back. They were 5 gallon bottles. They all came back. The drivers of the trucks would deliver the water and pick up the empties. They washed them one day a week. Washing those bottles was a big undertaking. They had a big machine. Scalding hot water was forced into the bottles, that were upside-down. 

Washington Memorial Chapel

Pete: That chapel at Valley Forge. Beautiful. 

Colonel: Washington Memorial Chapel! Episcopal. 1915. I think they started construction a year or two before that. I think it was formally dedicated as I recall, 1915. And its in its original state, just as it was when I was a kid growing up.

Pete: Yeah we visited Valley Forge and it was a good time!

Colonel: That's in its original state. I know! I was a kid going in and out as a beginner at that chapel. Dr. Burk and things like that. I was never a member of the chapel, I'm not of the Episcopal faith. But on the other hand, i've seemed to know all the rector's over the years for one reason or another. Because I lived over there, or the military, we have a service in November and that sort of thing. Now he's actually retired from the Lutheran church, but he's an interim Pastor there! He's been there at least 3 years. And I don't know what the Episcopal plans are for him, but he's still interim. Maybe he can't, maybe he's not accepted into the Episcopal faith because he's a Lutheran background. I don't know.

Cooking Traditions

Michelle: Did you used to cook a lot for holidays, Sara?

Sara: I didn’t cook much this last time. When I was home with my mom and dad, we always had a cook to do it. And it was normally the cook that cooked for us anyhow.

Michelle: What about when it was just the four of you? With Barbara and Bill? Did you always have Thanksgiving at home?

Colonel: Oh yeah, yeah. My mother was with me. My father died in 1969, not long after we came back from the mid-west. So we always had my mother and ya know, somebody else of that nature. I bought a turkey from Alpontere (spelling?) who had a turkey farm around Elverson every year.

Michelle: What was your favorite dish or food?

Colonel: I sure did like the pumpkin pies! When I was growing up my mother made cream pies. A cream pie has cream filling with a meringue top. Like lemon meringue, but its cream pie. Its not popular, but the cream is like cream pudding. I mean, it’s a cream with a pudding texture. And then she put a meringue over top of it.

I may have told you – every meal, 3 meals a day. On my grandfather and grandmother’s farm. There was a raisin pie. A raisin pie. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. A raisin pie. That was a tradition at the time; they had some Pennsylvanian Dutch in them and that was part of it!

Trish: Did you like it?

Colonel: Oh yeah! Yeah! And for the evening meal they had other pies – it might be raisin and apple, or raisin and cherry, or raisin and shoofly, or something of that nature. Pies were a big deal. They had what was known as a pie safe. A structure about this big [motions about 3 feet by 3 feet]. Two shelves. And it was filled with pies. And this shelf was out on the adjoining porch. It was suspended form the ceiling. It was a pie safe they called it. And three sides were solid, but the front was screened. So that was the door. You opened the door, took out the pie that you wanted and so on, put it back. Pies were just… they kept replenishing the safe. 

Thanksgiving 2013

Michelle: How was your Thanksgiving this year [2013]?

Colonel: It was very nice. We had 10 people. The table was arranged different then it is right now. But it was family and these two friends who have been with us for 10 or 12 years. I may have told you about them. He was a loadmaster on a cargo ship flying from Dover Air Force Base flying to Afghanistan. And he was the loadmaster, which meant he loaded the plane, to balance it and so on. And then, he got on the plane but there was nothing for him to do. Just the long, non-stop flight to Afghanistan. So he learned to cook! So he cooked our turkey! It was so good! I’ve learned you don’t just put the turkey in the oven. It’s a big deal. You put spices on it and all of these kinds of things. I had a turkey leg last night leftover, I like those, I do.