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Youth in Minneapolis, MN Minnesota Army National Guard, 1939-1941

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Youth in Minneapolis, MN Minnesota Army National Guard, 1939-1941 Leadership and Lessons Learned: The Life and Career of Gen. John W. Vessey, Jr. Chapter 2 blonde girl that sat in the front row, and I sat in Narrator: Gen John W Vessey, Jr the back row. (chuckles) Interviewer: Thomas Saylor, Ph.D. TS: How did you get her to know who you Date of interview: 4 April 2012 were, General Vessey? Location: Vessey residence, North Oaks, MN JV: I don’t know the answer to that. I always Transcribed by: Linda Gerber, April 2012 thought she was out of my league (chuckles) and Edited for clarity by: Thomas Saylor, Ph.D., lo and behold, she passed me a note one day and May 2012 and January 2014 invited me to a Sadie Hawkins Day party, which (00:00) = elapsed time on digital recording was the 29 February 1940. TS: Today is Wednesday, 4 April 2012, and TS: Do you remember that particular date? this is the second interview with General John W. JV: I do indeed. Vessey, Jr. My name is Thomas Saylor. TS: Tell us some details. General Vessey, when we left off last time we JV: It was at the house of another classmate were talking about your high school experience who lived not too far from where I lived. Avis it Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis and lived on the west side of Lake Hiawatha and the I want to ask you about something that you Hiawatha Golf Course Park. We lived on the mentioned after finishing last time, which was east side of that about what you park area, on the called the most east side of Lake important thing Nokomis. So it about your high was a couple of school years. I’ll miles. It was a let you develop good walk. Her that story from father drove us there. to the party; I JV: As I said remember that to you last very well. Her time, the most father was a important thing stern looking that happened to man of German me in high school extraction. was meeting my Spoke in short, wife to be. what seemed like Dear Jack gruff terms to TS: Do you me. (chuckles) I remember the first We are still looking for a card from you. It is pay day & remember her class that you and Fri nite supposed to be my nite off but I am still working father driving us to Mrs. Vessey had 3:00pm to 11:00pm for Mills. Guess I will be on the same the party and the air together? job while Ray is off. Jim Knott was asking if I heard from you yet. He is anxious to know how the new top sergeant in the car.. .although JV: I do indeed. is getting along and all of the boys. We have quite a house these words weren’t TS: Talk about full now Betty Möllers & Shirley are still here. You are lucky spoken, but it was that. you are not home. We have to stand in line to get to bath clearly young man, you’d better behave. JV: It was a chem- room. Write soon. Dad (chuckles) istry class. We were both seniors in high school. It was in chemistry TS: Suffice it to say you still remember the air class in the second semester as a matter of fact. I in the car all these years later. remember that she was that absolutely smashing 13 JV: Ido. ever took a faculty census, but I could just think TS: Did you and Mrs. Vessey then date regu- through the teachers that I knew and had and I larly after that particular event? can point to some that I knew had the view that we would be involved, and others who had the JV: We did. view that we should not under any circumstances TS: At the same time.. .this is the spring of be involved. 1940 and the war in Europe had begun the TS: So in a sense reflecting the difference in previous fall, in September of 1939. The Japanese opinion there in American society as a whole. were at war in China, and had been since 1937. As a high school student, how aware would you JV: Right. say you were of those world events? TS: How about among your friends, your age cohort group, young men sixteen, seventeen, JV: I’d say that we were intensely aware of it. eighteen years old? What kind of conversations Just we as a community. There were a number of Minnesotans who went to Canada and volun- did you have among yourselves about this whole teered for the Canadian armed forces. I knew event, series of events? several friends who did that. Considered it JV: I think seventeen year olds, our conver- myself. But I had already sations weren’t very joined the Minnesota profound. The questions National Guard, so it were, should you go to was out of the question Winnipeg and enlist forme. My father, being in the Princess Pats or a World War I vet, was should you not do that. intensely aware of it, and We didn’t.. .when you’re was convinced that the seventeen years old and a United States would even- high school student, you tually be involved. There don’t have any idea what was an air of inevitability war is like. You read about I think, but at the same wars and battles and the time a great hope that we losses of lives and so forth, would not be involved. but the absolute cruelty and nastiness of war, you TS: Was it talked don’t know about it, and about.. .how was it talked it’s sort of an adventure at about in school, in your least as I remember it at classes? that time. 6 00 ( : ) TS: Right and that’s JV: I think those two what we want to know, sort of conflicting views, yes. Abstract almost? that is the one the view JV: Yes. This followed that the United States the Spanish Civil War, would be involved, and and there had been quite then the view that we a lot of publicity about really didn’t want to be the Spanish Civil War in involved in another Euro- Corporal John Vessey (right) and Staff Sgt. Ed Smith on train en route to Camp Claiborne, this country during the pean war, and certainly in ‘30s. There were good guys a war in east Asia, that we Louisiana, circa 1941. and bad guys. Curiously didn’t want to be involved enough, the Communists primarily were the in a war in east Asia. I don’t know that anyone good guys in the Spanish Civil War, and I think 14 Leadership and Lessons Learned: The Life and Career of Gen. John W. Vessey, Jr. most of the Americans that fought there fought to have fifty cents in a bank account, and that was on the side of the Communists and not on the hard to come by. You remember the Depression. side of the Fascists. On the other hand, the I remember the Depression. I remember the Fascists were the winners. circumstances today and the contrast between TS: Correct. those years and any of the following years, good times and bad times. And they were by far worse JV: Then we’d had the Czechoslovakian times than any of the following years. But at the takeover. same time, they didn’t seem all that bad at the TS: That’s right, 1938-39. Were these events, time. It was just the way it was. General Vessey, would you say part of the process TS: It’s the contrast possibly between.. .if we that led you to join the Minnesota Army National could contrast then and now, the contrast would Guard in May of 1939, or was that a separate seem stronger, in other words. decision making process? JV: Yes. It’s huge. Think of the education of JV: Looking back on it now you’d like to say the population at that time. Just amenities like that yes, they were probably part of it so you can plumbing. How many of us had indoor toilets? make the process... Frankly, there was another Once we moved to Minneapolis, we had indoor aspect of life at that time, ar>^ that i<= that it wac plumbing. the latter years of the Depression and we had (13:00) lived through the Depres- TS: You mentioned in sion. Everybody was Lakeville you didn’t all broke. That is, everybody the time. that I knew was broke. It JV: We did not, no. was a way to add a few At lunch today we were dollars of income to a talking about gardening broke teenager. and talking about how TS: When you say that, pervasive the idea of talk about the Depression vegetable gardening was and money, when you in those days. Everyone think about Minneapolis had a vegetable garden. I is the mid-to-late 1930s didn’t know any families when you lived there, that didn’t can a lot of would you say that you vegetables to eat during perceived or saw the the winter. Who does Depression around you or that today? Not very the effects of it? many people. JV: Yes, clearly. But for TS: Perhaps as a someone who had grown hobby, but that’s about up during that period, all. the contrast between the JV: Yes. times we lived in and TS: So you noticed better times was probably this.
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