A Night in Hell

Grandpa Lee told of a few occasions during his tour of duty in which he was certain he would die. One of them occurred during a nighttime artillery bombardment outside of Frenz, Germany, on November

The few remaining members of first platoon pushed eastward toward Frenz and into an area between the towns characterized by large, open fields. This flat terrain made them an easy target. Frank Sabinski was shot and killed. They hurried into town, following in the wake of the 413th Regiment’s attack. The town had already been taken, with the exception of the eastern edge.

The men of F Company were extremely hungry. Few rations had reached them since they pushed off a week earlier, and they tried to find food wherever they could. However, it was quickly discovered that many of the homes in Frenz were booby-trapped. Captain Bowman threatened to shoot anyone who touched the jars of preserves outside of one particular house. They eventually stopped in a cellar for a rest and found some jars of cherries and preserves, which they decided to eat, poisoned or not.

As they approached the line, they were assigned a position on the left flank of the attack, placing them just to the north and east of the small, heavily damaged town. At this point the platoon was almost down to squad-strength, with only 12 remaining men: Lee McBride, Jim Allen, Frank Perozzi, Paul Cardon, Chester Nycz, Burjowski, Leach, Williams, Rife, Mariello, and two new replacements.

The men fanned out along the edge of town, and dug a line of 12 foxholes, each about 10 feet apart, facing the enemy. That miserable outpost night would live long in the memory of Lee’s platoon. As night fell, a German artillery emplacement to the east began to bombard the American line near Frenz. The bombardment would last most of the night. Lee recalled that the incoming shells landed at a rate of about one per minute, in some cases landing directly in foxholes.

Frank Perozzi’s memoir paints a terrifying picture of that experience. He indicates that among other weapons, the Germans employed a Nebelwerfer: a six-barrel rocket launcher that was capable of firing several 120mm shells in rapid succession. Known as “screaming meemies,” the Nebelwerfer’s shells made a shrill whining sound as they approached and a deafening concussion when they burst. The concussion was so powerful, Perozzi said, “I thought my body would explode.”

German nebelwerfers

Lee's own description of this terrifying night in a foxhole indicated that the artillery pounded them “with a frequency of one shell per minute.” He also remembered that more than once, “shells actually land[ed] in an individual's foxhole.”

At some point during the night, “after a volley of enemy mortar shells fell around us," Perozzi heard "Paul [Cardon] calling me for help. I jumped over into his foxhole and saw he was having trouble breathing and then noticed a big gash in the back of his heavy winter overcoat.... I peeled back the fabric of the overcoat, his inner jacket, shirt, and undershirt and saw his back had been cut open in a long vertical wound. Every time he inhaled, the wound would flap and flutter with air rushing in.”

There was little chance of finding a medic at that point. Just moments earlier, Perozzi had looked out of his foxhole and seen Private McBride walking by, out of his foxhole and exposed to potential fire. He indicated he had been searching, without success, for a medic to aid the wounded near his own foxhole. Perozzi later confided that he thought it was courageous of Lee to risk himself in that way, even if it was a little foolhardy.

When the shelling started up again, Frank instructed Paul to “sit with his back pressed against the side of his foxhole so he could breathe easier” and left for the safety of his own foxhole, promising to come back when the bombardment stopped again. About five minutes later, he returned to find Cardon sprawled on the ground 20 feet from his hole. Another company member who was passing by stopped, felt Cardon’s neck, and told the others he was dead. He “unbuckled Paul’s wristwatch and took it. I guess he thought someone else would take it anyway.”

Among those for whom Lee sought medical attention may have been 3rd squad leader Sgt. Chester Nycz, who was also severely wounded in the thigh during the bombardment. A litter bearer was located, and Nycz was carried back to a barn just behind the line, where a medic valiantly tried to save him. Sadly, the attempt failed, his injuries too serious to repair. He died on November 2x, just as his company was relieved from combat for a two-week stint in reserve. Sgt. Nycz’s brother, who served in a different infantry division, would attend Timberwolf reunions for many years following the war as a way of paying tribute to Chester and of thanking those who fought at his side and attempted to save his life.

The tragic loss of Sgt. Nycz necessitated the selection of a new leader for 3rd Squad. Captain Bowman’s choice was the relatively green Private McBride. He was promoted to the rank of Buck Sergeant and given the assignment of squad leader.

Sgt. Perozzi’s offered this grim summary of their night in hell: “50% casualties. Burjowski, Rife, Mariello wounded, Cardon & Nycz died. Williams missing. Six of us unhurt: McBride, Allen, Leach, me and 2 replacements. Sgt. Leach is close to ‘Battle Fatigue.’”

Lee reflected, “I was completely convinced in my own mind that there was no way I could make it through, and the feeling of peace, of calmness, and of lack of worry was something that was very striking. I knew that I was going to die, at least in my own mind, felt that if I died, I’d see my mother whom I hadn’t seen for many, many years. If I survived, I’d see my sweet wife and child again. But I had a very, very calm feeling, a very peaceful feeling in [this] instance and some others of like character.”

Newly Discovered Letter from Reuben McBride

Historians of Mormon Nauvoo have long been familiar with Reuben McBride's 1886 letter to his sister Martha about being baptized for the dead in the Nauvoo Temple font in November 1841.1 McBride was leaving Nauvoo, Illinois to travel to Kirtland, Ohio. The letter corroborates William Clayton's statement in his temple history that Reuben was the first person baptized in the font.2

Alex Baugh used this letter to try to clarify the sequence of events between the font’s dedication on November 8 and the first public baptismal service on the 21st.3 I also quote the letter in my book on the Nauvoo Temple for its scene-setting details. Baugh and I come to different conclusions about exactly when Reuben was baptized.4 He argues Reuben’s baptisms were part of an informal private service, likely held the night of the dedication, and not on the 21st. I think it possible that Reuben was baptized by Young on the 21st and that McBride’s mention of a dedicatory prayer was a matter of him confusing another prayer given on the occasion of the first baptisms. Young was present on both occasions.

While looking through the recently opened collection of President John Taylor’s incoming correspondence at the Church History Library, I happened on a letter from Reuben McBride to President Taylor in which he tells substantially the same story, but adds a few new details.5 The letter to Taylor was written on February 7, 1880, putting it six and a half years closer to the events in question. The letter was one in a series of requests McBride made to Church leaders to obtain a record of the names of family members for whom he was baptized. Here is a transcription (original spelling preserved):

[page 1] Fillmore Feb 7th 1880
President John Taylor

Dear Brother
I wish to call you attention back as far as 1841 in Nauvoo I was appointed at the fall Conference to act in the Place of Oliver Grainger Diseased I was appointed to go back to Kirtland Ohio and take charge of the Temple and Church Property You was Josephs Clerk and done the business you gave me Two Powers of attorney one for the Church and one for Joseph & Emmas own private business before I started back Joseph made a bee and had the Font filled with water he wished me to be Bapt before I went back to Ohio, the Font [page 2] was filed, I was the first one Baptised in the Font in this Dispensation I think it was on Saturday evening Joseph spoke a short time the Font was Dedicated and Joseph appointed Bro, Brigham Young to Bapt me I was Bapt for my Dead Relitives I do not recolect how many wheather you was presant or not I do not recolect I did not know but you was Clerk that Evening the water was very Cold Joseph put his Cloak round me and took me in his Cariage and Caried me Home I spoke to Prest Young about it he said he would have his Clerks hunt up the Record of it, this was a Short time before his Death I have not been to the City since whether they found the Record or not I do not know [page 3]

Bro Brigham told me who the clerk was that evening at the Font it seems some as if, it, was Sloan but I do not recollect whoever it was Prest Young said he had apostasised and I, do not but said he was Dead

I want a Copy of that Record to go on my Family & Church Record I have wished I had taken a Record of it at the time

I do not wish to be Bapt again for those I was bapt for then I do not the Names I was bapt for them I want it to go on Record in St. Temple when I go down next Spring I Searched the Records of the Baptisms for the Dead in the Historians office Some myself I did not find it I did not Search very thorough I think it was in November [page 4] 1841 I was bapt but could not say positively I kow it was while Elder Hyde was on his Mission to Jerusalem Bro Joseph took a good deal of pains and I always felt it a Great Blessing Confered upon me Joseph at the Font remarked Blessed is the first man thats Baptised in this Font

Please Send me a Copy of the Record and let me know as soon as convenient

I Remain your Brother
In the New and Everlasting
Covenant

Reuben McBride

What does this letter add to our understanding? First, the gathering does not appear to have been as small and informal as Baugh inferred from the letter to Martha.6 McBride recalls the presence several people, including a clerk or recorder. Young remembered it being Nauvoo City Recorder James Sloan, who was given charge of the temple baptismal records, though this may have been an assumption. Some record appears to have been kept, because by the time Reuben writes his letter to Martha in 1886, he knows that he was baptized for six relatives and may have included their names in his letter to Martha.7

Both letters indicate that Joseph Smith “made a bee.” Baugh thinks may refer to a piece of wood bolted to the font.8 The phrase “make a bee” was also an idiomatic expression meaning to gather a group of key people.9 I believe this indicates the presence of a larger group. McBride doesn’t recall how many were present nor whether Taylor was among them, indicating that the group was probably larger than three or four. He also says Joseph Smith "took a good deal of pains" to make the gathering happen.

McBride’s recollection of the date in the 1880 letter—November 1841—is more accurate in this earlier letter than the one he gives in his letter six years later. But he states that he believed the baptisms took place on a Saturday. This is problematic because Clayton’s much earlier record dates the dedication to Monday, November 8, and Wilford Woodruff’s diary dates the first public opening of the font to Sunday, November 21. It seems likely that McBride misremembered the day. As far as I know, the precise date McBride departed for Kirtland is unknown. We only know that he received his letter of attorney on November 2.10

The letter adds the detail that the water in the font was cold, which is unsurprising. It also contradicts the later letter on McBride’s and Joseph Smith’s destination after the ceremony. Otherwise the two letters tell almost identical stories.

This letter provides minimal additional circumstantial evidence for a November 21 date for Reuben’s baptism; not enough to make it an iron-clad argument by any means. Regardless, future histories of this event should cite the letter to Taylor because it is a few years earlier, is missing no pages, and contains the more complete account.

Notes

1. The text of the first page of the letter is as follows: “Fillmore Nov 1[st]/86 [Page 1st] Dear Sister Martha: I Received your kind and welcome letter Some time ago, but circumstances has been Such that hindered me till now the Subject you wrote uppon is one of the greatest importance the first Work that I done for our Dead Relitives was done in Nauvoo I think in the fall of 42 but you know for you was there.9 Bro. Joseph Smith made a bee and had the Font in the Temple filled with water from the Wells.11 He Said he, wished me to be Baptised in the Font before I went back to Ohio. we met. Joseph, Spoke and the Font [was] Dedicated and he Joseph Said Blessed is the first, man Baptised in this Font. Brigham Young Baptised me. I was Baptised Six times. Joseph took off his mantle and Wrapt it around me took me in his Carrage and, drove to your House He talked all the way goeing to your House and”. Reuben McBride to Martha McBride Knight, November 1886, Marion Adaline Belnap Kerr Family Papers Collection, Church History Library.
2. Clayton’s history of the Nauvoo Temple is included as an appendix in George D. Smith, ed., An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995), 592.
3. Alexander L. Baugh, "'Blessed Is the First Man Baptised in This Font': Reuben McBride, First Proxy to Be Baptized for the Dead in the Nauvoo Temple," Mormon Historical Studies 3 (Fall 2002), 253-261.
4. Matthew S. McBride, A House for the Most High: The Story of the Original Nauvoo Temple (Salt Lake City: Kofford Books, 2007), 74-75.
5. Reuben McBride to John Taylor, February 7, 1880, John Taylor First Presidency Correspondence, Church History Library.
6. Baugh, 258.
7. Pages two and three of the 1886 letter are missing. Page four contains some family sealing information.
8. Baugh, 261, note 10.
9. See John Galt, Lawrie Todd (London: Richard Bentley, 1832), 98.
10. Letter of Attorney to Reuben McBride, 2 November 1841, in Joseph Smith Letterbook 2, 213–214; Joseph Smith Collection, Church History Library. See http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letter-of-attorney-to-reuben-mcbride-2-november-1841

David Lester McBride's Mission

I've spent a few of my lunch breaks at the Church History Library trying to flesh out the story of David Lester's mission in 1908. Here is what I have found so far:

Sometime in September 1907, 25-year-old David Lester McBride (from what I can surmise from the documents, he preferred to go simply by "Lester") received a letter from the office of President Joseph F. Smith. The letter, no longer extant, encouraged Lester to enroll in a missionary training course. His September 17 reply, received two days later in Salt Lake City, read:

Dear Brother, 

I received your letter asking me to take a Missionary Course. I will be glad to report to the college on the first [of] the year & take up my studies. 

Your Brother,
Lester McBride1

Mission calls and letters were usually sent at the recommendation of an individual's bishop, and it was expected that the candidate would send an acceptance letter such as the one above. My assumption is that the course at "the college" was one offered at the Utah State Agricultural College (now Utah State University) in nearby Logan.

After completing the course, Lester was again recommended for missionary service, and on June 20, the President's Office again sent him a letter, this one consisting of a call to serve in the Eastern States Mission. He replied as follows:

Jos. F. Smith 

Dear Brother,

I received your letter dated June 20 & was pleased to receive the call. I am willing to go at [the] time set. A month later would be better for me, but I will go when ever you say. 

Your Brother,
Lester McBride2

The letter, dated June 23, was endorsed by Hyrum 3rd Ward Bishop James J. Facer and was received two days later. It is difficult to say whether David Lester reported on the date the call suggested or waited a month because, again, the mission call itself is not extant (as far as I know). The Hyrum 3rd Ward Manuscript History, however, dates his departure from the ward to October 18, 1908. It is possible he waited a few weeks to help with the harvest.3

Twenty-seven was not an unusually high age for a missionary at that time, though it was a few years older than the average. My small sampling of missionary ages from 1907 to 1911 suggests that the typical age was between 23 and 25.

David Lester arrived at the mission headquarters in Brooklyn, New York on October 27 and was immediately assigned to the Brooklyn Conference (a unit comparable to a modern LDS district).4 There he remained for at least the first thirteen months of his mission. During that time, his name appeared occasionally in the Liahona Elders' Journal, an official Church periodical that covered missionary work around the world.

On May 30, 1909, he attended a conference meeting at which B. H. Roberts (one of the Presidents of the Seventy) and Eastern States Mission President Ben E. Rich spoke to the missionaries in the area. During the afternoon meeting, the mission leadership discussed plans with the Elders for their work during the summer months. They decided "that all the elders, with the exception of three or four who will remain in the cities to look after the members, should go in the country for the summer." The Liahona continues:

Accordingly, on the 1st of June, six pairs of elders started for the country, without purse or scrip. After being out about two weeks they now report that never in their missionary experience have they enjoyed their work as they have done since traveling without purse or scrip, relying on the Lord to raise up friends to minister to their needs.... The Mayor of Hawley [Pennsylvania], upon learning who Elders David L. McBride and Clarence Burgess were, and what their mission was, gave them a hearty welcome to the city, and took them to the hotel, where he introduced them to the proprietor and told him to take care of them at his expense.5

According to a Deseret News correspondent in New York, the elders would canvas five counties (Sussex, Sullivan, Warren, Monroe and Pike) spanning three states (New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey). These counties had been selected because they had "been hurriedly traveled over for several summers and give promise of a good work among the people. The country at this time of year is delightful and the people generally most hospitable. The sections selected are farming districts with villages scattered within easy distances."6

Near the conclusion of the warm season, David Lester and companion were mentioned again in the Liahona's Eastern States Mission report, this time in another town somewhere in the country surrounding New York:

Elders David L. McBride and Wm. O. Clark called upon a Catholic priest, and were received very kindly; and excellent supper was prepared for them, after which a pleasant evening was spent in conversation upon religious subjects. Not having room to entertain the elders over night, the priest gave them money to procure a room at the hotel. The next morning, upon learning who the elders were, the hotel proprietor would not accept pay from them although he knew they had been given money to pay their way.7

David and companion returned to the city on October 16. "Elders McBride and Taylor, who have been traveling in the country on a preaching tour, arrived in the city Saturday evening looking hale and hearty, with a decided country-brown tinge, and reporting an excellent time while away."8

These brief anecdotes are merely a few of the dozens of reported success stories in the Liahona about missionaries laboring without purse or script. I have a hard time reconciling the reports with what we know about the general perception of Mormons in 1908, just a few years after the national uproar around the seating of Reed Smoot.

Mission leaders were clearly intent on advocating this approach and undoubtedly chose to cast the experience in a positive light, squelching reports of missionaries being rejected or denied assistance. The whole experience must have been at once exhiliarating and frustrating.

While David Lester McBride was in Brooklyn, he lived at 287 Bainbridge Street. You can read my earlier post about that location here. We also know that, at some point, he had his picture taken at Battery Park in Manhattan with another of his fellow missionaries, an Elder Wallace. I have yet to find any information about the second half of his mission. David Lester departed for home early in August 1910. He traveled with Elder Sessions and Elder Hackett and a Utah businessman named Salsberg.9 Ward records show that he arrived home on or about August 13, 1910, having served 22 months.10

At his funeral, one of his companions, Karl Woods, noted of David Lester's missionary efforts, "He made an excellent missionary and... accomplished more than most men who fill a mission."11 It would be nice to learn more about his experiences. Did he baptize? Did he use his reputed musical talents in his proselytizing? A statistical report for 1909 sheds some light on the accomplishments of the approximately 16 missionaries (8 companionships) comprising the force in the Brooklyn Conference:

    Hours tracting: 8,335 [86 hours per companionship, per month]
    Families visited in tracting: 34,488 [359]
    Families revisited--not Saints: 2,815 [29]
    Hours gospel conversations: 1,765 [18]
    No. gospel conversations: 17,192 [179]
    Number tracts distributed: 62,580 [652]
    Standard church works distributed: 652 [7]
    Other books distributed: 6,064 [63]
    Hall meeting: 231 [2]
    Cottage meetings: 72 [less than 1]
    Open air meetings: 274 [3]
    Baptisms: 17 [less than 1]
    Children blessed: 3 [less than 1]
    Hours spent in study: 7,996 [83]
    Hours spent with members: 1,423 [15]
    B. of M. Lectures: 792 [8]12

Source Notes

1. David Lester McBride, Letter, September 17, 1907, Missionary Acceptances, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.
2. David Lester McBride, Letter, June 23, 1908, Missionary Correspondence, Church History Library.
3. "List of Missionaries, Hyrum 3rd Ward," Hyrum Ward Manuscript History, Church History Library. Compiled at the request of Andrew Jenson in 1916, the list contains departure and return dates.
4. Eastern States Mission, Manuscript History, October 28, 1909, Church HIstory Library.
5. "The Missions, Eastern States," Liahona Elders' Journal 7 (June 26, 1909), .
6. Janetta Young Easton, "Salt Lakers in Gotham," Deseret News, June 12, 1909.
7. "The Missions, Eastern States," Liahona Elders' Journal 7 (November 13, 1909), .
8. Janetta Young Easton, "Salt Lakers in Gotham," Deseret News, October 23, 1909.
9. Janetta Young Easton, "Salt Lakers in Gotham," Deseret News, August 20, 1910.
10. "List of Missionaries, Hyrum 3rd Ward," Hyrum Ward Manuscript History.
11. "Lester McBride Funeral Service," clipping from unknown paper in possession of author. I need to do some digging to find out which paper this was published in. It was clearly a Cache Valley paper.
12. "The Missions, Eastern States," Liahona Elders' Journal 8 (January 8, 1909), 501.

Where Did James and Betsey Live in Pike County?

We know that James McBride died on August 13, 1839 in Pike County, Illinois. Most Missouri Mormons fled their homes during the previous winter, crossed the Mississippi to Illinois and spent the winter scattered in settlements up and down the river, mostly in Adams County near Quincy. Of course, after a few months they began to purchase land near Commerce, Hancock County, several miles to the north.

Mormon refugees also settled in scattered remnants throughout the northern half of Pike County, a few miles south of Quincy. One of the largest settlement of Mormons was a few miles east of the county seat Pittsfield. "Mormontown" as it was called, was founded in February 1839 by Silas Smith, the Prophet's uncle, and became the site of a branch of the Church. There were nearly 300 members of the Church there at its height. As Nauvoo grew, most of the members there relocated to be near the new Church headquarters.

Another settlement of roughly 112 Mormons was established somewhere toward the northwest corner of Pleasant Vale Township. William Draper recalled that Hyrum Smith and George Miller were sent to organize a branch there. The erected a frame meetinghouse, 36 by 40 feet. Pleasant Vale even became the headquarters of the Pike County Stake of the Church. However, as was the case with most of these satellite settlements, the Pleasant Vale branch was dissolved and counseled to move to Nauvoo in 1843. According to The Past and Present of Pike County, Illinois, the frame meetinghouse was moved closer to the river and used as a warehouse.

There were other smaller congregations of Saints in Pike County. Joseph Wood wrote the editors of the Times and Seasons to inform them he had organized a branch in Perry, Pike County. Members of the Church in these Pike County settlements participated in gathering petitions of redress against Missouri. Many of their affidavits, sworn out at the county seat in Pittsfield (and a few in Griggsville) were gathered by missionaries including as Erastus Snow and have survived. The congregations in Pike County were favored with occasional visits by Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and others.

Back to Betsey and James. Betsey gave birth to her last child, Nathaniel on January13, 1840 in Barry, Pike County Illinois. It seems unlikely that she moved between James's death in August 1839 and Nathaniel's birth. James was probably buried somewhere in the vicinity of Barry, Illinois.

It is possible that the McBride's were among the relatively few Mormons to stay in Barry. If so, it is interesting that they chose not to make their home in either of the above-mentioned Mormon settlements. They most likely attended Church meetings with the Pleasant Vale congregation, which would have been at most 12 miles distant from their Barry home. Soon after his death, James's family moved to the vicinity of Nauvoo.

More research in Barry would be required to know where Mormon refugees (however few) may have settled in Barry. Even then, it might be impossible to find James's burial place. It is unlikely the family could afford to place a marker at the site.

Nordhausen Concentration Camp

(Grandpa Lee wrote about what must have been an unforgettable and life-altering experience at the Nordhausen Concentration Camp. I have done my best here to reconstruct from various sources the events that led to his battle patrol's discovery of the camp.)

Private Joseph Galione2 was a Timberwolf and member of the 415th Infantry Regiment. In the early days of April 1945, he was assigned to conduct reconnaissance for his unit as they followed in the wake of the 3rd Armored Division spearhead. Acting on instinct, and following his sense of smell and some nearby railroad tracks, he walked several miles ahead of his unit into the vicinity of Nordhausen, a small town in Saxony.

As he made his way along a spur of the railway the evening of 10 April, he stumbled upon a large rail car piled with unidentifiable corpses. After a brief altercation with a retreating German soldier, he scouted the area and discovered, to his horror, a large concentration camp. Within this sprawling, fenced enclosure were dozens of shabby barracks huddled against the hills, the gaping mouth of an enormous tunnel bored into the side of a mountain, and dozens of gaunt, timid detainees peering at their unexpected visitor.

Konzentrationslager Mittelbau, known as the Mittelbau-Dora or simply the Dora Camp, had been established on the former site of a large gypsum mine in the Kohnstein, a mountain about five miles north of Nordhausen. Its creation was the direct result of the Allies’ discovery and subsequent bombing of the German rocket testing base on the small Baltic island of Peenemunde off the north-German coast. The bombing, which occurred in 1943, not only severely damaged the Germans’ ability to manufacture and test their nascent rocket technology, but showed the extent to which the security of the entire, intensely secretive program had been compromised. The decision was made to manufacture the rockets in a secure underground location, and the already partially excavated Kohnstein was deemed the ideal spot.

In the aftermath of Hitler’s rise to power in the 1930s, Heinrich Himmler’s Schutzstaffel assumed the role of state police for all of Germany. Under their administration, several large prison camps were established to house common law criminals and domestic political enemies of the National Socialist regime. After the late-1930s attacks on Czechoslovakia, Poland, Holland, and France, the camps swelled with foreign prisoners who resisted German occupation and with victims of the cruel ethnic and social cleansing practices of the Nazis.

As the Allies engaged Germany in a savage two-front war and Germany’s workforce began to be depleted by conscription into the armed services, these camp interns played an increasingly prominent role as the labor force for Germany’s munitions and transportation industries. Concentration camp labor was used to an extent even at the Peenemunde base prior to its destruction, but with the relocation of the rocket manufacturing facility, slave labor was brought to bear in an unprecedented fashion to complete the excavation of the tunnels and carry out the assembly of the V1 and then-experimental V2 rockets.

The Dora camp (properly considered a labor camp as opposed to an extermination camp such as Auschwitz) was originally a Kommando or satellite worksite of Konzentrationslager Buchenwald, several miles to the south. Buchenwald prisoners arrived in large transports and were put to work completing the excavation. The overworked and starved inmates slept in unsanitary conditions in the tunnels during this period. As the work progressed and the size of the inmate population increased, a camp was constructed featuring all of the hallmark horrors of the Nazi concentration camps including a crematorium for the disposal of corpses. In the fall of 1944, with the completion of the tunnel factory and growing importance of the rocket program, Dora was made an autonomous camp dubbed Mittelbau, and oversaw several smaller satellite camps in the region. During its operation, the prisoners assembled thousands of V1 and V2 rockets. Between November of 1943 and April of 1945, the camp detained over 60,000 prisoners, more than 20,000 of which died due to exhaustion, starvation, disease, and violent treatment by the SS camp guards.

Private Galione, horror-stricken and fearing capture, retraced his route until he reached a small group of American troops that he had passed on his way to the camp. They took him to their commander and he related what he had seen. Galione, the commander and  a driver drove a jeep back to the camp, broke the heavy padlock on the gate, and entered the camp. The prisoners showed them to the Revier, or hospital barracks and they peaked inside. The putrid stench and the ghostly figures of the over 100 barely-living prisoners shocked the battle-hardened G.I.s. Frightened, and in need of help, they raced back to Galione’s unit, and instigated the mobilization of a rescue party of Timberwolf riflemen and medics.

In order to prevent being held up by a German ambush, they radioed ahead to the CP of Task Force Lovelady of the 3rd Armored to have tanks lead the way and eliminate any resistance. The tanks and supporting infantry rolled out at 4:30 AM the morning of 11 April, following the directions given by Private Galione. He recalled: “When I gave the Third Armored directions to Camp Dora, I failed to consider the direction they would be coming from. After all, I didn't take the road; I traveled through the woods. I was tired and forgot to tell them about the curve in the road.” Galione felt that this misdirection “was meant to be” and counted it a small miracle because of what they found there.

Sergeant Lee McBride was riding on one of the tanks in the first combat patrol to enter nearby Nordhausen. They approached from the southwest and arrived in town near the train station. After encountering some slight resistance in the form of machine gun fire, the infantry along with the tanks of Task Force Lovelady succeeded in subduing and capturing the 35 remaining enemy troops in town.

Late that morning, as they proceeded through the bomb- and fire-devastated city in search of the hillside camp and tunnels described by Galione, they were startled to discover a second prison camp, there amidst the rubble of Nordhausen. Galione himself would later describe conditions at this camp as “even worse than the one I found.”

The Boelcke Kaserne or Boelcke barracks (map here) had been constructed by the Luftwaffe and served as quarters for the pilots and technical staff that serviced a nearby airfield. It had been evacuated in the spring of 1944 and was converted into a satellite camp in the growing Mittelbau-Dora camp complex. Most of the prisoners at the barracks had been sent there because they were too ill, weak, or injured to continue working at the rocket assembly works five miles to the north at Dora. This accounts in part, for the wretched condition of the prisoners--these were the most feeble and helpless of the bunch. Furthermore, the camp had been the subject of several direct hits during the brutal RAF fire-bombing of Nordhausen the previous week, which claimed nearly 1,500 victims in the Boelcke Kaserne.

Lee described their arrival at the barracks, otherwise known as the Nordhausen camp: “These people were literally worked and starved to death. Some 5,000 bodies were discovered, many stacked like so much cord wood awaiting final disposal. Most were apparently French. As we came into the compound which housed the slave laborers, it was surrounded by a chain-link fence which I would guess to have been ten or twelve feet high. The French slave-laborers, when they saw who we were, literally climbed over that fence en masse and broke it down; just laid it flat, they were so happy to see us.”

Life Magazine photograph of prisoner remains at the Boelcke Kaserne shortly after the arrival of the combined 3rd Armored and 104thh Infantry.

The barracks consisted of five, two-story dormitory buildings and two, larger structures. The second story of each dorm was lined with three-level bunks, crammed with corpses and emaciated survivors.

Other Timberwolf units, including a medical battalion, soon arrived to help care for the survivors. In fact, VII Corps CO General J. Lawton Collins saw to it that as many soldiers under his command as possible were taken to the camp to witness firsthand the Nazi’s “Final Solution.” German civilians were recruited to bury the bodies of former camp inmates in mass graves.

While this sequence of events is sometimes called a “liberation,” it is important to remember that Germans soldiers had abandoned the camp by the time the Americans arrived and that the Allied bombing of Nordhausen had inflicted horrific casualties and killed many of the prisoners.

Like many U.S. soldiers who encountered such camps, the Timberwolves made their discovery of the camp the centerpiece of their postwar meaning making. From their perspective, it lent purpose and justification to a campaign that often seemed senseless. In the words of the 3rd Armored Division historian, the men “would never again doubt the reason for their fighting.”

The French government under Charles de Gaulle later awarded Lee a Battle Cross with Bronze Star (Croix de Guerre avec Etoile de Bronze) for his role as a member of that first patrol to arrive.

Mary Lue McCune - An Eventful Year

(This is part 3 in a series. Be sure to read part 1 and part 2.)

Mary Lue taught kindergarten from the fall of 1945 until the spring of 1946. As much as she enjoyed her teaching job, she wanted to try something new. “I yearned for a little adventure, to break out,” she later reflected. She had recently begun to date a young man named Ralph Collett and things had gotten serious between them. However, Mary Lue was unsure about things, and felt she needed to “analyze [her] relationship with Ralph and learn independence.” She wrote, “Ralph and I knew that I had to try my wings now or never. Try my wings—that is exactly what I did. I rode out to the airport one day and had an interview with Dale Peck of United Airlines.”

She inquired about a position as an airline stewardess. At that time stewardesses were required to have a college degree and to be unmarried. Having met the requirements and passed several tests, she was hired. She was requested to report to the United Airlines stewardess training in Chicago on Monday, April 15, 1946.

The Sunday evening prior to her departure, Mary Lue attended an LDS youth fireside held by the Bonneville Ward. It was at this gathering that she met Keith McCune, a young man whose family also lived in the Bonneville Ward but who had been away for several years on a mission and in military service in Argentina and Panama respectively. Keith had returned home for a short visit and was to return to Panama a few days later. He recounted the events of that evening:

It was a Sunday evening and the Bonneville Ward in which we lived, both Mary Lue and her family and my parents and their family, was having a fireside that evening. So I said to my sister Elaine, “How about going with me to the fireside and let me look the situation over there.” The fireside was held at the home of Milton Backman, which was a nice home on Yale Avenue, about a half a block West of the Knell place. We sat around the perimeter of their rather large living room as the lesson was presented and across the living room from me was Mary Lue and a friend named Joyce Robinson [Poulson]. After the lesson period was over, when they were preparing the refreshments and everybody was just sitting around gabbing, they saw me sitting alone over there. I think Elaine was over visiting some friends of hers and they said, “Why don’t you come over and talk to us.” So I scooted over and sat down and started talking to them. Something about Mary Lue just really struck me even at that time as I first met her. We talked a while and then had the refreshments. I learned from Mary Lue that she had graduated from the University of Utah in elementary education and she was teaching school but had decided that she wanted something more adventuresome in life. She had applied for a job as a stewardess with the United Airlines and she said, of all things, “I’m leaving this weekend to go to Chicago to go to the airline stewardess school,” and I said, “I’m leaving this weekend to return to Panama.” I think we both talked about how we were going, which was by train.

After the fireside, Elaine and I walked home, we were just around the block. We were walking up the street and it so happens that Mary Lue and her friend Joyce were walking right ahead of us. As we walked up the street, we talked some more and my mother told me later that she could tell when I came home that night that there was really kind of a spark in my feelings and attitudes towards this new girl I had met.

Friday, April 12 was Mary Lue’s last day teaching. She wrote in her journal, “Eventful day! Last day of teaching—first day of a new adventure. The teachers at Emerson gave me a white slip as a going away present. I boarded the train at 5:30 p.m. and Met Bonnie Griffiths. This is my first night in a Pullman Sleeper.”

The next morning she arrived in Denver. Bonnie was the mutual friend of both Mary Lue and of Keith’s sister Elaine and was on her way to Chicago for stewardess training as well. The two arrived in Denver the next morning at 8:30.

Meanwhile, Keith had also departed that Friday evening by train from Salt Lake for Brownsville, Texas, where he would depart for Panama. He stopped to change trains in Denver and while waiting to store his luggage for the layover, he heard a voice behind him say, “Hey, what are you doing in Denver?” “I turned around and it was Mary Lue and her friend,” Keith recalled. “I said to them, ‘Well, I have about an eight hour layover.’ They did too. I said, ‘We might as well go around town together if you like, and we’ll do some sight-seeing,’ and so we did. We spent the day together and did a lot of sight-seeing. I didn’t have camera with me, but Mary Lue had a little box Kodak camera and so we took pictures.”
 In her diary Mary Lue wrote, “Bonnie, Keith and I saw high spots of Denver’s scenery. We visited the museum—saw the Tabor relics and climbed to the dome of the gold-topped Capitol building.”

Keith’s train left at 3:30 that afternoon. They said their goodbyes and exchanged addresses so they could keep in touch. Keith had Mary Lue send him the negatives of the pictures they had taken in Denver and he made several 8x10 prints, which he sent to Mary Lue. Mary Lue and Bonnie boarded the Zephyr bound for Chicago at 4:01 and had dinner on the train before retiring for the night.

Mary Lue arrived at Union Station in Chicago the next morning, April 14, and began her training. The classes continued until May 10 when the final exams were completed. The following selections from her diary offer a glimpse into her activities during that busy month:

April 14: Arrived in the big city—Union Station. Took car along lake to Southmoor hotel. Muriel, Mary, Bonnie and I have a cozy little 2x4. Bonnie’s brother Dick came to hotel. Mr. Decker (United Airlines Rep.) talked to us on the mezzanine. Went into town to dinner on Illinois Central. Saw Frankie Carl and his orchestra at the Hotel Sherman. Back to hotel and bed.

April 15: First day of school at Chicago airport, 7:00am. 70 girls in class from all over U.S. Met Marian in town—ate dinner at Harding’s with Bonnie, Dick, and Bob. Looked for navy blue shoes. Got back to hotel at 10—studied for test.

April 16: Seems as if we have been here a month. Sat in same seat for two days!!! Heaven knows how much longer. Fitted for hats. Another test tomorrow. Egad! We aren’t seeing much of Chicago itself.

April 20: Had our pictures taken for United Airlines. Went to town. Shopped at Marshall Fielding—Drove along Lake Shore—saw place where ’33 Fair had been. Women’s hats are unusually queer in this place.

April 21: Easter. Went to Evanston Ward with Bonnie, Dick, Bob, Marian, Virginia, Lynn. Had Smorgasbord at Bit of Sweden. Walked on Lake Shore—Easter bonnets were a pill. Took a tour on Chicago bus. Saw nothing but Negro section and South Shore. Gee my feet are sore.

April 22: Four more lectures today. It seems more like summer than spring here.

April 23: Not an unusual day—This evening Muriel, Bonnie, and I went bicycle riding in Jackson Park. The sunset was beautiful and the lake was calm—it seemed like we were in another world. We should know our domiciles this week—“keep your pages crossed.”

April 25: Denver here I come! Heaven only knows what the future holds there. Muriel, Bonnie and Mary all stationed in San Francisco. Called the folks.

April 26: Had our suits fitted at Harp Shaffner Marks. Saw inside of C54. Had a miserable test. Saw “Up in Central Park.” It was really something.

April 27: My first mainliner trip at 5:30 to Cleveland.

April 28: Slept until noon. Went to art exhibit. Saw Sigmund Romberg Concert.—a real thrill. Ate dinner at Old Heidelberg Café.

May 3: Tests! Three of the darn things. After school I ate at the famous Palmer House with Jean, Muriel, Virginia and Bonnie. Then we saw “The Day Before Spring” with Irene Manning and Bill Johnson.

May 4: Shopped with Marian to a find a nightgown for Joyce. Met Dick and Bonnie. Ate at the Terrace Room. Went Bowling. Saw Kay Francis and Roger Pryor in Windy Hill. Chicago is almost ready for a blackout. The bright lights of Chicago just aren’t. This coal strike appears desperate.

May 10: Graduation Day! Seneca Hotel—Gardenias, daiquiris, diplomas.

Upon her graduation from training, Mary Lue was assigned to Denver as her base city. The Salt Lake Tribune reported, “A new career in the sky has opened for Miss Mary Lue Knell who recently graduated from Airline stewardess school in Chicago. Miss Knell has been assigned to United Air Lines’ Western division.”

She arrived at the Denver airport early May 13 and received her schedule. Her first on duty flight was to be the following morning. Mary Lue recorded the details of the nightmarish experience in her diary, “8am—first flight. Denver to Salt Lake on a very choppy flight. About 11 sick passengers and myself. I tried to serve a continental breakfast. Almost impossible. A Navy flier knocked over the food trays. Cranberry jelly, eggs, and corn flakes were all over me and the floor.”

Despite that disastrous first flight, Mary Lue enjoyed her work as a stewardess. She was able to fly to Salt Lake frequently to visit with her family. Her assignment to the Denver home base was counted as a blessing because her brother Jim was stationed at Denver’s Fitzsimmons’ Hospital with the army and the two had occasion to visit regularly and, at times, to attend Church together. Jim recalled, “I saw her quite a few times while I was in Denver. One night they had a flight from Denver up to Fort Collins and back and she invited me to go along with her on the flight. So, I went down to the airport with her and flew up and back and was able to look into the cockpit and talk to the pilot.”

Mary Lue looked forward to the time they spent together and one evening after dinner and a long visit, she wrote, “I hated to say goodbye tonight.”

As a stewardess, Mary Lue had the opportunity to travel to many major western American cities (San Francisco, Denver, Portland, etc.) and to mingle with people from all walks of life. She was even invited to dinner by gentlemen passengers, which offers she occasionally accepted. During one flight from Denver to Salt Lake, Mary Lue had a conversation with an elderly woman who was intently observing the southern Wyoming landscape below. The woman said, “The last time I crossed this area I was in a covered wagon.”

While Mary Lue had completed requirements for graduation from the University after summer quarter 1945, the commencement exercises for her class were not held until June 4, 1946. She had arranged to be home for the ceremony but was called away on June 2 on an “emergency flight to Portland. Attending graduation from the University seemed impossible.”

 To her relief, dispatch found her a flight to Salt Lake the following day. However, the lead stewardess on the flight got sick and it appeared as though Mary Lue would have to continue from Salt Lake to Denver. Fortunately, the stewardess recovered and she was able to participate in graduation after all. On the day of the event, Mary Lue recorded, “The day I’ve waited for all my life—graduation. Marie and I got to march and sit together. Dr. Rappard, from Geneva, spoke to 400 graduates. Ralph, Marie, Golden, and I went to Graduation dinner dance—it was good to see everyone.”

Rarely was a stay in Salt Lake complete without a date with Ralph Collett and the two continued to date regularly during the summer. On June 12, they attended her friend Joyce Robinson’s wedding to Bill Poulson and along with several other friends, “found Joyce’s and Bill’s cabin at Utah Motor Park and really fixed it!!!”

 On another occasion, Ralph took the morning off work and they “went looking for nasturtiums.”
 As the weeks passed, Mary Lue’s fondness for Ralph increased. On May 11, she journalized, “Ralph hmmm—he’s nice.” After spending the 4th of July with Ralph at the Tooele Rodeo and Saltair, she wrote, “I’m beginning to think Ralph’s the one.”

Later in the summer, Keith McCune returned to the United States from his military assignment in Panama. He landed in Maryland and drove across country to Salt Lake. Having corresponded with Mary Lue by mail from time to time, he thought he would pay her a surprise visit in Denver along the way but was disappointed to find that she was away on a flight. Upon his return home, he began dating a young lady named Ethel Hogue. Ethel also worked for United Airlines at their offices in the Salt Lake airport. One day, while waiting for Ethel outside her office, Mary Lue walked by in her stewardess uniform. Keith stopped her and they chatted for a moment. He said, “If we’re going to keep bumping into each other, I better find out what your schedule is.” He discovered that she was going to be in town for the weekend. That Saturday, the McCune family had planned a family outing to the picnic area behind Mt. Nebo near Nephi. Keith invited Ethel but Friday night came and she was unable to find someone to work her shift for her. Keith thought of Mary Lue. He later reminisced:

Early Saturday morning, about 8 o’clock I went over to Mary Lue’s house and knocked on the door. I said, “I know it’s kind of early but we’re having a family outing and I was just wondering if Mary Lue got in and if she’d be interested in going with me.” Her mother said, “Well, I don’t know, she just got in about 5:30 this morning from her flight. You’d better let me go check with her. She’s asleep right now.” So, she went and checked with her and came back and said, “Yes, she’d like to go.” So, she got out of bed after a couple of hours rest and we had a great day with the family down there picnicking and so forth. Coming home, I drove her up in front of the house and she said, “Would you might me letting off a couple doors away from my home?” She’d already explained to me she had a date that night with this fellow named Ralph. So, I dropped her off and said goodnight and I went on home.

Keith later learned that Ralph “had a ring for her and that he wanted to get engaged that night” but that she “decided to hold off a little.”

Keith continued to call on Mary Lue that fall and they began to date regularly. They often wondered what the neighbors thought when they saw Keith “pick her up with her little overnight bag and then bring her back a few days later. Ward members and close friends knew she was a stewardess, but there were those who didn't know what was going on.”

 Mary Lue and Ralph drifted apart, as did Keith and Ethel. Eventually Keith and Mary Lue were engaged. Keith reflected, “We got engaged, although she claimed I never did formally ask her to marry me. It was just one of those kind of things we worked in to. She gave me a bad time about that for years. But we were engaged and committed and felt like that was the thing to be. Of course, as we looked back over the way we met each other and how our paths kept crossing, we felt like there was a hand in it that was bringing us together.”

1 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—1, 5.
2 Mary Lue McCune, Diary 1946, entry for 15 April 1946.
3 Keith N. McCune, Interview—1, 2.
4 Mary Lue McCune, Diary 1946, entry for 12 April 1946.
5 Ibid., entry for 13 April 1946.
6 Keith N. McCune, Interview—1, 2-3.
7 Mary Lue McCune, Diary 1946, entry for 13 April 1946.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid., entries for 14-16, 20-23, 25-28 April and 3, 4, 10 May 1946.
10 Notice in Salt Lake Tribune, qtd. in Mary Lue McCune, Book of Remembrance.
11 Mary Lue McCune, Diary 1946, entry for 14 May 1946.
12 James K. Knell, Interview, 2.
13 Mary Lue McCune, Diary 1946, entry for 15 May 1946.
14 Keith N. McCune, Interview—2, 1.
15 Mary Lue McCune, Diary 1946, entry for 2 June 1946.
16 Ibid., entries for 3, 4 June 1946.
17 Ibid., entry for 12 June 1946.
18 Ibid., entry for 17 May 1946.
19 Ibid., entry for 4 July 1946.
20 Keith N. McCune, Interview—1, 3-4.
21 Ibid.
22 Darcy McBride, Reminiscence, 2.

23 Keith N. McCune, Interview—1, 4.

Mary Lue McCune - Coming of Age

(This is part 2 in a series. Part 1 is here.)

The Knells arrived at their new apartment on Westminster Ave., unloaded their furniture, and began their new life. Mary Lue recorded her impressions, “And so, a new start, a new school. Life in a small town is quite uncomplicated, and arriving in the ‘Big City’ was slightly overwhelming to say the least. I was to start in Irving Jr. High to school, a country girl facing a city’s ways. I couldn’t imagine so many people in one school and I didn’t know one. I found young people were just as willing to get acquainted, and warm and very friendly classmates soon made me feel at home.”1 Jim attended Garfield Elementary School.

Karl began his work at the new Petty Motor location, which was located on the northeast corner of 900 East and 2100 South. The dealership was brand new and state-of-the-art for that time.2 After only three months, the family moved to another apartment at 1624 South 1500 East. Of this home Mary Lue remembered, “Right in front of our house was the smelly street car that took us on its tracks to town for 10 cents—the thing I like about that was I could watch the people. The trains were commonly used to get to resorts—Saltair, Lagoon. We didn’t worry about getting rides anywhere.”3 Jim recalled, “The trolley used to run up and it stopped right at 1700 S. and 1500 E. and we would go out and change the seats around.”4

In 1937, during Mary Lue’s second year of Jr. High, the family finally purchased a home. The house, located at 1660 Yale Avenue, would be the family home for half a century. It was there that Mary Lue and Jim lived the remainder of their youth; there that Karl Knell would eventually pass away; and there that Mary Knell would spend most of the rest of her life. Mary Lue’s room was the back bedroom, located in the southwest corner on the main floor of the house.

Upon the move, she transferred from Irving to Roosevelt Jr. High where she completed her Junior High experience in 1939. During those years, she manifested a typical teenage anxiety over school grades and a general lack of enthusiasm for school. One winter afternoon she remarked, “Rained all day but school was dry as ever.”5 On one occasion she journalized, “Took report cards around. Boy am I scared.”6 To her relief, she discovered her “report card marks were pretty good.”7

She was active in the Church, participating frequently in mutual activities and speaking in church meetings. A journal entry from the time reads, “In Mutual we had a lesson on charm and how to be popular. Boy, how I need it!”8 In addition to school and mutual, Mary Lue babysat for several families in the neighborhood and was paid 10 cents per hour. She also took music lessons every Sunday evening for several years, developing her skill at the piano. Of her talent as a musician, her brother Jim recalled, “Mary Lue played piano very well. I can remember at one time she was playing a beautiful, beautiful piece on the piano. I kept asking her to play it over and over and finally I said I’ll do the dishes for a week if you’ll play that beautiful piece on the piano.”9

During her teenage years, she was very close to her family, particularly her mother and brother. She wrote, “At home I always felt safe in a mother’s love.”10 Jim remarked, “Mary Lue’s relationship with grandma Knell was of the highest order. Their mother-daughter relationship was supreme.”11 Keith remembered that Mary Lue “used to like to talk about her closeness to her mother and her love for her and she’d always refer on how beautiful she was as a younger woman. She used to think she was the most beautiful woman she knew and that was right from her heart too.”12

When Mary Lue’s grandfather Smith became to old to care for himself in Cedar City, he came to live in the Knell’s basement and was cared for by the family.13 Mary Lue commented: “Mary Knell was so good to him. She is a very unselfish person—always glad to give anything she has. I imagine she was this way because of her mother and father’s example.”14

Although they were involved with different groups of friends, Mary Lue and Jim continued to get along remarkably well as siblings. Jim recalled only one confrontation with his older sister. “We were having a little battle and some words flew back and forth. I stood up and took the bottle of chili sauce and poured it on her head. I would have been probably about ten and Mary Lue would have been about thirteen.”15
During her teenage years, her mother worked. “Mary Knell was quite a high spirited wife and when we moved to Salt Lake she decided to go to work at Auerbach’s in the hanky department. She had one check for 13 cents in all the years she worked there because she kept charging things for us to look nice in our school and work.”16

In the autumn of 1939, she began attending East High School. Perhaps the most important development of her high school years, was the formation of a tight knit group of friends that would remain close over the years. “She was the kind of person that made, not just casual friends but deep lasting friends and friendships,” stated Keith. “The kind of friendships that all of us really cherish.”17 Mary Lue remembered:

I had wonderful friends during my East High School days—the best thing to keep me close to the Church. The nucleus of our group was Marie Taylor, Joyce Robinson, E. Ann Stevens, Marian Pyatt, Mary Jean Backman, Jackie Barrett, Marge Marshall, and Ida Marie Hewlett. We shared many experiences together: the non-winning team in P.E., summers at Bear Lake, and first jobs at Kresser’s five and dime store. I worked in stationary and school supplies. Next we all went to ZCMI part time and Saturdays. ZCMI and Auerbach’s were the only large stores in the valley.…As it eventually turned out over half of the group became school teachers.18

Jim recalled an incident that occurred during one of those summers at Bear Lake. “My mother, Grandma Knell, and another lady took this group of young ladies up to Bear Lake and we camped out. I remembered how nervous I was when a group of boys came over and spent time talking to them late into the night and I felt like I had to be some sort of a knight in armor to go out there and rescue the girls from these boys. I’m sure they didn’t enjoy me coming out and disturbing them when they had found some girls but I remember that very well.”19 A few years later that protective little brother would become Student Body President of East High School.

As a shy teenager, Mary Lue benefited from a close friendship with her cousins Jack and Bob Wright. “Bob was sweet and handsome,” wrote Mary Lue. “He knew I was bashful with boys, so he would take me places with him—I was always very proud. At high school graduation dance he bought me a beautiful gardenia corsage—even got my best friend Marie Taylor a date with his best friend. We double-dated in style.”20

On May 22, 1941, she graduated from the East High Seminary and a few weeks later, on June 5, she became a member of the 49th graduating class of East High School. Commencement exercises were held at Kingsbury Hall on the University of Utah campus.21 She had enrolled at the university that spring, and began to attend to her freshman coursework there in September 1941.22

Like many high school students, Mary Lue had struggled to decide what course of study to pursue in college. At sixteen, she decided she wanted to become a nurse. However, she was cured of this idea during her first year at the University of Utah. She wrote that her “courses of Chemistry, Physics, and Biology were mind boggling.”23 She further explained, “One morning while I became very nauseated by dissecting my first frog I decided I must find another major subject to study.”24 Other courses that she took during her freshman and sophomore years included required courses on personal hygiene, physical education, economics, speech, typing, philosophy, psychology, personality development, and masterpieces of English literature.25

Her indecision about a course of study continued through her two years of required lower division studies at the U. By the close of the 1942-1943 school year, Mary Lue had completed her lower division requirements.26 The time came for her to declare her major. Her first choice was that of home economics, and during the fall quarter of 1943, she took five classes in that area. She then changed courses abruptly that winter and decided to seek an English degree in hopes of becoming an English teacher.27 However, she remarked, “Those huge English literature books did nothing but build my muscles. I didn’t like to take the pleasure of reading and break it down to meters, innuendos, intentions of purpose.”28

During this critical period, on November 8, 1943, she received her Patriarchal Blessing from Patriarch Gaskell Romney of the Bonneville Stake. She later commented, “The most driving spiritual guide I had through these years was my Patriarchal Blessing.”29 It was to her blessing that she turned for guidance on the matter of choosing a course of study:

The labor which you are called to do in the Church will add to your usefulness and contribute to the development of the young and rising generation, for among them you will be called to labor and you shall be a leader in their midst and cast an influence for good upon their lives, even that they shall refrain from the evils of the world and cleave unto that which is good.30

She later commented, “Going to my Patriarchal blessing I found the answer: teaching children. Why couldn’t I see this before? I had a natural feeling all the way through Elementary School training. What a satisfaction to surround myself with [the] sweetness of children.”31 As Keith indicated, the choice was a natural fit: “Her great love was always the little children, the children of primary age.”32

In the fall quarter of 1944, she began pursuit of her Elementary Education Diploma, with required courses in teaching method, child psychology, curriculum design, history, literature, art, reading, health, and administration. She had clearly discovered one of her great passions in life, and her grades improved markedly over those she had received in her dreaded chemistry and biology classes. She also signaled her intention to teach young children when she took a course specifically on teaching Kindergarten and First Grade.33

In addition to her university studies, she attended the Institute of Religion, which met in the old chapel across the street to the west and north of President’s Circle.34

It was at the University that she began to date regularly. “My first year of college I really believe I came out of my shell,” she remarked. “I dated quite a lot—fell in love every other week—didn’t get very great marks but I surely had fun.”35 In all her dating she kept temple marriage her goal. Her patriarchal blessing was of help in this area as well. “I was, as most young people, slightly confused, [and] many times [my blessing] brought me back to my great goal of being married in the Temple.”36 Her blessing counseled her to “take upon yourself the responsibilities of motherhood and fulfill that first great command which our Father gave to our first parents in the Garden of Eden, and the privilege shall be yours to enter into this union, even the eternal covenant of marriage, in the House of the Lord that your posterity may be yours through the endless ages of eternity.”37

In addition to dating several boys, she enrolled at the institute, and rushed the Greek sororities. While she was accepted as a pledge, several of her close friends were not. Ever the loyal friend, she declined to join.38

In 1939, World War II had broken out in Europe and the Pacific. “Commodities were starting to dwindle. People would wait in line to get sheets, nylons, pans. All of these shortages became more controlled as we moved into War days.”39 On December 4, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States were drawn into the war. Mary Lue never forgot the day her friends and cousins departed for military service. “We stood on the plaza at U. of U. in front of the Park Building as army trucks drove around the road and stopped to load in our ‘cream of the crop’ young men. I often thought of this picture in the next years—boys holding onto the hands of their parents and sweethearts—many, many lost their lives in battle.” Speaking of this overcast day she later commented, “It still is hard to get out my year books and remember the great numbers of friends lost.”40 Among those who served the United States in the War were her Wright cousins, Jack and Bob. Her dear cousin Bob died while engaged in a routine training flight at the Cherry Point airfield in North Carolina. She lamented, “I know I could not have loved my own brother more.”41

Meanwhile, Mary Lue continued school and enjoyed the company of her group of friends. “I depended on my friends to fill and strengthen me during those days,” she wrote. “The only dates were considered 4-E, not marriage material. They had to be in pretty bad shape in order to stay out of the draft….Marie waited for Golden Langren, Joyce waited for Bill Polson, Jackie waited for Fred Tadje, Mary Jean waited for her husband Jack Alley….We called ourselves the ‘Spinsters Club’—assuming the worst.”42 Every member of the group eventually married in the Temple.

Mary Lue later related the following concerning her and her group’s efforts to help in the war effort:

We decided, as a group of citizens to go work at the Ogden Arsenal packing 50 caliber machine bullets. We took turns driving 80 miles a day—linking bullets together for aircraft machine guns. We would gather our gas ration stamps together and take little trips to Bear Lake, Oakley—summer home of E. Anne Stevens.

Many days we didn’t have the ammunition to work with so they sent us all out on the railroad tracks to pick up debris with sticks with points on the end. The menu for lunch was ‘Spam sandwich.’ We did make good money that summer and when we got back to school we kept working Saturdays (at ZCMI).43

In 1943, Italy surrendered to the Allies, and Italian prisoners of war, though required to remain in the United States until the close of the war, were given the opportunity to work alongside American volunteers in assisting with the home front effort. Thousands of these Italians were housed in Ogden near the arsenal. Mary Lue recalled:

At the arsenal we got acquainted with Italian prisoners of war…. They were still under guard but had quite a good life. One of those unforgettable Christmases, we took to those young men—we knew little of their language but could sing the same Christmas songs. They knew we wished them well and couldn’t do enough for us—Italian cooking. My special friend was Anzio Rumolo. I wrote to him and his brother in Naples for some time.44

Mary Lue completed her graduation requirements with four courses during the summer term in 1945, though she wouldn’t attend an official graduation ceremony until the following summer. In addition to receiving her Bachelor of Science degree, she was also awarded a teaching certificate allowing her “to teach in the public elementary schools of Utah without further examination as to scholarship for a period of five years.”45 With this certificate in hand she applied to the Salt Lake City school board for a position. “I signed my first contract with Salt Lake—Kindergarten—61 students,” she wrote. “It was overwhelming good and bad.”46 She would teach at Emerson Elementary on 1017 E. Harrison Ave.

1 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—1, 3.
2 James K. Knell, Interview, 1.
3 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—1, 3.
4 James K. Knell, Interview, 1.
5 Mary Lue Knell (McCune), Diary 1939, entry for 5 January 1939.
6 Ibid., entry for 18 January 1939.
7 Ibid., entry for 19 January 1939.
8 Ibid., entry for 10 January 1939.
9 James K. Knell, Interview, 2.
10 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—1, 5.
11 James K. Knell, Interview, 4.
12 Keith N. McCune, Interview, 17.
13 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—1, 5.
14 Ibid.
15 James K. Knell, Interview, 5.
16 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—1, 5.
17 Keith N. McCune, Interview, 18-19.
18 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—1, 3.
19 James K. Knell, Interview, 2.
20 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—1, 3.
21 East High School Diploma, Mary Lue Knell (McCune).
22 University of Utah Student Transcript, Mary Lue Knell (McCune), 1.
23 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—1, 4.
24 Ibid.
25 University of Utah Student Transcript, Mary Lue Knell (McCune), 1.
26 Mary Lue Knell (McCune), Lower Division Certificate. The certificate explains:

Summary of Requirements: Ninety-three quarter hours of approved work, including Freshman English, Hygiene, Physical Education or Military Science and Tactics, and at least twelve quarter hours in (1) the Biological Science group, (2) the Physical Science group, (3) the Language and Literature group, and (4) the Social Science group. To enter the Upper Division school of the University, the holder must meet the requirements of the school as explained in the University catalogue.

27 University of Utah Student Transcript, Mary Lue Knell (McCune), 1.
28 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—1, 4.
29 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—2, 1.
30 Gaskell Romney, Patriarchal Blessing for Mary Lue Knell (McCune). See Appendix.31 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—1, 5.
32 Keith N. McCune, Interview, 19.
33 University of Utah Student Transcript, Mary Lue Knell (McCune), 1.
34 Darcy McBride, Reminiscences, 2.
35 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—1, 3.
36 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—2, 1.
37 Gaskell Romney, Patriarchal Blessing for Mary Lue Knell (McCune).
38 Darcy McBride, Reminiscences, 1-2.
39 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—1, 3.
40 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—1, 4.
41 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—1, 3.
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid., 4.
44 Ibid.
45 Mary Lue Knell (McCune), Elementary School Teacher’s Diploma, in Mary Lue McCune, Book of Remembrance.
46 Mary Lue McCune, Personal History—1, 5.