Part 14

Mary and the children stayed for a time with my parents at their home in Phoenix. While they enjoyed having her and their grand children there with them, Mary was happy to know we'd soon have our own place again. We were to live on and manage a 640 acre farm near Tolleson, ten miles west of downtown Phoenix.

Two new houses were available at the Tolleson farm, neither of which had been lived in. We were to occupy the two bedroom home, with the three bedroom reserved for the owner, a French refugee who escaped Europe with a fortune in cash, jewels and securities as the Nazis overran France. He made his way originally to Mexico, and from there had come to the United States. As a political refugee he was allowed to invest here in the states, and had purchased a farm in Connecticut as well as the acreage in Tolleson.

The French farm owner had contracted with Western Farm Management Co. to run the place, which just happened to be one of the best acreages in the entire Salt River Valley. Once my family was moved to the Tolleson farm I greatly enjoyed my work. The land was extremely productive responding with bountiful crops and good returns.

The owner finally decided he was not going to spend any time on that farm and said we could move into the larger three bedroom home. John had been born shortly before, so it all worked out for the best as far as we were concerned. The bigger house gave us enough room for our family as well as for visitors, friends and relatives that came to visit. This was a time in our lives when we felt we were making progress, living well, and enjoying a life best suited to my abilities and the desire I had to pour myself into agricultural management.

By now our nation had come fully to grips with the war. It permeated life in every way, from food and gasoline rationing to saving every piece of scrap of metal and worn out rubber. Standing in lines at rationing board offices became a way of life. Day and night aircraft from Luke Field and other Valley bases wheeled combat training circles across hot desert skies. Trucks loaded with German prisoners drove out almost daily under heavy guard to clean canals and ditches. An Italian prisoner of war escaped from a nearby POW camp and hid in the tall maize in our fields for several days before being recaptured.

Mary's younger sister Charlotte was an Army Air Force nurse based at Luke Field. She dated a young flight instructor, Lieutenant Leonard I. Wiehrdt. Leonard felt sure he was going to walk in and find Charlotte's sisters and their husbands fighting and quarreling, but he never did. Mary's brother Hubble worked as a civilian engineer at the sanitary facilities plant at Luke Field, and her father William Sherwood worked as a boilerman in the heating plant on base.

Levi Pace, one of Mary's cousins, was a flying officer stationed at Luke. He had trouble finding quarters for his family on base so he and his wife Wanda and their new baby Bonnie moved in with us. Levi's father and three brothers were all servicemen, and our farm home became a crossroads stop for visiting relatives. We were a long way from our nearest neighbors, so no one complained if we were noisy. Mary's meals of plentiful fresh meat, butter, eggs, milk, potatoes and vegetables filled up a lot of "hungry for home cooking" soldiers and airmen during those busy and often hectic years of the war.