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Interview with Tony and Grace Butkus
Interviewed by Inez Russo
The Butkus home in Quinsigamond Village, Worcester, MA
October 25, 2002
Inez Russo (IR): So I guess my first question that I want to ask you
what is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of World
War II?
Tony Butkus (TB): Well like I said I tried to get in the service-
Grace Butkus (GB): Tony she wants to-
TB: And uh, and I was turned down for the simple reason I have what they
call tribulations.
IR: What does that mean?
TB: My heart.
IR: Ok.
TB: So then I got myself a job at the cable works at US
Steel. Previous to that I was a sporting goods salesman.
GB: Can you speak a little louder?
TB: I was in high school.
IR: Was that in the Village here, or in Worcester?
TB: It was in Worcester, Private Johnson Sporting Goods.
IR: Oh, OK
TB: So then I went to work at Steel and Wire as
a, in what they call the patching department-where you repair cables.
IR: OK
TB: And uh, after two years there I, they had classifications. Class D,
and within two years I was in Class A. And, when some of the fellows retired
I became a cable splicer.
IR: What does that mean?
TB: And that means that we were splicing cables. So the cables that we
spliced were various cables, shipboard cable-they made for submarines.
IR: OK
TB: For battleships.
IR: How did that work?
TB: Well they had a stranding machine where you ran it through, different
colored wire that was insulated-would be stranded into lints, and then
it would have to go to, the shipboard cable would have to go to what they
call the asbestos department-which is asbestos wrapped around the stranded
cable. Then it went through-
GB: Should he be talking louder?
TB: Then it went through a halowax tank. Halowax tank, and from there
into a berg machine. And it would be made up in different lengths. And
that’s what they used on the battleships-what they called shipboard
cable.
IR: OK
TB: We also made what they called submarine cable, which came in long
lengths. Uh, they would have to take each length and put it on a reel
and put it up on what they called a stranding machine. So the machine
would strand the cable, put the conductors together, and from there it
would go three floors up over the roof, across the roof, and down onto
a flat car. And when they’d run it-at the end of the stranding machine
when they’d run, we’d have to put up another reel of wire, or
cable, and we’d have to splice that onto what was in the machine.
And then we’d have the electrical department come in and shoot the
cable, in other words, check it out, make sure it could withstand electricity-whatever
it is, continue on, add- for another 20,000 feet, 10,000 feet- and over
the roof, down, and over cars. They would figure eight is from one car
to another. Sometimes they’d have as many as a dozen railroad cars,
and that’s the way that cable would be shipped out.
IR: OK
TB: And as they ran from one length to another, you had to loop it so
that in the process of being on the rail track and being transported,
it would be flexible enough so that it wouldn’t damage the cable,
and from there it would go to whatever shipping port, and it would go
aboard a barge. And the barge would take it out to the ocean, and they
would drop it down, and play it out into the ocean the same way it was
laid in off the roof. It was what they called [couldn't understand]. Then
they would protect it to wherever it’s going.
IR: This is really confusing!
TB: We were involved with the Chesapeake Bay cable, which I think we
made cable for them. And to go back in the mill, the also made, ah, steel
cable. Wire wool, which made into some of these bridges, the heavy steel
cable holding the bridge.
IR: Alright. Now when you went and first started working there did
you have any experience?
TB: No. I had had an older guy there, someone that broke me. Like I said
I went in as a patcher, and whatever I did do I picked up more or less
myself. And this fellow, he really broke me in the right way.
IR: And why did you decide to go work for U.S.
Steel.
TB: Well I had decided at that time-jobs were hard to get, and would you
believe it, I started out at $28.50 a week.
IR: Wow. And how old were you?
TB: I wasn’t too old, maybe eighteen, somewhere around there.
IR: So right after high school.
TB: Right after high school.
IR: What year would that have been?
TB: Oh boy.
GB: ’41.
TB: ’41?
TB: Yeah, ‘40s, ’41?
GB: When was the war?
IR: ’42- it ended in ’45, so.
GB: I remember rationing, and what went on.
TB: Yeah we had rationing during that time too.
IR: Could you tell me about it? How did you learn about how you had
to ration, and-
GB: We had a book.
TB: Of Stamps. A stamp book.
IR: Where did you, where did you get the book?
TB: They were supplied by the government, I guess the more they issued
depended on the members of the family. Gas was rationed,
they had coupons for your gas.
GB: I distinctly remember standing in line down on Millbury
Street with the book. And waiting in line to go into Dudley’s-that
was where they sold meat, and then you’d have to give a coupon, and
you were allowed so much for your family for the week?
IR: And how was it determined, like how many kids you had at the time?
GB: Yes.
IR: And how did you feel about the rationing?
I mean, did you feel as though you were helping your country?
GB: That’s right. That was your part that you were doing, by cutting
back.
IR: And um, were there advertisements about this on the radio,
kind of encouraging you to ration. I mean, how did-
TB: That’s a good question. I think it was just automatic.
GB: We were very aware, well aware of the situation, and that it was part
of our duty to um, this was the way we participated. We cut back on food-
TB: On gas, because everything at that time was-
GB: Gasoline
TB: Gasoline especially. Some people of course would- didn’t care
they’d take a trip and this or that. During the war of course, they
weren’t getting the gas or the petroleum like they were previous
to that, so they had to do something. And that’s when the government
came out with the rations.
IR: Oh, ok.
GB: Nobody was taking any trips because we didn’t have any gas. It
was just local.
IR: I see. And I mean, what you just said, some people still long
trips. Did you kind of look down on people who were waiting gas.
GB: That’s right.
TB: That’s right.
GB: But maybe they had saved it, and accumulated enough to be able to
take a trip, but they to finagle something because you couldn’t take
trips. You just had a small amount, and that was like the necessity of
getting around.
TB: And you had to more or less change with the times, you know?
IR: Exactly. Um, now how did you first find out that we had entered the
war? Do you remember?
GB: Pearl Harbor.
IR: And how did you feel when you heard about- how did you hear about
it? From the newspapers? From friends?
GB: Oh it was all over.
TB: The radio, all over the papers and whatnot.
GB: It was a scary situation.
TB: Very scary.
IR: And did it feel at all sort of like September 11th- that our nation
had been attacked?
GB: Yeah.
TB: Yeah, Yeah. That was terrible there about that.
GB: And it was like mass exodus for the young people, for the fellas to
be signing up and going into the service. Because I remember Tony’s
brother was, had to stay at Fort Devins, or wherever it was because he
didn’t have a uniform to fit him-he was 6’1 and half or something-
and it wasn’t regulation size. So he said, “I’m still here
because they have to outfit me.”
IR: So there was a rush of young men?
GB: Yes.
TB: Pretty much. Yeah, well you were called, you were drafted.
GB: And I can remember when you were turned down on a heart murmur, so
I had to do my part, so I went to work Reed Prentice as a time keeper.
And I used to work, and as long as I had my mother- she’d take care
of the- I think I had Karen, and I’d go to work, and that was my
contribution as a time keeper.
IR: What were you doing for them? Time keeping for what? I don’t
understand.
TB: Workin’ in a plant.
IR: Oh, ok.
GB: Yeah. What do they make at Reed Prentice?
TB: Yeah, I really don’t know too much about Reed Prentice.
GB: But it was very very busy because of the war, and whatever they made
at Reed Prentice, because I went in as a time keeper. And I can always
remember getting the job and ah, they showed me a blue print and he said,
“Do you know what this is?” and I said, “It looks like
Vernon Hill Park.” Hahaha. That’s how dumb I was.
IR: Oh well you wouldn’t have known.
GB: No!
IR: And so, I mean, was this, did you get this job in order to like
help the country? Or-
GB: Yes. That was my contribution.
IR: Not because you needed- wanted- the economic aspect of making
money.
GB: No, it was really- it was when he, when they didn’t take him
on account of his heart murmur, I figured well this family has to do something
for the war-hahaha- and so I would apply for a job. And I thought I would
work in the saw department- you know, where the ladies you know, they
were- what do they call them when they work on-
TB: Piecework.
GB: Yeah, and I didn’t think I’d be very good at piecework
or putting things together, so anyway when I told them that I worked as
bookkeeper at Northridge Furniture Company, they
reclassified me and tried me out and I became a time keeper. Because I
always remember the- she said, “Your office, you don’t associate
with saw department. It makes a difference.” It was a learning experience.
IR: Now, timekeeping- were you keeping everyone on schedule of what
they were supposed to be doing throughout the day?
TB: That’s more or less, what a time keeper is, how many hours-
GB: Timekeeper checks in the man that’s working in the department,
in the saw department, and he checks in with me, and then you tabulate
that and keep track of his time.
IR: Oh ok. And then when everyone left at the end of the day they
would check in with you too?
GB: Oh yeah, they would just submit it to the office.
IR: Oh ok, and did your other friends, other wives feel that same
urge that same instinct that you wanted to be helping and giving your
contribution to the war effort?
GB: Well, one of the good things is that a lot of my friends volunteered,
like at St. Vincent’s Hospital they made bandages,
and they did things like that, and everybody felt good about, if they
were bringing up a family if they had any spare time they would offer
their services working in the hospital as a volunteer, I know they did
that. I’m trying to think of some of the other things.
IR: Did your church do anything as far as-
GB: I don’t remember the Church.
TB: We didn’t do anything except go to the weekly mass, that’s
about it.
GB: Yeah, but I mean-
IR: Did more people start going to Church because of the war? Were
people scared?
TB: I really couldn’t answer that- if more people attended mass or
went to Church during that time.
GB: Our job- Tony is a Eucharistic Minister, and what we do now in our
time, is that he brings Communion to the nursing homes, and we brought
Communion to Memorial Hospital to people that are confined. But this is
now. But way back, when we first came, when we first, you were an altar
server.
TB: Yes, an altar sever.
GB: But we always were active in the Church. But I don’t remember
the Church doing anything out of the ordinary about the war.
TB: You had to just pray for anybody that was in the service, you know,
this way one way or another-
IR: And what about your kids when they were in school. Do you remember
any activities that they participated in at school that were directly
related to the war?
TB: I don’t believe so. It was just that they went to school and
that was it. I don’t know of anything special they had done.
IR: Did they just kind of try and keep the stability, and you know.
TB: That’s all you do, is try to keep them occupied-
GB: I know my children wrote letters and ah, to
their Uncle Steve and their Uncle Jack, and they were so proud of them
being in the service that all they did was correspond with them, because
they cherished the letters that they got. And whatever was happening,
they were very much interested, but that’s about all I remember.
IR: So their uncles were they able to write back and tell them what
they were doing abroad?
GB: Yes, very much so.
IR: Oh wow. Now, just on a personal note, um, when were you two married?
GB: In 1941.
IR: Ok. And were you originally from QV and then you married and stayed
here? Or did you move from Worcester or other areas.
TB: I came from a different part of the city of Worcester, which was
what they call the Island District-
IR: Ok.
TB: Which is up around Millbury Street, Harding
Street-
GB: Crowton Park-
TB: Crowton Park. From that area there, and ah, previous to that I was
a life guard and swimming instructor at the Boy’s
Club, and that’s how I got to meet her through when they had dances-
this is long before the war, you know?
GB: And my mother had a rooming house, nineteen rooms, on Vernon
Hill. And then when he married me, he moved in with my mother and in the
rooming house, and helped her.
IR: And then when did you move to the Village?
GB: 1985.
IR: Oh, ok.
TB: We were originally from Vernon Street.
GB: But I mean it isn’t far from the Village, Vernon Street.
IR: Yeah, it’s all very close to each other. So let’s
see what else-What kinds of things did you do just like, on the weekends
as far as entertainment? Did you go to White City?
GB: Dancing! That was our big thing. We loved to go dancing.
TB: Johnny H---‘s ballroom down in White City-
what was the other place called. Oh there were quite a few different places
we went to that had weekend dancing.
GB: But being Lithuanian we used to go to Maronis Park, and-
TB: The LSC Club on the lake.
GB: And uh, cause his mother would tell us when something good was going
on.
IR: Are you both Lithuanian?
GB: No, I’m Irish. It was a good combination.
IR: Yeah!
GB: What nationality are you?
IR: I am Irish and Italian.
GB: Oh, that’s nice.
IR: My father is an Italian and he lives in Rome, and my mother is
of Irish descent and she lives in the States.
GB: Mmmm.
IR: It’s a different kind of arrangement.
GB: Yeah.
TB: How come he’s in Rome.
IR: Well they’re divorced now.
TB: Oh, oh ok.
IR: That makes sense. He’s actually a guide at the Vatican Museums,
and he was giving my mother and my grandmother a tour of the Vatican,
and that’s how they met!
GB: Wow. That sounds so romantic!
IR: I know! I guess it was!
GB: Right.
TB: Of all places huh?
IR: Yeah I know.
GB: But, that’s quite a background.
IR: Yeah, it’s very interesting. It’s really interesting
as far as this project is concerned for me because my father-he’s
older too, he’s seventy years old, and so he had this experience
of the World War II but in Italy on the Fascist side-
GB: Oh that’s tremendous!
IR: Yeah, so, and he and his family were Fascist. Just the way were
supporting Franklin Roosevelt, they were supporting
Mussolini.
TB: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
IR: So it’s very interesting to learn about his perspective too.
GB: Sure.
IR: So. How did you perceive the enemy during the war? What did you
think of the Japanese and the Italians, and the Germans?
TB: I didn’t think too much of them. And especially Pearl
Harbor. That was very sneaky, you know, to pull that off. Really get your
blood boiling.
GB: But I thought it was so terrible that just because they were Japanese
how they had to suffer for the mistake of somebody else that was Japanese.
It covered over to everybody because they were Japanese, they all had
to suffer.
IR: Did you find-the Japanese in America too?
GB: Yes, that’s what I mean. What they made them do, and it was like
putting them out to-
TB: It’s like what they did to a lot of the Japanese people, that
were Japanese Americans where they segregated them-
IR: Brought them to the internment camps.
TB: Yeah, and interned them.
IR: Did you find that even in the Worcester area that Japanese were
looked down upon?
GB: We never had much experience with any nationalities.
TB: I don’t think there were too many Japanese in the city that I
knew of, and the only ones that were here were Chinese people, and they
had the Chinese laundries, and those were few and far between so actually
there wasn’t too much concern or ill feeling or whatever it is amongst
that because you went about your own business, and you just kept your
prayers that things would be over with soon.
IR: And what, I mean, as far as Italian Americans?
You know, did you have any interaction with them?
TB: No, no ill feelings, no.
GB: We used to go to Lady of Mount Carmel, and
the Italian people were wonderful.
IR: So it was easy to separate between the Italians in America and
the enemy overseas?
TB: Yeah.
GB: Yeah.
TB: But like when she’s talking about getting a place down the Cape,
we had the League of Nations down there. Right in a particular neighborhood
where we were down there, we had Portuguese, we had Jewish, Irish,
Lithuanian, and other nationalities, and would you believe it-one big
happy family.
GB: Well you know Tony, you’re talking about ’54. This is after
the war. But I think this-
TB: But there was no hard feelings in between different cultures, just
one big happy family, that’s it.
IR: But you would say that also during the war it was like that too?
TB: It was.
GB: It was. It’s just like I can always remember my children could
not understand the Goldsteins being Jewish- how we went to their Bar Mitzvahs,
they came to our Catholic weddings at Holy Cross, and were so impressed,
but when the younger son married out of his religion, they disowned him.
And he was the apple of their eye. My children couldn’t understand
that. It was terrible.
IR: Wow.
G Yeah. So they did adhere to their religion, yeah.
IR: Who was married at Holy Cross, your son was?
Your son was married at Holy Cross?
TB: Right.
GB: Yes.
IR: Oh, that’s wonderful. I hope to do that someday!
GB: Oh, and I think people were so impressed with getting up to the Mount
and the cathedral, and everything about it, and then to have the refreshments
and have the reception there. Everybody just loved it.
IR: Oh good. And the campus is so beautiful, it’s gorgeous.
TB: It’s too bad that there’s a few- when you pick up the paper
these days-
GB: About getting arrested
TB: And everybody’s got to sew their oats, you know?
GB: We have closeness, excuse me, because our son in law lived on Cheever
Street, and his father and mother lived in Cheever Street, and right next
door they had a three-decker, and the young kids used to have- so anyway
they used to have parties and everything, so right now Mr. Maclune is
in a nursing home, and I sent him all these fliers about- and I said-
“All of the times you put up with parties and everything was copesthetic-
now look what’s happening.”
IR: Oh no!
GB: They’re arresting them!
IR: Forty-five!
GB: I know, isn’t wasn’t that awful? I hate to that publicity
come through, because I mean, it’s just-
IR: They’re especially hard on Holy Cross I think as opposed
to the other colleges in the area.
GB: Yes.
TB: Yeah.
GB: That’s right, it’s happening all over.
TB: That’s too bad it had to turn out that way.
IR: Exactly. Not that you know, the kids aren’t culpable for
acting, you know out of control sometimes and doing stupid things, but
I mean, it’s not a problem just at Holy Cross, I mean, it’s
everywhere.
TB: It’s throughout the city.
IR: Yeah, exactly.
GB: So I keep them informed about how they’re enlarging it, and
what they’re doing for their students, and the other good stuff.
IR: Oh good. Two views.
TB: Well just like that talk about that working down at the mills, we
had all different nationalities, different religions, and we all got along
together. And as a matter of fact, we’d all congregate down at what
they called a Guards Shanty before we’d get into work, and we’d
shoot what we call shoot the breeze talking amongst ourselves this and
that. You’d spend maybe an hour just talking before you’d have
to be in for the seven o’clock shift, you’d be there at five
o’clock in the morning-
IR: Just to talk?
TB: Just to talk in the Shanty about goings ons, what’s happening
during the day, how the different departments are going-the whole thing.
GB: One of the things I remember distinctly, I wanted to interrupt you-is
that- one of the jobs that you had, like $35,000 like job for the service,
you stayed ‘til two o’clock in the morning or like four or five
o’clock and work straight through. And after the war was over, the
young fellas would walk off the job at eleven o’clock at night, they
didn’t do that anymore. I remember distinctly how devoted and how
hard you guys worked to get production and to get the things out. It was
a big project.
IR: This was with U.S. Steel?
TB: Yeah. We were- actually U.S. Steel- we were the one and only cable
works that U.S. Steel had. And this was right near the city of Worcester.
IR: I see, and you were trying to get- when you were staying until
two o’clock during the war, that was trying to get the cable out?
TB: Well you’d have different orders. We had Navy inspectors come
in when they were out of shipboard cable that would have to come in for
inspections and different kinds of cable, ah, steel wire is what they
used for, what I believe was for communication out in the battlefield.
IR: I see.
GB: What was the guy that talked to you in New Jersey?
TB: This goes back to one of the trips- are you talking about Atlantic
City? About those?
GB: Well what kind of cable was that?
TB: That was submarine cable.
GB: Oh, and it was right there in New Jersey?
TB: In New Jersey.
GB: From the war?
TB: Well it was right after the war they were talking about it.
GB: But it was still in use.
TB: It was still in use.
GB: Oh.
TB: We got to talk, and I suppose I shouldn’t say it he said, “It’s
the worst looking cable I ever saw.” I said, “Well, that’s
what happened when it went through the stranding department.” Because
you’d have three conductors, and the cables would carry a lot of
voltage- like maybe 350,000 volts or 750,000 volts. And when you spliced
the cable, there’d be three conductors, or maybe four conductors.
So each one would be spliced, and there’d be passes of wire, in other
words you’d have the core and then you’d have passes, and everyone
had to be spliced, and it when it went through the strainer machine, it
would wrap steel wire around the basket weave. In the straining machine,
you have spools of wire, but previous to that, when they make the cable,
they’d strand the cable, they’d have to insulate it, in other
words, a cable that holds 350,000 volts-coppers wires, you’d have
seven passes of wire, which the core. Then you have wire wrapped around
one direction and the opposite direction, so that the cable itself would
be about a couple inches in diameter.
IR: Ok.
TB: But then that would have to go to the insulating department, where
they’d either put rubber over it run and insulate it, or it would
be in plastic, or whatever. Then in the basket weave they would cover
the whole thing with other types of insulation, so that would be run off
in spools. So the spools would go into this huge machine, which is what
they called a stranding machine, and as it’s coming down, the machine
is twisting around and it goes through a dye, and as it’s going through
the dye and it’s being wrapped up into a steel pole, wire.
IR: What’s the dye?
TB: The dye is a metal part at the head of the machine, where your cables
or your three cables, along with the fillers and the whole thing would
go right there and that’s what would form it, as the machine rolls
around and holds everything together. As it comes out of there it goes
a ship wheel, but in this particular case on the shipboard cable, it would
go over a ship wheel, it would go up through three floors, up through
the floors, up through the ship wheel, across the roof, down another ship
wheel, down into the box cars.
IR: Oh ok, alright.
TB: And as it’s going down to the box cars, you’d have men down
there that would lay it in the figure eight, like I said.
IR: Like earlier.
TB: Alright, and there’s somebody that feeds the cable in one car,
then it would be looped over, into kind of a wide loop, not beyond the
width of the car, and they would start in the same way in the figure eight.
And it all depended on how long that cable was going to be, would be going
from one car to another, it would be as much as sometimes, 5,000, it all
depends on the length of the cable.
IR: Ok.
GB: Tony, how about all the chemicals? Didn’t you work chemicals?
TB: Well we had all kinds of chemicals. Actually, after we got through
splicing we had to take insulting. When we connect it back up-
GB: That was dangerous, wasn’t it?
TB: When the spool of wire or cable would run out, they’d put up
another reel of wire and back, and we’d have to splice that out.
GB: And excuse me, why did you go down in the manholes?
TB: That’s different. Actually, when we took and spliced the cable,
we also had to insulate it.
IR: Ok.
TB: After we would insulate it-the whole thing. It would go back, then
we’d have to call in the electrical department- they would have to
shoot the cable. In other words they had to apply voltage, to make sure
it would hold the voltage.
IR: So that could like, electrocute you, right?
TB: Yeah, well that’s the electrical department. So then when they
put power on it for so long, then it would be ok, so they would continue
on and start another one. From one to another.
IR: Wow, so this is really hard work.
TB: Like I say, then the cable would be shipped to whatever direction
it was going to. As a matter of fact, Chesapeack Bay Bridge, built there.
They sent cable out there too. And the cable would go in the ocean. They
would lay it down there. It would go from one country to another in whatever
direction.
IR: How did the people in charge of U.S. Steel like, keep you motivated,
to like keep working? You know, I mean thiswas really intense, hard labor-
GB: You had to be dedicated.
TB: You had to be dedicated.
GB: Because that was your part for the service.
IR: Was there something, I mean, was there anything that they did,
as far as you know like, something to look forward to during the day.
TB: No, you worked, you worked. It was a job. You worked.
GB: That was your contribution.
TB: It was your contribution, and it’s the way you made a living.
They had also what they had, people who were on incentives were on piece
work, where the more they made the better they got paid.
IR: Ok, I see.
GB: That’s right.
TB: And of course, I was on day work.
IR: Now who worked on the-what was the difference- how did you get
a job for day work or incentive work? What was the difference?
TB: That all depends on what department you worked on-
GB: Didn’t they size you up-if you were a terrific cable splicer?
TB: No, because when I got in, when I was first hired, I was hired as
a cable patcher. And at some point you have a cable with a defect in it,
you have to take and repair it. So I had to figure out the hard way to
learn how to patch a cable, this and that. And uh, it watched, and I enjoyed
doing my work, and like I said they had the classifications. And I probably
worked myself within a few years into what the classified as an A Patcher,
and then through, there were only a couple of us splicers there- when
the splicer retired- and I didn’t go in on my service I went in,
and it was my experience.
IR: I see.
TB: A number of years I worked at the place. Because we had the Union
at that time.
GB: Excuse me did you have to- was your work tested to make sure that
it was perfect?
TB: Oh yeah, everything, all you work was always perfect.
GB: The reason that I asked is I remember when our neighbor, she said
they had hired- I won’t even say what nationality they were or anything,
but the work wasn’t qualifying. And they said that they were going
into airplanes, and they had to be precisely and exactly right. The couldn’t
shove anything imperfect. That’s what made me think your work had
to be passed.
TB: That was Mary, she was an inspector, right?
GB: Yeah, yeah, she was an inspector, right. Very important.
TB: We had a neighbor from next door, but she’s long gone. But we
had an inspection department. You had your testers, you had your inspectors,
then you had the Navy come in to check on your work?
GB: But what is it that they scrape now in apartments?
IR: The asbestos.
TB: The asbestos.
IR: You mentioned that you worked with that.
TB: Well, also, like they say, lead poisoning-
IR: Yeah.
TB: I should have been gone a long time ago.
IR: I was about to say, have you been affected by that? Has your health
been affected by that at all?
TB: No, no, no.
GB: He’s here with hearty at eighty-eight.
TB: I used to work in a manhole.
GB: That’s why I wanted to say that when I went down to get the keys
for the car, when this guy came with a thing on his head out of the manhole,
I didn’t even know it was my husband.
IR: And this was when you were still working for U.S. Steel.
GB: Yeah.
IR: Did they hire a lot of people at the break of the war.
TB: Yes, we had quite a number out there.
IR: And were they laid off after the war?
TB: Yeah, they were laid off after the war, and then of course they did
away with some of the departments and this and that, and just before they
closed our mill, my part of the department was moved to go to out West
somewhere, and I got a call asking if I’d be interested in going,
and I said, “No Way.” I didn’t want to leave here.
GB: But weren’t there other places in the Village.
TB: Well they had-
GB: Johnson Steel
TB: Johnson Steel and Wire, you had the NorthWorks.
GB: And then you had another one in Millbury.
TB: You had the Cable Works, you had the Spring
Mill, you had the NorthWorks. As a matter in the fact did you read in
the paper about the canal?
IR: Yeah, the Blackstone Valley Canal?
TB: We even spliced the cable in the canal.
IR: You know, you know, you’re talking about all these mills and how
you know, a lot of people were hired during the war, they needed people.
And they talk about in the history books that I’ve read that a lot
of people experienced kind of an economic upsurge during the war-you know
like, you ended up making more money during the war. Did you experience
that? That during the war time you were better off? Or worse off?
GB: No, I remember- worse off because I distinctly remember it was like
being on strike because we didn’t have full and plenty. You know,
we didn’t have an abundance, like you would if you were well off.
You know what I’m saying?
TB: In other words, we didn’t, actually at that time weren’t
saving much of anything- that I know of.
GB: We were getting by.
TB: Getting by, just getting by. Just enough to pay your bills and make
a living.
IR: Exactly.
GB: But I mean you got a lot more for your money in those days.
IR: Exactly.
TB: You buy a car, and you run it into the ground.
IR: Alright, because I was curious to see about that, because some
books say that people made a lot more money with husbands and then wives
also entering the workforce.
GB: Yeah.
TB: Some did. It all depends.
GB: That’s right, because they were working at the right place- that
they were working over time and they were both contributing into the family,
and uh, they had abundance. And then of course, real estate and everything
else was very reasonable, and rents were down.
IR: So there is some truth to that.
GB: Oh, sure.
TB: Yeah.
IR: But you said that when you started working as a time keeper, before
that you would have a job on your own, so you were already in the workforce,
not for the war, but you were just working-
GB: I was a stay at home mother.
IR: Oh, ok. I thought you were working before that. So it was only
for the war that you entered the work force?
GB: Right.
IR: I see. And then at the end of the war you left?
GB: Yep.
IR: And did you feel as though you were happy to come back home?
GB: Exactly.
IR: Ok, you-
GB: I’ll tell you one thing. I always remember I had to walk by-
one was Diamond Hill on 3-11 he’d be working
at the mill, I would work 3- 11 and I had to come home at 11 o’clock
at night, so this old guy went by the ledge, we used to call it, because
it was very dark at 11 o’clock at night, and I approached him and
asked him, and he lived in Millbury, if he could drop me off at the bottom
of National Street, and it was so wonderful to get
a ride as far as the bottom of my street. So I can remember a couple fellas
saying, “Would you like a ride home?” the fellow said to me.
And he said, “You don’t ask her, she’s got a boyfriend.”
[Laughing]
IR: She’s off the market.
GB: Here’s this old guy with a pot belly, and I was so happy to get
a ride. And but I mean, the difference is just like, today, it’s
so horrible when we’re reading, you’d never think a beautiful
girl like you to out at 11 o’clock and walk in the dark and take
a chance-
IR: Exactly.
GB: That somebody might pull up beside you in a car and grab you and so
on and so forth. It wasn’t like that at all. Our doors were wide
open, and everything.
TB: Were the trolley cars still running then?
GB: Yeah.
TB: They used to have to trolley cars down the city line.
GB: It was a different, it was so much, I can always remember coming
down to St. Katherine of Sweden, and the priest
talking about, if somebody was sick, the lady next door would make chcken
soup and bring it over and not want any notoriety or anything, and he
said, “This new generation, they’ll call up on the telephone
and say, ‘You want to know what I did today?’” He said,
publicisizing the goodness of the Lord. And I think that’s one of
the things hat was very prevalent at the time. For instance, we had, what
we called it Renewed. Take for instance this small town, that this girl
was not married and she had a baby, we’d see to it tat somebody came
and helped her with the formula, and let her go to the doctor, and take
care of the baby. And if somebody had the misfortune of having a kid in
jail, and he didn’t want to see his parents, they’d get somebody
to go and visit him, and be like a mentor to him. And then e ad this man
who had a stroke, and he was thirty-two years old, he was, no he had a
stroke, and he had been a teacher or something, and he got a guy in the
State Trooper o help him, and they would go, and if an old lady lived
alone and she needed her fence fixed or she needed something done. And
there were so much good things going on during the war, you know.
IR: Sort of balancing the other horrible things.
GB: Yeah, yeah. That if your in a bind or a fix,
we’re available, and see, that was done through the Church.
IR: Ok.
GB: And then if anybody, well they have St. Vincent de Paul now, where
people brig in macaroni and cheese and al that kind of stuff, but they
had a place where they could go- he needy people, and they could get supplies.
IR: This was St. Katherine of Sweden, or just
your parish.
GB: No, no. I think it was done all over. But I know about St. Katherine’s
because they had a good reputation. I’m sure they all did it. I don’t
care if it was Methodist or Evangelist or whatever, Christadelphians,
they all, it was the war.
IR: Exactly. Now did you feel as though during the war there were
any sorts of neighborhood rivalries?
TB: Well.
GB: Rivalry where?
TB: The Swedish people down in the Village.
GB: The Swedish people did not want the Roman Catholics in the Village.
It was little Sweden.
IR: Ok.
GB: And uh, little by little, the first thing that happened [Tape
flipping over]
GB: [Tape Flipping Over] the post, and then the next thing you
know they relented and let us in. And now, do you want to know that during
Lent we have a soup supper and we go the Emmanuel
Lutheran, we go to the Methodist and they come to us. So it’s all
united, but it took a long, long time.
IR: I have read about that- about the Swedish
population- how they were very close knit.
TB: Right, right.
GB: Right.
IR: And very, you know hesitant to let any other ethnicity…
GB: And it’s just like my story about the black.
IR: Yeah-
GB: I have to tell you. Daniel went to kindergarten, and I said ‘how
was it Daniel.” And he said, ‘Gram there’s a black kid’
and he said, ‘he’s so mean to me-I hate him.’ And I said,
“You must never say that Daniel.” I said, “Do you know
when your brother Michael had grandparents day, Grammy and Pops went to
his school, and I said, Michael said, “I want you to meet my friend.
His name is Seth, and God made him black.” And he said “He’s
chocolate.” And I said, “Do you know what that means Daniel?
If he’s chocolate, God made you a white chocolate. And he said, “He
did not, my mother said I’m a peach.”
Everyone laughs
IR: Oh that’s cute.
GB: Yeah. So I mean, there was no black in the Village.
IR: I see, ok.
GB: No. And now our next-door neighbor is Leroy Logan, and he’s a
sweetheart. And next door, you know who we have from Holland. Holland,
you know the Netherlands in Holland-the girl- Anita, and she’s white
and he’s black.
IR: Oh.
GB: So we have a different kind now, and it’s wonderful.
IR: But it’s definitely evolved since then.
GB: But I’m just pointing out to you how far we’ve come.
IR: Exactly, exactly, uh.
GB: And I only feel bad—for the children.
IR: Uh, For these people over here?
GB: Yeah, and they just have one. But I mean, they’re the ones that
really suffer.
IR: Exactly. Does the child look kind of pale black then, or a like
a mulatto?
G and TB: Mulatto
IR: Were there um, were there black people that worked in the factory?
TB: Not too many.
GB: No. I never remember seeing, uh, when you were on the different shifts,
I never remember seeing one black.
TB: There were a few.
GB: Few and far between.
IR: Was it because they weren’t welco-Was it b/c those opportunities
weren’t open to them? Or is it because they were working in other
industries?
TB: They- That I couldn’t answer why, but uh-
GB: I don’t think there was any discrimination. They’d certainly
hire a handy man to do work. If he was colored but-
TB: Yeah because we had all different nationalities.
GB: Sure.
TB: All different kinds of religions in there too. But uh, we were all
bonded together for the- we were working for a cause- for the United States-
to help out in anyway we could.
IR: You know, I’m curious to, to learn about- you know, now,
as far as helping the United States, I feel like since September 11th
there’s so much- so many similarities in the sense that you know,
the government has really called on us to like give back to our communities-
join the peace-college graduates to join the peace corps, join Americorps,
you know we’re all very, uh, very in solidarity together, you know,
and uh, you know hear president Bush on the television, you see him on
TV all the time speaking to the troops, speaking to us, like. What kinds
of things do you remember you know FDR doing or
other politicians, whether they were local figures or national figures
trying to like, rally Americans around the flag.
TB: Yeah they were, they were. As a matter of fact, I remember it
because they were deducting so much money out of my pay for the war
bonds.
IR: Ok, how did the war bonds work? I don’t , I don’t know
very much about that.
TB: Well, there was what? We were what 25 dollar war bonds. So you’d-
GB: That was your contribution.
TB: Contribution.
IR: And they just took it out of your paycheck?
GB: Yeah.
TB: Yeah, they deducted money out of your paycheck for a bond. You’d
accumulate all the bonds, you know.
IR: And then at the end of the war would you cash them in?
TB: And at the end of the war you’d cash them in.
IR: Ok. So was that a nice big sum?
TB: Well, it all, it all depends on when you started paying into war bonds,
and that, as a matter of fact it could run in the thousands, you know.
It all depends on how much money you put into it.
IR: Was it your choice how much you wanted to put in?
GB: Yeah
TB: Yeah it was your choice of how much was deducted.
GB: I think it was a nice feeling that you were doing something-
TB: Yeah, that’s right to help out-
GB: to help out the war effort.
IR: Did you, would you, did you see signs posted, you know, to contribute
to the war bonds?
TB: Yeah, there were, yeah, there were if I remember correctly postings
to help out.
GB: Can you think of anything that the politicians were doing?
TB: Well, not too much.
IR: Or the newspapers, you know, the kinds of articles.
TB: Well you, well..
GB: They kept us posted to whatever-
TB: -kept us posted to what was going on.
GB:-it’s just like uh progress. It’s like um what I said about
my brother being in Iwojima. Everything that um, every little bit of information
that we got-
TB: -Was through him.
GB: I mean it wasn’t. It wasn’t. We never knew about it until
afterwards.
TB: After Iwojima when he came back. He has more respect for the colored.
GB:Yeah I told her that, yeah.
GB: Oh I remember when he was in charge of Scott Air Force Base printing
plant and he always told about how this polish kid-nobody like him because
he was a private and he couldn’t make-
TB: -Get a promotion-
GB: -Because he couldn’t take a written test. And my brother went
before the board and had him take it orally and he was so smart my brother
said he could take a machine and put it together with his hands.
IR: Oh wow.
GB: But he couldn’t pass a test, so he stayed a private. But when
my brother interfered and went for his, was before the board he told them
how to do it verbally and he went up and up and up the ladder.
IR:That’s wonderful.
GB:To get the promotion.
IR:Oh what a nice story.
GB:Yeah.
IR: I didn’t even realize the Army could be flexible that way.
GB:Right.
IR: You know, That I mean, it took your brothers intervening for that
to happen.
GB:That’s right- go to bat for somebody.
TB: You talk about that. Her brother never had a real high school education
and then he became superintendent of the print plant at Scott Air Force
base.
IR: Oh Wow.
TB: Of course he had the gift of gab you know.
[Laughing]
GB: And I always remember he said that there was linear typist that was
so smart and he- nobody could do anything like him, but he was an alcoholic.
And how he used to cover up for him, and keep him , rehire him and so
on and so forth. So there was a lot of underground good stuff going on
to keep people, you know. And I think that, uh Laura that came from Germany
Leivbaden, she got a job in the PX.
TB: PX yeah, right
IR: What was the PX?
GB: What?
TB: Like a supply store
IR: Oh ok.
GB: Cause I remember they used to- they used to get a carton of cigarettes
for like a dollar and half or something.
IR: Oh wow.
GB: Everything was cheap.
TB: Similar to a grocery store.
GB: Everything they had. Everything. And it was just for the guys on the
base.
IR: I see ok. So what other things do you remember, I guess like cigarettes
were like a hot commodity. Were there other things that were just like
really special if you could get your hands on it? Like other little products?
I don’t even know.
TB: Yeah, well
GB: Medicine!
TB: Medicine.
GB: Medicine was very cheap because my brother used to get certain things
for his, my mother. She was, I’m trying to think of something, maybe
heart medicine or something like that and he used to get it at the base
and bring it home to Worcester. And that was very reasonable, and which
is great because today I mean-
TB: Well you had to get the food stamps too. You
know. Remember you used to go down to-
GB: But we had to get them in the mail.
TB: Yeah.
GB: Nobody could give them to you.
TB:Yeah
GB: No that was legal.
TB: Of course like anything else some of that was abused you know.
IR: How, how was it abused?
GB: How would they abuse it?
TB: Well, on the rationing. Somehow they would finagle some, maybe get
some ration stamps from some person that wasn’t
really using this or that.
IR: Oh.
GB: Oh yeah, But that wasn’t gypping anybody. That was legal.
IR: Just using other people’s.
TB: Yeah, yeah.
IR: Ok I see. That makes sense. Now I have a kind of interesting,
I don’t know, question I’m curious about. When you watch movies
about WWII do you feel as though they are accurate representations of
what is really was like here?
[Silence]
IR: Or like you know, movies about the time period- the 1940s, do
you feel as though you can you know, understand them-not understand them,
but do you feel as though “oh you’re right that is how things
were like” or do you think that Hollywood has distorted-
TB: I think that sometimes some of it is a little overdone maybe, you
know.
IR: Yeah.
TB: I think the only they did pick up anything really was when they had
the news actually, the news. But as far as the movies, like anything else,
the more they put into the more attractive it is to a person that’s
viewing it.
IR: Exactly.
TB: So, also I wanted to ask you about you know, your understanding of
what the Nazis were doing in Germany and the concentration
camps.
GB: Oh that was awful.
IR: Were you aware of what exactly was going on?
GB: Oh it was-
TB: Well not right off the bat we weren’t aware but then gradually
with news leaking out then you found out what they were doing.
IR: Exactly.
GB: Bad news.
TB: Bad news all the way around. The more you heard about it the less
you thought about them.
GB: We couldn’t believe Auschwitz, and what was happening. And we
were so down on Hitler, and oh, God it was terrible.
IR: Were there people that couldn’t even believe that it was
happening- that didn’t believe that it was really happening?
GB: That’s right.
TB: That’s right, that’s true.
GB: And what they were going through. IT’s just like um now, with
the sniper and the people not able to let their kids go to school and
everything like that. And it’s like since the 911, but we have been
so free and easy all these years, and track yourself, I mean to go back
and live under those circumstances, and it’s just like the people
living in Europe are going through all the time in Jerusalem and everything
else.
IR: Exactly.
GB: And we would be thanking God over here during the War that we weren’t
over there.
IR: And just I know we’ve been talking for a long time so I don’t
want to keep you for too much longer, but I just wanted to know, like,
how did you find out about the war being over? Do you remember what you
were doing when you heard that the war was over?
GB: Do you remember Tony?
TB: I think I was working at the time. No wait a moment, I don’t
think I- I’m trying to figure out where the heck was I? I thought
the flash came over TV.
GB: I don’t know but it’s going to be on Oprah Winfrey tonight
about somebody keeping a journal, and when I became a grandmother when
I was 32 I kept a journal and I must go look in some of my books and tell
you (laughing) what, how we felt or anything as a refresher!
IR: Yeah.
GB: To remember. Because it’s so priceless you don’t realize.
I keep saying to my daughters, write it down, write it down.
IR: You don’t want to forget.
GB: Because you forget so easily.
IR: Do you know if you did anything to celebrate, or you just like-
TB: We were all excited about the war being over, but as far as going
out and celebrating-
GB: Anybody that had anybody in the service it was “Amen” and
“Halleluiah” That would be the ultimate that our boys were safe-
the ones that had been in the service, and I can imagine that we were
ecstatic.
IR: They were coming home finally.
GB: Because I remember going up to the depot, and the-
TB: Waiting for the train to pull in-
GB: Yeah, and the guys were hanging out the window and they were screaming
and yelling. It was so exciting, and I was waiting for my brother. Yup,
Halleluiah.
TB: I remember that too.
GB: But I think one of the things is that we remember distinctly is our
children praying for their safety. You know, and I can remember my brother
saying, “I never prayed so hard in my life when I went down into
a foxhole.” You know, and the kids- my children would say, “We’ve
got to pray for Uncle Jack-he’s down in a foxhole.” And he says
“Now I lay me down to sleep,” and he says “Oh how I wish
I could go to sleep.” But things like that they remembered because
it was like a personal-and then I think it was a wonderful thing to write,
like I said to you because we have letters and letters.
And um, as a matter of fact this man by the name of Gribbins on Ames Street,
just had a short while ago a big write up in the Worcester paper how he
was going to have-he had all the names of all the guys that were in the
service, and he’s going to have a big reunion in November. And Jack
Holt, my brother’s name was in there, and he said “All you have
to do is come and read a letter” and I said, “He used to write
for the New Baden, Illinois paper ‘Leo the Lion’ and he used
to write about all the things that happened in the service.”
IR: Are you going to go?
GB: What?
IR: Are you going to go to that reunion?
GB: Well I don’t know how I can go with this jigaroonie.
IR: Ohh.
GB: I mean if there’s stairs and everything. But I would love to
bring one of his letters. I just found one, and um,
I’ll read part of it to you.
IR: Oh Thank you.
[Grace went to go get the letter, Tony and I spoke about an award
they just recently received from the Worcester Diocese for their service
to their Paris]
GB: I am sorry that we’re off the track in so many different directions.
IR: Oh no this is great, thank you.
GB: “January 28th, 1943 Please Excuse these
few lines for I am very busy I will write more later. Dearest Mother,
Well I am still Acting Sgt. In the same company that you have, for how
long, I do not know. The job certainly is an oversize headache. Hoping
everything is going well at home and that Grace and her family are doing
well. Boy what a madhouse I just got in thirty-five new men the other
day, so I didn’t have anything for them to do this morning. I sent
them on a hike, now I just got a call from them to leave camp. Incidentally,
how in the world I’ll ever get them started I don’t know. I
just got back and I found my three buddies that I went through basic training
with. They were the only men that were goldbricking. They are to be shipped
out fast. Got a letter, the money and everything is ok. Love to you all,
Jack.”
IR: Oh wow, that’s really neat. Can I look at it? And where was
he writing from?
GB: Where was he stationed? Was he in Ger- I don’t know-
TB: He was in Leisbaden.
GB: No Iwojima- I don’t know where he was.
IR: And Mrs. Butkus, is your name Grace? Are you Grace?
GB: Yeah.
IR: Oh that’s wonderful.
TB: As a matter of fact there’s other mail
around somewhere.
GB: Oh piles of letters.
TB: Pictures of this and that.
GB: And Uncle Steve wrote wonderful letters. He wrote them on that kind
of copy paper, that- a copier or something. Did they have to go through-
TB: Oh yeah, they go through training.
GB: No, no. But I mean, did they check on their mail?
TB: They went through ah, they went through a un an Army APO.
GB: What does that mean?
TB: I don’t know. They went through a military post office.
GB: Like they could be held vital information.
TB: Because that’s like when a Marianne, now that she’s back
here from Germany, living here. Remember the letters
you sent her you had to send two in care of an APO number-which –because
she was teaching kids.
GB: But I have to tell you we went down to pick up my future sister in
law, and I never seen so many beautiful German girls come in with black
soldiers. And she said, “They’re North American Indians.”
Laughing
TB: German girls went for the black soldiers.
IR: Really?
GB: Black Americans. That’s what Aunt Laura said, “They’re
North American Indians.”
IR: That’s interesting. Did a lot of the white soldiers also
come back with German brides.
TB: Oh yeah.
GB: Oh yeah. Yeah. In order to get my brother to get his wife from Leisbaden
Germany we had to go through politicians. Yeah. Right. To let her get
a permit, a special permit.
IR: Now that’s kind of, I mean, these women, we were fighting
against them, these American soldiers were fighting against their brothers
and fathers, and…
GB: Yeah
TB: Yeah
GB: Well this was after the war.
GB: But Tony during the war, this is when she had the outside pub and
he met her, and about the dog and all that. And then when he came back,
he came back to the States with Army fatigues, remember?
TB: Yeah.
IR: So, that’s interesting that even though they were in a war
there they were able to cross over the lines, and still find love- that’s
beautiful.
GB: No boundaries.
IR: I guess not!
GB: And oh I’m telling you, I nearly died when she came to the house.
He was like the king. She would take off his shoes and wash his feet.
Oh, the service that he got.
IR: Oh wow. That’s the culture. You know.
GB: Oh man, he was the king of the hill.
IR: Exactly.
TB: I’ve never seen anything like it. Boy.
IR: This has been so wonderful. Thank you so much for your time.
TB: I hope it’s helped you out. I don’t know how much it helped
you out or not.
IR: No it did. It was just so interesting to learn about your experiences.
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