Not in Iowa Any More: Aug 15, 1942

Aug. 15, 1942

Wilmington, California

Dear mother, father, Snooty Poot, brothers and anyone else who may read this,

Tonight I am very tired but I am also happy because everything has worked out so nicely. However that is getting ahead of my story. I will go back to the time I got in the train in Boone and record my feelings, experiences and observations from then till now, as well as I can recall them.

The porter led me to my berth, which incidentally was on the side of the train facing the station. I looked out but I guess that you had already left because I did not see you (that is — mama, daddy & Vincent). Being as it seemed the obvious thing to do, as the berth was all made up, I undressed and went to bed. I did not sleep very much however. About 7:30 or 8:00 the Pullman conductor came around and I gave him my ticket. However, I still had some to pay, as Mr. Bales had informed me, which I paid later in the morning. It was $11.55 which with the $50.72 given to Mr. Bales made a total of $62.27 for the ticket.

I did not get up until we had got into Omaha and had also got out, more or less because I did not know what to do. However, when I did get up everything went all right.

Before I go any farther I must describe what a lower berth is like. The bed is just long enough so that I could stretch comfortably without either bumping my head or feet into the ends of the berth. The width is about that of an ordinary twin-bed. The top of the berth is a section of the roof of the Pullman which pulls down and forms the bottom of the upper berth. In the lower berth you can lay and look out of the windows which is impossible in an upper berth since there are no windows to look out of. Just inside of the curtains which form the outside of the berth are hangers on which you can hang clothes. These curtains open in the middle and can be buttoned shut on the inside.

Well anyway, while I was washing my face, et cetera, the porter came around and converted the upper and lower berths into two ordinary train seats facing each other. There was no one in the berth above me so I had plenty of space in which to lounge all of the way.

By the time I had gotten up etc on the first day, I did not go down to breakfast, since it was too late. For dinner, since, despite my success in getting thru the process of getting up in the morning in the Pullman all right, I was still afraid, I had a bar and some other stuff to eat when the train stopped at some town in Nebraska, I forget now, just what town. By suppertime I was quite hungry however so I took my life in my hands and proceeded to the diner. When I got there, there was a line waiting (the train was long, but nowadays each train is allowed only one diner, due to transportation regulations) so I had to wait awhile. When I got in to eat, I found out that the regular meal had as its meat — chicken pie. So of course I had to get something else which totaled about $0.85 or something like that. The milk was 15¢ for a rather small glass, and other prices were in proportion. I suppose they had to be higher being as they were served under special conditions. However, I will say this much, that they gave you about twice as much butter as in the usual run of restaurants.

After supper I went back to my seat and sat for awhile until the porter came, reconverted the seats into the berths, after which I went to bed. I wrote a card during the afternoon but at the first two stops after I wrote it — North Platte Nebr and Cheyenne, Wyoming I looked in vain for a mailbox. Moreover the time was somewhat limited, so I thought maybe it would be safer to err on the side of being sure to get on the train before it left again.

As you go thru Nebraska the corn gets smaller and spindlier so that by the time you have reached western Nebraska it is almost non-existent. That is, most of the land is used for pasture or hay. In Wyoming, the land begins to change from the flat of the plains to a sort of rolling country and finally into sort of big dumpish hills, somewhat larger than Coon mound, which are known as foot-hills. Occasionally these will have some rocks sticking out of them. These are not covered with grass but rather with little bunchy growth of some kind of plant, probably a weed, I suppose.

I watched the foothills as I lay in my berth Wednesday night until it was too dark to see after which I went to sleep. I had a headache that night, and a little the next day but today I feel pretty good. When I woke up in the morning nothing much seemed to have happened as far as mountain development was concerned but thereafter it did. The foothills changed into some pretty respectable piles of earth and rock. That morning we went thru a rather long tunnel and when we came out the windows of the train were all frosted over. I guess that in the tunnel, the smoke (rich in water vapor from the combustion of coal) was cooled so that the water in it collected on the train. When the train got out of the tunnel however, the motion of the train soon caused the air to evaporate the water on the windows. Incidentally at North Platte, Nebraska on the previous day, the time changed from Central to Mountain time.

When we got to Salt Lake City, I got out and found a very handy mailbox stuck right where it couldn’t be missed which I thought was a [sic] sensible. However, I thought that it would be all right to send a telegram home that I was getting along all right so that you would know that I had got on the train and that everything was proceeding in a good way.

On the second day I had breakfast and supper in the train but for dinner I had an ice cream cone that I got at some town we stopped at. Altho the train had passed some fairly good sized mountain candidates in the morning nothing much further happened for sometime. After we left Salt Lake City, skirting the great Salt Lake, we proceeded to stay at some distance from the mountains, which remained sort of like [sic] shadows in the distance. That evening, Thursday we went thru Caliente, Nevada where the time changes from Mountain to Pacific time.

Towards evening we gradually got into rougher country where the mountains consisted mostly of great, upheaved masses of rock, which had been cracked etc in the process. The strata were all jumbled up, proceeding at every possible angle, some almost straight up and down. This lasted all night I think since it was still going on this morning. However, the mountains soon began to get smaller and smaller until they were more like the foothills. And then it got foggy and stayed that way right into Los Angeles. I wondered what had become of the vaunted California sun. However it came out warm enough later in the day.

I got to talking with a man who was evidently a Californian since he knew considerable about it. He said that most of California except for a strip 150 miles wide along the coast is a very hot uninviting place. It is practically impossible to drive thru eastern Calif by car except at night because it is so warm. The name California comes from two Spanish words, meaning “hot furnace,” which is the name the early Spaniards gave it. The desert gives off a sort of dry peculiar odor that is very distinguishable when you meet it for the first time. However your nose soon becomes insensitive to it. I’m all pooked out so I think I will go to bed and finish this letter in the morning.

Saturday morning.

The train was about an hour late getting into the Union Depot at Los Angeles. This was due to the fact that ever since Omaha or some place near there the train had been run in two sections because it began to be too long. Even at that, neither section was a short one in my opinion. In the section of the one I was on, the engine was an oil burning steam locomotive. After it came a baggage car and then a car in which some soldiers were riding. Then followed six Pullman cars, a recreation car, the diner and I think that concluded it altho there may have been some more on the end. Since each car is equivalent in length to about 2 freight cars you can see it was quite long for a passenger train.

When the train got into Los Angeles, the first thing I did was to get off the train and then sort of followed everybody else which led eventually to the station. The station was really quite a large place and it was built in sort of a Spanish style I guess because it had a tile roof etc etc. I went to a section of the stations labeled “baggage” where after about 20–30 minutes wait I was able to get my suitcases. Then I took a sort of bus, which the taxi-cab company ran, which took people either to the bus depot or to the Pacific Electric Station, from which places, connections could be made to various towns around Los Angeles.

I went to the P.E. depot where I got on a car or rather two cars (of the interurban type) which went to Wilmington. I took all my baggage along with me since I thought that was simplest. When I got to Wilmington, I got in a taxi-cab and the driver took me to a hotel (since there is no Y.M.C.A. in Wilmington). Here I registered for one night. Here I must mention, if I haven’t already done so in the cards I have sent, that I forgot my shaving cream at home so that I was not able to shave while on the train. Maybe it was a good thing because the train certainly did bounce around considerably, all the more noticeably when you are trying to wash your face or drink some water or write something etc.

So when I got to the hotel and had checked in, the first thing I did was to shave. By that time it was almost 12 o’clock or so, since I had had no breakfast I went to a combination drug store and restaurant near the hotel. Here I got a very good meal for only 40¢ or rather 41¢ because there is a sales tax in California; in Nebraska and Nevada, there is no sales tax, but Utah has one and I forget about Wyoming. Then, after finding out where the Shell Company was located, I went there and talked to some individual in the personnel office where I found out the following stuff: I will still be employed by the Shell Development Company but I will be working at Wilmington instead of at San Francisco. The man who will be in charge of the department where I will be working was busy, so I should come back Monday morning. I also had all of my fingerprints taken, and filled out some other forms for some reason or other. Then I was given a note to a photo shop where I went and had my picture taken. The picture is placed in a sort of badgelike thing which constitutes of means of identification for getting into the plant proper.

Wilmington has a smaller population than I thought it had at first. This is due to the fact that a large part of the city is not city al all but oil wells instead. I would say that is about like Ames without any students altho I may be mistaken. The main streets are Anaheim St and Avalon Avenue which intersect at right angles. The P.E. car lines cross both these streets and go right past the Shell refinery about two miles from Anaheim St. So it is fairly convenient to get from the middle of Wilmington out to the Shell plant. Moreover Anaheim St goes directly into Long Beach and there are buses along Anaheim that will take you there and back for 25¢ or so. (Long Beach is about 5 miles from Wilmington. By continuing on the P.E. lines you can go either to Los Angeles (40¢) or to San Pedro (10¢). San Pedro is south of Wilmington and is the town connected with the harbor I think altho Wilmington also has some harbor facilities.

At any rate I decided that for the present I would try to find a place to stay in Wilmington. I finally found a very nice place I thought, which was kind of lucky since rooms in Wilmington are at a premium now. The place where I will stay is located at 1018 Avalon Avenue, so I suppose that is where you should address any letters to me. It is a white house made out of stucco or cement or something like that. Anyway it looks like the type of picture you see in pictures as showing a Spanish influence or something like that. I thought it was very nice looking at any rate.

The room which I will be in will be shared with another boy who will be coming soon from Texas. The people, who were sort of past middle age, vouched for his good character since they knew his cousin who lived next door, so I thought that would be all right. The bed looked (there were twin beds of course) quite comfortable and you will be able to get in and out of the house at any time you please, which I like. The lady, (I haven’t found out her name yet) is quite deaf so you have to talk rather loud to her. She said quite calmly that the front door didn’t work too well since it had been slightly injured in an earthquake, so that the side door was used mostly instead. She almost thought I would be lonely because I had left my parents way out east. My good midwestern soul sort of swallowed hard when I heard that but I guess it is correct enough from the Calif viewpoint.

I am going to move my stuff from the hotel over there this morning sometime. I am quite certain that I will find it as nice a place to stay as at Mrs. Tobin’s in Iowa City. The boy who is coming is about 19 years old. That is the most specific information I can give about him.

Today, I am going to do the following things: (1) Get hold of a good map of Wilmington, Long Beach, and San Pedro so that I can find out where the churches are located. It looks as if I will be able to attend church in any of these towns if the church isn’t too awkwardly situated, die to the transportation facilities that are available. (2) If I have time after doing that and moving, go out to San Pedro and see the ocean which should be very interesting I think.

I will write more later, but I see that the ink in my pen is gradually giving out so that I will close now.

With love,

C.P.