(This story was published in the Gunnison Valley Gazette July 5, 2007)Four Stars In The Window
Some people remember when they first heard the news that Japan had attacked the U.S. Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, drawing the United States into World War II. Laree Hammond was just nine years old then. She remembers more the day in 1945 when word reached Mayfield, Utah that the war was over. "I was home," Hammond said, "and I can remember my brother Gordon went out and got in his car, and up and down the road he went, honking the horn, and then everybody started. It was quite a celebration." Gordon, perhaps more than most, had a reason to celebrate.
In 1941, Mayfield was as quiet as it is today. Like most Americans, folks there were still trying to climb out of the grip of the Great Depression. "Nobody had much to eat, or much of anything, but we didn't know the difference. We were living fine," Hammond said.
But the men and women author Tom Brokaw defines as "The Greatest Generation" were about to be tested even further, and hardly anyone would be unaffected four years later. America's young men went to war- many of Mayfield's young men among them. "Everybody that was fit enough to go, they took them," Hammond said. They took four of Dean and Cora Anderson's five boys.
Dean and Cora raised seven children in Mayfield, including their youngest, Laree. Maurice was the oldest, followed by Matilda, Roy, Robbie, Gordon, and Edward. Another son, Linford, died as an infant. After the war began, Roy, Robbie, Gordon, and Edward were all drafted into the service. Maurice volunteered but was refused for medical reasons. The four servicemen survived the war but, in a cruel twist of fate, they'd gather with the rest of the family to bury Maurice in Mayfield in January, 1943, while the war raged on.
Roy was the second oldest boy, and just younger than sister Matilda. A Corporal in the Army Air Corp, he spent the war in England fueling and maintaining B-17 Bombers. He often felt like he wasn't doing his fair share since he wasn't on the front lines. But the fuel trucks he drove must have been tempting enemy targets.
He told stories of counting the bombers as they returned from missions. "He said that for each plane that's gone, that's ten of our boys that will never come back," Hammond said. "That's the thing that bothered him so much." Seeing the Statue of Liberty on his return was one of Roy's finest memories.
Robbie was an Army rifleman, called to duty in the Philippines and New Guinea. "He never talked much about his experiences there," Hammond said. Late in the war he was a cook at one of the bases in that area, and enjoyed it. "It was better than the front lines," Hammond said. He came home with a case of Malaria and fought it for years. Often, the attacks were bad enough to land him in the hospital.
Gordon was also an Army man. He was there as the Allied Forces landed in Italy and fought their way into France. He was wounded, patched up, and sent back to battle twice. The third time was different. Hammond still remembers when her parents got the telegram, the one that read "we regretfully report that your son has been critically wounded in action." There were no further details.
The family spent several frantic days trying to find out more. They didn't have a phone at the house, so Dean would go to the old Thompson Market in Mayfield every day to use theirs, trying to contact the Red Cross or anyone that may be able to provide information about his son. After nearly two weeks, they found out that Gordon was alive.
A month later he was back in the states, and arrived in Mayfield a couple months after that on leave, but he had to report for duty again before being discharged. The bullet that nearly killed him went through his body and lodged in his belt. He carried the slug on his keychain. "But he never did want to talk much about what had happened," Hammond said.
Edward was the youngest of the boys and just 15 when the war began. Eventually drafted into the Army, he was on a troop ship in the Pacific when the war ended. "They sent him into Japan and he talked about the devestation that our bombers had done to the cities," Hammond said. "They helped clean that up. He said the Japanese people were nice but it was an uncomfortable feeling being there."
That brings us back to Hammond's oldest brother, Maurice Anderson, who tried several times to sign up for military service but was refused due to a bad foot. "He wanted to go so bad," Hammond said. "He felt like he should be there with his brothers."
Prior to the war, Maurice served in the Civilian Conservation Corp, a Federal program that provided employment for young, single men in an effort to ease the effects of the Depression. During his stint with the CCC, he worked on several projects, most notably the tunnel at Zion National Park. He went on to find employment as a railroad worker.
On January 19, 1943, Maurice was working near Thistle, Utah, when he was hit by a train and killed. "It was a troop train, hauling soldiers, that hit him," Hammond said. Brothers Roy, Robbie, and Gordon- already in the service at the time- were granted emergency leave to attend his funeral and burial in Mayfield.
Laree was the youngest in the family, just nine years old when the war began. Her older sister, Matilda Anderson Jensen, had married Calvin Jensen and settled in Mayfield. They worried about their brothers and helped out their even more worried parents. They wrote letters to the boys, and they'd go to the mail every day, hoping for good news. "It took so long for us to get letters, and for our letters to get to them," Hammond said.
Any news about the war was hard to come by, much of it gathered at movie theaters. "We used to go to the shows when we were kids and they would show this war newsreel" Hammond said. "They'd show the boys fighting, and some of the things that were going on over there. That was our first news of what went on."
During the war, folks throughout the country displayed flags in their windows with a star for each family serviceman. Hammond says it seems like every house in Mayfield had at least one star, while the Anderson's had four. "It made me feel proud of my brothers," she said.
Hammond's granddaughter, Amelia Hammond, says the stars had meaning. "The blue stars mean they're on active duty," she said, "and the gold stars are for soldiers who have been killed."
Laree married Lowell Hammond and settled in Fayette, Utah, where they raised four boys- and where Laree still lives today. She says her brothers handled their lives "pretty well" after the war. "They came home and partied hearty for about five years," Hammond says. "Then they all settled down."
Those brothers have all passed away now, each laid to rest on the gentle slope at the peaceful Mayfield Cemetery, where they gathered to bury Maurice in 1943, when their own futures were so uncertain.
Thanks to Laree, Julie, and Amelia Hammond for their cooperation and assistance with this story.
(Story by Mitch Peterson, Gunnison Valley Gazette)
