University of Virginia Library

1. Part 1

On the Home Front

[ILLUSTRATION]

“The hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back
of its neighbor.”

I
Introduction

The attention of a world already extensively engaged in warfare
or subjugated by invading forces was focussed upon Charlottesville
and Albemarle County on June 10, 1940, when President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, addressing the graduating class of the University
of Virginia, made a declaration of a new American foreign policy.
He pledged that “we will pursue two obvious and simultaneous
courses; we will extend to the opponents of force the material resources
of this nation; and, at the same time, we will harness and
speed up the use of those resources in order that we ourselves in the
Americas may have equipment and training equal to the task of any
emergency and every defense.”[1]

This speech was made on the afternoon of the day which had
seen the entrance of Italy as an active Axis belligerent, shortly after
the removal from Dunkirk of 335,000 men—all that remained of
the British Expeditionary Force in France. The darkest hour for
France was approaching—German troops would enter Paris without
opposition four days later.[2] Within the past nine weeks Norway,
Denmark, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxemburg had fallen
before the Nazi onslaught. Italy's declaration of war against the
Allies in the face of President Roosevelt's urging that she maintain
her neutrality served only to deepen the general gloom. The President
denounced Italy's action in terse and picturesque phraseology. “The
hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor.”[3]

It is neither necessary nor appropriate that a recapitulation of the
causes and opening phases of the Second World War should be included
in this volume. Adequate coverage of prewar “incidents”
and the earlier offensives has been provided by a large number of
publications, ranging from day-by-day accounts of journalistic writers
to narratives compiled with greater scope and perspective by
participants in the action, by editors, and by historians.[4] It is sufficient
to point out that the stage was set for a supreme effort on the
part of the people of the United States of America and that in this
effort residents of Charlottesville and Albemarle County played a
major role.

In 1940 Albemarle County comprised an area of 739 square miles
and a population of 24,652 persons, of whom 18,990 were white
and 5,662 were Negro. The city of Charlottesville had at that time
an area of six square miles and a population of 19,400 (15,246
whites and 4,154 Negroes). Nearly half the county's labor force
(48.6 per cent, or 3,839 persons) was employed in some form of
agriculture, with 1,068 individuals engaged in business or professional
services, 584 in manufacturing, 539 in wholesale and retail
trade, 427 in construction, and 92 in mining. Of those employed
in the city of Charlottesville, 2,432 were engaged in business and
professional services, 1,763 in wholesale and retail trade, 1,194 in
manufacturing, 618 in transporation, communication, and other
utilities, and 530 in construction. Of the 2,591 farms in Albemarle
County, 15.9 per cent were operated by tenants and fifty-five per
cent had productions valued that year at less than $400, although
the average value of all county farms was $8,165. The value of farm
products sold, traded, or used by farm households was $2,323,000,
of which 35.1 per cent derived from livestock and livestock products
and 33.8 per cent from crops.[5]

Charlottesville was governed in 1940 by a five-man council presided
over by Dr. W. D. Haden, who was elected mayor by members
of the council, with Seth Burnley as city manager. At that time Albemarle
County had been for seven years under the county executive
form of government, with Henry A. Haden as executive. The
county was, in fact, the first in the state of Virginia to adopt the
county executive form, which it inaugurated on May 3, 1933, shortly
after the General Assembly passed in 1932 the Optional Forms Act
permitting this type of county government.[6]

Neither city nor county was unaware in 1940 of the trend of
world events. Already the local chapter of the American Red Cross
was engaged in providing clothing for European war-sufferers, and
soon the chapter was to enter into a production program which
would place Charlottesville and Albemarle County in a position of
national leadership. The Monticello Guard was girding itself for
action, and plans for defense were an increasingly common topic of
local conversation.

The world had been troubled throughout the past nine years.
Japan invaded Manchuria in September, 1931, and established the
puppet state of Manchukuo the following year. Italy overran and
conquered Ethiopia in 1935–1936. Spain was torn in 1936 by a
civil war of international implications. Japan renewed her attacks
on China in 1937. Hitler's territorial aggrandizement and internal
terrorization policies on the European continent began in 1933 and
reached a climax with the German march into Poland on September
1, 1939. To the peoples of all nations had come an increasing
sense of insecurity and a foreboding of the approach of worldwide

conflict. To many residents of Charlottesville and Albemarle
County the fight seemed inevitable and near at hand in 1940.

In the light of Germany's overwhelming successes of the past two
months President Roosevelt stated to his University of Virginia
audience and to the world in lucid and forceful terms the position of
the nations of the Western Hemisphere, as yet unengaged in actual
hostilities. “Perception of danger to our institutions may come
slowly,” he said, “or it may come with a rush and a shock as it has
to the people of the United States in the past few months. This
perception of danger has come to us clearly and overwhelmingly; and
we perceive the peril in a world-wide arena—an arena that may become
so narrowed that only the Americas will retain the ancient
faiths.”[7]

In the course of the next five years more than 5,400 young men
and women from Albemarle County and Charlottesville were to
serve in the armed forces of their country, and of these nearly 200
would not return. Residents of both city and county were destined
to work harder than ever before, to do more with less, and to give
to the utmost of time, strength, materials, and money. In the
summer of 1940, more than a year before the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the nation's defense program
was launched and its citizens were beginning to prepare for the long
struggle toward ultimate victory. Until the surrender of Germany
(V-E Day, May 8, 1945) and the capitulation of Japan (V-J Day,
September 2, 1945) the people of Charlottesville and Albemarle
County were to remain among the nation's leaders, both in mobilization
at home and in theaters of battle.

Successive parts of this volume summarize in turn the participation
of civilians in the war activities of the home front and the
experiences of local residents who went forth in military and naval
uniforms to serve in every corner of the globe.

“I call for effort, courage, sacrifice, devotion. Granting the love
of freedom, all of these are possible,” President Roosevelt told the
American people on June 10, 1940. Charlottesville and Albemarle
County heard the call and gave what he asked. Throughout the
trying years ahead the county and city, together with the rest of the
country, justified the unfaltering faith which the President expressed
on the eve of total war: “And the love of freedom is still fierce and
steady in the nation today.”[8]

II
Organizing for Civilian Defense

More than a year before Pearl Harbor the people of Charlottesville
and Albemarle County learned through their newspapers and
radios that the Second World War differed from all its predecessors
in certain shocking respects. With a new kind of horror they paused
occasionally in the course of their relatively tranquil lives to ponder
the quick and cruel efficiency with which the Germans overwhelmed
Poland in 1939 and overran France in the spring of 1940. With
an awe akin first to disbelief and later to sympathy they discussed
the merciless destruction which German airplanes and bombs rained
upon Great Britain after Dunkirk in 1940 and through many nights
in 1941. Each additional and ruthless air raid left peace-loving
people figuratively holding their breath. Would England stand or
fall? They scarcely dared to formulate the question, for the fate of
civilization itself seemed to hang in the balance. And in the course
of those tense and harrowing days the grim realization that the fall
of England might well presage a shower of airborne missiles upon
our American homeland obtruded itself into many minds. There
were in every community some persons who could not with any
assurance convince themselves that the ultimate outcome of the issue
would be favorable and that men could preserve the democratic principles
and spiritual values which had been laboriously nurtured
through some two or three thousand years of progress against various
forces of barbarism.

Aside from any such philosophic fears, it was painfully obvious
in those days that modern warfare had become “total war” and that
it took its staggering toll among civilians as well as soldiers. The
property destruction which German raiders left under the slip streams
of their dreaded bombers throughout the British Isles was frightening,
but it was the suffering and deaths inflicted upon the bloody
but unbowed British people—men, women, and children—that
Americans found most heart rending. As Great Britain endured
these unprecedented aerial assaults without collapsing, American admiration
was unforgettably inspired by Prime Minister Winston

Churchill's tribute to the valiant pilots of Royal Air Force fighter
planes. Perhaps it was true, as he asserted, that never in human
history had so many owed so much to so few. But many a Nazi
flyer succeeded in penetrating the thin cordon of the R. A. F. and
in dropping his fire bombs and death-dealing explosives over densely
populated English cities. Therefore it was also true that Great Britain
was spared greater losses and possible subjugation because an effective
organization of civilian workers was developed to obviate and correct
all types of damage to property and life.

Gradually, too, the government and citizens of the United States
began to realize the necessity of preparing a large body of trained
volunteers to counteract whatever threats to national security might
materialize. No one knew whence or when some attack against the
nation might come, and speculation on this subject was almost a
daily concern among many Americans, especially residents of coastal
areas and urban dwellers, before as well as after that sunny Sunday
of December 7, 1941, when the Rising Sun of Japan shone with
such malevolent fury upon Pearl Harbor. For more than two years
after that date it seemed to be a reasonable probability that German
warplanes would somehow manage to attack at least a few strategic
centers near the Atlantic Coast in “token” bombing raids by suicide
pilots designed to bolster Nazi morale, if indeed they did not do
vastly more. Such considerations account adequately for the development
throughout the nation of a Civilian Defense organization
which was enormous in respect to the number of its volunteer enlistees
and the millions of hours they served without compensation.

This mobilization was one of the more amazing of all the civilian
activities of the home front. In Charlottesville and Albemarle
County one out of approximately every seven resident adults was
recruited to learn under its aegis a specialized duty and to give valuable
time to the performance of it. The roster of volunteer workers
included, with few exceptions, true patriots who did their “bits”
under conditions sometimes dramatic, sometimes monotonous, almost
always unpublicized. If there was a single man, woman, or child
anywhere in the community whose life was not directly affected or
temporarily altered at least once by the Civilian Defense effort, he
or she has not yet stepped forth to proclaim the fact that blackouts
and other manifestations of this inclusive program did not cause
him to pause and conform.

It was one of the greatest blessings enjoyed by Americans during
the war that their Civilian Defense forces were never confronted
with the actual test of the feared mass aerial incursions. Yet one
should not conclude from this fortunate fact that preparation for
enemy air raids represented a profligate waste of manpower, for
Civilian Defense proved to be the nucleus of home front activities

from which stemmed groups of trained workers willing to serve
in other valuable phases of civilian mobilization for total war.

In June, 1940, when the Battle of Britain was just under way,
an eleven-man Home Defense Council was organized on their own
initiative by Charlottesville and Albemarle County veterans of the
First World War. Their avowed aim was to prepare their city and
county for “the part they will be called upon to play in providing
adequate defense for our country” and to cooperate in every way
with any other defense councils which might be organized. Members
of this council included Edward V. Walker, J. Callan Brooks,
Robert Kent Gooch, Fred L. Watson, F. D. G. Ribble, Charles P.
Nash, Jr., William S. Hildreth, Ernest Breeden, A. Hewson Michie,
John S. Battle, and Colonel Henry B. Goodloe. This group, acting
for Legionnaires of the city and county, emphasized the fact that it
had no idea of excluding from membership those who were not vet
erans of the last war or members of the American Legion. Police
Justice J. Callan Brooks told members of the Charlottesville Kiwanis
Club on June 17 that the committee had been formed for the purpose
of combatting evils from within and without. Asserting that
America faced her greatest danger, he told his audience, “The skies
are dark and lowering, and we know not where the end will be.
We must meet force with force. What we do must be done at once,
and we must face the future with courage.” He pointed out, reassuringly,
“There is no cause to become jittery,” and he declared his
belief that in the end Hitler would meet “his Waterloo.”[1]

Nearly a year later but more than six months before Pearl Harbor,
in May, 1941, Governor James H. Price appointed Seth Burnley,
Dr. W. D. Haden, and Edward V. Walker of the city, E. L. Bradley,
A. G. Fray, and Dr. L. G.  Roberts  of the county as members
of the Northern Virginia Regional Defense Council, which consisted
of nineteen men who represented an area comprising twelve counties
and several independent cities.[2] Dr. Haden and Randolph H. Perry
became director and assistant director, respectively, of the Charlottesville
and Albemarle Civilian Defense Council, and with their
Advisory Committee they built during the last half of 1941 the
first general organization designed to protect the welfare of the community
in case of wartime emergency.[3] The Advisory Committee
consisted of Louis Chauvenet, Dr. L. G.  Roberts , E. L. Bradley,
A. G. Fray, Seth Burnley, and Edward V. Walker. Committee
and division chairmen included: Communications, J. P. Borden;
Education, James G. Johnson and R. Claude Graham; Recreation,
Miss Nan Crow; Utilities, Raymond Hunt; Disaster Division, Sterling
L. Williamson; Demolition, Jack Rinehart; Food and Clothing,
W. Towles Dettor; Medical, Dr. Harvey E. Jordan; Housing,
W. A. Barksdale; Transportation, E. G. Lee; Publicity, A. W.

Quinn and Charles Barham, Jr.; Civilian Defense Corps Division,
Bernard P. Chamberlain for the county and Charles P. Nash, Jr.,
for the city; Fire Protection, Berlin Eye and Charles R. Carter; and
Police, J. Mason Smith and M. F. Greaver.[4] Miss Mary Stamps
White of “Flordon,” near Ivy, was executive secretary for the Charlottesville
and Albemarle Civilian Defense Council, and Louis Chauvenet
served until the spring of 1942 as the secretary who kept
minutes of its meetings.[5]

During the summer of 1941 a Committee of Civilian Volunteer
Services, assisted by Miss White and Mrs. Milton L. Grigg, registered
all residents of the city and county who wished to volunteer
their services for Civilian Defense. Randolph H. Perry was appointed
by Gardner L. Boothe of Alexandria, Virginia, chairman of
the Northern Virginia Regional Defense Council, to head this committee
for the city, with Mrs. Lyttelton Waddell as co-chairman.
E. L. Bradley of Scottsville and Mrs. J. Gordon Smith of Greenwood
were named chairman and co-chairman, respectively, for the
county. It was stressed that many types of service were necessary
and that no one should fail to volunteer because of a feeling of inability
to perform specialized tasks. On July 12, the first day of
registration, a total of 2,995 persons in the city and county volunteered
their assistance, 2,150 in the county and 845 in Charlottesville.
By December more than 2,000 county and 1,300 city residents
had registered at the local Volunteer Office.[6]

In October, 1941, Charles P. Nash, Jr., and Bernard P. Chamberlain
were appointed co-chairmen in charge of forming a Civilian
Defense Corps in the city and county. This organization, which
later was renamed the Citizens Defense Corps, obtained its authority
from both Federal and state statute. When the 77th Congress approved
Public Law 415 in January, 1942, and the Virginia General
Assembly in February of the same year passed the Commonwealth's
Defense Act, legalizing the state Civilian Defense organization and
giving authority and responsibility for civilian safety to the duly
constituted officers of state and local governments, the Charlottesville
and Albemarle Civilian Defense Council was reorganized and
direction of Civilian Defense in the area was delegated to the governing
bodies of the city and the county. Seth Burnley, Charlottesville
city manager, became coordinator, but under him the organization
which had previously evolved remained almost unchanged.[7]
Even the name of the council was not altered, though corresponding
local councils in many other Virginia communities were renamed
after the fashion of the new State Office of Civilian Defense.

Throughout the autumn of 1941 local authorities proceeded to
organize and to strengthen agencies for the defense of Charlottesville
and Albemarle County, with special emphasis on some which
might render service to other areas of the state and the nation. One

of the strongest and most perfectly-organized medical defense units
in the country evolved under the leadership of Dr. Harvey E. Jordan,
Dean of the University of Virginia Medical School and local Chief
of Emergency Medical Services. Nurses of graduate and practical
status, hospital beds, first aid stations, blood donors, hospital equipment,
hospital staffs, doctors, dentists, laboratories, ambulances,
bandages, dressings, and four Emergency Field Units, composed of
four doctors, four nurses, and four orderlies each, were available to
Charlottesville's medical unit, which was cited by Dr. Albert McGowan,
Chief of the Medical Service, American Red Cross. “Your
organization is to be complimented on the speed in which it has become
a workable body—a speed which puts it far ahead of similar
organizations everywhere, which have been slow in getting down
to business,” he told Dr. Jordan. In order that a list of possible
blood donors might be compiled for an eventual emergency, city
and county residents were urged to have their blood typed at the
local Civilian Defense office. Under the leadership of Mrs. Oron J.
Hale and the medical supervision of several cooperating physicans,
fingers were pricked, a drop or two of blood was smeared on a slide,
and the University Hospital classified each slide by blood type. Donor's
names and blood types were then incorporated into a master
list at the University Hospital, from which donors of needed types
could be summoned should an emergency arise. Mrs. Eleanor Howard
was the first blood donor to have blood typed at the local Defense
office. By September, 1942, many of these volunteers whose
blood had been subject to call in an emergency had actually given
it in advance of any disaster. As is related elsewhere in this volume,
a liquid plasma blood bank was built up at the University of Virginia
Hospital. The official publication of the State Office of Civilian
Defense pointed to this emergency reserve with pride as the one
“which is said to be the largest blood bank in the State.”[8] This
liquid plasma reserve locally maintained is not to be confused with
the Red Cross Mobile Blood Donor service, which later visited
the community to obtain blood for transformation into dried plasma
and shipment overseas.

As a growing need for organization to meet any eventuality
spurred residents of Charlottesville and Albemarle County, together
with other United States citizens, to occupy themselves more and
more with plans for home defense, many persons of this more
favored locality felt it incumbent upon them to offer a refuge for
any Britons who might be able to leave their embattled island.
Few adults would or could take advantage of such an offer, but
numbers of English families entrusted their children to Americans
“for the duration” in the hope that they might be spared suffering
and all-too-possible death from German air attacks. Mrs. Wayne
Dennis, president of the local chapter of the American Association

of University Women, headed the movement in this vicinity.
Twelve local homes had been opened to refugee children by June,
1940. In July a niece and a nephew of Queen Elizabeth of England
arrived at “Mirador,” near Greenwood, estate of Ronald Tree,
British member of Parliament, and the former home of the famous
Langhorne sisters. The children, Simon Bowes-Lyon, eight, and
Davina Bowes-Lyon, ten, son and daughter of Queen Elizabeth's
brother, the Honorable David Bowes-Lyon, were accompanied by
three young cousins, Francis, Anne, and Jeanne Nichols, and their
grandmother, Mrs. H. H. Spender Clay, a sister of Lord Astor,
husband of the former Nancy Langhorne.[9]

In May, 1941, W. Glenn Elliot, director of the Army-sponsored
Virginia Aircraft Warning Service, announced the appointment of
110 organizers throughout the state, including H. P. Campbell of
Charlottesville and N. McG. Ewell of the University. The new
appointees fell to work at once in an effort to enroll 18,000 volunteer
observers in Virginia before June 15. During the summer
and fall of that year Civilian Defense heads urged volunteer registration,
appealing to civic clubs and other groups in the vicinity in
an attempt to swell the roster of those who were willing or able
to give time and service as airplane spotters in case of need.[10]

By the time of Pearl Harbor C. Venable Minor had been appointed
by the Aircraft Warning Service as its area supervisor for the city
and the county. Soon he found in Henry McComb Bush an active
assistant. Together they led the work of more than 1,300
airplane spotters for the duration of the need for this part of the
Civilian Defense program—the phase of it which would, if enemy
raiders were sighted, set in motion the wheels of other Civilian Defense
machinery.

The Japanese bombs which dealt destruction and death at Pearl
Harbor on December 7, 1941, shocked many Americans on the
mainland into a realization that the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans
no longer constituted impregnable defenses for their homes and their
persons. Civilian Defense quarters in Charlottesville—located in
the Early Building on Fifth Street, N. E., and later moved to other
offices in that vicinity—remained open all day on December 8, and
a new drive for aircraft spotters was opened.[11] Recruitment of
volunteers for this necessary but uninspiring service was no easy
task. Other Civilian Defense workers had more active duties to
perform and could look with satisfaction upon the more tangible
accomplishment of their assigned tasks. In contrast, members of
the Aircraft Warning Service were expected simply to stare for tense
hours on end, straining every nerve and muscle in an effort to see,
starting in alarm at every bird which appeared over the horizon.
Moreover, members of other service groups could look forward to
some slight relaxation on holidays, but throughout the city, county,

and nation aircraft spotters stood their ground on Christmas Eve,
Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and Day, and for many weary
months to come. At the University student fire and air raid wardens
planned to keep twenty-four-hour vigil of the Grounds for the
duration of the war.[12] On December 17, 1941, Charles P. Nash,
Jr., as head of the Charlottesville Civilian Defense Corps, announced
air raid warning signals for the vicinity. The alert or preparatory
signal was given at this time by winking of the city's street lights
and by radio announcements, with telephone warnings for defense
organizations and essential industries, while action warnings and
the “all clear” were signalled by the fire house siren, the Barnes
Lumber Company whistle, and the whistle at the University power
plant. Two blasts repeated five times at one-minute intervals constituted
the action warning, while one blast repeated five times at
one-minute intervals announced the “all clear.”[13]

These same signals had been announced to the city as a blackout
warning on December 9, when they appeared in a conspicuous position
on the front page of The Daily Progress. Despite early
precautions, Charlottesville and Albemarle County did not experience
a blackout until March 2, 1942, when the area began to participate
in the all night, every night partial blackouts or dimouts demanded
by Director James M. Landis of the United States Office of Civilian
Defense in a zone reaching 300 miles inland from all coasts. In
preparation for the period of semi-darkness Mayor W. D. Haden
issued specific instructions for all residents of the city, covering activities
of industrialists, owners of business buildings and apartment
houses, and private families.[14]

Although a lunar eclipse took place and snow fell on the night
of March 2, The Daily Progress of the next afternoon quoted local
defense authorities as having said, “Charlottesville's first night of
partial blackout was distressingly bright despite the efforts of nature
to correct man's indifference,” and added that Civilian Defense
Coordinator Seth Burnley had declared this initial effort to be “practically
a 'downright failure.' ” The paper went on to describe the
scene of the night before and to issue a warning to residents of the
city. “Large neon beverage-advertising signs flickered through the
falling snow. Numerous store fronts remained lighted as usual until
automatic switches darkened them near midnight. All of these
lights which could not be extinguished promptly if a complete blackout
were necessary should be turned out when employees leave the
building. The partial blackout is not ended. It will continue tonight
and every night until further notice. If voluntary blackout
is impossible, Mr. Burnley believes that an ordinance will get
results.”[15]

The following day, March 4. City Sergeant and Air Raid Warden
Jack Martin explained to home owners that they need not darken

their homes but should only stand ready to do so should the need
arise. On the same day an enterprising Charlottesville firm advertised
“black-out cloth” in The Daily Progress. “Buy yours now
while the supply lasts,” area residents were counseled. “An ideal
black-out fabric,” it was described. “Dark gray color—a 200 watt
bulb will not show through. It's 30-inches wide and moderately
priced, too!” By March 11 the paper could report, “After nine days
of partial blackout, Charlottesville is learning how to comply with
the regulations which resulted in so much confusion.”[16]

Charlottesville's air raid defenses had been augmented during
the past month by the installation of special telephonic warning
apparatus at city police and telephone headquarters and by three
new air raid sirens. For about two months a room on the third
floor of the Monticello Hotel was used as the local control center;
thereafter a basement room in the post office served in great secrecy
as the spinal cord through which the telephonic nervous system
transmitted all local Civilian Defense impulses to various arms of the
air raid defense service. Faithful volunteers manned the switchboard
there and watched the yellow, blue, red, and white signal
lights which were connected by direct wire with the interceptor
center of the Aircraft Warning Service in Norfolk, Virginia. If
enemy aircraft had been sighted at sea or by airplane spotters of the
Ground Observer Corps or if a practice raid were to be held, the
Norfolk office would notify all localities potentially concerned by
flashing the yellow or caution light. This signal served only to
warn key personnel; the public never knew how often or when this
inaudible alert was flashed. When any community was more specifically
endangered by the proximity of real or imaginary bombers,
a blue light indicated that they were within range. In the earlier
evolution of a system which improved as it developed, the blue
signal was also inaudible to the public, but it meant that the local
control room telephoned many additional Civilian Defense workers
to go to their posts. Soon the blue warning was sounded as a
steady one-minute blast of the sirens for all to hear and served to
send all air raid wardens and other volunteers scurrying to their
respective duties, while the public prepared to douse all lights and
traffic proceeded slowly. The theoretical arrival of hostile planes
within ten minutes' flying time from the locality resulted in the blue
light turning to red and in the fluctuating wail of sirens which put
all Civilian Defense volunteers to work and immobilized the public
under whatever shelter could be found. All lights were then to be
blacked out or extinguished, all traffic should be halted, and the
switchboard of the control room received and transmitted hundreds
of calls in keeping in touch with defense personnel. When immediate
danger had passed, the blue signal was restored lest planes return
and was again sounded by the sirens. The public learned of

the final white light or “all clear” signal, which would permit a
revival of normal activity, only through announcements broadcast
by the local radio station, which was always in close communication
and full cooperation with the control room.[17]

During the early spring of 1942 some residents of Charlottesville
were agog over rumors concerning a mysterious airplane. The
legend stated, approximately, that an unlicensed plane flying in a
suspicious manner was noticed by a spotter on Observatory Mountain.
The wary look-out telephoned a warning to the interception
center, and Army planes, sent up to “blow 'er down,” forced the
wicked-looking craft to land in the Potomac. Investigators then
discovered that the plane contained maps of Waynesboro and Radford,
Virginia, railway trestles, highway bridges, and equipment
and cameras for photographing vital and strategic industries. A
columnist of The Daily Progress pointed out acidly that in rumor
and detective stories investigators always know when cameras and
other supplies are to be used for illegitimate purposes, just as they
know when a plane is flying in a suspicious manner. The true
story, as reported in the same column, was at once more
drab and more credible. An airplane flown by a Gordonsville, Virginia,
pilot crossed over a line marking the western boundary of the
coastal defense areas. A spotter reported the violation of regulations
to Norfolk. An aerial traffic officer ordered the flyer to “pull over,”
checked his credentials, bawled him out for his carelessness, and sent
him home.[18]

Later that spring, however, local and railway police combed the
city and county in an unsuccessful search for saboteurs after an attempt
was made to wreck a train on the Southern Railway within
the Charlottesville city limits near the crossing at Shamrock Road.
Although the train ran unharmed over the obstruction which had
been placed under the tracks, members of the crew noticed the jar
that was caused and notified the railway office, which began investigations
immediately. All employees of the Chesapeake and Ohio
Railway Company were put on the alert against sabotage at the
same time, as a bulletin from the superintendent of its Clifton Forge
Division stated that information “from important sources indicated
that the C. and O. had been singled out for sabotage attempts.”[19]

Throughout the first months of 1942 city and county officials
strove to accelerate Civilian Defense coordination. Both the City
Council and the County Board of Supervisors appropriated funds
for use by local defense authorities, enacted blackout and air raid
regulations, and added legislation designed to prevent the possession
of explosives which might be used for purposes of sabotage. Charlottesville's
three new sirens were tested, to make sure that they could
be heard by all residents of the vicinity, the post office in common
with other places of business and public assembly displayed a chart

showing employees of the building where to go in the basement in
case of an air raid, and sand was distributed through residential
areas of the city for possible use against incendiary bombs. Coordinator
Seth Burnley urged that home owners store buckets of this
sand in the attics of their houses and that they attempt at the same
time to clear attics of inflammable materials.[20]

Private individuals were no less busy than government officials
and defense authorities. Men, women, and children took classes in
such training courses as first aid, aircraft spotting, protection against
incendiary bombs, bomb demolition, and recognition of poisonous
gasses. Cub Scouts learned the names and locations of all important
streets in the city and the locations of hospitals, post offices, police
and fire stations, and railroad and bus depots in preparation for a
possible emergency. Women who would have been afraid to light
a firecracker learned theories of dealing with incendiary bombs, and
men who would have stared helplessly at a splinter in Junior's
finger spoke with authority of “square knots” and “pressure
points.” Householders provided themselves with sand, long-handled
shovels, water buckets, coils of rope, fire extinguishers, and other
defense equipment. Despite the fact that these and other preparations
were the subject of some jesting and levity and did, indeed,
have their humorous aspects, they must be regarded as manifestations
of the firm and cheerful determination to protect their homes
and families against any danger and to win an eventual victory over
all that menaced them which most Americans displayed during the
entire conflict. If they served no other purpose, these home protective
outfits provided psychological armor, so to speak, during harried,
sorrowful days and restless, dream-filled nights. Many an
American, having listened to the late news broadcast from bombtorn
England, reassured himself with thought of the sand and shovel
in his attic as he tossed upon his pillow in the darkness. Many a
woman with a husband or sons involved in conflict staved off loneliness
and dread by throwing herself into defense activities at home.
Residents of Albemarle County and Charlottesville participated in
defense activities on state and national as well as local levels. Randolph
H. Perry was chosen by W. Glenn Elliot, state director, as
one of twelve members of a statewide advisory board for the Virginia
Aircraft Warning Service. Dr. Garrard Glenn. professor of
law at the University, was appointed by the War Department as
one of six lawyers on a fourteen-man Board of Review to report on
applications for quick amortization of defense facilities.[21]

On March 20, 1942, residents of Charlottesville and Albemarle
County awaited the area's first test blackout. Mayor W. D. Haden
ordered full cooperation with municipal and Civilian Defense authorities
in case of blackouts in a special proclamation which announced
regulations for blackouts and penalties for their violation. The Daily

Progress published a series of articles giving information as to procedures
to be followed and the names, duties, and telephone numbers
of Civilian Defense personnel. Local banks reported a problem in
conforming with blackout regulations, since clauses in some insurance
policies require that a light which shall be visible from the street
be left burning above the door of the vault office. A compromise
was finally effected by use of a low-power bulb.[22]

At 9:02 P.M., March 20, the city's three sirens, abetted by
steam whistles atop the Barnes Lumber and University power plants,
wailed the signal for total blackout. Within five or ten minutes
afterward, defense officials surveying the city from the Monticello
Hotel roof were complimented on the Stygian darkness which had
enfolded the city by Midwestern visitors standing beside them. “So
black were blacked-out Charlottesville, Crozet, Scottsville, and
Farmington that Charlottesville's city manager and defense coordinator,
Seth Burnley, jokingly declared this morning that the Army
planes scheduled 'to look us over couldn't even find us,' ” The Daily
Progress reported on the following afternoon. City and defense
officials were high in their praise of the cooperation accorded them
by area residents, and even crime appeared to be blacked out, as only
one arrest, that of a man who appeared to be intoxicated, was made
during the entire night.

A few lights, however, remained unextinguished. Two persons
refused to comply with air raid wardens' requests, and a light,
thought to have been burning for years in the attic of the Elks'
Home, was discovered and finally darkened, while a group of boys
on a side street dealt in a summary fashion with a forgotten bulb
by putting out its gleam with a sling shot. Both the local newspaper
headquarters and the County Office Building had to be told
that their lights were showing, but both remedied the situation
quickly. Red lights continued to shine from a radio tower, and
unofficial sources explained that they were a precaution to prevent
the expected Army pilots from colliding with the steel spire. Officials
estimated the cooperation of Charlottesville citizens at approximately
ninety-nine per cent, while the blackout in Scottsville was
one hundred per cent effective. Charlottesville officials cited as a
typical example of the efficiency of air raid wardens the action of a
Negro warden, Norman Byrd, who found three danger flares burning
beside an open excavation on Sixth Street and doused them all,
standing watch at the site until the blackout ended, when he relit
the flames.[23] One man, charged with deliberate violation of the
city's blackout regulations, was sentenced to serve ninety days in
jail and to pay a fine of $100, and other residents of the city were
warned that infractions of regulations would be punished to the
limit of the law.[24]

Shortly after this trial blackout, Charlottesville's City Manager-Civilian
Defense Coordinator Seth Burnley was advised by the State
Office of Civilian Defense that the Army, in preparing itself for
“token” coastal attacks, might at any time order complete darkening
of all communities within striking distance of the waterfront.
Area residents were counseled to “keep cool” and to carry out the
same procedures observed in practice blackouts. The original three
air raid sirens bought by the city, which had been delivered early
in March, 1942, had been installed atop the Monticello Hotel, north
of University Circle on Rugby Road, and in the Fry's Spring area.
Some residents complained that they could not hear the sirens, and
Civilian Defense officials tried one or two apparently unsuccessful
experiments in the placement of them to assure that their sound
would carry better to the reaches of the city limits. Within five or
six weeks the problem was solved when a fourth siren of great volume
was delivered and installed on the Monticello Hotel, replacing
a strong one which in turn was substituted for the weaker one in
the Fry's Spring section.[25]

Charlottesville's first daylight test air raid, staged on May 29,
1942, was less successful than the March blackout and revealed a
number of weak points in the city's defenses. The realism of the
“raid” was heightened when four Civil Air Patrol planes dropped
missiles on the objectives of the mock attack. The four pilots were
Roy Franke, W. P. Kilgore, C. B. Lewis, and Arthur Eidelman.
This ingenious experiment was thought to be the first use of artificial
missiles in a test air raid drill anywhere in the nation. Upon
the “bombs,” which consisted of long streamers weighted with small
bags of sand, was written information concerning the objectives
bombed and the resulting amount of damage which was supposed to
have been done. Girl Scouts in uniform, labeled with tags indicating
their “injuries,” served as casualties. A surprise squadron
of planes operated by student pilots which accompanied the “raiders”
lent verisimilitude to the scene. Civilian Defense personnel were
alerted for action, and all residents of the city were supposed to be
on guard against “incidents” which would be announced by the
streamers from the circling planes.

Although the defense organization, for the most part, performed
smoothly, the general public acted exactly opposite to the approved
procedure for air raids. Men, women, and children lined the streets
and watched the planes drop their “bombs.” Traffic on Main Street
moved east and west unchecked, despite the fact that wardens in
charge of the Route 29 entrances to the city had halted all automobiles
from the time of the alarm until the “all clear” signal. Residents
made little effort to perform any fire-fighting maneuvers when
messages dropped from the planes declared their homes to be on fire.
The first report which reached the control center came from a woman

who said that her house was full of smoke. Firemen who rushed
to the Oxford Road address actually found a small fire in a sofa.

“Injured” and “dead” Girl Scouts performed their roles with
enthusiasm and some histrionic ability. One girl, lying on a truck,
laughingly refused a photographer's request that she turn her head
a little forward for a picture. “I can't,” she replied, “my back is
broken.” Another, told to lean on her arm for the same photograph,
answered sadly that she could not lean on the designated
arm, as it had been torn off by a bomb! Although the test was less
successful than defense officials had hoped it might be, Defense Coordinator
Seth Burnley pointed out that much had been learned
from the maneuvers.[26]

Residents of Albemarle County and Charlottesville participated
with other Virginians in the first statewide blackout on the night
of June 17, 1942. Local defense authorities had reason to be pleased
with area observances of rules and regulations, and state officials
pronounced the entire operation a success. Two months later, on
August 18, city and county residents for the last time received in
advance definite information about hours of a blackout period and
air raid test. Subsequently it was necessary for them to be on the
alert day and night for the sound of the community's sirens, which
would come without previous warning. Linwood Chisholm, nine-year-old
Negro boy, received minor injuries when he ran into the
street in the course of the August 18 blackout and struck the side
of an air raid warden's car. He was treated for bruised knees at
the University Hospital. Sterling L. Williamson, assistant Civilian
Defense coordinator, expressed surprise that there were no other
casualties, warned pedestrians against remaining on the streets during
blackouts, and stressed the fact that the lighting of matches on the
streets by smokers constituted a violation of the regulations.[27]

As the first year of America's participation in the war drew to a
close, the State Office of Civilian Defense announced in November,
1942, that local test air raids and blackouts were no longer considered
to be necessary and that future blackouts would be arranged on a
wider basis than previously. J. H. Wyse, state Civilian Defense coordinator,
promised that the duration of the next statewide blackout,
which was to come as a complete surprise, would not exceed
sixty minutes. He warned that this blackout would be a rigid test
of the effectiveness of the protective measures of Civilian Defense.

The blackout, which came without warning on December 3, was
termed “highly successful” in Charlottesville. Shortly afterward
Civilian Defense officials appealed to Charlottesville citizens to use
their telephones only in case of necessity during blackouts, as the
local telephone company reported that 6,456 calls came into the
office during the last blackout, of which fewer than 1,000 could
have been calls made by wardens in the regular performance of their

duties. One observer at the telephone office related, “At the first
signal, the entire telephone board lighted up,” and a number of individuals
talked constantly during the entire test, according to operators.
An editorial in The Daily Progress pointed out that thoughtlessness
was responsible for so many calls at a time when lines
should be kept clear for necessary reports of defense officials or to
summon aid in case of an emergency.[28]

As the need continued for twenty-four-hour aircraft warning
service, Albemarle County and Charlottesville opened a drive for
new airplane spotters. Area Supervisor C. Venable Minor outlined
the plan of the service and explained its work. “Despite its weaknesses
the Aircraft Warning System of this county is not a makeshift
plan,” he said. “It has been well thought out and is modeled, with
necessary modifications, after the method which has proved most
successful overseas in warning against attack from enemy planes. It
differs from some of our other types of defense work in that its value
is dependent upon its readiness before the raids occur and not during
or after an emergency.”

Minor emphasized the preventative aspects of Aircraft Warning
Service. “During or after is too late,” he pointed out. “It has no
fixed quota to fill, no goal at which to aim except to be always on
the alert to report to the Army Filter Center anything that flies
which doesn't flap its wings. There is no implication here that aircraft
warning duty is more important than any other defense duty,
but it is just as important and in all likelihood it is more tiresome
and has less glamor attached to it.”

By way of assisting in the recruitment of spotters, one city retail
store displayed in its window a replica of an air raid warning station,
complete with imitation pine wall, old desk, lantern, telephone,
flag, and the usual instructions to watchers, telling them not to talk
to strangers, to speak clearly to the control center, and to be on time
so that previous shifts would not have to work overtime. This
window was left illuminated each night until ten o'clock, with an
outside switch to facilitate extinguishing the lights in case of a
blackout.[29]

Throughout the first two years of the war these members of the
Ground Observer Corps kept watch at twelve to fifteen posts in
Albemarle County and Charlottesville, including Miller School,
Crozet, Covesville, Red Hill, Greenwood, Talcott, University Law
Building, Garth Road, Stony Point, the Henry M. Bush estate,
Earlysville, and Scottsville. A post at Shadwell was discontinued
before the relaxation of Aircraft Warning Service activities, and one
at Monticello was installed in 1943.

Whereas elsewhere in the nation, according to stories prevalent in
current conversation, buzzards and hawks were transmuted into
enemy aircraft by the vivid imaginations of spotters stationed in

lonely places and were duly reported to Aircraft Warning Service
authorities, the only recorded instance of such an occurrence in this
area involved an aural rather than a visual error. A story circulated
that Raymond Uhl, chief spotter at the post atop the law building,
flashed a warning reporting a plane. The Army called back, and
Uhl confirmed his report. But as he replaced the receiver he sighted
the potential raiders—three of the University's motor-driven lawn
mowers coming across the Grounds in V-formation.[30]

The city of Charlottesville gave up its Christmas lights in December,
1942, as the national Office of Civilian Defense announced the
curtailment of such decoration because of “the use of critical materials,
consumption of electric power, and possibility of attack, as
well as to eliminate potential fire hazards.” No attempt was made
to discourage decoration in private homes, provided that any lighting
conformed to applicable dimout regulations.[31]

In the same month Miss Mary Stamps White, executive secretary
of the Civilian Defense Council and chairman of the Volunteer
Special Service Corps of the local chapter of the American Red Cross,
left the country to serve overseas as a Red Cross worker. Commenting
on Miss White's varied and extensive wartime activities, an editorial
in The Daily Progress remarked, “There are in each community
a few who are ready to meet an emergency as it arises or even
to anticipate it. Such a person is Mary Stamps White, who soon
will leave this city to join a Red Cross Club Unit that probably will
take her into or close to the actual battle fronts in some theatre of
this War of Wars. Service is as much a part of Miss White's life
as eating is to the average man or woman. She seems to thrive on
service alone, asking nothing in return but more opportunities to
serve.” To many residents of the community she seemed to typify
the dauntless spirit of the locality and the nation. She was succeeded
in turn by Mrs. Trent Terry, Mrs. Ella Plunkett, and Henry
McComb Bush, the last named of whom took office in September,
1943, and continued to hold it through some two years until the
organization gradually disappeared after V-J Day.[32]

In the early part of 1943 renewed efforts were made to secure
volunteer air raid spotters, as replacements for others whose services
had been lost. All who considered joining in this phase of Civilian
Defense work were reminded that the local ration boards would
readily grant priorities for automobile tires and allot sufficient gasoline
to enable volunteers to make their regular trips back and forth
to observation posts. But these later days of the war brought to
the Ground Observer Corps a more significant development in the
form of aircraft recognition schools. Several local residents went in
turn to Richmond, Virginia, to attend classes of this sort and returned
to instruct the personnel of their respective posts. Other
spotters studied the distinguishing features of hostile and friendly

airplanes in classes taught in Charlottesville and Scottsville. A meeting
of spotters from all parts of the county was held in Scottsville,
where United States Army personnel stressed the need for continuation
of spotter vigilance. Thomas Jefferson's home entered the war
in January, as an aircraft warning observation post was established
at Monticello.[33]

In February Charlottesville sustained another daylight air raid
test. Area blackouts held throughout the spring and summer went
smoothly in both the city and the county, with defense officials generally
pleased with the tests. A number of Charlottesville residents
were guilty of violation of blackout regulations on several occasions,
with the result that arrests were made and fines imposed. Among
these were three local merchants.[34]

Difficulties in hiding lights during blackouts continued to harass
individuals and defense authorities in this vicinity as elsewhere in
the country. George T. Starnes, professor of economics at the University
who served as an air raid warden, reported one knotty problem
in a letter to Chief Warden Jack Martin after a blackout in
April. “Dr. [Jesse W.] Beams tells me they face a real problem at
the Physics building,” he wrote. “When they have to turn off the
current it spoils some very valuable experiments and they have to
start all over again. To hear him talk they are winning the war
over there at the Physics building and I would prefer not to prolong
the war if we can at all avoid it! He says it will cost them
$200.00 and frequently more every time they have to turn off the
juice. Do you have any suggestions as to what might be done to
help them? I suggested that they black the place out but he said
it was impossible to do so.”[35]

In July, 1943, ground observers of the Aircraft Warning Service
were relieved of twenty-four-hour duty, although they were notified
that they must be ready to resume such operations on short notice.
This dispensation was made “on the basis of present enemy capabilities
for air attack.” Vigilance was not abandoned, however,
and tests continued to be made during the remainder of the year,
both by day and at night.[36]

Aircraft spotters throughout the vicinity received honors and
awards for their faithful service rendered during long and often
lonely vigils. Mrs. Harrison Taylor was presented with the Merit
Award Medal, the highest which the Army awarded for airplane
spotting service by civilians, in recognition of her work at the Shadwell
post, where she manned the midnight to 6 A. M. shift unaccompanied,
at all times and in all kinds of weather. A supervisor's
pin and a badge emblematic of 500 hours of service were awarded
to C. Venable Minor, Aircraft Warning Service area supervisor,
while approximately 1,300 members of the Charlottesville and Albemarle

County Ground Observer Corps received service awards in
September, 1943.[37]

Blackouts and air raid tests continued in Charlottesville and Albemarle
County during the winter of 1943 and the spring and early
summer of 1944. In August, 1944, however, the city and the
county, together with other sections of central and western Virginia,
were exempted from participation in future blackout tests.
Civilian Defense organizations were not demobilized, despite this
relaxation of duties, but were ordered to hold themselves in readiness
for calls to duty if they were needed and to keep their equipment
in shape for any emergency. Issuing the stand-by order, John
J. Howard of the State Office of Civilian Defense congratulated Charlottesville
and Albemarle defense workers on their accomplishments.
“I want to take this opportunity to thank you for the splendid
work accomplished by you and the people of Charlottesville,” he
wrote in a letter to Coordinator Seth Burnley.[38]

In December, 1944, the Charlottesville and Albemarle County
Civilian Defense Council was alerted for the last time, as Governor
Colgate W. Darden, Jr., asked that all such councils remain on
guard against a possible enemy attempt to launch V-2 robot bombs
from off-shore vessels against residents of the eastern United States.
No such attempt was made, however, and the alert ended without
action. The community had had its last blackout, its last air raid.
All possibility of danger from Europe ended with Germany's capitulation
on May 8, 1945, when Charlottesville's sirens were sounded
as a signal of victory. On May 17 Mayor Roscoe S. Adams issued
a proclamation rescinding all city regulations for the conduct of
blackouts in Charlottesville, three years and four months after Mayor
W. D. Haden had promulgated the regulations on January 5, 1942.[39]

Throughout the entire duration of the conflict Charlottesville and
Albemarle County had reason to be proud of area residents as a
whole and of individuals and groups throughout the community.
Civilian Defense in England included participation in actual conflict,
fighting fires, administering first aid to the wounded, demolishing
bombs, clearing rubble, saving lives, and preserving property.
It constituted an actual defense of the homeland. Civilian Defense
in America consisted of the routine performance of tiring and frequently
irksome duties not actually demanded by immediate emergency.
Its volunteers were motivated only by the knowledge that
the practice might, on some occasion, prove useful. Civilian Defense
in America rarely seemed heroic to those who took part in it or to
those who were defended. Yet who can say that the raw stuff of
which heroes are made was lacking in these members of the various
Civilian Defense corps? They were called and they answered. They
did all that was asked of them. Of what group anywhere can more
be said? They manned their posts and walked their beats unswervingly

through rain and snow, through heat and cold, despite the
fact that they knew they probably could waver in the performance
of the task without bringing direct harm to a single individual. With
only a sense of duty to urge them on, they continued their work
until victory had been assured. Surely, though no bomb more
deadly than a small sand-filled sack fell on the city, though no plane
more alien than one from a nearby county was spotted, though no
unusual danger lurked in the blackouts, the Civilian Defense workers
of Charlottesville and Albemarle County belong to the gallant
company of those who have been tested and have stood the test.

III
Buying War Bonds

An outstanding record was made by Charlottesville and Albemarle
County in the purchase of war bonds and stamps. Under the leadership
of William S. Hildreth, president of the Peoples National
Bank, who served as permanent chairman of the local volunteer sales
promotion organization throughout the entire period of the war,
each of the eight loan drives exceeded its over-all quota.

Defense Bonds

At a luncheon of the Charlottesville Kiwanis Club on December
15, 1941, at which he read an appeal urging all wage-earners to
buy U. S. defense bonds and stamps, Hildreth reported that the
citizens of Charlottesville and Albemarle had been purchasing “defense
bonds” for months but that in the week since Pearl Harbor
sales had increased from $1,000 daily to $5,000 daily.[1]

By the New Year daily sales had climbed until Charlottesville
averaged over $10,000 per day. This figure would have been even
higher had not a bond shortage developed. Local banks, having
sold out of the popular bonds and being unable to secure an adequate
resupply, were holding large sums of money with which to buy
when bonds again became available.[2]

This fast pace continued, and by the middle of March Charlottesville
had bought nearly $900,000 worth of “offense bonds” since
the Japanese attack, an average of $45 per citizen. But April saw
a decline in sales.[3] The first wild enthusiasm passed and was replaced
by a more systematic war bond program.

The most intensive effort since the Victory Loan Drive of World
War I was initiated on May 1, 1942, all over the United States.
In President Roosevelt's Fireside Chat of April 28, Americans were
asked to pledge ten per cent of each pay check to the bond campaign.
A goal of $600,000,000 of war bonds and stamps was
set for the month of May, for June, $800,000,000, and for every
month thereafter, $1,000,000,000.

The first E bond quota assigned to Charlottesville and Albemarle
County was $143,950 for the month of May, 1942, but sales

totaled only $104,573. This figure, however, does not give the
complete picture, since other types of bonds were bought in large
blocks and a number of persons had made important purchases in
other communities. Sales in the three Charlottesville banks for the
six months following Pearl Harbor amounted to a maturity value
of $1,146,675. There had been a marked drop after the record
average of $10,000 a day for January, February and March.[4]

Bond selling campaigns were carried on in the city and county by
groups of every type. Schools and industries, civic clubs and
women's organizations, had their goals. Accounts of only a few
of these campaigns can be included here.

Manned by volunteer workers dressed in patriotic pinafores and
caps, the American Legion “40 and 8” car, replica of the French
railroad car of 1918, was stationed on Main Street in Charlottesville
to assist in the Retail Merchants' campaign to increase the sale of
war stamps and bonds in the city during July, 1942. Other booths
were located in various parts of the city.[5]

The first wartime parade was sponsored by the Retail Merchants
Association in an effort to sell $25,000 in bonds and stamps on
American War Heroes Day, July 17. E. R. Newman, parade chairman,
assembled a colorful series of units which took six minutes to
pass a given point. Randolph H. Perry, the marshal, and most of
the other participants, including the city officials, traveled on foot.
There were, however, a number of bicycles and saddle horses in the
parade. The Charlottesville Muncipal Band and the Jefferson High
School Band furnished music to which marched the Virginia Protective
Force, the various veterans organizations, the Red Cross units,
and others. The University Volunteer Unit, which consisted of
forty-five students who had cut classes at the last minute to shoulder
realistic wooden rifles, was cheered as it marched along Main Street.
Overhead droned the Civil Air Patrol. The city's American Heroes
looked on by proxy from a store window where their photographs
were displayed. The spirit of the day led customers to flock to
the bond booths. All morning a line stood before the “defense
window” at the post office.[6]

The visit of movie actress Greer Garson to Charlottesville in September
was a gala event. Judge Armistead M. Dobie, toastmaster
at the dinner given Miss Garson, paid high tribute to her and to the
sunshine of her radiant presence. She in turn spoke of how much
she enjoyed visiting Virginia. “Here in the Old Dominion you
have wonderful towns and great little cities,” she said. “The heart
of the country is in the big little towns.” At her appearance at
a local theater she was heartily applauded. Stimulated by Miss
Garson's visit, E bond sales soared, and reached a peak of $294,922
for September.[7]

“Women at War Week” the latter part of November saw about
twenty women's organizations selling bonds and stamps in booths
located in various stores in Charlottesville. On the first day,
November 23, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, led by
their president, Mrs. John R. Morris, set a record by selling $10,570
worth at their booth in the C. H. Williams department store.
During the week the American Legion Auxiliary sold $7,984 worth,
and the Jack Jouett Chapter of the Daughters of the American
Revolution sold $4,119 worth. All together, more than $27,000
in war bonds and stamps were sold during the six days.[8]

On December 3 the Scottsville Lions Club put on a highly successful
minstrel show at the Victory Theater in Scottsville. Edward
N. (“Uncle Jim”) MacWilliams of Keene directed the show. From
admission charges a sizeable contribution was made to the Lions'
fund for the blind. A number of servicemen, including some
British seamen, were in the audience, and several had an impromptu
part in the show. The highlight of the evening was the auction
of objects to purchasers of war bonds and stamps. The necktie of
Sergeant Merril L. Carter of Scottsville, then serving in India,
brought the high bid of $2,000. More than $20,000 worth of
bonds and stamps were sold.[9]

First War Loan

The Victory Fund Drive, later known as the First War Loan,
brought 1942 to a close. It was carried on jointly by the local
city-county War Savings Committee, appointed by the U. S. Treasury
Department, which promoted sales of Series E savings bonds,
and by the Victory Fund Committee, appointed by the Federal
Reserve Bank, which promoted sales of securities other than E bonds.
Series E bonds were ten-year appreciation bonds issued at three-fourths
of maturity value. Both locally and nationally the drive
was a success. The division of responsibility led to some confusion
and makes it difficult to secure accurate and complete figures,
but there was less uncertainty here, where both promotional agencies
had enlisted William S. Hildreth to serve as chairman of their local
committee, than in many other communities. Between November
30 and December 31, 1942, the people of Charlottesville and Albemarle
County purchased $842,755 worth of government bonds.
Of this amount $106,668 represented purchases of E bonds, for
which there was a quota of $150,000. Purchases made by commercial
banks were excluded from the tabulation of these sales and
were never included in the sales credited to the community in later
drives. Nearly thirteen billions were subscribed by the nation as a
whole. This made a good beginning to the financing of the war.[10]

Second War Loan

On Monday, April 12, 1943, the Second War Loan Drive to raise
thirteen billion dollars began. Charlottesville and Albemarle County,
assigned a quota of $1,313,900, again went to work buying
bonds under the leadership of William S. Hildreth, who was assisted
by a committee of the Lions Club in the city and a similar
committee of citizens, under Harry Frazier, Jr., in the county.

Although the campaign began officially on April 12, the sales of
Series E, F, and G bonds between April 1 and May 8 were counted
toward fulfilling the quota. Other U. S. Treasury securities were
on sale between April 12 and May 1. Alex Thompson was chairman
of publicity in this and all subsequent drives. Full page advertisements
in The Daily Progress urging the purchase of bonds
had been sponsored jointly by thirty local business organizations
each week beginning on February 10. With some changes in sponsors,
these continued to appear regularly throughout the war. Local
firms frequently supported the bond drives individually with advertisements
in the newspapers, over the radio, and on billboards.[11]

The drive was a success from the start. By Friday of the first
week $628,450 worth of bonds had been bought, and by the following
Wednesday the quota had been exceeded. Many local business
firms made substantial purchases and contributed materially to
the early success of the drive. The campaign was pushed to the
end of the three-week period. Local sales finally totaled $1,550,873,
of which $1,358,250 worth was sold by the Peoples National
Bank. For this outstanding achievement in individually exceeding the
entire local quota, the bank was given a United States Treasury
Department Citation, which corresponded to the Army-Navy “E”
award for superior industrial production. Lane High School, which
sold $131,000 worth of bonds and stamps, was also given a citation.[12]

A national campaign, announced early in March, was started
to encourage school children to buy bonds and stamps. Any school
which sold stamps and bonds in the amount of $900, the price of
a jeep, was eligible for a certificate signed by the Secretary of the
Treasury, bearing a picture of a jeep in action and the name of the
school. The quota for Virginia was 174 jeeps. By a vigorous selling
campaign, Lane High School accounted for forty-seven jeeps.
Venable School raised funds for three jeeps, and Clark School added
another. In the county Scottsville High School, Greenwood High
School, and Albemarle Training School for Negroes each sold enough
bonds and stamps in this campaign to win a certificate.[13]

Finding itself unable, because of war conditions, to undertake the
usual amount of construction work, the Charlottesville City Council
in May bought $100,000 worth of war bonds. This action was
generally approved, the citizens feeling that the money would be

doubly useful, first in winning the war and later in building their
city.[14]

An analysis of war bonds sales in Virginia for the fiscal year beginning
July 1,1942, showed that in Charlottesville and Albemarle
County $2,017,263 worth of war bonds and stamps had been
distributed within twelve months. This sum represented per capita
purchases of $44 and was equivalent to 5.4 per cent of the estimated
per capita income. This local record was disappointing when compared
with per capita purchases of $59, which were equivalent to
9.2 per cent of estimated per capita income, for the state as a whole.[15]

Third War Loan

On September 9, 1943, the nation's Third War Loan Drive
started. Beginning with this drive, all bond selling activities were
placed under the Albemarle County-Charlottesville War Finance
Committee, an agency of the U. S. Treasury Department which
succeeded all previous agencies. Charlottesville and Albemarle
County had a quota of $2,877,700, over $1,500,000 more than
the quota for the previous drive. Seeking to curb inflation by getting
individuals to invest as much as possible of the “easy” money
which was coming into their hands, the Federal government placed
great emphasis on the sale of E bonds. The local E bond quota for
September and October was $701,000 and was a part of the larger
quota for the drive. In this drive William S. Hildreth, permanent
chairman, was ably assisted by C. T. O'Neill, Vice-President of the
National Bank and Trust Company, who served as county chairman,
and by Harry Frazier, Jr., Vice-President of the Peoples National
Bank, who was in charge of special subscriptions.[16]

Because “this is the cradle of liberty” and because of Albemarle's
“wonderful war bond record,” Secretary of the Treasury Henry
Morgenthau, Jr., chose Charlottesville as the place from which to
make his first report on the bond drive to the nation. At the “Freedom
Sing” held at the Rotunda of the University of Virginia on
Sunday afternoon, September 12, Morgenthau told a crowd of over
3,000 people that “Jefferson's abiding faith informs and inspires
the new generation of Americans on the battlefronts thousands of
miles away. The noblest appreciation we can pay him is to understand
that we must carry Jefferson's good, valiant fight on and on.”
After reporting that over two billion dollars had been subscribed in
the first three days of the drive, Morgenthau cited the example of
the 540 employees of Frank Ix and Sons, Inc., of Charlottesville,
who had pledged a week's pay to the purchase of war bonds over
and above those purchased by payroll deductions. “If everybody
does as well, I can assure you this bond drive will be a great success,”
he said.

The principal address at the “Freedom Sing” was delivered by
Judge Armistead M. Dobie. Harry Rogers Pratt arranged the
musical program and led the singing. A Negro chorus of more than
one hundred voices, under the direction of L. Augustus Page, sang
several spirituals, and the University of Virginia Band, directed by
James E. Berdahl, played several stirring numbers.

In the evening Secretary Morgenthau presided as master of ceremonies
on the “We, the People” radio broadcast which originated
from Jefferson's study at Monticello. A crowd of nearly 500, seated
on the lawn in front of the east portico of Jefferson's home, listened
to the nationwide appeal to buy bonds and heard various persons
introduced by Morgenthau. Among these were Brigadier General
Cornelius Wickersham, head of the School of Military Government
at the University of Virginia; Mrs. Lucian K. Truscott, Jr., wife of
Major General Truscott; Mrs. Demas T. Craw, widow of the late
Colonel “Nick” Craw, who had been the first American to die in
the invasion of North Africa; Lieutenant Landon L. Davis, Jr., back
from a year's service aboard a submarine in the Pacific; Mrs. Henry
Harlow, mother of three sons in the air forces; Mrs. Betty King,
local factory worker, who had three brothers and a husband in the
service; and Willis Henderson, Negro employee at Monticello, whose
family had lived at Monticello since Jefferson's time. Ernie Pyle,
beloved war correspondent, who had witnessed the Sicily invasion,
told of seeing the use of war materials bought by money invested
in war bonds. “I've known enemy artillery that had to retreat
because it ran out of ammunition,” he said, “but in Sicily we had
such immense stores of ammunition that there was never fear at
any time about our having enough to overwhelm the enemy. That's
what war bonds can do.”[17]

Realizing that Secretary Morgenthau's visit had brought responsibility
as well as honor with it, Charlottesville and Albemarle began
buying bonds in earnest, and by September 21 the half-way
mark had been reached. An uphill battle remained, however. E
bond sales lagged badly. The “Retailers for Victory” committee
of the Chamber of Commerce, in cooperation with the Retail Merchants
Association and the local War Finance Committee, planned
a Saturday Night War Bond Rally for the benefit of those who
were unable to make their purchases in the daytime. On September
25 East Third Street between Main and Water was the scene
of this special program. The Lane High School Band, directed by
Sharon Hoose, furnished the music, and J. Lawson Stott was master
of ceremonies. There were seven booths on the street in charge
of young ladies who took orders for bonds, and all three downtown
banks were open from 7:15 to 9:30 P. M. to issue E bonds. The

success of the evening is measured by the $14,437.50 worth of
war bonds sold.[18]

On October 1 the local quota was topped. The Commonwealth
of Virginia had invested $11,500,000 in war bonds and credited
to each locality a proportional part. Charlottesville and Albemarle
were thereby given a boost of $318,550, enough to put them over
the top. On October 1 local sales and credits for the Third War
Loan totaled $3,009,427. Later this figure was increased to
$3,119,290.[19]

Fourth War Loan

The Fourth War Loan Drive extended from January 18 to February
15, 1944. As in the previous drive, William S. Hildreth,
chairman of the local War Finance Committee, was assisted by C. T.
O'Neill and Harry Frazier, Jr. Especial emphasis was again placed
on sales to individuals, particularly of Series E bonds, which had a
quota of $510,000 out of a total local quota of $2,353,000.

The retail merchants and their employees, working through the
Retailers War Finance Committee with Frank Payne as chairman,
undertook to make the campaign a success. On the opening day
stores were closed until 10:00 A. M., and all employees attended a
mass meeting at the Paramount Theatre. The principal address was
made by James S. Easley, the executive director of the War Finance
Committee for Virginia and a past president of the Virginia State
Chamber of Commerce. Brief talks were also made by Lieutenant
J. Elmer Harlow, back from Europe where he had recently taken
part in the great Schweinfurt air raid, and by two wounded veterans
from the Woodrow Wilson General Hospital near Staunton, Virginia.
Each sales person present was asked to sell a minimum of
$200 worth of war bonds during the drive.[20]

Four days later the quarter-milepost was passed, and by the
eighth day the halfway mark was reached. E bond sales lagged
behind, however, and not until February 2 did they reach the
halfway mark. Meanwhile, a letter was received from Lieutenant
Billy McCann. U.S.M.C., Sergeant Maurice A. Bibb, A.U.S., Private
Johnny Davis, U.S.M.C., and Fire Controlman First Class Kenneth
W. Beale, a Seabee, who had spent Christmas day together
on an island in the South Pacific. They wrote: “We are on a
one-way road that leads straight to Tokyo. There's no turning
back and you can be sure we'll get there. We miss good old
Charlottesville, so please buy a lot of war bonds and help us get
home early.” As if in answer to this request, the general drive went
over the top on February 3.[21]

Every resource was then turned to gaining the E bond quota.
Buyers of these bonds who made their purchases at the Paramount

Theatre were guests of the theatre at a showing of “Destination
Tokyo” on February 16. This was one of many successful “War
Bond Premieres.”

The Retailers' War Finance Committee, in cooperation with the
Lane High School Bond Committee, conducted an auction sale on
February 25 at the high school. Valuable items, such as Nylon hose
and Virginia hams, were offered to bond buying bidders by G. F.
Norcross, the auctioneer. High bids for articles auctioned included
a $5,000 bond purchase for an old typewriter, $2,000 for a $25
war bond donated for the auction, and $2,000 for a chair. In
all, $32,000 worth of E bonds were purchased. This was enough
to top the quota and make the Fourth War Loan a complete success
in Charlottesville and Albemarle.

The community was warmly congratulated for its success by
state officials. Altogether $3,362,178 worth of all types of war
bonds were bought, the quota being exceeded by more than a million
dollars.[22]

From Major Charles N. Hulvey, Jr., with the Marines came the
warm tribute. “The fighting spirit of the people of Charlottesville
and Albemarle, exemplified by their unselfish purchase of war bonds,
gives us of the hometown, in the South Pacific, a glowing sense of
pride in the community we already regard so highly.”[23]

Fifth War Loan

First to purchase a war bond in the Fifth War Loan Drive which
started June 12, 1944, just six days after the Normandy invasion,
was Lieutenant General Alexander Archer Vandegrift, Commandant
of the United States Marine Corps. The bond was handed to General
Vandegrift by Mrs. John R. Frizzell, Jr., who, like the general,
hailed from Charlottesville.[24] Keenly aware of the titanic struggle
in which fathers, sons, husbands, and brothers were engaged on the
coast of Europe, citizens as never before bought bonds, feeling that
thus they had a share in supplying the Monticello Guard as it fought
its way into France. Raymond Hunt, president of the Chamber
of Commerce, who served as campaign chairman, reported more E
bonds sold on the first day of the drive than in any previous day in
the history of the city.[25] In Albemarle County, C. T. O'Neill
headed the sales organization. Committees were set up; the Scottsville
Lions Club canvassed the southern end of the county, while
the Crozet Lions and the Greenwood Community League worked
in the western section.[26] The over-all quota for the community
was $2,700,000, but within ten days the first million was secured
and sales to individuals had passed one-third of the quota.[27]

One June 27 the Treasury Department's special war bond trailer,
containing an exhibition of captured German and Japanese battle
equipment, was parked from 6:00 to 10:00 P. M. in front of the

Paramount Theatre, where, on the following evening, “The Eve
of St. Mark” was shown as a War Bond Premiere.[28] On the thirtieth
a bond auction, similar to the one held during the fourth loan,
took place at Lane High School, but the attendance was poor. On
the Fourth of July the Crispus Attucks Post No. 62 of the American
Legion sponsored a parade on Main Street, followed by a war bond
rally at Washington Park.[29]

A feature of the Fifth War Loan Drive was the contest among
civic and fraternal organizations and the contest among industrial
plants. Each organization or plant had a war bond quota against
which it measured its sales. The record sale of 2,302 per cent of
quota made by the Kiwanis Club is hard to comprehend, but so are
the records of B'nai B'rith, 2,274 per cent, and the Rotary Club,
2,267 per cent. Industrial plant records were also impressive; the
leaders were Monticello Dairy, 789 per cent: Virginia Stage Lines,
750 per cent; and Southern Welding and Machine Company, 719
per cent.[30]

By July 3 the over-all quota was topped, but the E bond quota
of $475,000 was less than half subscribed. Continued effort
brought results, and by the end of July all quotas had been exceeded.
Total sales reached $4,669,053, almost two million dollars
over the quota, and the lagging E bond sales at last passed the
quota by over $17,000. Ben C. Moomaw, Jr., senior deputy
manager for the Treasury Department's War Finance Committee
for Virginia, wrote to Hildreth, “While the entire performance of
your committee in the Fifth War Loan Campaign is top-flight, your
sales of other [than E] bonds to individuals surpass anything that
has been done in the State in any of the war loan drives.” These
purchases in the county and city were $3,066,721.75, or $1,341,721.75
over the quota of $1,750,000.[31]

Sixth War Loan

The Sixth War Loan brought 1944 to a close. The campaign to
raise a quota of $2,610,000 was conducted between November 20
and December 16, but sales of E bonds were pushed throughout all
of both months. J. Emmett Gleason, City Commissioner and
former Mayor of Charlottesville, was named chairman for
the drive. Under the chairmanship of Miss Sylvia P. Horwitz,
teacher at Lane High School and a member of the Education Committee
of the statewide war bond sales organization, the school children
spearheaded the campaign.[32]

Prizes of war bonds and stamps were offered in the city and
county schools to those who made the most individual sales and
also to those who sold the largest dollar value of bonds. In some
of the smaller schools prizes were offered for the greatest dollar value
in bond sales only.

The drive was opened by Major Don Gentile, American fighter
pilot ace of the European theater, who was credited with destroying
over thirty German planes. On November 20 he visited five city
schools and then went to McIntire School, where he spoke to a
gathering of the county school children. He stressed the fact that
war bond sales made possible the purchase of material essential to
winning the war.[33]

The following Saturday a thirty-nine man Infantry combat team
staged “Here's Your Infantry” at Scott Stadium. Various items of
infantry equipment, including the “Bazooka”, were displayed, and
a sham battle was enacted in which a well equipped Jap pillbox
was taken by flame throwers.[34]

At Clark School students achieved the sale of a dollar's worth
of war bonds or stamps for each of the 3,633 miles from Pearl Harbor
to Tokyo. At McGuffey School $15,000 in war bonds were
sold by pupils in order to secure the purchase of an army training
plane. On December 7 Lane High School completed a campaign
begun in September to purchase a PBY Consolidated Vultee Catalina
Patrol Bomber costing $172,000. Actually their bond sales reached
$181,793,90. A decalcomania bearing the name and address of
the school was forwarded to the Treasury Department to be mounted
on the plane. This was the first PBY Catalina Bomber to be purchased
by a Virginia school.[35]

By December 2 half of the over-all quota had been subscribed,
and by the twelfth the drive was over the top, but as usual E
bond sales lagged. In an effort to meet the E bond quota of
$425,000, of which only about sixty per cent had been subscribed,
school children in the sixth grade and above, who had actually been
working as members of the Sixth War Loan Army in the bond
drive, were dismissed from their classes at two o'clock on December
14 to canvass the city, house by house. They took orders for bonds
which were later purchased at the regular sources. This helped,
but it was Santa Claus who put the E bond drive over. People
began to buy large amounts of bonds for Christmas presents, and
the quota was quickly passed on December 20. Charlottesville and
Albemarle County were among the very first communities in the
state of Virginia to surpass all quotas in the Sixth War Loan.[36]

Sales of all types of bonds in the city-county area for the drive
were 248 per cent of quota and totaled $6,471,507, or $3,861,507
more than the quota. After a slow start E bond purchasers boosted
sales in that category to $627,530, or $202,530 in excess of the
quota. In appreciative recognition of the energetic campaign conducted
through the schools, Chairman Gleason said, “With the final
report showing the area well ahead in E bond purchases, it is apparent
that the children are largely responsible for this success since

their work was confined solely to this field. I want to congratulate
the youngsters for their remarkable work.”[37]

The unflagging zeal of Lane High School students resulted in the
record sales of $492,326.55 worth of war bonds and stamps during
the first semester of the 1944 session. This was the largest amount
ever reported by a Virginia school. Sales in the other schools of
Charlottesville brought the city total to $686,938.71.[38]

Seventh War Loan

By 1945 almost every worker who was regularly employed had
been given an opportunity to buy war bonds through the payroll
savings plan. So effective was the campaign that nearly everyone
who could was buying bonds by this method. Between drives it
was these purchases which accounted for most of the sales. In the
month of February, 1945, these interim sales reached their local
peak when a quota of $125,000 was exceeded by 143 per cent, sales
amounting to $304,564. During each drive a great effort had been
made to increase payroll deductions for bonds, but in the Seventh
this procedure was varied a little. The campaign for payroll deductions
was made in April, and the regular bond selling drive began
May 14.[39]

Having made an outstanding success of the Sixth War Loan Drive,
J. Emmett Gleason was drafted to lead the “Mighty Seventh,” which
had the largest quota of any drive. Charlottesville and Albemarle
County were asked to buy a total of $3,560,000 worth of war
bonds. Of this amount, $660,000 was to be E bonds. Since this
quota exceeded by over $30,000 the largest amount of E bonds ever
sold in the community, it presented an extreme challenge. To meet
it, Chairman Gleason again enlisted the aid of the school children.
Since schools would close soon after the regular campaign began
on May 14, a special drive and contest, with war bonds as prizes,
was conducted by the schools from April 30 to May 18, along the
same lines as the one during the Sixth War Loan.[40]

President Franklin D. Roosevelt having died on April 12, Frederick
C. Disque of the University of Virginia prepared for the bond
committee of Lane High School a scroll to be signed by bond purchasers,
who through their financial support of the war effort expressed
a reaffirmation of their faith in freedom and democracy.
When completed the scroll was sent to the Roosevelt Museum at
Hyde Park, New York.[41]

On May 15 the Charlottesville chapter of the American Association
of University Women gave a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's
operetta, “The Mikado.” Tickets for the show were given
to each purchaser of an E bond and over 500 persons attended. On
the day of the performance one bank sold over $13,000 worth of

bonds to persons desiring to attend. June 7 brought the usual
War Bond Premiere, but on the day before there was also “Free
Movie Day” in observance of the first anniversary of the invasion
of France. Bond buyers had the choice of attending either the
premiere or of attending any moving picture theater in the city on
the sixth, free.[42]

The school campaign carried the E bond drive more than one-fourth
of the way to the quota, but as soon as it ended E bond sales
began to lag even though other bond sales moved ahead. By June 13
the over-all quota had been passed, but only 66 per cent of the
E bond quota had been sold. A week later Charlottesville and
Albemarle County, $1,168,297 over the general quota, were lagging
behind most of the state in E bond sales. Over $185,000 worth
had to be sold in a hurry. Special stress was laid on getting workers
who had made payroll deductions to buy additional bonds during
the drive. During the last week of June the Boy Scouts were sent
scurrying to secure pledges to put the E bond drive over. The response
was disheartening. July 1 found the drive still
$100,000 short of the E bond quota. With one week of grace
allowed, efforts were redoubled, but when the drive ended, Charlottesville
and Albemarle had apparently failed by over $48,000 to reach
the E bond quota. Then belated reports began to close the gap.
Final figures at last showed the quota topped by $103,599. Purchases
of E bonds throughout the world by members of the armed
forces from this area and credited to the local community had put
the drive across. The greatest drive of the war had been a complete
success. Indeed, it was nothing short of remarkable. Against
an over-all quota of $3,560,000, a total of $7,780,094 worth of
war bonds had been bought in Charlottesville and Albemarle County.
Among Virginia communities this one ranked twelfth with a percentage
of 218.57.[43]

Victory Loan

The Eighth War Loan Drive, coming after the victory in both
Europe and Asia, was designated the “Victory Loan”. Only eleven
billion dollars was asked by the Federal government as against fourteen
billion asked in the previous drive. Charlottesville and Albemarle
consequently had a somewhat smaller combined goal of only
$2,600,000. As usual, this was subdivided: $450,000 for E bonds,
$1,750,000 for other types of bonds bought by individuals, and
$400,000 for purchases by corporations. The drive began October
29 and ended December 8, but E bonds sold up to December 31,
1945, counted toward the quota for the drive. Miss Mary Stamps
White, former executive secretary of the local office of Civilian
Defense and only recently returned from overseas duty with the
American Red Cross in Europe, was chairman for the Victory Loan

Drive. She was the first Albemarle County resident to head the
joint city-county campaign and the first woman to accept the reins
in such an undertaking.[44]

The drive opened with the announcement that the all-star United
States Coast Guard Victory Armada, including a thirty-piece band
and a cast of entertainers, would give a performance at the Paramount
Theatre on November 8 for purchasers of war bonds. The
auditorium was scaled to produce a total of $216,315 in bond
sales, with reserved seat sections including accommodations for purchasers
of $25, $50, $100, $200, $500, and $1,000 E bonds. As
soon as tickets became available, sales became brisk. The $25 and
$1,000 seats were sold out almost at once, but those in between
moved more slowly. Only seventy-five per cent of the seats had
been taken up by the day of the show. Approximately 1,200 Victory
bond buyers saw the two hours of entertainment and paid a
total of $143,450 into the Treasury for the privilege. This was
considerably less than the projected $216,315, but it accounted
for the greater part of early E bond sales.[45]

As usual the city and county schools pushed war bond sales.
The prizes of war bonds to those pupils securing purchases of bonds
were again offered. At Lane High School the drive was opened by
a meeting at which four returned veterans spoke. Lieutenant James
Hageman, who had been a bombardier with the Eighth Air Force
in Europe, told of the need to finish paying for the war and for
rehabilitation. Beginning November 16 a special five-day campaign
to secure bond purchases in memory of the forty-five alumni of Lane
High School who gave their lives in World War II was held. A
goal of $200 for each of their honored dead was set. A total of
$519,420 in Victory bonds was sold by Charlottesville school children
during the drive; of this amount $400,095 was sold by Lane
High School.[46]

By November 16 the quota of sales of other than E bonds to
individuals had been passed, but as usual the sales of E bonds
fell behind. Not until the first week in December did the sales of
E bonds reach half of the quota. Meanwhile, in an effort to spur
sales, special bond displays in the baby departments of stores were
arranged, and workers in these departments urged persons buying
presents for new-born babies to add to the gift an E bond. The
approach of Christmas offered another occasion for the purchases of
bonds for gifts.[47]

When the main drive ended on December 8, the sale of bonds
to corporations and the sales of other than E bonds to individuals
were both over the top with their quotas trebled, but only 60 per
cent of the E bond quota had been subscribed. The next week,
however, sales took a sudden spurt, only to bog down again the

following week. Purchases of E bonds for Christmas presents and
others who rallied to last minute appeals finally put the drive over.[48]

The purchases of E bonds by city and county servicemen and
servicewomen away from home, always credited toward the local
quotas, amounted to more than $50,000 per drive. These and
late purchases finally ran E bond sales to $601,968 or $151,968
over the quota for the Victory Loan Drive. Bond sales in other
than E bonds to individuals amounted to $6,202,270, and purchases
by corporations amounted to $2,005,638. An over-all quota
of $2,600,000 was surpassed by sales of $8,809,876, the largest
amount ever raised locally. “The Victory Loan campaign is in
every respect your crowning achievement,” wrote Ben C. Moomaw,
Jr., co-executive manager of the War Finance Committee for Virginia,
to Hildreth. “No committee in the State has done a better
job, and, in some respects, none has done as good a job.”[49]

With the close of the Victory Loan Drive, great public campaigns
for the sale of bonds ceased, but the bonds, renamed United States
Savings Bonds, continued on sale. The payroll savings system remained
in effect and workers continued to purchase bonds through
it. During the year of 1946 a total of $2,213,600.75 worth of
savings bonds were bought in Charlottesville and Albemarle County.
This amount compares favorably with the sales for the year 1942
and shows that the habit of buying bonds has been in a measure
carried over into the years of peace.[50]

Between 1941 and 1945, inclusive, $42,229,293 worth of war
bonds were purchased in Charlottesville and Albemarle County,
while the quotas for the same period totaled only $22,181,150.
This record placed this community fourth among approximately a
hundred War Finance Committee areas in Virginia. Only Campbell
County, Henrico County, and Middlesex County had higher sales
in relation to their quotas. Never once did Charlottesville and Albemarle
County fail to meet the over-all quota for a bond drive, and
though E bond sales often lagged, only in the first drive, before
the community was well organized to sell E bonds, was the quota
not attained. Between drives, the sales record is somewhat spotty.
Sometimes the interim quota was exceeded, sometimes not. The
gross sales were indeed large and justly a source of great pride to
the community. Yet in 1944, the year of three bond drives, when
$15,221,395 worth of war bonds were sold locally, the total amount
raised was enough to pay the costs of the war for only about one
hour and twenty minutes.[51] It is a creditable achievement for one
small community within a year to underwrite the staggering cost of
global war for even so short a time.

But the ultimate significance of the generous investment in democracy
by the people of Charlottesville and Albemarle County will

not become fully assessable until the decade of the 1950's, when
their millions or dollars worth of war bonds will mature. Then
dollars which have already fought for freedom will return to buy in
the local markets many things which will contribute to the happiness
of the patriotic investors and to the welfare of the community.

WAR BOND SALES,
CHARLOTTESVILLE AND ALBEMARLE COUNTY

The Eight War Loans

                                 

		Series E Bonds	All Types of Securities
First War Loan,	Quota	$150,000	$150,000
Nov. 30-Dec. 31, 1942	Sales	$106,668	$842,755
Second War Loan,	Quota	None	$1,313,900
April 1-May 8, 1943	Sales	$210,281	$1,550,873
Third War Loan,	Quota	$701,000	$2,877,700
Sept. 1-Oct. 16, 1943	Sales	Above quota	$3,119,290
Fourth War Loan,	Quota	$510,000	$2,353,000
Jan. 1-Feb. 29, 1944	Sales	$518,062	$3,362,178
Fifth War Loan,	Quota	$475,000	$2,700,000
June 1-July 31, 1944	Sales	$492,094	$4,669,053
Sixth War Loan,	Quota	$425,000	$2,610,000
Nov. 1-Dec. 31, 1944	Sales	$627,530	$6,471,507
Seventh War Loan,	Quota	$660,000	$3,560,000
April 9-July 7, 1945	Sales	$763,599	$7,780,094
Victory Loan	Quota	$450,000	$2,600,000
Oct. 29-Dec. 31, 1945	Sales	$601,968	$8,809,876

Total Annual War Bond Sales

     

	1941–1942	1943	1944	1945
Quota	$1,456,550	$5,506,600	$8,398,000	$6,820,000
Sales	$3,266,598	$5,957,041	$15,221,395	$17,784,259

Grand Total of War Bond Sales, 1941–1945

   

Quota	$22,181,150
Sales	$42,229,293

Note: Sales began in May, 1941, but quotas were not assigned until
May, 1942.

IV
Salvaging Scarce Materials

Certain articles, usually discarded by a proverbially wasteful
American public, assumed a new value when the United States was
drawn into the war. The salvage of waste paper, scrap metals,
rubber, fats, and cloth, all needed by factories in the war effort,
became one of the major activities of the civilian population as
sources of supply were cut off or because the manpower which normally
produced them was transferred to other war industries and the
armed forces. In Charlottesville and Albemarle County the salvage
drives were successful not only because of the leadership of public
spirited older citizens but also because of the assistance of many of the
younger residents of the community. Children were able to hunt
and collect waste materials during hours which they spared from
sports and other recreational activities of peacetime. Only in the
purchase and sale of war bonds and war stamps was the younger
generation, working through its schools and clubs, as helpful.

Their value in salvage campaigns became apparent before Pearl
Harbor in the aluminum drive held in July, 1941, as part of the
national defense program. Charlottesville Boy and Girl Scouts collected
old aluminum, needed for aircraft production, in a house-to-house
canvass directed by an executive committee elected at a Court
House meeting. Large heaps were also collected at Scottsville, Crozet,
Miller School, and designated stores throughout the county.[1]

In December, 1941, the Northern Virginia Regional Defense
Council called upon all citizens of Charlottesville and Albemarle
County to begin immediately saving waste paper, scrap iron, rubber,
copper, and rags as well as aluminum. This council had received its
direction from Leon Henderson, administrator of the Office of Price
Administration, by way of the Virginia Defense Council. Charitable
organizations and other clubs were urged to collect scrap and
sell direct to dealers for profit.

In January, 1942, the War Production Board was created with
Donald Nelson as chairman. He improved salvage activities by organizing
in the War Production Board a Salvage Division, which
cooperated with the Civilian Defense Councils in the states. This

Salvage Division issued instructions to the Virginia State Salvage
Committee in Richmond. In turn this committee relayed information
and inspiration through the medium of its mimeographed Salvage
Bulletins, beginning in March, 1942, to the local Civilian
Defense Council. A city and a county Salvage Committee had been
organized in the early days of that agency. Consequently, the committee
members were informed promptly as to the nation's needs.
Suggestions were made as to practical methods of salvaging critically
scarce materials. Posters and pamphlets were provided to portray
the need for particular materials and to explain their importance in
the war effort. Having gained in this way an understanding of
each shortage, the residents of this city and county gave a full measure
of cooperation in most of the salvage campaigns.

For the duration City Manager Seth Burnley served as head of the
Salvage Committee for Charlottesville. He was assisted by Mrs.
Lyttelton Waddell, who served from June, 1942, until January,
1944, and then for some time by Mrs. Randolph Harrison. Larned
Randolph served as county chairman until January, 1944, when he
was succeeded by Henry McComb Bush.[2]

Waste Paper

Number one on the list of serious shortages was paper. Enormous
quantities of waste paper were used to make cartons in which
food, clothing, and war goods were shipped to servicemen. As early
as December 22, 1941, Leon Henderson, administrator of the Office
of Price Administration, wrote Mayor W. D. Haden of Charlottesville
urging a renewed and active effort to collect as much waste
paper and cardboard as possible. At that time the Salvage Committees
for Charlottesville and Albemarle County asked people to
send their waste paper to R. E. Hall, Jr., at the City Yards. The
local junk dealers, L. E. Coiner, Henry Hill, and Harry Wright,
shipped the paper to pulp mills, which paid an average of forty
cents per hundred pounds. About thirty tons of waste paper and
cardboard were collected by the city for each of the months of
January, February, and March, 1942; and from January through
May a total of 368 tons was collected in the county and shipped by
only two dealers. In August 73,020 pounds were collected by the
city and county.[3] During the two years 1942 and 1943 city trucks
collected only 258 tons of which Charlottesville Boy Scouts contributed
two and one-half tons for the year 1943.[4]

Beginning with 1944, however, much larger quantities of paper
were salvaged when city collections were supplemented by increasingly
large contributions from the county and the Boy Scouts. A need
for containers had become acute, with millions of servicemen on the
far sides of the Atlantic and the Pacific being supplied as no other
armies had ever been supplied before.

The city collected 87,930 pounds in April. In July the City Fire
Department became the collection depot when a bin made especially
for the purpose was installed in front of the fire house. The firemen,
using the baler given them by a patriotic citizen, converted the accumulated
paper into 150-pound bales and shipped it to a pulp mill
in Richmond. By November 15 they had sent sixty tons. During
November 8–22 Charlottesville retail merchants cooperated with local
salvage officials by declaring a Paper Holiday. Throughout that
period their customers were asked to help conserve wrapping paper
by accepting as many packages as possible unwrapped.[5]

Contributing greatly to the success of paper salvage in 1944 and
1945 were the Boy Scout drives directed by Earl Snyder. In January,
1944, the Scouts set out to “Salvage More in '44” and load two
railroad cars in that month. With the help of trucks loaned by sixteen
business firms, they filled three freight cars: seventy-five tons,
an amount well above their goal, were shipped to the paper mill
A drive in April totaled 73,900 pounds, another in July 76,120
pounds. In honor of the Scouts, business men, and truck drivers
who had cooperated to make these drives a success, a picnic supper
was given at McIntire Park. Troop Number 5 received an award
for having the highest percentage of its membership enrolled in the
drives.[6] The Executive Secretary of the Virginia State Salvage
Committee observed in a letter praising the Scouts's accomplishment.
“The amount of waste paper collected since the first of the year by
your organization, 310,000 pounds has caused the salvaging of
paper in Charlottesville to be outstanding in the State of Virginia.”[7]
A fourth drive in October totaled 65,000 pounds and filled two more
railroad cars. Three cars were filled with the 90,000 pounds gathered
in the fifth drive of February, 1945; and the April drive topped
them all with the imposing figure of 210,000 pounds. At a Boy
Scout Court of Honor on June 7, 1945, thirty-two Scouts, each of
whom had collected a minimum of 1,000 pounds, were presented
the General Eisenhower award by Lieutenant J. L. Bridges of the
School of Military Government at the University of Virginia.[8]

As a part of the annual Clean-Up, Paint-Up Campaign, the
county schools launched a special paper drive in April of 1944. A
county truck made the rounds of the schools, and additional depots
were set up for people far out in the country. In two weeks 20,000
pounds of paper were collected. Quite apart from this amount, as
was pointed out by Paul H. Cale, principal of the Greenwood High
School, was the exceptionally large collection made by the Boy
Scouts of Greenwood and Crozet. It totaled 37,500 pounds: 21,000
from Greenwood, 16,500 from Crozet. Final figures for the
county during the month of April were 73,132 pounds. May

brought only 6,840 pounds, and June still less, 2,240 pounds, with
the close of school.[9]

The national supply of paper was critically low in the summer
of 1944. Each monthly collection had fallen an average of 67,000
tons short of the national quota. The invasion of France had begun.
In response to a special plea from Washington salvage activities
in the county were intensified. The total collection for July was
33,878 pounds. A Scout drive at Crozet netted 100,000 pounds,
another brought in 110,000 pounds, and in addition to these drives,
the county salvaged 110,000 pounds between February of 1944 and
June of 1945. Proceeds of the sale made by L. E. Coiner were divided
between the county schools, which received $534.16, and the
Community Fund and Red Cross, which together received $280.00.[10]

Other groups were also active in the county. The 4-H Club of
Earlysville collected 15,900 pounds of paper. With the $40.00
received from its sale the club bought a war bond and paid for certain
other club objectives. Home Demonstration and 4-H Club
members throughout the county collected 59,600 pounds of paper
during 1944, 12,000 in 1945.[11]

In August of 1945 the State Salvage Committee announced that
waste paper, along with tin cans and household fats, would continue
to be salvaged even though the war had come to an end.[12]

Scrap Metals

Metal was second on the list of materials which the Federal government
desired to recover through salvage. The United States had
lived to regret its policy during the 1930's which had encouraged
the Japanese to buy American scrap iron for their war machine. In
December, 1941, American rearmament necessitated a hunt for scrap
metal; but it was in February of 1942, when thirty-nine blast furnaces
of the steel industries in the nation were compelled to shut
down due to a lack of scrap, that collecting metal became imperative.
The knowledge that twenty-five per cent of the metal used in the
manufacture of essential steel was scrap iron gave meaning to the
Salvage for Victory Program launched in March of 1942.[13]

Residents of the community were asked to search their garrets for
worn out household metals of all kinds, including everything except
tin cans and razor blades, the first then being considered non-reclaimable,
the second, too hazardous to handle. City junk dealers were
to ship the scrap through channels established by the War Production
Board to plants where its weight, however depleted in the process
of melting, would compensate in some measure for the shortage
at the steel mills. Heavy iron sold for fifty cents per hundred
pounds, less heavy iron for forty cents, light iron, fifteen cents and
upwards, making an average of about thirty-five cents per hundred

pounds. Copper and brass sold for from three to five cents per
pound.

One dealer shipped 186 tons of scrap metals collected through the
efforts of the United States Department of Agriculture War Board in
Albemarle County and the County Board of Agriculture between
January and May, 1942. Their work was independent of that
carried out by the county Salvage Committee, which reported having
sent to two of the local dealers 646 tons of iron and twelve and a
half tons of brass and copper. The city and county collections for
June totaled 168 tons.[14]

In preparation for the local July drive the local Salvage Committees
designated four conveniently located places for the reception
of scrap, called to public attention by spot announcements over
radio station WCHV: the Texaco Service Station at 14th and Main
Streets, Whiting Oil Station, East End Parking Lot, and the Gulf
Service Station at Farmington Crossing. City refuse trucks offered
“curb service,” making their rounds once a week during the month's
drive to pick up piles of scrap deposited on the curb in front of people's
houses. Over 144 tons of scrap iron and steel were collected
in July.[15]

Old tracks of the Southern Railway Company were torn up at
Preston Turning, and the metal was shipped for salvage late in the
summer. Henry H. Hill, owner of the Hill Wrecking Company of
Charlottesville, received an automobile “graveyard” banner from the
War Production Board, the first such award in Virginia. Between
June 25 and September 15, 1942, he directed over 600 tons of scrap
to the mills for war production. He further accomplished a complete
turnover of scrap every sixty days. Total collection for the
city during the month of August was 292.5 tons, whereas the
county had salvaged 1,800 tons in all from January to September
24, 1942.[16]

Early in September Donald Nelson called on all newspaper publishers
to attend a meeting in Washington at which Army and Navy
officials were present. The publishers were informed that a supply
of scrap adequate for only two weeks was available, and that unless
the collection was greatly increased it would mean that many mills
and furnaces would be forced to shut down, thereby seriously reducing
the amount of ammunition and equipment needed for the
armed forces. The publishers were asked to call the attention of the
nation to this alarming state of affairs. Soon after the meeting the
Virginia Newspapers' Scrap Campaign, sponsored by the Virginia
Press Association, was launched as part of a national drive from
September 21 through October 10. Governor Darden extended
Junk Rally Week, originally the first week in September, to a three-week
period, Junk Rally Weeks, to correspond with this period.[17]

The Daily Progress opened the drive for Charlottesville with a
full-page advertisement titled “Virginia's Scrap Can Lick the Jap.”
War bond prizes amounting to $4,000 were offered for the best
contributions made by the county, city, agricultural organizations,
women's, men's, and children's groups, churches, school organizations,
business firms, and individuals in collecting scrap or giving information
as to where hidden quantities of metal could be procured.
More depots for collection were assigned, including the fire station
and Haynes Settle's service station in the Fry's Spring area.[18]

City activities included the distribution of lists of the names and
locations of scrap depots along with gas and water bills, and again
the services of the city trucks were enlisted. Old gas fixtures were
taken from houses which antedated electric wiring. Some 300 tons
of street car rails buried under the asphalt pavement of West Main
Street from the University to the Union Station were removed by
the Works Progress Administration. The difficult job of disinterment
proved to be too expensive in relation to the sale price of the
recovered metal at junk yards, so it was discontinued at a point less
than half of the distance to the announced goal at the Chesapeake
and Ohio Railway Station. Another activity was a two-day contest
between residents of the two sides of Main Street; the four tons
gathered by the South side bested the three tons gathered by the
North side. Civic clubs, too, joined in the drive, outstanding among
them being the Kiwanians, who contributed forty tons of scrap collected
on their lot back of the Whiting Service Station at Fifth and
West Main Streets. The proceeds went to the club's crippled children's
fund. The Paramount Theatre received five tons of scrap
from the special production of “Ride 'em Cowboy” when the price
of admission was three pounds of metal. A week's campaign at the
University, directed by Frank E. Hartman, Superintendent of
Grounds, and joined in by the students netted about ten tons of scrap
and 500 pounds of brass. This was piled in a roped-off area in
front of the new Naval R. O. T. C. building, Maury Hall.[19]

Each school in the city took part in the scrap drive. The Lane
High School Student Council, whose goal was one hundred tons,
was assisted by the Lions Club, which succeeded in obtaining the
loan of twenty-five delivery trucks from business firms to haul scrap.
This group collected 158 tons and won a $100 war bond in the
State Newspaper Contest. The new Jefferson High School brought
in twenty tons. Junior Commando scrap collectors of Clark School
gathered seven tons, reaching a higher average per capita than that
later attained by the city. Venable School gathered three tons. The
McGuffey School had a one-day drive to which every child responded;
and the “G. B.” Club made up of boys and girls from six to

twelve years old, mostly from McGuffey School, raised $9.53 from
its sales toward the purchase of a bond.[20]

By September 30 the firemen had a motley assortment of museum
pieces totaling over twelve tons. There were old iron kettles, such
as swung from cranes over the open hearth; a French, a German, and
an American helmet from World War I; a pre-Civil War tobacco
press; an old Plymouth; a discarded Nash; an antique tricycle; the
complete equipment of a former Charlottesville business donated by
Mrs. A. R. Michtom; and a 600-pound chunk of iron rescued from
a creek bed. From the Old Ladies' Home came the entire iron fence
which had encircled their property. An unbattered Confederate
cannon was the gift of Miss Mary Perley. Though never used in the
Civil War, it had been fired on the University Lawn when South
Carolina seceded from the Union, April 17, 1861, by its owner, C.
C. Wertenbaker, and again later to commemorate Virginia's secession.
The American Legion also contributed a cannon, but the Confederate
cannon on the lawn of the Court House, eyed by enthusiastic
salvagers, did not join the scrap pile. A sign set up by the firemen
read: “The Japs Got All They Could Pay For—Now Let's Give
Them the Rest.”[21]

The fascination of the scrap pile led to at least two instances of
theft. Three helmets, American, French, and German, were stolen
one night from the firemen's collection, and a piece of brass worth
$5.00 was taken from the Henry Hill Junk Yard.[22]

In the county a Scrap Harvest Drive led by Larned Randolph was
being conducted at the same time. Fourteen representatives from
sections of the county had organized after September 25 and obtained
the use of state highway trucks furnished by R. C. Ambler,
county resident engineer, for the transportation of scrap to the
dealers in Charlottesville. Ed Bain and Linden Shroyer, aided by four
teams from the Crozet Fire Department, made a house-to-house
canvass, and the proceeds were divided between the final payment
for a new aircraft observation post and a gift to the U. S. O. Stephen
Kelsey directed the drive for Ivy, Grover Van Devender for Owensville,
and John Faris for Red Hill, where school boys helped locate
and haul scrap in their local drive.[23]

The potentialities of industrial salvage were evident when John
S. Graves of the Alberene Stone Corporation at Schuyler reported
that nine carloads of scrap, aggregating about 450 tons and representing
a fifty-year accumulation of worn-out machinery, cars, rails,
and other articles of iron, were sent to the nation's scrap heap.
Frank Ix and Sons, Inc., gave twenty-four and one half tons and the
Southern Welding and Machine Company three and one half tons.[24]

The 500-ton goal for city and county collections was not only
reached but exceeded at the end of the three-week drive. C. D. Searson,
county drive statistician, announced on October 17 that the

collections since August had been about 801.5 tons. Charlottesville
alone had collected 443 tons, representing an average of 45.7 pounds
per capita. With a population of 380 people Scottsville had raised over
fifty tons, equivalent to a per capita average of 266.6 pounds. This
figure compared very favorably with the goal of 100 pounds per capita
which had been set for every locality in the state. Moreover, it
rivalled the 286.3 pounds per capita recorded in Lynchburg, which
led all Virginia communities. The Reverend Oscar E. Northen and
E. B. Meredith, together with Homer Thacker, were leaders responsible
for Scottsville's remarkable record. The Keswick and Proffit
areas were among sections of the community in which heavy rains
prevented the completion of the drive within the allotted period.
First place for individual entrants was won by F. F. Critzer of Ivy,
whose total was 11,146 pounds; S. J. Robinson, Jr., of Charlottesville
was second with 7,226 pounds.[25]

These local results constituted a helpful minority of the nation's
total collections of more than 6,000,000 tons of scrap metals which
were brought into war production as a result of the three-week campaign
led by American newspapers.

At the close of 1942, owing to the heavy toll of ships sunk and
material abandoned on battlefields in the course of the Pacific campaigns
and the North African invasion, the scrap situation remained
critical. Industries were asked to pledge themselves to continue the
salvage of metal until the war's end. A local Industrial Salvage
Committee began functioning in November, 1942. It worked with
manufacturers, garages, and other business firms in which larger
amounts of scrap metal were usually found. One of the specific
duties of this group, of which Frank Ix, Jr., was chairman, was to
follow up on the disposal of recurrent scrap and to forward monthly
reports on sales of scrap to the War Production Board. At the end
of the second quarter after its organization the committee reported
300,000 pounds more scrap than during its first quarter. By April,
1944, it had reported well over a million pounds of various kinds of
scrap. “We have found industries in Charlottesville most cooperative,
and we are confident that they will continue in their splendid
work,” wrote Alex F. Ryland of Richmond, district industrial salvage
representative. Over a period of six months the Southern
Welding and Machine Company salvaged 721,000 pounds of iron
and steel and 64,000 pounds of brass.[26]

During the first six months of 1943 the national quota was
13,000,000 tons, over fifty per cent of this amount to be supplied
by industries and farms. All Charlottesville industries participated
throughout 1943. The quota for Virginia's farm scrap was 87,000
tons, to be collected not later than June 30. The Home Demonstration
Clubs in Albemarle County collected 39,448 pounds of iron
and steel during the first half of the year. The Home Demonstration

and 4-H Clubs jointly collected 36,764 pounds of scrap in 1944
and 20,314 pounds in 1945.[27]

Tin Cans

At the beginning of the war it was deemed impracticable to reclaim
tin from ordinary tin cans. Not until October, 1942, were housekeepers
instructed to prepare tin cans for salvage by placing the cutout
ends between the flattened sides. The one per cent coating of
tin could be separated at certain mills by a detinning process from the
ninety-nine per cent steel of the commercial tin can, and both metals
could be salvaged. Even relatively small amounts of tin could be
of use when the chief source of the United States supply was cut off
by the Japanese seizure of the Malayan Peninsula and the Dutch
East Indies.

Tin was essential to many types of goods produced in wartime.
Most of the food for the armed forces was shipped in tin cans because
of the durability of this non-corrosive metal, which can be made to
withstand moisture, excessive heat, and severe cold and to be impenetrable
to poison gas. It was used in the manufacture of cannon
mounts, airplane motors, electrical machinery, and communications
equipment. Not only was tin a fighting metal, but it also made the
best container for many kinds of medical supplies, such as blood
plasma and sulfa-ointments.

At the beginning of the tin salvage campaign in Charlottesville the
soft drink bottlers collected the used cans. Part of the metal they
thus obtained was allocated to them for the manufacture of the caps
on their bottles. The local bottlers of Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, and
the Nehi products gathered up cans which were forwarded by the
firm of Dettor, Edwards, and Morris to detinning concerns. In December
arrangements were made for city trucks to collect the cans on
their regular routes, together with other salvaged materials, and to
carry them to the City Yards. When properly prepared tin cans
were sent to a detinning plant, the city received $15.50 per long ton
for them. During the first year of tin can salvage the city trucks
collected 94,400 pounds, an average of almost 8,000 pounds per
month.[28]

This average rose during the first part of 1944, although it was
estimated that in January only half the housewives in Charlottesville
consistently saved their tin cans. In April three months' collections
aggregating 36,000 pounds, an amount which averaged 12,000
pounds per month, were shipped away. Charlottesville collected
6,000 pounds during that month, and the county salvaged 940
pounds in May and 400 pounds in June. The city and county together
turned in 70,200 pounds for July, August, and September.
To these accumulations were added 34,200 pounds shipped to the
Vulcan Detinning Company, Sewaren, New Jersey, in December.[29]

No figures covering the quantity of tin cans salvaged in 1945 are
available. As late as August 20 collections continued despite the
fact that the struggle was drawing to a close. Large shipments of
supplies were still being made overseas, and the stockpiles for civilian
use could not be reduced.[30]

Rubber

The salvage of rubber started in 1941 along with paper, scrap
metals, rags, and aluminum. From January through May, 1942,
twenty-two and one half tons were collected by two dealers in
Charlottesville and Albemarle. With the loss of the Dutch East
Indies, ninety per cent of the nation's crude rubber supply was cut
off, and President Roosevelt proposed a nationwide campaign for
the salvage of rubber during the last two weeks of June, 1942. The
oil industries were called upon by the War Production Board to
lend their personnel, offer their service stations as collection depots,
and buy all types of reclaimable rubber at a uniform price. People
were urged, however, to conserve usable goods such as galoshes and
overshoes in order to prevent a rush demand for them when their
production became impossible.[31]

In Charlottesville Mrs. Lyttelton Waddell launched the drive on
June 18, and Scouts and school children, all called Commandos for
this particular occasion, worked and “raided” until July 10. The
local Salvage Committee unofficially predicted a pile of over 400,000
pounds. On July 3 the committee telegraphed Richmond: “Gasoline
distributors here want to know what to do with rubber. Haven't
enough storage space. Quota exceeded.” More than half a million
pounds had been turned in to the oil companies, which served as
collecting stations. The local organization having the highest record
was the Charlottesville Oil Corporation, which received more than
160,000 pounds. Between August 1 and October 15 a total of
250.5 tons of rubber was collected from the city and county, according
to a report from C. D. Searson.[32]

As the national stockpile of reclaimed natural rubber was well
supplied from the 1942 drives and the manufacture of synthetic
rubber made headway, systematic salvage of natural rubber products
was suspended in June, 1943, until further notice. For this reason
the collection of little more than one ton of scrap rubber was reported
by the city at the end of 1943.[33]

Kitchen Fats

In addition to other items, the householder was asked to save
kitchen fats. Loss of the Philippines, the main source of vegetable
fats for the United States before the war, had caused a shortage of this
essential component of munitions. It was announced that two pounds
of cooking grease would provide enough glycerine to make five

pounds of antiaircraft ammunition. The national program for
salvaging fats started about July 6, 1942, and quotas were set for
all states and communities. Virginia's quota was set at 181,500
pounds per month. In August the Charlottesville Salvage Committee
set 68,000 pounds as a goal for the year, based on an estimate
of 17,000 people contributing about four pounds of grease per
capita, the amount requested by national salvage authorities.[34]

Cooks were urged to collect waste fats in pound lots and to sell
them at three cents per pound to meat dealers. The butchers would
then turn them over to processors for the government's use. All
but one of the Charlottesville meat merchants agreed to buy fats.
Promotional work in connection with the salvaging of kitchen fats
in Charlottesville was a responsibility of I. H. Poss of the local
branch of Swift and Company, who distributed posters and information
to meat dealers.[35]

The first month's collection of fats netted only 835 pounds, the
month of August 863 pounds, and September the meager amount of
700 pounds, when a community the size of Charlottesville should
have raised almost 6,000 pounds a month according to its quota.
Women of the church auxiliaries joined in the effort to convince the
public of the need of cooperating in this phase of the salvage program;
Home Demonstration Club members worked similarly in the
rural districts. Mrs. Fred L. Watson, fats collection chairman in
Charlottesville, urged that housewives adopt Walt Disney's slogan:
“Out of the Frying Pan Into the Firing Line.”[36]

By January, 1943, the collection of fats hit a new high of 1,350
pounds in Charlottesville, an increase of 250 pounds over the December
total. During the entire year of 1943 Home Demonstration
Clubs in the county collected 411 pounds. In December a special
impetus to save fats was given under the new Points-For-Fats Program.
In addition to the four cents per pound then being paid,
housewives were given two red food ration points for every pound
of kitchen fats they delivered to their butchers.[37]

Mrs. W. E. Hughes of Charlottesville became fats collection chairman
in February, 1944. In that month 1,200 pounds of fats were
collected. A drive in March sent Girl Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, and
members of the Parent-Teacher Association on a house-to-house
canvass asking for whatever amount of waste fats was then available
in each kitchen. As Virginia lagged far behind in meeting its
quota, this method was continued every month. April brought in
1,500 pounds of fat for Charlottesville. Home Demonstration and
4-H Club members collected 4,240 pounds of fat in the rural districts
in 1944 and 11,841 pounds in 1945, when salvaging of fats continued
along with paper and tin even after V-J Day.[38]

Other Materials Salvaged

During the years 1942 and 1943 rags for cleaning Army and
Navy weapons were collected by the city of Charlottesville to the
amount of 1,273 pounds, along with other salvaged materials.[39]

The National Collection of Discarded Clothing, sponsored by the
Salvage Division of the War Production Board under the National
Used Clothing Program began on November 22, 1943, when the
desirability of providing garments for the destitute people of the
liberated countries had become obvious. The Defense Supplies Corporation
arranged for dry cleaning and shipment overseas. All dry
cleaners in Albemarle County and forty-four other counties in western
Virginia sent their collections to the Inland Service Corporation
warehouse in Charlottesville. The city sent 1,464 pounds by December
18, 1943, and the county 2,090.5 pounds. Another United
National Clothing Collection was launched by the same agency in
April, 1945. By the end of the month 30,000 pounds of clothing
had been donated. Members of civic clubs gave freely of their time
in collecting and packing the clothes, and merchants lent their trucks
for use in a house-to-house collection. Six deposit stations received
them also. Before the drive was brought to a close on May 15 about
34,400 pounds of clothing had been given by the city and county.
“The collection brought in excellent clothes that will still be useful,”
said Charles Youell, chairman for the drive. “There weren't a
dozen garments that could be considered unusable.” Persons having
additional used clothing to give away were asked to contact any
one of the several charitable organizations in the city.[40]

Other articles were salvaged on a less intensive scale. Boy Scouts
of Charlottesville contributed four truckloads to the 2,643 pounds
of aluminum salvaged here during 1942 and 1943. Discarded license
plates weighing a total of 1,480 pounds were collected during the
same period. In order that small quantities of shellac could be reclaimed,
old phonograph records were gathered by 4-H Club members
to raise money for the purchase of an ambulance to serve in Red
Cross overseas duty; the Paramount Theatre charged records for admission
to a movie; the Meriwether Lewis School organized a “flying
squadron” for this activity, and the 4-H Club of that locality
contributed more than half of the total quantity of records collected.
Old silk stockings were forwarded by the J. D. and J. S. Tilman
department store to be used in making powder bags and for other
similar defense purposes; the Girl Scouts helped raise the 125 pounds
for the first shipment in February, 1943. In the fall of 1944, 4-H
Club members in the county gathered forty-five bags of milk weed
pods, a quantity, according to Henry Brumback, assistant county
agent, sufficient to make twenty-two life preservers. Fur for lining

certain types of military uniforms was collected by the Shadwell
Chapter of the D. A. R.[41]

The salvage of thousands of tons of materials useful to the war
effort by this community during the war was not the only result of
the campaigns described. Proceeds from the sale of waste paper and
other scrap by the city of Charlottesville went to aid the U. S. O.
in its program of providing recreation for men in the armed forces.
The amount of $1,898 had been raised by the end of 1943.[42] Other
organizations which joined in the salvage drives used the money
raised for special projects of their own.

The people of Charlottesville and Albemarle County attained
creditable records in the salvage of waste paper, scrap iron and other
metals, rubber, and clothing. It is difficult to conceive that larger
results could reasonably be expected from efforts dependent upon the
volunteer, part-time services of busy individuals and upon the cooperation
of various organizations. Admittedly less successful were
the local efforts in collecting fats and tin cans. At least a partial explanation
of the fact that the community fell somewhat below the
national average in respect to these two items may lie in the tendency
of Southern cooks to use more fats for the seasoning of food and the
making of gravies than their Northern and Western counterparts and
to take from their pantry shelves foods locally preserved in glass
rather than commercially processed in tin. Moreover, salvage of
these articles required the daily cooperation of individuals who were
sometimes unwilling to save what seemed like inconsequential bits.
On the other hand, waste paper, scrap iron, rubber, and clothing lent
themselves more readily to organized drives in which team spirit
and rivalry brought better results.

V
Living With Less Under O. P. A.

When a nation devotes all its resources to winning a war, its economic
life is of necessity thrown out of balance. Certain goods once
plentiful become scarce. This may be due to increased consumption,
decreased production, or inadequate distribution, but the result is the
same: the demand exceeds the available supply. When this condition
exists, it is necessary to institute some form of control over the
disposition of the available supply of scarce goods so that it is
equitably divided and used to the best advantage of the community
as a whole. In the United States during World War II the rationing
of scarce commodities was handled generally by the Office of Price
Administration, usually referred to as O. P. A. Its regulations were
applied and enforced in Albemarle County and Charlottesville by
boards of local citizens. While some hardships inevitably resulted,
most scarcities involved little more than inconvenience.

Gasoline, Fuel Oil, and Tires

Indeed, the first touch of war passed over Charlottesville and Albemarle
County so lightly that it was scarcely felt. In the summer of
1941 the loan of a number of tankers to Britain threatened to create
a shortage of gasoline on the East Coast. Petroleum Coordinator
Harold Ickes in August restricted deliveries to all service stations in
the area and limited their operation to a seventy-two-hour week.
The only inconvenience resulting, however, was the occasional
stranding of a late traveler, and when the return of the tankers made
possible the removal of all restrictions on October 24, the shortage
was put down as a mere Washington panic.[1]

Hardly had the laughter at Ickes' scarcity died down before the
war was brought home to the motorist with a vengeance. In the
middle of the war bulletins which came crackling out of his radio on
that Sunday afternoon of December 7, 1941, was the announcement
that the sale of all automobile and truck tires had been suspended.
The car owner at once realized that he would have to revise his casual
peacetime driving habits to make his tires last out the war. By
December 21 local grocers had decided to limit deliveries to save

rubber, and Randolph H. Perry, secretary of the Charlottesville and
Albemarle Chamber of Commerce, urged the public to cooperate in
supporting this first conservation measure.[2]

Soon a program was under way to control the sale of tires. On
January 5, 1942, tire ration boards were named for the county and
the city. In time these same boards undertook the rationing of
other scarce commodities and set up a number of panels to handle
their various activities. Originally the Albemarle County War Price
and Rationing Board consisted of Edgar L. Bradley of Scottsville,
who became chairman, H. A. Haden, James Gordon Smith, Sr., and
R. F. Loving. Later, after Smith had resigned, Henry Chiles and
Mrs. Randolph Catlin were added. Mrs. Catlin, who worked as a
full-time volunteer supervisor in the board office from June, 1942,
until it closed, donated in the neighborhood of 6,000 hours of work.
In 1945 the county board panels included a mileage panel, fuel oil
panel, food panel, automotive price panel, and community service
panel. Originally the Charlottesville War Price and Rationing
Board consisted of Seth Burnley, who became chairman, W. Towles
Dettor, and J. Dean Tilman. Burnley resigned from the board on
October 15, 1943. Dettor succeeded him as chairman, and Mason
S. Byrd became a member of the board. Tilman also left the board
by resignation, and Dr. Thomas H. Daniel and Gus K. Tebell were
added as members. In 1945 the city board panels included a tire
panel, gasoline panel, food panel, price panel, and fuel oil and stove
panel.[3]

By January 14, 1942, the boards were ready to begin the task
of allotting thirty-five passenger and seventy-six truck tires, which
constituted their January quota, to certain essential motorists, such
as doctors, nurses, and policemen. The first certificates authorizing
the purchase of new tires in Charlottesville and Albemarle County
were issued to Dr. H. S. Hedges of Charlottesville, allowing him to
obtain four obsolete 32 × 4 tires and tubes, and to Silas Barnes,
Crozet trucker.[4] In February ration boards had to take over the
granting of recapping privileges, in order to regulate the rush of
motorists to get new rubber put on tread-bare tires. The distribution
of new cars to essential users also became a duty of the local boards.
All of this, however, was only an introduction to what car owners
were to face. On April 9, 1942, the War Production Board ordered
gasoline deliveries to service stations on the East Coast cut to two-thirds
of the average during the preceding winter months of December,
January, and February.[5] This measure was made necessary by
the transfer of tankers to military duties, which left a gap in civilian
supplies too large to be filled by the railroad tank cars which were
pressed into service to haul gasoline to the East. Voluntary conservation
was already saving gas as well as tires, but not as much as
was required by the new order.

The Office of Price Administration, therefore, prepared an emergency
program for rationing gasoline in the affected areas. On May
12, 13, and 14, city and county school teachers gave up their afternoons
to help motorists register and apply for gasoline. The blanks
were filled out under the honor system, with each owner asking for
as much gas as he thought he needed. His basic allotment was an “A”
card, which contained seven squares to be punched, each one good
for three gallons of gas. For those who needed more than three
gallons a week for essential purposes, there were three grades of “B”
cards, permitting the purchase of up to nine gallons a week. Finally,
certain essential workers, such as doctors, ministers, and government
officials, were given “X” cards authorizing unlimited purchases. No
restrictions were placed on commercial vehicles. Of the 3,639 car
owners registered in Charlottesville, 328 were granted “X” cards,
although some of these were returned when their recipients discovered
that they were not entitled to them. More than half the
applicants, 2,191, had to be content with “A” cards.[6]

This system worked fairly well for a time, although service station
attendants soon began to grow careless about punching the cards.
A new plan was put into effect in July, when the cards were replaced
by a book of ration stamps. All motorists again registered at
the schools on July 9, 10, and 11 for “A” books, which contained
six pages of eight stamps each, each page to be good for two months.
Those who needed more than this basic allotment of sixteen gallons
per month were required to apply to their ration boards for “B” or
“C” books.[7] These new books went into use on July 22.

Along with these restrictions went other conservation measures
designed to make gasoline and tires go farther. The Commonwealth
of Virginia lowered the speed limit to forty and later to thirty-five
miles per hour, and car pools of share-the-ride wage earners were organized
to fill empty seats in commuters' and workers' autos. Exchange
of tires among friends grew so common that Chief of Police
Maurice F. Greaver found it necessary to remind the Charlottesville
public of a city ordinance which required that any person acquiring
a tire from any person or agency not regularly authorized to sell
it must report on the transfer of ownership to the Police Department
within ten days.[8] This problem was practically solved in the fall of
1942 by the Idle Tire Purchase Plan, under which every motorist
was required to sell to the Federal government all tires he owned in
excess of five per car.[9] All surplus tires in the community were collected
at local offices of the Railway Express Agency, which shipped
them into a center where they were resold or scrapped. As part of
this program, the car owner was required to register the serial numbers
of all the tires he retained and to have them inspected regularly.
This plan was put into effect all over the country on December 1 as
part of the nationwide rubber conservation program.[10]

Closely allied to gas rationing was the rationing of fuel oil and
kerosene which began October 19, 1942, and continued throughout
the war. Because proper blank forms were lacking in Charlottesville
and Albemarle County, the registration of fuel oil and kerosene consumers
and dealers was postponed until November 5. Even then
coupons for kerosene were lacking, and dealers took care of their old
customers on a credit basis until the coupons were issued.

With fuel oil supplies on the Eastern seaboard inadequate to meet
the needs of users, all rations for heating were below the amount
needed to maintain room temperatures at the accustomed levels. Instead
of keeping his entire home at seventy or above twenty-four
hours a day, the fuel oil user began to shut off the heat everywhere
at night and in many rooms during the day. His family accustomed
themselves to lower temperatures in the rooms that were used. Often
this entailed some real discomfort. Fireplaces and other supplemental
heating units became the centers around which family life revolved.
People accepted the hardships but reserved the right to complain,
especially to their ration boards. The system of allotment was often
a bone of contention as inequalities were pointed out. Yet most
agreed at the end of the first winter that it was to be doubted if any
entirely equitable formula could be found and that, even if it could,
it would not make insufficient supplies of fuel oil furnish adequate
heat. Conversion to coal seemed to furnish the most satisfactory
solution to the problem for those who could so convert their furnaces.[11]

Meanwhile, the Charlottesville motorist had had his “A” allowance
cut from sixteen to twelve gallons per month on November
22, along with autoists throughout the rest of the Eastern Seaboard,
while the luckier drivers west of the Alleghanies were permitted sixteen
gallons. Another shock came on Friday, December 18, when the
sale of all gasoline except for emergency purposes was suspended at
noon. Advance news of this regulation caused long lines of cars to
form at every Charlottesville filling station that morning.[12] The sudden
move had been made necessary by a large number of counterfeit
stamps in circulation, which had permitted dealers to purchase gas in
excess of their quotas. Again the situation was met by restricting the
deliveries to dealers, regardless of the number of stamps they turned in.
The inflation created by the black market stamps was reduced by
lowering the value of “B” and “C” coupons from four to three gallons
each. By Monday, December 21. The Daily Progress commented,
“This morning the gasoline situation returned to normal,
or rather to the state of abnormality which has existed for many
months.”[13]

Even this twenty-five per cent deflation was insufficient, however,
to make up for the amount of gasoline which was being siphoned off
into the black market. In desperation the O. P. A. adopted an emergency

measure to prevent the wasting of gasoline on non-essential
purposes. On January 7, 1943, a ban was placed on all forms of
pleasure driving.[14] “If it's fun, it's out,” was the simple rule announced.
Compliance was general at first. At the end of a week
Police Chief Greaver reported that his men had discovered only three
violators after checking every pleasure spot in the city.[15] On Saturday
night, January 16, eleven cars were found parked near Memorial
Gymnasium during a boxing match between the University of Virginia
and V. P. I., but investigation disclosed that all but one of the
drivers had stopped off on their way home from work, a procedure
allowed under O. P. A. regulations.[16] The traditional hockey games
at Ivy managed to survive when the players learned to take in the
contest en route to pick up their laundry from washwomen in the
neighborhood.

Although local boards continued to find few violators, car owners
gradually grew restive under these unwanted restraints, and compliance
broke down. On March 17, 1943, therefore, the new O. P. A.
Administrator, Prentiss Brown, announced that enforcement of the
irksome pleasure driving ban would be abandoned, although he urged
everyone to continue to obey the spirit of the regulation. As if to
emphasize the need for conservation, the “A” allotment was reduced
to one and a half gallons per week.[17] Virginians' hopes for more adequate
gasoline rations perked up when it was announced on April 9
that the new 180-mile pipe line to Richmond was ready to bring in
30,000 barrels of petroleum products a day.[18] On May 20, however,
they were startled to learn that, instead of getting more gas, they were
to have the pleasure driving ban reinstated.[19] A force of O.P.A. agents
along with state and local police, promptly took to the highways to
question motorists. Another step to meet the situation was taken on
June 2, when the values of “B” and “C” stamps were reduced from
three to two and one-half gallons, and the system of allotting gasoline
to commercial vehicles was revised to stop leaks into the black
market.

Many Virginians felt that it was unfair to include the state in the
northeastern area of the severest gasoline shortage while neighboring
North Carolina went relatively unrestricted, especially in view of the
opening of the new pipe line to Richmond. Virginia Congressmen
Dave E. Satterfield, Jr., and S. Otis Bland conferred with Director of
War Mobilization James F. Byrnes in July over the situation, along
with representatives of other East Coast states. Satterfield stressed
the paradoxical fact that Virginia, at the terminus of a pipe line, had
received several million more gallons of gasoline in the first five
months of the year than in the same period of the preceding year but
nevertheless had been allotted less gasoline than ever before. The
Congressman asked in vain that Virginia be placed on the same basis
as other Southern states and that motorists be allowed to use their
rations as they saw fit.[20]

Although no change was made in Virginia's status, the East in general
was tossed a crumb a few days later with the announcement that
each motorist would be permitted one vacation trip if he could obtain
his ration board's permission. This concession was made possible in
part by the completion of the “Big Inch” pipe line from Texas to
the East Coast on July 19. Petroleum Administrator Ickes promised
that gasoline rationing would now be equalized throughout the country.
Any joy Eastern car owners may have felt at this news was
tempered by the simultaneous announcement of a ban on the sale of
new tires as spares, a symptom of the tightening rubber shortage.[21]

The promised equalization was slow in coming, however, as shipments
failed to keep up with even the rationed demand. The official
abandonment of all attempts to enforce the pleasure driving ban on
August 31 did not mean that supplies were better: the ban was revoked
only because the enforcement policy had failed to accomplish
the hoped-for results.[22] In October equalization was begun, but it
was accomplished partly by reducing all motorists between the Alleghanies
and the Rockies to the East's starvation levels. All “B” and
“C” coupons in the area were lowered to two gallons, while the
“A” allotment in the East was raised from one and a half to two
gallons per week immediately, with the promise that it would be
raised to three gallons on November 8, when complete equality with
the Midwest would be achieved.[23]

Slight as this improvment was, it marked the turning point of the
gasoline shortage. Never again did the situation get as bad as it had
been in 1943. An important factor in increasing legitimate supplies
was the O. P. A.'s merciless war on the black market. In June, 1944,
ration boards began issuing serially-marked gasoline coupons, which
were nearly counterfeit-proof. Every dealer who turned in counterfeit
stamps had them charged against his supply, with the result that
the gas bootleggers were soon put out of business. In order to continue
their evil operations, crooks resorted to theft of legal gasoline
coupons. Certain oil companies were victims, and on the night of
September 15 the office of the Charlottesville ration board on Fifth
Street was broken into and several “A” gasoline ration books were
stolen.[24] The only liberalization permitted during 1944 came on July
25 with the granting of furlough gas to servicemen at the rate of a
gallon a day up to thirty gallons. By February, 1945, the Charlottesville
ration board had issued approximately 3,829 “A” books to
automobile owners, and had given 389,489 gallons of supplementary
gasoline for use in passenger automobiles and 1,663,742 gallons for
use in trucks.

The arrival of V-E Day was followed by the raising of “A” allotments
to six gallons a week on June 11, 1945, and the Japanese offer
to surrender brought immediate abolition to all gas rationing restrictions.
On the morning of August 15, for the first time in more than

three years, Charlottesville and Albemarle County motorists were able
to drive into local service stations with the request, “Fill 'er up.”
Tire rationing ended on January 1, 1946, although tires were still
scarce. By the summer of 1947, however, supplies had become so
abundant that dealers were once more offering tires at cut prices, and
getting a new car was the only problem left to the local motorist.

Foods, Shoes, and Cigarettes

While the local motorist was nursing his car through the difficulties
of war, the local housewife was having troubles of her own. As early
as September, 1939, she found sugar temporarily scarce, when her
neighbors with memories of 1918 started carrying hundred-pound
bags away from grocery stores. Flour also was gathered up by the
hoarders, and both of these commodities temporarily jumped in
price.[25] In a few days everything was back to normal, and the brief
panic was almost forgotten. By 1941, however, the economic pressures
of the defense program were slowly forcing the cost of living
upward. In September the index of consumer prices stood at 8.1
per cent above the 1935–1939 level.[26] More real than percentages
to the housewife were the calculations she had to make to stay within
the family budget for food. In the two years since the Nazi planes
had first roared over Warsaw, butter and eggs on the local market
had jumped ten cents a pound, and meat had crept up a few cents.
Baking was more expensive, because shortening, flour, and sugar were
all higher. Even the week-end specials in September, 1941, seemed
costly: ham, 28 cents a pound; chuck roast, 21 cents; frying chickens,
dressed, 28 cents; sirloin steak, 40 cents. Butter was advertised
at 40 cents a pound, eggs were offered at 41 cents a dozen, and a tall
can of evaporated milk was available at 8 cents.[27]

As her pencil planned the purchases which could be squeezed out
of the market money, the housewife would have been startled to learn
that she would soon be sighing wistfully for the return of 1941's low
prices and ample quantities, which seemed to vanish in the smoke of
Pearl Harbor. By the spring of 1942 she discovered that Hitler's
U-boats were keeping bananas out of Charlottesville. More serious
was the Nazi subs' interference with shipments of sugar, which
brought back the buying panic of 1939. Storekeepers restrained the
would-be hoarders by selling sugar only in small amounts until the
O. P. A. could get its rationing program in operation.

Sugar rationing finally arrived in the first week of May, 1942.
School teachers and other volunteer assistants gave up their afternoons
and evenings from May 4 to May 7 to register the entire population.
In Charlottesville registration cards were signed for 22,060 persons,
including an unexpectedly large number of University students. To
all but the 970 who admitted having more than six pounds of sugar
a flimsy little folder called War Ration Book No. 1 was issued.[28]
Along the bottom edge were two rows of coupons to be used in buying

sugar and any other commodities which might be rationed. The
basic allotment for each person was half a pound of sugar a week.
In most cases this quantity, which varied only slightly throughout
the war, proved to be sufficient. The chief effect of the sugar restriction
was to reduce the number of cakes and pies baked weekly in
Charlottesville and Albemarle County ovens, a result which, local
Pollyannas readily confessed, proved beneficial to waistlines. Because
bootleggers were unable to get sugar to make liquor and because many
of the hot-blooded youngsters were in military service, the Albemarle
County jail was empty on May 24, 1942, for the first time in the
memory of Sheriff J. Mason Smith, who had served the county as
law enforcement officer for forty years. Normally the jail housed
twenty or thirty prisoners.[29]

Having taken its toll of banana and sugar shipments, German submarine
warfare soon added another food casualty. By September,
1942, coffee was being doled out carefully at local stores. To spread
the supply evenly, the O. P. A. announced that coffee would be
placed on the ration list beginning November 28.[30] Coupons in War
Ration Book No. 1 were made valid for the purchase of coffee at the
rate of one pound every five weeks. Statisticians calculated that this
would give each person one cup a day, a miserly ration in the opinion
of all coffee lovers. Long-despised coffee substitutes promptly disappeared
from grocery shelves.

About the same time another type of beverage went under sales
control when the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Board restricted
liquor purchases to a quart a day as a preliminary to formal rationing,
which went into effect in January, 1943. With the manufacture
of beverage alcohol suspended for the duration of the war, meager
stocks were called upon to supply an increased demand. In June
The Daily Progress reported in an editorial that for three days “the
thirsty citizen of Charlottesville with spendable coupons supposedly
good for one pint might as well have been on a desert island as far as
his ability to buy legal whiskey was concerned. There just wasn't
any in pints—or in quarts either, for that matter—and only a very
limited selection in 26-ounce bottles, which are definitely a gyp size
under our rationing set-up.” By November the editor conceded, “If
Virginians get very little liquor, at least what they do get is of known
quality and is made available to them at a fair price, whereas if we
may believe the reports carried in the public press of other parts honest
whiskey has all but disappeared from the markets in many American
cities and prices, despite supposed O. P. A. ceilings, have soared
to fantastic heights.”[31]

These shortages of 1942, however, were only a preliminary warning
of what was to come. The local housewife had already been
reminded of the impending shortage of canned goods every time she
flattened a tin can for salvage drives. At the same time the national

appetite was growing faster than expanding agricultural production.
Young men in uniform required far more food than they had consumed
while wearing civilian clothes, and more people than ever were
able to afford beefsteaks and butter instead of hamburgers and oleomargarine.
During 1942 the nation had been living off its accumulated
fat of prewar years, but by 1943 it was necessary to take up a
notch in the belt.

Two new and comprehensive programs were announced in December,
1942. One covered processed foods, including practically all
canned, dried, and frozen fruits, vegetables, soups, and juices. The
other included all meats, except poultry and fresh fish, and all fats
but olive oil. The news of these programs was accepted in good spirit,
The Daily Progress reported. One merchant, who asked customers
not to buy more than half a dozen cans at a time, pointed out, “When
we explain things to them, most of them don't buy that much. This
rationing is going to be hard on delivery stores and will cause more
work for us as well as for the housewife, but it is the only fair way
to divide what food we have.”[32]

Once again more than 42,000 city and county residents registered
in the school rooms from February 22 to 26, 1943, for War Ration
Book No. 2. In order to get this book each family had to fill in a
declaration stating how many pounds of coffee and cans of food were
on hand at the time rationing began, and Books 1 and 2 were then
“tailored” accordingly by removing coupons for excess coffee or cans.
One Albemarle County family of three declared 2,167 cans, another
family of two, 975. Four out of five, however, stated that they had
no excess supplies.[33] Sometimes neighbors looked on these declarations
with suspicion, which was occasionally justified. One woman,
who declared only four pounds of coffee and ten cans of food, was
found by the O. P. A. to have had forty-eight pounds of coffee and
510 cans of food in her possession.[34] During registration an old man
came into the ration board's office to ask how he could buy sugar
and coffee. “The storekeeper keeps telling me to get a book,” he said,
“but there's no sense me getting a book; I can't read.”[35] A ration
clerk explained that to enjoy the kind of book he needed required no
literary attainment.

War Ration Book No. 2 introduced a new problem for the local
housewife. Designed for the point system, an innovation in rationing,
it contained four pages each of red and blue stamps. twenty-four
to a page. Horizontal rows were lettered. “A,” “B.” “C,” etc., while
the vertical columns were numbered “8,” “5,” “2,” “1,” indicating
the point value of each stamp. To enlighten Charlottesville housewives
concerning the use of the new ration book a meeting was scheduled
at Lane High School. but when the use of the auditorium was
denied to the speaker the meeting was cancelled and housewives were
left to solve their problems as best they could. In a letter to the editor

of The Daily Progress Henry McComb Bush explained why the meeting
had not been held. The speaker, although sanctioned by the O.
P. A., was an employee of the Southeastern Chain Store Council. Certain
local independent merchants refused to cooperate, expressing the
fear that the speaker was trying to put something over on them. The
use of the auditorium was denied on the technicality that it could not
be used by the representative of any commercial organization. After
expressing his admiration for the able and impartial way in which
the same speaker on another occasion explained in detail the use of
War Ration Book No. 2, Bush concluded by remarking, “This is a
startling example of lack of cooperation on the part of some of our
local merchants. At a time like this, lack of cooperation should not
be allowed to interfere with public benefits.”[36]

Blue stamps, designed for processed foods, came into use on March
1. They were made valid at the rate of three columns, or forty-eight
points, a month. With this quota in March, 1943, the housewife
could have purchased one can of peaches (twenty-one points), one
can of peas (thirteen points), one can of corn (eight points), and one
can of soup (six points). In terms of meals, she could have served
canned vegetables at about eight meals a month and canned fruit at
approximately six. She therefore had to eke out the family diet
with fresh fruit and vegetables, of which, fortunately, there was seldom
a shortage. On the other hand, when out of season these were
usually two or four times as expensive as canned food, and the
prompt action of the O. P. A. in freezing prices merely kept them
from going higher. A permanent change in eating habits resulted
from the fact that points were usually lower on frozen food than on
canned, while the frosted products were cheaper than fresh ones in
winter. Thus the people of Charlottesville and Albemarle County
learned to make frozen foods a part of their daily diet instead of the
occasional luxury which these had been in 1939.

Throughout February, 1943, the abattoir department of the
Elliott Ice Company was closed down for the first time since it opened
in 1912. Millard C. Elliott, president of the company, explained
that slaughtering had been suspended because though O. P. A. had
set up price ceilings on dressed carcasses, there were no price ceilings
on livestock. “As a consequence,” he concluded, “we cannot buy
livestock at present prices, since we would lose money on every animal
slaughtered.” The plant reopened March 1, but to operate at
only about one-fourth of its capacity.[37]

However, procuring meats and fats caused little trouble for the
local housewife before they went under rationing on March 29, 1943.
There was a brief scare on March 10, when someone reported hearing
over the radio that sales of butter would be frozen. The result was
a stampede which nearly emptied the Charlottesville stores of butter
that day. The flurry died down promptly and had been largely forgotten

by the time the sale of butter actually was frozen on March
22, in order to allow stocks to accumulate during the week preceding
rationing. Meat likewise remained plentiful, although the choice of
cuts was limited. Not until Saturday, March 27, the very last day
of unrestricted purchases, when housewives were packing their refrigerators
with meat, was any shortage noticed.[38] The initial ration
allotment required some reduction in the normal quantities of meat
eaten, permitting to each person approximatly a quarter-pound of
butter and two pounds of meat a week. Although changing point
values later lowered this quota, a family's consumption of rationed
beef, pork, and lamb could always be supplemented by ration-free
poultry and fish.

Adjustment to the new point system proved easy. In a few days
housewives had learned to count up purchases in points as well as in
cents. Butchers soon observed that shoppers were more concerned over
the number of red stamps which they would have to surrender for
any cut of meat than over the number of greenbacks required. The
O. P. A. also learned to change its point-prices like a shrewd merchandiser;
a slow-mover like dried prunes quickly dropped from
twenty blue points to none, while a fast-seller like butter jumped
from eight red points to sixteen in the first few months. In spite
of this increase, the demand for butter continued to outrun the supply,
as milk output was diverted to other dairy products. For the
same reason, canned milk went on the ration list in June, 1943. On
the other hand, the first sign of a turn for the better came when coffee
went off the list of rationed foods in July.

The summer of 1943 also brought a modification in the canning
sugar program. During 1942 allotments of sugar to families for canning
fruit had been made at the rate of a pound for every four quarts
put up in previous years, with no maximum limit to the amount of
sugar to which one could thus become entitled. With commercially
canned fruit rationed, however, many new families were expected to
join the ranks of the canners-at-home in 1943, and the government
wished to encourage this movement. Past practices in preserving
fruits were therefore ignored, and families were now granted for use
in canning up to twenty-five pounds of sugar per person. Two stamps
were validated for five pounds of sugar each. Those who needed more
applied to the ration board for their allotments, listing the quantities
of fruits and jellies they wished to preserve. This greatly simplified
the procedure and eliminated many of the complications and
delays which had been experienced in 1942. During 1944 the county
ration board issued coupons good for 364,116 pounds of canning
sugar, and the city board issued coupons for 281,460 pounds. The
county board reported approximately 20,000 applications for sugar
during the three year period 1942 to 1944, inclusive.

One other development of the summer of 1943 was the expiration

of the first shoe stamp. Shoes had been put under rationing in
a surprise move on February 7, with Stamp No. 18 in the sugar book
being made good for one pair until June 15. As that date approached,
many housewives discovered unused shoe stamps in the family's books,
and to keep them from “going to waste” they dashed into town to
buy shoes, overwhelming stores and clerks. One weary manager advertised
the next day: “We wish to express sincere appreciation to
you, our customers, for your patience during the recent 'Grand Rush'
for shoes. ... Our store will be closed Wednesday and Thursday to
give our employees a much-needed rest and to check our stock. J. N.
Waddell Shoe Co.”[39]

This was the only local excitement over shoe rationing, although
it continued until October 30, 1945. The individual allotment of
two to three pairs a year was more than adequate for the men, but it
failed to make concession to feminine fashions. As a result, Father
often had to surrender one of his stamps to buy Daughter a pair of
party slippers. This type of informal reapportionment within the
family served to smooth out any serious inconvenience. Apparently
more city than country residents had occupations which were hard
on their shoes, for the Charlottesville board issued 525 special shoe
stamps in the one year 1944, which was in sharp contrast to the
Albemarle County board's experience of issuing only 787 special shoe
stamps in three years.

Meanwhile, the point system was using up ration books rapidly.
By the middle of September, 1943, all the red stamps in War Ration
Book No. 2 were gone, and similar brown stamps in Book No. 3 had
taken their place. This book, distributed by mail during the summer
also contained stamps bearing pictures of guns, tanks, planes, and
ships. A few of the airplane stamps were validated for shoes, but the
rest were never used. In October Book No. 4 was handed out to
40,549 residents of the city and the county.[40] This contained pages
of green, blue, and red stamps, similar to those in Book No. 2, except
that they were only half as wide, besides two pages of stamps marked
“Spare,” “Sugar,” and “Coffee.” The “Coffee” coupons, O. P. A.
explained, had been prepared while the beverage was still on the
ration list.[41]

Another simplification came when the red and blue ration tokens
went into circulation on February 27, 1944.[42] These fiber disks provided
change, and made mental arithmetic involved in counting point
prices much easier. The value of the stamps was changed to ten points
each, with each token being worth one point.

During the second week of March, 1944, a survey was made of
Charlottesville retail food stores to determine the extent to which
O. P. A. regulations were being observed. The twenty-three volunteer
inspectors, who worked under the Charlottesville War Price and
Rationing Board's price panel, of which the Reverend H. A. Donovan

was chairman, visited fifty-five stores. In only sixteen did they find
full compliance with all regulations; however, there was general agreement
among O. P. A. personnel that willful instances of ceiling price
violations were decidedly in the minority. The thirty-nine stores
violating regulations were about equally divided between those which
failed to post ceiling price lists and those which by carelessness or
misunderstanding made charges above ceiling prices. Most overcharges
were for canned goods. In Albemarle County a like survey
showed that most of the 110 stores were complying. Twenty-seven
violations of meat and canned vegetable price ceilings were noted,
and a number of stores did not have a proper ceiling price list posted.[43]
During the first three years of rationing about twenty price checks
were made in both the city and county stores. There were a few cases
in which merchants were fined and patrons collected triple damages
because of overcharges, but the great majority of merchants tried to
keep both the letter and the spirit of the regulations.

The appearance of the ration tokens seems to have marked a general
improvement in the food situation. Point values were cut in
March and again in April. Canning sugar was available almost for
the asking. In September, as Allied armies rolled back the shattered
Nazi forces in France, most meat cuts and all canned vegetables,
except tomatoes, were removed from rationing. By mid-December,
however, when the supposedly beaten Germans suddenly struck back
in the Ardennes Forest, the belt had to be retightened. On Christmas
morning the housewife, who had experienced great difficulty in finding
a turkey for the holiday, learned that most of the food stamps
she had been saving had been cancelled.[44] A week later, on New Year's
Eve, further demands were made on her reduced stock of points by
the return of most foods to the ration list. On January 19, 1945,
lard, shortening, oils, and citrus fruit juice were put back under rationing.

It was, however, an unrationed commodity for which people
shopped most diligently during the winter of 1944–1945. By November
cigarettes were difficult to find and throughout the following
months the supply fell behind the demand to such an extent that
dealers' shelves were customarily bare. A shipment of any brand
was sold out almost as soon as it was opened. Smokers would shop
from store to store for hours and then stand in line interminably for
the privilege of buying a package of any brand. When he literally
did not know where his next smoke was coming from, the average
citizen felt like lynching the lady who boasted that she had a hoard
of seven cartons of a favorite brand cigarette. Indeed a man who
appeared in a downtown drug store casually carrying a quantity of
leaf tobacco under his arm had the nicotine addicts remarking, “Lucky
fellow, he's fixed for smokes.”[45] Sooner or later nearly everyone
tried rolling his own with varying degrees of success. One lady shopping

in a Richmond department store discovered a machine selling
for a quarter which did an excellent job of cigarette making. She
invested three dollars and on her return to Charlottesville quickly
disposed of the extra machines to her grateful friends. Gradually
supply caught up with the demand for cigarettes so that by the end
of 1945 a smoker was again able to pass his pack around in a crowd.

The canning sugar program announced in February, 1945, was
much stricter than that for 1944, and ration board allotments were
reduced thirty per cent below the previous year. Even V-E Day
on May 8 brought no relaxation in the O. P. A.'s grim outlook.

On June 1, 1945, the Elliott Ice Company, which was again having
trouble with O. P. A. regulations, announced that unless the
objectionable provisions were rescinded, it would close its abattoir
department on Saturday the ninth. The company objected especially
to R. M. P. R. Order 169, which required custom slaughterers to
“remit” to dealers who owned the cattle and calves which were
dressed an amount sufficient to make the total cost of the carcasses
to the dealer come under the O. P. A. ceiling prices for dressed meat.
The regulation, which was designed to prevent dealers from paying
excessively high prices for livestock, made the slaughterer a policeman
whether he wished to be one or not and penalized him heavily
if he slaughtered animals bought by dealers at the prevailing high
prices. The announcement of the impending closing of the only
slaughterhouse in the area caused considerable consternation as the
University of Virginia Hospital, the Blue Ridge Sanatorium, and
ten retail butcher shops were dependent upon the Elliott abattoir
for their meat. One merchant sent a telegram to O. P. A. Administrator
Chester Bowles saying. “We have cattle at Elliott's abattoir
waiting to be slaughtered purchased fully under MPR 574. Elliott
advises OPA restrictions don't permit him to slaughter them. We
have our quotas established by your office for June. What good is
a quota if you block us at the slaughterhouse? Can't you instruct
Elliott to slaughter these cattle? We have been slaughtering at
Elliott's abattoir for 34 years.”

The O. P. A. district director, J. Fulmer Bright of Richmond,
defended the regulation, saying that it should not force any established
abattoir to discontinue business, or anyone else for that matter
except the dealer who patronized the black market by purchasing
cattle at a price above the ceiling, or the dealer who paid excessively
high prices within the ceiling.

On the eighth a meeting of the Albemarle Farm Bureau discussed the
possible effect of the closing upon the farmers of the county. Several
representatives from the district O. P. A. office in Richmond who
were present stated that a revision of the regulations eliminating the
objectionable provision was expected. They pointed out that O. P. A.

had never ordered the Elliott Ice Company to close its slaughterhouse
and so could not, as some people suggested, instruct them to keep
it open.

Monday, June 11, the abattoir remained in operation, but no cattle
or calves were accepted from dealers for slaughter. Taking advantage
of a provision exempting persons and institutions which had
animals killed for their own consumption from the operation of the
“kick back” provision, the Elliott Ice Company continued to slaughter
cattle and calves for both the University Hospital and the Blue Ridge
Sanatorium. Hogs and lambs were slaughtered for all comers, but as
merchants' quotas for pork were limited to fifty per cent of their
sales for the same period the year before, only lamb was available in
normal amounts at the local meat markets.

Soon the controversial regulation was rescinded, and the abattoir
resumed slaughter of cattle and calves for all customers on June 21.
There was but little improvement in the local meat supply, however,
until after July 1 as most dealers had already used up practically all
of their quotas for the period. In July meat dealers were allowed
to handle fifty per cent of the amount of pork handled in July, 1944,
seventy-six per cent of beef and veal, and 110 per cent of lamb. Most
local dealers were able to find meat to fill these quotas.[46]

Preliminary negotiations preceding Japanese surrender were followed
immediately by the end of processed food rationing on August
15, and the meat-fat program was dropped on November 24. This
did not mean the return of plenty insofar as meat and butter were
concerned. The continuation of price control kept production down,
and supplies got scarce.

With the return of peace Coordinator of Civilian Defense Seth
Burnley wrote each member of the Charlottesville War Price and
Rationing Board thanking him for his loyal service. “When I
asked each and every one of you to serve this community,” he said,
“no one refused although you knew full well that you would be
criticized, and the work would require a lot of your valuable time
and energy and at times I know it took all of your patriotic zeal and
fortitude to continue. ... May our peaceful days now bring you
much happiness with the knowledge that you have finished a job
'WELL DONE'.”[47]

When the O. P. A. controls expired temporarily on June 30,
1946, meat returned in abundance but at high prices. The restoration
of price ceilings on September 10 brought Charlottesville the
worst meat shortage it had experienced. For a month butcher shops
were bare until the price control was finally lifted on October 15,
leaving sugar rationing the only important survivor of wartime food
controls. When that, too, was ended in June, 1947, the Charlottesville
housewife could do her week-end shopping with nothing to

remind her of the war—except the new prices, which were sometimes
double those of 1939. One Charlottesville shopper, who had
been forced to discontinue buying butter, the price of which had
climbed out of sight, compared the cost of things which went into
the market basket in June, 1946, before the end of O. P. A., with
the cost of the same items in October, 1947. The results were
startling and discouraging.[48]

                           

	June, 1946	October, 1947
Pork chops, 1 lb.	$0.37	$0.65
Eggs, 1 doz.	.47	.80
Sausage, 1 lb.	.35	.49
Coffee, 1 lb.	.24	.41
Bread, 1 loaf	.12	.14
Potatoes, 10 lbs.	.31	.41
Tomatoes, 1 lb.	.15	.13
Cabbage, 3 lbs.	.08	.15
Soap, 1 large cake	.10	.18
Flour, 10 lbs.	.54	1.05
Peas, 1 can	.13	.16
Milk, 1 can	.10	.12
	$2.96	$4.69

Housing and Rent Control

In January, 1942, nearly two weeks before President Roosevelt
requested all Washingtonians not engaged in essential war work to
leave the already crowded capital, Randolph H. Perry, executive secretary
of the Charlottesville and Albemarle Chamber of Commerce,
wrote Representative Howard W. Smith suggesting that non-essential
residents of the District of Columbia move to the uncrowded communities
in neighboring states. “I am sure,” he explained, “that
many of these small cities are in the same position as we in Charlottesville,
where, due to the rapid decrease in University enrollment,
many houses and apartments in the University section of town will
be vacated. For this reason we could take care of a considerable number
of the people from Washington.”[49]

By May many inquiries regarding housing were being received,
particularly from Newport News, Virginia, and Washington. At
the same time it was thought that many vacationists who had habitually
gone to the now crowded seashore resorts were considering inland
recreation, but the difficulties of travel made their coming uncertain.
Actually there was a great decrease in the number of tourists.
A survey published in December, 1942, indicated that in spite of
some gain in population. Charlottesville still had housing facilities
available for nearly 1,000 people. The county meanwhile had suffered

an actual decrease in population. As relatively adequate housing
continued to be available throughout the early war years, rent
control was not instituted in Charlottesville and Albemarle County
until well after V-J Day.

The housing picture, however, was not actually as rosy as it
seemed. In 1940 Albemarle County had had 5,942 dwelling units
of which only 5,513 were occupied, and Charlottesville had had 5,519
of which only 5,269 were occupied. Together county and city had had
679 vacant dwellings, but many of these were sub-standard. In
1940 the average renter paid $15.28 per month in Albemarle County
and $30.46 per month in Charlottesville. As in most other localities,
nearly all house construction was suspended during the war
years. In 1942, for example, building permits authorizing only
$78,515 worth of construction were issued in Charlottesville, as
against $1,047,808 in 1939. During the decade ending in 1942
the annual average had exceeded $450,000. An increasingly large
deficit in housing accumulated until the return of peace found Charlottesville
with a shortage of dwellings.[50]

The opening of the School of Military Government at the University
of Virginia on May 9, 1942, brought a recurring influx of
Army officers. These men, who expected soon to go overseas, frequently
rented homes and brought their families to Charlottesville.
The officers in time finished their courses and departed, but, charmed
by the community, their families often remained for the duration.
Thus Charlottesville filled up with Army families.[51]

For various reasons many landlords were unwilling to rent to families
with small children. On March 23, 1944, the classified advertisement
column of The Daily Progress carried an appeal. “Are
children a disgrace in Charlottesville? I am the wife of a Marine in
active service, with three children under five years old. I am trying
to find a three to five room apartment where I can make a home for
them while their father is risking his life daily to protect you and
your children, but I am turned from every vacant place I have found
on account of the children. I have references from every place I
have lived. I am not asking charity, I am asking a home. Is it a
sin to have children in Charlottesville and to bring them up as law
abiding citizens? Is there a real red blooded patriotic property owner
in Charlottesville who will rent me a home?” Mrs. George H.
Hawkins, who made the appeal, received many answers and soon was
located in a comfortable four-room apartment.[52]

In the early summer of 1945, at the request of the Office of Price
Administration, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U. S. Department
of Labor made a survey of rent conditions in Charlottesville.
In July reports of excessive rentals being charged by landlords caused
Mayor Roscoe S. Adams to make a personal investigation of conditions.
He concluded that the rent situation was “going from bad

to worse” and that some form of control was needed. The local
press meanwhile editorially condemned those landlords who had
“taken advantage of wartime conditions to exact unreasonable increases.”
After waiting a reasonable time for the announcement of
O. P. A. action, Mayor Adams sent telegrams to the deputy O. P. A.
administrator for rent, to Senator Harry F. Byrd, and to Representative
Smith asking whether or not a ceiling would be placed on rents
in the city. On August 8 Representative Smith reported that O. P. A.
did not think the situation in Charlottesville justified rent ceilings.
The same morning a letter informed the mayor that one large property
owner had increased his rents twenty-five per cent as of September
1. Disappointed by the refusal of O.P.A. to take action, Mayor
Adams was left without any effective means of checking rising rents.
Because conditions had changed a great deal for the worse since the
Department of Labor survey and because the city of Charlottesville
was literally bulging at its seams so far as living quarters were concerned,
he felt another survey was needed.[53]

In a surprise move on January 3, 1946, J. Fulmer Bright, O. P. A.
district director, announced that rent control would be established
in Charlottesville and all of Albemarle County starting February 1.
On that date all residential rentals were to be rolled back fourteen
months to the October 1, 1944, level. Although there was comment
that it had been too long delayed, the action was generally
hailed with approval. After expressing his delight that the government
was taking the situation in hand, Mayor Adams added,
“It is a sad commentary, however, on the conduct and business tactics
of a small minority of the citizens of Charlottesville that such
a step became necessary.”

Landlords voiced most of the opposition. F. L. Harris, president
of the local Real Estate Board, conceded that the situation was
critical and that some rents were too high, but he concluded that the
O. P. A. had acted too late. “They have set October 1, 1944,
which was the peak of prices, as a base,” he admitted, but he also
contended, “It will not work because in justice to property owners
each case will have to be based on a fair return.” After reviewing
the history of local housing construction, he asserted, “There is only
one way to relieve the building shortage in Charlottesville and other
cities: for the government to release building materials and controls,
so that the independent contractors, builders, and producers can get
into the game.”[54]

One renter, a veteran of World War II, replied to the landlords.
“If you have raised the rent on any of your apartments since April,
1941, so much as one dollar without making some structural, ornamental,
or furniture change, so as to make it a better place in
which to live, then in my estimation your rent isn't exactly fair.”
On the same day another renter suggested that the O. P. A. “bring

along workers that shall help us fix up our homes, which are badly
in need of all kinds of repairs.”[55]

Before the coming of rent control efforts had been made to increase
housing in Charlottesville. Recognizing the acute shortage, on February
1, 1945, the National Housing Agency designated Charlottesville
an area in which existing buildings might be converted so as
to provide additional housing units, and during the summer construction
on most of sixty-five new homes authorized by the National
Housing Agency was underway. A special committee of the
Chamber of Commerce, headed by Haynes L. Settle, made a survey
in December of the housing needs and suggested that a corporation
be formed to construct fifty houses to rent for about forty-five or
fifty dollars a month. Later the committee made a trip to Lynchburg
to inspect the prefabricated houses set up there. However,
the most immediate relief to the housing problem came in the form
of one hundred expandable trailers installed on Copeley Hill for
married students at the University.[56]

Bernard P. Chamberlain of Charlottesville, who had been serving
as rationing executive in the O. P. A. district office in Richmond,
was named area rent director for Charlottesville and Albemarle
County on January 18, 1946. His office was located in the County
Office Building in the space formerly occupied by the Albemarle
County War Price and Rationing Board. In announcing the appointment
the O. P. A. district director said, “Mr. Chamberlain is
splendidly equipped to fill the post through training and experience.
As rationing executive he had the responsibility of handling an
annual budget in excess of $100,000 and had supervision over about
thirty-five employees. He conducted this department in a masterly
and efficient manner. As rationing attorney he brought distinction
to the district office by developing certain procedural techniques which
were adopted by other districts throughout the United States.”

When rent control became effective February 1, it was announced
that landlords had until March 15 to register their property with
the area office, although the new ceilings were effective at once. Special
registration periods were held in Charlottesville, Crozet, and
Scottsville, during which volunteer workers explained the rent control
regulations and assisted property owners in preparing forms.[57]

Some home owners who otherwise would have rented rooms to
war-veteran students at the University of Virginia were unwilling
to do so because of their fear of “red tape.” By February 21 reports
to this effect had become so numerous that Chamberlain felt it necessary
to refute them. After pointing out that anyone who had an
extra room could do a conspicuous service by renting it to a veteran
who was trying to get an education under the G. I. Bill of Rights,
Chamberlain declared that the reports had been based on misconceptions
of the rent control regulations. “In the first place,” he

said, “there is very little Government red tape involved in leasing
rooms. Secondly, undesirable roomers may be evicted promptly.
Thirdly, the rent ceilings generally prevailing here in September,
1944, were sufficiently high to insure a reasonable profit to any landlord.”
Generally speaking, the people of Charlottesville and Albemarle
responded well to the appeal for rooms for veterans, so well
in fact that the University was able to enroll more students than it
had ever before thought possible. A few property owners, however,
remained for a time reluctant to rent houses which they hoped to sell
in the near future because they were not sure they would be able to
evict a tenant at the time of sale.[58]

As March 15, 1946, approached there was a rush of landlords to
register their properties. By the twelfth approximately 3,150 housing
units had been registered, over 300 registrations being received on
that day. It was estimated that there remained seven to eight hundred
housing units to be registered. About 125 landlords had also
filed petitions for upward adjustments of rent. On the other hand,
numerous tenants requested downward adjustments. Commenting
on conditions found in Charlottesville, Lunsford L. Loving of Roanoke,
deputy rent executive for Virginia, who helped set up the local
office, said he was shocked by the high rents found in some cases and
added that rent control was needed in the city far more than in any
other area in which he had worked. The demand for homes was so
great that a “House for Rent, ten minutes drive” advertisement in
the newspaper brought sixty prompt replies.[59]

When O. P. A. expired at midnight, June 30, 1946, rent control
temporarily ceased to exist in Charlottesville and Albemarle County.
Stepping into the breach, the Real Estate Board asked property
owners not to raise rents and reminded them that if rents went up
Congress would have to reestablish some form of control. The
Board also set up a Fair Rent Committee with H. T. Van Nostrand
as chairman to review cases of unfair rents and to use “moral pressure”
to keep rents at approximately O. P. A. levels. The committee
had little chance, however, to show what it could do since
rent control was restored without change on July 26. Meanwhile,
many landlords had increased rents. In an atmosphere of rising
prices this was to be expected. A few of these same landlords had
been guilty of exceeding O. P. A. ceilings and had been forced to pay
triple damages to their tenants. Now they were anxious to charge
all the traffic would bear. A report from the Richmond office of
O. P. A. that rents in Charlottesville had increased forty-two per
cent in the first week of July was branded as exaggerated, but Chamberlain
expressed the opinion that rents had risen thirty per cent,
while Leonard H. Peterson, executive secretary of the Charlottesville
and Albemarle County Chamber of Commerce, said the rise had been

less than ten per cent. Whatever the amount of the increase, tenants
welcomed a return to the June 30 level.[60]

A year later, July 1, 1947, rent control was again extended, but
in a somewhat modified form. The average citizen by this time
had become accustomed to rent control, and, if he had a home, he
accepted the extension thankfully. There were many, however, who
had been unable to find living quarters. In October, 1947, more
families were living doubled up than ever before. In Charlottesville
over 500 households were sharing living accommodations. Recent
marriages, the return of additional servicemen, and increased enrollment
at the University created a demand for homes which exceeded
the supply of new houses, hundreds of which had been constructed
during the preceding year.[61]

During the war public opinion concerning the Office of Price Administration
was as various as the individual natures of the millions
affected by its regulations. Many felt that it was oppressive. In the
early part of the postwar transition era higher prices and a disillusioning
continuation of relative scarcities in nearly all types of consumer
goods made some citizens reconsider and reverse their adverse
judgments. As prices continued their upward spiral during the
summer and autumn of 1947, when rental ceilings were the last
remaining vestige of the formerly comprehensive program of O. P.
A., there was constant talk to the effect that rationing and price control
should be revived. At the same time mounting construction
costs impeded efforts to solve the housing problem and left many
veterans wondering when they would get the home of their own
for which they had traveled half way around the world to fight.

VI
Manufacturing War Goods

Months before Pearl Harbor, Charlottesville and Albemarle County
were already feeling the defense boom. Local corporations in 1941
had their best year since 1929 with earnings of practically all of
them above those reported in 1940. Many were able to declare
extra dividends at the end of the year. Expansion projects were completed
by Frank Ix and Sons, the Crozet Cold Storage Corporation,
the Lee Bakery Company, and O. E. & C. L. Hawkins. The Monticello
Dairy, Crozet Cold Storage, and other firms took advantage
of prosperity to refund outstanding bonds. All three Charlottesville
banks declared larger dividends than those of the preceding year.
The Alberene Stone Corporation of Virginia, employing nearly
500 people, turned out more than a hundred carloads of soapstone
per month, with sixty per cent of this production going into national
defense work.[1]

Cooperation was the keynote of the Albemarle war effort. In
the first months of the war when it was feared that government contracts
might pass Charlottesville by, one city organization after another
declared in favor of a program for bringing war orders to the
county. The Retail Merchants Association, the Young Men's Business
Club, and the Business and Professional Women's Club were
joined by several of the civic clubs in this move. In order to coordinate
these efforts an Advisory Planning Board was organized on
August 15, 1942, composed of representatives from these clubs, the
Chamber of Commerce, the City Council, the County Board of Supervisors,
and other organizations.[2] The business organization of
the community was further strengthened in October when Leonard
H. Peterson was named executive secretary of the Charlottesville and
Albemarle County Chamber of Commerce to fill a vacancy of several
months' duration.[3]

As soon as the nation had actually been plunged into war, local
businessmen went into high gear. In May, 1943, Peterson described
what was happening in Charlottesville:

By the end of 1943 local war production had reached its peak.
The fifteen leading manufacturing industries in that year employed
an average of 2,400 persons and produced $13,250,000 worth of
goods, of which eighty per cent was classifiable as war material.[5]
The pressure of this increased production was felt in every phase of
the community's economic life. Stores, inundated by increased business,
struggled in vain to find workers to handle it. Laundries were
overwhelmed as their employees disappeared. Sometimes it took three
weeks to get a clean shirt. Four times during the war the Home
Laundry, for example, had to stop collections until it had worked
itself out from under the pile of soiled clothes it had already gathered.[6]
The Daily Progress, confronted with the newsprint shortage,
decreased the number of its pages and on Saturdays shrank to tabloid
size, eliminating advertising.

In spite of every handicap, these businesses were able to contribute
to the war effort. The stores sold war bonds and participated in
other campaigns. The newspaper gave its columns generously to
all war drives. Radio station WCHV devoted one-third of its time
to community war service. An outstanding example of its enterprise
came before dawn of D-Day. Knowing the intense interest
with which local families were awaiting the news of the opening
of the second front, WCHV promised to announce the beginning of
the invasion by telephone to all its listeners who would send in their
names and telephone numbers to the station. By the night of June
5, 1944, WCHV had accumulated a list of 175 advertisers and public

officials and 125 families with sons in the service. About 1:00
A. M., Eastern War Time, on the morning of June 6, 1944, just as
the first troops were hitting the Normandy beaches, Charles Barham,
Jr., an owner of the station, was aroused by the United Press.
Immediately he called his manager, Randolph Bean, and forty-five
minutes later WCHV went on the air. By three o'clock, when the
authenticity of the news was established, Barham began to send out
the promised notifications with the aid of two operators provided
by the Virginia Telephone and Telegraph Company. Within an
hour and a half 300 telephones were jangling in the ears of sleeping
residents of Charlottesville to bring them the exciting news that
D-Day had arrived.

As the intensity of the war effort increased, it became unnecessary
to seek business, since local industry had more than it could
handle. With Selective Service draining off more and more of the
potential labor supply, it became almost impossible to replace employees
departing for military service. As early as 1941, in anticipation
of the rapid expansion of defense industries, special free industrial
arts classes had been set up in Charlottesville to train men and
women in the skills needed in war plants, but the number trained in
these classes was only a fraction of those needed.

By the spring of 1944, local manufacturers and other business men
decided to meet the emergency by mobilizing all available manpower.
A group of employers, therefore, launched the Charlottesville Go-To-Work
campaign. Setting up headquarters with borrowed furniture
in the showroom of Earl H. Vaughan, successor to Burnley
Brothers Coal Company, a committee began an enthusiastic five
months' campaign on April 10. A large banner stretched across West
Main Street, and bold posters in the headquarters windows called the
attention of all passers-by to the need for workers. There were frequent
appeals on the radio for war production volunteers. All this
advertising brought in a total of 411 applicants; even three town
derelicts were inspired to enlist. Of this total, 366 persons were
referred to available jobs and at least one out of every four was hired.
Since this response fell far short of filling the demand, the campaign
shifted to a thorough house-to-house canvass undertaken by teachers
from the city schools under the direction of Mrs. J. Tevis Michie.
All this ringing of door bells disclosed only 208 persons who were
willing and able to go to work. Anxious employers sent postcards
to these applicants asking them to report for an interview, and in at
least two instances the employers were so eager that they went after
the applicants in person. In most cases, however, those interviewed
showed little interest in the jobs.[7]

The bottom of the manpower barrel had been scraped as bare as
Mother Hubbard's cupboard. This labor shortage was in large measure
offset by overtime work. Indeed, there were very few wage

earners in war industry who did not work more than the standard
forty-hour week. While “time and a half” and even “double time”
for overtime and holiday work made a strong appeal to all and played
a great part in securing the necessary man-hours, yet most factory employees
were also impelled by a high sense of patriotic duty. Willing
hands were found to make the millions of dollars worth of important
war goods which poured from the factories of Charlottesville
and Albemarle County.

Textile Mills

One of the most important records of achievement was that of the
plant of Frank Ix and Sons, Inc. Paradoxically, the Ix war output
was devoted primarily to the preservation rather than to the destruction
of life. Ix silk looms had switched from luxurious crepes and
satins to parachute fabrics long before Pearl Harbor. In fact, in
August of 1941 the company completed an extension, at the cost of
$128,000 of its own funds, which increased its monthly capacity by
422,400 yards of parachute cloth.[8] First silk and later nylon were
woven into fabrics designed to save the life of the aviator leaping
from his doomed plane. The Ix looms also turned out rayon which
was used for parachutes to drop supplies to men in isolated spots or
to retard the speed of descending flares. Ix 'chute fabrics served a
deadly purpose only on fragmentation bombs. Parachutes were attached
to these bombs to delay their descent until the plane dropping
them was safely out of range. The local Ix mill, working a 168-hour
week, together with the firm's New Holland, Pennsylvania, factory
turned out these fabrics so rapidly that one of the trade papers acclaimed
them as “the country's largest manufacturer of parachute
cloth.”[9] In this production the Charlottesville mill outstripped its
family rival.

Further protection to American airmen was provided by Ix-woven
textiles for use in flak suits and flak curtains, which shielded fliers
from anti-aircraft fragments. Another use of Ix fabrics was in the
manufacture of G-suits, designed to lessen the effect of gravity on
pilots in dives and turns. The Charlottesville mill also developed a
special “rip-stop” cloth for airplane wings. This was woven in small,
seamed squares, which kept bullet holes from turning into dangerous
tears.

Far from being a war baby, the Ix mill first became known in Virginia
industrial circles in 1928, but not until 1945 was a Virginia
charter secured for the local plant. Under the direction of Frank Ix,
Jr., the plant grew from 50 employees in 1929 to 370 in 1941; the
wartime peak of 650 workers was reached in 1945. By this time
the $47,000 annual payroll of 1929 had increased more than twenty-fold,
and yearly wage payments amounted to over $1,000,000.[10]

During the war years ten per cent of this payroll went regularly
into the purchase of war bonds. National recognition for the Ix contributions
to the war effort came first on September 26, 1942, in the
form of a Minute Man Flag from the U. S. Treasury Department.
This award was authorized when ninety per cent of the employees
put ten per cent of their gross earnings into war bonds through payroll
allotments. For four years, 1942–1945, the Ix workers participated
a hundred per cent in the payroll allotment plan. During the
Third War Loan the employees each contributed an entire week's pay
to the purchase of bonds in addition to their regular payroll allotment.[11]

The company's production excellence was recognized on April 17,
1943, with the awarding of the coveted Army-Navy “E”. The official
presentation a month later on May 16 was a proud moment in
the history of Charlottesville, marking the first time such an award
had been given in this area. In fact, at that time only two per cent
of the industrial plants of the nation engaged in war work had received
this honor. Governor Colgate W. Darden, Jr., spoke at the
ceremony, stressing the fact that the Ix plant had become absorbed in
the life of the community in which it was located. In accepting the
award Frank Ix, Jr., praised the spirit of teamwork and the intense
determination for victory manifested by the workers. Stars indicating
a renewal of the honor were added to the “E” pennant on February
19, 1944, September 9, 1944, and April 23, 1945.[12]

The local war industry suffered all the usual trouble of labor
shortages, transportation difficulties, and scarcity of raw materials. In
December, 1943, the company through an advertisement in The Daily
Progress pleaded with “Girls Over 18—Also Boys Over 16” to start
to work at wages from $20.80 a week. The draft continued to take
more experienced workers; by April, 1945, some 212 former employees
were in the service.[13] In the face of such losses it was no mean
task to live up to the Army-Navy “E”. The training program for
new workers was accelerated so rapidly that young women after a
short period of training were performing jobs that had once been
handled only by men with as much as four years of training. Commuting
problems were solved by a well developed share-the-ride program
and by a special bus which brought in employees from surrounding
communities. At the same time houses were purchased or
built as homes for employees brought into the community.[14]

The character of the Ix workers is indicated by the record they set
for safety. The plant on November 1, 1944, started a period of operation
without a single accident serious enough to cause an employee to
lose time from his work. On July 9, 1945, the mill carried this
record of safe operation through 1,250,000 man-hours, entitling it to
a Certificate of Merit issued by the Liberty Mutual Insurance Company

The Ix mill in Charlottesville receives the first star for its “E” pennant.

for conspicuous achievement in accident prevention. By the
time the award was made, on August 6, the workers had already
added another month to this record and were still going strong.[15] Not
until December 18, 1946, was there an accident to break the record.
By that time 3,251,932 accident-free man-hours of work had been
attained. The Certificate of Merit joined the Minute Man Flag and
the thrice-starred Army-Navy “E” burgee in the honors garnered by
this Charlottesville plant.

Also prized is a letter now in an honored spot in the company's
scrapbook. It was written by Lieutenant General A. A. Vandegrift,
Commandant of the Marine Corps and a native of Charlottesville.
The general expressed his appreciation for the “Navy scarfs”—neckties
to civilians—sent him as a gift by one of the leading war industries
in his home town. Many a Marine, Army, and Navy airman
probably felt even more keenly a sense of appreciation for the
wartime contribution of the nation's largest producer of parachute
cloth.

Not only the cloth for parachute canopies but also shroud lines
were produced in Charlottesville. The Virginia Braid Company
began manufacturing 'chute cords early in 1941, changing over from
its peacetime output of furniture cord and dress braid. Absorbed by
Virginia Textiles, Inc., November 1, 1944, the plant continued to
produce parachute lines, as well as cords for tents, cargo covers, and
uniforms.[16]

Cloth for uniforms came from a veteran producer of military fabrics.
Since 1935 the Charlottesville Woolen Mills had been turning
out goods for Navy uniforms. Cadets at the United States Military
Academy at West Point, New York, Virginia Military Institute, and
Virginia Polytechnic Institute were usually clad in Charlottesville-woven
fabrics. The war therefore meant only an acceleration of normal
production up to the rate of 15,000 yards a month, or a half-million
dollars a year in value. Most of this cloth was taken by the
Navy.

Three other local textile plants took part in the war effort. Henderson
and Ervin, peacetime manufacturer of men's and women's
clothing under the “Rockingchair” brand, began producing uniforms
for Red Cross nurses in February, 1942, and six months later added
hospital uniforms for Army nurses. Shirtwaists for WACs and Red
Cross workers were also manufactured. War production leaped from
26,808 units in 1942 to 84,282 in 1944, while employment rose
from 88 to 128.[17] The plant of the Monticello Shirt Company,
taken over by Knothe Brothers, Inc., produced men's shorts for the
Army at the rate of 100,000 a year. Construction begun shortly
after the end of the war doubled the capacity of this factory.[18] The
Albemarle Weaving Company attempted to convert its looms, designed

for producing upholstery and drapery materials, to war purposes,
but was unable to secure the necessary priorities for the equipment.
The company therefore had to continue its peacetime products
with the result that output dropped from 750,000 yards in 1941 to
350,000 in 1944, while employment shrank from 250 in 1941 to
64 in 1945. A small percentage of this production, however, did
find its way into military service.[19]

Machine Shops

Among the heavier industries the Southern Welding and Machine
Company provided a rags-to-riches success story in the best Horatio
Alger tradition. The firm began in the depression thirties with little
capital other than the ingenuity and enterprise of its two partners,
R. R. Harmon and J. Tevis Michie. Its first plant was a small, abandoned
building, which leaned at a tired angle, and its first order
brought in only twenty-five cents. With no regular products of its
own, the firm became a custom foundry and machine shop, taking in
whatever business it could locate. When orders were slow, Harmon,
who was plant manager, worked on his special interest, experimental
models of gas purification and combustion equipment, and acquired
a number of patents in the process. Whatever profits were made were
devoted to the expansion of the shops and the purchase of discarded
machinery, which was moved in and put back into condition.

By 1939 this careful management had expanded the operation to
twenty-five employees and an annual business of $50,000. The next
summer brought the company its first defense order, a contract to
produce electrical stuffing tubes for the United States Coast Guard.
These tubes were used to conduct electrical wiring through bulkheads
—“partitions,” in landlubber language. The success of this initial
contract soon brought follow-up orders from the Navy, the Maritime
Commission, and private shipbuilders. Tens of thousands of
these tubes were delivered at prices well below the cost which the Navy
had established on the basis of its own production.

Another early order came as a result of the Harmon patents. To
expand the nation's output of sulphuric acid it was decided to convert
the Ducktown, Tennessee, plant of the Tennessee Copper Company
from the chamber process to the contact acid process. Gas purification
equipment controlled by some of Harmon's patents was selected
for use in the new plant, and his firm designed, built, and
supervised the installation of the equipment. This was the first time
that a wet process for purifying roaster gases for sulphuric acid production
had ever been used. The Charlottesville equipment proved
much superior to the apparatus it replaced, and its increased yield of
sulphuric acid helped to make possible the vast expansion in the
nation's output of TNT which followed.

Southern Welding's greatest achievement, however, was its contribution
to the building of the vast carrier fleet which eventually swept
the Japanese Navy off the seas. An essential part of these mobile
airfields is a device for halting the planes as they come in for a landing.
When the ship's aircraft are in the air, a series of cables are stretched
across the flightdeck. A hook in the tail of a landing plane grasps
one of these cables, and the resulting drag slows down the aircraft
and brings it to a stop. The cable is a part of a complicated assembly
called a flight-arresting gear, which must be constructed to have just
the right amount of “give.” Too much or too little elasticity may
injure both plane and pilot. Southern Welding proved so adept at
constructing these delicate mechanisms that the company was given
the task of outfitting scores of carriers. At one time in 1943 it was
working on flight-arresting gears for forty-five different carriers being
built by the Navy and private shipyards.

The Charlottesville firm also provided many flat-tops with crash
barriers. These were raised at the end of the flight deck to keep a
plane from toppling into the sea when the arresting gear failed to halt
it, and they had to be strong enough to stop a dive-bomber careening
across the deck at sixty miles an hour. Another carrier device produced
by Southern Welding was the spotting dolly. This was a four-wheeled
mobile jack, which lifted the planes and moved them about,
simplifying the problem of parking in the narrow spaces of the carrier
hold. One more product for naval aviators was the bridle-catcher
assembly used on catapult mechanisms.

While the company was going “all out” for the Navy pilots, it
somehow managed also to produce for the Army such miscellaneous
items as caps, bases, and nose-closing plugs for 90-pound fragmentation
or anti-personnel bombs; hydraulic control devices for flying
bombs; bomb band trunnions for 500-pound bombs; trail casters for
gun carriages; gun platforms for 40-millimeter anti-aircraft guns;
and trick wheels for landing craft.

Some idea of the changes this production meant for Southern Welding
can be gained from the fact that its sales mushroomed from
$67,000 in 1940 to more than $1,000,000 in 1943, an increase of
about 1,900 per cent since 1939. The plant itself more than tripled
in area between Pearl Harbor and the Japanese surrender, growing
from 16,000 to 53,000 square feet of floor space. The expanded
facilities included a large fabrication shop, a boiler house, and a private
railroad siding, all built in large part of salvaged materials. The
trusses of the fabricating shop came from the dismantled Sixth Avenue
Elevated Railway in New York City, and the only items the Chesapeake
and Ohio Railway supplied for the siding were the switch and
a signal light. New equipment was brought in at a cost of $72,000,
of which $43,000 came from the company's funds.

This rapid expansion placed a severe strain on working capital.
Money to pay wages and bills for raw materials had to be borrowed
from a local bank until payment arrived for completed contracts.
Growing with mounting inventories, the loan eventually reached ten
per cent of the bank's deposits, the legal maximum for a single loan.
Additional funds then had to be secured through the Federal Reserve
Bank, with the Navy guaranteeing repayment. Raw materials were
often as hard to find as money. While the firm had top priorities,
this meant merely the right to buy the material if it could be located.
Nevertheless, the company usually managed to get its deliveries
through on time and never caused an important delay in production.

Southern Welding's biggest problem, however, was recruiting and
training its labor force. Employment jumped from 25 in 1939 to
a peak of 204 in 1943, but it proved impossible to hold this many
workers under wartime conditions. Forty-eight employees left to
enter the armed forces. Training the industrial recruits required managerial
ingenuity. When the company took on the crash barrier contract,
it discovered that its new and unskilled workers could not read
the blueprints. The management went to work and produced a set
of drawings of a different and more readily understandable type. Delighted
with the results of this initiative, the Navy incorporated the
drawings into a manual for use aboard all carriers on which this type
of crash barrier was installed.

While producing vital war materiel, the Southern Welding and
Machine Company earned the right to fly the U. S. Treasury Department
Minute Man Flag and the Army-Navy “E” burgee with three
white stars. When the first award of the Army-Navy “E” was announced
in January, 1944, J. Tevis Michie remarked that “all credit
must go to our employees for the splendid job they have done on war
contracts.” The presentation of the “E” flag was made in the company's
fabrication shop on February 26 by Captain Edgar M. Williams,
U. S. Navy, the commanding officer of the V - 12 unit at the
University of Virginia. At the same time Brigadier General E. R.
Warner McCabe, U. S. Army, commanding officer of the School of
Military Government, presented award pins to each of the company's
employees. Stars signifying continuing outstanding excellence in war
production during subsequent six-month periods were added on July
24, 1944, January 29, 1945, and September 1, 1945.

The company's problems after V-J Day exceeded anything which
had been experienced in the hectic days of the war. When a nationwide
strike of steel workers in January, 1946, threatened to shut off
the firm's supply of its chief raw material for postwar production of
bulldozers, road scrapers, earth movers, food processing equipment,
and other custom-built appliances, 88 out of 103 employees joined
the two partners of the firm in denouncing federal labor policies which

Captain Williams presents to Southern Welding's partners their first
“E” flag.

permitted such a strike to occur. Their protest and constructive criticism
took the form of an open letter to the President of the United
States which was published at their own expense in a full-page advertisement
in the local newspaper. Copies of it were sent to Virginia
delegates in Congress as well as to the President. The threatened
shut-down, following an unavoidable slow-down, materialized in February,
1946, and lasted two weeks. Soon after steel could be
obtained again, the company had secured sufficient orders to justify
increasing the work week from forty hours to fifty-four. With the
lifting of the Federal lid on wages, three general wage increases were
voluntarily instituted. Although business was well below the wartime
peak, it was still more than four times the average of 1939, indicating
that this infant industry had grown to maturity.[20]

Another metal-working firm, N. W. Martin and Brothers, continued
its peacetime production of roof and sheet metal through 1942.
Its output was used in the construction of Camp Lee, Fort Belvoir,
and the Woodrow Wilson General Hospital near Staunton, Virginia.
In 1943, however, the firm took an entirely new line, the molding of
plastics, when it received a contract to make noses for Black Widows.
The nature of this work was a well-guarded secret for several years
until military developments permitted the Army to release the story
of its deadly night fighter. Making plastic noses for the plane should
have presented a problem for sheet-metal workers, but Martin and
Brothers earned the commendation of the Air Technical Service Command
for the way in which they handled the job. Instead of waiting
for the necessary new equipment to arrive, the firm set to work to
produce the machinery in its own shops. At the same time employees
were trained in the new processes so that equipment and workers were
ready to start the job simultaneously. This enterprise enabled the
Martins to turn out noses for two thousand Black Widows.[21]

Quarries

Out in the county the Alberene Stone Corporation of Virginia
found military uses for its soapstone. Although the company had no
direct contracts with the government, it estimated that nearly three
million dollars worth of its product went into war purposes. Soapstone
from its Albemarle County and Nelson County quarries was
manufactured into laboratory and photographic development equipment,
such as table-tops, trays, and fume hoods for Army and Navy
hospitals, air bases, and even aircraft carriers. Similar products were
made for the new industrial plants which multiplied the nation's
capacity for aluminum, high octane gasoline, and synthetic rubber.
Stone tubs were shipped to the Panama Canal Zone and to San Juan.
Puerto Rico, as well as to the Quantico Marine Barracks and the
Norfolk Naval Operating Base.

The difficulties encountered by the Alberene company were typical

of the problems faced by industry in general. Of the nearly 500 employees
working in 1941, about 150 entered the armed forces and
many others left for higher-paid jobs. Government orders lifting
the minimum wage to fifty cents an hour raised operating costs, as
did another directive requiring the plant to go on a forty-eight hour
week. These increases nibbled away at the profit margin until declining
orders finally put the plant into the red in 1944. Not until
August of that year, however, did the government permit an increase
in ceiling prices and then only ten per cent. President John S.
Graves of Charlottesville said of his experience: “Too many agencies
—too much red tape—too many conflicting regulations and reports.”

To top off the company's troubles, on September 18, 1944, a flash
flood resulting from twenty inches of rainfall did over $45,000
worth of damage. Water rose ten and a half feet in the mill and over
six feet in the commissary and offices. This was ten feet higher than
it had ever before gone. Eight of the largest fills of the Nelson and
Albemarle Railroad, a company subsidiary over which it shipped, were
washed away, and service was interrupted for over two months. The
flood also damaged the tracks of both the Chesapeake and Ohio and
the Southern railways, particularly the roadbed of the latter in the
southern part of the county.[22]

Another Albemarle mineral product which enlisted for the duration
was slate. The Blue Ridge Slate Corporation was fortunate in
being able to continue all its regular peacetime products except roofing
slate. New machinery added during the war doubled its capacity
and enabled it to shorten the 168-hour week it had operated during
1941. The firm's output of slate roofing granules and flour rose from
14,000 tons in 1939 to 18,000 in 1941 and then gradually declined
to 14,500 tons in 1944. The company estimated that eighty
per cent of this production went indirectly to the War Department
and to Lend-Lease.

Miscellaneous

A third county business expanded its plant just in time to take a
prominent part in the war effort. Founded in 1929, the Crozet Cold
Storage Corporation was merely a warehouse for Albemarle-grown
fruit until 1941. In that year the company added quick-freezing
facilities to process foods. The outbreak of hostilities made this plant
even more valuable than had been expected. In the four years, 1941–
1944, it stored 155,000 bushels of Albemarle apples and 35,000
bushels of local peaches. In addition it was pressed into service to
process 26,000 bushels of snap beans for the government. To supply
so many “snaps” was far beyond the capacity of Albemarle farmers,
and beans came from Tennessee and North Carolina to be processed
at Crozet. The plant was also called upon to freeze and store five
million pounds of poultry. Another function it performed was to
serve as a sort of “staging area” for frozen foods. Sometimes refrigerator

cars loaded with such foods as meat, eggs, and lard for overseas
consignment arrived in the East when no shipping space was
available. In such cases the cars had to be routed to a plant like the
one at Crozet where food could be stored until shipping was available.[23]

Another firm with a big part in the war effort was the Barnes Lumber
Corporation, which filled government contracts amounting to
nearly $2,000,000. It supplied to the Army and Navy its peacetime
products, oak flooring and millwork, as well as thousands of
feet of special-purpose lumber. This company made crates for antiaircraft
guns, boxes for ammunition, and wooden pallets to expedite
the handling of goods in warehouses and shipping. Its most curious
product was a large quantity of wooden discs, designed to counteract
magnetic mines. Suffering from the usual problems, the company
saw its workers decline from 360 in 1941 to 220 in 1944, even
though it sent out its own trucks to bring the employees to their jobs.[24]

At least three other city firms turned out war goods. The Charlottesville
Lumber Company used its experience in manufacturing
window sash and door frames to produce prefabricated barracks and
radar buildings as well as crates for one and one-half ton trucks.[25]
The Essex Corporation turned out thousands of fountain pens, while
L. H. Wiebel, Inc., manufactured 22,000,000 wooden insulator pins
and brackets for the telephone lines laid by the United States Signal
Corps all around the world. Even the blind were able to do their
part. The superintendent of the Virginia Workshop for the Blind
reported that his sightless workers in five years had produced 118,150
brooms and 108,952 mattresses for the use of the Army and Navy.

Government Owned Plant

Newest and most modern of all the Albemarle County industries
was one which was born only in the late years of the war. In the
winter of 1943–1944 the growing demand for heavy-duty tires for
trucks and planes made necessary the expansion of rayon tire cord
production. On January 12, 1944, the United States Rubber Company
decided to locate a new plant somewhere in Central Virginia.
Two days later two company officials were in Charlottesville looking
for a suitable site. When Scottsville was recommended, the U. S.
Rubber men secured the cooperation of town officials in selecting a
location just west of the town.[26]

A hitch developed when one of the landowners demanded a hundred
dollars an acre more than the U. S. Defense Plants Corporation,
which was to build this government-owned war industrial facility,
was willing to pay, but the Scottsville Lions Club agreed to underwrite
the difference, which amounted to $3,490. This obligation was
later assumed by the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, along
with a debt of $2,623 incurred by the town of Scottsville in extending

water and sewer mains to the new plant. Scottsville furnished
$6,944 as its share of the cost of enlarging the municipal water plant,
while a grant of $5,942 from the Federal Works Agency covered the
rest.[27] Vigorous local initiative thus secured the construction of the
third largest of seven government owned war plants built in Virginia
for operation by private firms.

Early in April, 1944, ground was broken for the new plant, and
on May 24 came a momentous day in the history of Scottsville. Hundreds
of people came from miles around to witness the laying of the
cornerstone. Governor Colgate W. Darden, Jr., welcomed the plant
to the state and called it a significant step towards achieving for Virginia
an economy in which agriculture would be balanced with industry.
Other speakers included C. T. O'Neill, chairman of the Central
Virginia Planning Commission, O. L. Ward, plant-manager-to-be,
and H. E. Humphreys, Jr., vice-president of the U. S. Rubber
Company.[28]

While construction was going on, the company, which leased the
plant from the government, began training local workers to handle
the new machines. The first employees moved into the building on
October 2, although installation of the machinery was not completed
for another six weeks.[29] The building which these new workers entered
was something new and different, a near-approach to the pushbutton
factory envisioned by industrial designers. The brick and
steel structure was a large, one-story building, 444 feet long and
264 feet wide, without a single window except in the managerial
offices. Fluorescent lights and an air-conditioning system which
changed the air every four to six minutes provided weather-proof
working conditions. Humidity and temperature controls kept the
worker comfortable and made rayon spinning easier. The floors were
designed to be resilient, absorb vibration, and resist moisture. An
ultra-modern cafeteria with a noise-absorbing ceiling was among other
attractive features.

Operation of the machinery was nearly automatic. At the push of
a button an overhead conveyor system picked up a huge half-ton
beam of rayon filament yarn, brought it to the proper machine, picked
up the empty beam, replaced it with the full one, and then rolled the
empty beam to the doorway where it could be loaded on a railroad
freight car. The filament yarn was pulled off the beam by ply-twisting
spindles. The resulting thread was respooled, twisted into high-tenacity
cord, and then woven into tire fabric. The conveyor system
finally picked up the huge roll of cord fabric and deposited it in the
storage area.[30]

This efficient process was especially valuable in wartime. With the
machines handling all the heavy work, women could do nine jobs
out of every ten in the manufacturing process and seven out of ten
in the plant as a whole. This made it much easier to recruit workers

Weaving tire cord fabric in the U. S. Rubber Company plant at
Scottsville.

in a man-short area. Starting with a skeleton staff, the plant had 136
employees in November, 1944, and by Christmas was over the 200-mark.
Employment, expected to reach a maximum of 300 in March,
1945, had actually climbed to 350 by the fall of that year. The
workers toiled around the clock on a three-shift basis, six days a week.
In fact, during the spring of 1945 they kept the spindles turning for
ninety days without a stop at the request of the War Department.
Fifteen per cent of the employees received citations for not missing
a day during the period.[31]

Transformed almost overnight from a rural village to an indus
trial town, Scottsville created a Town Planning Commission to ease
its growing pains. Since the company had imported very few workers,
the housing problem was not critical. Local employees, however,
came from such great distances that the commission decided to seek
low-cost housing facilities to enable them to move nearer their jobs.
The tax structure had to be revised to pay for new civic services, including
the expanded waterworks and a proposed municipal building.[32]

Then, six weeks after the Japanese surrender, came an announcement
that the Federal government was selling the factory. The Reconstruction
Finance Corporation listed the Scottsville plant with 949
other “surplus properties” to be put on the auction block and knocked
down to the highest bidder. The R. F. C. description read like a
barren obituary: completed in 1944 at a cost of $2,400,000, affording
a total floor area of 125,500 square feet, located on approximately
sixty-six and three-quarters acres.[33] Unlisted in the inventory was
the managerial enterprise which had made equipment designed to
produce 1,200,000 pounds of cord a month turn out almost 2,000,000
pounds every month.[34]

Accomplishments like this, however, had demonstrated the value
of the Scottsville plant and saved it from the premature death which
was the fate of many a war-born industry. No less than four large
corporations tried to acquire it, with the U. S. Rubber Company
carrying off the prize for $1,837,500.[35] Since the new owner was
already in charge of the factory, the change-over was made without
the loss of a minute's working time. Albemarle's war baby had
grown to manhood and was ready to stand on its own feet in the
competition of peacetime private enterprise.

Local corporations bethought themselves of postwar planning as
early as 1944. On September 1 a seven man planning commission
was appointed by Charlottesville's mayor, J. Emmett Gleason. The
county also named a commission, and on November 3 coordination
was achieved by the selection of a three-man steering committee. This
was composed of representatives of the city, county, and Central Virginia
planning commissions. Over 2,000 questionnaires were sent to
local servicemen throughout the world asking their civilian job-preferences

and qualifications. Other surveys undertaken in connection
with this program reported that seventeen manufacturers in the city
and county area were employing 1,936 workers in 1944, as compared
with 1,711 in 1940. These manufacturers estimated that they
would need 2,233 employees for postwar production. The indicated
increase of 300 persons in manufacturing was expected to create from
450 to 600 additional jobs in the service industries and construction
trades, promising that the Albemarle area would be busier than ever
in the postwar world. Further evidence of a bright business future
was found in increased bank clearings. The January-February, 1946,
volume of debits for Charlottesville was $48,022,000, which was
332 per cent higher than the 1939 average. Only seven other cities
in the United States had as great increases in clearings over prewar
days.[36]

Charlottesville and Albemarle County were primarily non-industrial,
having by far the greater part of their citizens engaged in business
and professional services and in agriculture. Yet, when called
upon to help supply the Army and the Navy, the community responded
in a manner which won the appreciation of the nation.
Justly proud of the fact that Southern Welding and Frank Ix and
Sons were two of the seventeen privately operated Virginia plants
which added three or more stars to their Army-Navy “E” burgees,
the whole people rejoiced in the knowledge that together employer
and employee had kept local industry in uninterrupted production
for victory.

VII
Producing Food and Fiber

Food for combatant armies has ever been one of the requisites of
war. Famous generals from Alexander the Great to Eisenhower
have attested to this fact. During the Second World War production
of food proved to be more indispensable than ever before. This
circumstance was attributable directly to practices to which Germany
and Japan resorted. In Europe, for example, the Germans planned
and carried out a scientific system of looting the countries they invaded.
Not only did invading German armies appropriate harvested
crops and livestock for their own consumption: carloads of agricultural
produce and farm animals were also sent into Germany for
civilian consumption. Every precaution was taken to divest the
farmers in conquered countries of seeds for sowing new crops and
to deprive them of grain for feeding what livestock remained. German
dieticians calculated meticulously what would constitute a subnormal
diet for their conquered neighbors, thereby guaranteeing their
ultimate debilitation. Throughout the years of the war these peoples
were undernourished, while Germany lived on the fat of their
lands.

Untouched by enemy incursions, the United States was fortunate
in that its land was neither invaded nor plundered. American farmers
were left free to pursue the cultivation of their fields unmolested.
They became aware of the importance of the task which was to be
theirs in the struggle against Germany, Italy, and Japan. Not all
but many of them soon recognized that the goals for increased food
production set forth by the Federal government were fully justified,
though its proposals seemed staggering. Many farmers understood
that food must be raised for their sons overseas; that the people at
home, active in producing the materials of war, required adequate
nourishment; that the allies engaged in fighting off invading armies
or air forces were in need of a supplement to their rapidly diminishing
food supplies; and that whole populations in conquered countries,
people who were most cruelly affected by the lack of food,
were in dire need of any relief which could be gotten to them. In
fact, the American farmer found it necessary to think in terms not
only of his own welfare but also of his community, his country, and

the world as a whole. He met the food crisis and produced what
was required.

Since agricultural interests had been predominant in Albemarle
County, the production of food for American consumption and for
shipment abroad to allied nations naturally occupied the 15,955 persons
who were living on its farms when this country was drawn
into the war. Although never disturbed by foreign invasion, the
production of food did not progress with uninterrupted smoothness
during the war. Shortages of labor and machinery, and price ceilings
which were in some instances restrictive, brought problems which
challenged patriotic effort as well as understanding of the unprecedented
production goals set by the Federal government. Various
divisions of the Department of Agriculture, together with additional
Federal and state agencies related to agriculture, worked to inform
the Albemarle farmer of his responsibilities to himself and to his
country. The city dwellers of Charlottesville and residents of the
towns of the county were encouraged from the spring of 1942 to
join Albemarle County farmers in producing food. Their Victory
Gardens brought into this phase of the war effort a large fraction
of the total population of the community.[1]

Food Production Goals

National goals for the production of food in 1942, the largest in
the history of American agriculture to that time, were nineteen per
cent higher than the 1935–1939 average. They provided for greatly
increased acreages of soybeans and peanuts to meet the shortage of
vegetable oil, which had previously been imported from the Philippines,
and they called for expansion in dairy products, livestock,
and vegetable crops. Albemarle County farmers were to produce
greater quantities of each of these last three types of food and were
to grow 270 acres of soybeans besides in 1942.[2]

Goals for 1943 represented a one per cent increase over 1942.
Greater quantities of livestock, cheese, skim milk, and vegetable crops
were needed for military consumption and shipment under Lend-Lease;
more peanuts and fewer soybeans were asked. Seventy-five
per cent of the year's food production was allocated to the civilian
population of the United States, thirteen per cent to the armed forces,
which numbered 7,000,000 at the beginning of 1943, ten per cent
to the allies through Lend-Lease, and two per cent to United States
territories. Albemarle County was to produce nine per cent more
milk, three and five-tenths per cent more eggs, one per cent more
sows to farrow, eighty-five per cent more soybeans (contrary to the
national pattern), and nine-tenths of one per cent more Irish potatoes.[3]

As labor on the farms grew scarcer and still further increases in
the production of food were necessary, the national goals for 1944

were directed toward better use of land; a higher production per acre
and per animal unit, rather than an increase in acreage, was sought.
Feed grains and forage crops were to be planted in greater quantities
than before; this meant more plantings of alfalfa, legumes, and corn
hybrids. Goals for the last year of the war were similar to those of
1944, with again an added increase.[4]

The beginning of the war found the majority of Albemarle farmers
practicing general farming for the cultivation of grains, hay, and
pasture crops for dairy herds and beef cattle, hogs, horses, poultry,
and sheep. The fruit growers held orchards which provided a substantial
portion of the county's agricultural income. Albemarle led
the counties of Virginia in peach production, and its annual average
crop of Carmens, Elbertas, and Georgia Belles was 170,000 bushels.
Several varieties of apples were grown, including Winesaps, Stark's
Delicious, Stayman Winesaps, and Albemarle Pippins. Scattered
throughout the county were several breeders of beef cattle raising
Herefords and Angus. In addition to the dairy farms in the county,
two of the larger dairy industries in the state, the Elliott Ice Company
and the Monticello Dairy, Incorporated, were located in Charlottesville.
About forty per cent of the county was in woodland,
a profitable source of forest products.[5]

The cooperation of the crop farmers, fruit growers, livestock raisers,
and dairymen in attaining the goals fixed for each of the war
years constitutes a remarkable record. “Is there any single industry
in the nation that increased production with similar restrictions and
less labor?”, asked T. O. Scott, county agent for the Extension
Service in Albemarle. When the men left for the armed services,
women assumed unaccustomed farm duties and were frequently seen
driving tractors in the fields of the county. Foreign and migratory
labor was employed. Trucks, combines, machinery, and tools were
shared generously. And trained agriculturists representing various
government agencies contributed their specialized knowledge of methods
for increasing production.[6]

Leadership of the Agricultural Agencies

Among the first to have conceived the association of farmers and
trained agriculturists was Thomas Jefferson, as Claude R. Wickard,
Secretary of Agriculture, pointed out in an address on “Thomas
Jefferson, Founder of Modern American Agriculture” at the University
of Virginia on Founder's Day, April 13, 1944. Jefferson
was an advocate of the family-size farm which remained predominant
in the county throughout the war years. He favored abolition
of primogeniture and entail and held democratic views regarding the
disposition of the public domain. In his practice of soil conservation
at Monticello, of contour ploughing, rotation of crops, and preservation
of soil fertility, he was a forerunner of modern programs for
soil conservation. His work toward the exchange of ideas through

the Agricultural Society of Albemarle County promoted agricultural
research and led to the later development of the Extension Service.
His firm belief in the value of educational institutions and the need
of applying science to agriculture influenced the establishment of land
grant colleges. Indeed, American agriculture as it is practiced in the
twentieth century has evolved from these early conceptions and in
accordance with the principles of the great liberal thinker to whom
this region of Virginia and the world at large owe so much.[7]

Several active and cooperative agencies, whose programs were intensified
under the pressure of war, furnished scientific information
and aid to local farmers.

The Thomas Jefferson Soil Conservation District, organized in
1939, included Albemarle, Fluvanna, Goochland, Louisa, and Nelson
counties. In taking this name for their district Albemarle farmers
were not so much going back to Jefferson as, to quote Henry A.
Wallace's apt phrase, “catching up to Jefferson.” Officers and members
of the technical staff were all employees of the Department of
Agriculture who worked with advisory planning boards composed
of sixty county farmers and agricultural agents. John A. Smart was
conservationist for the district, Earl H. Brunger was soil scientist,
E. L. Bradley of Scottsville was district supervisor for Albemarle,
Robert O. Anderson was soil conservationist for Albemarle, and William
R. White was conservation aid. Conservation experiments
begun in the Ivy Creek watershed in the early thirties came under the
supervision of the Department of Agriculture in 1935. This work,
in addition to that done more recently by the Thomas Jefferson Soil
Conservation District, laid foundations for increased production during
the war.[8]

The Agricultural Adjustment Administration continued its prewar
function of assisting farmers to produce the needed commodities
in the desired quantities at the right time. Those farmers who complied
with acreage allotments and endeavored to conserve their soil
received agricultural conservation payments. Production goals, marketing
quotas, and acreage allotments were submitted to individual
farmers, who were free to declare their intentions to conform or not,
as they chose. For each of the eighteen communities into which
Albemarle was divided, there were five A. A. A. committeemen elected
by their neighbors, and each committee was headed by a chairman.
The county A. A. A. chairman became chairman of the United States
Department of Agriculture Defense Board for Albemarle County,
later known as the County War Board, organized at the beginning
of the war. In Albemarle County Larned D. Randolph was chairman
in 1942 and 1943, Arthur W. Talcott in 1944, and H. T.
Wiley in 1945. H. J. Crenshaw served as secretary during the whole
period.[9]

The Farm Security Administration continued, as before the war,

to help small farmers improve their productive ability. Through
supervision and aid in farm management this agency sought to enable
farmers to be self-sustaining. Loans averaging $500 permitted many
farm families with low incomes to buy tools, seed, cows, hogs, and
chickens. F. S. A. cooperated with the Emergency Feed and Seed
Loan Office in Culpeper, a branch of the Farm Credit Administration.
Carlyle Crigler and Ina Glick were F. S. A. supervisors for
Albemarle County throughout the war.[10]

Vocational agriculture teachers of the public school system trained
many young boys and girls for farm work. From the session of
1939–1940 through 1945–1946, under the direction of R. Claude
Graham, superintendent of Albemarle County schools, 695 white
pupils and 523 Negro students were taught various agricultural techniques,
including how to repair farm machinery.

The United States Department of Agriculture's cooperative Extension
Service is the farm and home teaching arm of the Department
of Agriculture and land grant colleges. Before the war its role was
to spread to rural families information concerning most recently
approved agricultural methods and projects recommended by the state
agricultural colleges—in Virginia, the Virginia Polytechnic Institute
at Blacksburg. During the war its leaders informed rural families
on such subjects as Victory Gardens and how to grow them, the
nutritive value of various foods, the materials needed for the salvage
program, the dangers of inflation, methods of fire protection, the
necessity of buying war bonds and stamps, and similar war problems.
They also corrected rumors, made local inventories of food
and feed, and gathered other information for victory. Albemarle
County was among the first counties in Virginia to organize both
Home Demonstration and 4-H Clubs, sponsored by the Extension
Service. In 1942 Albemarle had seventeen Home Demonstration
Clubs with a membership of 800 women; its nineteen 4-H Clubs
reached a peak membership in 1943 of 1,134 members.[11]

Many duties which arose from wartime needs were assumed by
the staff of the Extension Service in Albemarle County. It consisted
of T. O. Scott, county agent since 1927, Mrs. Bessie Dunn
Miller, Home Demonstration agent, 1917–1943, Mrs. Ruth Burruss
Huff, assistant Home Demonstration agent, 1919–1943, H. M.
Brumback, assistant county agent, Conley G. Greer, local farm agent
since 1918, Miss Bessie Jones, secretary since 1927, and Miss Jeanne
Fournier, assistant secretary.

The quality of the late Mrs. Bessie Dunn Miller's work and her
character have been commemorated in the establishment of the Bessie
Dunn Miller Center for Cancer Prevention, which was founded in
1945 through the joint efforts of the Albemarle Home Demonstration
Committee, headed by the late Mrs. C. Nelson Beck, the University
of Virginia Hospital, and the Albemarle County Medical

Society. Upon Mrs. Miller's death late in 1943, Mrs. Huff succeeded
her as Home Demonstration agent.

Under Mrs. Huff's direction hundreds of children were influenced
to become interested in making their homes liveable and in fulfilling
the duties of citizenship. A notable result of 4-H Club leadership
was the fact that during the war juvenile delinquency was not evident
among its members. Through Mrs. Huff's initiative the 4-H
Club County Camp, the first of its kind in Virginia, was established
in 1941 with the aid of the late Dr. L. G.  Roberts , chairman of the
Board of Supervisors, County Executive Henry A. Haden, and a
contribution of $1,000 from the Albemarle Terracing Association.
Classes taught in the camp centered around wartime needs and included
First Aid, avoidance of food waste, canning, soil conservation,
gardening, storage of root crops, and forestry. The assistant Home
Demonstration agent in 1944 and 1945 was Miss Isabelle Price.
In addition to her regular work as secretary to the Extension staff,
Miss Jones's activities during the war included procuring gardening
information for rural families, collecting foods for the canning center,
distributing information about methods of conserving foods,
assisting hundreds of county residents in filling out applications for
gasoline and sugar rations, helping to secure labor to harvest crops,
and obtaining permits for construction of buildings on farm property.[12]

Conducting the program of the Extension Service to the individual
farm was the County Board of Agriculture, composed of ninety members
who included the county agent and his assistant, Home Demonstration
agents, the chairman and co-chairman of each of the fifteen
communities into which the county was for this purpose divided,
and officials of various farm organizations. Women were admitted
to the County Board of Agriculture for the first time in 1942 when
the Home Demonstration Clubs began to be represented. In connection
with Extension Service volunteer leader work, the county
was divided into eighty-two neighborhoods of ten to fifteen families
each.

Supplementing the peacetime machinery of the County Board of
Agriculture, the County War Board was created to handle such special
problems as rationing of farm machinery, investigations for farm
labor deferments, and coordination of the work of the various Federal
and state organizations represented in Albemarle. It consisted
of representatives from the Soil Conservation Service, Virginia State
Forestry Service, Farm Security Administration, Farm Credit Administration,
and the Extension Service. Its chairman was the county
chairman of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. First
known as a Defense Board, it began to function in July, 1941. It
was disbanded in 1946 after Selective Service was discontinued.[13]

Albemarle Orchards and Farm Labor

The shortage of labor created by the war was a major problem
which beset the farmer. Even in the summer of 1942 it was necessary
to take steps for the provision of a sufficient number of workers
to harvest the crops. A movement to recruit school children was
started, and twenty-eight students from Charlottesville schools enrolled.
Chesley A. Haden of Crozet and others hired 500 workers
from Georgia and North Carolina to pick fruit. The Farm Security
Administration set up a labor camp on the Hunter Ballard property
for these laborers. Describing the 350 workers imported from
Georgia, Chesley A. Haden said: “Carson, a burly Negro, the leader
of the group, had a picturesque method of enforcing discipline. He
gathered them all round the dinner table, got out a yard long knife,
laid it beside him on the table, gave them orders, and they did not
shirk from that time until they left. It is my belief that our native
mountain labor is far more satisfactory for our labor camps than
any labor that we can get from the deep south, or that we can expect
to get through the Employment Service. We have been spoiled about
labor, for there is no doubt that the native mountaineer is far better
than any labor we can hope to get through the present set-up of the
government employment service.” On the whole, this labor camp
was considered a success, since it saved thousands of bushels of
peaches. Its presence, however, was not unaccompanied by problems.
Disease was one. Another was that many more trucks were
required to get the workers home than to bring them northward, as
they had accumulated a great many possessions while they were here.[14]

An exodus of men into the armed services or war industries so
depleted farm labor by 1943 that a cry of protest went up all over
the country. An Albemarle farmer, father of two boys in the Navy,
echoed this outcry in The Daily Progress when he commented,
“Observing our local conditions and press reports, we are headed
undoubtedly for short crops unless draft of farm help ceases immediately.”[15]
The Extension Service made a study of available labor
on Virginia farms and found that there was twenty per cent less than
in 1942. Through questionnaires sent to 2,000 Albemarle County
farms, H. M. Brumback found that 545 additional workers were
needed from January through March, 765 from April through June,
3,590 from July through September, and 1,960 from October
through December.

A County Farm Labor Committee was appointed by the County
War Board to coordinate the effort of local agencies in recruiting and
supplying farm labor needed in the county. Working together with
it to maintain the labor supply were the Extension Service, the local
United States Employment Service office, the Farm Security Administration,
the county and city superintendents of schools, the Lions

Club farm labor and Kiwanis Club agriculture committees appointed
at the request of the Central Virginia Planning Commission, and the
Chamber of Commerce. Representatives from these groups recommended
to Governor Colgate W. Darden, Jr., that deferred agricultural
workers should be presented an emblem in recognition of their
status as laborers engaged in essential war production.

Late in 1942 a new policy for the guidance of Selective Service
Boards in deferring essential farm labor was approved by the Department
of Agriculture, the War Manpower Commission, and farm
organizations. It provided for the deferment of all agricultural
workers who were responsible for sixteen war units of necessary
products or, under exceptional circumstances, even fewer units. A
war unit represented a measure of these products, for examples, one
milch cow, five acres of corn, or one acre of vegetables for canning.
The Daily Progress regarded this system as another of the astonishing
absurdities which the government sought to put into practice.
The unit system did not, in its opinion, seem to be a practical method
of evaluating the potentialities of a farm hand. What was needed,
it argued, was the kind of farm laborer who could and would give
an honest day's work at a wage within which he could live and which
his employer could afford to pay. “There seems to be no more reason
to test him by these units of production than ... to have him produce
those of his public school record.”[16] Despite the editor's adverse
opinion, the unit system actually proved to be locally an equitable
and adaptable system for assuring the deferment of qualified agricultural
workers. In an effort to apply it fairly, the minimum number
of sixteen war units of farm products was lowered to twelve in
reference to registrants who worked on the steeper and less productive
farms of the county; but the minimum remained sixteen for the more
nearly level farms of the community.

In order to relieve the situation of dairy farmers whose labor supply
was most seriously depleted, dairy hands were given a preferred
claim, exceeding even that of other farm workers, upon deferment
under Selective Service. Conscientious objectors were employed on
dairy farms by the Albemarle County Dairy Herd Improvement
Association, but there was only one of these at a time.

Volunteer city workers who could devote full or part time to
the harvesting of crops were asked to register in May, 1943, by the
Central Virginia Planning Commission in cooperation with the
county agent. R. Watson Sadler, chairman of this Commission's
Farm Labor Committee, was assisted by subcommittees from the
Lions Club and the Young Men's Business Club. Wives of the members
of these subcommittees, together with the High School Victory
Corps, were acting as registrars.

Eugene P. Durrette began work as a farm labor assistant in July
of 1943 and placed 683 persons for seasonal work and thirty-seven

for the full year. Though all demands for workers were not fully
met, early freezes and drought that year somewhat reduced the fruit
crops and other harvests, thus permitting a meager labor supply to
complete the work of gathering in the available produce.

The following year, 1944, when weather conditions were favorable
and fruit crops abundant, the demand for labor was even greater.
Between 2,000 and 2,300 workers were needed for the peach crop,
between 1,200 and 1,500 for the apples. Fruit growers recruited
anyone and everyone. On the seventh of August 260 German prisoners
arrived in Crozet. Approximately 240 of them picked peaches
and apples, filled silos, harvested hay, shucked corn, cut pulpwood,
and sawed logs. D. B. Owen, manager of the Crozet Fruit Growers
Cooperative, was active in organizing their work, which, he observed,
was satisfactory on the whole. Occasional peaches branded with a
swastika or the initials PW were taken from the conveyor belts in
packing houses. “It's exactly the same thing as a 15-year-old
thumbing his nose at you,” said Chesley Haden. “Those Germans
are some of the crack troops of the North African campaign—fine
physical specimens—and they're a little rebellious at times. We have
noted a mixed reaction to their work; some growers say they're all
right, and others say they're worthless.” Though not all of their
employers were satisfied with their production, the overall statistical
record of their work belied any merely prejudiced contention that
the German prisoners were worthless as farm laborers. At the end
of four months they had picked 29,803 bushels of peaches, 133,858
bushels of apples, stacked 370,962 board feet of lumber, shucked
906 barrels of corn, cut 74,113 board feet of saw logs and 105 cords
of pulpwood, pruned 450 peach trees, and done 22,794 hours of
general farm work.[17]

Negroes from the Bahama Islands were hired in accordance with
an agreement between the United States and British governments.
In August, 1944, 285 Bahamians picked and packed Albemarle
County peaches; through October 175 of them harvested apples.
H. L. Dunton, D. A. Tucker, and Marvin J. Powell supervised their
work, which was judged excellent. The British accent of the Bahamians
was noticeable to those who worked with them, and their
fondness for bright dress and zoot suits added color to the harvest
scene. Without their aid fruit valued at $525,000 would not have
been picked. “Importing labor and operating a labor camp is an
expensive business,” said County Agent Scott, “but the expense was
much less than the loss to the nation of essential fruit which could
not have been saved otherwise.”[18]

The critical labor shortage in that banner year for local orchards
was partially alleviated by recruits of yet another picturesque kind.
Seventy-five volunteers of the Women's Land Army—college students,
teachers, business women, and others—went into the peach

orchards and packing sheds. Though comparatively few in number,
inexperienced in physical labor, and previously ignorant of the discomfort
which peach fuzz can produce, they learned quickly the techniques
of picking, grading, and packing the fruit. Soon they had
won the respect of their employers. Mrs. Ruth Burruss Huff arranged
with the White Hall Home Demonstration Club women, under the
leadership of their president, Mrs. L. G.  Roberts , to serve as hostesses to
the Women's Land Army. They turned out in full strength to greet
these women upon their arrival. Refreshments were served. Mrs. T.
O. Scott, chairman of the Albemarle Home Demonstration Committee,
welcomed them. Ann and Patricia Odend'Hal, who had been active
in 4-H Club work for the past ten years, served as dieticians for
these peach packers, some of whom were accommodated in private
homes and others at the Afton Hotel. “If it came to rating the various
peach pickers, I'd put the girls first, the Bahamians second, and the
Germans last,” Chesley Haden declared. “Those Germans may be
gorgeous hunks of men, but they're not much when it comes to picking
peaches.” Agreeing with this rating, T. O. Scott added that
the Women's Land Army, which assisted in packing peaches from
August 7 to 19, proved more satisfactory than any other special laborers.
“Growers who were fortunate enough to secure their help have
praised them highly as intelligent, efficient, and willing workers,” he
said.[19]

In addition to the previously mentioned groups, men, women,
and children, recruited through Charlottesville civic clubs, radio station
WCHV, The Daily Progress, and the Chamber of Commerce,
worked during the peach harvest for purely patriotic reasons. Also
gathering farm crops and fruit were fifteen prisoners of the Crozet
Convict Camp, without whom much corn and hay would in all
probability not have been gotten safely into silos.[20]

Farmers and fruit growers were still in need of labor in 1945.
Local Extension Service officials received 911 requests for help, and
one or more workers were placed on some 292 farms in the county.
The total number of farm labor placements for 1945 was 4,592. In
cooperation with the War Food Administration and under the supervision
of Hunter Ballard, a camp was again set up near Crozet for
133 Bahamian peach pickers. Percy Abell organized the 200 prisoners
of war who harvested fruit, as well as the seventy-five who worked
on farms throughout the year. In the fall of 1945 resolutions were
adopted by the Albemarle County Farm Bureau and the Crozet Fruit
Growers Cooperative asking that the domestic migratory labor, foreign
labor, and prisoners of war labor programs be continued through
the next year. Funds available from the War Manpower Commission
and the War Food Administration were to be exhausted by
January 1, 1946, the War Department planned to halt the hiring
of prisoners as farm laborers, and discharged servicemen and war

workers were in most instances not returning immediately to the
fields. So the farm labor shortage was not relieved promptly after
firing ceased.

Nevertheless, Albemarle County orchardists managed to keep pace
with other American farmers in producing larger quantities of “foods
for victory” during the war years of generally favorable weather.
Never before had they nursed their trees with such care, though at
times nothing less than genuine genius was required if scarce but
essential insecticides were to be on hand when needed. The number
of trees they tended actually declined—slightly in the case of peaches,
markedly in the instance of apples—but they had to find more bushel
baskets and packing crates, which became nearly as scarce as the proverbial
hens' teeth, almost every year. Prophets of doom who were
positive that each bumper crop in turn could not be duplicated the
next year had to eat crow annually, the single exception of any consequence
being that they had the satisfaction of seeing the weather
become in 1943 a fruit grower's gremlin with results disastrous to
peaches and quite harmful to apples. A hard freeze late in the spring
and a severe hailstorm early in the summer of 1945 brought forth a
rash of local predictions that production that year would not exceed
ten per cent of normal. But someone evidently forgot in that busy
year of victory to inform Mother Nature that less was expected of
her in Albemarle County. A few months later orchardists' joy over
the Japanese surrender was tempered with worry over the question
whether the drooping limbs of their trees, laden with another bumper
crop of unprecedented or almost unprecedented quantity and quality,
could continue to support the weight of the fruit until it could be
picked. Official figures compiled by the Department of Agriculture
summarize eloquently the epic saga of Albemarle County fruit growers'
victory over the multitudinous enemies of greater food production.

                     

	1940	1945
Apples
Number of farms reporting	1,011	1,168
Number of trees of all ages	356,626	286,555
Number of bushels harvested	583,580	828,952
Value	$390,999	$1,616,456
Peaches
Number of farms reporting	541	758
Number of trees of all ages	288,403	282,034
Number of bushels harvested	229,026	534,067
Value	$240,477	$1,388,574

The volume of apples produced was increased by fifty per cent and
their value by 200 per cent; the value of the peach crop was multiplied
by six while its bulk was merely doubled. The sharp distinctions between
volume and value revealed by these contrasts point to the delusion
which was implicit but hidden in the illusion of apparent prosperity.
Only if the orchardists faced the fact that every thing and every
service they bought cost more, that dollars which came in relatively
copious quantities had declined in purchasing power in inverse ratio
to the rising dollar value of their product, would they lift the veil
of understanding. By so doing they could expose the deceitful disguise
of glittering gilt which masked a boom not truly golden. Like
the beauty of a face camouflaged with too many cosmetics, such inflationary
prosperity was not deep-seated and probably would not
prove to be lasting.

The significant feature of their wartime experience was, therefore,
to be found in the trustworthy fact that they vastly increased the
physical bulk of their production of very tangible and very desperately
needed foods. Where one apple or one peach had been harvested
before, they contrived to pick one and one-half apples or two
peaches. When the nation and the world needed more fruit, the
farmers of Albemarle County did their share—and more—to make
it available.[21]

Rationing and Price Control

Another problem for the farmer was the shortage of farm machinery.
When war was declared, producers of food were advised to
buy repair parts for their equipment during the first months of 1942,
and many farmers followed this wise counsel. When, late in that
year, farm machinery began to be rationed, with some seventy-five
types of machines being doled out carefully when they were available,
members of the local Farm Machinery Rationing Committee
and the County War Board applied quotas to insure a just distribution
of such items as could be obtained. In 1943, as a matter of
national policy, munitions were granted priority over food production
equipment. As a result only forty percent as much farm machinery
as had been manufactured in the nation in 1940 left the
factories three years later. The same conditions, or worse, prevailed
in 1944, and there was no improvement in 1945.[22]

As the production of food increased each war year, the problem
of marketing was intensified. The Extension Service assisted the
Albemarle Dairymen's Association, the Albemarle Feeder Calf Producers
Association, the Albemarle Wool Pool (affiliated with the
United Wool Growers Association), the Virginia Angus Breeders
Association, and the Albemarle Hereford Association in determining
correct grades for their products, the demand for them, and the best
methods of marketing them. The total value of supplies bought and
farm products marketed by these groups in Albemarle County during
1944 was $449,670. The establishment of a farmers' produce market
in Charlottesville was discussed, but no successful action was
taken.[23]

Price ceilings, the capstone of the arch erected by the nation to
hold back disastrous inflation, were sometimes restrictive enough to

cause temporary bottlenecks in the flow of agricultural produce to
market. Seventy-five members of the Albemarle County Farm Bureau,
which was formed in June, 1943, to promote farmers' interests,
met to discuss the possible effect on farmers of the closing of the
Elliott Ice Company's abattoir department, the only slaughterhouse
in the community. The Albemarle livestock raisers seized upon this
opportunity to air their grievances concerning other Office of Price
Administration and War Food Administration regulations, such as
the fact that hogs were bringing twenty cents more per hundred
pounds in Staunton and Orange, Virginia, than on the Charlottesville
market. No explanation was given: O. P. A. officials insisted
that they were specialists in other fields or had been with the O. P. A.
such a short time that they were prepared to discuss only the abattoir
issue.[24]

A ceiling price of 5.75 cents per pound or $2.76 per forty-eight
pound package (slightly less than the normal fifty-pound bushel)
on apples at point of shipment was announced in October, 1943.
Price advances of approximately eighteen cents each which were to
become effective on November 1, December 1, February 1, and April 1
would enable growers to sell their apples in April, 1944, at $3.48
per forty-eight pound package. This encouraged most orchardists to
store as many of their apples as possible until the ceilings reached
the announced peak. To protect itself, the government reserved the
right to buy apples for the armed forces at any time it chose. Retail
ceilings for apples ranged from 9.5 to 10.5 cents per pound, varying
with the distances they had been shipped from producing areas. These
ceilings were also to advance one-half cent per pound on November
1, December 1, February 1, and April 1.[25]

Government purchases of apples were made in Albemarle County
both before and during the war. In 1941 the Surplus Marketing
Administration was buying apples in an attempt to improve distribution
by preventing a glutted market. A price range of seventy
cents to $1.05 per bushel was then offered by this agency for No. 1
grade apples. In October, 1944, the War Food Administration announced
plans for the purchase of a large quantity of apples in the
four-state Appalachian Area, which included Albemarle County, for
Lend-Lease shipment to Great Britain and other European countries.
For 2 to 2.25 inch apples the price offered was $6.75 a barrel, $2.25
a box. Growers in this locality were satisfied with the price set by
the W. F. A., but the Appalachian Apple Growers, Inc., protested
the government offer at a level below the price ceiling of $2.75,
arguing that it might break the domestic market. It was understood,
however, that the domestic market would have priority if the crop
could be absorbed above the prices offered by the W. F. A. The
export program would receive only that part of the crop not sold
at home to equal or better advantage. Under this W. F. A. program

twenty carloads of Albemarle County apples were sold by November
8. Offers were filed with the Winchester, Virginia, office of the
W. F. A., which accepted the apples packed in “export tub” bushel
baskets.[26]

In 1943 No. 1 grade peaches brought $8.50 a bushel, the highest
price ever offered by Crozet brokers. Twenty-four peach growers
of Albemarle and surrounding counties met in February, 1944, when
a ceiling price for peaches was under consideration, and approved
unanimously the work already done by the two-year-old National
Peach Council. They voted to continue to give it their support. The
local growers asked first, in dealing with O. P. A., for no ceilings,
because the extreme perishability of peaches made marketing controls
or delay of any kind hazardous. If it were found that ceilings had
to be applied, the growers asked a “consumer” ceiling of 12.5 cents
per pound, the same figure requested by apple growers nationally in
the fall of 1943. The price ceiling set in July, 1944, for producers
was $3.66 per bushel and $1.99 per half bushel, equivalent to about
$7.50 a bushel at the consumer level. In the same month the Virginia
Peach Council, which was to become a part of the National
Peach Council, was organized when two dozen or more leading peach
growers of the Middle Piedmont met in Charlottesville. Its object
was to develop united action in trying to solve such problems as labor,
packaging, relations with government officials in Washington, and
the creation of increased consumer demand for their fruit, particularly
in future years which might be threatened by a glutted market.[27]

Soil Conservation and Livestock Production

Despite labor shortages, the rationing of farm machinery, marketing
difficulties, and complicated price changes, a general upward trend
in food production was achieved. This was due in part to changes
in agricultural practices.

One significant local development was the increase in pasture land
acreage during the last year or two of the war. The following figures
show that in 1945 acreage for pastures was double that of 1942:

         

Year	Acres in Cropland	Acres in Orchard	Acres in Pasture
1942	85,823.8	12,468.4	43,436.6
1943	87,056.1	12,403.1	44,940.1
1944	90,930.8	11,727.5	47,587.5
1945	103,154.0[*]	103,154.0[*]	86,906.6[28]

Not only were there more pastures, but their quality was improved.
Greater quantities of lime and superphosphate were used during the
first two years of the war than in previous years, and still more in
1944. By 1945 twice as much fertilizer as in preceding years was
applied on many farms, resulting in a high yield per acre. Each year
extensive plantings of winter legumes, rye grass, and alfalfa were

made, permitting longer grazing seasons and shorter barn feeding
periods.[29]

Conservationist John A. Smart estimated that 55,000 acres in
Albemarle had been submitted to conservation practices, to which a
twenty per cent increase in production might be attributed. Some
fifteen per cent of the county was engaged in carrying out terracing
and strip cropping in 1944. The soil of two of the farms once owned
by Jefferson, “Tufton” and “Shadwell,” was being restored.[30]

A striking example of these practices is the story of transformations
made on H. V. Herold's farm, “Holkham,” near Ivy. Aside
from the sheer beauty of the harmonious contours of this farm, here
was demonstrated what can be achieved when man respects the soil
instead of taking all it can offer while giving it back nothing in
return. Ninety of Herold's 220 acres were uncultivated in 1936,
the year his practice of soil conservation was begun. Slopes were
bare and, in consequence, badly eroded. Rows of corn were planted
“up and down.” Lespedeza and peas alone comprised the hay crops;
none of the hay was fertilized. Land used for pasture was in great
part overrun with saw-briars and broomsedge. Stock could be
grazed, therefore, only five months each year, and the owner was
compelled annually to buy about $400 worth of hay. His cows
required large amounts of grain, which was not raised on his farm,
so that he was forced to buy his entire supply of dairy feed grain.
When the United States entered the war, he had been practicing
scientific farming for six years. Consequently, he was in a position
to make heavy demands of his soil, while at the same time he was
able to conserve its value. Trees had been planted on his hillsides
to prevent the soil from washing away under heavy rains; fields
were strip cropped instead of gullied; planting rows followed the
natural contours of the land; minimum loss of topsoil was incurred;
annual harvests increased amazingly. One acre of corn planted in
land thus properly utilized produced as much as four or five acres
had previously brought forth. One third of the pastures were fertilized
every year. Alfalfa was planted to replace broomsedge on
five acres, and the barns were full of hay by June of each of the war
years. By 1945 the owner was growing a large part of the grains
needed by his herds: he was harvesting some 1,500 bushels of oats
from thirty acres and about fifteen tons of corn per acre for silage.
Because of these better farming techniques—and also, admittedly,
because of a substantial rise in prices—the income received from his
milk production quadrupled between 1936 and 1945.[31]

The touring author of an article on the advantages of soil conservation
which was published in a nationally circulated magazine
soon after the war ended observed that rural Virginia was having
its face lifted by scientific farming practices. In Albemarle County
this traveler found an ardent and quotable convert to the new agricultural

“Holkham,” the H. V. Herold farm near Ivy, is a model of soil
conservation.

Richard Overton and his wife, soil conservationists, display a war
product.

order in the person of S. A. Jessup. Impressed with Jessup's
excellent pastures and purebred Guernseys, the visitor was told
that Jessup had redeemed lands once so exhausted that one “couldn't
even raise a disturbance” on them. The proud livestock grower added,
“I'd just as soon raise polecats on my farm as corn or tobacco.”[32]

A greater quantity and better quality of beef cattle were raised in
Albemarle during the years 1942–1943 than previously due to the
extension of pasture lands and to the greater care which was given
to the breeding of stock and the control of parasites and diseases. In
the winter of 1943–1944 a government hay-subsidy program was
carried out to compensate for the effects of the 1943 drought. Production
of beef cattle was thereby maintained at a high level. In the
summer of 1944 another drought brought a decline in hay and pasture
production, and heavy rains in the fall also damaged the hay
crops along the James River. Nevertheless, the output for the county
was higher than during preceding years. T. O. Scott estimated that
some farms had as much as four times as many animal units as in
previous years. So great an expansion in cattle production had its
repercussions. One of these was that marketing facilities, which had
been adequate in 1940, were inadequate in 1944.[33]

Livestock production ranked third in importance as a source of
income to Albemarle County farmers by 1943. Auction sales of
feeder calves were begun in 1941. Prior to 1939 calves had been
raised on a hit or miss basis, but after new methods of feeding were
adopted, as suggested by the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and the
Albemarle Feeder Calf Producers Association was organized, the
business rose in importance. The sale in October, 1941, brought in
a total of $14,832.00 for 290 calves; the following year 476 calves
sold for $30,000.00.[34]

Not the least enthusiastic among the livestock raisers of the county
were 4-H Club boys, both white and Negro, who carried out livestock
projects during each of the war years and competed in contests
sponsored by Sears Roebuck and Company. At the Angus sale in
the spring of 1944 calves raised by these boys won favorable attention.
Some of these schoolboys built up herds of their own: others
fattened only one or two animals for the market. While the number
of their cattle was only a small part of the total production in
the county, the real importance of this work, directed mainly by
H. M. Brumback, lay in the training and experience gained by a
generation which might become the future cattle, hog, and poultry
raisers of the locality.[35]

A comparison between the cattle raised in Albemarle County and
their value in the years 1940 and 1945 shows a marked increase.

       

	1940	1945
Farms reporting	1,974	1,970
Number of cattle and calves	16,779	22,576
Value	$633,540	$1,613,040[36]

Advancing in step with the agronomy program, the dairy industry
benefitted from the general improvement and expansion of pasture
lands which permitted longer grazing seasons. As methods of
breeding dairy cattle were perfected and disease and parasites were
controlled, milk production rose during each of the war years until
1945. Shortages of labor, farm machinery, and protein supplements
explained the slight decline of that year. A total of 3,119,606 gallons
was produced in 1945, however, as compared with 2,593,668
in 1940, and the value of dairy products sold in the county rose
from $282,590 in 1940 to $518,925 in 1945.[37]

An increase of nearly 2,000 hogs in Albemarle County between
1940 and 1945 may not have been surprising. Residents of Sixth
Street, S. E., in Charlottesville, who seemed as interested in producing
“food for victory” as their fellow citizens of the county, petitioned
the City Council for the extension of hog-raising zones so
they might fulfil their patriotic obligations. Pig pens on the back
side of their lots would not be near their neighbors, they argued.
City Health Director T. S. Englar admitted that, although hogs normally
do not enhance a city's peace and cleanliness, they might have
to be excused during the emergency. “After all,” he said, “there are
swine in some sections already and, conditions remaining the same,
a pig near Rugby Road is little different from his cousin in Belmont.”
As long as rules of decency and everyday sanitation were observed,
styes were kept a reasonable distance from kitchen doors, and winds
held their proper direction, the doctor supposed that the hog in the
yard movement might not be too objectionable. Faced for the third
time with the issue, the City Council finally voted that hogs might
be kept in the city limits only if their pens were more than 250 feet
from the nearest dwelling and if their location was approved by the
Chief of Police. The required distance automatically eliminated from
conversion to pork production all but a few lots within the city.
At the time, in February, 1942, there were sixty-seven hog owners
in the city. Their number could hardly be much enlarged under the
new ordinance, but city dwellers who dreamed of fat porkers in their
back yards would probably have forced an immediate reconsideration
of the question if they had foreseen the price advances which
were later to make them recall with acute nostalgia that they had
been able even after Pearl Harbor to buy a pound of bacon for
twenty-six cents and two pounds of fresh spareribs for less than
forty cents.[38]

Although there was only an inconsequentially small increase during
the war years in Albemarle County's sheep population, their value
rose from $21,362 to $37,365—a pair of figures which provides an
eloquent commentary on the wartime price spiral. The increase from
3,568 sheep in 1940 to 3,764 in 1945 might have been greater but
for such factors as the difficulties of procuring wire for fencing,

the omnipresent labor shortage, and fear of predatory dogs. There
was more improvement in the quality than in the quantity of local
sheep, largely because of efficient control of internal parasites and
vigilant prevention of disease.[39]

Poultry was still another product of Albemarle County farms
which enlisted in the war effort. When all other edible meats except
fish were rationed, poultry took on new significance, and eggs were
also in unprecedented demand. Home Demonstration agents and
4-H Club leaders gave invaluable help to owners of small flocks
as well as to commercial producers of fryers, broilers, eggs, and turkeys.
Nearly every farm in the county had its poultry flock. Perfected
methods of feeding, housing, and culling were adopted; parasites
were effectively controlled. Scott contrasted the heavy losses
of diseased fowl which were annually incurred during the earlier part
of his eighteen years of experience in Albemarle County with the
decreased mortality of the war years. Prevention of disease, in his
opinion, contributed in large measure to the increased production of
poultry called for in the local market and by the War Food Administration.
The Department of Agriculture determined that the 88,360
chickens in the county in 1940 were valued at $50,365, while the
115,411 chickens in 1945 were worth $139,647. In other words,
their value was increased by 180 per cent, though their number was
increased only thirty per cent—again a significant commentary on
what happened to the purchasing power of the American dollar
despite price control. Income from all poultry products sold by
farms reporting to the department increased from $147,737 to $375,
658 during the same five years.

Official statistics of the Department of Agriculture have reported
that the total income to Albemarle County farmers from sales of all
types of livestock and livestock products rose from $815,087 in
1940 to $1,813,736 in 1945. The total value of all livestock classified
by the Department increased during the same period from
$1,313,163 to $2,383,810.

Because of wartime restrictions upon transportation, the urgency
of the nation's need for the marketing of available meat, and a desire
to accommodate Charlottesville's “country cousins” of Albemarle
County, the City Council had rescinded its prewar ordinance prohibiting
the overnight storage of livestock within the city limits.
This action had benefitted the Charlottesville Livestock Market and
the producers who brought their animals to it for sale by auctions
which sometimes extended far into the night. Whether the animals
had been sold or not, it was often impossible to remove them from
the city before they disturbed would-be sleepers of the vicinity. After
V-J Day long-suffering residents of the area demanded a reenactment
of the prewar ordinance.[40] More than a year elapsed before a generally
agreeable solution to the problem was reached. The city purchased

the auction site, and the Livestock Market was relocated beyond
the city limits. But that is really a postwar story, and its
details are not for this volume.

Victory Gardening and Food Conservation

Vegetables were grown in Charlottesville and Albemarle during
the years 1942–1945 on a scale never before remotely approached.
The County Board of Agriculture launched the Victory Garden campaign
in the first months of 1942. Community and neighborhood
leaders and Home Demonstration Clubs promoted the Live at Home
program among 2,367 rural families, a large majority of the total
number of farm families in the county. Mrs. Bessie Dunn Miller
and her staff gave personal instruction to 249 families in 1943, teaching
them how to produce sufficient food to meet all the demands of
home consumption. Spurred on by the slogans “Food Fights For
Freedom” and “You Can Shorten the War with Food,” ninety-six
per cent of the rural population was raising its home food supply
in 1944.

Quite active in this movement were the 4-H Club boys and girls.
In the course of 1942 they cultivated 321 acres of land. An average
of thirty girls took part in the Sears Roebuck gardening contests
every year of the war. Some $700 worth of food was consumed
in the homes of these thirty girls in 1943 alone. Louise Morris of
Free Union, first prize winner in 1944, produced enough food to
feed her family and can 504 quarts. Edith Sullivan, also of Free
Union, winner in 1945, produced enough food to can 940 quarts.
Though the boys were engaged for the greater part of their time in
livestock raising projects, as many as seventy-three of them completed
gardening projects in 1943. Maxine Lamb, president of the
Albemarle County 4-H Club Council in 1944, won a $25 war bond
and entered the 4-H Club National Victory Achievement Contest
for her contribution in food production during 1943. On the 379-acre
farm of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Lamb of Route 2,
Charlottesville, she planted her own Victory Garden, which consisted
of 150 tomato plants, 200 sweet potato plants, twenty-four
pepper plants, twenty-four eggplants, twenty celery plants, plus corn
and string beans. She assisted her father with the planting and
working of 3,000 tomato plants, 1,500 cabbage plants, and 1,000
sweet potato plants. She fed and cared for 500 baby chickens, raised
pigs of her own, helped her oldest brother with the feeding of fourteen
calves until they were old enough to graze, and assisted the hired
hands in milking 118 cows. She picked twenty gallons of blackberries,
prepared thirty-five quarts of them for her pantry shelves
and assisted with the canning of ninety-five other quarts, and helped
to put up 183 quarts of string beans, fifteen quarts of carrots, twenty-five
quarts of squash, and thirty quarts of butter beans. She served
ninety meals and planned 150 other menus for her family, remodeled

five of her old dresses, helped clean and wash the family clothes
weekly, collected old phonograph records, tin cans, scrap metals, and
rubber, and helped to sell war stamps through her school and club.
Three members of the Albemarle 4-H Clubs, selected for outstanding
club work in the county, appeared on the coast-to-coast broadcast
of the United States Department of Agriculture's National Farm
and Home Hour in the spring of 1944 and told how they were carrying
on Jefferson's traditions in agriculture. The trio included
Maxine Lamb, Dan Maupin of White Hall, and Anne Carpenter
White of Scottsville. Their subject was, “Four-H Builds on Foundations
Laid by Jefferson.” Two Albemarle County girls were declared
4-H Club canning champions for Virginia, Bessie Preddy in
1943 and Maxine Lamb in 1944. Members of the Negro 4-H Clubs
made a profit of $1,471 from vegetables raised by seventy-three boys
in 1942; in the course of the last war year, ninety-nine Negro boys
completed 120 gardening projects which netted a profit of $2,100.[41]

Under the direction of the Charlottesville and Albemarle County
Civilian Defense Council, Coordinator Seth Burnley formed a Victory
Garden Committee for the city of Charlottesville on March 10,
1942. Louis Chauvenet was chairman; Mrs. Theodore Hough and
Mrs. Leroy Snow served as committee members. Among the first
steps taken in the Charlottesville campaign were successful efforts
made by Mrs. Dudley C. Smith to procure for amateur gardeners who
aspired to green thumbs vacant lots and available plows, each of
which, of course, had suddenly been exalted to the lofty status of
being at a premium. Mrs. Snow encouraged gardeners by supplying
plants in return for a share in their produce. Thus were many
city gardeners provided with land, tools, and plants. Mrs. Hough,
an accomplished horticulturist, provided what amounted to an education
for the inexperienced urban vegetable growers. Chairman
Chauvenet and Mrs. Hough visited in person every city garden once
each week throughout the summer of 1942. Twice a week she broadcast
advice on gardening from radio station WCHV. Every Monday
afternoon she held a forum at the Court House. Occasionally
she addressed the civic clubs in the city and the Parent-Teacher Association.
In March, 1943, she began to write a column which was
published in The Daily Progress. Through this medium she dispensed
pertinent suggestions about how to grow vegetables and how
to avoid unproductively torturing one's aching back, for backaches
had become the most common ailment all over town. Victory Gardening
fever, a symptom which preceded sore knees and spinal columns
which could be straightened up only with pain, was quite contagious.
One insight into the amazing rapidity with which it infected all
areas of the city is afforded by the fact that Charlottesville had a
quota of 2,800 vegetable gardens in 1944 and by the impression of

Victory Gardening leaders, who never found time to take an actual
census of plots cultivated, that the quota was definitely exceeded.

Meantime, various other groups in the city promoted the Victory
Garden campaign. Among these was a Children's Victory Garden
Club, the first of its kind in the state, organized in the spring of
1942 and co-sponsored by the City Recreation Department and the
Rivanna Garden Club, the latter of which furnished land, tools,
seeds, and prizes. Miss Nan Crow and Mrs. Delos Kidder planned
and personally directed gardens near Moore's Creek on the Monticello
Road. Boys and girls tilled twenty garden plots there, raising
vegetables for their families and for the Children's Home. They
gained a valuable experience in the rudiments of gardening and
learned surprising things. One of them expected to find his ripened
radishes tied in bunches and waving on a bush!

Boy Scouts, white and Negro, undertook and completed garden
projects. Troop 1 at the University Baptist Church cultivated some
seven acres of land on Route 29. The boys of the downtown Troop
1, sponsored by the Charlottesville Presbyterian Church, worked
as many as twenty-two gardens of their own. Troop 5, sponsored
by the Church of the Holy Comforter, cultivated a large garden in
the Fry's Spring area. Negro Scouts' garden projects were carried
out on the farm of their leader, Dr. J. A. Jackson.[42]

The city's first Victory Garden Fair was held at the Old Armory
in the autumn of 1943. Vegetable and flower growers who had
proudly entered 300 or more specimens of their handiwork inspected
the exhibits of vegetables, fruits, canned goods, and flowers with
the green eyes of jealousy whenever they spotted the carefully selected
and spotlessly clean products of a rival who might provide stiff competition
for whatever prize they coveted. Miss R. Belle Burke, district
Home Demonstration agent for Northern Virginia, and Miss Ina
Glick, who served as judges, had no easy task choosing the most nearly
perfect example of each variety, but their decisions were accepted with
general good humor. H. M. Brumback demonstrated easy ways of
storing foods and root crops for winter use, and Mrs. Huff explained
how to preserve foods by dehydration. Again the next year the Albemarle
Garden Club, Rivanna Garden Club, and the National
Women's Farm and Garden Club held a Victory Garden and Flower
Show, to which the First Methodist Church played host. At the
same time the Albemarle Garden Club and the City Recreation Department
sponsored a similar contest in Washington Park, and more
than 200 exhibits of superb produce were displayed by Negro
gardeners.[43]

If home grown foods were to render maximum service in the
war effort, a large percentage of the total production of Victory
Gardens had to be preserved for consumption after the harvest season,
when fresh local produce was unavailable. Aside from other

obvious virtues, such preservation could appreciably alleviate demand
for the rationed output of commercial canneries and pressures upon
the nation's overburdened transportation system. Much emphasis
was, therefore, placed upon persuading and teaching gardeners to
lay aside for the rainy day of the unproductive winter season a
properly preserved part of their summertime plenty. Local Home
Demonstration agents and Club leaders instructed in the most modern
techniques and equipment for home canning, though some of
their pupils couldn't for years find a pressure cooker for sale at
any price. The less familiar but, in the instances of some foods,
not less useful methods of food conservation, such as drying, brining,
and storing, were also taught and demonstrated. The clubs'
members set a good example by canning 56,107 quarts of various
foods in 1942. The following year, spurred on by their tireless
leaders, 129 farm women had become expert canners and put up
45,420 quarts of fruit and vegetables and stored an additional 9,265
bushels. During the year 1944 rural families canned 56,958 quarts
of fruit, meats, and vegetables; brined 7,719 gallons; dried 2,468
pounds; cured 8,975 pounds; stored 3,860 bushels; and froze 9,978
pounds. In the last war year 52,776 quarts of fruits were canned;
2,108 pounds dried; 18,540 pounds cured; 38,144 bushels stored;
and 31,783 pounds frozen. Girls of the 4-H Clubs put up 28,106
cans of food in 1943, an average of 51 cans apiece. In 1944 thirty-five
of their more diligent members put up 5,271 quarts, an average
of about 153 tins or jars per capita. On a somewhat smaller scale
in 1945 a total of 10,068 quarts were preserved, maintaining approximately
the per capital level of fifty per girl which had been
established in 1943.

When the local rationing board ruled that a person could not buy
home canned foods without the surrender of ration coupons, the
County War Board passed a resolution in support of some means
whereby people could sell their canned home products without having
to ask rationing points.[44]

Plans for a canning center in Charlottesville were formulated in
April of 1943 by the Kiwanis Club and the Central Virginia Planning
Commission. It was located in the basement of the New
Armory. The Nehi Bottling Company loaned two large pressure
cookers. Mrs. John A. Smart served as expert supervisor during the
month of June, and Mrs. Fay Barrow took charge during July. A
charge of five cents per can or jar covered inspection of the fruit and
vegetables grown by city and county women and the right to use
the pressure cookers. In a month's time eighty-three women had
conserved 5,558 cans of food. Mrs. R. L. Allen alone canned 500
quarts of vegetables and meat, the largest amount put up there by
one person. The final record for the first year, 1943, was impressive:
within seven months 28,000 jars of home-produced foods had

been processed. Expenses had been shared by the City School Board
and the City Council, but their burdens had been made light by the
$500 which had been donated by the Kiwanis Club. In the same
year Negro women had put up 1,081 cans of foods at their canning
center in the Jefferson School under the supervision of Miss Laura
J. Wyatt and Mrs. Evangeline Jones.

The canning center in the Armory had been run at capacity in
1943 processing vegetables, but no fruit had been handled. A
drought in June and July, 1944, however, seriously curtailed the
vegetable crop. Thus the good providers who frequented the center
were enabled to turn to the preserving of fruit, a happy circumstance
in view of the bumper peach crop of that summer. Approximately
150 women there preserved 3,000 jars of peaches and an unrecorded
number of jars of apples. Coupons for canning sugar were issued
in enormous quantities even before the harvest season began. County
women received authorizations to buy 364,116 pounds of sugar, and
city canners were issued coupons for 281,460 pounds. By V-J Day
55,000 cans of food had been processed in the canning center for consumption
at home and abroad.

The Scottsville canning center was opened on July 14, 1944, in a
cinder block building on the edge of the school grounds which had
been erected by the county government and equipped through expenditures
of Federal funds. Thomas A. Allison, Agriculture teacher
at the Scottsville High School, was from the first the chief promoter
of the project, but he was able to enlist the support of the Lions Club
of Scottsville. Mrs. Inez Moore of Warren, who was in charge of
the canning center, was assisted by Rufus Rush.

During the first season a charge of three cents each was made to
canners for pint tin cans obtained at the center; the charge for quart
cans was four cents. After the first summer and autumn the costs
of fuel used in the center had to be met by the local community, and
tin became more expensive, so these prices for cans were raised to four
and six cents, respectively.

During 1944 the thrifth housewives of the community prepared
19,854 cans of food at the center. On the busiest day of that year
585 cans were processed. In this period 160 white and 64 Negro
families used the canning center. Later years brought increases in
these figures. Albemarle County canners from as far away as Crozet
converged upon Scottsville, and the center served also many people
from neighboring Buckingham and Fluvanna counties. In 1947 a
total of 43,930 cans of food were processed in Scottsville by 369
white families and 90 Negro families.

When requests from Charlottesville and Albemarle men in the
armed forces began to come for chicken, nuts, steak, pork, and fruit
cake, the women at the center prepared Christmas packages for mailing

before October 15, 1944, in order that local servicemen who
were overseas might benefit from home-grown foods and revel in
nostalgic feasts especially prepared for them by loved ones at home.
Still remembered with particular poignancy is the avid interest and
devotion with which the wives and fiancees of some physicians of
the 8th Evacuation Hospital could talk of hardly anything else for
weeks but what they were canning amid summer heat at the center
for their long-absent husbands' and sweethearts' Christmas dinners
and how many packages they had already taken to the post
office.

The United Nations Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Administration
asked for a Food Bank in 1945. Mrs. Ruth Burruss Huff
called together the heads of all city and county organizations which
could give effectual cooperation in gathering and processing food
for foreign relief. Choice fruits and vegetables from Victory Gardens
all over Charlottesville and Albemarle County were donated by
Father and Mother, Son and Daughter. Generous quantities of
prized home-grown produce were transported to the canning centers
in Charlottesville and Scottsville. Home Demonstration Club women,
4-H Club girls, Red Cross Canteen workers, and other city and county
women did the canning. With lumber donated by the Barnes Lumber
Company, members of the Young Men's Business Club, of which
Harry A. Wright was president, did the packing and crating. A total
of 3,000 cans of food was sent to destitute peoples in conquered countries,
a gift representing the concerted efforts of the residents of this
community.[45]

Under the direction of the Civilian Defense Office, a local nutrition
committee was organized in 1942. At its first meeting a representative
from the Farm Security Administration explained the Share-the-Meat
program. Home Demonstration women and 4-H Club
girls in both county and city studied the nutritive value of foods,
how to plan balanced meals, and home methods of baking bread and
making cheese.

The alarming condition of some children in rural schools who,
it was found, often stayed the full school day with no nourishment
was improved when seventeen Home Demonstration Clubs cooperated
in serving lunches to these children. In two communities 4-H
Club girls canned food for the school lunches. By 1945 nutrition
problems had diminished, but they still persisted in six of the county
schools. Doctors who examined 1,363 school children in Albemarle
County in the fall of 1945 found that 1,161 were not in
perfect physical condition.

When registration for War Ration Book Number 2 began in
1943, Home Demonstration leaders provided information at the
registration centers as to the intelligent use of ration points in meal

planning and marketing. Typical of rural dietary and economic
trends which food rationing had caused or stimulated were these
three facts: by the end of the war many families were making their
own syrup and raising bees for honey to counteract the sugar shortage;
others were making cheese in quantities sufficient for the family
food supply; still others were raising and canning more tomatoes to
replace citrus fruits.[46]

Harvesting Forest Fibers

Not only the fields but also the forests of Albemarle were made
to contribute to winning the war. Sixty farmers cooperated with
the Thomas Jefferson Farm Forestry Project operated in conjunction
with the Thomas Jefferson Soil Conservation District in Albemarle,
Fluvanna, Goochland, Louisa, and Nelson counties. During the year
preceding June, 1944, they cut 448,000 cubic feet of pulpwood and
815,000 board feet of sawlogs, all of which went to the war effort.
Because they harvested this lumber in accordance with good forestry
practices, continued production was assured in the years to come.
The same areas would produce the same amount of wood every year.
In the fall of 1944 a power-driven, labor saving saw was introduced
into the county as a result of the acute labor shortage and the importance
of lumber and its derivatives in war industries. Within a
given time this new equipment could accomplish the work of about
ten men. Farmers were urged in the winter of 1944 to use their
spare time until spring for the harvesting of pulpwood on their lands.
The condition of the pulpwood industry was critical, and pulp and
paper mills were faced with the possibility of closing unless production
was increased. In April, 1945, it was estimated that 2,000
cords of pulpwood were being shipped out of the county each month,
thirty-five to forty per cent of which were being contributed by individual,
non-commercial harvesters. War materials made from wood
fiber—besides all varieties of paper and paper containers—included
aviators vests, bomb rings, camouflage nets, first-aid kits, gas mask
filters, hospital wadding, maps, photographic film, smokeless powder,
and supply parachutes. Arrangements were made through Ellis L.
Lyon, farm forester of the Virginia Forest Service, in cooperation
with the Albemarle County Pulpwood Committee to move wood
to market in trucks.

The Forest Fire Fighters Service was created by the local Civilian
Defense Council to assist the fire control forces of state and Federal
forest protection agencies, which were finding it difficult to employ
fire fighters. Cooperation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was
promised in obtaining evidence for the prosecution of any fire law
violations which threatened or damaged war facilities or Federal
property. As forest products were critical war materials, forest fires

not only sabotaged war production but drew manpower away from
farms and essential industries. Federal sabotage laws as well as state
fire prevention statutes were invoked against persons responsible for
them. It was estimated that $13,861 worth of marketable timber
was burned in Albemarle County during the six-year period preceding
1946. Twenty-four boys of the Scottsville High School completed
the training course required for membership in the Forest Fire
Fighters Service and were entitled to wear the badge showing the
outline of a tree in red on a triangular background of white and blue.
The boys were organized in fire fighting crews, with leaders and
assistant leaders, and were ready to respond to the calls of state forest
wardens to fight fires when other manpower was not readily available.
Tools and transportation were furnished by the Virginia Forest
Service, and the boys were to be paid the same wages as other
fire fighters.[47]

Some Overall Observations

A few overall wartime trends in Albemarle County agriculture
may be summarized. The number of farms was 2,599 in 1945 and
had increased by only eight since 1940. But the total value of all
their products harvested had almost trebled, growing from $1,880,619
in 1940 to $5,504,494 in 1945. The average value of their
total annual produce, exclusive of that eaten by farm animals, had
jumped from about $911 per farm to $1,981. Since the physical
volume of products had been expanded by only something like thirty
or forty per cent at most, these figures reflect the inflationary price
spiral which characterized the nation's economy more than they constitute
a true measure of increased production or an accurate index
to the prosperity of Albemarle County farmers.

The number of full owners of farms increased from 1,987 in
1940 to 2,118 in 1945, and accordingly the number of tenants decreased
from 411 to 285 and part owners from 131 to 113. While
838 farms had electricity in 1940, a total of 1,192 enjoyed the
privileges of electrification in 1945. Hired laborers numbering 1,776
in 1939 were paid $722,468 in cash wages, but in sharp contrast
711 laborers in 1944 were paid cash wages of $1,148,311. The
following table classifies the seven leading types of Albemarle County
farms in the order of the total value of their products, exclusive of
what was fed to their own livestock or used for seed:

               

	Farms Reporting	Total Value of Farm Products, 1945
Fruit and nut farms	398	$2,170,942
Livestock farms	390	890,969
Farms producing primarily for own household use	1,438	536,791
Dairy farms	59	501,521
General farms	252	462,986
Poultry farms	96	249,904
Forest product farms	97	133,535[48]

Desirable farms were in active demand during the war, according
to local realtors, who said they found it quite difficult to find farms
to sell. Some submarginal farms had been abandoned by owners
who were attracted to the higher wages they could earn in war industries.
When farms were occasionally auctioned to settle estates,
the livestock and farm machinery brought good prices. Several large
farms were purchased by buyers from a distance who intended to
raise cattle on a highly specialized basis. On the other hand, another
citizen contended that nearly every farm on the Lynchburg Road was
for sale and that farm owners had been robbed too long. He protested
that it was hard for them to get anything like the fair value
of their property. Good farm land within two miles of Charlottesville
and the University was valuable. A more distant farm on a
back road could not be compared with land which was “close in”
and in an exclusive residential neighborhood. The average farm rose
in price in Albemarle County from $7,333 to $7,501 between 1940
and 1945, the average price per acre from $56.29 to $58.83. So
although the prices of farm products climbed rapidly on the inflationary
spiral and the cash wages paid labor rose noticeably, the value
of farm property lagged far behind and advanced to only an inconsequential
degree.[49]

As was true in most of the other communities in the United States,
the people of Albemarle County and Charlottesville cooperated with
the Federal Government in its program of food production to meet the
gargantuan demands of war. They helped to make it possible for Secretary
of Agriculture Clinton P. Anderson to say that the national
food output was thirty-eight per cent greater during 1940–1944
than in 1935–1939. And, when they occasionally felt a bit rebellious
against apparent food shortages and were willing to kick over
the traces with which they pulled their share of the load, they realized
dimly or perceived clearly that, as the Secretary and other authorities
often reiterated, the national civilian food supply per capita,
after deducting allotments to military needs and Lend-Lease shipments,
was greater through each of the war years than during 1935–
1939 and during the First World War.[50]

VIII
Working With the Red Cross

When hostilities in Europe began in the fall of 1939, the Albemarle
County Chapter of the American Red Cross, under the excellent
chairmanship for John F. Faris of Red Hill, was engaged in many
phases of civilian relief in its educational programs, in Junior Red
Cross activities, and, of course, in Home Service, which is a primary
responsibility in peace as well as in war. The Chapter maintained a
small office in the National Bank Building in Charlottesville. There
Miss Pauline Beard, with no paid assistant, executed the double duties
of Executive Secretary and Home Service Secretary. Under the Congressional
charter granted the American Red Cross on January 5,
1905, this organization was designated as the official agency to aid
servicemen, veterans, and their families in times of disability or
trouble and “to serve as a medium of communication between the
people of the United States and their Army and Navy.” In order to
carry out such obligations, it must be prepared to fulfill all requests
from the Army and Navy in such matters as obtaining social histories,
confidential reports on family conditions, and other information
needed in questions of dependency discharges, furloughs, clemency,
etc. In 1939, eleven such reports were requested and made.
In the same year, twenty years after the close of World War I, forty-eight
veterans were assisted in various ways. This Home Service
work may not appear arduous, but the lapse of time and, usually, the
loss of papers made such matters as assisting veterans in establishing
their claims for government benefits long and difficult processes.

At that time the Volunteer Special Service Committee may not
have been organized strictly in line with Red Cross custom, but it
was accomplishing many results. This committee, started in the days
of the Great Depression, was composed of about thirty women from
the city of Charlottesville and from various parts of Albemarle
County, and its duty was to maintain a prompt and efficient group
of volunteers for any emergency. These volunteers met regularly
and discussed what they felt were local human needs and what they
could do to meet them. They worked hard, helping to start the

County School Lunch Program, distributing Red Cross garments,
and doing deeds of kindness too numerous to mention. Other organizations,
also, looked to them for contact in their communities and
often called upon them to render various services. Also in the Volunteer
Special Service Committee, and more in line wih Red Cross
organizational custom, were the following subdivisions: the Braille
Corps, a unit very little advertised but one which, under the chairmanship
of Miss Mary Harris, transcribed thousands of pages of reading
matter for the blind; the Motor Corps, under Miss Mary Stamps
White, which consisted at that time only of a chairman and a group
of untrained women upon whom she could call to render such services
as driving patients to hospitals and clinics; the Staff Assistance
Corps, which, under Mrs. Blakeley Carter, had recently been organized
to provide secretarial help for the Red Cross office: and the Production
Corps, under Mrs. Isaac Walters.

It was the Production Corps which received the first war call, and
the fact that it had already been organized made it necessary for it
only to expand. It did not have to start from the beginning, as had
to be done in many other Red Cross chapters. In October, 1939,
the Albemarle County Chapter was asked to produce hundreds of
garments for victims of war. Within ten days volunteers, mostly
enrolled from church groups, were busily engaged in sewing layettes,
dresses, and hospital shirts and in knitting sweaters and socks. County
authorities helped enormously by lending workrooms in their new
office building. By the following May a total of 2,151 garments
and an additional 201 layettes had been made and shipped overseas.
It has been stated, and there is no reason to doubt it, that the Albemarle
County Production Corps was the first in the state of Virginia
to get started on a European quota. Certainly it was among the first

The next call received from headquarters of the American Red
Cross also came in October. The Chapter was requested to send a
representative to Washington to attend the first national course for
instructors in the production of surgical dressings. About twenty
cities sent representatives to take this course, among them Boston,
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Richmond, Louisville, Atlanta,
and Charlottesville. Mrs. Blakeley Carter, who consented to represent
the local Chapter, took the intensive one-week course of instruction
and returned home with the alarming news that the local Chapter
was expected to make 17,000 dressings by the first of January,
1940. This quota was given to all participating chapters, regardless
of size, and to Albemarle at that time it seemed staggering. Four
years later, in April, 1944, 179,000 dressings were made in one
month!

Mrs. Carter, as chairman of the surgical dressings branch of the
Production Corps. went valiantly ahead to equip some rooms in the
County Office Building and to enroll and train volunteer workers.

By January the shipment was ready, and a few weeks later a Red
Cross representative from Poland wrote that boxes of surgical dressings
made by the Albemarle County Chapter were in use there. It
was very gratifying to know that this Chapter was one of the first
three in the entire United States to finish the first quota of 17,000
dressings and that it maintained its place in the lead for six months.
Albemarle County Chapter members were very proud and a bit
incredulous when visitors to New York City related that they had
seen signs there reading, “Help New York Beat Charlottesville and
Boston—Make Surgical Dressings.” In June, 1940, the first school
for instructors in the making of surgical dressings for Virginia and
adjoining states was held in Charlottesville, and the local Chapter
was proud that Mrs. Carter was selected as instructor.

Much later in the war, in July, 1944, the Chapter was thrilled
by news that medical supplies produced by local Red Cross workers
had been received in Italy by the 8th Evacuation Hospital, the medical
unit which had been recruited in the University of Virginia Hospital.
“We have just received a shipment of gauze and dressings
which we were surprised and delighted to find was prepared by the
Albemarle Chapter of the Red Cross,” Lieutenant Colonel E. C.
Drash, a local physician who was helping to save the lives of wounded
American servicemen, wrote in a letter to the local Chapter chairman.
“We have used a vast quantity of gauze, which came from Chapters
all over the United States. However, none of the previous shipments
gave us the thrill this did. We have concrete proof that the people
of Charlottesville and Albemarle County are really working to help
bring the war to a successful close. The dressings prepared there are
being used in the 8th Evacuation Hospital, now located just 3 miles
from the German lines, to bind up the wounds of American boys,
some of whom are from Virginia.”[1]

Throughout the year 1940 and a large part of 1941 most of the
Chapter's activities related to war were in the production field. Yet
the Chapter was still very active in civilian relief, giving aid of various
kinds to the ill and undernourished, supplying garments for the
needy, paying for glasses and for tonsillectomies for school children,
and providing corrective operations for adults when such operations
would enable them to support their families. Gradually, as war
responsibilities became greater, these services were taken over by other
organizations.

In the fall of 1940 Mrs. James Gordon Smith of Greenwood,
vice-chairman of the Chapter and chairman of its Volunteer Special
Services, was invited by Norman Davis, chairman of the American
Red Cross, and by Miss Mabel Boardman, chairman of the National
Committee of Volunteer Special Services, to become a member of the
National Committee. As this committee included representatives
from between thirty and forty of the more than 3,500 Chapters organized

throughout the United States, it was a signal honor for the
Albemarle County Chapter to be represented among the chosen few.

In May, 1941, Mrs. Smith was chosen to succeed John F. Faris,
who declined renomination, as chairman of the Albemarle County
Chapter and was herself succeeded as director of Volunteer Special
Services by Miss Mary Stamps White. By that time the necessity for
the continuing expansion of existing corps and the organization of
new ones was becoming more apparent every day. Miss White, with
various corps chairmen, went immediately to work.

The Motor Corps was required to have further training and practice
work. Earlier in 1941, under the chairmanship of Mrs. John
Maury, Jr., Motor Corps members were trained in simple motor
mechanics. Later that year, when Mrs. Maury moved away and Miss
Caroline Stuart became chairman, instruction in Standard and Advanced
First Aid, air raid precautions, map reading, and fire fighting
were added to the training, and members were also required to drill.
The idea of military drill was questioned by many and was a cause
of great amusement to a few, but it was felt by Chapter officials that
the discipline was important. No one knew what this group was
facing, and the habit of taking orders promptly might have proved
invaluable later. Incidentally, the local Motor Corps was the third
in the nation to initiate such drills, which before the end of the war
were required in all Red Cross chapters. When blackout drills were
held in 1942–1944, the Motor Corps was always on hand, fulfilling
difficult assignments with promptness and efficiency. On September
9, 1942, Miss Stuart left Charlottesville for a period of training near
Toronto, Canada, with the Canadian Women's Transport.

The Staff Assistance Corps was enlarged, and Mrs. Thomas S.
Englar became its chairman. More women took the required training,
and staff assistants became increasingly valuable as stenographers,
typists, clerks, and receptionists in Red Cross offices, in workrooms,
and in other civic and welfare organizations.

Both branches of Production, namely, Sewing and Knitting and
Surgical Dressings, were going full steam ahead. As very large quotas
continued to come in, the chief problem in both of these services was
to obtain more and more workers. The statistical report at the end
of this chapter shows how well this need was met.

A Home Service Corps was organized with Mrs. N. T. Hildreth
as chairman, in order to relieve Miss Beard of some necessary home
visits, thereby giving her more time for other duties.

The Canteen Corps, with Mrs. H. B. Mulholland as chairman,
was organized and trained. Classes were held under a volunteer
domestic science teacher, with special emphasis on mass feedings. This
corps soon started to acquire practical experience in many ways which
will be described later and which proved invaluable to the Chapter.

The Nurse's Aide Corps was also organized and trained. Miss

Elizabeth A. Nolting became its chairman. Many other Red Cross
Chapters had such units long before the war, but one did not seem to
be needed in Charlottesville until it became apparent that war was
coming and that the resulting exodus of nurses to the armed forces
would be seriously felt by the local hospitals. When it was decided
that the time had come to organize this corps, the Chapter hardly
knew where to start. The University Hospital was anxious to cooperate
in the training, and a nurse was available for teaching, but
how aides were to be procured was the question. Would there be
women sufficiently interested to give up their leisure time, to face the
hard work, sacrifice, and discipline which would be ahead of them?
Miss Mary Stamps White, Mrs. Edwin Burton, and Miss Nolting
went to work on recruitment, mostly by calling picked people on the
telephone. The result was that in November, 1941, the first class
went into training, and the day after Pearl Harbor twenty prospective
aides, having finished their thirty-five hours of lecture and practice
work, were in uniform ready to start their forty-five hours of preliminary
work in hospital wards. In January the first class was
graduated and started a service which proved invaluable, especially to
the badly understaffed hospitals. By September, 1943, eight classes,
aggregating approximately 185 workers, had been trained, and 140
active Nurse's Aides, pledged to give 150 hours or more of work per
year, were assisting in Charlottesville. Two years later the twelfth
Nurse's Aide class was graduated; ten women were then presented
with their caps and pins.[2]

When the Civilian Defense Council first came into the picture, its
relationship with the Red Cross was not at all clear. Everything was
moving so rapidly, and there were so many adjustments to be made,
that many Red Cross workers were bewildered, particularly when
faced with instructions which threatened confusing and wasteful
duplication. However, through the cooperation of all concerned, the
tangle was soon unravelled. Simplification of the problem was promoted
because the Red Cross Volunteer Special Services chairman
became also the executive secretary of Civilian Defense. After
Pearl Harbor enemy air raids were expected on Washington or on the
Atlantic Coast, and Charlottesville was designated as an evacuation
center. It soon became clear that the Civilian Defense organization
was to be in charge of relief operations in case of disaster due to enemy
action and was to remain in charge until the Army took over the
responsibility. All resources of the Red Cross were to be available.
but this organization's specific job would be to provide refugees with
food, clothing, and temporary shelter. Dr. Harvey E. Jordan, Dean
of the Medical School at the University of Virginia, was appointed
chief medical officer of the local Civilian Defense Council, and chairmen
of certain Red Cross services were included on his committee.
The personnel of the council and of the Red Cross cooperated closely,

and elaborate and detailed plans for relief were worked out. Much
credit goes to Sterling L. Williamson, chairman of the Disaster Preparedness
Committee of the Chapter, for his excellent job in mobilizing
Red Cross services for possible emergency. Under the Civilian
Defense disaster organization were aligned the following Red Cross
services: the Canteen Corps, which stood ready with available equipment
to feed as many as 1,500 refugees; the Staff Assistance Corps,
fifty-four of whom were specially trained to be in charge of registration
and information desks; the Motor Corps, which was prepared
to provide a large part of the necessary transportation to and from
any eastern city between Norfolk and Baltimore (besides the Red
Cross cars, privately owned station wagons, with stretchers and first
aid equipment, were to be available to the Motor Corps); the Nurse's
Aide Corps, which was prepared to assist trained nurses in emergency
assignments; a Clothing Committee composed of dry goods merchants
who had surveyed available supplies and were ready to furnish adequate
clothing on short notice; and a Shelter Committee, which had
arranged to house 700 people. It was understood that while the
above committees were to be available to the Civilian Defense Council
in case of enemy action, they would work under the Red Cross in
case of sabotage or natural disaster, as would also members of the
Civilian Defense medical squads.

Perhaps the greatest expansion of any of the Chapter committees
at that time was in the Committee on Safety Services. This committee
had been functioning for many years and was responsible for giving
instructions in first aid and in water safety. Under the leadership
of Arthur V. Englert, chairman from 1939 to 1941, Charlottesville
police, firemen, and hundreds of private citizens were instructed
in first aid, and large numbers of people received certificates
in water safety. When Englert moved away to live elsewhere and
was succeeded by Walter S. Crenshaw, there was a greater demand
for first aid instruction than ever before in Red Cross history. The
local Civilian Defense Council required it for all air raid wardens,
the Red Cross required it in certain services, and there was a clamor
among the general public for such training. Crenshaw and a large
group of instructors gave their time freely and generously, thereby
making an enormous contribution, not only to people individually
but also to all agencies cooperating in the protection of the home front.

The scarcity of doctors and nurses was being felt more and more
in the community, and the congestion in hospitals was very great.
In order to give a small measure of relief in this problem, the Red
Cross Home Nursing Committee, with Mrs. Mason S. Byrd as chairman,
and the Joint Health Department organized and provided instruction
for many classes in home nursing, hoping that thereby women
would learn to care more intelligently for the sick in their own
homes. Some of these classes, both white and Negro, were taught

by Mrs. Robert V. Funsten, Mrs. Fletcher Woodward, Mrs. John
G. Yancey, Mrs. Grace White, and Mrs. Annie White, who very
generously gave their time.[3] Later other volunteer trained nurses also
undertook the task of instruction. All rendered to the community a
service the magnitude of which cannot be measured. Certificates were
awarded to more than 656 graduates of this course.

With the many increased demands upon the Red Cross, the question
of working space was becoming very serious. Many suitable
rooms had been provided in the county for both branches of Production
and for First Aid and Home Nursing classes, but in Charlottesville
workrooms were becoming crowded and inadequate. Activities
in the city were scattered in thirteen different rooms, which had been
loaned by various organizations, and operations had become very difficult.
They would have necessarily been continued on a much restricted
basis had it not been for the Charlottesville City Council,
which, shortly after Pearl Harbor, voted to let the organization have
the use of the old Midway School building for the duration of the
war. Early in January, 1942, the Red Cross moved in, and a new
era in Chapter history began. Thereafter the local Chapter was never
hampered by lack of space, and that fact undoubtedly played a great
part in the record of achievement of the Albemarle County Chapter.

In December, 1941, Dr. Carlisle S. Lentz, Superintendent of the
University of Virginia Hospital, requested and obtained $1,000 from
the Red Cross, and later the same amounts from both Charlottesville
and Albemarle County, for the purchase of medical supplies to be
held in readiness for victims of air raids. The greater part of this
money was to be used for the establishment of a bank for liquid
blood plasma which, as it required refrigeration, could be used only
locally or in nearby places. This bank was to be operated by the hospital
staff but to belong to the Red Cross and to the county and city
governments.

The Civilian Defense Council assumed the responsibility of obtaining
donors and had general supervision over the project, but Red
Cross volunteers, particularly Staff Assistants, gave many hours of
work to help in assuring its success. This blood bank should not be
confused with the Red Cross Blood Donor Service, mobile units of
which visited this community during 1943–1945 to obtain donations
of blood to be converted into dried plasma for the United
States armed forces. Details of the cooperative Civilian Defense blood
bank have been discussed in the chapter on Civilian Defense.

Shortly before moving into Midway School, the Albemarle County
Chapter lost Miss Pauline Beard, who for six years had run the office,
attended to Home Service, promoted all activities in the Chapter, and,
incidentally, picked up all loose ends. Her departure to accept a
responsible position at Red Cross National Headquarters left the local
Chapter feeling very much “on its own.” However, her sister, Miss

Anne Beard, who replaced her, fitted very well into the position of
executive secretary, and Miss Helen Wilson proved very valuable as
her assistant.

After the Chapter had been functioning for several months in its
new quarters, demands for surgical dressings for our own armed forces
became greater and greater. Mrs. Carter and her cohorts began to
look with distress on their workers as they removed their uniforms
and departed every day at about half-past twelve. It occurred to
them that, if lunch were served in the building, the departing workers
might stay and give at least an hour's more time and perhaps two.
They appealed to the Canteen Corps, whose members not only responded
but also equipped and furnished a kitchen and dining room
in the basement. These rooms were transferred from spots of depressing
gloom into really cheerful gathering places. Lunches were served
five days each week to all Red Cross workers who wanted to stay.
These meals were uniformly good, showed originality and imagination,
and usually cost only twenty-five cents. While, theoretically,
the Canteen Corps was not supposed to make money, they made it in
spite of themselves and were able to make many notable contributions
with their profits. These luncheons will be remembered with pleasure
by many Red Cross workers. Not only did they serve their original
purpose of enticing many of the Surgical Dressing ladies to remain a
little longer, but they also proved to be excellent times for meetings,
were a great convenience to all workers at Midway, and undoubtedly
served a great purpose in promoting all Chapter services.

In the summer of 1942 some members of the Canteen Corps, under
the leadership of Mrs. Charlotte Gildersleeve, began to serve light
refreshments to traveling servicemen at the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
station. This was not a Red Cross project at the time, but a
private enterprise of these ladies. Although they wanted it to come
officially under the Red Cross, the undertaking was not then smiled
upon by either the C. & O. Railway or the Red Cross Eastern Area
office, and it had to be discontinued for a while. However, these
women had demonstrated its worth, and the local Chapter became
very anxious to establish an official station canteen, since an enormous
number of servicemen en route to and from military or naval stations
along the Atlantic coast traveled on the C. & O., wartime railway
dining car facilities were inadequate, there were sometimes long waits
between trains, and, also, because the men who had been served by
Mrs. Gildersleeve's group had been very appreciative. Finally, after
much correspondence and many meetings, all difficulties were cleared.
The C. & O. Railway, managers of nearby restaurants, and the U. S.
O., which under national policy had priority in all proposals for
the establishment of station canteens, gave their unanimous approval.
This resulted in the consent of the Eastern Area of the American Red
Cross. The railroad not only approved, under certain proper conditions,

but also loaned for this use its former ticket office. This room
opened onto the platform and was ideal for the purpose. Mrs. Gildersleeve
was anxious to help but not to assume the responsibility,
so Mrs. Mulholland appointed Miss May Langhorne to direct the
station canteen. From a small beginning in October, 1942, this canteen
grew into an efficiently managed organization which met all
trains day and night, seven days a week, and dispensed to men and
women in military or naval uniform free coffee, cigarettes, doughnuts,
and cheer. The crowds of service personnel who eagerly gathered
around the canteen windows and the many letters of appreciation
received convinced the few doubters that this enterprise was a
morale builder of the first order. While the station canteen was in
operation, 156 women gave time totaling more than 13,442 hours
and served light refreshments to 307,592 service personnel. It was
closed on February 15, 1946.[4]

Late in 1942 and early in 1943 the local Chapter suffered an alarming
epidemic of losses. Miss Anne Beard, who had become Mrs.
Johnson Dennis, resigned as executive secretary and was replaced by
Miss Marjorie Shepherd, and a large number of Albemarle volunteers
were seized with the very natural desire to go into the armed
forces or Red Cross service overseas. Miss Mary Stamps White and
Miss Elizabeth Nolting were among those who went abroad with
the Red Cross, and Miss Caroline Stuart left with the same intention,
although later developments prevented her from going. It hardly
seemed possible that such excellent replacements as Mrs. Alfred Chanutin,
Mrs. John McGavock, and Mrs. Charles Merriman should
have been obtained as chairmen respectively of Volunteer Special
Services, the Motor Corps, and the Nurse's Aide Corps. They kept
up the excellent work of their predecessors, and all activities continued
to expand.

Early in 1943 the Army and Navy designated the Red Cross as
their official agent for the enrollment of nurses. Miss Virginia
Walker, Superintendent of Nurses at the University of Virginia Hospital,
became chairman of the local Nurse Recruitment Committee.
It had a rather large field, as the Albemarle County Chapter became
the nurse recruitment center of fifteen surrounding counties. Miss
Walker had been experiencing the difficulties which resulted from the
shortage of nurses at home, but she went gallantly to work, knowing
that Army needs were more serious. (The Navy's quotas were
not as large as the Army's and not so difficult to fill.) As a result of
Miss Walker's endeavors, seventy-three nurses were enrolled for the
armed forces. Fifty-nine of them served overseas.

In June, 1943, a mobile unit from the Red Cross Blood Donor
Service in Washington, D. C., made its first visit to Charlottesville,
and at last people of the community had the opportunity to give
their blood for conversion into dried plasma for shipment overseas.

Ruth Risher and Disney murals entertain soldiers in a snack bar in
Egypt.

Months earlier, the Albemarle County Chapter had asked to be included
in the itinerary of this service but had been assured that Charlottesville
was too far distant. The local Chapter was not happy
about the situation, and this feeling was intensified by General Vandegrift's
visit. Early that year, Robert E. Taylor, chairman of the
local 1943 Red Cross War Fund Campaign, invited Major General
A. A. Vandegrift of the United States Marine Corps, a native of
Charlottesville, to come and open the local drive, and the community
was greatly thrilled and honored when he accepted. The General had
just returned from active duty in the South Pacific, and what he said
about the important part blood plasma was playing in saving the
lives of wounded men made many people here more than ever eager
to give their blood. As it happened, the community did not have
to wait very long. No doubt the critical status of the battlefront at
that time and the urgent need for plasma caused the directors of this
Washington service to relent. In May they sent a representative to
help the local Red Cross Chapter to organize a blood donor center in
Charlottesville. Mrs. Staige D. Blackford became chairman and
formed an organization which developed great efficiency. The University
Baptist Church provided adequate space. Donors were obtained
through the newspapers, by radio, and by personal solicitation.
When the Mobile Blood Donor Service unit arrived, necessary equipment
and volunteer workers were on hand, and the local quota of
160 pints of blood a day for three days was met. The unit and its
skillful and cooperative personnel came back to Charlottesville approximately
every other month for four-day periods through June,
1945. The visit scheduled for August of that year was cancelled
because the Japanese had begun their peace overtures. In the winter
of 1944 the location was changed to the Methodist Church, which
was more convenient to most donors, and twice that year the unit
made trips to Scottsville also. In order to protect the donors, physical
requirements were very rigid, and even with good preliminary
work the committee had always to count on a number of rejections
of persons who were willing but not able to spare some of their blood.
Substitutes stood by, however, and usually the maximum daily quota
was met.

Residents of Charlottesville and Albemarle County, together with
occasional delegations from other counties and students of the University
of Virginia, proved to be generous blood donors. In recognition
of their first pint of blood, donors received bronze buttons,
which were to be exchanged for silver buttons after their third donation
and for gold buttons after their fourth donation. An example
of their faithfulness is to be found in the fact that in January, 1945,
514 out of 582 persons offering blood were previous donors.[5] Fifteen
employees of the Charlottesville post office volunteered to give
blood, as did more than 200 students, including the entire membership

of the local chapter of the Sigma Chi Fraternity. All told, 6,404
pints of blood were collected in Charlottesville from volunteer donors,
seventy of whom became members of the Gallon Club, having contributed
one gallon or more of blood. Two Charlottesville mothers,
Mrs, W. L. Lacey and Mrs. W. H. Smick, Sr., celebrated their sons'
birthdays in February, 1944, by gifts of blood. Mrs. Lauris Norstad,
wife of one of the younger generals of the Army Air Corps
serving in Italy, Mrs. J. E. Bell, and Nat R. Martin became charter
members of the local Gallon Club. Staff Sergeant Robert V. Smith
of Charlottesville, who had assisted the previous January in the first
plasma transfusion ever attempted aboard a B-25 bomber, made a
donation on October 13, 1944. The mobile unit of the Blood Donor
Service happened to be in Charlottesville on D-Day, June 6, 1944.
When the news of landings on the beachheads of Normandy came, a
large number of people without appointments appeared and offered
to give blood. Many of these had to be turned away, as there was
not sufficient equipment to accommodate all of the would-be donors.[6]

Early in 1945 Mrs. William H. Laird became co-chairman of the
committee in charge of this service locally, and she, Mrs. Blackford,
and their committee did an outstandingly good job. They were ably
assisted by local volunteer nurses, as well as members of the Nurse's
Aide, Canteen, Staff Assistance, and Motor Corps. Without all these,
according to Mrs. Blackford, “we could never have succeeded.”

In October, 1943, the Camp and Hospital Committee was organized.
This committee was composed of about forty people, representatives
of practically all civic and patriotic organizations in the
community. Its purpose was to serve as a channel through which
interested groups and individuals could contribute to the comfort and
pleasure of the armed forces, particularly to that of the patients of
the Woodrow Wilson General Hospital near Staunton, Virginia.
This was in keeping with the general policy of the Army and Navy
that such services should be channeled through the Red Cross. The
Motor Corps made weekly trips to the hospital from the time it was
opened in June, 1943, through March, 1946, carrying workers of
this committee, personnel of other Red Cross services, and groups of
entertainers from other community organizations. Many gifts were
made and uncounted entertainments arranged for the men at the
Woodrow Wilson Hospital, and a much appreciated garden project
was sponsored and beautifully carried out there by Mrs. Theodore
Hough. This committee also arranged for the entertainment in Charlottesville
of groups of men from Camp Pickett and from the Woodrow
Wilson Hospital. Luncheon was served to these visiting servicemen
by the Canteen Corps, sometimes in the Midway School dining
room and sometimes on the grounds of Monticello. The committee
also furnished eight sun rooms and gave 1,006 stockings or other
containers filled with Christmas presents to soldiers at the Woodrow

Wilson Hospital. In addition, it provided recreational and other
equipment for the use of American guards at the White Hall Prison
Camp. Robert E. Taylor, Miss Jennette Rustin, and Miss Nan Crow
served successively as chairmen of the group.[7]

Throughout the war the Disaster Preparedness Committee was
ready and waiting to go into action, but its services were needed in
only one major instance. Then it responded so quickly and efficiently
that the Chapter received a letter of commendation from the Eastern
Area office of the Red Cross. On Sunday morning, September 26,
1943, a trainload of German prisoners was wrecked near Shadwell.
The engineer and the fireman were both killed. Fifteen others, including
both prisoners and their guards, were injured. The Red Cross
ambulance with first aid equipment reached the scene promptly. Red
Cross stretchers proved particularly useful, because the wheeled
stretchers of commercial ambulances could not be used on the steep
hillside. The Motor Corps helped with the transportation of the
wounded. Although it was Sunday morning, Mrs. Mulholland and
members of the Canteen Corps were able to comply with the request
of the commanding officer for lunch. In about an hour they were
on the scene with 1,200 sandwiches, coffee, fruit, and water, which
they dispensed from behind a fence, as they were not allowed to
approach the prisoners.[8]

By 1944 calls for Home Service were increasing to such an extent
that they tended to overshadow everything else in the executive
office of the local Chapter. To fulfill these calls is a charter responsibility
of the Red Cross, and, of course, must be done. Mrs. N.
T. Hildreth had moved away, and Mrs. Mason Byrd had assumed
the chairmanship of the Home Service Corps. Under her leadership
a group of eight specially selected women was given a fifty-hour
training course by Miss Marjorie Shepherd, and they were certified
as Home Service volunteers. Most of these and nine others subsequently
trained remained in the corps and proved invaluable
throughout the strenuous days ahead. At Miss Shepherd's request
a Home Service Advisory Committee was organized with the Reverend
Dudley A. Boogher, rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church at
Ivy, as its chairman. It met regularly, and the advice and suggestions
of its members were of great benefit to the executive office.

In the summer of 1944 Miss Shepherd, on the advice of her physician,
resigned. For several months the Chapter was without an
Executive Secretary. However, Miss Helen Wilson, who had served
as assistant to both Miss Shepherd and her predecessor, Mrs. Fenner
Baker, the office secretary, the Home Service Corps, and the Staff
Assistants Corps stood manfully by, and before long the Chapter
obtained in the executive secretaryship the services of Mrs. Albert
Wright, who held this position throughout the remainder of the
war. By 1944 it was obvious that the Executive Secretary and the

chairman of the Home Service Committee should be distinct, and
after Mrs. Wright assumed her duties the separation took place,
with Miss Wilson installed in quarters across the hall as Home
Service Secretary. The result was much less confusion and more
time for the Executive Secretary to give to other services.

However, even then, but for the assistance of the Home Service volunteers
in making visits, in taking office calls, and in proving themselves
generally useful, twenty-four hours a day would have been
insufficient to permit the staff to attend to its large volume of work.
As more and more of our men were made prisoners of war, it was
thought advisable to have in the Home Service office someone who
specialized in that subject. Mrs. Page Nelson, a recent addition to
the staff, became the Chapter's specialist on information about prisoners
of war. The fact that her own son was a prisoner in Germany
made her interest in the subject particularly vital; and her understanding
of what information and service a family in similar
circumstances might want was very keen. Local Red Cross workers
realized that they could not maintain the right kind of Home Service
department if they became cut and dried and too efficiently scheduled.
Of course requests from the Army and Navy and other legitimate
calls for aid had to be handled with dispatch, even when they
involved long drives over almost impassable roads or long walks
if the roads were impassable; and workers knew very well that Home
Service had to be available night and day, including Sundays. But
the workers also understood that human kindness is more important
than schedules. Through the war years relatives of servicemen of
all walks of life, representing all degrees of intelligence, were constantly
in the office, wanting help, information, and encouragement.
No one ever begrudged the time they took. Sometimes requests were
made which could not be granted, but even then the aim was to give
time and thought to helping each person with his problem and to
have him leave happier and more satisfied than when he arrived.[9]

In 1945 Dr. David C. Wilson, head of the Department of Psychiatry
at the University of Virginia Hospital, told the other members
of the Home Service Advisory Committee that many veterans
who had been discharged from the armed forces were in a bewildered
state of mind and needed a little help to enable them
to face life. These men were not sick enough to be committed to
mental hospitals, but they were on the borderline and might become
so. He offered to hold a clinic at some place other than the hospital
and said that he and members of his staff would volunteer their
services, but he added that he would like to have a part-time secretary,
a case worker, and a place in which the clinics could be held.
All of these were provided by the Red Cross. At first, Mrs. Lewis
K. Underhill, one of the Home Service volunteers, served as case
worker, and afterwards Miss Helen Neve, who had recently joined

the staff, worked in that capacity. A total of 206 patients were seen
at the clinic. As Dr. Wilson said when this work had been completed,
“The Red Cross performed a social service here of no small
proportion. Undoubtedly a large number of these men would have
become chronic invalids if not handled immediately.” This clinic
was operated from March, 1945, until August, 1946, at which time
the work was so well covered by the Veterans Administration that
Dr. Wilson's clinic ceased to be necessary. The Albemarle County
Chapter of the Red Cross was very grateful to have been able to
help, but to Dr. Wilson himself must go the credit for meeting
what he termed “this community emergency.”[10]

In 1945 the Chapter organized for the first time a Hospital and
Recreation Corps, commonly called “Gray Ladies” on account of
their uniforms. This corps was formed in response to a request for
that service from military authorities at the Woodrow Wilson General
Hospital, and it was trained there. Under the chairmanship of Mrs.
Charles Barham, Jr., fifteen “Gray Ladies” helped social and recreational
workers, manned the information desk in the Red Cross Building,
helped with the interior decoration of sun rooms, and generally
spread good cheer in that institution dedicated to the repair and
healing of wounded or sick soldiers. They served there until the
hospital closed in 1946, and none of them seemed to mind the
seventy miles which they traveled frequently to render this service.[11]

The Public Relations Committee performed an important service
in reporting Red Cross activities to the nine or ten thousand members
of the Chapter and to the public at large. In addition, it thereby
did much to maintain the excellent relationship which always existed
between the Chapter and the community. This was made possible
by the unfailing cooperation of the local newspapers, radio station,
and theatres. In 1942 a mimeographed news report was distributed
to workers every month. Publication of an interesting quarterly
magazine, the Albemarle County Chapter News, was begun in 1944
but was discontinued after the Japanese surrender the next year,
when wartime demands upon the chapter began to become less pressing.[12]
Mrs. Atcheson L. Hench, Mrs. Alfred Chanutin, and Mrs.
Stuart Clement served as successive chairmen of this committee during
the war years.

The Red Cross Roll Call and War Fund Committees raised vast
sums of money which, of course, played an essential part in Red
Cross work with the armed forces, in relief at home and abroad,
and in local Chapter activities. Obtaining the requested quota was
never an easy undertaking, but the quotas were always oversubscribed
because the drive chairmen and their unfaltering solicitors organized
and prosecuted the campaigns efficiently. In their efforts they enjoyed
the influential cooperation of the radio station, newspapers,
business firms, and civic organizations, and they received generous

responses from public spirited citizens.[13] Particularly noteworthy
was the speech with which Major General Alexander Archer Vandegrift
opened the War Fund drive in 1943. At a time when battlefront
conditions were still fresh in the memory of this commander
of the victorious Marines on Guadalcanal, he assured an admiring
audience which filled the Lane High School auditorium that the
“Red Cross performed wonderful service for my men in the Solomons.
It is worthy of all the support you can give it.”[14]

During these years the Junior Red Cross was doing much to live
up to its pledge, “We believe in service to others, for our country,
our community, and our school, in health of mind and body to fit
us for greater service and for better human relationships throughout
the world. We have joined the American Junior Red Cross to help
achieve its aims by working together with its members everywhere
in our own and other lands.” Mrs. John Gilmore and Mrs. Charles
Henderson were successively the local Junior Red Cross chairmen
during the war years. Under their leadership the Junior Red Cross
grew and developed until almost the whole school population of
Charlottesville and Albemarle County were members, either through
contributions of money, however small, or by performance of some
service. The Juniors made, or otherwise provided, thousands of
useful gifts for children in this country and abroad, nor did they
overlook the needs of servicemen in hospitals. They gave regularly
to the National Children's Fund, which has been maintained since
1919 through voluntary subscriptions of Junior members for the
purpose of helping to meet emergency needs of boys and girls
throughout the world. They also assisted in war bond sales, in Red
Cross drives, in the enlistment of pledges for the Blood Donor Service,
and in many other useful activities.[15]

Throughout the war the American Red Cross put great emphasis
on the necessity of classes in nutrition. Food supplies were restricted,
and no one knew how much more limited they would become. Consequently,
teaching women to feed their families to better advantage
on more abundant foods was another timely Red Cross service.
Under the leadership of the local Nutrition Committee many women
learned culinary fundamentals and wartime adaptations of basic
menus. Certificates were issued to 572 graduates of nutrition classes
during the two years of 1942–1944 in which Mrs. L. B. Snoddy
was chairman of this committee. Under the chairmanship of her
successors, Mrs. L. P. Edwards and Mrs. Frank Burnley, the special
emphasis of the Nutrition Committee was on the lunch program for
undernourished children in the county schools, the funds for which
had for several years been appropriated by the Child Welfare Association
and administered by the executive office and the Staff Assistance
Corps of the Red Cross. In 1944 the Nutrition Committee
took over the management of this program. It gave special attention

to planning menus which were both balanced and feasible under
conditions existing in the county schools.

Most of the committees and corps of the local Red Cross can report
tangible results in their own respective projects, but from this
viewpoint the Staff Assistance Corps is unique. It had no exclusive
function of its own, but it contributed immeasurably to the success
of all other subdivisions of the Chapter. Each of these recognizes its
own distinctive debt of gratitude to members of the corps and to Mrs.
Thomas S. Englar, Mrs. Harry L. Smith, and Mrs. Raymond Hunt,
its wartime chairmen.[16]

It would not be fitting to close this review of wartime services
which were, in the aggregate, truly amazing, without a tribute to
the salaried staff and the volunteer workers of the local Red Cross
organization. The Albemarle County Chapter in wartime was a
big organization. Its staff never exceeded five, but it enlisted more
than 3,000 volunteers. Within seven years after the outbreak of
the war in Europe over half a million recorded hours of service were
given by members of the Volunteer Special Service Corps, and this
figure may tell only half the story. It excludes many tens of thousands
of hours of Volunteer Special Service work—hours which were
freely given but which went unrecorded because people were more
concerned about getting their jobs done than they were about getting
all possible credit. Nor does this figure include the vast expenditures
of time donated to Red Cross activities by Chapter officers, members
of permanent committees, the Junior Red Cross, instructors, and
Roll Call or War Fund solicitors. The Chapter has every reason to
be proud of the wonderful spirit with which everyone worked together.
The few little human frictions which arose were so small
and so easily adjusted as not to be noteworthy. The prevailing
harmony in a large and cooperative membership was characterized
by the unselfish devotion of the workers of the Albemarle County
Chapter, their usual desire to do more than their part, and their large
measure of understanding of the Red Cross ideals of service to
humanity without regard for race, color, or creed.

A Tabular Summary of the Organization and Work of the Albemarle
County Chapter, American Red Cross,
September, 1939—September, 1945

OFFICERS

                                     

Dr. P. B. Barringer, Honorary Chairman	until his death in 1941
John F. Faris, Chairman	1938–1941
Mrs. James Gordon Smith, Chairman	1941–
Llewellyn Miller, Vice Chairman	1939–1941
Mrs. James Gordon Smith, Vice Chairman	1939–1941
Robert Coles, Vice Chairman	1941–1942
John F. Faris, Vice Chairman	1941–1942
Clair F. Cassell, Vice Chairman	1942–1945
Sterling L. Williamson, Vice Chairman	1942–1943
Robert E. Taylor, Vice Chairman	1943–
Hunter Perry, Vice Chairman	1945–
Mrs. Francis C. Morgan, Secretary	1939–1942
John F. Faris, Secretary	1942–1945
Mrs. Francis C. Morgan, Secretary	1945–
Charles T. O'Neill, Treasurer	1939–
Miss Pauline Beard, Executive Secretary	1939–1941
Miss Anne Beard (Mrs. Johnson Dennis), Executive Secretary	1941–1943
Miss Marjorie Shepherd, Executive Secretary	1943–1944
Mrs. Albert Wright, Executive Secretary	1944–1945

STANDING COMMITTEES

Home Service

       

Miss Pauline Beard, Home Service Secretary	1939–1941
Miss Anne Beard (Mrs. Johnson Dennis), Home Service Secretary	1941–1943
Miss Marjorie Shepherd, Home Service Secretary	1943–1944
Miss Helen Wilson, Home Service Secretary	1944–

Services Rendered by the Committee

         

To Army personnel	7,868
To Navy personnel	2,717
To veterans	2,307
To civilians	455
Fulfilled requests from Army and Navy officials for reports and information	6,317

Disaster Preparedness

   

Sterling L. Williamson, Chairman	1939–1943; 1944–
W. A. Barksdale, Chairman	1943–1944

Home Nursing

     

Mrs. Mason S. Byrd, Chairman	1942–1943
Mrs. J. Fred Harlan, Chairman	1943–1944
Mrs. Austin Kilham, Chairman	1944–

Safety Services

   

Walter S. Crenshaw, Chairman	1939–
Mrs. J. H. Whiteman, Co-Chairman	1944–

         

First Aid instructors trained	213
First Aid instructors active	84
First Aid certificates issued	7,890
Swimming certificates issued	267
Life Saving certificates issued	426

Nurse Recruitment

 

Miss Virginia Walker, Chairman

1943–

Nutrition

     

Mrs. L. B. Snoddy, Chairman	1942–1944
Mrs. L. P. Edwards, Chairman	1944–1945
Mrs. Frank Burnley, Chairman	1945–

Blood Donor Service

   

Mrs. Staige D. Blackford, Chairman	1943–1945
Mrs. William H. Laird, Co-Chairman	1945–

Camp and Hospital

     

Robert E. Taylor, Chairman	1943–1944
Miss Jennette Rustin, Chairman	1944–1945
Miss Nan Crow, Chairman	1945–

Roll Call and War Fund

               

Llewellyn Miller, Chairman	Autumn, 1939, Roll Call	$ 7,061.63
Robert Coles, Chairman	Autumn, 1940, Roll Call	$ 8,512.62
Letters mailed from office	Winter, 1941, Special War Relief Fund	$ 6,891.73
Clair Cassell, Chairman	Autumn, 1941, Roll Call	$10,737.28
William S. Hildreth, Chairman	Winter, 1942, War Fund	$15,993.21
Robert E. Taylor, Chairman	March, 1943, War Fund	$38,069.65
Hunter Perry, Chairman	March, 1944, War Fund	$58,264.57
W. F. Souder, Chairman	March, 1945, War Fund	$68,045.00

Junior Red Cross

   

Mrs. John A. Gilmore, Chairman	1939–1944
Mrs. Charles Henderson, Chairman	1944–1945

VOLUNTEER SPECIAL SERVICE CORPS

     

Mrs. James Gordon Smith, Chairman	1939–1941
Miss Mary Stamps White, Chairman	1941–1942
Mrs. Alfred Chanutin, Chairman	1942–

Production Corps—Sewing and Knitting

           

Mrs. Isaac Walters, Chairman	1939–
Number of workers	929
Hospital and foreign war relief garments sewn	30,982
Knitted garments for United States armed forces and for foreign war relief	14,784
Kit bags for United States servicemen	2,999
Miscellaneous comfort articles	11,176

Workrooms:
Midway School, Charlottesville

         

Westminster Presbyterian Church, Charlottesville
Carter's Bridge		Ivy
Covesville		Keswick
Greenwood		Proffit
	Scottsville

Production Corps—Surgical Dressings

     

Mrs. Blakeley Carter, Chairman	1939–
Number of workers	2,498
Surgical dressings made	5,687,430

Workrooms:
Midway School, Charlottesville

               

Batesville	Ivy
Crozet	Keswick
Esmont	Miller School
Farmington	Red Hill
Free Union	St. John's Mission
Greenwood	Scottsville
Holy Cross Mission	Stony Point
Howardsville	White Hall

Braille Corps

     

Miss Mary Harris, Chairman	1939–1942
Pages of reading matter transcribed for the blind	2,335
(This service was discontinued by the American Red Cross in June, 1942.)

Motor Corps

       

Miss Mary Stamps White, Chairman	1939–1940
Mrs. John Maury, Jr., Chairman	1940–1941
Miss Caroline Stuart, Chairman	1941–1943
Mrs. John F. McGavock, Chairman	1943–

Nurse's Aide Corps

     

Miss Elizabeth Nolting, Chairman	1941–1943
Mrs. Charles Merriman, Chairman	1943–
Mrs. John Chadwick, Co-Chairman	1945–

Staff Assistance Corps

                             

Mrs. Blakeley Carter, Chairman	1939–1941
Mrs. Thomas S. Englar, Chairman	1941–1943
Mrs. Harry L. Smith, Chairman	1943–1944
Mrs. Raymond Hunt, Chairman	1944–
Number of workers certified	69
Hours of work given	more than 27,785
Agencies assisted:
All Red Cross services
City and county ration boards
Ration boards' price panels
Rent control office
Selective Service boards
Civilian Defense Council
Joint Health Department
Hospitals and clinics

Canteen Corps

     

Mrs. H. B. Mulholland, Chairman	1941–
Miss May Langhorne, Chairman for the C. & O. Canteen	1943–1946
Number of workers trained and certified	100

Home Service Corps

   

Mrs. N. T. Hildreth, Chairman	1941–1942
Mrs. Mason S. Byrd, Chairman	1944–

Hospital and Recreation Corps (Gray Ladies)

 

Mrs. Charles Barham, Jr., Chairman

1945–

RESIDENTS OF CHARLOTTESVILLE AND ALBEMARLE COUNTY
WHO BECAME RED CROSS WORKERS SERVING WITH
THE ARMED FORCES OVERSEAS

(Note: This list is appended, upon request, as a matter of interest
only. The recruitment of Red Cross workers for overseas duty was
not a function of the Albemarle County Chapter. This list is
probably incomplete.)

     
                 

Miss Patricia G. Balz (Mrs. Patrick Vincent)	Staff assistant in service clubs in India
Miss Gertrude Haugan	A secretary with the Red Cross in the Philippine Islands
James F. Jones	Field Director in Puerto Rico
Miss Katherine Marshall	Served with a Clubmobile in England and behind the lines in France, Belgium, and Germany
Miss Muriel McMurdo	Staff assistant in north central Australia and in Leyte
Edward Newman, Jr.	Club director in India
Miss Elizabeth Nolting	Hospital recreation worker in India and China
Miss Ruth Risher (Mrs. John Wheeler-Bennett)	Director of service clubs in Egypt
Miss Harriet B. Sage (Mrs. E. Allen Drew)	Hospital recreation worker in New Caledonia
Miss Lucy Shields	Served in Africa and Sardinia
C. C. Wells	Assistant Field Director at Hawaii and for the Seventh Air Force at Oahu; Field Director at Saipan and Pelelieu
Miss Mary Stamps White	Staff assistant in service club in Edinburg, Scotland; Assistant Director and Acting Director of service club in Northampton, England; in September, 1944, became Assistant Director and later Director of the Columbia Club in Paris; awarded the Army Bronze Star for outstanding merit

IX
Providing Recreation and Relief

Though war is inherently a sordid and selfish thing, it often
serves to bring to the surface noble and generous impulses which
may lie latent and untouched by less dramatic or spectacular events.
During the Second World War this proved true with many people
in Charlottesville and Albemarle County. Though they were living
under greater pressures upon their time, energy, and money than
ever before, their hearts went out sympathetically and their pocket-books
were opened generously to other victims of the war whose
lives were more seriously dislocated than their own. Their resultant
services and charitable contributions can be divided into two fairly
distinct types. One of these pertained chiefly to the fighters of the
war—men who were uprooted from their homes, often lonesome,
bored, and friendless. It took the form of giving them a cordial
welcome whenever they were in the community, of affording them
homelike comforts and atmosphere, and of making available to them
wholesome and diverting kinds of entertainment. These functions
became in time chiefly the responsibility of the local U. S. O. Club,
a community-operated facility which emerged gradually in response
to local initiative and continued in cooperation with an international
organization. The other type of local war charity responded especially
to the needs of civilians who had been oppressed by the war
both at home and abroad. It found expression through many relief
agencies. In several particulars the activities of the American Red
Cross straddle this line of demarcation, and the wartime services
of the Albemarle County Chapter of the Red Cross are recounted
elsewhere in this volume.

Recreation

The United Service Organizations, Inc., was an interdenominational
union of six social service agencies, the Young Men's Christian
Association, the Young Women's Christian Association, the Salvation
Army, the National Travelers Aid Association, the National
Catholic Community Service, and the National Jewish Welfare
Board. Since they were all interested in meeting needs of the men

and women of the United States armed forces which could best be
filled by agencies other than the Federal government, they created the
U. S. O. in February, 1941, as a means of coordinating their efforts.[1]

One of the widely publicized services of the U. S. O. was its provision
of groups of touring entertainers for the enjoyment of servicemen
and servicewomen wherever throughout the world they found
opportunities to relax awhile. At least two men and one young
woman from Charlottesville were contributing to the success of
U. S. O. Camp Shows in the European Theater of Operations as
the war approached its end. Richard Via, son of the Reverend and
Mrs. Bernard S. Via, toured France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany
for eight months as a member of the company of the play
“Junior Miss.” Edgar Mason, a native of Charlottesville who had
gone into the worlds of the stage and radio, arrived in Paris in 1945
with the “Kiss and Tell” company. Each of these men was cited
for his services to the U. S. O. program overseas.[2] Miss Marjorie
Mitchell of Charlottesville, an accomplished pianist, was another
artist who entertained servicemen under auspices of the U. S. O.
During the winter of 1944–1945 she made long visits to military
stations in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. Later she began an
extended tour of the European continent with a U. S. O. Camp
Show unit.[3]

Residents of Charlottesville and Albemarle County were not able
to participate directly in the work of the U. S. O. until long after
the United States entered the war. Only one of the six constituent
U. S. O. agencies, the Salvation Army, was operating a local unit at
that time, and the absence of any large cantonment of uniformed
personnel in the vicinity meant that no U. S. O. Club was required.
A national campaign for gifts to the U. S. O. in the autumn of 1941
had not been locally a howling success; a “concerted drive” for funds
throughout a week had produced only $413.50 in cash from the city
and county, which had been assigned a quota of $3,400, but there
had been a lingering hope that several large contributions would
transform these disappointing receipts into a respectable sum in four
figures.[4] Probably many people of the community first became really
acquainted with the U. S. O. in the spring of 1942 when it launched
a War Fund campaign having greater popular appeal. Governor
Colgate W. Darden, Jr., the honorary chairman of the drive for
Virginia, and John Stewart Bryan of Richmond, state chairman,
spoke to local solicitors. State Senator John S. Battle of Charlottesville
was one of Virginia's regional chairmen. Fred L. Watson
served as chairman for the city, and W. A. Rinehart headed the
county organization. In support of this appeal The Daily Progress
printed information about the nature and program of the U. S. O.[5]

But already something akin to the U. S. O.'s interest in the welfare
of servicemen had begun to emerge in the community, and eventually

it developed through an easy transition into an official U. S.
O. Club. Under the leadership of Miss Nan Crow, chairman of the
Recreation Committee of the local Civilian Defense Council, entertainment
was afforded to transient servicemen and to local selectees
who were awaiting induction into the armed forces. Soon after
Pearl Harbor this committee, consisting of sixteen interested volunteers
in addition to its chairman, announced that Christmas cards
had been mailed to 158 draftees who could not return to their homes
for the holidays and reported that each departing selectee was to receive
an individual gift.[6] Charlottesville's City Council, apparently
in appreciative response to this start, promptly appropriated $25
to supplement the committee's initial funds from other sources.[7]
By mid-summer of 1942 Miss Crow could report that a few hundred
dollars had been spent for the entertainment of troops travelling
in convoy, that meal tickets had been distributed to them, that
cots and mattresses had been collected in the New Armory for their
overnight use, that they had attended two dances, and that the possibility
of establishing a recreation and lounging room for transient
men in uniform had been discussed. Moreover, the temporary needs of
of local selectees, who might be at loose ends while awaiting induction,
had not been overlooked. In February and again in May,
1942, large groups of selectees were dinner guests of local civic clubs.[8]
The Charlottesville Presbyterian Church offered facilities in its Annex
building at the corner of First and Market Streets for an afternoon
recreation room for selectees. Staffed by volunteer hostesses,
under the supervision of Miss Crow, this resort became a kind of
miniature U. S. O. lounge. To 7,000 white and Negro men who
had time on their hands it made available during the last six months
of 1942 magazines, newspapers, postal cards, soft drinks, cigarettes,
candy, and popsicles.[9]

During the last weeks of the summer and through part of the
autumn of 1942 a revival of the armed forces' policy of granting
two weeks of immediate leave to every new inductee made possible
a renewal and enlargement of the shortlived plan for dinners in
honor of departing servicemen which had been begun earlier in the
year. The Recreation Committee of the Civilian Defense Council
made arrangements for meals, several of which were held in the
First Methodist Church of Charlottesville, the civic clubs took turns
providing dinner programs, and these evenings were made complete
when the groups attended movies at the Paramount Theatre. Two
such parties were planned each month, about two weeks apart, for
each of the two races, white and Negro. The first dinner for Negro
inductees was served in their First Baptist Church; eight selectees,
three soldiers who were at home on furlough, and nine other persons
enjoyed fried chicken and other delicacies before the usual movie that
evening. When it was found that gasoline rationing and other

transportation difficulties prevented many selectees in the county from
accepting these invitations, they received instead farewell gift packages
at the time of their departure. Some other complimentary services
rendered by the Recreation Committee before changing conditions
caused a discontinuance of this program included the gift of a free
newspaper subscription for three months to seventy-two draftees.
Student officers of the School of Military Government at the University
of Virginia were also entertained upon at least four occasions
during 1942–1943.[10]

At just about the same time that it became impracticable to fête
on such a grand scale servicemen who were leaving the community,
opportunities began to present themselves for the entertainment of
other servicemen who were visitors to Charlottesville and Albemarle
County. Ships of the British Navy which had met the enemy on
the high seas and had not emerged unscathed from these encounters
sometimes docked at Hampton Roads, Virginia, for repairs. Their battle-weary
sailors were often under these circumstances granted leaves
of a week or longer. Direct railroad service between their temporary
ports and Charlottesville meant that these British “tars” could practicably
travel inland to pass some of their time of waiting and to
seek a refreshing change in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. Homes
in both the county and the city were opened to them and to small
contingents of sailors of other nations throughout two and one-half
years or longer. Local arrangements for this gesture of international
good will were directed successively by the Recreation Committee
of the Civilian Defense Council and by the U. S. O.

The first two British sailors who made such visits to Charlottesville
arrived early in October, 1942. They were billeted in the New
Armory and enjoyed themselves so much that they later wrote enthusiastic
expressions of appreciation.[11] The third, a young veteran
of seven years in the Royal Navy who had not been home for three
years, remarked that the “country around Charlottesville reminds me
very much of England.” Being here, he said, was “next to visiting
England. And the people here,” he asserted gratefully, “are the very
soul of hospitality.”[12] The society page of The Daily Progress listed
one day in November, 1942, the names of twenty-one other British
sailors and of their hosts and hostesses in eleven private homes of the
city and of the county. Most of these visited Monticello and Ash
Lawn, enjoyed a square dance, and were given movie tickets and
bowling passes.[13] Some two weeks later the local newspaper published
a feature story based upon an interview with three Royal Navy
guests who told harrowing tales of bombings and sinkings at sea.
They all promised to return if they got another furlough within
travelling distance of the community and assured the reporter that
their shipmates had told them before they had left their ships, “If
you want a grand leave, go to Charlottesville.”[14] More than twenty

of the British sailors spent the Christmas season of 1942 in the
homes of city and county residents, were entertained two evenings by
Christ Episcopal Church, and enjoyed other special parties. Plans
for some of their shipmates who had been expected to arrive in
time for New Year's Day were cancelled by a telegram from their
port.[15] The chaplain of the damaged vessel to which many of these
sailors were attached wrote, in part, “I have been tremendously
touched by the wonderful welcome you have given our boys. I
wish you could hear something of the enthusiasm with which they
describe what they have seen and done during their leave. As you
have discovered,” he explained, “many of our boys have not had
leave for around two years and this fact has heightened their appreciation
at being made to feel so much at home again.” The kindness
of local hosts, he continued, “has done a great deal more than
give your guests a good time. The insight gained in such a way can
alone produce a really genuine understanding between our two
peoples. As a friend and admirer of the United States I have felt
pleased that you have allowed our sailors to get a fairer perspective
of American life than would otherwise have been possible.”[16]

These British seamen were not the only visitors to Charlottesville
who mailed complimentary letters when they had returned to eastern
ports. An enlisted man of the United States Navy who spent a
week-end in Charlottesville proclaimed it the finest of many leaves
which he and another serviceman had enjoyed during the eight
months in which they had been stationed at Norfolk, Virginia, far
from their homes. “We found your people to be very friendly and
courteous,” he wrote. “We were comfortably quartered in a hotel
and ate excellent meals at about two-thirds the price that we have been
used to paying.” An employee of the hotel made a particularly favor
able impression. “When a hotel clerk says 'God bless you' as you leave
the hotel, we have the feeling that humanity is still pretty good after
all.” The grateful sailor thought Charlottesville “charming enough
in itself even if the University weren't there.” With a candor characteristic
of servicemen rather than because of any desire to make invidious
comparisons, he concluded, “It is refreshing to be able to
visit a city like Charlottesville which is so different from what we experience
daily here. I think we both appreciated the Sunday quiet
and noticed the absence of hubbub. Your quaint old buildings are
inspiring and your churches are particularly beautiful. We like
your city and do not hesitate to say so. We will go on record as
champions of Virginia in contrast to so many service men who judge
the state unfairly, having seen only the Hampton Roads area.”[17]

A full year elapsed after Pearl Harbor before the U. S. O.
name and insignia could be correctly used in connection with local
recreational facilities or activities for servicemen. The last issue of
The Daily Progress published in 1942 announced a cooperative new

service for military and civilian transients at the Union Station in
Charlottesville. Appended inconspicuously to this article was a
report that plans for a servicemen's lounge were under consideration
and that the U. S. O. had granted permission to use the U. S.
O. insignia in developing it. It was explained, however, that no
U. S. O. funds were then available to Charlottesville and that all
financial requirements would consequently have to be raised locally.[18]
Two weeks later it was revealed that the Old Armory, which served
as the city's Recreation Center, was to undergo extensive renovations
by way of making it an attractive and comfortable place of entertainment
for servicemen. The City Council promptly appropriated
$1,200 for this purpose, and The Daily Progress editorially approved
this outlay.[19]

The opening of the redecorated Old Armory in its new capacity
on Saturday, February 20, 1943, was a gala occasion dignified by the
presence of city officials and their wives. Aside from the attraction
of an opportunity to inspect its facilities, the evening included a
dance to which 300 Naval Flight Preparatory School cadets at the
University and more than 200 young women of the community had
been especially invited. Upholstered chairs, bookcases, rugs, and
other furnishings had been donated by numerous individuals. Serving
as interior decorator, Miss Eleanor Hosey had stressed bright,
masculine colors, predominantly blues and reds, and members of
the Albemarle Art League had loaned some of their paintings to
decorate the walls. In its new role of service the building afforded
a comfortably furnished main reading and lounging room, a snack
room in which tea could be served, and a pretty, spacious dance hall.
All residents of the community who missed the first festive evening
in the newly refurnished quarters were specially invited to see them
during eight “open house” hours of the following afternoon and
evening. Indeed, Miss Nan Crow, who had been the chief leader in
creating this new facility for recreation and in securing the blessings of
the U. S. O. upon it, announced that it was not intended exclusively
for servicemen and extended a welcome to civilians also. This was
natural, considering her dual interest in uniformed personnel as
chairman of the Recreation Committee of the local Civilian Defense
Council and in civilians as director of the Recreation Department of
the city government. And in view of the fact that the U. S. O. had
loaned its name but not yet invested any of its funds, the dual
character of the revamped building's new community services was
entirely proper.[20]

Soon after the excitement of the opening dance Miss Crow announced
a program of regular U. S. O. activities which had been
agreed upon by the group of a dozen or more community leaders
who had served as an advisory committee or policy-making board of
directors. Women of various churches served in rotation as senior

hostesses in the building, which was open every morning, afternoon,
and evening except Sunday mornings. Junior hostesses assisted them
at especially busy times such as Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
The chief feature of the program was a dance every Saturday night.
These dances were directed and chaperoned by various men's and
women's clubs in turn. Men of the Army School of Meteorology
at the University of Virginia were the only servicemen invited to
the second dance, February 27, 1943, but thereafter all dances were
open to all men in uniform. Parents were given assurance that their
daughters who served as junior hostesses and dancing partners could
do so only under the protective proprieties stipulated nationally by
U. S. O. policy—for example, they were not to leave the building
unless they were chaperoned. Transportation to their homes was
provided by the clubs which supervised each dance, a detail for which
the local War Price and Rationing Board specifically condoned the
use of privately owned automobiles, the current ban on “pleasure
driving” to the contrary notwithstanding.[21]

As the community Recreation Center the Old Armory continued,
however, to maintain all of its regular civilian entertainment program.
And in May and June, 1943, for example, after its facade
had been repainted in white and blue colors in accordance with a
design conceived by Frederick C. Disque, it played host contemporaneously
and in rapid succession to the annual spring exhibit of the
Albemarle Art League, a special exhibit of water colors, a dramatic
production and dance for Greek relief, hillbilly dance open to the
general public, and a dance for employees of Frank Ix and Sons,
Inc., in celebration of their first Army-Navy “E” award.[22]

A widening understanding of the value of the U. S. O. program
is indicated by the fact that in June, 1943, the Albemarle County
Board of Supervisors appropriated $50 to the organization as a gift.[23]
Financial support of a more regular kind and formal affiliation with
the national U. S. O. were gained at the end of the summer. Allotments
in the annual U. S. O. budget and a definite status as a community-operated
U. S. O. Club meant twin advantages for the organization
and program which had been growing and changing as local
needs developed during the first twenty months of American participation
in the war.

During these twenty months 1,432 packages had been given to
local servicemen. Hosts had been found for a hundred British sailors
and additional other visitors on leave. Free movie tickets had
been issued to 508 transient and other servicemen, meal tickets to
246, and bowling tickets to 100. Sightseeing trips had been arranged
for more than 100 men, and 415 servicemen travelling through
the city in six military convoys had been entertained. During the
six months since the Old Armory had been transformed into a

U. S. O. Club 3,281 servicemen had attended its dances, and Sunday
afternoon recreation had been provided for 1,057.

Though the Recreation Department of the city government yielded
to the cooperating U. S. O. Club many of its services to the men of
the armed forces, it continued to maintain two of them. Reports in
Miss Crow's office reveal that by January, 1946, a complimentary
three months subscription to the local newspaper had been given to
1,128 white and 223 Negro servicemen as they left the city and the
county. Each unit of local government financed this gift to its own
personnel. The number of free meal tickets had mounted to 1,162,
and 1,300 free movie tickets had been distributed.

In the reorganization which accompanied the transition into direct
affiliation with the U. S. O., Louis Chauvenet became chairman of
the local board of directors. He was supported by subordinate officers,
including Mrs. M. C. Stewart, secretary, and Fred L. Watson,
treasurer, and by committees for the supervision of various divisions
of the U. S. O. program.[24] In November, 1943, a U. S. O. official
came to Charlottesville to make a formal presentation of an official
flag of the organization.[25] Though she had in a sense relinquished
the reins to other hands, however, Miss Crow's continuing interest
and help are attested by the fact that she attended a conference of
U. S. O. personnel in Richmond, Virginia, in the spring of 1944
and brought back recommendations for an expanded program. And
in its behalf she spoke to local audiences.[26]

In November, 1944, Mrs. Robert V. Funsten succeeded Chauvenet
as the head of the U. S. O. policy-making body, which was again
reorganized, and Miss Louise O. Beall assumed the duties of executive
secretary and treasurer, becoming in a different way as much the central
figure in later days as Miss Crow had been in earlier ones.[27] About
a year later Captain Floyd Terry of the local Salvation Army succeeded
Mrs. Funsten as chairman.[28] Closer ties with the national
U. S. O. did not mean the elimination of local financial support.
Collections and sales of waste paper and other salvageable materials
by city trucks had brought into the treasury of the U. S. O. Club
and its predecessor recreation agencies a total of $1,898.26 by December,
1943, and the public was urged to continue its cooperation
in the city's salvage efforts as an indirect means of giving more money
to the U. S. O.[29]

By 1944 marked increases were noted in the number of transient
servicemen who availed themselves of the club's facilities. Beds, showers,
and washbasins had been installed to increase its usefulness.
Within a few months the number of overnight guests leaped from
approximately 90 to about 250 per month, and some statistician
began to record such details as how many of them shaved in the
building. The Saturday night dances usually attracted a hundred or
more men and about half as many junior hostesses, and square dances

were added to the club's program. More than 200 junior hostesses
had been qualified: more than sixty senior hostesses and other volunteers
were actively engaged in the work. Thirteen of the junior
hostesses were presented the U. S. O. award of a pin and identification
card at a formal dance in June, 1944, in recognition of fifty or more
hours of service which they had given to the club.[30]

Full recompense for all the effort involved in successful management
of an effective program was found in the form of appreciation
frequently expressed by those for whom the recreation was planned.
For example, two Seabees from northern states who were stationed
at Camp Peary near Williamsburg, Virginia, wrote, “The way we
were treated by everyone in Charlottesville, particularly the lady on
duty at the U. S. O. at 8 P. M., Saturday evening, did a whole lot
to restore our faith in what we had read about the South and its people.
Your U. S. O. stands way over those in other cities in Virginia
we have visited, and your U. S. O. dance on Saturday night was
real enjoyment to a couple of lonesome and homesick 'Seabees.' ”[31]

Superimposed upon the U. S. O.'s regular entertainment program
were various special demands to which it invariably responded. One
of these was its continuation of the policy of welcoming to the community
men of the navies of allies of the United States. In this
service the U. S. O. had the cooperation of the Recreation Department
of Charlottesville's city government and of many people of
the city and of the county. The groups of British sailors who had
begun in October, 1942, to spend in the community their week or
thereabouts of leave from ships which were under repair continued
to flow into the city during the first several weeks of 1943 while the
Old Armory was undergoing its transformation into a U. S. O.
Club. In this period of the throes of the inauguration of the U. S. O.
in Charlottesville the Recreation Department was finding temporary
homes for about fourteen new men of the Royal Navy who arrived
every third day.[32] The society page of The Daily Progress announced
one afternoon in January, 1943, the names of twenty-six
English sailors who had come from Norfolk, Virginia, to be during
the past week honored guests in fourteen homes of the city and of
the county.[33] The next month's visitors included five British sailors
who came from a vessel docked in the Philadelphia Navy Yard.[34]
Again in the fall and winter of 1944–45 householders of the community
were asked to open their homes to English “tars” who were
expected to arrive daily in groups of eight for placement in pairs in
private homes. Characteristic of the Britishers were their liking for
tea brewed very strong, their “attractive accents,” and their preference
in American music for “Bing [Crosby] to Frankie [Sinatra].”
One of them referred to the U. S. O. as “The Ask and Ye Shall
Receive.” All were grateful for the U. S. O.'s share in promoting

Anglo-American good will, but they were usually “more anxious
for quiet home life than for parties and entertainment.”[35]

One local hostess, Mrs. Roy Howard of Simeon, was so pleased
over her experience in entertaining two of the Englishmen that she
was inspired to broadcast her reactions to it through the medium
of a signed letter to the editor of The Daily Progress. “The U. S. O.
in Charlottesville had asked for homes to be opened for British seamen
and we were in doubt whether to take any or not,” she confessed,
“since we are busy farmers. We were anxious to help and
had been told they were little trouble so we took two on short leave.
We were so pleased with them that we telephoned for more. We
were sent two seamen that had been in a hospital and were given
several days leave. They were so much pleasure to us that we hated
to see the time come for them to leave. They told us so much of
their homes in the British Isles and of different countries they had
seen. One of the boys gained so much weight and his color improved
so [much] that he hardly looked like the same person. It
was gratifying to know that for our small trouble we had really
helped our allies. The boys did not require any waiting on and
were so helpful in every way, in fact they were a pleasure and not a
bother. Our kind neighbors were so anxious to help and offered
their eggs, cream, and anything that we did not have enough of ...
Try taking some of these boys,” she advised all who might read
her letter, enumerating three reasons for such hospitality, “the U. S.
O. will appreciate it, the boys will enjoy it, and you will be more
than thankful you could help.”[36] Mrs. Howard's assertion that she
had asked the U. S. O. to send her more of the British sailors is
substantiated by the fact that she was among fourteen hostesses who
responded overnight to a new appeal issued by the U. S. O. a couple
of months later.[37]

Nor were Britishers the only nationality which found that furloughs
in and near Charlottesville could be pleasant. Upon at least
two occasions French sailors were entertained in the community.
Through the U. S. O. arrangements for a visit in Charlottesville
were made for one pair of them who evidently thought local hospitality
was famous enough to justify their writing to the city's
mayor a request that they be invited into the home of “a family
who would receive us for a few days.” In their imperfect English
they closed their wistful appeal, “If possible we like somebody who
speak French.”[38] To another pair, who were spending their leave
in an unidentified home at Greenwood, the language barrier seems
to have been less of a handicap. Indeed, when they were interviewed
at lunch with a Charlottesville girl, their compliments for all they
observed hereabouts were quite as fluent as they were flattering. “It
is a very nice country,” they asserted, “pretty much the same as

southern France. And the girls, they are very pretty. Thanks to
them, we are having a very good time. In fact, we like all Americans,
because of their ideologies. After our ship is repaired, we will
sail again to fight the Japs and the Germans. Vive L'Amerique!
Vive La France!”[39]

Various groups of servicemen and servicewomen of the United
States were occasionally special guests of the local U. S. O. Club.
Approximately a hundred convalescent soldiers from the Woodrow
Wilson General Hospital near Staunton, Virginia, were invited by the
U. S. O. one Saturday evening to see a production of the Gay Nineties
melodrama, “Ten Nights in a Bar Room,” and to enjoy its usual
dance. The University of Virginia cooperated by giving them complimentary
tickets to an intercollegiate football game at Scott Stadium
that afternoon.[40] When a smaller group of convalescents from the
Army hospital at Camp Pickett near Blackstone, Virginia, arrived
for a sightseeing tour, the U. S. O. added afternoon tea to the picnic
lunch which had been served to them at Monticello by the local Red
Cross.[41] More than fifty young ladies who came from an Army
office in Washington, D. C., for a week-end of sightseeing were
special guests at the Saturday night dance of that week, and upon
another occasion the local U. S. O. arranged a Sunday tour of local
points of interest for thirty-six Navy women from the nation's capital.[42]
The one contingent of nearby service personnel, soldiers whose
duty was confining and prevented their being entertained as a group,
was not overlooked. Since they could not come to it, the club took
at least a part of the U. S. O. to the guards of the German prisoner
of war camp at White Hall by donating to them a radio, porch furniture,
reading matter, and other comforts. In cooperation with the
local Red Cross and other agencies the U. S. O. Club saw to it that
they had a homelike Christmas complete with decorations, lights
for their tree, and a gift for each guard.[43] When the end of the war
came, the U. S. O. was meeting still another need by serving as an
information bureau through which service personnel and some civilians
who were in the city for sightseeing or for other reasons could
be directed to what had by then become one of the scarcest things
in town, a room for rent.[44]

On May 20, 1945, twelve days after the surrender of Germany,
the U. S. O. sponsored the first of numerous memorial services in
honor of the war dead of Charlottesville and Albemarle County who
would not return from their varying duties in the Second World
War. Practically all white and Negro organizations, clubs, and
groups of every kind were represented in this tribute, and citizens
from every section of the community also attended the ceremony,
which was held in the auditorium of Lane High School. All participated
in appropriate exercises and saw the names of 110 servicemen

and servicewomen then known to have died emblazoned on a
large gold star before the flags of the United Nations.[45]

During several months after firing ceased on distant battlefronts
use of the local U. S. O. facilities continued at a high level, but in
the spring of 1946 there was observed a great decrease in the number
of servicemen who availed themselves of its services. The end of
its role was obviously approaching. As it retreated from the center
of the stage toward the wings, it made two final bows. Early in
February, 1946, it entertained the general public and honored some
of the volunteers who had contributed to its success by giving a
Sunday afternoon birthday party in celebration of the fifth anniversary
of the organization of the national U. S. O.[46] The final
Saturday evening dance was held on May 25, 1946, and constituted
a well attended and fitting public finale to three and one-half years
of service since local use of the U. S. O. name and insignia had been
authorized. In a ceremony which preceded the dance Miss Louise
O. Beall, who had been throughout approximately half of this period
the mainstay of the organization, was presented with a corsage from
the junior hostesses and a bracelet from the senior hostesses in
appreciation of her leadership. Service pins were awarded to eight
junior hostesses, fourteen senior hostesses, and six men who had
contributed to the success of the organization many volunteer hours
of willing work. Among these men were Captain Floyd Terry, the
club's last chairman, and William Jackson, who had been its counsellor
and committee chairman from the beginning in all matters
relating to Negro servicemen.[47] Mrs. Robert V. Funsten and Mr.
and Mrs. James F. Minor had previously received pins in recognition
of the more than 500 hours of service which each had donated.[48]
Those present at the final dance also heard a reading of a letter of
praise and appreciation which had been received from Captain S. H.
Hurt, commanding officer of the Navy V-12 unit of students at the
University of Virginia, writing in behalf of servicemen who had
regularly enjoyed the dances and other features of the U. S. O. program.
Referring to the “unselfish efforts” of the volunteers who
had constantly welcomed the men of his command, Captain Hurt's
letter concluded. “Now that these services no longer are required, I
wish to say thank you and to add the Navy's traditional phrase,
'Well done.' ”[49]

Following this swan song dance, the club remained open for the
accommodation of a few transients during the next two and one-half
weeks. On June 15, 1946, it was closed, and five days later
its board of directors assembled for their final session.[50] The building
reverted to the use of the Recreation Department of the city government.

An incomplete but indicative conception of the extent of the local

U. S. O. Club's services can be gained by pondering the meaning of
the following eloquent statistics covering October 1, 1943-April 30,
1946. It had played host to a recorded total of 10,832 transient
servicemen, of whom 2,624 had been overnight guests and 3,845
had been accommodated for showers and shaves. Approximately
1,000 had been taken on sightseeing trips, and rental accommodations
had been found for 275 or more. Servicemen who attended
dances and parties had numbered 19,508. The dances had been
planned and supervised by as many as 395 persons, and dancers had
been entertained by a total of 311 junior hostesses, who had served
21,092 recorded hours. There had been 655 senior hostesses and
other volunteers whose reported hours of service totaled 12,350.
And, within this period of less than 1,000 days, a total of 39,788
servicemen, volunteer workers, and visitors had entered the building
and had found the cheer and relaxation which had become synonymous
throughout the world with the magical initials U. S. O.[51]

Relief

Bundles for Britain was the first war relief organization to strike
a responsive chord in the hearts of the people of Charlottesville and
Albemarle County after the German “blitzkrieg” against France and
near-capture of the British army at Dunkirk. The agency had been
founded in the United States in December, 1939, for the purpose of
sending necessities and comforts to the people of the embattled islands
which soon were so near to—and yet so far from—the western limit
of Nazi conquest. About the first of July, 1940, when it was beginning
to become clear that in the near future the Germans could leap
the English Channel only in the comparatively small numbers permitted
by aerial transportation, the Charlottesville Branch of Bundles
for Britain was organized to bolster British morale against the
destructive air raids which were to follow the debacle in France.

Mrs. Paul White came from the central office in New York City
to assist in the organization of Bundles for Britain's local branch.
She was welcomed by a group of women of the city and county in
the home of Miss Ruth Risher (Mrs. John W. Wheeler-Bennett)
on Oakhurst Circle in Charlottesville. A Britisher born and bred,
Mrs. Arthur Frank Macconochie of Farmington, was their undisputed
choice to serve as president of the local branch. Other officers
elected included Mrs. William H. White, Jr., vice president: Miss
Risher, secretary; Mrs. Edwin P. Lehman, corresponding secretary;
and Harry Frazier, Jr., treasurer. These selections remained unchanged
throughout all or most of the war: Miss Risher retained
her position even while serving with the American Red Cross in the
Middle East.[52]

The basic and most constant service of the enthusiastic women of
the Charlottesville Branch was the knitting of warm woolen clothing

for use across the Atlantic. Its members set up shop in the J. D.
and J. S. Tilman department store. There knitting needles, wool,
and knitting bags were distributed, and articles bearing the British
coat of arms were sold. After about a year they moved their headquarters
into a Corner shop which had been secured rent free. Sweaters,
socks, sea boots, scarves, and headgear were produced by as many
as several hundred women at an average rate of about twenty-five
per week throughout the war years. Some of these garments were
given directly to British sailors when they visited in the community
while their vessels were undergoing repairs. In a letter of thanks to
Charlottesville and Albemarle workers of Bundles for Britain one
of these men of the Royal Navy expressed his appreciation not only
for the organization's gift but also for the attitude of local residents
toward the visiting Englishmen. “The thing that has touched us
... who are so far away from our homes is the great kindness and
friendliness shown to us ...; and when we get back to England you
can rest assured that we [will] take back an excellent report of the
American people.”[53] Other locally knitted garments furnished emergency
relief to British civilians who had been bombed out of their
homes. The greater part of them, however, helped to clothe with
comfortable accessories the men of Great Britain's armed forces scattered
over widespread battlefronts, especially those stationed in cold
and frigid areas.

Supplementing daily work on the production of clothing for the
British, the Charlottesville Branch of Bundles for Britain occasionally
found opportunities to raise substantial sums of money for other
specific needs of the English. A benefit reception was held at the
Farmington Country Club on August 2, 1940, in honor of the
movie star Madeleine Carroll, a native of England who was then in
the community for the filming of the technicolor motion picture
“Virginia.” Among other Britishers present were Lady Russell,
author of Elizabeth and Her German Garden, and John W. WheelerBennett,
thorough student of the modern world. Through this
reception the fledgling local Bundles for Britain group raised about
$700. To meet what was then England's most crying need, this
sum was devoted to the purchase of surgical instruments and medical
supplies.

In the summer of 1940 the British-American Ambulance Corps,
working through the national Bundles for Britain organization,
began to solicit gifts for the purchase in the United States of sorely
needed ambulances, which cost approximately $1,350 each. Mrs.
William Hall Goodwin became chairman of the local ambulance
drive and was photographed, together with other Bundles for Britain
leaders, on East Main Street while standing in front of a specially
labelled automobile used in the promotion of donations for this

appealing cause.[54] Before the end of the war the local group had
collected enough money for the shipment to England of four of
these vehicles of mercy.

Pummeled with destructive explosives from the air, Great Britain
was also in urgent need of mobile canteens during the second half of
the year 1940. These kitchens on wheels were used to carry hot food
to stricken people in bombed cities. One of Albemarle County's most
famous twentieth century daughters, Nancy Langhorne of “Mirador”
near Greenwood, who had crossed the Atlantic to become Lady
Astor and a member of the British Parliament, transmitted through
her niece, Mrs. Ronald Tree of “Mirador,” and Mrs. Chiswell
Perkins a request that several mobile canteens be supplied by gifts
from her native community. In support of this appeal Mrs. Macconochie
delivered a stirring address over the local radio station,
WCHV, on September 9, 1940. She reminded her listeners, “We
... can lay our heads on our pillows at night secure in the knowledge
that our roofs will still be over us when we awake,” and confidently
expressed her conviction “that we want to continue to help
the valiant people in Britain over whom the wrath of modern warfare
has burst in all its fury.” Referring to the “direct request”
from England for rolling kitchens, she pledged that “all future donations
to Bundles for Britain” received by the Charlottesville Branch
would be allocated to the mobile kitchen fund “until we have
reached our goal.” The people of the community forthwith provided
adequate funds to make possible prompt shipment of five of
these canteens.

In a special dispatch to the Charlottesville Daily Progress a British
novelist, Elspeth Huxley, who had been a prewar visitor in the
city, traced the result of another handshake across the sea. “It's a
long way from Charlottesville, Virginia, to Malmesbury, Wiltshire,
England,” she wrote, “yet there's a link connecting the two. Some
time back the Charlottesville chapter of Bundles for Britain made
a very handsome gesture. They sent over the money to buy a mobile
tea kitchen to serve lonely outposts of British soldiers and airmen.
In due course the tea kitchen was built and equipped and became
Mobile Tea Kitchen No. 833, attached to the Y. M. C. A.'s fleet.
And it was put on the road in the Malmesbury area of Wiltshire
where I live. So I've seen it on duty, and now I've been privileged
to drive it on its rounds. ...”[55]

A variety of special events followed the Madeleine Carroll reception
on the local Bundles for Britain calendar. John W. WheelerBennett
described “The Battle of Britain” to an impressed audience
in Cabell Hall at the University of Virginia. His observations of
the aerial peril to which England was exposed were of the graphic
sort which only a recently returned eyewitness could have been capable

of revealing. A Christmas Fair was held at the Farmington
Country Club to raise money. The Keswick Hunt Club gave a benefit
horse show at “Beau Val.” And in June, 1941, an auction of
prized possessions donated by generous friends of the cause was held
at Farmington. Antique furniture, boxwood, and thoroughbred
puppies were among the items which went on the auction block and
produced a revenue of about $750. But there was also offered an
exciting royal antique of a more surprising kind. The “Chips About
Charlottesville” column of the local newspaper enthused over a detailed
description of a genuine Irish linen undergarment—a chemise
or slip—which had belonged to Queen Victoria and on which one
could see the imperial crown done in fine red stitches. “We have
heard of movie stars being mobbed by fans” and losing parts of their
clothing, the awed columnist commented, “but think of being able
to boast that you own the Queen's slip.”[56]

When Lord Halifax, England's ambassador to the United States,
and Lady Halifax visited “Mirador” in 1941, Mrs. Macconochie
pinned a Bundles for Britain button on him. It was then revealed
that several young English refugees, including a niece and a nephew
of Queen Elizabeth, had been evacuated to “Mirador” and had
resided there for some time.[57]

An announcement made by the Charlottesville Branch of Bundles
for Britain at the end of its first year reported that the people of the
community had contributed to it a total of $15,587.80. In addition
to previously mentioned gifts which had been sent across the
Atlantic, this sum had helped to provide three large payments to the
Queen's Hospital for Children in London, two lots of new blankets,
two consignments of new clothes, and twenty air raid shelter cots.[58]
Among many grateful letters of acknowledgment from England
came one which was especially pleasing. On July 2, 1941, Mrs.
Winston Churchill wrote from 10 Downing Street to Mrs. Macconochie:
“I have been told that the Chapter of [Bundles for Britain
in] Charlottesville, Virginia, of which you are President, has
sent a substantial sum of money to the Queen's Hospital for Children,
and as Honorary Sponsor for Bundles for Britain, I write to
tell you how much we over here appreciate this and all your organization
is doing. We thank you for your generosity and for your
thought and care for our people.”

After Pearl Harbor many Americans felt that efforts previously
directed toward aid for England should be diverted to services for
the armed forces of the United States. Indeed, a local unit of the
new Bundles for America organization was established in Charlottesville
with Mrs. Edward Gamble as president, assisted by Mrs. Robert
Kent Gooch. Sharing the quarters of Bundles for Britain, it dispensed
wool for the knitting of garments for American servicemen.

But Bundles for America did not supersede Bundles for Britain.
Though she observed a decline in the number of her knitters, Mrs.
Macconochie and her cohorts continued to maintain an active group
until July, 1945.[59] By then victory had been won in Europe, and
there were no longer such desperate needs in the battered but unbowed
British Isles.

In the period before American entry into the war there had also
been in Charlottesville another British war relief organization independent
of Bundles for Britain. Its original and special concern was
Queen Charlotte's Hospital in London. This hospital had been
founded long ago by the Queen Charlotte for whom the small and
centrally located eighteenth century town in Albemarle County, Virginia,
was named. Some years before Hitler launched the German
armies on their fateful rampage this institution had given a benefit
ball with a colonial Charlottesville decor inspired by sketches which
Mrs. James Keith Symmers of Charlottesville had drawn and sent to
London for the occasion. When the hospital began to suffer German
bomb damage, Mrs. Symmers received an appeal for aid. She enlisted
the interest of others and soon had built a small but effective
organization. Judge A. D. Dabney served as its president, Bernard
P. Chamberlain as vice president, and Dr. W. D. Haden as treasurer.
State Senator John S. Battle, University President John Lloyd
Newcomb, and other prominent citizens were members of its board
or gave it their support. The chief achievement of this group was
the raising of a substantial sum promptly donated to the hospital.
One of its beds was thereby endowed and was named Charlottesville.
Such transitory impulses of generosity are easily forgotten, and so
events proved in this instance. Almost a year after England had
last been bombed Mayor Roscoe S. Adams of Charlottesville received
a letter of gratitude from a mother whose “bonny baby” had
recently been born in Queen Charlotte's Hospital. As “one of the
many mothers who have occupied the Charlottesville bed,” she
wanted to thank him “or whoever is responsible for the upkeep of
the bed.” His Honor the mayor and a local newspaper columnist
could not recall or ascertain who should receive the appreciative
mother's thanks.[60]

Evidently spurred by its initial success, the group which had endowed
the hospital bed was transformed during the autumn of 1941
into an agency for more general British war relief. Jesse B. Wilson
became president, and other officers retained their positions. Articles
procured from British War Relief headquarters in New York City
were sold for Britons' benefit, first in the O. E. and C. L. Hawkins
store downtown and then in the building which later became the
University Cafeteria. Admittedly, the proceeds of the operation of
this shop did not rival the income of the local branch of Bundles

for Britain, but this relief work was supplemented by the mailing
of garden seeds and children's toys to hungry and tired victims of
Nazi destruction in England. In good time the members of this
group pooled their efforts with those of the Charlottesville Branch
of Bundles for Britain in connection with a clothing collection campaign
and willingly lost their separate identity.[61]

Early in the war, at the time of the Italian invasion of Greece,
efforts were made in the United States through the Greek War Relief
Association in New York City to alleviate suffering in that nation
before the total occupation by German and Italian troops could be
completed and all ports of entry closed. In this campaign the local
organization was headed by Gus Gianakos as president. William
Pappas was vice president and Nicholas Velle treasurer. The sum of
$3,900 was raised. After a drive for the collection of used clothing
in 1944 the American-Greek people of Charlottesville shipped a ton
of usable garments.[62]

Nor did residents of the locality overlook the distress of the downtrodden
Chinese, who had been fighting against a ruthless invader
in an almost hopeless warfare longer than any of the world's embattled
peoples. Upon request of United China Relief, Inc., the gift
of $2,000 was asked of the community in 1942. The Business and
Professional Women's Club, of which Mrs. Elizabeth Beard was
then president, accepted the responsibility of equalling or excelling
this amount. Almost as soon as the club made it known that money
was needed for this cause, checks poured in without special solicitation,
and the quota was promptly oversubscribed by ten per cent.
Wendell Willkie, honorary president of United China Relief, congratulated
the club by telegram upon its immediate success. Mrs.
Beard also received an Award of Recognition issued by the democratic
administration in China in appreciation of the community's
assistance to its hard-pressed republican faction. Signed by Mayling
Soong Chiang (Madame Chiang Kai Shek), this certificate of gratitude
was brought in 1943 to the United States in person by the
wife of China's chief executive.

There were uncounted numbers of organized and individual efforts
to send clothing and food to various destinations where normal
living had been disrupted by the iron hand of war. In the spring
of 1944, for example, local Parent-Teacher Associations collected
in the New Armory discarded garments donated in the “Share Your
Clothes With Russia” campaign. Though the Anglo-American second
front assault against northern Europe had not at that time been
initiated and the Soviets had borne the chief brunt of the costly task
of reversing Germany's early successes, a day or two before the close
of this drive receipts were described as being “very light.” The
Charlottesville Ministerial Association endorsed six months later a

clothing collection in the city's churches for refugees who had been
freed from the Nazi yoke. The appeal this time had emanated from
the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. That
new agency was also to distribute the 3,000 cans of vegetables and
fruits from the city and the county which were requested at the
height of the vegetable garden season in 1945. The Charlottesville
and Scottsville Canning Centers cooperated in preparing this contribution
to foreign relief.[63]

The interdenominational group of white and Negro women in
the Charlottesville branch of the United Council of Church Women
did much after V-J Day to help families overseas whose destitute
condition, which was then revealed for the first time in something
approaching representatively stark perspective, shocked the world.
News that many small babies utterly lacked proper clothing gave
rise to a drive by American church women to ship a million diapers
across the oceans. The women of Charlottesville sent 2,347 of them.
Within the year 1946, in a room assigned to them in Christ Episcopal
Church, these women also gathered 2,740 pounds of clothing,
counted up 2,115 pounds of tinned foods, assembled more than
thirty kits each of which contained two dozen articles of clothing
for small children, and collected $772.80 for the purchase of food
in bulk. Mrs. W. Roy Mason was the leader in this work.

Whenever and wherever the status of international mail delivery
would permit the sending of individual packages to relatives or
friends abroad, people in the locality would dispatch carefully selected
and painstakingly wrapped parcels. About two years after
firing ceased in Europe at least five packages were sent by unknown
donors to a total stranger in vanquished Germany. Mrs. Margarete
Meissner of Hessen had written to Charlottesville asking for any special
gifts available. Her appeal was broadcast with excellent results.
The story of her success in making charity prevail over enmity was
deemed worthy of publication in a local newspaper column. Her acknowledgment
read: “My English is not sufficient to express my and
my five little ones' thanks for your wonderful parcels containing so
many delicious things! We should have desired you could have
seen our joy. May God bless you!”[64]

A more personal and rewarding method of trying to counterbalance
the deprivations of war in Europe was discovered by some local
people. Through an international social service organization they
assumed financial responsibilities for French and Belgian children
who had been orphaned and were being brought up in institutional
homes across the Atlantic. Episcopalian women of Greenwood and
Crozet thus adopted a three-year old Belgian boy, contributing $15
per month for his support and showering him with presents. Four
named women of the city and county took war orphans under their

individual wings. The foster parent of a ten year old French girl
was pleased to receive letters from her protege. By way of explaining
why she had undertaken something which might easily be a burden
as well as a joy, this citizen of Charlottesville said, “I feel we
all ought to open our hearts to the world's suffering in some way,
and I hit upon this method.”[65] And a good one it was, at that.

In another and somewhat different type of charitable war relief
Charlottesville provided Virginia's leadership in a nationwide effort.
The American Library Association, the American Red Cross, and the
United Service Organizations, Inc., launched on January 12, 1942,
a Victory Book Campaign to supplement the government's already
existing library facilities for servicemen. Army camps, Navy bases,
ships sailing the seven seas, U. S. O. clubs, and other places where
men in uniform congregated were in need, it was estimated, of
10,000,000 books to provide their personnel with adequate reading
matter of both technical and recreational sorts. Miss Mary Louise
Dinwiddie, assistant librarian of the Alderman Library of the University
of Virginia, served as director of the campaign in Virginia
during the first war year. Within two weeks after Pearl Harbor,
in advance of the opening of the drive, she had begun to make her
plans. Under her leadership a total of 36,956 volumes were collected
and forwarded through proper channels to servicemen, who
were ever hungry for something to read. Almost ten per cent of
these—3,169 books—were gathered at the Alderman Library alone.[66]

The Alderman Library also served the nation in an unpublicized
capacity which remained highly secret until enemy air raids were no
longer feared and which has not even yet been broadcast in full and
rich detail among the “now it can be told” stories of the war. In
panicky days of shock which followed Pearl Harbor irreplaceable
treasures of the Library of Congress were evacuated under the watchful
eyes of formidable guard details to five locations which were
thought to be safer from the possibility of enemy attack. More than
two and one half years later, when they were brought back to the District
of Columbia, the Librarian of Congress found himself fairly
bursting to break the news of a secret which a hundred or more
Charlottesville and University people had helped him to keep. So
eager was he to put on record his appreciation for indispensable cooperation
that he introduced the whole subject into his Annual Report
for the past fiscal year, which had not at the time gone to press,
rather than let it await its proper place in the Annual Report which
he should write later for the fiscal year then current. His account
of this evacuation omits mention of the multiple conferences, telephone
calls, and letters between members of his staff, on the one hand,
and Librarian Harry Clemons, University President John Lloyd
Newcomb, and other University officials, on the other. Nor did he

Miss Dinwiddie and an assistant sort Victory Book Campaign
volumes in the Alderman Library.

in a formal report indulge in what might have been colorful descriptions
of the vicissitudes of travel between Washington, D. C., and
Charlottesville, the midnight arrivals of guarded trucks which were
almost furtively unloaded before dawn at the library, and the special
provisions and adjustments which were made locally to permit the
storage of unopened packing cases, to accommodate workmen when
they needed to catch a few winks of sleep in the library building, or
to arrange scores of incidentals—some of them as humorous as they
were covert—which developed in the course of a very friendly and
mutually pleasing cooperation. Nor does he reveal that the enormous
manuscript collections entrusted to the University for dead storage
were supplemented by the working collection of millions of cards
which constitute the Union Catalog of the Library of Congress,
the most valuable single research tool in the nation, which, together
with its staff, was moved to new quarters in the Alderman Library
and continued to grow more priceless throughout the period of its
evacuation. But what the Librarian of Congress did say within
the restrictions of his formality reveals by implication something of
the atmosphere which surrounded all stages of this wartime removal
and which permeated the thinking of local people who were “in the
know” about the University's role as protector of an incalculable
portion of the nation's recorded heritage. What he wrote on this
subject is of sufficient local interest to warrant republication:

“The most important single fact about the recent history of the
collections of the Library of Congress is a fact which belongs properly
in the Annual Report to be written a year from now. Our
principal holdings, evacuated to five depositories in the interior of
the continent immediately after Pearl Harbor, were returned to Washington
in August and September of 1944, two to three months after
the landing on the Normandy coast. To wait for a year to signalize
this event would sacrifice historical interest to the dictatorship of the
calendar. Furthermore, those responsible for the transportation over
the Blue Ridge and over the Alleghanies of 4,789 cases of books and
manuscripts valued in uncountable millions of dollars should not be
obliged to wait until spring of the year 1946 to read in the official
report of the Librarian that their work was well done.

“The Keeper of the Collections, Alvin W. Kremer, his assistant,
Richard M. LaRoche, and their colleagues on the staff of the Library
and on its guard force, carried throughout this period a responsibility
as heavy, at least insofar as posterity is concerned, as that carried by
military and governmental officials in any field. It may well be
debated, now that the materials have been safely returned, whether
or not they should ever have been sent. As to that, it can only be
said that any man can be wise in retrospect and that problems of
this character have a very different look to those responsible and to

those not responsible for their solution. In any case, the original
move was made on the advice of the military authorities and with
the counsel of a committee of the responsible custodial officers of the
United States Government appointed for the 'Conservation of Cultural
Resources' belonging to the Government. The materials were
held at depositories approved by the military authorities, and it was
not until an opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had been obtained
that the return to Washington of our greatest treasures was finally
ordered.

“The Library of Congress, and through the Library the people of
the United States, are lastingly indebted to the institutions which
freely and generously offered the use of storage space, which they
could have employed to advantage themselves, for the safeguarding
of our evacuated materials. During the period of evacuation reference
to the names and locations of these depositories was forbidden
under the code of voluntary censorship and by military regulation.
It is now possible to announce that they were: the University of
Virginia at Charlottesville, which permitted us to use valuable and
highly protected space in its Alderman Library, including the Treasure
Room of that Library, its Law Library and its School of Engineering;
Washington and Lee University at Lexington, which permitted
us to use not only stack areas, but rooms as well in its McCormick
Library; Virginia Military Institute, also at Lexington,
which provided large areas in its Preston Library; Denison University
at Granville, Ohio, which made available space in its Library,
in its Science and Life Building, and in its Chapel; and the United
States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, where the Constitution of
the United States, the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta,
the Gutenberg Bible, the Articles of Confederation, the manuscripts
of the Gettysburg Address and the manuscript of Lincoln's Second
Inaugural were guarded day and night throughout the entire period
of their absence from Washington.

“No mere acknowledgment of indebtedness, and no mere words
of gratitude, can begin to express our sense of obligation to the officers
of these various institutions and to the librarians and custodians
in immediate charge of the occupied space. Their patient and uncomplaining
acceptance of the inevitable annoyances resulting from
the presence of our 24-hour guards in their buildings and our piled
up cases in their halls and stacks, speaks eloquently of their generosity,
their devotion, and—for no other word is wholly expressive—their
patriotism.' ”[67]

Prompted by the multiplicity of wartime appeals for foreign relief
and the wartime necessity of the most efficient possible type of
organization and operation in all local welfare work, the community
achieved midway through the struggle a unification of the formerly

numerous requests for charitable contributions. The Charlottesville
and Albemarle Community and War Fund was organized in the
summer of 1943. In its single annual solicitation for about a dozen
local health and welfare agencies and for the local share of all nationally
approved war relief services, as opposed to a score or more of
separate annual money raising campaigns, there was implicit an
obvious economy of time, energy, and money. Moreover, programs
of the local social service offices could be more closely coordinated,
and a broader understanding of community integration
evolved. And, in respect to the War Fund division of the new
organization, the uneven results of sporadic peaks of enthusiasm
and of special temporary efforts in behalf of one wartime charity or
another were eliminated by a carefully considered national apportionment
of all War Fund receipts among the U. S. O. and many
foreign relief organizations.[68]

In a Virginia War Fund meeting in Richmond on June 8, 1943,
State Senator John S. Battle, Dr. W. D. Haden, and Jack Rinehart
represented Charlottesville.[69] The War Fund was allotted $32,800
of the $73,685 goal of the first local Community and War Fund
campaign, which was oversubscribed by $6,164 in the autumn of
1943. Approximately $32,500 was given to the War Fund in each
of the next three years, which saw successive objectives of $73,369,
$80,369, and $76,375 exceeded by an average of about twenty-five
per cent.[70]

When these generous annual contributions are added to the many
indeterminable dollars which the people of Charlottesville and Albemarle
County had already donated to an incalculable number of
war relief projects of every possible nature and scope, one can be
pardoned for surprise that they did not themselves become objects
of the charity of others. An inherent humanitarianism, readily
touched by the plight of the world's unfortunates, seems to be the
only satisfactory explanation for purse strings loosened so freely in
an era of unprecedentedly high taxes and despite other inescapable
financial pressures.

X
Guarding the Home Front

When the peacetime protector of the Commonwealth, the Virginia
National Guard, was called into Federal service supposedly for twelve
months, it became necessary to organize a stop-gap unit to function
pending the return of the Guardsmen. Therefore the Virginia Protective
Force was organized on February 3, 1941, to operate at the
call of the Governor to quell domestic disturbances throughout the
state. When it became evident that the Virginia National Guard was
destined to be in the Army for the “duration” rather than to return
after one year to its native state, the Protective Force assumed a more
permanent cast and took on the additional function of protecting
the Commonwealth from sabotage and possible attacks by enemy
troops. Another defense organization, the Civil Air Patrol, sprang
into being after Pearl Harbor and became the aerial guardian of
the home front. Happily, these two organizations were never called
on to be defenders of Charlottesville and Albemarle County. The
fact that their very existence served as a deterring influence upon
potential fifth column activities justified their creation and continuance;
moreover, their numerous contributions to the cause of
home front mobilization, in roles other than that of protector,
demanded their perpetuation until the war's end.

To the Virginia Protective Force was added the Virginia Reserve
Militia, an organization founded on May 20, 1942, designed to
protect the cities and counties in which the units were formed. Together
the V.P.F. and the V.R.M. reached a strength of over 11,000
men, the largest armed force ever commanded by a governor of
Virginia. These two complementary groups drilled faithfully for
the variety of tasks which could confront the voluntary defenders
of the Commonwealth. The members gave unstintingly of their
time and energy, performing vital guard missions until Army units
or civilian agencies were prepared to take over, assisting in practice
blackouts, and lending a martial air to patriotic gatherings and
parades.[1]

Virginia State Guard

Plans for the organization of the Charlottesville unit of the Virginia
Protective Force, Company 103, were in the making before the
departure of the Monticello Guard. At the banquet for the Guard,
just prior to its being called into Federal service, Captain Edward V.
Walker, who had been designated to command the Charlottesville
company of the new organization, told the Guardsmen that their
places would be filled by the Virginia Protective Force during their
absence. Walker announced a seven-man committee to enlist recruits
for the new company, to be composed of a maximum of sixty. The
popular zeal for the Protective Force became evident at an organizational
meeting, on February 10, 1941, when eighty applications for
membership were received. A week later at a meeting at the Court
House, forty men, the minimum number for a company, took the
oath of enlistment administered by Captain Walker. The commanding
officer stated that he had submitted recommendations for
James Philip Grove and Sterling L. Williamson to be first and second
lieutenants, respectively. On the night of March 3, 1941, Company
103, Virginia Protective Force (the title was changed to Virginia
State Guard in February, 1944), with fifty-three members, was
mustered into the service. Governor James H. Price, making an
unexpected visit to the New Armory, praised Captain Walker and
his company on the enthusiasm demonstrated in the organization
of the unit.[2]

The newly-created militia was not a “home guard” but rather
was subject to duty throughout the state, just as had been true
in the case of the National Guard. Also like the Guard, the arms
for the Force were furnished by the War Department. The men
received no pay for their service but were required to meet two hours
each week for drill and instruction. Company 103 of the V.P.F.
was outfitted originally with a blue-gray uniform consisting of shirt,
trousers, and mackinaw purchased with funds provided by the city
and the county. In April, 1942, the state allotted $18,000 for
the purchase of summer uniforms of khaki. The distinguishing
insignia was a shoulder patch, on which appeared the Virginia state
seal circled by the words “Protective Force.” Later the words “Virginia
State Guard” were substituted thereon.[3]

As the organization of the state militia was rounded out, Charlottesville
was designated as battalion headquarters for the 10th
Battalion. Captain Walker was promoted to the rank of lieutenant
colonel to command this newly-created unit, which was composed
of companies in Charlottesville, Fredericksburg, Harrisonburg, and
Staunton. Colonel Walker announced that Walter E. Fowler, Jr.,
who had formerly been a lieutenant in the Monticello Guard, had
been made a captain in the V.P.F. and battalion adjutant. Louis

J. Matacia, one of the organizers of Company 103, became battalion
sergeant major.[4]

The men trained with a great deal of ardor, and after the first
quarterly inspection Colonel Walker commented that “the company
is in excellent condition, considering the fact that it has had four
months training at one drill per week, and is now ready to fulfill
any obligation that may be imposed upon it.”[5] When Frank Ix,
Jr., of Charlottesville presented the men with locally-manufactured
neckties to be worn with their blue-gray uniforms, he stated that
units of the type of Company 103 should cancel fear “from without
or from within.”[6]

Throughout the summer of 1941 the training of the company
continued with parades, schools, and maneuvers. Four representatives
from Company 103 and the 10th Battalion attended a two-day
school at Virginia Military Institute during early July.[7] The
Fourth found the company participating in the Independence Day
parade. The Monticello Guard returned from Fort George G. Meade,
Maryland, for the event, which turned out to be a wet affair, as a
sudden downpour caught the paraders.[8] Company 103 also received
its share of promotions during the summer, for when Grove
was raised to the rank of captain, Williamson was promoted to first
lieutenant, and Charles L. Wingfield became the junior officer in
the unit.[9] The summer's activities culminated in week-end maneuvers
at Camp Albemarle, near Free Union. Regular Army discipline
was maintained with a schedule which included more than
a little close order drill. Captain Grove took a platoon of his
company to Free Union for a demonstration of problems in riot duty.
Meanwhile a detachment under Lieutenant Wingfield captured the
camp and the forces therein without arousing the camp guard under
Sergeant Harry Craven. Some members of the company commented
that they got more out of the maneuvers “than a month's training
at the Armory.”[10]

During the fall and winter there was no letdown from the activities
of the summer. The organization of the 10th Battalion was
rounded out by the formation of a medical section. Captain John
F. McGavock, battalion surgeon, was assisted in his duties by seven
enlisted men.[11] The first assembly of the 10th Battalion was held
at Scott Stadium during the morning of the annual University of
Virginia-Virginia Military Institute football game, which was attended
that afternoon by the battalion as guests of the University
of Virginia. The Adjutant General and other officials of Virginia
were present that morning for the battalion's review and parade.
Company 103 received its first call to active military duty when
two men were detailed to guard the Armory each night as a precautionary
measure. Privates Jack Early and William C. Chamberlain,

10th Battalion Staff, Virginia State Guard, poses for a portrait in
March, 1945.

Jr., first performed this duty on the night of December 10,
1941.[12] This assignment, coming close on the heels of Pearl Harbor,
was shortly followed by a call for a nine-man, twenty-four hour
guard of the University's Rouss Physical Laboratory. The detail
came as a Christmas present to Company 103, for the duty was
initiated on December 25 and continued for approximately ten days
until a federal agency assumed the responsibility.[13] Local curiosity
as to the purpose of the guard was not relieved by the authorities,
nor has it been to date. It is now known, however, that “important
work on a high-speed centrifuge was done by J. W. Beams and
others at the University of Virginia” in connection with the research
in progress throughout the country on atomic energy.[14] It is also
known that fifty-seven University scientists received government
certificates of commendation for wartime research.[15] It is ironic to
note how close some laymen came to guessing the nature and importance
of the research, without realizing it, as is illustrated by
an article in The Daily Progress. After commenting on the “Beams
ultra high speed rotor,” the article concluded, “Lest some get the
impression that this amazing apparatus is responsible for the sentries
it should be explained that it is not an instrument of destruction,
but was built to aid medical researchers.”[16]

Beginning December 13, 1941, and continuing through many
months of 1942 three members of Company 103 served with men
from the other companies of the 10th Battalion in maintaining a
twenty-four hour guard over the strategic highway bridge spanning
the Rappahannock between Fredericksburg and Falmouth. The
men who volunteered for this critically important mission to protect
the flow of arterial traffic of military convoys and war goods over
U. S. Route One were John M. Henshaw, Charles L. Ryalls, and
Junius T. Sutton. They remember long and cold nights of lonely
service.

The same year found the company maintaining its efficiency while
performing rather routine duty. During a March blackout forty-eight
members of the company were assigned the duty of guarding
the roads leading into the city and regulating traffic on them. The
only untoward incident occurred when an unidentified and elusive
car sped through both the V.P.F. and state police cordons at seventy
miles per hour. City Manager Seth Burnley stated that all
participants in the blackout “knew their duties and carried them
out efficiently and thoroughly.”[17] The Protective Force received another
commendation after the Federal inspection in April. Major
W. J. Sutton, of Third Corps Area Headquarters, stated that he was
pleased with the personnel of both Company 103 and the 10th
Battalion.[18]

Summer was synonymous with training for the volunteers, as

June found ten men attending an intensive four-day training school
at Virginia Military Institute. Shortly thereafter fourteen men departed
for the Third Corps Area State Guard School at Garrett
Park, Maryland.[19] On July 21 it was announced in the Charlottesville
newspaper that the well-trained Protective Force, the organization
designed to prevent subversive activity, had returned its 1917
Enfield rifles to the Army but that the unit was “expecting” shotguns.
No sabotage occurred before August 6, when The Daily
Progress announced that Company 103 was armed with fifty-seven
shotguns and three submachineguns.[20] On August 7 the company
was called on to guard the wreckage of an Army bomber which
crashed in the Keswick area of the county. Aiding the police, the
guard mingled with the numerous spectators who broke through
the pathless forest to glimpse the wreckage. The duty of the Protective
Force became that of preventing souvenir hunters from disturbing
parts of the plane, which had been scattered over a wide
area.[21]

While the Marines, under General Alexander Archer Vandegrift,
were struggling to maintain their toe hold in the Solomons, the
Protective Force was bolstered by the organization of the Virginia
Reserve Militia. Popularly known as the Minute Men, the members
of the reserve unit were required to furnish their own arms and
uniforms, but in this outlay they had some financial aid from the
city and the county. They were not liable for service outside the
county. Edwin V. Copenhaver was the prime mover in organizing
the Albemarle County unit, which was designated Company 2.
The new company, made up of seventy men who were mustered in
on October 21, 1942, by Colonel Walker, was commanded by
Captain Hunter Perry. Concurrently with the organization of the
reserve unit in Albemarle, Randolph H. Perry was made a captain
in the V. P. F. and assigned to the 10th Battalion as Minute Man
coordinator, responsible for organizing and training fourteen companies
of the Virginia Reserve Militia in the battalion area.[22]

Drill, organizational problems, and commendations for a job
well done made up the local Protective Force pattern during the
remainder of the fall and winter. After a quarterly inspection of
the company in November, Colonel Walker witnessed a field problem
in which the unit was dispersed to repulse a mythical landing
of enemy troops.

The limelight fell on the 10th Battalion when Brigadier General
Edward E. Goodwyn, commander of the Virginia Protective Force,
commended the unit for being the only such organization in the
state which was at full strength during October. Changes in the
personnel of the battalion included the promotion of Louis J.
Matacia to captain with an assignment as adjutant when Walter

E. Fowler was inducted into Federal service. John Albert Payne,
of Company 103, became battalion sergeant major.[23]

Officers and non-commissioned officers from all units in the 10th
Battalion area gathered in Charlottesville in mid-February. In introducing
Governor Colgate W. Darden, Jr., to the group, Brigadier
General S. Gardner Waller, Adjutant General of Virginia, pointed
out that, as commander of the Virginia Protective Force and the
Virginia Reserve Militia, the executive had under his control more
troops than any previous Virginia governor. In his address the
Governor stated that, while an attack from abroad was still possible,
the principal responsibility of the militia was to deal with untoward
incidents in the Commonwealth. General Goodwyn described the
10th Battalion as the outstanding battalion in the Protective Force,
and he commended Company 103 on the attainment of a “superior”
rating in a recent inspection. After the meeting the state officials
observed a drill by Company 103, with the governor praising the
members “for the devotion to duty indicated by the perfection of
their drill.” The Daily Progress commented editorially, “Company
103's demonstration gave ample evidence that Virginia is prepared
with a trained and disciplined force of a sort whose very existence
should go far toward making its actual use unnecessary.” The
drill was all the more remarkable in the light of the fact that there
had been a turnover of almost one hundred per cent in the personnel
of the company since its inception.[24]

On February 19, 1943, a second company of Minute Men, representing
the city of Charlottesville, was mustered into the service by
Colonel Walker as Company 404. Forty-seven men were present
at the muster, in addition to three officers headed by Captain Gilbert
S. Campbell. Both Companies 2 and 404 of the Virginia Reserve
Militia were divided, by platoons and squads, into a geographical
breakdown, in order that small units could assemble in their respective
localities on short notice. The older of the two reserve
organizations, Company 2, celebrated its first anniversary with the
awarding of one-year service stripes to seventy-seven of its 138 members.[25]
Meanwhile Company 103 of the Virginia Protective Force
continued its record of successful inspections, when a Third Service
Command officer gave the unit a rating of “excellent,” stating that
he doubted if he would find a better company on his tour of
inspection.[26]

When the name Protective Force was changed to the more accurately
descriptive designation Virginia State Guard on February
15, 1944, the organization continued to function as before, with
the summer witnessing both training camps and competitive drills
for the members. In May, when five reserve companies gathered
at the Municipal Airport near Gordonsville, Company 404 came

away with second honors in the drill competition. In an August
assembly of the State Guard at the South River Picnic Grounds in
the Shenandoah National Park, Company 104 of Fredericksburg
bested Company 103.[27] Earlier, three members of the local company
had attended a Third Service Command school at Fort Eustis,
Virginia.[28] The climax to the summer's activities came in September,
when thirteen of the twenty-three Guard and Reserve units in
the 10th Battalion area assembled in Charlottesville's McIntire Park.
Company 24 of Culpeper topped the other reserve units in the competitive
drill.

The chief feature of the day's program was the solving of a military
problem by Company 103. The Virginia Guardsman described
the maneuver in vivid detail. “The problem was to bring in, dead
or alive, a dozen desperadoes hidden in the brush at the lower end
of the Lane High School football field, scene of the mobilization.
Proceeding North along the railroad track on the West side of the
field, one squad of Guardsmen, under the command of Sgt. Jesse
B. Wilson, reached the border of the undergrowth in which the outlaws
lay hidden. Simultaneously another squad commanded by
Sgt Sam [Sanford] Bradbury moved stealthily along the Eastern
side of the field, hidden by the orchard across the road from the field.
Shots, fired at unexpected intervals, from strategic points, threw the
criminals off guard so that when a smoke screen was laid by Sgt.
Wilson's detail from the windward side of the field, the two riot
squads were able to converge unobserved by their quarry, whose
bitter opposition was soon quelled by the superior tactics of the well-drilled
members of Company 103. Those few rioters who succeeded
in breaking through the cordon of Guardsmen, were quickly cut
down by expert gunfire and were brought in by the ambulance of
the Tenth Battalion Medical Unit, under the command of Lt. Harry
L. Smith, Jr., with Sgt. Walter [S.] Crenshaw as Executive Officer
and Sgt. Francis [V.] Riddick at the wheel. So deceptive was the
execution of this entire operation, that no one, not even the umpires,
could tell how it was done. In fact, an entirely different version
might be forthcoming from those members of Company 103 who
acted the part of the desperadoes, if Sgt. Bill [William B.] Trevillian
were to be asked, thus proving the advantage—or disadvantage,
as the case may be—of a smoke screen.”[29]

Near the close of the year organizational changes again affected
the personnel of the 10th Battalion. On November 15 it was announced
that Henry B. Goodloe, who had served as battalion executive
officer with the rank of major, had been promoted to lieutenant
colonel. He was transferred from the battalion soon thereafter to
the staff of General Goodwyn. Captain Grove was promoted to
the rank of major and became Colonel Walker's new executive officer.

Charles L. Wingfield replaced Grove as the commander of
Company 103. After four years only eighteen of the original members
of the company remained in the State Guard. Of these only
Sergeant Aubrey S. Hughes had a perfect drill-attendance record.
Nevertheless, the Charlottesville company always ranked high among
Guard units in attendance at drill.[30]

What was destined to be the last notable public gathering of the
local companies occurred on April 22, 1945, when the reserve units
participated in a statewide muster to commemorate the mustering
of the Virginia militia in pre-Revolutionary times. Nearly 8,000
officers and men gathered at various points throughout the state.[31]

At the 1945 annual meeting of the officers and non-commissioned
officers in the battalion area, which consisted of fourteen counties
and the cities therein, comprehending eighteen Virginia Reserve
Militia companies with a strength of over 2,000 officers and men
and four Virginia State Guard companies with a strength of about
250 officers and men, Governor Darden stated that he was exceedingly
grateful for the service the organization had rendered. Addressing
the assembled group in Charlottesville, the governor said,
“Although it has not been a spectacular type of service, it means
more when it is realized that I didn't have a living soul I could
have called on in the event of an attack or public disorder except
the two organizations. Governor Price did a good thing when
he organized the Virginia Protective Force.”[32]

An expansion of the local units occurred in 1945 when a headquarters
company for the 10th Battalion with a strength of approximately
sixty men was authorized. This company was commanded
by Captain Gilbert S. Campbell. It was mustered in on
November 2, 1945.[33] The same year saw a more realistic step when,
on September 26, quite soon after V-J Day, Company 404 of the
Virginia Reserve Militia was demobilized. The men voted to keep
the war baby alive in spirit by a yearly gathering.[34] Interest in both
the Reserve Militia and State Guard organizations had long tended
to dwindle with each victory of the United States armed forces.
With the victorious conclusion of the war, the necessity for the organization
diminished. Early in 1946, it was announced that all
members of the Virginia State Guard who did not desire to become
members of the National Guard would be relieved of duty June
30, 1946.[35]

The State Guard had one last fling during the period when a
possibility of a strike by the employees of the Virginia Electric
and Power Company alarmed the state. In order to avert the
strike, scheduled for April 1, 1946, Governor William M. Tuck
issued an order drafting the company's employees into the unorganized
state militia. Draft notices were served on the “VEPCO”

workers in Charlottesville by a special detail from Company 103.
Colonel Walker reported that only one worker made any apparent
display of displeasure on receipt of the notice. When it was announced
that company and union officials had reached an agreement
on their differences, Governor Tuck rescinded his draft order.[36]

The original decision to disband the State Guard as of June 30,
1946, was changed, but the Guard reverted to a semi-active status
and many of the officers and men parted company with the organization.
Colonel Walker was succeeded by Colonel Goodloe as 10th
Battalion commander on that date.[37] On April 3, 1947, the reorganized
Monticello Guard, with Captain Charles L. Mahanes
commanding and First Lieutenant Edward V. Walker, Jr., as executive
officer, was inspected for Federal recognition at the New Armory,
and it was announced that it was likely that the unit soon would
be taken into the National Guard.[38] With its role as wartime protector
of the State fulfilled, the State Guard was demobilized April
15, 1947. Thus it was that these home front defenders, who
performed a job of which no one could have said anything but
praise, turned back to the hands of the Monticello Guard the duty
of protecting the community. When called on to perform a task,
no matter how small or inconsequential, the members of the Virginia
State Guard and Virginia Reserve Militia had done well. The members
derived an even greater sense of satisfaction from the knowledge
that their long hours of drill and their high state of preparedness
afforded the state a sure source of protection during trying times.

Civil Air Patrol

Meantime the “eyes of Albemarle” had been far from idle during
the war years. While the younger generation thrilled to the drone
of P-40's and dreamed of becoming “hot pilots,” the flying fathers,
a group which had known the age of the aerial flivver, made up the
home guard of the air for the community. These part-time aviators
played an inconspicuous but important role in the drama of home
defense, standing ready to fly doctors and nurses to disaster scenes,
to locate downed aircraft, to train youngsters as future soldiers of
the blue, and to perform various other missions in the common
cause.

The Charlottesville and Albemarle Civil Air Patrol Squadron was
activated on May 24, 1942, under the guidance of W. R. Franke,
a professional aviator with over 2,000 hours of flying time to his
credit.[39] In addition to Squadron Commander Franke, the officers
appointed at the initial meeting included W. P. Kilgore, executive
officer, Loyd W. Charlie, adjutant, Miss Marjorie Carver, assistant
adjutant and public relations chairman, Frank Kaulback, intelligence
officer, Dr. Arthur Eidelman, supply officer, and C. B. Lewis, communications
officer.[40]

Membership in the Civil Air Patrol was not limited to aviators
but included also persons interested in aviation. The national organization
had grown out of a desire on the part of private flyers
to make some contribution to the war effort. Thus it was not the
purpose of the organization to train pilots, but rather to enhance
the knowledge of those who had pilots' licenses and to stimulate
non-pilots' interest in aviation. The ground instruction offered by
the C.A.P. included courses in close order drill, first aid, meteorology,
navigation, communications, formation flying, and theoretical observation.[41]

The equipment at the University Airport[42] adjacent to the Rivanna
near Milton, home of the squadron, included eight privately-owned
planes, in addition to ten light planes used in the Civilian Pilot
Training Program, which were available for emergency use.[43] Besides
Albemarle, ten other mid-Virginia counties came under the
jurisdiction of the Squadron. Flights at Harrisonburg, Staunton,
and Waynesboro, received their orders from the University Airport
until October 21, 1943, when the Harrisonburg Flight was designated
a detached unit.[44]

Less than two weeks after its initial meeting the local Squadron
scored a notable national first. In a mock air raid on the city of
Charlottesville, the first civilian raid in the United States in which
missiles were actually used, planes piloted by four C.A.P. members
dropped weighted streamers carrying messages which informed the
city's defenders of the damage each “bomb” had done. Forty of
the streamers fell from planes at various points over the city. After
the raid Civilian Defense Coordinator Seth Burnley stated that much
useful information had been gained from the practice. A rather sad
sequel came four days later when Civilian Defense headquarters
issued a plea that the forty streamers be returned by forgetful or
souvenir-hungry citizens.[45]

The flying activities of the Squadron continued throughout the
summer and fall of 1942. In mid-July spectators craned their necks
as Civil Air Patrol planes flew over the National Heroes' Day Parade,
lending a dash of air power to the local scene. The first real test of
the effectiveness of the unit in search and rescue work came when
an Army B-26 bomber exploded in mid-air above the farm of Mrs.
Kate Dabney in the Keswick area of the county. A Patrol plane
took off from the airport, located the wreckage, and directed Commander
Franke to the scene in his car. Both occupants of the Army
plane had been killed in the explosion, but the Squadron proved
its ability in locating the downed aircraft.[46]

Another important phase of the activity of the Squadron consisted
of observing local blackouts. Commenting on the blackout
of August 18, 1942, Commander Franke stated that the traffic
signals were especially prominent during the alert period of the

blackout.[47] Always vigilant during times of threatened trouble,
the Patrol stood by for any possible duty in connection with the
flood of October, 1942, until flying became impossible because the
local airfield was covered by water.[48] For the remainder of the
year the flying of the Patrol was limited, for the most part, to
training flights and occasional search missions.

One of the few members of the local Squadron to volunteer for
active duty with the Civil Air Patrol elsewhere was Lieutenant William
P. Kilgore, who served for one month with the First Patrol
Task Force, flying the anti-submarine patrol from Atlantic City,
New Jersey. Later he again volunteered for duty with a Tow
Target Squadron at Langley Field, Virginia.[49]

By no means all of the work of the Civil Air Patrol was in the
“wild blue yonder,” for the ground school classes early attracted
the attention and interest of the flying civilians. First aid classes
started in June, 1942, and by October fourteen of the members
had received certificates from F. W. Early, instructor.[50] In July
close order drill was initiated under James B. Ord, a United States
Marine Corps Reserve officer. When Ord was called to active duty,
he was replaced as drill master by Chief Specialist Bob Austin,
United States Navy, who was attached to the Naval R.O.T.C. unit
at the University. Classes in navigation, map reading, and communications
were conducted by Squadron officers.[51]

Plans for disaster relief also occupied the attention of the Squadron
officers. The unit completed arrangements early in August, 1942,
to cooperate with the University Hospital in flying doctors, nurses,
and medical supplies to the scenes of accidents. Another aspect of
the program of cooperation with the medical authorities involved
the development of a package in which blood plasma could be
dropped from a plane. It was felt that such a device would be of
use in mountainous areas.[52] Almost a year was required to develop
a suitable method, but on July 25, 1943, plasma bottles filled with
water were successfully dropped from planes with the aid of a
paper parachute.[53]

In the fall of 1942 a new phase of the Civil Air Patrol program
was initiated which was to occupy more and more of the attention
of local members. It was announced that each senior member of
the C.A.P. was to sponsor a Cadet, a junior or senior in high
school, with the idea of nurturing his or her interest in aviation.
On December 11, 1942, ten Lane High School students, the nucleus
of the Cadet Corps, met with the Squadron.[54] The membership
increased throughout the winter, and a number of Cadets were on
hand at the University Airport on February 21, 1943, during a
practice mission when three planes searched the county for two
targets outlined on open fields in lime.[55]

The Cadet program assumed a new meaning when the Civil Air
Patrol was transferred from the jurisdiction of the Office of Civilian
Defense to the Army Air Forces in April, 1943. More emphasis
was placed on the program in order to provide pre-Aviation Cadet
training for future Army and Navy flyers. During the summer of
1944 approximately forty-five boys and eight girls enlisted in the
C.A.P. Cadet program. Lieutenant William I. Nickles, instructor
at Lane High School and Squadron Training Officer, was largely
responsible for organizing and instructing the Cadets. Some of the
training paralleled that given in the Army, and future flyers were
permitted to omit certain phases of the Army training on the passage
of examinations during their military careers. Twenty C.A.P.
Cadets from Charlottesville thus became exempt from the service
course in International Morse Code.[56] The value of the training
offered was attested to by Seaman Second Class Ralph Britton, a
former member, who wrote Miss Marjorie Carver that no one
would know the real value of the experience until in the service.
“I know the C.A.P. did a lot for me,” Britton continued. “Everything
I learned there has been a help.”[57] Cadet interest was stimulated
by an offer of two hours of free flight instruction to the students
with the highest grades in their Cadet courses. After the
completion of the first of four fifty-hour periods of instruction, it
was announced in November, 1944, that Bill Austin and Bobby
Kirby had topped their classes.[58]

Meanwhile the membership of the Squadron was far from stable.
Some members were drafted, and others moved from the city. On
the death of C. B. (“Pat”) Lewis early in 1943, the unit voted to
designate itself the Lewis Squadron in his memory.[59] When Lieutenant
Franke moved from Charlottesville in January, 1944, his
place as commanding officer was taken by Lieutenant Loyd W.
Charlie, manager of the University Airport.[60] Among other
changes in officer personnel was the replacing of Dr. Eidelman as
supply officer by Henry C. Miller. When Lieutenant Kaulback went
into the service, his place as Intelligence and Personnel officer was
taken by Clinton N. Wood.[61]

After Lieutenant Charlie took command of the Squadron, attention
was directed almost exclusively to the Cadet program. The
training of the high school students during 1944 was the last major
contribution of the Lewis Squadron. With the tide of battle turning
in favor of the Allies, this aerial group, like many another home
defense organization, had answered its purpose. Lieutenant Nickles
took over as commander of the Squadron on March 19, 1945,
merely to officiate at the last meeting of the organization less than
three months later.[62] Lieutenant Colonel Allan C. Perkinson, Wing
Commander for the State, visited Charlottesville on June 5, 1945,

to stimulate interest in the C.A.P.[63] It was evident, however, that
the demand which had created the enthusiastic response to the program
for more than three years was now lacking. The Lewis
Squadron officers met at Lane High School on June 7, and the
decision was reached that the Charlottesville C.A.P. unit should
become inactive.[64]

Thus were folded the wings of an organization which had been
as active within its realm as any in the city or county in preparing
for home front emergencies. Fortunately, as in the happy instances
of the local companies of the Virginia State Guard and Virginia
Reserve Militia, such contingencies had never arisen, but effective
war services had been rendered nevertheless.

XI
Mobilizing under Selective Service

The first peacetime conscription law enacted in the United States
was signed by President Roosevelt on September 16, 1940. It required
those men selected to serve for one year in the Army in order
that the nation might have sufficient trained defenders in event of an
emergency. The same day the President issued a proclamation
directing all men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-five,
inclusive, to register for Selective Service on October 16. Local
opinion was well expressed by Dr. George T. Starnes of the University
of Virginia in an address to the Business and Professional
Women's Club of Charlottesville the same evening. Said he, “We
have got to prepare for war against all possibilities. Everything has
come so easy for Hitler so far that it is quite possible that he has
ambition to conquer the whole world. The United States must
carry on to completion its plan for defense, for it is a fight for our
very existence.”[1]

A great deal of valuable preliminary work had been done in anticipation
of the passage of the law, and plans for registration in
Virginia took form quickly. Immediately upon the issuance of a
proclamation by Governor James H. Price, the Secretary of the
Commonwealth, Raymond L. Jackson of Charlottesville, moved
to put the election machinery of the state into operation to assist
the State Director of Selective Service, Lieutenant Colonel Mills F.
Neal. The electoral boards in Albemarle County and Charlottesville
were responsible for conducting the registration in their respective
areas. Percy G. Dunn, secretary of the county board, E. Clinton
Wingfield, secretary of the city board, and F. Roy Early attended a
“school” in Richmond at which Governor Price and other officials
explained the terms of the Selective Service Act. Later, at the New
County Office Building and the City Court House, similar meetings
were held of the local volunteer workers who were to be
registrars.

On registration day brief, appropriate patriotic exercises were held
in the schools, and then the children were dismissed. As a rule the

registration took place at schoolhouses and other regular election
polling places, which were open from seven in the morning to nine
at night. Generally the usual election officials were in charge, and
teachers, together with other citizens who had volunteered, served
as assistant registrars. Special registrars visited those in hospitals
and others unable to attend at the places of registration. The young
men flocked to the polls, most of them coming early. On cards the
registrars recorded the preliminary information the government
needed for the first peacetime draft. When this had been done,
each man was given a card to be carried at all times as evidence
that he had registered. Oddly enough, excluding University students,
exactly the same number, 2,845, registered in the county as
in the city. At the Rotunda there were registered 1,172 University
of Virginia students from forty states, the District of Columbia,
and five foreign countries.[2]

By coincidence, on this day when approximately one-fifth of the
male population of the community began to prepare for the fight
to protect our liberty, the last payment was made on Monticello,
and the home of Thomas Jefferson, the Apostle of Freedom, became
a debt-free shrine.[3]

Meanwhile, on the recommendation of Judge Lemuel F. Smith,
members of the local Selective Service boards had been appointed
by Governor Price. The Albemarle County Board originally consisted
of R. O. Hall, Keswick, chairman: Hugh Clark, Moorman's
River, and Richard H. Miller, Free Union. Dr. J. O. Mundy was
the physician and Edward V. Walker, appeal agent. The Charlottesville
board originally consisted of R. A. Watson, chairman; Strother
F. Hamm, and C. E. Moran. Dr. R. T. Ergenbright was the
physician and Lyttelton Waddell, appeal agent. The draft board
was the most important cog in the entire machinery of Selective
Service. Its members were chosen on the basis of residence and
character, rather than because of their professions or callings, and
without regard to political, religious, or other affiliations. Like all
other local Selective Service personnel except clerical assistants, they
served without compensation. It was their duty to determine the
status of each of their fellow citizens subject to military service.
Applying complex national policies, they decided who should go
into service and who should be deferred and remain at home. Their
decision was based largely on the answers to a questionnaire filled
in by each registrant and took into consideration both his fitness for
military service and the importance of his work as a civilian in
the local community. It was the duty of the examining physician
to determine the physical condition of the registrants, while the appeal
agent acted when necessary to protect the interests of the registrant
or of the government.

Appointed at the same time was the district advisory board for

registrants in Albemarle, Greene, and Madison counties and the city
of Charlottesville. Associated with Judge Lemuel F. Smith of the
Circuit Court, who was chairman, were Bernard F. Chamberlain for
Albemarle County, Judge A. D. Dabney for Charlottesville, John
Morris for Greene County, and Norman G. Payne for Madison
County. The principal job of the advisory board was to give
advice and aid to registrants in properly preparing their questionnaires
for the draft board. In order to do this the advisory board
appointed associate members in the various local communities. Every
attorney within the district volunteered his services, and to these
were added some of the leading citizens in localities where attorneys
were not resident.[4]

Charlottesville had also the medical advisory board for the counties
of Albemarle, Buckingham, Fluvanna, Greene, Nelson, and the
city of Charlottesville. It was made up of physicians with specialized
knowledge who were able to give expert advice on the physical
condition of registrants whom local examiners considered doubtful
or borderline cases. This board was originally composed of
Dr. H. S. Hedges, chairman; Dr. David C. Wilson, Dr. William E.
Brown, Dr. A. D. Hart, Dr. V. W. Archer, and Dr. D. C. Smith.[5]

The local draft boards began at once to assign serial numbers,
in anticipation of the national lottery on October 29 which would
determine the order in which the registrants would become subject
to call for a year's training with the Army. Soon lists giving serial
numbers were posted at the New County Office Building and the
New City Armory. Later they were printed in the newspapers.
Among the names were a large number of “Woodrow Wilsons”
and “Pershings”, the war babies of the first World War. Also included
were “Goldenlocks” and “John the Baptist.”[6]

When the lottery was held in Washington serial number 158
was drawn first. In Albemarle County it had been assigned to
Marion Jerome Wood, and in Charlottesville to Wilson Warner
Cropp. These, unless deferred, stood first in order for compulsory
induction into military service, but those eager to volunteer for their
year of service were the first to go. Laurie K. Sandridge, Jr., of
Crozet, who was to fight through the Normandy campaign as a
lieutenant, was the first Selective Service volunteer in the county:
but as he had recently injured his hand, he was deferred for several
weeks, and William Cornelius Knipscher of North Garden was
actually the first inductee from Albemarle. Henry Cecil Childress was
the first inductee from Charlottesville. On November 28 Childress
and Knipscher were given a send-off when they departed by train
via Richmond for Fort George G. Meade, Maryland. Members
of the city and county draft boards, the American Legion, and the
Monticello Guard were among those who turned out with family
and friends to wish them well. The first Negroes inducted locally,

Frank Sampson from the city and Rayfield Willer Taylor from
the county, were also volunteers.[7]

The departure of the young men aroused some misgivings in
parents and civic leaders. While it was expected that the military
training would be wholesome, it was feared that other influences
associated with camps would be evil. Paradoxically, the soldiers
would at once be under military discipline and yet have more freedom
than ever before in their young lives. Editorially The Daily
Progress pointed out that the manner in which the individual Selective
Service soldier would use this freedom would determine whether
the end of the year would find him a better and more valuable citizen
or whether he would return to his community with lowered
character and ideals. It concluded, “A young man who has been
taught to seek a high standard in civilian life will seek the same
standard in army life, no matter what freedom he has and temptations
he is offered.”[8]

Some had misgivings from another quarter. At a meeting of the
Lions Clubs of Charlottesville, Albemarle, and neighboring counties
at the Monticello Hotel the speaker of the evening said, “I am in
favor of assisting the Allies in every possible material and financial
way but not with the young men of this nation. ... We have the
wonderful Gulf Stream that flows Northeastward from Florida to
England. May it warm England with our sympathy but not with
the blood of our fine American youth.” Another side of the question
was presented a few days later by an English refugee, Miss Sue
Curry, who was visiting her uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur
W. Talcott at Keswick. “We feel,” she said, “that England is
America's 'front line' and that we are in reality fighting your war.”
People generally agreed with the first spokesman, and only after
some time did they realize that the United States could not escape
active participation in the war.[9]

In February, 1941, a committee of the Parent-Teacher Association
of Lane High School reported that it found military training
inadvisable in the high school because the “present physical education
program would be handicapped; it would be difficult to secure
help from the military authorities due to the present emergency; the
citizens cannot assume the burden; military training will be compulsory
eventually.” A motion favoring adoption of military
training at Lane High School failed to receive a second at the meeting.
Nearly two years later military training was adopted at the
Miller School.[10]

While the young men were being mobilized for training, all
aliens in the United States were required to register. This did not
include native born children of foreign parentage. When an English
mother registered at the Charlottesville Post Office, she was much
confused to find that her eldest child, born in this country, was not

required to register, while her youngest, born in South America, was.
In all, 174 persons were registered locally between August 27 and
December 26, 1940. By far the greatest number of them came
from Great Britain. Greece ranked second. The remainder included
natives of many countries throughout the world, with no one
country contributing a large number.[11]

While Selective Service was beginning to mobilize individuals for
a year's service with the Army, the Virginia National Guard was
also preparing for induction into Federal service for a year's training.
The Monticello Guard, which had a long and honorable history
reaching back to “The Gentleman Volunteers of Albemarle” organized
in 1745,[12] was among the units alerted early in October,
1940.

Originally it had been planned that the Virginia National Guard
would be concentrated in Richmond about the middle of December
before proceeding to Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, but after
some uncertainty, which was occasioned particularly by construction
delays at Fort Meade, the Monticello Guard was finally inducted
into Federal service on February 3, 1941, at its own armory, where
it remained until its departure for Fort Meade two weeks later.[13]

Captain Marshall P. Fletcher commanded the local company, but
during November and December he was attending the Infantry Staff
Officers School at Fort Benning, Georgia, and the responsibility for
preparing the unit for induction devolved upon First Lieutenant
John A. Martin. Though Captain Fletcher returned to the company
before it went to Fort Meade, he did not long remain with it
as he was shortly transferred to the staff of the 29th Division.
Lieutenant Martin, who was subsequently promoted to captain,
succeeded to the command of the company. The other officers of
the Monticello Guard when it entered Federal service were Second
Lieutenants Nathaniel T. Hildreth, Herbert A. Moore, Cecil E.
Runkle, and George G. Weston. John P. Davis was the first sergeant.

When first alerted in October, 1940, the company had an enrollment
of seventy-eight men. A drive was begun to enlist additional
men in order that the entire personnel might come from
the local community rather than that its ranks should be filled by
men transferred to it after the unit was inducted into Federal
service. An office was opened in the Armory where Sergeant Davis
enrolled selected recruits, but, on the other hand, the Guard suffered
a number of losses due to discharges for various reasons. By January
22 there were ninety-eight enlisted men enrolled, but sixteen
vacancies remained to be filled in order to bring the company to its
maximum strength.[14]

On January 31 a farewell banquet for the Monticello Guard was
held in the New City Armory, where plates were reserved for approximately

three hundred people. Randolph H. Perry, Secretary
of the Chamber of Commerce and former Guardsman, was toastmaster
and presided over the elaborate program. Among the principal
speakers were Judge Lemuel F. Smith, who spoke on behalf
of the county and city governments, and Judge A. D. Dabney, who
spoke on behalf of the civic organizations. Giving expression to
the prevailing sentiment, Judge Dabney said, “You are not going
forth to war. This move is an effort against war. If this same
patriotic effort continues, there will be no war, because no one will
dare attack us. We seldom stop to think how fortunate we are
in this country with all its opportunities as compared with the
slavery and devastation in Europe.” Pointing with justifiable pride
to the caliber of the company's personnel, he continued, “You have
a great heritage to live up to. Never in my experience in courts has
a member of the Monticello Guard been before me for any delinquency.
So long as Monticello stands as a sentinel for freedom,
just so long will there be a Guard ready to defend that heritage of
freedom.” A gala military ball with many additional guests followed
the banquet. To music “sweet” and “hot” the Guardsmen,
their partners, and their friends celebrated joyfully the beginning
of a patriotic adventure.[15]

At nine o'clock in the morning of February 3, 1941, seven officers
and ninety-two enlisted men of the Monticello Guard reported
to the New City Armory and were inducted into Federal service
as Company K, 116th Infantry, 29th Division. Thereafter they
led the life of a soldier. Reveille was at 5:30, breakfast at 6:15,
drill at 7:00, dinner at 12:00, recall at 4:30, supper at 5:50, and
taps at 10:00. They slept in the Armory and had their meals there.
The daily training program included physical exercise, close order
drill, and instruction in various other military subjects. Weather
permitting, drills were held outdoors on the nearby East End Parking
Lot, and spectators gathered on the Chesapeake and Ohio viaduct
to watch. During these first days much of the time was taken up
with physical examinations and other matters incidental to the
entrance into Federal service. Some losses were sustained when
members failed to pass the “physical.” At last word came that
a hundred-bed cantonment type hospital had been completed at
Fort Meade and that the camp was now ready to receive the 29th
Division. On February 19 at eleven o'clock in the morning the
Reverend Dwight M. Chalmers, pastor of the Charlottesville Presbyterian
Church, made a farewell address to the men, and the
next morning the company entrained at the Chesapeake and Ohio
Railway station for Fort Meade. Three officers and eighty-eight
men, commanded by Lieutenant Martin, left that day. Captain
Fletcher. with two lieutenants and two enlisted men, was already
at Fort Meade.[16]

In the departing group that morning some may have anticipated
that their training was a prelude to battle, but none could foresee
the bloody trials of Omaha Beach and the long road from there into
Germany. All were to find that their Monticello Guard Oath
really meant something. Each had sworn:

Eleven of the departing group were to give their lives in battle.
By selfless devotion to duty one of these was to win the nation's
highest award for valor before he fell preparing the way for the
advance of others.[17]

After the first excitement of getting the system into operation
during the fall of 1940, Selective Service settled down to a more or
less routine existence. First calls had been for only a very few men,
but gradually the number receiving “Greetings from the President”
increased until men left literally by the hundred. While a number
volunteered for duty before they would normally have been summoned,
the great majority awaited their turn and then went without
comment. Some few objected to their classifications, and their appeals
were heard by the Virginia Selective Service Board of Appeals
No. 3. One of four in the state of Virginia, it consisted originally
of John R. Morris, chairman: John L. Livers, and Dr. Staige D.
Blackford, all of Charlottesville: E. C. Davidson, Alexandria; and
T. Russell Cather, Winchester. In 1942 Dr. Henry B. Mulholland
of Charlottesville replaced Dr. Blackford, and in 1944 F. Roy Early
of Charlottesville was added. Other changes did not involve local
men. By June, 1941, it had heard 203 appeals arising in the twenty-seven
counties of northern Virginia.[18]

The second Selective Service registration was held July 1, 1941.
In the city 179 men and in the county 131, who had become
twenty-one years old since the first registration, were enrolled by
the board members, who did most of the work in this and subsequent
registrations.

The increasing tempo of the war in Europe had some effect upon
American thinking. In his Fourth of July address at Lane High

School, Justice J. Callan Brooks of the Civil and Police Court reminded
the citizens of Charlottesville that the “people of this nation
cannot expect to remain free if they cease to be vigilant.”[19] Before
the end of the year the Japanese had struck at Pearl Harbor, taking
advantage of the nation's want of vigilance. An all-out war
effort superseded everything else, and mobilization was stepped up.

In January, 1942, great activity on the two floors above the
Metropolitan Restaurant at 101 East Main Street, Charlottesville,
was observed by the local citizenry, but in a great cloud of military
secrecy questions went unanswered. It was only after the third
selectee-loaded bus arrived that the Army officially announced what
was already generally known, that a regional center for conducting
the physical examination of Selective Service registrants from northwestern
Virginia had been opened. Staffed by thirty or more officers,
clerks, doctors, and nurses, it was capable of processing approximately
one hundred registrants a day. Its establishment
eliminated many of the hardships which selectees suffered in the
long jaunts to the Roanoke and Richmond induction centers. Formerly,
knowing that once inducted he would have no time to settle
his personal affairs, a man on being notified to report for induction
might give up his job, sell his car, and dispose of his home only
to be told a few hours after reporting that he had been rejected for
physical disabilities of which he had no previous knowledge. Under
the new system all men in the area were given a screening examination
in their home communities. After the expiration of
their appeal time they were brought to the army examination center
in Charlottesville for a final check, and then returned home to
await orders from their local boards to report for induction. In
March, 1943, the center in Charlottesville was closed, and its functions
were taken over by the center in Richmond.[20]

On February 16, 1942, the third registration enrolled all men
aged twenty to forty-four not previously registered. There were
1,950 from the county and 1,302 from the city. In the fourth
registration two months later gray hair and bald heads predominated
as the Albemarle County Board registered 2,203 men and the City
Board 1,624 men between forty-five and sixty-five years old. It
was not anticipated that this group would be called to military
service, but rather that they should man the factories and farms
of the nation. So it turned out, though no formal induction took
place.[21]

It was a young man's war, and the fifth registration on June 30
enrolled the youths of eighteen and nineteen. There were 421 from
the city and 797 from the county. Among those from the county
were about 400 who registered from the University and 27 from
the C.C.C. Camp. Finally, in December, 1942, there was initiated
a system by which each man would register upon reaching his

eighteenth birthday. Thereafter the registration was a continuous
process.[22]

The University of Virginia Medical School on March 2, 1942,
was authorized to form the 8th Evacuation Hospital. Applications
for commissions were submitted at once, and in time thirty-five doctors
were accepted for the unit. Of these, twenty-six were graduates
of the University of Virginia Medical School, while others had
served on the staff of the Medical School or Hospital. Their average
age was low, only thirty-one years. Dr. Staige D. Blackford,
Associate Professor of Internal Medicine, commissioned a lieutenant
colonel, became unit director and was in charge of the medical staff.
Dr. Everett Cato Drash, Associate Professor of Clinical Surgery,
also commissioned a lieutenant colonel, was in charge of the surgical
staff. The Reverend William H. Laird, Rector of St. Paul's Episcopal
Church, became chaplain of the group. Twenty-two of the
nurses were recruited locally, but only Miss Helen Berkeley and
Miss Dorothy D. Sandridge were natives of the local community.
There was much ado over buying uniforms and otherwise preparing
for departure.

On June 24 orders were received directing personnel to report
on July 1 at Pageland, South Carolina, where they were to undergo
a six weeks training period with the 3rd Evacuation Hospital during
the Carolina Maneuvers. At the end of the maneuvers the 8th
Evacuation Hospital was formally activated and moved to Fort Benning,
Georgia. Additional personnel, including doctors, nurses, and
enlisted men necessary to bring the unit up to its authorized strength
of 417, were assigned. Three weeks later the 8th Evacuation Hospital
entered a staging area at Camp Kilmer. New Jersey. The
train which carried the personnel north passed through Charlottesville
without stopping. As the movement was secret, members of
the unit were forbidden to communicate with friends and relatives.
Nevertheless, a nurse surreptitiously dropped a note out of the window.
It was picked up and delivered to the addressee, but only a
limited number of people were let in on the secret. A few wives
of staff members left hurriedly for New York, but the newspaper
reporters who got wind of the story did not print it until December.
After six weeks of speculation, rumors, restrictions, alerts, goodbyes,
and “last trips to New York” the 8th Evacuation Hospital
sailed from Staten Island in November, 1942, with the first support
convoy for troops invading North Africa.[23]

A fund of $4,035.42 had been raised by 122 friends of the
hospital to be used for the benefit of the officers and nurses of the
unit. Out of it were bought additional items of hospital equipment
not furnished by the government, and from it were made loans to
personnel when Uncle Sam was slow coming across with the uniform
allowance. About half of the fund had been expended by

the time the unit sailed. Later, when the Liberty ship on which
all of the hospital's equipment had been loaded was sunk at Salerno
during the invasion of Italy, the remainder of the fund was spent
replacing those things which had been lost. An S O S was sent out
to the friends of the hospital, and under the chairmanship of John
R. Morris an additional $5,349.00 was raised during January, 1944.
When the hospital was deactivated, enough money remained to
publish the unit history.[24]

In peacetime Charlottesville had had a recruiting office, and with
the advent of Selective Service it had become a recruiting and induction
center. Early in the war the Navy and Marine Corps had
depended entirely upon voluntary enlistments, but by 1943, with
the demand for men everywhere increasing, voluntary enlistment of
men had been abolished except for seventeen-year-olds. On the
other hand, beginning in 1942 recruiting drives for WAAC's,
WAVE's, SPAR's, and Women Marines had been pushed. The
first WAAC from Charlottesville, Miss Virginia Pond of Monticello
Road, left for Des Moines, Iowa, on September 12, 1942.
In September, 1943, Mrs. Mary Marshall Wood, descendant of Chief
Justice John Marshall, and her seventeen-year-old son, Claude, volunteered
on the same day. Mrs. Wood became a WAC officer candidate
and her son a Naval Aviation cadet.[25]

The increasing calls for men at last necessitated induction of
pre-Pearl Harbor fathers in September, 1943. At this time it was
announced that 154,000 Virginians were serving in the armed
forces of the nation. Of these 1,269 whites and 360 Negroes were
from Charlottesville, and 1,044 whites and 289 Negroes were from
Albemarle County. By March 1, 1947, three and a half years
later, the two local Selective Service boards had sent 2,181 white and
592 Negro registrants from Charlottesville and 1,760 white and 540
Negro registrants from Albemarle County into military or naval
service. These figures do not include servicewomen and many men
who served but who were never registrants. No figures are available
for this group. Charlottesville with a population of 19,400 in
1940 furnished 2,773 men through Selective Service, while Albemarle
County with a population of 24,652 furnished only 2,300.
This discrepancy was probably due to the fact that, while few industrial
workers were deferred, a relatively large number of farm
workers were deferred.[26]

Though most men went willingly, the local community had
its small share of draft dodgers, deserters, and A.W.O.L. 's from
military service. From time to time these were picked up by the
local police. In August, 1943, a soldier was given a ticket to a
dance at the Armory and in a drawing won the grand prize, his
choice of a horse and buggy or $200 in cash. He chose the money
and went merrily on his way. His luck changed next morning,

however, when the police heard the name of the prize winner. They
recalled that they had orders to pick up a deserter by that name.
Apprehended and returned to Drew Field, the soldier still had in
his possession the $200—or most of it.[27]

A more tragic case was that of an eighteen-year-old Virginia
swain. Alerted for shipment to a combat area, a Marine overstayed
his leave from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, in order to
marry his sweetheart in Charlottesville. A few hours before the
wedding the long arm of the law reached out and grabbed him.
That night instead of honeymooning he languished in the city
jail. The next morning the authorities relented long enough to allow
the wedding to take place before the Marine was hauled back
to his base. On departing he declared that he was “all the more
for getting this war over with in a hurry and then I'll come back
home and go on my honeymoon.” Six months later, fighting
to make his dreams come true, he was fatally wounded in the attack
on the Palau Islands.[28]

In January of 1945 about eighty Albemarle white registrants
who had previously been deferred as necessary farm laborers were
called for induction. They made the trip from Charlottesville to
the induction center in Richmond in buses. Soon a scandal was being
whispered about. It was reported that thirty-seven aspirin boxes
or bottles were found in a bus when it returned to Charlottesville.
Conceivably an artificial heart condition could have been produced if
a large number of aspirin tablets had been taken. An investigation
followed which established that “a large aspirin bottle had been
found in one of the buses.” Three or four men who evinced rapid
heart action when examined were directed to report for reexamination.
Other subterfuges, such as pepper in the eyes, were also used
by a despicable few.[29]

With the surrender of Germany and Japan inductions under Selective
Service began immediately to taper off, and on October 16
were halted, though the draft boards continued to register and classify
men until March 31, 1947, when the Charlottesville and the
Albemarle County Selective Service boards finally went out of existence.
However, for two months the board members continued to
serve under the new United States Office of Selective Service Records.

Beginning late in 1945 the Albemarle County and Charlottesville
Selective Service Boards increasingly turned their attention to assisting
the returning veterans. As veterans' information centers they
assisted returning servicemen in obtaining all rights and benefits to
which they were entitled. Staff Sergeant John W. Taylor of Covesville
was the first veteran released under the Army's point system
to secure employment through the United States Employment Office
in Charlottesville. A member of the Monticello Guard, he had
landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day. Two days later he won a

Silver Star when he and a buddy knocked out two Nazi machineguns
with a bazooka. Discharged on May 14, 1945, Taylor applied
for employment a week later expressing a preference for a job
as auto mechanic, a position for which he had been trained while in
in the Army. He was at once employed by MacGregor Motors, Inc.,
in Charlottesville. He immediately made good and remained permanently
in their employ.

The month after V-J Day, October, 1945, brought the reopening
of Army recruiting offices. A district headquarters for seventeen
counties was established in the Charlottesville Post Office Building,
and a campaign began to enlist soldiers for the peacetime army of
occupation. On December 7 the Navy opened its recruiting station.[30]

The men from Charlottesville and Albemarle County in the
armed forces were from the first a source of great local pride. Practically
every group in the community, civic or business, had its service
flag or plaque. One of the most interesting service flags was that of
the Charlottesville Presbyterian Church, which had the unusual history
of having been used for both World Wars. On behalf of the
church Miss Mary Louise Dinwiddie prepared during the First
World War a silk flag, eleven by seven feet, and, unable to secure
ready-made stars of appropriate quality, she embroidered on the flag
ninety-four blue stars, of which five were later overlaid with gold
in honor of those who died. When World War II again brought
the need for a service flag, Miss Dinwiddie got out the old flag, together
with the embroidery silk, the pattern for the stars, and the
needle used during the first war. The gold stars were covered with
appliqued blue silk, and new stars were added to bring the number
up to 179. As deaths were reported the appliqued stars were removed
until, as in World War I, there were five gold stars. There
would have been a greater number of stars, but between the two
wars the Westminster Presbyterian Church had been established near
the University. Of its members fifty-three served in the Second
World War. Two of these died while in uniform.

A large minority of homes had members in the armed forces.
Something of a record was set by the 500 block of Ridge Street
which by November, 1942, had already furnished eighteen youths
to various branches of the service. All of these except one, who had
resided in a boarding house, had lived in detached, individual homes.
Many families which had only one or two men of military age sent
into service all members who were eligible and in so doing made an
outstanding contribution in defense of liberty and democracy.
Worthy of especial mention are several homes which had five or more
stars on their service flags. Unfortunately, some such families may
have escaped attention. Mrs. Eula Gleason of Charlottesville, Mr.
and Mrs. Frank E. Hartman of Charlottesville, Mr. and Mrs. G. F.

The Charlottesville Presbyterian Church uses the same service flag
for two wars.

Nimmo of Charlottesville, Mr. and Mrs. J. E. Pollard of Scottsville,
and Mr. and Mrs. J. L. Shaver of Proffit each had five sons in
service. Mr. and Mrs. William H. Stoneburner of Charlottesville
had six children in service—a daughter in the Marine Corps, a son in
the Army, and four sons in the Navy. Mrs. Thomas M. Estes of the
county had six sons in service, as also did Mr. and Mrs. O. A. Trice
of Howardsville. The most remarkable of all was a Negro mother,
Mrs. Fanny Estes of Proffit, the widow of Richard Estes. Her nine
sons in service constitute a record having few parallels anywhere
in the United States. The eldest of the sons, Richard J. Estes,
served for seven years as steward on the cruiser USS San Francisco.
Horace O. Estes was a first lieutenant of Co. M, 25th Infantry.
Other brothers in the Army were Staff Sergeant William C. Estes,
Corporal Elmer J. Estes, Private First Class Benjamin W. Estes,
Private First Class Henry H. Estes, Private Nathaniel Estes and
Private Joseph W. Estes. Paul S. Estes, the youngest of the group,
served in the Navy.[31]

When seventeen-year-old Henry Eugene Craddock of Charlottesville
joined the Navy on January 12, 1943, his mother, Mrs. Alice
May Craddock, who was thirty-two years old on the previous
Christmas Day, became the youngest war mother in the United
States. The Navy officially certified the fact in announcing Mrs.
Craddock's distinction. Before he entered the service “Gene” Craddock,
who was to win four battle stars in the Pacific, worked with
his father, Henry Wise Craddock, at the Charlottesville Woolen
Mills where Navy uniforms were being manufactured. When he
left for Bainbridge Naval Training Station, Maryland, he took with
him a blue jacket which he had helped to make.[32]

Many families displayed on their service flags a gold star symboliz
ing a member who had died in the service, a sacrifice on the altar of
freedom. Altogether 199 did not return. Of these 116 were from
Charlottesville and 83 from Albemarle County. A few families
had two such gold stars. Mr. and Mrs. Robert H. Batten of Charlottesville
lost two sons. Private First Class George Rexford Batten
with the 36th Division was killed in the crossing of the Rhine River,
and First Lieutenant Donald Sherwood Batten with the 86th Bomber
Group in Italy was killed by a land mine while he was searching for
a friend who had been shot down. Two sons of Mr. and Mrs. Richard
T. Brown of Charlottesville also died in Europe. Private Harry
Elmer Brown with the 9th Division in France was killed in action on
August 4, 1944, and Private First Class Richard Marton Brown
with the 29th Division died of injuries sustained in a vehicular accident
at Louvain, Belgium, March 10, 1945. Mr. and Mrs. Floyd
F. Davis also of Charlottesville lost two sons, Staff Sergeant Calvin
Edgar Davis, who was shot down over France on May 28, 1944,
and Private First Class Raymond Earl Davis, who died on February

14, 1946, at McGuire General Hospital in Richmond of wounds sustained
in Germany. Half-brothers, the sons of John W. Gibson of
Red Hill, died in service. Technician Fifth Class Clarence Cecil
Gibson was killed in an airplane accident in North Africa, February
12, 1943, and Private Coleman Tafty Gibson died on February 7,
1944, while on furlough in Charlottesville.[33]

There were many who asked the perpetual question, “Why should
young men just through college or just married who have everything
to live for, take upon themselves all of this war against life itself?”
“I feel I'm capable of answering that,” Lieutenant James E. Harlow
of Charlottesville, an aviator in England, wrote his wife, “for I was
one of these thousands who felt that, though we had everything to
gain by remaining out of the Army, this war was destroying everything
that could and should exist. We could be happy, yes, but for
how long? Even now, instead of being here in combat, I could be
home with my wife and thousands of others could be home also.
However, it's harder to see something beautiful you've built de-stroyed than to destroy its possible enemy in the beginning.”[34]

So it seemed to many others.

ALBEMARLE COUNTY SELECTIVE SERVICE BOARD

                                             

Board Members	Service Began	Service Ended
R. O. Hall	October 14, 1940	March 31, 1947
Richard H. Miller	October 15, 1940	March 31, 1947
Hugh Clark	October 15, 1940	March 31, 1947
Gabe N. Maupin	October 6, 1941	March 31, 1947
Henry McComb Bush	March 27, 1945	March 31, 1947
F. Pierson Scott	March 31, 1945	March 31, 1947
Government Appeal Agent
Edward V. Walker	October 14, 1940	April 5, 1947
Examining Physicians
Dr. J. O. Mundy	October 16, 1940	November 11, 1942
Dr. T. E. Jones	November 9, 1940	April 5, 1947
Dr. R. G. Magruder	December 11, 1940	March 10, 1942
Dr. Frank D. Daniel	December 27, 1940	March 1, 1947
Dr. John O. McNeel	May 31, 1941	November 11, 1942
Dr. G. F. Johnson	June 30, 1941	March 1, 1947
Dr. Thomas H. Daniel	January 16, 1942	November 11, 1942
Dr. Robert R. Nelson	February 10, 1942	March 1, 1946
Dr. John Edwin Beck	May 18, 1942	August 6, 1943
Dr. William R. Dandridge	August 12, 1943	March 1, 1947
Reemployment Committeemen
John G. Yancey	November 12, 1941	March 31, 1947
Edward V. Walker	August 3, 1945	March 31, 1947

CHARLOTTESVILLE CITY SELECTIVE SERVICE BOARD

                                                   

Board Members	Service Began	Service Ended
Charles E. Moran	October 11, 1940	March 31, 1947
Strother F. Hamm	October 12, 1940	August 9, 1946
R. A. Watson	October 12, 1940	July 1, 1946
Lyttelton Waddell	March 22, 1943	August 9, 1946
Frank H. Calhoun	May 10, 1943	August 14, 1946
Henry B. Gordon	August 9, 1946	March 31, 1947
J. Philip Grove	August 9, 1946	March 31, 1947
Government Appeal Agents
Lyttelton Waddell	November 12, 1940	March 25, 1943
Henry E. Belt	May 10, 1943	April 5, 1947
Examining Physicians
Dr. R. T. Ergenbright	October 17, 1940	April 5, 1947
Dr. William H. Wood	November 8, 1940	November 10, 1942
Dr. W. H. Paine	January 22, 1941	May 25, 1941
Dr. Byrd S. Leavell	January 28, 1941	June 12, 1942
Dr. John F. McGavock	May 26, 1941	March 1, 1947
Dr. Dan O. Nichols	June 19, 1941	March 1, 1947
Dr. E. W. Stratton	June 30, 1941	May 7, 1942
Dr. Robert R. Nelson	October 16, 1941	March 1, 1946
Dr. B. A. Coles. D. D. S.	January 16, 1942	March 1, 1947
Dr. M. T. Garrett	May 7, 1942	March 1, 1947
Dr. Harry LaCato Smith, Jr.	November 20, 1942	March 1, 1947
Dr. William R. Dandridge	August 5, 1943	March 1, 1947
Reemployment Committeeman
E. C. Wingfield	September 22, 1941	March 31, 1947