Guest Post: Recollections of World War II from Marvin and Lois (Hahn) Ledy

Over the course of this year, we will sporadically feature stories on World War II from local Dickinson County residents, interviewed and written by Amy Feigley. 

MARVIN AND LOIS (HAHN) LEDY

Lois and Marvin Ledy

In 1941, Marvin Ledy was a high school student in Miltonvale, Kansas when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He had just returned home from church with his family when he heard the news. A few counties away, Lois Hahn, a high school student in Gypsum, Kansas, was at a movie when she heard the news. Like most Americans, they were scared and had no idea what was going to happen next after the bombing.

After the draft of 1942, Marvin registered, and was in the first group of nineteen year olds to be drafted from Dickinson County. He served our country as a part of the 738^th Tank Battalion, from February 1943 until November 1945. Before Marvin was sent for training in Fort Benning, Georgia, he went on a blind date with a beautiful young lady by the name of Lois Hahn (his future wife), to the Plaza Theater in Abilene.  While at Fort Benning, Marvin worked the radios and telephone switchboards.

After Fort Benning, Marvin was sent to Fort Knox, Kentucky on May 1, 1943, for radio school. He then received his first furlough to come home in August 1943 and of course to go on another date with Lois. While at Fort Knox, he was issued an m3/Grant CDL tank in December 1943. In January 1944, Marvin then moved to Camp Bouse in Arizona. While there, he and his battalion trained with tanks at night. He came home in March 1944, on a ten day furlough, and married Lois Hahn. From there, he returned to the desert of Arizona and eventually went on to Fort Dix, New Jersey. “We weren’t at Fort Dix very long before we had to get a crew cut” says Ledy. “We were at Fort Dix for about three weeks before we boarded a ship, which was the first part of May in 1944. We shipped out on Marcatania and it took about eight days until we docked at Glasgow, Scotland.” From there, he and his crew rode a train to the very west side of Whales, where, as Marvin stated, the weather was very nice.

With Marvin away, Lois kept busy back home. She worked at Duckwall’s and then went on to work in the Welfare Department in the Courthouse. When Marvin returned home in 1945, she left her job. “During the war, everything was rationed. You had to have a coupon for pretty much everything from coffee to sugar and from shoes to gas. That is how we lived, from day to day not knowing if we were going to have something or not. But, we proudly did this for those serving our country” says Lois. “There were bond drives. That was the big thing, people would buy bonds.” During the war, the USO dances were held at a hotel basement in Abilene.

Wayne Barton and Marvin Ledy

On November 28, 1944, Marvin and his crew moved to Aachen, Germany, right before the Battle of the Bulge. They then moved to Belgium and were there until December 26, 1944 and eventually moved back to Stolberg, Germany after the battle. Marvin eventually made his way back to Aachen in March 1945. During the Battle of the Bulge, Lois did not hear from her husband for six weeks.

In August 1945, Marvin and his battalion returned home to the United States. “It was quite an episode getting off the ship in Boston to get back home to Abilene” explains Ledy. “Instead of going to Fort Leavenworth, we went to the Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis, Missouri. We got back to Abilene right during the fair, at 4:00 a.m. I walked home and surprised my family.  The communication back then was not like it is now.” Marvin’s family knew he was coming home, but just did not know when. 

During his war experience, Marvin received three battle stars: Battle of the Bulge, Rhineland and Central Europe, and 3 stripes for eighteen months overseas, 2 stars for his status as a T-5 Corporal and a good conduct medal. “When we were on our way back home on the ship, two A-bombs were dropped on Japan” states Geist. When Marvin returned home, he helped out on the farm before moving to Indiana to work at a wiring cable factory, which is the same job he had before the war. He and Lois moved back to Kansas in May 1946 to the farm and eventually to a farm near Talmage in March 1949. They resided on the farm until 1974.

Guest Post: Recollections of World War II

Doris and John Larson

Over the course of this year, we will sporadically feature stories on World War II from local Dickinson County residents, interviewed and written by Amy Feigley. 

The year was 1941. People were doing the East Coast Swing to Tommy Dorsey, the Andrew Sisters and Glenn Miller. Citizen Kane and Here Comes Mr. Jordan were drawing crowds to the movie theaters. Life was grand for all until that fateful Sunday in December when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Life suddenly changed for everyone. 

DORIS (HOOVER) LARSON 

For Doris Larson, helping with the war effort back home was something that she proudly did. She started working at Ehrsam’s in Enterprise at the end of 1943. “We got used to working a certain shift and then got rotated. I learned to run a lathe and a flange machine for a plane” says Doris. “I then worked in the drafting room and started to draw the legs for the elevators and punch boards.” 

Doris (Hoover) Larson enjoyed reminiscing about her high school days, when she met John (her future husband) and life was great. “We met at the fair in Abilene one night” says Larson. “When we were back at school, Glen Dalton passed me a note from John saying that he wanted a date with me. His parents were going to be in California and he was going to have a party. I knew that would not turn out well, so I didn’t go.” 

Fast-forward to 1941, for 20 year old Doris, this day would be embedded in her memory forever. “John was in the service and more and more men were being called into the service, including my brother Dale” says Larson. John was stationed in Olathe, then went to Virginia for training camp, then was off to San Diego, California and was eventually sent overseas to Okinawa, Japan, where he was a mine sweeper. 

While stationed, John was granted leave and returned to Olathe. On March 12, 1944, he and Doris were married. She took a leave of absence to be with her husband. When he returned overseas, she returned to Ehrsam’s and lived with her sister and brother-in-law Miriam and Loren Nichols. 

In 1945, John was granted another leave, this time to San Diego, California. Doris hopped on a train and joined him. Like most wives, she was anxious for the war to end and for her husband to return home. She eventually got her wish. 

When the war ended, Doris was pregnant with her daughter Susie. She was still working at Ehrsam’s, but left the company three weeks before Susie was born. John returned home from overseas on December 15, 1945 and eight days later on December 23rd, daughter Susie was born. Doris had many concerns when John returned home, such as where they were going to live and what was John going to do. John and Doris eventually rented a home near his folks and he began farming with his father. “We made that little house as homey as possible. There was no electrical power at all. We had a lamp from John’s grandmother that we used, as well as a lantern” said Doris. 

That next spring, Doris was anxious to plant a garden. John had borrowed a walking horse and plow and made a garden space for her. They eventually bought cattle from a neighbor so they would have milk, cream and butter and family members brought them pullets so they could have eggs. 

“Things are much easier now than they were back then. We did not have the conveniences that we do now. But, I would not have changed a thing.” Doris and John were married for 59 ½ years before he passed away. They raised two daughters together and shared a life of love and happiness, through good and bad times.

A State of Fighting and Fear: Kansas and the American Indian Wars of the 1860s

Note: This blog post also appeared in the Dickinson County Historical Society's newsletter (the Gazette), and in the Abilene Reflector-Chronicle on 9/14/2011.

During the mid-1800s and especially following the events of the Civil War, a different type of war was being fought on the plains of Kansas and surrounding states and territories.  This war had been long in the making, ever since immigrants came to the New World to settle and claim territory.  Leading up to the mid-1800s, many Native Americans had been affected by pioneers settling on their former land.  The spread of smallpox and other diseases were deadly to many tribes, and in several cases, Native Americans were forced away from their land onto newly formed territory.  However, as emigrants moved west and the western United States population grew, Indian Territory became smaller and smaller in size.  By the mid-1800s, many tribes were infuriated by the treatment dealt to them by the United States.  Plains tribes such as the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Sioux, Kiowa, Comanche, and Pawnee greatly resisted the emigrant invasion of their land.  In many cases, this resistance was violent. 

For new western settlers, frontier defense became a necessity.  Many had seen their families and homes attacked by Native American groups in an effort to drive the settlers away.  Many Kansas Forts were established to offer protection to emigrants from the American Indian resistance.  Forts Hays and Wallace were both established to protect the Smoky Hill Trail, which passed through Kansas Indian hunting land, including portions of Dickinson County.  For many Native American tribes, the railroad was viewed as a great threat.  Since it allowed for ease of travel, the railroad greatly contributed to an influx of people, which in turn led to the further use and destruction of many resources such as the buffalo.  Some plains tribes attacked railroad construction crews or targeted their efforts toward the destruction of the rails themselves.  On August 1, 1867, six men of a railroad work party of seven were killed by Native Americans approximately ten miles east of Fort Hays.

While fighting was common, there was another side to relations between the United States and Native American groups.  Peaceful negotiations did occur, however the success rate for these discussions was generally low.  Early negotiations in 1866 with the Cheyenne and Sioux began poorly when General Winfield Scott Hancock ordered the burning of an abandoned village in the midst of peace talks.  In October 1867 the Medicine Lodge Treaty was signed by several chiefs of different Plains Indian tribes.  According to the treaty, the agreeing tribes would relinquish all land north of the Arkansas River for the promise of federal aid and hunting rights south of the river.  While this may have sounded like a beneficial and easy to manage agreement on paper to both parties, this was not the reality.  The individuals of a nation rarely agree with every decision their leaders make, and this was the case for many tribal nations after the signing of the treaty.  Many individuals within tribes refused to leave their land and agree to the terms.  Additionally, many Native Americans that did agree with the Medicine Lodge Treaty were soon disappointed when the federal aid promised to them came slowly or not at all.  By early 1868, many tribes returned to their former land to hunt and raid.

George Armstrong Custer is likely the most recognizable face of the United States Military during the Indian Wars on the Plains.  Custer led the Seventh Cavalry through several successful campaigns against Plains Indians during this turbulent era.  One of the first substantial victories for the United States during the Indian Wars was the Battle of Washita River.  In this battle, Custer and his men fought and killed several Cheyenne warriors.  As was common during these types of battles, several Cheyenne women and children were killed as well.  The precise number of casualties is unknown.  Custer claimed that his men killed over one hundred warriors, but the actual number may have been significantly lower.  Shortly after this battle, Custer and the Seventh Cavalry met with members of the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry to pursue a group of Cheyenne.  Among the ranks of the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry were Andrew and Calvin Freeman, sons of Dickinson County’s first permanent settler, George Freeman.  The reason for the cavalry’s pursuit of this group of Cheyenne was to rescue two women who were held as captives.  The women, Miss Brewster and Miss White, had been captured eight months before.  After the cavalry had made their approach to the Cheyenne camp, three chiefs visited with Custer to make peace.  Custer and his men decided to hold the chiefs captive until the women were released.  According to John McBee, a member of the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry, Custer threatened the chiefs by showing them a tree and rope, and stating that they would be hanged by sundown if the women were not safely returned.  Soon after this, the women were brought to Custer’s camp.  Custer did not release the three Cheyenne chiefs, but escorted them to Fort Hays, where they found over fifty of their tribe’s women and children already being held.

This mid-1800s era blockhouse features gun ports on either side.

Since peaceful negotiations between both sides were poor or non-existent, and Native American raids on emigrant settlements became a common occurrence in parts of Kansas, many settlers were afraid that they might be attacked next.  The United States Military could not always be counted on to offer defense for settlers in remote areas.  Many armed themselves with weapons to protect their families and property. 

Additionally, many who lived in rural areas built small fortified buildings for use in case of an Indian attack.  The Dickinson County Historical Society in Abilene recently acquired one such building.  Donated by Ron and Sandra Bolliger and Kathaleen Kubik, the building was given to the Historical Society as a memorial to Ervin and Florence Aebi, parents of Sandra and Kathaleen.  Made with native Kansas limestone, the building was originally constructed on the property of Fred Helstab, a Dickinson County pioneer who built his log cabin home in 1867.  The small, fortified blockhouse features two gun ports that could have been used to fire at attackers from the safety of the building.  Helstab also built a large barn and an additional stone building on his property that was used for food storage.  All of these buildings have found many uses over the years at the farmstead, which is located half a mile west of Enterprise.

Battles between the United States and Native Americans continued on the plains in the 1870s, but began to occur frequently less.  Tribes did have incredible victories such as the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876, in which a united encampment of Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Lakota Native Americans killed Custer and all of his command in Montana Territory.  However, many tribes had been forced onto reservations by this time.

During this remarkable era, both the United States and Native American nations had instances of glory, honor, and triumph.  However, these events were equally paired with instances of despair, fear, and reckless aggression.  Neither side could easily reach an agreement, or understand the other’s ideas and culture.  The average United States cavalry member and the average Native American warrior did not believe they had much in common with one another, while this was far from the truth.  Both sides fought to protect their families, resources, and property.  Both wanted to see their nation prosper.  Additionally, both committed atrocious acts to further their cause.  The slaughter of civilians, women, and children was knowingly carried out by both groups of people.  For every emigrant settlement raided and fort attacked, there were burnings of tribal encampments and attacks on peaceful Native American nations.  No matter whom a person was, life on the plains was met with great difficulty.

To see the Dickinson County Historical Society’s recent addition, a fortified blockhouse with gun ports, come to the Dickinson County Heritage Center and “experience the past.”