| Tape Number: |
WCHFT005 |
| Title: |
WW2 Home Front Interview with Marie Fricke Ponschock #1 |
| Title Type: |
Element
|
| Program, Series or Collection Title: |
Wisconsin WWII Stories: Home Front
|
| Format: |
BetaSP
|
| Creator: |
Hestad, David//Producer
|
| Contributor: |
Soetenga, Everett (Butch) //Videographer
Naunas, Tom//Sound Engineer
|
| Date Created: |
2002-11-21 |
| Publisher: |
University of Wisconsin Board of Regents//Copyright holder
|
| Subject: |
war
|
Description:
Tape Number WCHFT005
05:00:29;11 05:00:31;03 [00:00:01:22] WCHFT005
:keywords:
World War II
Home Front
Marie Fricke- interview
Interview conducted on November 21, 2002
former Manitowoc County purchasing agent
employment
Navy
shipyard
submarine
mimeograph
office work
launches
launch parties
stealing
social life
Hotel Howard
radio news
shoot date: 11-21-2002
transfered from Hestad laptop: March 2004
05:01:07;19 05:01:42;04 [00:00:34:15] WCHFT005
:started in shipyard 1940, 1941:
Q - You said you started at the shipyard and then you came back. When was it that you came back?
M - I started in September of 1940. I left in November after two months, and then I came back and started, actually, in 1941, September of 1941. And that was the beginning of the submarine program.
05:01:42;04 05:02:30;12 [00:00:48:06] WCHFT005
:not many women in shipyard at start:
Q - When you started there, you said there were not very many women working there?
M - No. There was only five girls up till that point, and they were middle-aged. I wouldn't say elderly, but middle-aged, and they had been there quite a few years. But that was the only force they had. I don't know what the, the number of employees, men employees at that time, I don't know. But that varied because when they got an order for a ship, they had employment for quite a few people, then when the ship was finished... It wasn't like the submarines where you started one submarine and then we kept going. After one was done, they started the next one. It was rush rush rush all the way through. And there were no lay-offs.
05:02:30;12 05:02:57;24 [00:00:27:12] WCHFT005
:depressed economy before sub order:
Q- Before the sub order came in though, is kind of a depressed economy?
M - Yes.
Q - That's right and the shipyards, it probably wasn't going very.
M - When they got an order for a ship, it was gung-ho, but there were periods in between when there wasn't much going.
05:02:57;24 05:03:40;00 [00:00:42:04] WCHFT005
:everyone had a job after sub order:
Q- So what happened then when this order came in from the government?
M - Well, we finally had an employment office, and there were ads in the paper, and of course men-- well, women too-- but men flocked to the gate to get because work was scarce in our area up to that point. So, we didn't have any trouble starting, but then of course, as the ship started, ship building started on the cranes they needed, not the cranes, the ships, they needed more help, and that's when they went out in the outskirts and got people from Valders and Sheboygan and Green Bay and whatever because there weren't enough people here. Everybody had work. There was no unemployment.
05:03:40;00 05:04:23;29 [00:00:43:27] WCHFT005
:modes of transportation to work:
Q- There were some shortages at that time-- how did people travel into Manitowoc?
M - Well, a lot of car pooling, and of course these buses. They took busloads, like they bring in 40 to 45 men at one time from the same place. I don't know. We managed. There was a lot of trading of gasoline stamps, I know. Sometimes the farmers would get extra rations because of being farmers, and if they had a son or a daughter who probably worked in Manitowoc, they would give them the coupon to use in Manitowoc.
05:04:23;29 05:06:03;05 [00:01:39:02] WCHFT005
:NO modern office machines, lots of mimeograph work:
Q- You worked in the purchasing department.
M - Yes
Q - And you were describing some of the technology at the time. The office technology.
M - Yes, I recall that it was an office that looked nothing like the offices today because we did not have fax machines, we did not have Xerox machines, we did not have electric typewriters. We had mimeograph that you typed up a master on the typewriter-- not electric-- and you put it on this gelatin cylinder, and I had three girls that worked all day long, and the early ones, they wound, I mean they did it by hand. As the war went along, we finally got some that were run electrically, but otherwise, those girls stood there eight hours a day-- well, they had time off in between-- and they wound and wound that handle so that they could make one copy, two copies, three copies, four copies. And there was a lot of copying done because the Navy personnel who were in another building, they wanted copies of everything. I think when we made up a purchase order, we had to have ten copies sent over there. Not that we were ever criticized for anything, but it was part of their record keeping, or whatever. And I imagine some of those copies probably went to Washington, D.C. They're probably in some boxes in some storage area now yet, I don't know.
05:06:03;05 05:07:17;09 [00:01:14:02] WCHFT005
:long hours hours:
Q - You were pretty much working for them, right?
M - Everything went through them, yes.
Q - How were the hours?
M - Well, we worked from 7 to 4, but if there was work to be done, they encouraged us to come back at night. We'd often go down to the Colonial Inn and have a sandwich or something and come back and work again from 7 to 8:30, 7 to 9, whatever was required. And if you were ever on hourly wages, you were paid overtime. I was not because of my position, and you just did it. You felt you were doing things for the war effort or you were contributing something to it. Nobody complained. And I might say that sometimes after 9:00 we went down to the Colonial again and had a beer or two and we probably didn't get to bed till midnight and we got up and went to work for 7:00 again. (Laughs) Don't ask me how we did it. We just did it.
05:07:17;09 05:08:09;10 [00:00:51:29] WCHFT005
:The women and the sailors:
Q - So it must have been kind of a wild time in Manitowoc.
M - No. Well yes. We had U.S.O. offices, or places where these sailors that came in to take these submarines to Chicago-- well actually on board the submarine after a while they came up here to get on it. And we had dances for them and we had women's organizations in Manitowoc that furnished something for them to eat at night-- ham sandwiches or coffee or whatever they wanted, and most of the young girls went down there to be their partners-- dancing partners, what have you. Some of our girls married some of the sailors that left here.
05:08:09;10 05:09:38;26 [00:01:29:14] WCHFT005
:responsibilities of supervising women:
Q- You were in charge of quite a few women workers.
M - Of the girls, yes.
Q- How would that go?
M - Well, we had problems. (Laughs) First of all, when I said that we hired anybody and everybody, there were quite a few girls that I had to personally talk to them and tell them that there was B.O. involved. You know, they had never worked in an office before. They never worked closely with other people, and then I remember we had one girl-- a typist-- she came every morning with about 12 bracelets on her arm. At that time, to have these ceramic bracelets-- they were just round circles, beige, yellow, green, red, and that-- and as she typed, those rattled all the time. Well, some of the girls came to me and said, "You gotta talk to her. We can't stand that noise all the time." She didn't realize, I don't think, that she was disturbing anything, but there were these things that came up all the time. And then, like I mentioned in the car, different girls wanted a week off because their brother was getting married or someone in the family was, or there was a funeral or... and then you had to make sure-- like I said, we had four or five girls that were on these earphones all day, if she wanted off, I had to switch someone else from that job over here and do that and there was something to do all the time. To make sure that, the idea was that work had to get out.
05:09:38;26 05:09:49;06 [00:00:10:10] WCHFT005
05:09:49;06 05:11:49;03 [00:01:59:25] WCHFT005
:Launching parties:
Q - How about the launching parties? Can you describe those a bit?
M - Well, first of all, the company sent out invitations. I'm sure all the Navy personnel that we had at the yards and most likely the families of these women who were going to launch. There were dignitaries that came in and stayed at the Manitowoc Hotel, and then of course, the company sent out invitations to Manitowoc people-- our mayor and executives from the different departments-- and then most of us that were on salary got an invite, and we could bring a friend to the launching and to the banquet. The banquets were very... they were not lengthy, but usually the husband of this wife who christened the ship would talk, and then we would have like, we always had one commander high up in the Navy echelon that was here and he talked. And our Mr. West talked, and, um, I would say the whole thing was probably over within a two-hour period. And then most of the, most of us had the day off-- we never went back to work that afternoon.
Q- So it was kind of a celebration.
M - Yes. There was not liquor served, as far as I remember, however I wouldn't doubt that when these big wigs came to town and were lodged at the Manitowoc Hotel, possibly before they came to the armory, that they may have had drinks available for them, I don't know.
05:11:49;03 05:13:12;29 [00:01:23:22] WCHFT005
:Memories of the ship launches:
Q - As far as the actual launching, what's your memory of that?
M - Well, it was always exciting, especially depending on the weather. If it's a nice sunny day, you enjoyed waiting out there-- you had to stand-- and by the time they had loosened up all these keel blocks so that the ship was ready to go, you probably stood there a good hour. And then finally in the later years, Mr. West devised an apparatus that it was done with automatic cutters. In other words, he pressed a lever, I don't see how he did, but one of our men pressed a lever, and all the ropes were cut at one time, and down the ship went. But it was a thrilling thing to witness. It really was. First of all, when you saw the ship go down, you knew that the men had given many many hours to put it together, and it was an accomplishment, and of course you felt you were doing it for the war effort, so we had a real, well, national feeling about what you had accomplished.
05:13:12;29 05:13:18;23 [00:00:05:24] WCHFT005
:Q- Do you want to talk about stealing?:
M - About what?
Q - Stealing.
M - If you want to.
05:13:18;23 05:15:01;25 [00:01:42:28] WCHFT005
:Stolen items:
M - There were a lot of rumors that things were being stolen and because we had the terrific number of men working in all these departments, it was impossible, really, to keep track of everybody. But at the rate we were buying and purchasing, we knew we were buying toilet tissue that it seemed like everybody had a roll a day or something. And they knew they were doing it, and of course they cautioned the men in the keel blocks they often had notices that there was going to be more scrutiny of lunch buckets on the way home. Well, they would stop just like your airports today. They took one in twenty or thirty and asked them to open it. Well, sometimes there was nothing in there, but then again, there was. And then the thing that really was mentioned all around the yard and office was the fact that this man had stolen this copper tubing by winding it around his body, underneath his arms, underneath a jacket. And he would have got away with it except after he had crossed the north side railroad bridge, which is the footbridge, he must have been hyper about what he was doing, and he fell over with a heart attack on the bridge. And of course, when they opened up his jacket, they saw all this copper tubing. He did not die at that time, and I don't remember what the consequences were. He might have been fired, but I doubt it. We needed men so badly that he was probably reprimanded or maybe they fined him in some way. I don't know.
05:15:01;25 05:16:00;05 [00:00:58:08] WCHFT005
:Items stolen for money:
Q- Probably the motivation for that was the shortages of everything?
M - Well, he could sell it. I just don't know who the buyer-- we had steelmen in town who bought copper and stuff, but I don't think he would have tried to sell it in Manitowoc, but he probably could have taken it to Green Bay or Sheboygan. And maybe he had somebody in hoots with him that knew what to do with it, but I'm sure he stole it for the money. And there were a lot of other things that dissappeared that we could never-- we just knew that they were missing. A lot of electrical wire. People would take ten or twenty or thirty feet home and make an extension cord out of it, and they could get that into their lunch buckets. The lunch buckets were very convenient for carrying out merchandise.
05:16:00;05 05:16:46;10 [00:00:46:05] WCHFT005
:Chess via the mail girls:
Q- Mail girls.
M - Well the mail girls-- the reason I had that note in there was the fact that there were two Navy men who were carrying on a chess game, and of course, we had mail-- we had five people-- well the mail department was also our telephone exchange and the girls rotated, but we had a lot of incoming mail. And these two girls laughed about it, but each morning they had to take this chess board and hold it straight and take it into this one's office and leave it there, and then later in the day, he'd say well he was ready, and they could take it back, so then they would pick it up and they would take it to the other guy for the next morning.
05:16:46;10 05:17:24;08 [00:00:37:26] WCHFT005
:ferry trips to Michigan:
Q- You've got some pictures of a boat trip.
M - Well that was, you've taken that picture of me, that was that boat trip that we took across to Michigan. We had car ferries that ran-- I don't know if they ran daily, but I know they ran every weekend. And a lot of people did that in Manitowoc. You just got on on Saturday morning and you came back again Saturday night, or sometimes you stayed overnight and came back Sunday. It was just an excursion to do something for recreation.
05:17:24;08 05:18:39;24 [00:01:15:14] WCHFT005
:shipyard social life:
Q - There was also a social life within the shipyard.
M - Yes, we had a lot of, each department, we had a lot of parties. I know our purchasing department had a men's ballgame, and we girls would go there after work and cheer them on, and usually we'd end up at a tavern someplace for a beer or two after a while, and other departments did the same thing. There was not a lot of... we never did anything expensive. It seems to me even though we were shipyard employees, we weren't overpaid. And like I said, we often, a group of us would go down by the lake in the evening and roast marshmallows and hotdogs on a stick and sing and had a lot of good times. And in those early years too, we were always paired off that you went as a couple. 5 girls would go and 5 fellows would go, and you just had a good evening together.
05:18:39;24 05:19:19;05 [00:00:39:09] WCHFT005
:some girls married sailors:
Q - There was probably a lot of dating going on.
M - Yes, there was. I can't think of anybody in particular that married-- I can't think of names, I should say-- of any girls that married the sailors, but there were some. But not a great many. Quite a few of our Manitowoc people came back from the war with brides from across.
05:19:19;05 05:20:06;28 [00:00:47:23] WCHFT005
:movie theatre dish night:
Q- What was Dish Night?
M - I put that down with the movies. In other words, those were the years when you went to the movie, you got a dish. One week you got a cup, and the next week you got a saucer, and the next week you got a plate, and it was quite something to collect that. And I might say that they now have rummage sales in Manitowoc and often times you will find some of those dishes-- what we called movie dishes-- still around. And there were also not dishes but glassware. People accumulated half a dozen of water glasses or half a dozen of sherbet glasses or something like that.
05:20:06;28 05:21:18;03 [00:01:11:03] WCHFT005
:Milton Dachen and the band:
Q- You said there was also a band.
M - Yes. Manitowoc had a talented man, male musician-- Milton Dachen (sp?). He was an organist, a pianist. He spent a year in Italy under some professor. He was a very accomplished man, and he could play, oh he could play, you know, the big composers. He could also sit down and a play popular song-- "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"-- just sit down and play it. And after he was hired at the shipyards, because they knew of his talent, they asked him if he would put a band together, so they just put notices in the keel block. Anybody with an instrument, if they wanted to join the band, they could, and they didn't do too much practicing-- a little bit-- but it was more of... it sounded good regardless. They usually played outside during the lunch period. By the way, they also played for the launchings.
05:21:18;03 05:21:50;00 [00:00:31:27] WCHFT005
:Q- You've got Broadway shows here-- did those come to town?:
M - (Checks her notes) Oh, I think I just put that down that in 1942, Oklahoma was a popular play. I'm not sure if it was in Manitowoc. It was probably the movie at that time.
05:21:50;00 05:22:41;19 [00:00:51:17] WCHFT005
:places open all night:
Q- Now you said also a lot of places were open all night?
M - Well, there were no closing hours at that time. Today, I guess you have to close at 1:00 in Manitowoc. I don't know. I don't stay up that late. But I know that we were roaming around town yet at 2 or 3 in the morning. I mentioned the Savoy Cafe there, that was kitty corner to the Hotel Manitowoc, it isn't there anymore. And a lot of us would end up at the Savoy. They had very good cherry pie, and we'd have cherry pie and coffee at two in the morning. There was, I think I named some other places there that were opened-- Barners Supper Club...
Q - ...tearoom, etc.
05:22:41;19 05:23:30;01 [00:00:48:10] WCHFT005
:Hotel Howard/Passion Pit:
M - Yes, the Hotel Howard in the basement in the basement had a very risque place. Most of us did not go there, however, it was a place that the sailors went. And, um, there were some rowdy nights, I believe, where the police were called and somebody had to be evicted or what have you. It was also called the Passion Pit, and I think if you wanted to date, you went there and somebody found you a date. I don't know, but it had quite a reputation in town. And after the war was over, it closed up because there wasn't anybody interested anymore in that.
05:23:30;01 05:24:56;05 [00:01:26:02] WCHFT005
:V-Mail:
Q - V-mail?
M - Well, I put that down evidentally, there was v-mail. I never used it. I think you could use v-mail to get in contact with your sons and daughters if they were in service. I'm not sure how it worked. I never used it.
Q- You said that your job was purchasing things. You bought things from all over?
M - Yes, but when I told you that, I was thinking after the war. I wasn't purchasing during the war. But after the war.
Q - But during the war, you were busy managing the service.
M - Yes. And then I helped Mr. Myer with certain records that he wanted kept. Whatever he wanted done, I was his assistant.
05:24:56;05 05:26:30;05 [00:01:33:26] WCHFT005
:Rush to get work done:
Q - You said it was kind of a stressful time. How would you describe that?
M - Well, it was stressful, I think, for everybody because the men were under pressure to get something done. And it took a ships, it took a lot of coordination because there was such cramped quarters on this ship that you couldn't get in-- let's say the plumbers, pipefitters wanted to get in, and maybe they had to wait until the electricians got out or vice versa. It was very much something like building a home. One thing can't be done until another thing is done. And yet they were under pressure-- "Do it. Get it done. We've got deadlines to meet." And the same was true of my girls too. They were typing purchase orders. They were, they were loaded with purchase orders from morning till night, typing typing typing. And I didn't mention this, but every order had to have the same paragraph on it. I don't remember what it was anymore but it was something like, "This equipment is for our submarine program number so-and-so, with the Navy number so-and-so, and is currently blah blah blah" and the girls had to type that over and over and over. Today, if you had the computer, you could put that on and just re-run it all the time. But because you had to put it on this machine, there was no way around it. That was why I didn't like typing when I first started there because it was just repetitious.
05:26:30;05 05:27:23;14 [00:00:53:07] WCHFT005
:News came by radio:
Q - Meanwhile you're hearing news probably about the war.
M - Well, we got that mostly by radio. Mostly news. You went home at night, you ate your supper, and you had the radio on to find out what was happening and I don't think we were briefed as much as.. today we almost know-- Mr. Bush, ready to go over to Iraq-- we almost know what he's got to use and how he's going to do it and everything. Where you didn't have that in World War II. You waited for news to find out if we had conquered here or they were stopped here or whatever. And I think the news itself was probably what, 3-4 days late. But it was all radio.
05:27:23;14 05:28:36;25 [00:01:13:09] WCHFT005
:War was always spoken about:
Q- You mentioned movies. What about newsreels?
M - I don't remember the newsreels anymore. I just don't. I know we went to the movies a lot, and I'm sure there were reels, but I can't remember them.
Q- It was kind of all-consuming.
M - And yet you know, there was a certain amount of camaraderie because you all were in it together. And we all felt like we were one big big big big family. And we had a wonderful boss. I mean, my boss himself, Mr. Myer, was a wonderful purchasing agent.
05:28:36;25 05:29:36;02 [00:00:59:05] WCHFT005
:bosses trips to games in Milwaukee:
M - And I might tell you something interesting. He often, as purchasing agent, was given tickets to a play or a ballgame-- most of the time a ballgame at Milwaukee. And he, of course, was a member of Milwaukee maybe Athletic Association, and by being a member, he had the right, he could drive to Milwaukee in regular clothes, and then he would go to the athletic building where there was a rule reserved where he could change into better clothes if he was invited to a luncheon or something. I don't know why he didn't like to wear what was going to go to lunch in, but maybe in those years the cars were not air-conditioned. If you had the window open, maybe it got dusty, I don't know. But I know he always took a change of clothes along and would change after he got down there. |
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| Description Type: |
Log
|
| Format Aspect Ratio: |
4:3
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| Format Generations: |
Moving Image/Original Footage
|
| FormatLocation: |
Media Library |
| Duration: |
00:28:29;00 |
| Format Colors: |
Color
|
| Genre: |
Interview
|
| Genre Authority Used: |
PBS PODS
|
| Language: |
eng
|
| Date Of Record Release: |
2009-11-06 09:55:26 (W3C-DTF) |
| Date Record Checked: |
2009-11-06 |
| Format Tracks: |
track 2: right mono
track 1: left mono
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| Format Media Type: |
Moving Image
|
| Alternative Modes: |
No Captions
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| Subject Authority Used: |
International Press Telecommunications Council |
|
Annotation:
Cataloged as part of the American Archive Pilot Project |
|
| FormatIdentifierSource: |
Wisconsin Public Television |
| Date of Record Creation: |
2009-11-06 09:31:38 (W3C-DTF) |
| Identifier: |
http://wptmedialibrary.wisc.edu/SPT--FullRecord.php?ResourceId=458 |
| Date Last Modified: |
2010-01-14 09:48:15 (W3C-DTF) |
|
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