Editors Note: It is
impossible to underestimate the value and wisdom of our senior citizens.
Their knowledge of historical events and their recollections of days
past can provide countless hours of thought-provoking entertainment
and nostalgia.
Although many elderly folks now reside in nursing homes and retirement
communities, they are often eager to share stories of the full, productive
lives they have led.
For this reason, the North Platte Traveler wants to bring their stories
to you - the reader. Beginning with this issue, the Traveler will
celebrate senior citizens and their stories with a special "Echos
of the Past" feature in each edition of the magazine.
These stories will be gleaned from senior citizens in North Platte
and the surrounding areas who would like to share a portion of their
past with North Platte Traveler readers.
If you are one of our cherished seniors who has a story to tell, or
if you know of someone who is interested in sharing their story, we
want to hear from you. Please contact us at (308) 532-4040 or send
your name and phone number to the North Platte Traveler at PO Box
203, North Platte, NE 69103-0203
Regina Interhlozinger (left) and Rose Farrand (Rose Stevenson at the time)
were two of the many "Platform Girls" who served at the now-famous
North Platte Canteen during World War II. This photo is featured on the
cover of Bob Greene's best-selling book, "Once Upon a Town - The Miracle
of the North Platte Canteen." (Photo courtesy of the Union Pacific
Railroad) New Feature! Echos of the Past By Denise Poss
Memories - what would life be without
them?
Whether good or bad, memories are a part of our own unique history and make
us who we are. Many senior citizens have treasure troves of memories they
readily share with those who will take the time to listen.
Memories of depression, war and hard times loom in the minds of many elderly
folks, while recollections of weddings, babies and family celebrations fill
the heads of many others.
For this issue of the North Platte Traveler, we visited with an area resident
who took time to share some interesting stories of days long ago. So, sit
back, relax and prepare to journey back in time as Regina Interhlozinger
remember when…
Regina
Interhlozinger
By Denise Poss
To look at Rose Farrand, her petite frame curled daintily
into a chair in her cozy living room, one can easily picture the girl
she was in days past.
Her animated expressions and gleeful laughter are captivating as she shares
memories of her teenage and adult years – from her early ambition
to become a nurse, through her years of volunteering at the now famous
North Platte Canteen and her 45-year marriage to a man she considers one-of-a-kind.
Her youth was a happy one, Farrand says, shared with a sister and a brother
who all attended school in North Platte and graduated from North Platte
High School. From the time she was a young girl, Farrand says knew she
wanted to be a nurse. She was so intent on becoming a nurse, in fact,
that she had her subjects all picked out in high school so she didn’t
have to take the regular curriculum.
“My sister had a sister-in-law, Mildred Fitzpatrick, who was a school
nurse. She was a nurse-and-a-half, and what she didn’t know about
nursing wasn’t there,” Farrand recalls. “I was talking
to her one day and told her I wanted to go into nursing. She told me to
take this and that in school and keep my grades up and she would help
me get into St. Catherine’s in Omaha, because that’s where
she graduated from.”
Farrand successfully completed the recommended courses and graduated from
NPHS in 1937, when she was 17 years old. She says the razing of the old
building in 2003 left her feeling sad and frustrated.
“It was a beautiful school. I was so disappointed when they tore
it down,” she said. “If they would have taken care of that
school like they should have, it would have still been a good school.
But when they had the money, they didn’t pay any attention to it.”
Following graduation, Farrand set out for St. Catherine’s School
of Nursing in Omaha. The only problem was, she had not been raised in
a Catholic home and was not at all familiar with nuns in their long, flowing
habits.
“The scary thing was that I had never been around a ‘sister.’
I had no idea what to do around them. I was a little scared of them when
they came down the halls in those outfits. I had never even spoken to
one,” Farrand said with a laugh.
As Farrand recalls, one of the sisters always called her “Rose”
unless she was in trouble. Then it was, “Miss Bailey!”
“On Sundays we had to dust the patient’s rooms,” Farrand
said. “Invariably, I would get called back because I forget to dust
mop and I would end up losing my half-day off.
Farrand says her nurses training at St. Catherine’s lasted for three
years, after which she returned to North Platte and went to work for St.
Mary’s Hospital.
“I remember they paid $1 a day for a 12-hour shift, plus we got
one meal,” she says. “And we got a half-a-day off each week.”
When a doctor in Oshkosh offered her $60 a month to come work in his office,
Farrand jumped at the chance.
Above: Rose Farrand poses with her nephew, Tom Fitzpatrick,
and husband Orville Farrand in this 1956 photo. It was Tom who informed
Rose that she was in the photo on the cover of Bob Greene's book about the
North Platte Canteen.
Below: As an "independent" woman in her 20's, Rose (Bailey) Farrand
often wore slacks instead of dresses. .
“I was making big money, since I’d
only been making $30 a month at the hospital,” she says with a chuckle.
Farrand and her first husband, Gilbert Stevenson, moved to Oshkosh, but
their time there was to be short-lived due to the bombing of Pearl Harbor
on Dec. 7, 1941.
“The folks wanted me to come back to North
Platte because my brother had gone in the Navy. They just kind of thought
I should come back,” Farrand says.
The young nurse moved back to North Platte in the spring of 1942 and once
again found herself working at St. Mary’s Hospital. It was during
that time that a war effort was beginning to take hold in North Platte.
The effort, which later became famous throughout the world as the North
Platte Canteen, began on Christmas in 1941 and lasted until the end of World
War II. As Farrand recalls, one of her friends invited her down to the canteen
one day and she just kept going back whenever time would allow.
“I worked the 3 to 11 p.m. shift (at the hospital) most of the time,
so I’d go down to the Canteen in the morning and work until about
2 p.m., then go home and change into my uniform and go to work,” she
says.
One would think Farrand and the others would be too exhausted to think about
more work after putting in so much time helping at the Canteen, but for
Farrand this was never the case.
“There were times when
you just peeled eggs and you made sandwiches and you washed dishes and you
did whatever needed to be done, but it didn’t seem like you worked
hard,” she says.
According to Farrand, most of the time she worked at the Canteen she was
one of the “platform girls” who would hand baskets that were
filled with items such as cigarettes, fruit and eggs up to the servicemen
if they weren’t allowed to disembark from the train.
One day, a photograph was taken of the platform girls handing baskets up
to the men. That picture later appeared on the cover of Bob Greene’s
best-selling book, “Once Upon a Town – The Miracle of the North
Platte Canteen.”
Farrand shakes her head and laughs
when she recalls a phone conversation she had with her nephew, Tom Fitzpatrick,
not long after the book was published.
“He said, ‘Aunt
Rose, I knew the minute I picked up that book that it was you in the picture.’
I didn’t even know it was taken, but I was in it!”
Farrand says she isn’t really surprised she was unaware a picture
was being taken since it always seemed to be busy at the Canteen.
“A person really would have had to have seen it to have believed it,”
she says. “You had all that food lying out on these long tables. In
would come this train and, brother, you wanted to get out of the way because
these kids where in there. I mean it was nose-to-nose. Most of them would
go out with their hands full.”
“And if nobody was
allowed off the train, we always had a birthday cake for every car,”
she continued. “We’d always ask if anybody had a birthday and
they’d say ‘no,’ but somebody always had a birthday on
that car.”
Like many that supported the war efforts, Farrand and her family would help
in any way they could. “I remember saving grease to turn in for
ration coupons. If you would fry bacon or something like that, you would
save all that grease and you would take it down to the butcher shop or the
meat market and they would take it and exchange it for ration coupons.”
Despite the fact that there were always many “cooks in the kitchen”
at the Canteen, Farrand says all the women worked well together and there
were usually several men around who helped with the heavy lifting and in
other areas. They worked rain or shine and on an “as-needed”
basis.
“You worked in all kinds of weather out there, believe
me,” she says. “We didn’t know sometimes until a half-hour
beforehand if a train was coming in. Sometimes we only had 15 minutes to
get ready.”
Farrand is quick to point out that it wasn’t just the people of North
Platte that volunteered at the Canteen, but many came from other towns throughout
the region to help.
“I don’t know how they got all
these little towns organized,” she says. “Once the word got
around, all the little towns wanted to bring things. And many organizations
in town would take maybe one day a month and they had to scurry around and
get supplies and things.”
“It’s amazing what
they did. It really is,” Farrand recalls with a smile. “The
number of boys that they fed just blows your mind. At the time you never
stopped to think about it. You didn’t have time to stop and think
about it!”
Farrand says she was living in Omaha when the Canteen effort ended, but
it was while she was still living in North Platte that she met her second
husband, Orville, or “Orv” as she fondly calls him. “Orv
was working for Blue Cross Blue Shield,” she says as she remembers
back to the day they met. “One day, Dr. Callahan hollered at me to
come in and take care of this guy. He had a presentation for the nurses
to explain Blue Cross and Blue Shield to them, because that was about the
time it was getting started. We got acquainted that way and worked together
for about three days.”
“The next weekend I got a telephone
call and then my telephone bill got big and his telephone bill got big,”
she continued, laughing.
Farrand said Orville was traveling the state at the time working in public
relations. She quit her job and moved to Omaha and they eventually got married.
Ultimately, she says, he coaxed her to quit working so she could travel
with him.
“We traveled together for three years,” she
remembers. “We just had a ball.”
After her husband’s death in 1987, Farrand lived in Omaha until 1998
and then moved back to North Platte. She says she enjoys her life here and
has no regrets about moving back from a larger city.
Farrand says these days she keeps busy with Eastern Star activities, going
to Curves three times a week and chasing after her 1½-year-old Shar
Pei/Keeshond mix, April.
Read more Echoes of the Past: Summer04 Issue
NPTSummer 2005 Issue
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