Mary Anna Hawes

In the summer of 1917 Mary's father, Frederick Wilson Hawes (age 44), purchased an open touring car manufactured by Stevens.(2)

He thought this was a great time to show his young family the prairie states of the Southwest. Mary's mother, Anna Martha Franz Hawes (age 39), checked with the doctor about taking the baby camping. Since Mary was a robust 10-pound baby who was obviously in good health, the doctor agreed that a 3-week trip to Mesa Verde in Colorado and back to their home in Henryetta, Oklahoma, would be just fine.

So Fred and Anna loaded their four children, Freddy (age 7), Tommy (5), Jane (2), and 3-week-old Mary into the auto. The car was also packed with all the items necessary for successful camping and the clothes and personal effects for the two adults and four children. There was barely room for the baby's basket in the back seat.

The roads were rutted dirt. Improved roads were rutted gravel. It was very, very hot and very, very dusty. The family traveled just a few miles per day.(3)

They stayed overnight by the side of the road, setting up camp each afternoon and breaking camp each morning. Keeping clean was a challenge that was met, pioneer style, in a rarely found creek. (Click the picture to enlarge it.)

This trip was taken before the advent of motels, roadside restaurants, or developed public campgrounds. Fred filled many water containers and loaded up on gasoline at each tiny town; Anna purchased food at each available general store.

The Hawes family was not alone on the roadways. There were many other families touring. It was an exciting time. Cars were a newly available mode of transport, the scenery of the Great American West a gorgeous feast for the eyes. As Fred crossed paths with another auto, especially if it was a Stevens, he'd give a greeting with his "Aooga" horn.

Fred drove his family westward across Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle, into the 5-year-old State of New Mexico, and then northward to Mesa Verde, a little shy of a thousand miles. Instead of returning home from their camping there, however, he drove westward into Utah and then into the other 5-year-old State of Arizona to see the Grand Canyon. From there he drove his family northward through Utah again and eastern Idaho, into Yellowstone. Fred was thrilled to see the new lands that he had never seen before. The entire automobile adventure aboard the Stevens touring car lasted … 12 weeks. (Take a look at a map of the adventure.)

Anna was hideously impatient with the whole damn thing. Good God! Isolated and alone, she had barely survived a difficult birth in the back country of Saskatchewan just 5 years earlier. Now this! The man just would not stop. Well, to be honest, she enjoyed seeing the red rock country and the Yellowstone. But couldn't all this wait until there was not an infant to tote about?

Mary did not thrive on this camping trip. She weighed less in October than she had in June; Anna had kept the infant alive with Eagle Brand milk.(4)

When the family arrived back in Henryetta, the doctor, who had OK'd only a short trip to Colorado, denounced Fred's irresponsibility in extremely colorful language.

Mary did survive, however. Here's a picture of her, smiling, on the Kiddie Car with her big sister Jane, taken a couple of years later at their home in Henryetta. (To enlarge the picture just click it.)

This was shortly before the family moved in 1920. This would be the last move; Anna had made that very clear. Also: There would be electricity. There would be a telephone. There would be inside plumbing. There would be at least some neighbors who spoke English.

Fred had a wanderlust that had plagued the marriage from the start. Freddy had been born in Chicago, Tommy at their homestead in the Saskatchewan back woods, Jane and Mary in Henryetta. Fred was now 47 years old. Anna was 42. It was time to put down roots and provide a steady home for the children. Fred searched from New Jersey to California before he found the perfect place: 16 acres on a paved road in Waunch's Prairie, 3 miles north of Centralia, Washington.

The 2,000-mile move was by train, since this provided the most economical way to move the household goods, the six family members, and the red Stevens touring car.(5)

During the journey a total stranger commented to Anna that it was too bad that the little girl was cross-eyed. Anna was totally shocked. She had never noticed this about Mary.

On the left you see the Stevens in a shed at the new home, with the four children in front of it (to enlarge the picture, just click it).

Although there was a good road to Centralia and many nice neighbors, the farmhouse, built in the 1870s, did not have interior water, a phone, or electricity. Fred contacted Puget Sound Power and Light and found that he could get electricity only if he paid for the poles and lines himself. He did. The entire 3 miles.

Fred hired carpenters to construct four 100-foot long chicken houses and a gravity water system from the natural spring on the hill. The workmen then dug a basement for a new coal-powered furnace and fruit room. They rolled the house over the hole and proceeded to extensively remodel that structure. All this was completed in 5 short years. On the right you see Hawes family members in front of the house, shortly before it was rolled to its new position (click it to enlarge it and see who's who).

Oklahoman to the core, Fred insisted upon calling the 16-acre poultry farm his "ranch," or his "chicken ranch." Also, the house was decorated with just a bit of the Oklahoma Wild West. Anna scattered several Navaho rugs on the dining room floor. Fred mounted loaded guns atop each kitchen door and the breakfast room archway.

For 15 years the farm prospered. At its peak there were 2,500 layers divided among the four hen houses. There were goats, sheep, pigs, turkeys, a cow, and a horse named Pete. There was a mature orchard that had come with the land, and the Hawes family planted a substantial kitchen garden. All this meant there were daily chores for each of the children, starting at a very early age.

Mary collected eggs, fed chickens, helped can the garden produce and the farm-grown meats. With the help of her sister Jane, Mary was expected to set the table for each meal, do the dishes, and help with the weekly wash. Mary's favorite chore was sitting atop the pump house, reading and every now and then tossing dirt clods … sometimes rocks … at the sheep and their lambs. These animals had been set out to pasture in an area along the highway that had no fence. It was Mary's job to see that no animals wandered onto the road.

While Mary read, her father would supervise from the nearby field. Fred was using Pete to plow and harrow the soil in order to plant feed grain. Neighbor children would stop on the road and call out: "Mr. Hawes? What are you planting?" He'd answer: "Bananas." This humor was lost on his small daughter. She was embarrassed.

Fred had a series of fondness names for his little girl. He used them all of Mary's life and added to the list as she grew older. Sometimes, to the delight of the family, it came out like this: "Chickie-me-too Merry-sunshine Goldielocks Daisy-in-the-nose Lollapalooza-mike Rolly-polly-pigwig Skookumchuck Inch-higher." The list was much longer, but Fred never changed the order of the nicknames or the cadence of the delivery.

Mary's big brothers always just called her "Chick," however, a nickname that dated from the time she had been so excited about having fried chicken for dinner that she had run round 'n round the dining room table telling her world that it was "Chickie me too! Chickie me too! Chickie me too!"

Starting at age 7, Mary wore wire-rimmed glasses.(6)

She hated them. Her classmates teased her, called her Granny. Now that she could actually see, however, Mary soon discovered the Carnegie library in town (click the picture on the left to enlarge it) and set out to read every single book in it. Being able to see better helped her school grades as well. Fred was proud enough to financially reward her: 25 cents per "A" and 20 cents per "A-" per 6-week report card. For the honor roll there was a whole dollar; for the semester honor roll $5.00. This was an absolute fortune in the 1920s. (See her second-grade report card.(7))

Tommy and Freddy regularly bamboozled their little sisters. Mary was expected to eat each morsel on her plate at every meal, but the boys convinced her that if she burped, she would explode with such great force that pieces of her would splatter everywhere. Mary did not test this. When the boys were expected to clear a pile of construction materials, they convinced Jane and Mary that there was treasure underneath. The girls did all the work while the boys supervised.

About this time Freddy taught little sister to fish in the nearby Skookumchuck River. Mary was good at that. By the age of 7, she could bait a hook with a squiggly nightcrawler. On the right you see Mary admiring her brother's catch at Ward Lake Park (to enlarge the picture, click it).

Tommy was teaching Mary how to swim, but unfortunately she never became a strong swimmer: The river was cold and, though it was not at all swift in the summer months, it did have a definite current that frightened her.

Mary was determined to learn to ride a bicycle. Tommy gave that lesson also. He'd have her lean the family boy's bike against a fence post, board it by putting one leg through the crossbar, help her get started down the gravel drive. Then he'd race alongside to stop Mary before she reached the highway. Lots of skinned knees and elbows later, Mary had mastered both starting and stopping all on her own. All this was long before she was tall enough to reach the pedals while seated. The Hawes children never did have a girl's bike.

As part of the school curriculum in the 1920s and 1930s, students were required to memorize poetry and then recite in front of their classroom. Mary did this very well: stanzas of Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha. Mary also read for pleasure from the home library that her father maintained: the eight volumes of John Clark Ridpath's History of the World and the King James Version of the Holy Bible. At that Carnegie public library she worked her way through the popular fiction of Jean Stratton Porter, including A Girl of the Limberlost and Freckles.

Mary walked on the highway the single mile from the ranch to eight-grade Oakview Elementary School.(8)

Sometimes she skated. (On the left you see her as a sixth grader, a little shy of 12 years old; to enlarge this picture and see it in context, just click it.)

Transportation options changed dramatically when Fred traded in the Stevens for two Model T Fords. Anna now had her own wheels. She and her children drove to the shore each summer for a week, always to Moclips, and there were many trips to nearer sights on the weekends. Tom evolved into a first-class mechanic, which was great because no one else had a clue how to fix the Tin Lizzie.

Fred would take the children with him into Centralia on Saturday when he did his banking and shopped for supplies. Mary took these town-trip opportunities to gather in the sights and, of course, to borrow books from the library. There was always a stop at the candy store on the way home.

The ranch failed to prosper during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Hawes farm family never went without meals, but the economics of poultry husbandry dictated some serious changes: From a chicken population averaging 2,500, Fred and Anna were forced to cut back 99 percent, keeping a remnant for themselves of 26 hens. The slaughter must have been horrific, and it must have gone on for quite a spell. The Hawes lunches and dinners must have featured chicken fairly consistently. "Chickie-me-too" Mary remarked years later how she grew to dislike chicken meat, though she liked eggs all her life.

When the children finished eighth grade at Oakview Elementary on Waunch's Prairie, they could no longer walk or ride a bike to school. The high school was in the middle of Centralia, and the prairie children needed to ride the 3 miles on the school bus.

Father Fred was a harsh and demanding father.(9)

He wanted each of his children to excel in school, do daily chores without complaint, have excellent manners, and never ever back-talk. Jane, Tom, and brother Fred all ran away several times. Anna would know the runaway's destination, so she did not worry. Mary, though, was too stubborn to leave home. Here's what she observed several decades later about this time:

Don't know if I have a thick skin or not, but I do get hurt and resent it without saying too much.

When Jane entered high school, the sisters began to fight over everything. All the time. Jane was a vivacious, outgoing, dark-eyed beauty. She bobbed her hair and wore makeup. Mary was green with jealousy. Mary was very smart, wore glasses, was plump, was "cross-eyed," lived in the country, had a father who, each week, wrote opinionated letters to the editor of the Centralia Chronicle. Mary never dated. (To enlarge the picture, just click it.)

Mary hated high school. Because there was no late bus, she never stayed after school for any of the sports games or social events. Three miles was really too far to walk home. But she did her best in class. In fact the only "B" Mary received was from the Latin teacher; Miss Alice Atkinson never gave a first-quarter "A" grade. (See some example high school report cards.)

Jane, on the other hand, quit school in 1932, soon to be married to Harold Boyce. However unsatisfactory her new home life right in Centralia might have been, at least it had gotten her away from her father.(10)

From then on, Mary and Tom were the only children still at home with their parents.

In the spring of Mary's junior year at Centralia High, the school principal gave her permission to take her examinations a month early so that she could accompany her family to Maryland and New England. Brother Fred was graduating from the Naval Academy, and Anna, understandably proud, wanted to be in attendance. Tom was 21 and an excellent mechanic. Anna would be driving a Model T Ford more than 3,000 miles each way, and Tom's skills would be very handy. They would be gone 3 months, so father Fred needed to stay home to care for the animals.

During the June festivities at the Annapolis graduation, Mary met 18-year-old Margery Jane Doyle, who would always be referred to in our family as "Janie" to distinguish her from Mary's sister Jane. For a few years Janie would be Mary's closest friend, even roommate; later Mary would consider Janie her worst enemy. (To learn some of Janie's background, click the picture.)

Janie, working to convince handsome Midshipman Fred to break off his engagement with his hometown girl and to marry her instead, arranged a blind date for the just barely 17-year-old Mary from rural Washington State. Anna allowed this, because the date would be chaperoned by Mary's oldest brother. Janie was a friend of a third-year Midshipman from Massachusetts who seemed suitable: Allan Christie Edmands, whose nickname at that time was "Deak." He was 23, had a great sense of humor, spoke softly with a Boston accent, and was very handsome. He liked competitive sports, he played word games, and he quoted Longfellow and Coleridge with ease. Scholarly Mary was quite taken with him.(11)

After the Academy festivities, the Hawses drove north to New England to visit Anna's family. Anna found that her mother, then 87, had reverted completely to her native German tongue. This was the only time Mary met her maternal grandmother, and the lady had absolutely no idea who she was. On the return trip, they visited Niagara Falls.(12)

They also managed to return to Washington "by way of Albuquerque"; Mary remembered that her mother bought her an Acoma pottery bowl in Gallup, New Mexico.

After the one blind date, both Allan and Mary were smitten. Allan wrote Mary a Christmas card that December, with the picture at the right enclosed (to enlarge it, just click). During his senior year, Allan was on cruises all over the world as part of his academy curriculum. At every stop, he wrote post cards and letters to his sweetheart in Washington State.(13)

In the mean time, Mary, scheduled to graduate at the top of her class, was preparing a valedictorian speech and was winning college scholarships to both Reed and Whitman Colleges. Father Fred would not hear of something so liberal, however. His daughter would go to the junior college right there in Centralia!

In June 1935 Mary delivered her valedictorian speech at the ceremony that graduated her and 181 other students from Centralia High School. After the ceremonies, she came home and made a bonfire of all her high school memorabilia. To the left is a picture of Mary about that time (click it to enlarge it).

In the end, after a short stay at Centralia Junior College, Mary prevailed upon her father to let her study in Seattle at Metropolitan Business College. Fred only pretended that he did not know about the Ensign stationed at the naval base at nearby Bremerton, and he allowed her to enroll.

Allan came by ferry to Seattle often and took Mary to officer's parties in the big city. He and his buddies visited the ranch as well. Before Mary finished her 2-year course of study at the business school, she was engaged. Allan sent her bus money to travel to Vallejo, California, to be married while his ship was ashore there. Fred arranged for Tom to handle the ranch duties, he bought a new 1936 Dodge and he drove Anna and Mary to California.(14)

Unfortunately, there was a paperwork glitch and Allan's ship left before the marriage license could be processed. The three Haweses had to chase the Navy down the coast to San Diego so the proud parents could witness the wedding (click to see the charming report of the wedding, as well as the wedding announcement). The year was 1937. Mary was just shy of 20, Allan 26. On the right you see Mary on her honeymoon on Santa Catalina Island (click the picture to enlarge it).

It was probably while Mary was living on her own in Seattle that she took up smoking as a serious habit.(15)

For one thing, it helped her to diminish her plumpness by killing her appetite, and she certainly wanted to be as attractive as possible for her beau who regularly visited from Bremerton. (As you can see from the honeymoon picture, the plumpness isn't completely diminished. It took her having her first baby to do that.(16))

Also, women in those days regularly saw cigarette smoking as a symbol of freedom, a sign that they were their own person, that they had gone beyond society's narrow roles for them. There was a prevailing prejudice among many that a smoking woman was somehow "fallen." Her father, who rolled his own cigarettes with brown paper and Prince Albert tobacco, must have held such a prejudice; here is how he described part of the Hawes crest: "At the top a large, displeased lion's head protrudes through a crown marked as if laid together like bricks in a chimney. This lion has a very suspicious look, as if he expected to detect female smoking of cigarettes, liver-stained fingernails, lipsticks, or female nose wrinkles caused by snoring."

Here is what Mary said about her father's attitude: "He did not know I smoked until we were going to California when I was to be married, and [he] had a fit! I always smoked around him after that, but Jane lacked the nerve! He would not have liked her [mentholated] Kools, anyway." (Sadly, Mary was never able to kick the addiction. Shortly before her death, however, she was too weak to light up. Her death certificate attributed pulmonary carcinoma [lung cancer] as a probable cause.)

Married women rarely worked outside the home in the 1930s. Mary needed to keep busy. She ran their home, which for 6 years was always an apartment or rented rooms at the various U.S. Navy duty stations. She sewed on a "featherweight" Singer sewing machine for the house, for herself, and, soon enough, for her baby. She continued to read her way through the local libraries, checking out 12 books per visit and going through them in just 7 days.

Surviving as family heirlooms from that time is a hand-crocheted tablecloth that took Mary 10 years to complete. She ran out of thread about three-quarters of the way along. There is a definite color change. Beautiful even with, or perhaps because of, this blemish. Also surviving is a full-size bed quilt in the Dresden Plate pattern, which you can see on the left (click to enlarge). Mary had started the tiny piecing when she was 12 and finally finished it just after she was married (while she was pregnant). As a Christmas gift for the newlyweds, Anna hired the quilting done by a church group who "charged" by how many spools of thread they used.

On May 11, 1938, Mary brought her firstborn into the world, Mary Christine Edmands, who would always be known by her official middle name: Chrissy at first, Chris later, Christine much later.(17)

(This family always finds a way to avoid confusion with its identical names, doesn't it?)

Here you can see Mary with her 9½-week old daughter in San Diego. Mary seems to have lost all her unnecessary weight after her pregnancy. (By now you know how to enlarge the picture.)

Early in her marriage, Mary discovered that she did not know how to cook. She had had only home canned meats on the farm. Confronted with the daunting task of fresh meat, she had to ask the butcher how to prepare the piece of beef that she had just purchased. Fish she could do. Chicken she could do. Soon Mary could cook all the organ meats as well: liver, tongue, brain, tripe—but cooking was never a favorite task.

By 1939 Mary had morphed into an in-your-face beauty, as you can see on the left. This airbrushed glamour shot almost completely "corrects" the crossed eye.

Assignments usually changed every 6 months for the young officer's family. If it was just a few weeks and the assignment was on the West Coast, Mary would drive Chrissy to Centralia to be cared for by Anna and Fred. She could then spend a treasured few days alone with her husband. Here is a postcard she sent from San Francisco to her parents on September 28, 1939:

Dearest Mother & Dad—
I'm awfully happy & Allan looks grand—and he got orders today— he gets 30 days leave. We will be home Thursday or Friday. Tell Chris Daddy & Mother want to see their little girl— and we love her. And we love everybody. Love, Mary

In 1940 Mary, Allan, and Chrissy moved to Pensacola, Florida, where he could learn to fly the airplanes used on carriers. Here is a postcard Mary sent to her parents on the way there, from Van Horn, Texas, July 11, 1940:

Dearest Mother & Dad—
We left SD Tuesday night at eight— it has been horribly hot but the Christine is bearing up wonderfully. We expect to stay in Fort Stockton tonight. I hope you are all okay— and you can imagine how happy I am. Mary
P.S. Imogene (the car) is grand.

Before Allan was awarded his "wings," his mother traveled from Andover, Massachusetts, to visit. Just at that time John, Allan's younger brother, was on a Midshipman cruise to Pensacola. Mother Edmands was thrilled to have her two sons together. Around her formidable mother-in-law, Mary felt she was just a little bit on trial.(18)

Ultimately, Allan was assigned to the Pearl Harbor Naval Base in the Territory of Hawaii.(19)

The Navy moved the family to Honolulu in the summer of 1941. Mary's brother Fred had also been assigned to Hawaii, so Janie, his wife of 5 years, was moving to Honolulu, too. Here is Mary enjoying the cruise on the S.S. Mariposa. Probably, sister-in-law Janie is taking the picture.

Here you see Mary, Janie, and Chrissy right after their arrival in Honolulu. They had become very close friends. Seemingly inseparable, they would be keeping each other amused in this tropical paradise while their husbands were out on cruises, sometimes for weeks at a time.

Mary and Janie were fluent in the "Opp" language, a silly fad of attaching the fragment opp in front of every English vowel and pronouncing every "silent" letter—a kind of Pig Latin for young adults, which was all the rage in those days. It did not matter to the speakers if they were overheard and were thought foolish by others. Here is an example: "Stoppevoppe oppaskopped thoppat Chroppistoppinoppe toppe oppusoppe throppe-oppe woppords oppin throppe-oppe soppepopparoppatoppe soppentoppencoppencoppes," which in English would be: "Steve asked Christine to use three words in three separate sentences." Mary and Janie chattered on very rapidly in this gibberish. By the hour. They would have contests with each other on who could last the longest. They'd read the paper to each other, and they used it when shopping in the stores. It was a very effective secret language. The only word Chrissy ever learned was Chroppistoppinoppe.

Janie's company diminished the impatient loneliness Navy wife Mary felt, but it could not eradicate her missing Allan, an emptiness he was occasionally able to relieve with a loving telegram, such as this one, which he sent at the beginning of October. Within a couple of weeks, he arrived, bringing wonderful gifts from the Philippines: a set of mahogany and cane nesting tables, linens, and for Chrissy a costume doll. He learned then that Mary was expecting their second child.

Unfortunately, the Territory of Hawaii was not to remain a romantic tropical paradise for long. The following are Mary's own reminiscences, written months afterward: December 5, 1941, we were out to a dinner and a dance at a downtown Honolulu hotel.… [B]oth he [Allan] and Fred left for a cruise early Saturday morning, … which is why both the Lexington and the Astoria were out of the harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941.(20) Mary was one day off on these dates. The official records state that the Lexington and the Astoria (Fred and Allan's cruisers) left for their cruises on Friday morning, December 5. (The purpose of these cruises was ostensibly to deliver supplies and planes to Midway, but it might also have been "fishing"—that is, to look for suspicious activity from Japanese naval craft.) The dinner-dance at the hotel must have been Thursday night, December 4. When daughter Christine Edmands Barrett was recently taking an advanced history class, she tried to use Mary's dates and was corrected by the professor, Dr. Bridgman, who, as she said, was "very kind about family history writings being sometimes inaccurate." (We hope you will be likewise kind with this family history site.) (Close) Janie had stayed overnight with me in my apartment at the Pleasanton Hotel.… The bedroom was upstairs in the apartment, so when the telephone rang about 8 Sunday morning, [3½-year-old] Christine [went] down to answer it. She came back to tell me "that lady" wanted to talk to me … so when I answered it, I heard: "What are you still doing in bed?! The Japanese are bombing us!" I turned on the radio and heard Wesley Edwards describing the whole thing.(21)… Edwards was the well-known broadcast voice on the long-running "Hawaii Calls" radio show, which was then but 6 years old. (Close) Here is what Janie wrote in her diary: We are at war with Japan. Early this morning a flight of bombers attacked the island of Oahu—treacherously, while their ministers talked peace in Washington. They came out of the rising sun to spread death and destruction in a sleeping city. Mary and I were asleep—it wasn't nine o'clock—on a Sunday morning—and the telephone kept ringing downstairs. Finally we woke up enough to send Christine down to answer it. She came back and said a lady wanted her momma, and Mary went down. I don't know why—maybe it was the mixture of sounds—the guns in the distance—the voices in the yard—the odd sound of Mary's voice saying "No! Caroline!" and telling Chris to turn on the radio—but I got up fast and put on my dress and shoes and went down. Mary looked at me so funny. "Caroline says we're having an air raid." All I could think of was the men from Mars scare of so long ago(22)— Not so long ago, only 3 years earlier. Janie was referring to the 1938 Orson Wells radio drama War of the Worlds, which frightened so many people who thought Martians were really invading the Earth. (Close) I said "she's crazy" and tuned in the radio. It was warm and sputtering. The announcer panted "Keep off the streets! Do not use the telephone! We are being attacked! Keep off the streets!" Even then it didn't seem real. I went to the back door and saw [neighbors] Toots and Anne in the yard looking up. Toots said, "It's time you got up! We're having an air raid!" I remember saying "Yes—I know—" and right then I guess I did know. I looked up and could see puffs in the sky—and little dots they said were enemy planes—presumably Japanese—we could hear the anti-aircraft guns—big guns—or maybe they were bombs—Mary told Caroline to try to get down [to join them at their place] if she was scared—and to bring the baby— … We got orders over the radio to fill everything in sight with water. The radio went off the air, too—just came on to give orders and information—we filled the tubs in the yard and all the pots and pans in the house—just in case the water mains got hit. Caroline came in about then with her baby. She was plenty upset—and [???] came in from her house with her baby. She was honestly scared silly—just trembled and shook—and I've never seen anyone so pale and terrified looking.… We kept hearing of planes coming in.… I heard a call for the Police to get a man armed with a knife in Punahou Campus just across the street.… I looked out the window and saw three women trudging up Punahou Hill—with big bundles tied up in bed sheets—one of them was old, and had a bandana tied under her chin—it looked like the pictures you see of refugees in Europe—and they were refugees from some bombed section of the city. Greg [Toots's husband?] came home from the office picking glass and dirt out of his hair. Toots [had] called him and [had] asked him to come home—he [had] laughed and said it was a joke—but it seems a bomb lit down there on Beretania—killed a woman twenty feet the other side of him, and almost blew him out of the building—he was convinced.… Caroline and I got permission from the cop on the corner to go up to her place and get things for the baby—stopped for groceries on the way home—got reports over her radio of [enemy] parachutist landings on Punchbowl and in the mountains at the end of Manoa Valley.… I went out and got permission from the same cop to go pick up some clothes. It didn't dawn on me until much later that the policeman himself was a Jap. Lord what a job these men have on their hands! Imagine having to control a city waked out of a sound sleep by bombs—not a city at war—one at peace and totally unprepared—with all the varied races and people—can they keep it in hand? I hope to God they can—it will be hell if they don't.… Toots came over with bandages for us to fold, and Mary, Caroline, and I tried to do that. We spent the afternoon that way. Later Toots brought us some tea. They are planning to use the Main Hotel building for a hospital in case of need. Anne brought over a kettle of stew and we all had supper together—but I forgot to eat. And by the time Mary came downstairs, it was too dark to see to eat—we had no lights at all, being totally unprepared for a blackout. I went with Anne to put Mike to bed, but it was so dark and eerie, and she couldn't lock her back door—so she decided to pack a case and come back over here. We stopped to listen to her radio. We could get the mainland—and heard an unconfirmed report that the West Virginia was gone. Now back to Mary's reminiscences: [That] afternoon about eight of the wives whose husbands were either out at sea or at Pearl moved in with me and their kids.… [We] moved the mattresses down from upstairs and all slept in the living room that night, scared to death.… [We] had to leave all the lights off, and could do nothing about a blackout for two days. Then we got a chance to get some black construction paper and blacked out the living room.… [Also] on Tuesday [December 9] we sent a telegram to Mother and Dad and to Mrs. Edmands saying all was well.…

It was a time of great fear. Was there another attack coming? Would the enemy try to occupy the islands? Starting immediately, civilians began to be evacuated to California. Mary was ordered to move to the base housing at Pearl City and to be ready to depart on 6 hours notice. Janie moved in, too. That's where they celebrated Christmas 1941.

Now back to Mary's reminiscences: We had missed getting a Christmas tree off the load that came in on a ship on the 5th, so our tree that year was a branch of a hibiscus bush.…

Mary shipped the family car to the mainland as soon as she could, and she packed the trunks. Chrissy was anxious but bravely slept during the blackout amid the packing crates at their new shore-side, two-bedroom home. There were practice air raids when all the civilians had to immediately dive into the newly dug bomb shelters.

Neither Mary nor Janie had any idea where their spouses were, but they somehow got word to them that if they were still in Hawaii, there would be a red cloth hanging on the sea wall.

From Mary again: Allan and Fred did get home once in a while for a few hours, but they had to take a boat from Ford Island to the Pearl City landing because I had sent the car back to the mainland.… [It] was a case of do it now, or you may not have another chance.…

From Mary: I got orders to go home on the Thursday before Easter, to board the ship Easter Sunday with Christine.… [No] orders for Janie. So we went to the submarine base chaplain claiming that I got very seasick, that I was [7 months] pregnant, and who would take care of Chris… so we got orders for Janie to leave with me.… Janie's [state]room had 9 bunks, mine only had 6 where there had been 2. My roommates were 3 pregnant women, a new mother and a baby, and Christine.… There were no deck chairs so when we did go on deck, we had to sit on the deck… and wear life preservers all day long.… [It] must have been worth the price of admission to watch me get back on my feet.(23) She had to roll. Mary, who later claimed that December 7, 1941, had been the first day she had felt her baby kick inside her, jokingly referred to her expected baby, whom she expected to be male, as her "Rising Son." (Close) And poor Christine had to lie flat, put her rear in the air, and stagger to her feet.… My only coat was a summer one I had brought with me from Pensacola, and it did not meet in front! I was cold.

Finally Mary landed in San Francisco.(24)

She had no money, was very cold, and had no idea where to find her car. And she was hungry for cucumbers. She located the car in storage in Oakland, talked to a friendly bank manager who cashed a check for her on her San Diego account, and purchased a winter coat that would fit over her growing figure. Only a week later, Mary and her 4-year-old daughter arrived home in Centralia. Anna had fresh cucumbers for her!(25)

From Mary: It was really a good thing that we were home at that time (they told me it was better to take the baby packaged).… Fred's ship, the Lexington, was sunk the end of May, and Allan's, the Astoria, in August, so they knew where to find us—at home on the farm.

The baby, Allan Christie Edmands, was born June 9, 1942, in a nursing facility in Centralia. He was truly a "Junior," but that word is not on his birth certificate. Obviously his parents had discussed the name and the diminutive to be used should their second child be a son: "Butch." Amazingly, proud daddy Allan sent a telegram of congratulations from the front lines of battle: Midway.

Mary and her baby, as was the custom of the time, were kept in the nursing facility for 2 weeks. Chris stayed, as she had many times, with her grandparents on the ranch. In a few weeks they were joined by the other grandmother (Allan's mother), who took the train out from Massachusetts. On the left is a picture of Chris, Butch, and Grandmother Edmands (click it to enlarge it).

Allan's ship, the cruiser Astoria, was sunk during the Battle of Savo Island (August 1942).(26)

After that battle, Allan was furloughed for several weeks. Mary joined him in Long Beach, California for one of the first of those weeks. She left 2-month-old Butch with Waunch's Prairie neighbors and Chris with her parents. Allan and Mary then drove back to Washington, retrieved their children, and moved along to the new duty station of Alameda, California.(27)

The home front was very supportive of their military families. And not just with childcare. There was one occasion that Allan was in Oakland and asked that Mary join him. She was determined to go and convinced the county ration board that she should have the gasoline to do so. However, Mary's car had a bald tire. Anna took the tires off her 1936 Dodge and gave them to Mary. Driving around Centralia on a bald tire seemed to Anna a small sacrifice to the war effort. On the right you see Allan and Mary at Coronado, California, in May 1943.

The extended family traded ration stamps back and forth. Sugar coupons were needed for canning the produce of the farm. The farm folks did not need vegetable or meat coupons. Everything seemed to work out except the shoe coupons. Growing children need more than one pair of shoes a year. Mary finally resorted to cutting the toes out of the school shoes so they could be used for summer sandals. On the right you see the kids with a somewhat stressed-out Mary in 1943.

Though Mary was deeply in love with her husband, her later memories of having to play the role of "Navy wife" were not fond: moving from San Diego to Pensacola to San Diego to Honolulu to San Diego again to Alameda to Piedmont (with a gouging landlady that Mary had to bawl out) to Coronado to Long Beach and, now, to San Diego once again.(28)

Mary had to kowtow to the wives of superior officers, she was struggling on a small budget, and she was raising very young children by herself.(29)

Chris was old enough to actually be a help around the house, but little Butch was a handful. With his loud, boisterous, rambunctious, exploring nature, "into everything," he needed constant monitoring. And he attracted more than his share of childhood maladies, including breathing problems associated with enlarged adenoids and tonsils. And toilet-training him was so much more difficult than it had been with Chris; every day there were hours of laundry to do in the wringer washing machine.(30)

It is likely that around this time Mary acquired the daily habit of relaxing with a beer or two. On social occasions she might drink hard liquor, but beer was her preferred beverage. On the right you can see Mary surrounded by Allan and his brother John and a number of other Navy officers at a party just before Christmas 1943 (click to enlarge).

Allan was seldom home; there was a war going on. For months at a time, Mary did not hear from him and had not the slightest assurance that he was safe.(31)

Here is an airbrushed photo of Mary, nearly 27 years old, in 1944, year 3 of the war. By then Mary was not holding up under the continuous stress. Sending cheery letters to Allan on a very regular basis and knowing that all correspondence was routinely censored was trying.(32)

War news in Life magazine and in the newsreels was gripping. However, that too was censored. And tardy.

Most everyone involved the Pacific theater of the war dreaded the "final push": Even as the enemy empire dwindled, its borders retracting closer and closer to the Japanese home islands, the prospect of a looming actual invasion of those islands of determined resistance was very frightening. The realistic expectation that the invasion might last an entire bloody year led to a state of panic back home.(33)

THIS ENDS THIS PART OF THE NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF MARY ANNA HAWES (EDMANDS ASHBROOK).

There is the rest of her biography, which will be added later. In the meantime, here are the vital statistics for Mary Anna Hawes (Edmands Ashbrook).