January 27, 1942

San Francisco
January 27, 1942
Tuesday

I fear I'm not going to be very faithful in jotting down all of the news in this little book. Things just happen so rapidly that there isn't time to do the things that one would like to do.
The war situation is uppermost in all our minds. We make solemn resolutions that we won't talk about it, and then proceed to break the resolution before we've conversed three minutes by the clock. I wonder what we talked about before the war? It must have been something very insipid, inane and unimportant. But they were halcyon days, just the same – would that we could arrive at some peace and comfort and serenity.
General MacArthur is holding his own. It's quite evident that he's getting reinforcements and that the United States are sending aid to the Dutch East Indies. The maps prove that conclusively.
I worked last night. didn't get home until 9:30 and was I hungry! Some grind, but I don't mind so long as I get paid for it. Have to get some compensation some way out of that cheap "jerut".
Had a lovely letter from Anne and is she proud of "the little Captain"! But she has nothing on me. Only it isn't fun having a very own little baby grandson and not being able to see him and hold him in my arms. And I never had that pleasure with our darling little David. I shall never get over that if I live to be a million.
We haven't had another letter from Virginia since the first one. It does seem that some mail could filter through eer this. I think that dirty so and so at the station is responsible for some of this. Because he can be so "cussed" he takes advantage of it. Maybe, since they removed Admiral Kimmel, because of his dereliction of duty during the surprise attack on Honolulu, he won't be quite so braggadocio at his "beer busts".
We had quite a nice time at Vivian's shower that was given by Evelyn Andre and Ruth Rief. It was a canned good shower and, of course, I had to max poetic and the little jingle seemed to go over:

You may be quite efficient
And type letters all the day.
Make silly hieroglyphics
For a stipulated pay,
But here is just a word from me
who thinks she's "in the know"
A husband's very different
from a dashing Romeo.
To hold your man
take this advice
Just salvage all this loot
And with the aid of all these cans
Learn how to feed the brute.


Fulton Lewis Jr. exposed the guilty ones tonight who are responsible for the talk that there may be a rationing of sugar. It seems as though some people are determined to get rich during this war, but it's not going to be quite so easy as the last war. Too many people are too wise and shout too loudly and vociferously. There are those of us who just can't forget the last war and its aftermath – the deadly depression.
Congress clamped down today and passed the price control bill, but the wise acres seem to think it is rather inadequate and will have to be amended. We'll see! Food is still soaring. I wonder if this will be the least bit effective.

Talk about the weather

Dear Mago,
I notice you often make a note of the weather in your diary. Suddenly, your way of writing about the weather makes me realize that we are all fascinated by the weather. We talk a lot about it because we see that it is as complex, irresolute and trivial as the jerks and twitches of our own fleeting outlook on life. I think weather reports are actually our reflections on (or guesses about)our own temperamental nature.
Let it be known that it is very cold in Stockholm this week. Thus I've been able to temporarily let go of any guilt I had a while back about my contribution to global warming. My walk under the trees from the train station to work this morning was like coming out of the closet into the land of Narnia. The sky was bright blue with a few rosy-cheeked clouds hovering over the snow-laden branches. How I love the crackling that the dry snow and ice underfoot make with each step I take. My only worry right now is for the sudden appearance of a wicked witch.

Communication failure: January 19-21, 2007

Dear Gerdie, Gammie, Grannie, Goma, Gumma, Farmor, Fam, Famo, or Mago (my favorite),

I began writing to you the day before yesterday, January 18, 2007, hoping to be able to send my letter that same day. I was thinking about how you had to wait until the 19th to receive news by telegram of the birth of your grandson on the 18th of January 1942. I wanted to use the telegram you received 65 years ago as a reference, and explain how we (expect to) communicate the same information the same day, the same hour and minute, from our homes and offices, via "internet" technology today. As it turns out, your telegram, which was delivered in 1942 during a world war, was delivered much more quickly to your home than I could from my home via today’s internet media in times of peace – not because today’s technology is slower, but because it is not so robust as the "telegram" technology of 1942.

Communication service providers are no longer public utilities, but commercial companies with a virtual monopoly on a technology which even they don't master. And service providers aren't the local handyman, but often inaccessible and cocky as they are unreliable! When they can’t deliver – even if it's for days – they simply close down their customer service lines, shrug their shoulders, shake their heads, and claim they are sorry (when they finally manage to open up again). Perhaps we all react by simply "closing down" nowadays, inundated as we are with expectations of us that we cannot fulfill. As a young friend said yesterday: "Had it been important enough for you to send that mail to your grandmother, then you would have trekked through deep snow to an "internet café" [coffee houses that have communcation equipment that might work when my private line fails] to send it."

Today, after three days of communication failure, I am once again able to communicate – but God knows for how long? Our vulnerability is different from yours. Without our “internet connections”, today’s equivalent to your “telegraph operator”, many of us cannot send or receive messages, nor can we use our telephone, or even watch TV. Some of us cannot even make a living because we are so dependent on this connection to receive and deliver assignments in the rapid pace of today’s highly competitive, global work environment.

Fortunately you were accustomed to waiting to send and receive mail. I sense that you are happy to know that I am thinking of you...65 years later. We gotta get our priorities straight.
Your devoted granddaughter

ps. Ironically, the name of the Swedish company that has been unable to deliver my mail these past three days is called Comhem, which means Come home. I wonder, where is home these days?

Telegram: January 19, 1942

January 19, 1942, Monday

Today was one of the most important days of my life. A telegram came today from my darling soldier boy which read:

Spartenburg, South Carolina
January 18 – 4:47 p.m.
Mrs. W.J. Ryan
659 26th Avenue
San Francisco

Stephen jumped the gun. Arrived at 3:00 p.m today January 18, six pounds one ounce. Anne is just fine.
Captain Buddy.

Now isn't that enough to make any fond mother very, very proud? Stephen wasn't expected until about February first and it was a pleasant surprise to know that everything was over without those last anxious days of waiting. We didn't know that Kreigh had received his Captain's commission, although we knew he was expecting it. That made it two lovely surprises. My! but I'll wager he's so proud that he'll be like Pegotty – he'll bust his buttons". Pops was tickled, too. I think he's told everyone in the neighborhood already. I know that Kreigh and Anne always talked of "Susie", but I'm quite sure they wouldn't change Stephen – now that he's here. I wish they could come home. Darn this war! We'll have to hurry and win it, so that I can have my children back once again.
My head is just a whirl. Have planned so many things that hinged on the fact as to whether it was Stephen or Susie. Now I can go ahead and really carry out some of the plans.

January 18, 1942

Sunday, January 18, 1942
Today was cold with a terrific north wind blowing and when we went we went for a ride along the ocean shore the waves were terrifically high.
Pops and I both remarked that we don't remember having seen the spray so high – just like geysers – and so many miles out in the ocean. It was particularly beautiful.
We went down to see Ressa and found her quite sweet and cozy in her new home. Had intended to go for a walk or work in the garden, but the wind was too strong and cold so we just sat by the fire and talked.
Made a cake today and in my hurry, as usual, reached for the vanilla and poured in a spoonful and gasped. It was green vegetable coloring and two months until St. Patricks. Since the green coloring is tasteless, no great harm has been done, but it sure looks funny. The cake is good, so we'll eat it.
Another bomber with eight army flyers crashed near Pendleton, Oregon. Looks as though our men don't have to be in the combat zone to suffer casualties.
There don't seems to be very any outstanding highlights in the war situation. The loss of the plane with Carole Lombard, and twenty-one other people has caused the war situation to take a back seat for a couple of days – so far as headlines are concerned.

January 17, 1942

Saturday, January 17, 1942
What a pity! A lovely luxury liner crashed at Table Mountain, thirty miles from Las Vegas, Nevada last night and today they found the remains of the twenty-two passengers. One of them was Carol Lombard and her mother and there were twelve army pilots. It didn't say in the paper that the men were headed for the Far East, but they must have been since the army has not divulged their names to the public. Sabotage, I wonder. One cannot help but wonder. There are so many spies and enemy aliens, especially here in San Francisco and vicinity. The Japanese population runs into the thousands, besides all of the Wops and Germans.
The USA sank three more Jap ships again today, which brings the total up to twenty-seven to date. I believe the fleet is certainly getting in a few good licks and maybe the stickers which are very much in evidence "See you in Tokio" are quite apropos.
Winston Churchill flew from Bermuda and landed safely in London. Evidently [he] was given a royal welcome. England isn't happy, however, because of the way the Britishers are being pushed around in Malta and one can expect a little shake up somewhere along the line.
McArthur is still holding his own in the Philippines and is really doing a magnificent job.
For the first time since 1940 the Free French stepped in to reinforce the British lines at Halfoya Pass.
The President has stripped the army of production control and will make investigations as to the report of waste and profiteering.
Willie Hearst has so much space in the news concerning his pet project — Buy a Bomber Drive — that he hasn't much space for other important news.
No mail today. A day isn't much of a day when I don't hear from the children.

"Mann predicts Hitler will abandon Russ War" - I wonder just what kind of a prognosticist Mr. Thomas Mann is.

January 16, 1942

January 16, 1942, Friday and pay day
And it won't mean a thing to me this time. Too many obligations and too little money.
The city is trying to speed up defense, but, as usual, there are those greedy people who see a chance to make a dime who always argue and delay and procrastinate until the enemy will be in our midst and we won't be ready. It seems as though we in California haven't done much about the enemy Japs, Italians and Germans in our midst. Mexico and Canada have done much more to curb sabotage and espionage.
There is also talk of gross waste in defense work in Washington. Our production is nothing compared to what it should be.
Heavy mist this morning, but it cleared in afternoon – temperature moved up a few degrees. Thank goodness! I hate the north wind.
It looks as though Sumner Wells is going to be successful in welding the Latin Republics. Rio de Janeiro has treated him royally. The Argentine seems to be the only country that remains adamant.
The US navy appeared in the waters of the Dutch East Indies and sank three large troop ships and two cargo vessels. I've been telling Pops that it looks as though are fleet was there and I'm right. Russia seems to be doing right well for herself in shoving Herr "Schickelguber" off the map. The Australian "diggers" have reinforced the English and Dutch and perhaps the effect will be demoralizing to the Japs.

January 15, 1942

San Francisco
Thursday, January 15, 1942

The weather is more moderate with spatterings of rain.
New Russian victories closing huge traps in the Nazi armies. Last Red defense position in Mozhaisk area falls to Reds. This is the third vital town taken by Soviet forces.
Axis opens air assault for Libya. Malta bombed unceasingly.
Yamata Maru, 17 000 ton luxury liner which has been converted into an aircraft carrier has been sunk today by US Marines off the Philippine coast.
House passed the daylight saving bill which moves our clocks up one hour from the time the President signs it.
Summer Wells made an appeal to all Latin American countries today to sever diplomatic relations with the Axis. It was made in Rio de Janeiro and was most important.

Spent the evening with Evelyn Andre. Anthony had gone to an air raid meeting. Came home with some very interesting observations of how to proceed in case of an air raid.
Had a card from my darling baby tonight. It was written December 15 and comes to us a week after a letter which was written Dec. 20. I'm wondering just when they will receive any message from me. I wouldn't be at all surprised to have her walk in on us at any time now.

From war to war

Dear Gerdie, Gammie, Grannie, Goma, Gumma, Farmor, Fam, Famo, or Mago (my favorite),

You were 56 years old when you wrote today’s entry in your diary, which is just a few years younger than I am today. You talk about the last war (World War I) being “misty” in your memory, not because it didn’t affect you in material ways, but because no one you knew was in it.

Today the US is again at war. As I write on the evening of January 14, 2007, the US is escalating a war in Iraq, which we instigated some 4 years ago in the “fight against terrorism” , seeking “weapons of mass destruction” that were nowhere to be found. Since then a civil war has broken out in Iraq. And just as you refer to memories of a war that was fought when you were in your twenties (as you were during World War I), I also have memories of the of the Vietnam war. But for me, neither the current war in Iraq nor the previous war in Vietnam are particularly misty. I recognize some of the sentiments you expressed about the war in 1942, but not because I share your sentiments now, but rather because they are being mimicked - in an entirely different context - in the rhetoric that our current president has been using this past week in his speeches to the nation and congress.

The war in Vietnam (my equivalent to your "last war") is not misty in my memory either because, like perhaps World War II was for you, people I knew and went to school with were drafted. Some never came back. A friend and president of a neighboring high school stepped out of a helicopter and onto a mine in Vietnam in 1966. There was no body left to bury in a grave in the US. Many people whom I knew and still know were conscientious objectors or deserters who went to Canada or Sweden. It’s not misty, because we borrowed grandma Shaw’s old Rambler (on the condition that we took her to see her childhood home in Coeur de Alene, Idaho) in order to visit a close friend and conscientious objector in Canada. It’s not misty because the FBI later came searching the college commune where I was living looking for the friend whom we brought back from Canada. It’s not misty because I can still remember how my stomach turned when I saw the green plastic body bags being unloaded at Alameda Naval Air Station where I was working part-time to put myself through college.

The Iraq war is not misty either, because I traveled extensively there in the fall of 1973, met many Iraqis and kept a detailed diary of that trip with which I can now refresh my memory. (I don’t however know any of the US troops who have been sent or will be sent to Iraq, since the US military is recruited today among the uneducated, poor and unemployed. I am from the educated, middle class of a previous generation.) While I was in Iraq (and you were still alive) I might have written then to tell you that I crossed Shaat al Arab from Iran into Iraq on an Arabian night, and mentioned how a kind hotel owner at the River Front Hotel in Basra offered us a couple of dinar that first night to go out and get a bite to eat since we didn't have any local currency when we arrived. Perhaps I wrote you a letter to tell you how we had wandered about in the old marketplace of Basra (since bombed), or about how we were given a personal tour of the incredible natural beauty and unique culture of the marshlands (now drained and dry) of southern Iraq. And I’ll never forget a boat ride and swim with Iraqi students up the River to the garden of Eden where the Tigris and Euphrates flow together, meeting at the excavations of Ur and Babylon, or a meal at a restaurant in Baghdad with black, white, Christian and Muslim students. Likewise, how can I forget how our hunger was memorably relieved on the last day of Ramadan when we found ourselves being navigated to a delicious meal at the personnel canteen at Iraqi Oil in Kirkuk, or how safe we felt with a Kurdish farmer standing guard outside our tent when we camped in the mountains just outside of Arbil.

College days and the war in Vietnam. An intensive time of life, followed by so many pleasant memories of the Iraqi landscape and people. Now war again.

Dear Mago, times are different now. So many thoughts I’d love to share with you, but tomorrow is another workday and it’s time to hit the sack…
Your devoted granddaughter

January 14, 1942

The San Francisco Examiner wrote today:
US Troops beat off big attack in Luzon; heavy losses for RAF Raids Malaya mission bases.
Russians recaptured Kirov in the Smolensk territory and Gorokhovo.
Dutch blow up wells in Krakow in their retreat.
In Washington President Roosevelt appointed Donald Nelson sort of generalissimo of supply.

Weather cold with bitter north wind.

The last war, although less than a quarter of a century behind us, is very misty in my memory. No one who was near and dear to me was in the war and the thing most outstanding in my memory is the fact that we were inconvenienced in material ways – had difficulty in obtaining materials – food stuffs, particularly sugar.
But this is different – vastly different. With my darling boy a lieutenant in the Army and my only baby girl in Honolulu with her navy husband – my other dear boy – this is brought much nearer home to me. Dad [ed. com.: William J. ´Pops´Ryan, her second husband and father of her daughter Virginia] and I sit with our ears plastered to the radio night after night and we wait breathlessly for mail from both Honolulu and Spartenburg, South Carolina. Now that our darling Susie [ed. com: the yet unborn child that her son by a previous marriage, George Kreigh Moody, and daughter-in-law, Anne Hund Moody, awaited] is about to make her debut into society, the mail from Spartenburg is of particular interest.
Pops went down to the fire house this evening to sign up for civilian defense, but they wouldn't accept him on account of the age limit. Well, there are many things he can do in case of an emergency, but he is too old to do things like hopping fences and carrying pails of sand.
One thing I hope this journal does for me is to act as a safety valve. When the war talk waxes hot it's rather difficult not to show one's annoyance when these defeatists begin to shout and when others decry that the government is doing everything wrong. I'm with Uncle Sam all the way – errors and all, for he'll make many – but "my country right or wrong, my country." Maybe if those very same people hadn't shouted quite so loudly and vociferously in the past we'd have an adequate army and navy and air force now and wouldn't have to be racing so against time to gather one together now.