LeRoy Holmes

(Disclaimer: To the best of our knowledge, the information provided in this oral history interview is accurate. We do not make any representation or warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of the information.)

Oral Interview with LeRoy Cecil Holmes

Conducted by Dan Hartman, Veterans’ Memorial Hall Program, St. Louis County Historical Society

Recording Date: Unknown, but within 2010 - 2011

Recording Place: Somewhere in Tower or Soudan, Minnesota

Transcriber: Susan Schwanekamp, St. Louis County Historical Society

Transcription process funded by a grant from the Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation

DH: We are conducting an oral interview today on Tuesday, August 24. Can you say for the record your full name, including your middle name?

LH: LeRoy Cecil Holmes. LeRoy with a capital “R”.

DH: Capital “R”?

LH: Yes. LeRoy.

DH: OK. And how do you spell your last name?

LH: Holmes. H-O-L-M-E-S.

DH: And how do you spell your middle name?

LH: Cecil. C-E-C-I-L.

DH: And what year were you born?

LH: I was born June 18, 1934.

DH: And were you a veteran of any given war?

LH: Korean War.

DH: What town were you born in?

LH: I was born in Embarrass, Minnesota.

DH: Oh. And how much of your life did you spend in Embarrass?

LH: That’s a good question. I don’t know. I moved in six months.

DH: And did you move to Tower?

LH: Soudan. Church Street, to Oscar Sundeen’s.

DH: And what were your Mom and Dad’s names?

LH: I didn’t know my Dad. I still don’t know my Dad. My mother’s name was Eileen. The only reason I knew that is that I have this copy here….

DH: And can you explain to me why you don’t know your parents?

LH: My mother was put into Nopeming [Sanitorium] by the county. She had TB. And then I was placed in a foster home. Oscar Sundeen’s home. There was rumors and talk that she carried me for a few months, back and forth to Nopeming. That she walked. She walked from Embarrass to Duluth. But that’s a story.

DH: Now, for people who don’t know – Nopeming, that’s outside of Duluth, correct?

LH: Yes. It’s a sanitarium, but now it’s a nursing home. And then I think they’re closing it down from a nursing home, too.

DH: And TB, that’s tuberculosis, correct?

LH: Yeah.

DH: And was that a pretty common thing back then?

LH: Very common.

DH: OK. And you never knew your father?

LH: No.

DH: And how long did you stay at the foster home?

LH: I stayed there until I went into the Air Force.

DH: OK.

LH: So that’s when I turned 18. And then, of course, I was in the Air Force on my 18th birthday.

DH: So back to your mother a little bit, too. Did she die of TB, then?

LH: She died a natural death at 82, 83 years old.

DH: So did you see your mother, then, afterwards? Have you ever met your mother?

LH: I met her twice. I met her at a visitation that she made after I had a funeral service for her brother. And one of the family members came up and asked me “Pastor, would you like to meet your mother?” And I said “Sure, of course!” So that was what I do. They have to meet her. So she came up and introduced my mother to me, with her, on and on, and we talked and I invited her out to our house to visit with my family. And she came to visit with me and the girls but Kathy was teaching school in Gilbert, so she did not see Kathy. But she saw___??__ Kathy’s my wife. And Kathy was teaching school, so she didn’t get to see my wife at that time. So she came and visited. Never told me where she lived or what she was doing. Just came to say “hello”, see the children, and she took off. And that’s the last I’ve ever heard of her until quite a few years later. And that’s another story.

DH: But you actually met your mother, then, twice - ?

LH: It was twice.

DH: OK. So I’ll go back to growing up in Soudan. So how was it growing up in Soudan?

LH: Wonderful. We enjoyed it. We had a house full of…we had an old school house on Church St., which they transferred into an apartment upstairs, a boarding room upstairs, and also three bedrooms for us children. And there was up to 12 foster children in the house there at Sundeens’, with a boarder who was a miner, working in the mine, also. And then also we had the Baptist minister and his wife staying in the apartment that we had upstairs. That’s when I was growing up.

DH: A lot of people.

LH: And so naturally we all went to the Baptist church. Except the miner. He didn’t go to the Baptist church.

DH: And so growing up in the foster home, were you fed pretty good?

LH: Excellent. Wonderful food. Swedish cooking. They spoke Swedish.

DH: And so do you know how to speak Swedish, too?

LH: Some of the words. Some of the words I can understand, more than I can speak. But they spoke English, of course, too. But most of the time Swedish. Grandma and Grandpa Erickson lived up the street from them, on the same street, Church Street. So that family was there – Sundeens, Ericksons, the (sounds like “Erdaviches”), which was another foster brother’s sister. They’re natives. And they were very close.

DH: OK. It sounds like you were treated very well there?

LH: Yes. The principal and superintendent of Tower-Soudan school invited me into his office one day, when I was a junior, and he said “LeRoy, how do you enjoy living with the Sundeens?” And then he asked me “Have you ever met your mother?” And I said no. He said “OK, and thank you.” And that’s all he said. He didn’t say any more. He just excused me.

DH: That’s kind of……Did you ever ask him about it later?

LH: I did, sort of. Because he ended up, of course, in my congregation. ________Virginia and I was serving in Gethsemane Lutheran Church for four years. He was a member and he was superintendent of the schools in Virginia. So I spent a couple of times in his office and also at church. He never really…wanted to wrestle with that one.
(Laughter)

DH: So growing up in the foster home, or just in general, in Soudan, what were some of the things that you did for fun as a kid?

LH: Well, we did everything there was to do. We played all the sports that you could figure out, of course. We did hunting, trapping, fishing, boating, of course swimming in the kidney park (??). And we did all the pranks we did at that time, of course going after the apple trees in the fall.

DH: I guess I mean what were some of the pranks you did back then?

LH: Pranks. Going into the apple trees where people would have good apples and us kids would help ourselves to the apples.

DH: OK.

LH: And we’d have to do it at night when they don’t see us. That was one of the pranks. One of the other pranks at that time, which would be different today, was pushing over the toilets. Tipping over the toilets.

DH: Yeah, explain that.

LH: There was toilets in the back yard in Soudan. Inside toilets, outside toilets. Both.

DH: And you’d push ‘em over?

LH: We’d push ‘em over for fun.

DH: I’m sure that upset some people.

LH: There were a few of them upset, but most of them laughed about it.

DH: And so, were there any games that you played back then that people don’t play today?

LH: Well there was, of course, the gun games. Playing war was a big thing. Playing war with the south side of Soudan vs. the north side of Soudan. We’d snowballs and everything we could think of to attack each other with, you know. Building forks (??) and stocking up on ice balls, just continued playing war. Summer and winter. War was the big thing. That was during WWII, of course.

DH: And I want to ask you a little bit about the Great Depression. Do you remember it much?

LH: Not much. I heard it more than I knew it. Heard about it over and over again. Of course, we lived in Soudan.

DH: Do you remember Pearl Harbor?

LH: I do.

DH: Do you want to tell me about that briefly?

LH: OK. I was at the Soudan clubhouse, which was called the Oliver Mining Clubhouse. The mining company owned it and set it up for the miners to play pool and ping pong and do things, and us kids would go there and watch and once in a while get a candy bar or ice cream cone, if we had the money, you know, watch the pool games going on, the ping pong games. There were older kids, you know. Once we got old enough to do it, we would do the same thing, of course. I was on my bike, at that time. I had an old bike, would ride it back and forth to the house on Church Street.

DH: Did someone come up and tell you, or…?

LH: No, it was just everybody was talking about it.

DH: Wow. And so what were you thinking?

LH: I just thought “My, what was this going to be?” I don’t remember, really.

DH: You were pretty young, so…

LH: Very young.

DH: So when the war was going on, do you remember following the war at all?

LH: Very much so. With, of course, the family and my foster brother, Gerald Sundeen, was in the Army and went to Ft. Snelling and then down to Ft. Leonard Wood and then from Ft. Leonard Wood, went to Europe. He was a half track. The guy worked as a tank driver. And he was in quite a few battles. The Battle of the Bulge and a few other battles.

DH: And did you guys have a map at your house that you would….

LH: Yes, we did. Yes. And he did all the things that he was told to do – store stuff in the cellar and have stuff ready in case we were bombed. And we had pails of sand, as well, in case of the need to put a fire out, and we had all kinds of safety things. But storage, we had also food stamps, you know, rations. Items that they had to buy.

DH: Yeah. And sometimes they had Victory Gardens. Did you guys have a garden?

LH: Oh, they had gardens. We had a garden and I’m still gardening. I can’t quit gardening. I’ve been gardening ever since.

DH: So, during the course of the war itself, when there was victory in Europe, do you remember the town celebrating, or your family?

LH: Well, not so much celebrating. The idea was kind of a quiet time and a glad time but a quiet time with the family, because they were waiting for Gerald to come home. You know, from Germany. And he had a sister, a foster sister that lived with us, but worked in Minneapolis, at Honeywell. And of course, she was eager to get home, too, to see us, when he got home.

DH: And so as, when the war was finally over, when the Japanese surrendered as well, do you remember talking about that, or…?

LH: Oh, yes. We talked about it. I had model airplanes that I used to make, the 0s and 250 runs, and oh yeah….

DH: And do you think that’s part of the reason that you….

LH: I had ships that I had made, so I could clear the living room so I could play on the living room floor and on the dining room table.

DH: At what age did you realize that you wanted to be in the Air Force?

LH: Well, during that time I always thought it would be fun to fly. You know. It would be a challenge, but it would be fun. So that’s part of the reason, I think.

DH: OK. And before I start going into your military service, was there …….when you were growing up, as a teenager, in the Soudan area, were there any certain things you guys did for fun?

LH: Well, sports, of course. Always sports.

DH: Well, did you date at all?

LH: Walked the streets.

DH: Was there like a movie theater around at all?

LH: Tower.

DH: And that brings up another question that I almost forgot about. In the prior interview, I mentioned how the cities of the Tower and Soudan don’t necessarily intermingle. Was there a rivalry between….

LH: We played basketball against each other. We played baseball against each other. We had hockey teams that we played against each other. We always looked for a reason to play against each other. If we could beat (them) one time or two times, we would be happy, you know.

DH: Yeah. Would you say there was kind of a rivalry between the two?

LH: Yes. Of course. Very much so. But then also we tried to work together. And that happened because the junior high was in Soudan, so the kids from Tower came to Soudan. So they had to blend in with us. We were the big shots. (Laughter) Up through ninth grade. Then the high school was 10th through 12th grade, in Tower. So then we bussed to Tower.

DH: So then you weren’t exactly the high ones any more.

LH: No, we were still the high ones. We were still the big shots.
(More laughter)

DH: Who were some of the people who you would play with, growing up? Who were some of your other friends?

LH: Well there was the Lydias, they were a Native family, Jack, which was my foster cousin, and of course Jack and I were together all of the time. But with the Lydias, up by the north part of town, that was all ____ and then the Rydas, Joe Ryda (??) and of course all the (Wessels?) and all the Stefans and the Urchos – and the Urchos all played together. And we stayed together all through high school. Yeah. And when we were able to get a car, we would take turns so we would have a car six times a week. Six days a week. We shared. So everybody worked on getting their dad’s car so we could have a car six days a week, all through high school.

DH: So where would you go with that car?

LH: To Virginia and Ely.

DH: OK. And what was there to do in Virginia and Ely?

LH: Look for the girls and ____’em.

DH: And I imagine you were lucky sometimes?

LH: Oh, yeah. And there was a few fights. Especially with the Virginia kids. They used to sponsor dances more often than……at that time they would sponsor a lot of the dances. For high school kids, up into pre-college or college age kids. In Virginia as well as Ely, in the community centers. So different places, you know. So there was always a Saturday night dance to go to. Or a Friday night dance. Once in a while Tower-Soudan would sponsor a dance at Soudan school.

DH: OK. But most of the time you had to go elsewhere, it sounds like.…?

(Small unintelligible exchange here.)

LH: Most of the time we went elsewhere.

DH: Forgot to ask this the last time - because you were so close to the lake, was Lake Vermilion a big part of your activities, in general or…?

LH: Yes. We all used the boats. Our dad’s boats, as often as we could get away with it. Sometimes we’d help ourselves and take ‘em out for rides. You know, they were in the mine, they didn’t know what we were up to. Soudan had three shifts, where they were working, you know. Of course, we’d get the boat when they were working. By the time we were 16 or 17 years old, most of us were buying our own boats.

DH: Really?

LH: So the price has really gone up, then, sounds like?

LH: The price was good, but we were working, too. Most of us had jobs.

DH: And I’ll bring this up, too. Where were you working?

LH: I worked for this resort, Birch Point. I worked there for summer. And I also worked for the township called _________. We did sidewalks and we did all kinds of cement work that needed doing – we did it. And that was a lousy wage, but a good wage for us at that time. And that was all summer long. And they still do some of that, the kids who work.

DH: And did you work in the mine?

LH: I worked in the mine. As soon as I graduated from high school, we went to the mine and applied for a job and worked in the mine.

DH: And that’s the same time that you applied to the Air Force?

LH: No, applied for the Air Force after working in the mine for the first year. When I was 17. (So he graduated from high school at 16?)

DH: So are there are any stories from your high school or your junior high days or any story you remember from your childhood, where you think it would be kind of a good thing to have on the record? Either it’s funny, or just in general.

LH: Well, the funny parts were, of course, usually they had something to do with the cars or the boats, you know. And my own experience is we were traveling with the boats, three or four boats, and go to the resorts, you know, and _____ one night it was after midnight, it was dark, and I was off on my own with the boat and I didn’t know exactly where I was. And it took a while to find my bearings, you know. But one thing you could do, I remembered, was you could look to the mine, and you could see the lights on top of the mine, you know, and that would let you know where you are. Yeah. We don’t have that, like they do then.

DH: Is there anything else that’s changed in the area that you think would be a good thing to talk about?

LH: Well everything has changed. The whole community has changed.

DH: Explain that a little.

LH: Well, of course, at that time, when the mine was working, everything centered around the mine. And of course at that time, the women stayed home. They were not working for ____??____They were happy to be homemakers and raising children, raising families, you know, lots of kids. Twenty kids on my block, alone, that I counted, that were there on Church St., from Church St. to the school. Compared to now, when you’re lucky if you’ve got 40 kids in half of the town. So that’s really lucky. It’s a whole different …and of course, no TV. There was radios and phonographs and 45s.

DH: So I want to touch a little bit on working in the mine for that one year. Where did you work? What did you do?

LH: Well, I did a little bit of everything. They kind of let us experience everything there was to experience in the mine, you know. I ended up, finally, with, at the last, at the end of the spring, working on timber, cutting and getting timber down the mine, to protect, of course, the miners around the shaft, where they got the ore. Putting the timber up and getting the timber down there, that was fun. I enjoyed it. It was good.

DH: Were you ever scared being down in the mine?

LH: Well, yeah. We were a little leery, of course,________we were totally young. And it was all a new experience. But we were kind of cocky, too. Our dads worked there, our brothers worked there.

DH: Okay, it sounds like really the community revolved definitely around the mine.

LH: Oh yes. No question about it.

DH: The Tower-Soudan mine is referred to as the Cadillac of mines…

LH: The Soudan mine. Not the Tower-Soudan mine.

DH: So it’s been referred to as the Cadillac of mines. Would you agree to that?

LH: Somewhat. The experience I had…I only experienced the Soudan mine. I didn’t go to Ely, or to Virginia, except I got transferred down to the electric shop. This is when we decided what we were going to do. We went …we became electrician apprentice. This is in the spring of going into ’53, spring of ’53. Electrician apprentice. And we were called down to learn all the trade of being an electrician. So we climbed poles and we took motors out of shovels. So I was originally picked, when it was 20 below, knocking off the rivets on the roof to move… to pull the engine out, motor out, to bring it into the shop. We also ran cable to the shovels to keep the shovels moving. They had us doing everything there was to do. And my last job, before I left for the Air Force, was to go up to MINTAC, they started a small MINTAC there, and I was to register all the ____??__ that were being placed into the new plant. So I had to go register them, often, and I had to go to the electric shop, for the records keeping, so I worked with the boss for the electric shop. Those last two or three months, there, before I went into the Air Force.

DH: And so, we’ll go into that now. And I (want to) talk a little bit about it at this point….Why the Air Force, or the Marines, or the Navy?

LH: Well, like I said, I thought flying would be fun.

DH: So tell me, where did you sign up for that?

LH: I signed up in Ely, at the … what they called it at that time…I can’t remember. But we signed up there. I suppose it was the government building, you know. I can’t even remember exactly what it was, but it had to be the government building. And then I was sent to Minneapolis, ________ in Minneapolis at the government building there. And took our physicals there.

DH: And everything went okay?

LH: Fine. Wonderful.

DH: Didn’t have to lie, or anything?

LH: Nothing at all. And off to Park Air Force Base, California. Took the train out to Park Air Force, California.

DH: And I imagine this was the first time you were…

LH: First time on a train across the country.

DH: What did you think of that?

LH: It was wonderful. We lived high. They let us live really nice. Everything was paid for and they covered everything.

DH: How was California?

LH: Wonderful. Park Air Force Base, out of San Francisco, and it was typical California weather, and warm, you know. So we enjoyed that.

DH: Yeah. So what was the training like? What did they have you do?

LH: It was basic training. It was strictly basic training.

DH: And where did they move you on from basic?

LH: I went to Ft. Belmore (??), Virginia.

DH: So they moved you from coast to the next.
LH: Yep. So that was kind of neat, too. Because Ft. Belmore is right out of Washington, D.C. and we were given weekends off and we could go traveling around and see the capital and see everything in Washington, D.C. that we could find, and find the girls in Arlington, VA, and dances there and _____. And out to the ocean, of course. We tried everything.

DH: And did you like DC? Was it a fun place, or…?

LH: It was hot. At that time, especially, it was really hot. In July and August. I mean, it was hot. It was humid. Sweating hot, really sweating hot.

DH: What type of training did they have you do?

LH: Engineering.

DH: Engineering.

LH: Yeah.

DH: And were you happy to be doing engineering, or…?

LH: Well, yeah. It was fine. It was good.

DH: Were you still wanting to be a pilot at this point?

LH: Oh yeah, we were still hoping to get into the pilot training program. At the time, I had a girlfriend at home yet, that I was pretty serious with, so at Christmas time we were given leaves, to get married. So that’s what happened there.

DH: What was her name?

LH: Dorothy. She was a cousin of my wife.

DH: And what was her last name?

LH: Sevander. And she was from Soudan. I dated her in high school and it just kind of went on and on. Went to the movies in Tower and to Virginia and ______.

DH: So when you went to dances, you…

LH: I danced with her quite a bit. Yeah. Other girls, too, but….

DH: So, did Dorothy ever come out with you in Virginia?

LH: No, she didn’t. She was in school. She graduated from Virginia High School, so her mother had moved to Virginia when she was still in high school.

DH: OK. So tell me a little more about the engineering. How long were you doing that?

LH: Well, I was, I was just looking at it here, what they have here, records…I’ve got all kinds of records on it. But it ends up with Engineer School’s certificate! So on graduation. So it happened I went to the Major, the officer in charge of our squadron. I said “What should I do? I want to go to pilot training. But also, I’m engaged.” He said “I’m telling you not to get engaged. If you want to go into pilot training, don’t get engaged.” So I couldn’t break it off – I got engaged.

DH: So that’s why you stayed in engineering?

LH: That was a tough one. A tough time. So we were shipped to Alaska. Anchorage, Alaska. And I was there for two years.

DH: What was the unit that you were a part of at that point?

LH: I was part of a squadron that was engineering squadron and also for installation squadron. And installation squadron did everything there is to do, as far as doing runways and preparing hangars and building for the Air Force. Doing everything there was to do. Electrical, mechanical, and______, you name it.

DH: Where in Alaska were you at?

LH: Anchorage. Ankenberg (??) Air Force Base. And that was still during the Korean War, you know.

DH: So you were never sent over to Korea, then?

LH: No. But we were once getting close to getting sent to the _______Base, but they wouldn’t tell us where.

DH: And what did you think of Alaska?

LH: I loved it. It felt like home. We did a lot of camping and fishing and hunting Caribou hunting, moose hunting, trout fishing, pine martens, wonderful. I had a car, by the way, bought a car, so I could get around the country, you know.

DH: Do you remember what kind of car it was?

LH: This wasn’t a state yet, you know. This was considered by the Air Force as foreign duty. So I was getting extra pay, to be in Alaska, (more) than somebody else stationed in the States. _________was going to work. So he (or she?) went to San Francisco and got a job after high school there. Then we were going to get together and get married. That was the plan. But she was with her brother….

(Inaudible question from Dan Hartman)

LH: No, I went down there. I cruised down there, back and forth, to visit there. Well, you know, I would hitch rides. My buddies… a couple times I went after them, I said “……..ride?......Gotham.” Well, there was nothing to it but a bunch of ____hole seats for us to ride on. And we made quick trips back and forth from San Francisco to Anchorage. They were freebies.

DH: So it’s better than having to pay for it, though.

LH: Much better.

DH: So you spent two years in Alaska? And where did they move you from there?

LH: Well, we debated that. And finally Dorothy broke it off, because she met a Navy guy. And she got in trouble and got pregnant, and the whole thing went by the wayside, and that was the end of it.

DH: With Dorothy.

LH: With Dorothy.

DH: So did you try to be a pilot, then?

LH: I went to Loftland Air Force Base and I did start flying. I did do some pilot training there. And I had some fun and some close calls. And it was really a wild place. Talk about “top gun”. That was a top gun place.

DH: Do you want to explain that to me?

LH: Well, there was pilots out there good enough to do anything they wanted on an airplane. They’d fly under bridges. One of the guys hit a power line. And one guy didn’t make it. Three guys hit each other. And killed each other. One story after another. But what happened to me at this time was that I went through a real spiritual struggle in my life and I began to seek the Lord and I began to go for pastoral care with the chaplains and also got involved with Youth for Christ. Inner city. Down there in the Bay Area. And the chaplains asked me to come on board, as assistant chaplain. I got the base commander out of jail, next (or in Mexico?).

DH: And what was he doing down in Mexico (??).

LH: He got into jail doing what a lot of the guys did, what a lot of kids did, got in trouble with the girls in Mexico. And I ended up doing nothing but crossing administrative offices… keep on going, we need all the help you can get. It was awful. It was just awful. But what a place.

DH: But as a chaplain, you probably got to hear a lot of stuff that was going on.

LH: The chaplains, they couldn’t believe it. The two chaplains couldn’t take it. Broke down. Had nervous breakdowns. They couldn’t handle it. So they were shipped to Florida, for R & R. It was just crazy.

DH: How many people were at this base?

LH: I had my first funeral there. I ended up doing funerals for student pilots. Yeah.
DH: So you decided then you wanted to be a chaplain, then, versus a pilot.

LH: That’s what happened. Yeah . I did some flying with the guys. Crossed Texas. Sunday afternoon flying back and forth, you know. But I said “I’ve got to make a choice here.” And the Lord was calling me into the ministry. Full time ministry. I was asked to take over Youth for Christ _______got to ____the churches and work with the youth in that city. ______on the border, ___.

DH: And how was that, being on the border like that?

LH: It was wild. At that time.

DH: What would happen to some of these guys who would go across the border and get thrown in jail?

LH: Well lots of guys would get in trouble with not only the government of Mexico but also with the Air Force. Landed in the stockade. Had to serve time. Till they could get sent home. Either dishonorable discharge or, you know, get sent elsewhere for R & R and get help and therapy, whatever. That’s when they were really hitting hard on the drugs. Drugs were coming in at that time, for the first time. It was unbelievable.

DH: I’ve heard in the past that some…did any of the guys get stuck down in Mexico?

LH: Yeah, there were some that disappeared.

DH: How long were you down in Texas?

LH: 16 months.

DH: 16 months. And was this one of the wildest places you ever at, though?

LH: Oh yes. It couldn’t be any wilder than that was. My.

DH: And how old were you about this time?

LH: I was 17, going on 18. I know that was silliness, okay? So I was there for four years. I turned 21. I had my Texas driver’s license and everything. I had a car – a ’49 Ford. I would come home on leave and I would take some of the guys with me home, to Tower-Soudan. So they could get away. And enjoy some nice people. Visit up here in Soudan. Some of it was kind of boring. But we would drive straight through, sometimes, to get home.

DH: So from Texas, where was the next place you went, in your duty as a chaplain?

LH: Well, I went to Gustavus Adolphus College.

DH: In Minnesota?

LH: Yeah. It used to be a college that trained of course Navy pilots for basic training. Also chaplains. And I went into full-time ministry then.

DH: So your first full-time ministry duty was at Gustavus?

LH: No, that was where I was preparing for….courage and coordination. And after the _______and moved to a seminary.

DH: How long were you at Gustavus?

LH: I was there two years. And Kathy came down. That’s who I was starting to date. That was Dorothy’s cousin. And she was in the Army. She got out of the Army and she went to Virginia Junior College and then she joined me at Gustavus Adolphus. And we were dating at that time.

DH: And how long had you been dating Kathy at this point?

LH: Well, we started dating…. The first year was at Gustavus. I went, she went back and forth, from Tower.

DH: So Kathy lived in Tower?

LH: We were close. She went to Mesabi, at that time it was Virginia Junior College. So she went the first year there and the second year she went to Gustavus.

DH: And when did she serve in the Army?

LH: Prior to her going to Virginia Junior College. She put two years in the Army.

DH: That’s impressive itself. So you spent two years at Gustavus. And where was your first assignment, then, as a chaplain.

LH: (After Gustavus) I then went to Augsburg, to become a Lutheran pastor. They told me “Instead of going back to the military, why don’t you go serve a parish?” So why don’t you continue and serve a parish, rather than go into chaplaincy? They said you should serve three years in a parish before you go back into the chaplaincy. They said it would be a good experience for you. Well, that’s a long story, too. But the president of the church, at the time, had cancelled my call to Canada, which was going to be at a Canadian Air Force base. And he cancelled it out and said “LeRoy, we’re sending you back to Embarrass.” I said “Well, that’s where I was born. That’s my home area.” He said “Well, that’s why we’re sending you there, because you know the ropes.” So he cancelled the whole plan that I had, to go to the Canadian Air Force base, and the community, to serve as a chaplain and pastor up there. And Kathy and I were set to do that, you know. We already had two children, see, now, at this point.

DH: So when did you get married?

LH: So we got married, 50 years, 1959. We were married right here in Tower.

DH: So, did you get married while you were still attending Gustavus?

LH: We were still going to school, yeah.

DH: And did you have your first couple of kids at Augsburg, then?

LH: Yes. At Swedish Hospital in Minneapolis. Kathy finished at the University and got her degree in elementary education and also in financial management.

DH: When you were sent to Embarrass, I imagine that wasn’t a military thing – it was…..

LH: It was from scratch. It was start a new church. A mission church. (?) (Unintelligible remark) So that’s how I started here. They were sending me with a check. The only problem they didn’t do, take care of, was “where do we live?”

DH: Yeah.

LH: They said “That’s up to you.” So we moved in with Kathy’s folks.

DH: In Tower?

LH: In Tower. And we travelled out to Embarrass to see what we could do with starting a new church.

DH: And how long did you stay in Embarrass?

LH: Four years.

DH: And then did you get put back into a military chaplaincy, or…?

LH: Nope. I went from four years in Embarrass to Virginia – Gethsemane. So that was the end of the chaplaincy.

DH: Earlier you had mentioned that you had switched from active in the Air Force to the Reserves?

LH: Yeah.

DH: When did that take place?

LH: That was back in 1961.

DH: So you were probably in Embarrass at that point?

LH: ’64 was Embarrass?

DH: OK. So that was why, part of the reason……

LH: ’57 in Gustavus until ’59 at Augsburg. I was still with the Reserves, actively going with the chaplaincy program. But that’s what happened. Non- commissioned officer, you know. That’s what you had to do, you know.

DH: Did you later serve on any military posts, after that?

LH: No. I stayed on the Range here at Gethsemane until I got a call to St. Paul, Mt. Carmel Lutheran Church in St. Paul. And I was there for 12 years, at Mt. Carmel, and then at East ________, also in St. Paul. Then you want me to go through retirement, right?

DH: Yeah.

LH: So Kathy taught school in White Bear and then she went to work for the State of Minnesota. She worked in crime control ______ and she worked for financial management, with Mark Dayton, and also a couple governors, while I was also preaching and pastoring in the church in St. Paul. So we were both busy, busy with our three girls in high school, Johnson High School, on the East Side of St. Paul. We had our own home, which was nice, you know. We could purchase our own home…..provided for through the church.

DH: And I apologize if I skipped over this earlier: Were there any stories from back in your military days that I haven’t asked about yet that you want to bring up, or…?

LH: Well, the scariest one was right there in Almendorf (?). This happened two or three times, well, getting down to Del Rio was scary, too, but during the Korean War there was a couple of guys that broke loose and went crazy. One guy shot up, pulled a gun out during mess hall time and was shooting up the mess hall. And that was scary, for all of us. And Air Police had to take care of things, you know. So that was a tough one. That scared everybody.

DH: And were you in the room when it happened?

LH: I was there. Yeah. So that was a just total breakdown. Land (?) in Mexico – those were total breakdowns. I mean they were really breakdowns. What happened in my own barracks, of course, was a breakdown. For example, my own roommate was goofy and was made at me because I was getting involved with the chaplains and working with the chaplains and going in that direction, and also counseling guys. And he was mad at me because he did not appreciate it, because he was fighting with his girlfriend, and that girl came up, and I said “you don’t mean this, you don’t mean that”. So he got mad at me and threw a tire iron through his own windshield and then took a fire truck out of the fire hall and ran down the runway with a fire truck. I told him “you’re going to land in the stockades – it’s just fortunate that you’re my roommate”, because I could work with the base commander, to get him out of jail. And I (or “he”?) was considered already the guy to watch out for – why, I had to throw a black guy down the stairs. OK, they were into drugs, already.

DH: You dealt with a lot of breakdowns in Mexico, it sounds like.

LH: Yeah, there was a lot of trouble. But the worst thing was the pilot training, with young guys who thought that they could do anything they wanted with an airplane and live through it and then to take their lives like they did.

DH: And you said earlier that you had a close call yourself, too.

LH: Yeah, I did. I was landing and I hit the brakes of the plane, swung around and shot off the runway, you know. It was just a bad mechanical error. But there was nothing I could do about it.

DH: I want to thank you telling me about all…your life’s experiences. Your veteran’s experience is, I think, very unique. Your chaplain story. I’ve never interviewed someone who was a chaplain. So that’s…

LH: The story of my life, right?

DH: Yeah, that’s a unique story, so….Thank you.

LH: You’re welcome.

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