■RAMSEY COUNTY Winter, 1991 Volume 26, Number 4 A Publication of the Ramsey County Historical Society The death of the U.S.S. Ward. The destroyer whose crew made up almost entirely of St. Paul men fired America s first shot of World War II, was sunk by gunfire three years to the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. See the article beginning on page 4 about the ship and her crew. RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY Executive Director Daniel J. Hoisington Editor Virginia Brainard Kunz RAMSEY COUNTY Volume 26, Number 4 Winter, 1991 HISTORICAL SOCIETY BOARD OF DIRECTORS Gregory K. Page CONTENTS Chairman o f the Board William S. Fallon 3 Letters President Joanne Englund 4 St. Paul’s First Shot Naval Veterans First Vice President The U.S.S. Ward and the Attack on Pearl Harbor Anne Cowie Wilson Jane McClure Second Vice President Robert O. Straughn 12 Help, Housing ‘Almost Impossible to Find’ Secretary A Single Mother and World War II James P. Wicker Hilda Rachuy Treasurer Thomas Boyd, John Costello, Deborah 18 100 Years of Helping People— Gelbach, Joan Grzywinski, Lorraine Family Service and Its Legacy of Leadership Hammerly, Liz Johnson, John M. Lindley, Frank Marzitelli, Dr. Thomas B. Mega, Thomas J. Kelley Laurie Murphy, Richard T. Murphy, Sr., Marvin Pertzik, Mark Stein, Laurie Zenner. 30 Books, Etc. Daniel John Hoisington EDITORIAL BOARD John M. Lindley, chairman; Thomas H. 31 What’s Historic About This Site? Boyd, Thomas C. Buckley, Charlton Dietz, St. Paul’s Union Depot Thomas J. Kelley, Arthur McWatt, Dr. Thomas B. Mega. RAMSEY COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Publication of Ramsey County History is supported Commissioner Hal Norgard, chairman in part by a gift from Clara M. Claussen and Frieda H. Claussen Commissioner Diane Ahrens in memory of Henry H. Cowie, Jr. Commissioner John Finley Commissioner Ruby Hunt Commissioner Duane McCarty Commissioner Don Salverda Commissioner Warren Schaber Terry Schütten, executive director, Ramsey County Ramsey County History is published quarterly A Message from the Editorial Board by the Ramsey County Historical Society, 323 Landmark Center, 75 W. Fifth Street, St. Paul, Minn. 55102. Printed in U.S.A. ifty years ago this month the United States joined the global Copyright, 1991, Ramsey County Historical conflict known as World War II. This issue of Ramsey County Society. ISSN Number 0485-9758. All rights F reserved. No part of this publication may be History focuses on that momentous event with Jane McClure’s article reprinted or otherwise reproduced without about the St. Paul men who served on the U.S.S. Ward, which fired written permission from the publisher. the first shot at the Japanese. While men like the sailors of the Ward Acknowledgements: Photographs on the front cover and with the article on the U.S.S. fought the enemy overseas, others, such as Hilda Rachuy, battled Ward are from USS Ward Fires First Shot different adversaries—hunger, hardship, and poverty—as a single WWII by Arnold S. Lott and Robert F. Sumrall, published in 1983 by The First Shot mother with two small children at home in St. Paul. Her article is a Naval Veterans, St. Paul, and from Flush first-person account of that truly difficult side of the war. Lastly, Tom Decks & Four Pipes by John D. Allen, published in 1965 by the Naval Institute Kelley gives us new awareness and insight into Family Service of Press, Anapolis, Maryland. Photographs on Greater Saint Paul, a 100-year-old social service organization devel­ pages 12, 13 and 17 were loaned to Ramsey County History by the author, Hilda Rachuy. oped to help those like Hilda Rachuy who need institutional support Photographs on pages 20, 22 (William West and comfort in their daily struggle to hold a family together. and Samuel Smith), 25, 26, 27, 29 and the back cover are from the files of Family Ser­ vice of Greater Saint Paul. Photographs on —John M. Lindley, chairman, Editorial Board pages 3, 15, 19, 22 (James Jackson), 30 and 31 are from the audio-visual collections of the Minnesota Historical Society. 2 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY St. Paul's First Shot Veterans The Crew of the U.S.S. Ward and the Attack Jane McClure lack smoke filled the sky; flames engulfed the magnificent ships men gained their “sea legs” on the Great Lakes, sailing on the elderly gunboat lined up on Battleship Row. The bodies of sailors were flung into Paducah. Commissioned in 1905, the Bthe air as Japanese bombers swooped over the United States’ naval Paducah was older than her youthful base and explosions rocked the military installations in the Hawaiian Is­ crew. Nadeau remembers that the pre- lands. The attack on Pearl Harbor, fifty years ago on December 7,1941, World War II and early wartime military has been called the greatest, most important and most horrible event of had scanty resources. “At that time, the this century. country was pretty broke,” he said. “There were not enough ships or money for the More than eighty young sailors from St. Paul watched in horror the Reserves.” As the reservists did duty state­ worst naval disaster in American history. “We thought it was the end of side, the prospects of actual combat the world,” Thomas Nadeau recalled. Nadeau and the other men were seemed far away. “We never thought there crew members on the U.S.S. Ward, an over-age destroyer assigned to pa­ was going to be a war,” said Giles LeClair. trol the entrance to Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu. The men and their On January 21, 1941, eighty-five St. Paul reservists were ordered to active duty ship led the United States Navy into the war that now became truly world­ as members of the 47th Division, 11th Bat­ wide. talion, 9th Naval District. For John Mer- The Ward fired the first shot at Pearl Giles LeClair enlisted as a Marshall than, the call to active duty came just six Harbor, sinking a Japanese midget subma­ High School student. Orville Ethier was months after graduating from Woodrow rine more than an hour before the air at­ seventeen when he enlisted, joining a year Wilson High School. Nolde and Nadeau tack. And it is the Ward’s crew, organized before his 1939 Mechanic Arts High left family and friends on the West Side. as the First Shot Naval Veterans, who have School graduation. “You just went down LeClair said his goodbyes at an apartment kept that memory alive throughout all the with a buddy and signed on,” he said. building near the Selby Avenue streetcar years of the past half century. Based in Chicago, Ethier cruised Lake tunnel. Before the war, the circumstances of Michigan for two years. Many of the other Four days later, the young men most Ward crew members were modest. The 1930s had ended, but for many St. Paul families, the Great Depression had not. The men were young, some of them still in high school, others just finishing and all facing an uncertain future. Jobs and money for more schooling were scarce. “There wasn’t much work anywhere,” said Ray Nolde, who’d had a number of jobs, and spent some time in a Civilian Conser­ vation Corps (CCC) camp. Nadeau had been eager to join the regu­ lar Navy but, told he’d have a six-month wait, joined the Naval Reserve instead. The Naval Reserve offered not only work but also a change in routine for the young men who would be assigned to the U. S. S. Ward. Ed Bukrey and other friends from St. Paul’s Ward crewmen, home on leave during the ship’s refitting. Photographed at the Union East Side, including Don Pepin and Ed Depot were, top row from left: Robert Olson, Frank L. Fratto, Edward J. Bukrey, Mrozak, had enlisted together. They had Harold J. Harris, Howard F. Gearin, Clarence W. Fenton. Bottom row, from left: Alfred been students at Johnson High School. J. Fink, Donald R. C. Pepin, William G. Griep, Raymond B. Nolde and Orville S. Ethier. 4 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY Pearl Harbor gathered at the St. Paul Union Depot for the train trip to the base in San Diego. Leaving cold St. Paul and arriving in sun­ ny California was a thrill the young Mid- westerners wouldn’t forget. Many hadn’t traveled beyond CCC Camp and the Great Lakes, Dlinois, Naval Reserve training station. Seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time made Lake Superior seem small indeed, they remembered. After a week of orientation, they moved onto their new ship, the U.S.S. Ward on February 2. Except for the officers and a few senior enlisted men, it was an all-St. Paul crew. The Ward may have been new to her Minnesota sailors, but like the Paducah, she also was older than most of her crew. She was a flush-deck, four-piper destroyer (meaning that she had four exhaust stacks and a level deck) and she was among more Launching of the U.S.S. Ward on June 1, 1918, seventeen days after her keel was laid than 200 of these vessels cranked out dur­ at the Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California. ing World War I. One of a fleet of destroy­ ers, tugs, barges and gunboats, she was turned out by the famous Mare Island Navy Even before she hit the water, the ship of the ship was attended with bedlam. Yard near Vallejo, California. But the named for Commander Ward was a leg­ Eighteen riveting gangs set up the most in­ Ward was no ordinary ship.