Marian Soutner (Women in World War II)

Biography

Marian (Dunn) Soutner was born in Marysville, Pennsylvania, on May 3, 1925. Her father was born in Mifflintown, Pennsylvania, and her mother was born in Marysville. Mrs. Soutner has three siblings, two brothers and one sister. She attended Enola High School and then went to work for the Selective Service office in Harrisburg following her graduation in 1942, continuing there until 1968. During the war she and her sister volunteered with the United Service Organization (U.S.O.). She was married in the summer of 1946 and had two children, one boy and one girl. In 1968, she began working at the Navy Depot in Mechanicsburg. Mrs. Soutner is now retired but she remains active as the treasurer of the Cumberland County chapter of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. She is also treasurer of the Enola-Pennsboro Alumni Association, the secretary of the Administration Council at her church, and the treasurer of her Methodist Sunday school class. Mrs. Soutner also volunteers at the Silver Spring Ambulance.

Abstract

Marian Soutner began the interview by explaining how her parents were at her grandmother’s when she heard about Pearl Harbor. She then described how the number of males in school declined drastically; how rationing affected her family and how certain products were hard to come by, mainly pantyhose. She then describes her experiences working with the U.S.O. She discussed how her mother made the dress that she wore to U.S.O. events in Harrisburg, the New Cumberland Army Depot, and at Fort Indian Town Gap. She described how she became involved with the U.S.O., traveling to and from U.S.O events, and how it enabled her to meet many new people. She then explained about how the girls in the U.S.O. were watched very carefully and were required to follow a number of rules when attending events. Mrs. Soutner continued by talking about her work at the Selective Service office, comparing it to her later employment at the Navy Depot in Mechanicsburg.

Since Mrs. Soutner lived at home during the war, she described her family’s garden, her mother’s canning, and the participation of family members in growing and preparing food. She then talked about how she kept in touch with her brother who took part in the D-Day invasion and the Battle of the Bulge. She also mentioned how her husband helped build an air base in Ohio and received training in England. She also describes the air raid drills that would occur in Harrisburg while she was working and how she took part in the V-E and V-J day celebrations.

Methodology

The following transcription is based on a tape-recorded interview that is available from the library of the Cumberland County Historical Society located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The project’s intent in transcribing the interview was to create a clean, readable text with out sacrificing the original language. Because written English differs from original language, the project adopted conventions to deal with the variations. No words have been added or changed, and no changes have been made in grammar or sentence structure. Words or short phrases added to clarify text always appear in brackets; longer explanations will be placed in footnotes. Likewise, description of non-verbal signs, such as nods of the head to indicate agreement or disagreement, have been noted in brackets. In preparing the text, the transcriber omitted false starts and filler words such as “you know” or “um.” The transcription does not include language from the interviewer that is purely procedural (such as references to turning over the tape) or language that repeats or rephrases a question. No attempt was made to preserve the dialect or pronunciations of the interviewee since the original tapes are available for those interested on those aspects of the interview. (Based on the methodology used by the Wisconsin Women During World War Two Oral History Project)

Heather Egan:: The first question, could you describe just maybe a little bit about how it was like before the war began?

Marian Soutner: I was a senior in high school when--well first of all, when Pearl Harbor was bombed, my family had gone to see my grandmother in Newport that Sunday afternoon was when we heard about Pearl Harbor. But the biggest impact on my life came my senior year in high school, which was 1942, all the males in the class either worked at the Farm Show [Building], putting airplane motors together or doing something in that field. It was really sort of a division of Middletown [Air Service Depot]. Middletown had some facilities, but the Farm Show Building had this type of thing too, so for the prom there were no fellows to come to the prom, there were fellows to attend the graduation, the commencements per say.

HE:: So when you were in school not only did you notice the drop of rate of males in your class but were there a change of teachers?

MS: No. Not that I recall.

HE:: How did the war affect you and your family’s daily life?

MS: Well things were rationed and I do have somewhere, little coupon books to get sugar. We wore anklets to work. Today young people would frown on that, but you couldn’t get silk stockings. We wore penny loafers and oxford shoes with anklets and if we heard someone, some store, downtown, a drug store or somewhere had gotten a shipment of--they weren’t nylons they were silk stockings--everybody went down and tried to get some, but it was almost like a black market in that, too. We painted our legs, you’ve heard about this?

HE:: Oh yes.

MS: Ok, we painted our legs, and hoped it didn’t rain. In my U.S.O. experiences, we used to go to a dance boat that was docked down at, around Front and Locust, Front and Pine in Harrisburg, it was north of the Walnut Street Bridge somewhere, and it was a lovely place. When I went to U.S.O. to the Indiantown Gap or the New Cumberland Army Depot, we wore gowns. My mother, I had a sister 14 months older than I and our mother, my mother, made us our gowns. They did not dare be very revealing, and if they were, the chaperones had scarves we were required to wear. Kids today wouldn’t get away with this. I don’t know if that answers your question. We were really closely watched. You didn’t leave the premises. If you left the room where the dance was taking place, you could just go to the rest room, and that’s it. There were no fellows, so this was very acceptable. We took the bus from Enola to Harrisburg to meet the bus to go to one of the dances. There was also down, has anybody about these things?

HE:: No.

MS: Down on, down around Chestnut Street, down around Third and Chestnut somewhere, there was a room and I’d say that it was down there because of it’s close proximity to the railroad station. That was open--I don’t know if it was open 24 hours a day, I don’t remember--I just know, we could do gown there to socialize with soldiers who were passing through or some who came to town on leave. There were lots of military outfits out at Indian Town Gap. I befriended two girls whose husbands were at

Indian Town in the 95^th and I communicate with them to this day. We’re all still living. These two girls came to work at Selective Service and I’d take them home with me. They were very lonely, their husbands didn’t get off very much, and so we communicate every year at Christmas time. The one girl’s husband was killed two days after Christmas, she was expecting their first child. She was going to be an older mother, in my estimation. She was probably about thirty-two and this was going to be their first child, and he was killed the 27^th of December, and she didn’t have her baby until the end of March of the next year. He’s all gown up now.

HE:: So how did you become involved with the U.S.O.?

MS: It’s difficult to say. It was just something for decent, respectable girls to do. There was a Dr. William Ross, who was in charge of the one group that took us mostly to Indian Town Gap. He and his wife were in charge of that and we met at a building on Locust Street in Harrisburg, across from where there had been a theater--I don’t know what’s there today, probably not a theater--but we were given certificates and things for our service and there were various bond support things, I would say. If you bought a savings bond you could get a ticket to get into a nice program that was going to be down at the Forum.

HE:: And what did you do at the U.S.O.?

MS: We danced, you were required to participate with whoever asked you to dance.

HE:: Did you do anything else besides dancing, like serve coffee?

MS: Not at Indian Town or New Cumberland when we went to those two places, but down at the building near the Rail Road Station, we’d play games or did whatever we could do to be a hostess.

HE:: Could you tell me about, maybe, some of your experiences in the U.S.O. or some more I should say.

MS: Well, many of the times that we were caught in a snowstorm at Indian Town, till we got back to Harrisburg on that bus. We had to catch a bus to go to from Harrisburg to Enola, and the last bus had already gone, and we never carried much money along, nobody had much money, so my best recollection is we sat in a place that had sold hot dogs and soda and things until we could catch a bus early in the morning then to go home. We were out in all kinds of weather, in evening gowns and sandals, whatever you would wear to dance in, wet feet. It’s a wonder we lived through it, but we met lots of wonderful people.

HE:: Could you tell me maybe a typical day or a typical evening would be like in the U.S.O.?

MS: Well, I don’t remember a timetable, I just knew that you had a set time when the bus was going to leave and the room where we met on Locust Street would get very full, because they want to take a whole busload of young ladies. And by the time we got out there it was time for the dance to start and it was a military dance band of soldiers who were assigned to do this and the same thing at New Cumberland. As we went back, week after week, to the same places we came to know some members of the band. We were very closely watched and it was not the possibility that we were interested in getting lost on the base.

HE:: Did you have any certain rules, for example you were saying how you were closely watched, were there any other rules or anything like that?

MS: Well, we were expected to be decent, respectable, young ladies, conduct ourselves as such. You were all in one big ballroom, wasn’t really a ballroom it was a dance hall, a rec hall where they set up the band. I probably would not be doing this if my husband were alive today, not that he would object, but there’s just no point in it, but if you were interested in finding out some of these things. And the people who were our chaperones, there were ladies from Lemoyne that, to this day I’m friends of their children, who are more or less my age now, the ladies are deceased. A lady by the name of Wilma Elles and Julia Wolfe were somewhat in charge of the girls from the West Shore.

HE:: You said how you became friends with two girls and you corresponded with them, did you ever become friends with any of the soldiers or anything?

MS: I did while they were overseas and in the war.

HE:: Did you correspond, like write letters back and forth?

MS: Yes. Lots of them.

HE:: I hate to do this to you again, but could you tell us how you became involved with the Selective Service?

MS: I graduated from high school the tenth of June 1942. The day of my commencement, my father took very sick and didn’t work for nine months. He was a railroader, that’s why we lived in Enola. Someone had to bring in some money, because the Railroad Brotherhood or whatever it was that was comparable today, I guess to unemployment compensation, didn’t pay enough to support a family and it was a family of five. So I quickly got as job at the greeting card counter in the Five and Ten in Harrisburg. I was paid eleven dollars and some cents a week. A dollar of that went for my transportation to get from Enola to Harrisburg. A high school classmate who was commercial student and very good at it, approached me to take the Civil Service Test that was given on the second floor above Davenport’s in downtown Harrisburg. The Civil Service Test was given at either Central Penn or Thompson Business School, whatever had occupied the second floor of that building where Davenport’s was on the street level. We took the test and I passed and through the kindness of a teacher, who set me up with an appointment at Selective Service, I went up there for an interview on a Friday and was hired on the spot. They wanted me to go to work that afternoon, but I did promise to go back the next morning, Saturday morning. We were working five and a half days a week. I was hired for 30 days and stayed for 26 years. When Selective Service was going to move into the Federal Building in downtown Harrisburg, I left them because I couldn’t afford to park my car in downtown Harrisburg, that was November of 1968. I went to work in the Naval Supply Depot, had to take a cut in pay and I wasn’t making big money then. Selective Service was a very small agency on a very limited budget and we didn’t have salaries comparable, to your Navy Depot or New Cumberland Army Depot. They had [what] seemed [like an] unlimited budget, but in order to get in in 1968, I had to take a cut in pay and begin typing bills of lading. It was somewhat of a come down because I had had a lot of freedom with Selective Service. I was a payroll clerk, a manual system for 500 people, they were all over the state. The checks came out from Philadelphia, Accounting Office. It’s difficult to say the privileges we had, but he pay wasn’t there but we were very well treated. I had a telephone on my desk and when I got to the Depot they didn’t even have the courtesy to--if someone called with an emergency or family or something--the bosses, it was at their discretions whether they would even tell you you had a message. But anyway, it was quite a come down and I still have fond memories and I work at the polls on election and encounter some of our military men. The officers who were assigned to Selective Service were assigned there for life, they didn’t rotate as they do at the Navy Depot. We were treated with respect and we called them by their military ranking. When I came to the Navy Depot, I couldn’t believe the disrespect. The people called the bosses by their first names, I could never bring myself to do that. I had grown up in a different era and it was just, it was very difficult to fall in line with the way things were at the Navy Depot.

HE:: I’m guessing you lived at home during World War Two?

MS: Yes I did.

HE:: And when you lived at home, did your family have a victory garden?

MS: Always. Until my dad died in 1987 there was always a garden in the back yard.

HE:: What kinds of things did you grow?

MS: The soil in Enola was shale, do you know what that is? Lots of stones. Mother never could grow beats and carrots and root crops, but Dad did enjoy his potatoes and string beans mostly, and my Dad was quite an animal lover. A rabbit get into his garden and Mother would fuss and get after it with a broom and my Dad would say, “That little fellow won’t eat much.” [smiles] I thought of my Dad just yesterday out here in my yard, there was a little rabbit not much bigger than my hand [holds up hand] and I was close, he wasn’t afraid of me and I thought “Oh my Dad would love this.” [laughs]

HE:: Did you can a lot of foods?

MS: We did. In those days it was really advantageous to get bushels of peaches and my mother would get yellow peaches and white peaches. You don’t hear much about white peaches today. And she’d buy a big jar of maraschino cherries, a gallon jar, and pears and we canned even fruit salad. And one year on Labor Day, we had had weekend company, cousins from Altoona had come on the train, and we took them to Hershey Park and it rained and got so cold, and they were to catch the train to go home, and after we took them home, my Dad built--this is Labor Day--my Dad built fire in the furnace, you didn’t have, it was cold! And we sat down in the basement and pealed this stuff, mother did a lot of canning on a gas stove we had in the cellar, and we canned fruit salad, but we all pitched in when the green beans, string beans were in the garden or lima beans, we’d all pitch in and help to can. My mother canned meat, because you didn’t have food freezers and you’d can the meat and put like lard, grease, on the top and turn it upside down on trays and my sister and I, and I’m going to come across sounding like I was deprived but this is the way people lived, my mother would turn the jars upside down on trays under our bed because out bedroom wasn’t heated and that was the coolest and best place for them. During the Depression someone broke into our basement, they knew my mom canned, and stole some of my Mom’s canned goods. But if they were hungry, you know, we didn’t make any fuss about it, that was just the way it was. But there had been snow on the ground and there were tracks in the snow and they had dragged in some wet spots on the cellar floor. But yes, we canned, and I still can. I’m very old fashioned. I have a wringer wash machine in the cellar that since my husband died I don’t use it all that much, but I used to, particularly when were on a well, we just got city water not to many years ago.

[break]

HE:: Did your family grow any fruit at all or just vegetables?

MS: Not fruit, just vegetables.

HE:: Just vegetables. Was anybody else in your family involved in any sort of organizations or the military or anything?

MS: I have a brother three years younger than myself who graduated from Susquehanna University and was inducted and sent to the Army Of Occupation in Germany, but neither my sister or I was involved in anything like that.

HE:: Did you keep in touch with your brother a lot? Did your family write a lot of letters?

MS: Oh we did, uh huh. But I probably don’t have the letters and I don’t know that my mother would have kept them either.

HE:: And how did your family feel with your brother…

MS: Well, even as an infant he had eczema. As a baby we used to wrap him in sheets because it wept and the doctors didn’t know much about how to treat it or what to do. And supposedly he was allergic wool, so the doctor was certain the Army wouldn’t take him, but they took him sent him to Germany, and while he was over there he wasn’t at all troubled wearing the woolen army uniforms.

HE:: And were your parents involved in anything at all?

MS: No.

HE:: Did your mom do anything like baby-sit for neighbors or anything like that?

MS: No, in 1946 my mother had another baby so know there were four in the family and that brother is now the pastor of Christian Of Missionary Alliance Church at 1800 South Market Street out here in Mechanicsburg. He has his doctorate and we’re very proud of him. My family was very education conscious. My sister went to business school, but high school was as far as I could go because Dad took sick, somebody had to earn some money. But I never felt deprived. Even today, I’m very independent. And I’m very busy.

HE:: Were you really close with your church during the war?

MS: I was and even after I married and had children, I went back to Enola to church. But you didn’t have these expressways and it was very--we came here in 1950, so I’ve been here 52 years.

[break to discuss current activities]

MS: When my husband came back from World War Two, he was so anxious to get out of the service that he was discharged on his own affidavit. Being the rascal that he was, he only told them what he had to so he could get out and come home—he was from Steelton—and his military records hadn’t caught up with him, so he was discharged. And it says on his discharge that he was discharged on his own affidavit. And by the time he got more knowledgeable and tried to get his records, there had been a fire in St. Louis where these records were kept, and so to this day we can’t authenticate whatever he did during World War Two. But he was in the Battle of the Bulge, he was in D-Day invasion. He had terrible feet, he went for weeks and weeks without getting his shoes off and this is the life he lived, he was not a disabled veteran.

HE:: Were you married?

MS: No, I wasn’t married during that time. I met him in the summer of ’46 after he had come out of the service. He had been in for three years and he had volunteered because all his friends--he graduated ahead of his age group, he was a bright person--and all his friends who were out of school were inducted so he went down and volunteered so he could go with them. And he had his military training, he didn’t have basic training here in this country, he had it in England and then went over in the D-Day invasion. When he went in, they sent him to Oregon to a supposed Air Force base and when he got there, he thought “Oh goody I’m in the Air Force,” because they did induct into various branches of the service. When he got out there he was supposed to help build the air base and he wasn’t there long until he was given a leave and sent home. Then he went back to Oregon and then sent to England.

HE:: Did your community did you have civilian defense?

MS: We did and I was working, at that time, in Liquor Control Building at Third and Forster in Harrisburg, that we rented rooms from the state--Selective Service rented rooms. They had air raid, civil air defense and that sort of thing. Spotters would go up on the roof of Liquor Control Building and we had first aid classes, we had air raid drills in Liquor Control building.

HE:: What were those like? Like what did have to do?

MS: Well we’d go down to the basement and everybody would line up along the walls. The Liquor Control building is still there. Are you familiar with Harrisburg?

HE:: Ah a little bit.

MS: Well it’s across the street from the museum.

HE:: Ok.

MS: The museum is at Third and Forster. When you go across the Forster Street Bridge, Harvey Taylor Bridge.

HE:: Do you remember V-E and V-J day?

MS: Sure I do! We took a bus and went to town and celebrated with everybody. I’m amazed my mother allowed that because, my sister and I were pretty closely supervised and, oh sure, it was wonderful. Everybody was happy, we were glad to get it over with. I wish I had a better memory to tell you some of the things. I think that we got time off from work to celebrate, there were parades and everyone was happy.

HE:: Anything else you’d like to add? Anything you feel we left out?

MS: I just know that U.S.O., despite what some people today may think about it, was a very decent respectable thing to do. We were the cream of the crop, the girls who sent their boyfriends off to war were not in a position to participate, but we enjoyed it. It was a good time and it was your only way to have a social life and it was a decent and respectable thing to do. We met lots of other girls, from other towns. In those kids didn’t live as they live today, to go to the malls and hang out and that sort of thing. This was your only social life. I’m trying to think if there’s anything else. I just know that my mom made out dresses and we had a good time. It was fun.

HE:: It sounds like it.

MS: Uh hum. [nods head in agreement]

HE:: Thank you.

[end of interview]