North Platte Canteen

Omaha World-Herald ^ | June 1, 1994 | Cindy Connolly

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"North Platte Canteen Dished Up Instant Hospitality, Friendship," by Cindy Connolly, Omaha World-Herald, June 1, 1994

"The old brick train station moved people to tears when it was torn down in the 1970s, and years later memories of it inspired a Harlequin Romance novel. The simple building housed the North Platte Canteen, a community-run hospitality center that welcomed, fed and entertained up to 5,000 service men and women a day during World War II. Half a century later, older North Platte residents become wistful as they recall the troop trains whooshing in and out of the depot and their brief encounters with homesick young Americans. "When those trains would come in and when they'd leave, you would have a big lump in your throat because you just knew that some of them wouldn't come back," said Wylma Cantral, 83, who handed out cookies and cake at the canteen. She said she still feels the lump sometimes. "It was a wonderful experience."

Of the numerous canteens and USO centers set up across the country during the war, the way station at North Platte may have been the most famous. Every day from Christmas 1941 to April 1, 1946, soldiers, sailors and Marines traveling cross-country by train were given free coffee, sandwiches, dessert, cigarettes and magazines at the canteen before reboarding and moving on. Residents of North Platte and 125 other communities in Nebraska, Colorado and Kansas provided the food, reading material and camaraderie. During the whistle-stops that averaged about 10 minutes, friends were made and experiences of a lifetime were stored in memory banks. . .

The canteen was the result of a typical wartime mix-up. Ten days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, North Platte residents heard that their own Company D of the Nebraska National Guard would pass through the city by train en route from Camp Robinson, Ark., to the West Coast. About 500 residents rushed to the Union Pacific Railroad station with cookies, candy, cake and cigarettes. They were disappointed when Company D turned out to be from Kansas. But they welcomed the unit with their gifts. The experience gave one woman in the crowd an idea. Rae Wilson, whose brother commanded the local company, arranged for people in the city to meet all of the trains, beginning on Christmas Day 1941. Volunteers from all walks donated their time. Funds were raised from every conceivable source: scrap drives, dances, concerts, movie benefits and cash donations.

Mrs. Dotson kept records on canteen activities. One daily shopping list reads: 160 to 175 loaves of bread, 100 pounds of meat, 15 pounds of cheese, 2 quarts of peanut butter and other spreads, 18 pounds of butter, 45 pounds of coffee, 40 quarts of cream, 500 half-pint bottles of milk and 35 dozen rolls. Every day 18 to 20 birthday cakes were handed out. Such day-to-day dramas, as recorded in the letters on display at the Historical Society museum, provided the material for "I'll Be Seeing You," a Harlequin Romance novel published last year. The author, Kristine Rolofson of Rhode Island, has said at she spent hours reading letters people wrote about the canteen when she visited the museum in the late 1980s.

The canteen was closed in April 1946. For three weeks in 1967 it was reopened for a reunion. The 6 million service men and women who came through the canteen were invited to attend. The end came for the Union Pacific station when it was demolished in 1973, the year the Historical Society museum was built. In May of that year, Mrs. Dotson helped reopen the canteen one last time during North Platte's centennial. When demolition began in November, she said, "I cried like everyone else in North Platte. I kept thinking they should make a museum out of it."

[Dubya]

[Dubya]

Date: 5/26/02 Author: Bob Greene

‘They Made Us Feel Like Heroes’

Best-selling author Bob Greene recently set out in search of “the best America there ever was.” He found it in a small community in Nebraska. In this article—adapted from his new book, “Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen”—Greene recounts the sacrifice and generosity that took place in North Platte during World War II. “That dedication,” he says, “speaks of an America we still can be.”

North Platte, Neb., is about as isolated as a small town can be. It’s in the middle of the middle of the country, alone out on the Plains. But before the air age, the Union Pacific Railroad’s main line ran right through the town, and when World War II began, those Union Pacific cars carried a most precious cargo: America’s boys on their way to battle. Day and night, the troop trains rolled into North Platte, a town of 12,000 filled with young men being transported across America before being shipped out.

A local resident—or so I heard—came up with an idea: Why not meet the trains coming through, to offer the servicemen affection and support?

On Christmas Day 1941, it began. A train rolled in—and the surprised soldiers on board were greeted by North Platte residents with welcoming words, heartfelt smiles and baskets of food. What happened in the years that followed was nothing short of amazing—some would say a miracle. The depot was turned into the North Platte Canteen. Every day, from 5 a.m. until the last troop train had passed through after midnight, the Canteen was open. Each day of the war, 3000 to 5000 military personnel came through. The trains were scheduled to stop for only 10 minutes, but the people of North Platte made those 10 minutes count.

Many of the soldiers were just teenagers. This was their first time away from home, and they knew that some of them might never come back. Then they rolled into a train station and were greeted by men, women and children who were telling them “thank you.”

This was not something orchestrated by the government. All the food, all the services, all the hours of work were volunteered by private citizens and local businesses. The only federal funding was a $5 bill that President Roosevelt sent because he had heard about what was taking place and wanted to help.

It might have been a dream, but it wasn’t. Six million soldiers passed through that little town—6 million of our fathers and grandfathers. And every single train was greeted; every man was welcomed. It was a love story—a love story between a country and its sons.

“We would hear the call of ‘troop train coming in,’” said Rosalie Lippincott, 74, a Canteen volunteer, “and we would hurry to make sure that all the fried chicken, fresh fruit, sandwiches, coffee and cookies were out on tables. Then the soldiers would come running in. Oh! The different accents, the colors of skin...the men in khaki, the boys in Navy blue, the Marines. And all of this for just 10 minutes at a time! They would say, ‘How much do I owe you?’ When we would say, ‘You don’t owe us anything,’ they could hardly believe it.”

Russ Fay, with whom I spoke before his death last year at 75, went through North Platte just after his induction into the Army in 1944: “The train stops, and we see these women carrying baskets toward our car. We can see that there’s sandwiches and things in the baskets. The women get onto the train—for some reason we aren’t allowed off—and they’re offering us the sandwiches and these little bottles of cold milk. Those sandwiches were so good. I ended up in France and Germany, and I’d say a majority of the men on the battlefields knew exactly what North Platte was and what it meant. They would talk about it. Out of nowhere: ‘How’d you like to have some of that food from the North Platte Canteen right about now?’”

LaVon Fairley Kemper, 84, was a volunteer that Christmas night when the Canteen began. “There were bushel baskets that the ladies had filled with apples and candy,” she recalled. “The train didn’t come in until about 11 that night. The soldiers were so amazed—way out there in the boonies on Christmas night. We carried the baskets out to the train, gave the men the apples and the candy, wished them ‘Merry Christmas,’ and the train left.”

Kemper would come back time after time. They were all so dedicated. She recalled another volunteer, Elaine Wright: “She had a son in the Navy and got the word that he had been killed in action. After being away for a day, she came back to the Canteen. ‘I can’t help my son,’ she said, ‘but I can help someone else’s son.’”

Don Griffith, 79, remembers the tasty food and coffee. “But that wasn’t the biggest thing about it,” he said. “Those people made you feel really appreciated. Those happy smiles you saw. I know it sounds like a simple thing. But I was heading for an infantry division, and I didn’t know where I would end up. And I never forgot those smiles. You have no idea what it meant to us. We came through in the middle of the night. And they were there.”

More than 125 farm communities around North Platte made sure the Canteen was staffed. During a time of precious gasoline and no interstates, the people got to the depot. They dropped what they were doing, and when the young men looked out from the trains, the smiles were waiting for them.

“I had never heard of North Platte,” said former Marine Sgt. Vincent Anderson, 80. “We pulled into the station, and this lady came up to me and said, ‘Is it your birthday?’ I said to her that, no, it was not. And she said to me, ‘I’m making it your birthday,’ and she handed me this beautiful home-baked cake. I was really melted. Such kindness. Here were these older women, our mothers’ ages, and they made us feel we were heroes.”
Sixty years later, the depot that housed the Canteen has been torn down, and only freight trains pass through North Platte. “There’s not much there anymore,” said Ann Perlinger, 70, who was one of the Canteen’s youngest volunteers. “All those boys...they were here and then they were gone.” But they haven’t been forgotten. Even now, they haven’t been forgotten.

Adapted from “Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen,” by Bob Greene, published by William Morrow.