The Milwaukee Magazine
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.. ","" ". r I •.'F• .... ~~'~. jI UNCLE AUNT GRANDMA GRANDPA FATHER MOTHER BROTHER SISTER NEPHEW NIECE SON DAUGHTER 4hat 2!!! gift would please them all ? No matter what their tastes ... their hobbies ... their likes or dislikes ... there's one gift that will please them, each and everyone. That gift is a United States Savings Bond. This Christmas, put at least one Savings Bond under the tree for I someone you love. ·1 I j Contributed by this magazine in co-operation with the Magazine Publishers of America as a public service. The Milwaukee MaqaZInt; Decembet. 1946 • were enemies. Hunger doesn't' make Nation Thrills To Peace Plea good people-it breeds hate. I've been repairing clothes. Now I'm making by Wife of Milwaukee Road Employe quilts that I can send over there wher ever it may be needed. I've sent much. Nationwide acclaim and the gratitude "We ha ve seven children, yet I can't was the kind of boy he was. Laughter give him up ... he is one of us. We of peace-loving America came over came easy to him. He fought hard ... night to Mrs. Stanley Schnelle of Olivia, have been a poor family. I've seen times Bougainville, the Bikinis, Gllam, Saipan when it was hard to even make baking Minn., wife of a Milwaukee Road sec and lastly Okinawa on Sugar Loaf Hill. powder biscuits, so short were we. But tion man, when a letter which she had He was part of the 4th Marine Regi we were a happy family and laughter written was read before the Foreign ment, 6th Marine Division. Yes, that came easy to us all-laughter and sym Press Association by Secretary of State was one of the boys in your poem. That pathy, for we all knew what it .was to James F. Byrnes on Nov. 11. gallant lad. go without. Mrs. Schnelle, a Gold Star mother, "It was a staggering blow to me. "Lloyd, our next boy, who is 18, is now had written the letter to Cardinal Spell Seemed like time and time again that taking his basic training as a Marine. man of New York, and although her I must get him back, that he must be "And now, Archbishop Spellman, original purpose was to request a copy there yet, especially so when the troop I'm asking a favor of you. That beau of his poem, "Our Sleeping Soldiers," trains started bringing them back; espe tiful poem of yours was sent to me torn she wrote one of the most compelling cially when the 6th Division came home. out of the Good Housekeeping Maga appeals for peace ever expressed. Card You see, the main division of the Mil zine. It was torn and wrinkled. 1 inal Spellman read the letter at the re waukee Railroad goes by our yard. In want to frame it and hang it up. Would cent convention of the Veterans of my mind I knew he was dead. But it you send me a copy of that poem, with Foreign Wars in Bost9n, and sent it on was the heart that was calling him back, your signature on it? to Secretary Byrnes. When the latter reaching out across the water. "It goes deep with me. You went addressed British Foreign Secretary "I often wondered what Heaven over there. You gave comfort. But Ernest Bevin, Russian Foreign Minister looked like with those tired, weary boys you didn't forget -those who had given V. M. Molotov, and other guests at the coming in. I figured they would look their all. Foreign Press Association dinner, Mrs. at each other, some friend, and say, "You cared, you wrote that beautiful Schnelle's letter provided the climax of 'You here.' But I think of what they poem to them-and to us. Thanks for his appeal. died for. I think of the work left to that poem, and here is one that shall She did not know that it was to be be done. Now it's up to us. Their never let them down. 1 shall see that read until she heard it on the radio; work is over. boy ... yes, aJl those boys, plunging the State Department in Washington, "I pray, how I pray, for God to on in mud up to their hips. Boys with D. c., had called long distance and guide Secretary Byrnes in his work. I their eyes on the battle but with their asked her' to listen to the broadcast. pray for the little people. They have hearts back home. Boys that mothers' The letter follows: taken too much, wondered too long. hearts cry out for long after the battles "Olivia, Minnes0ta, Soon their hearts will be crushed with are over. Boys that sleep under white "August 8, 1946. burdens they can't bear. I pray for a crosses. God love them, and God bless "Archbishop Francis J. SpeJlmari, just peace treaty to come soon. I pray you, "New York City. that aJl might be fed and clothed. I "Yours truly, "Dear Archbishop Spellman: can't see hungry people, even if they "Mrs. Stanley Schnelle." "Here before me is your beautiful poem, 'Our Sleeping Soldiers,' written one year ago in Okinawa. You might have been standing close to my boy's grave. He lies there, that boy of mine. He was young, 18, a senior in high school. But in December, 1942, he said to me, 'Mom, this is my fight. I got· to go. I'm no better than the boy from England or China.' . "His fa ther and I let him enlist. He wanted to be a Marine. He had a crooked finger caused by an accident. Timeaftettime he hitch-hiked to Min neapolis trying to enlist. No, that crooked finger kept him out. But they couldn't keep him out. He got into the Marine Corps. La ter, by the same persistent method, he got to be a Marine Raider. "When he left, and that was our last goodbye, he said, 'Funny, I'm going off to war and I don't know of an enemy.' A buddy who got back and came to see us said, 'You know, one thing about Gordon was he held no bit terness to his enemy. He said, "They Mrs Schnelle a iormer school teacher, is shown in her home with two volumes of the writings think they're fighting for their coun '01 Ca~dinal Sp';Uman and a letter 01 acknowledgment from Secretary 01 State B~rnes. Gordon, th~ son who was killed on Okinawa, can be identified as the largest 01 the boys 1D the photoqrap try like I'm fighting for mine.'" That 01 her seven children. (Press Association Incorporated photo.) 4 The Milwaukee MagazJne lUTing completed the reading of the latter, Secretary Byrnes said: "I have read this letter because I think it appropriate that a mother's plea should be heard by the Foreign Minis Origin ofthe Christmas Card ters' Council and by the dele.,gation to It is claimed that Christmas cards are legitimate descendants of . the United Nations. "school pieces" or "Christmas pieces." These were sheets of writing "To the representatives of other ~aper, sometimes surrounded by elaborate and gh'<lstly scrolls and flour countries I say that the greatness of Ishes, used by schoolboys at the beginning of the holidays to demon this nation lies not in the skyscrapers strate the progress they had made in composition and writing. In 1842 or other evidences of wealth visible in a 16-year"0Id English youth, W. M. Egley, made the first known this wonderful city of New York. The etc~ed Christmas card. This was an elaborate affair, depicting a greatness of America lies in the humble festl.ve party, a group of carol singers, a Punch and Judy show, a homes of America, and particularly with skatmg scene, the charitable distribution of soup and two dancing the mothers who preside over these figures. homes. It rests with such mothers as Some person in Leith, Scotland, is said to have sent out New Year's the writer of this letter. She indicates cards to his friends in 1844, bearing a laughing face and the words she does not possess material wealth. "A Gude New Year to Ye." In Germany illuminated cards were sent But you and I know she is rich in the on Namenstag, the feast of one's patron saint. The German influence nobility of her soul. She prays for our may be seen in the leafy trellises which divide the card into three panels. enemies and is anxious to help them. The German card was 6 by 4 inches and colored by hand. "She prays not only for her own boy .Not until 1846 did the card jdea really impinge on the public con but for all boys that God may like sCience. In that year Henry Cole, a founder of the Victoria and· them. She prays for peace. In doing Albert Museum of London, commissioned John Horsely of the Royal so she voices the views of all mothers. Academy to ~esign his card. Horsely came through with a rococo "May God guide us to grant. her three-paneled Job. The two end panels showed "the feeding of the prayers." hungry" and "the clothing of the naked." .In the center panel sat ~hree generations of a jolly family, each. with a brimming wine glass In hand. Temperance societies raised such a hullabaloo about the wine P. E. Dugan feature that the success of Christmas cards was assured.