Newsletter January 2002
Arbuthnot(t) Family Association
USA Branch
Officers of the USA Arbuthnot Family
Association: As elected in Omaha, NE October, 2000
Chairman: Allan Arbuthnot [email protected]
Chair-elect: Caroline Burtt
Vice-Chairman: Russell Parker
Treasurer: John Orsborn, [email protected]
Secretary: Phyllis Jones, [email protected]
Newsletter editor: Vickie Jones, [email protected]
Genealogist: Betsy Henry, [email protected]
Website Administrator: Lani Erie
A word of Warning:
According to the by-laws passed in Omaha in October
2000, no newsletters will go out to members after a member is six (6) months in arrears.
As a courtesy, we are sending this newsletter out to members who have paid through
2000. To renew your dues, please contact John Orsborn, Association treasurer.
He will contact Vickie when dues have been received. The officers' addresses are on
the first page of this newsletter. Please remember to stay current; dues are due
every January.
This is your newsletter! Send us any information
you want included: marriages, promotions or fun stories of extended family. We will
print as many as space allows.
A Word of Thrift:
Since it is in our Scottish heritage to save money
wherever possible and the internet seems to be "the communication tool of the
future" I was wondering if anyone would be interested in receiving the newsletter
electronically, in lieu of the "snail-mail" system. A blind listing will
be established for this purpose. Please respond to your Newsletter Editor,
Vickie Jones. Her email and snail mail addresses are at the front of this
newsletter. If e-mailing, please use "electronic newsletter" as the
subject. (I tend to delete things if I don't recognize the sender!) Thanks Again!
In Memoriam
The deaths of several members have recently come to our
attention. We extend our sympathy to the families of these Arbuthnots:
Elizabeth “Betty” Knake of Pittsburgh, PA, Table 2; Mother of Rachel Haines;
29 Jan 2024 – 25 Nov 2023
James Brader Arbuthnot
of Orange, CA, Table 5; Father of Joan Kelsey Arbuthnot;
8 June 2024 – 21 April 2024
Verda Henderson Stiles
of WA and OR, Table 1; 31
Dec 1917 – 9 Sept 2023
Raymond J. Arbuthnot of Upland, CA, Table 1; 20 Nov 2023 – 20 Sept 2023 Husband of Mary Kay Damsen, Father of Gay Garringer and Nancy Herrington; Past vice chairman of USA Arbuthnot Family Association
Ruth Ballou Kramer of Etna, CA, Table 1;Daughter of Melissa Arbuthnot Ballou; Died one day before her 95th birthday, 28 Sept 2023 – 27 Sept 2023
John D. Fansher of
Arvada, CO; 22 July 2023 – Nov 2001; Husband of Phyllis Arbuthnot Fansher, Table 1
THANKS
We wish to thank
NW Life & Times, 1732 Iowa Street Bellingham, Washington, 98226 for permission to
reprint the following article as published in the November 2000 issue. Special
thanks to Dyas A. Lawson for the great article.
"Just Doing Our Jobs"
Women’s Army Corps Pioneered during World War II
by Dyas A. Lawson of NW•Life &Times
Had the gesture been in vogue 55 years ago, Marjorie
(Byram) Russo would have slammed her fist into the air and shouted, “Yessss!”
when the American military opened its doors to women.
Other than nursing and telephony personnel, “there
had never been women in the military before World War II. I immediately wanted to join the
Army because they were sending women overseas and the other branches weren’t,”
the Mount Vernon resident recalls. “In the Army, at least you had that possibility.
We women felt as responsible to contribute to the war effort as the men did.” Many
did so by performing “men’s” jobs at home; others joined the military.
Since the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps was new,
many of its tenets and systems were of the wing-it variety. Women who enlisted could be
married but could have no dependents; men, who had a much higher chance of dying in
wartime, had no such restriction. Officers in both the WAAC, later the WAC, and the
regular Army were unsure how to handle this new, emerging branch, but did the best they
could. “The pattern was set at this time for the women’s army,” Russo
comments. “Because they had a group of compliant women, there were no problems. In
those days, we didn’t agitate.”
Early female recruits were sent to former cavalry post
Ft. Des Moines, Iowa, for training. The first women there slept in the stables, Russo
says. They learned marching in formation and other military necessities before they were
assigned, much as has always been done. That October 1942, she was part of a select
company sent to Allied headquarters in Algiers. Forming their own self-sufficient unit,
the women were chosen for their ability to do office work using heavy manual typewriters.
Off to the front Russo’s company shipped out from
the Brooklyn Navy Yards on B Deck of the Santa Paula and were segregated from male troops
on the ship. She recalls the young women carried their own barracks bags, which was a
hardship for the smaller girls, since the bags often weighed 50 pounds or more. That,
Russo smiles, was another instance where the male planners missed some details with the
women’s units.
“They were making this up as they went,”
she reflects. “Often, they weren’t too sure what to do with us and the plans
were not always good, but we managed. We all had a strong sense of common purpose.”
Russo recalls that the ship’s life jackets were a
horrible trial. They’d never been cleaned, reeked of grease, diesel and accumulated
dirt, and had to be worn constantly. Russo’s face crinkles in sympathy when she
describes how difficult this was for some of the more sensitive women. And, since this was
a troop ship and attacks did occur, the jackets were a nasty necessity.
The trip had its diversions, though, like seeing the
Rock of Gibraltar by moonlight and the Algerian countryside by train. That trip was an
eye-opener: “Watching through the windows as Arabs farmed with a one-gauge plow
pulled by a cow or horse, and little old women emerged from ravines with sticks for fires
— then we got homesick because we realized we were really away from home.”
The women stayed in a convent for a time, then were
quartered in an apartment complex near headquarters. While in Algiers, air-raid sirens
sounded constantly. She saw, during the last German air raid, an aviator jump from his
plane into the water, and also saw a munitions ship blow up. Her eyes still fill with
tears when she tells of these all-too-typical war horrors. “We always wondered if
that aviator made it. Some of this stuff still bothers me,” she admits.
A close call Initially, the women worked seven days
a week, until the commander, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, realized they needed a day off.
Then they played tourist and hit the beaches, “the kinds of things young people will
do.” It snowed once — a rare event, but welcome to the Twin Falls, Idaho, girl
— and dances, picnics, shopping trips and other entertainment helped keep the troops
cheerful.
Russo recalls clearly the troops’ bout with
medical experimentation — something called atabrine. These were tablets “the
English had worked up,” supposed to cure or prevent malaria; however, they were
untested. “They made half the troops there and on the front lines sick. If the
Germans had known that, they could have overrun us easily,” Russo avers.
In May 1943, the Germans were defeated. After a year and a half in Algiers, Russo and her company were sent to join the Fifth Army on its drive north along Italy’s western coast. Life wasn’t so cushy here; the troops, women included, lived and worked in tents. Sometimes, this had its benefits, as “on nice, warm days we’d move the typewriters out under the olive trees to work.”
Other times, just the logistics of personal hygiene were difficult for the integrated troops. The women had the showers each noon, while the men stayed away. “We managed,” Russo says. The women moved eight times on the way north to Florence. Less entertainment was available and they were closer to the front lines. Moving through Italian territory, they found the residents friendly, accommodating and destitute. “All we had to share came out of the PX,” Russo recalls, “but it was more than they had.” Hard mountain work.
She was most impressed by two things in the Italian
countryside: the churches — “they were all cathedrals. There were no little
neighborhood churches like we’re used to” — and the villages’
locations. “They were on top of hills, built up high long ago so nobody could overrun
them,” she says.
Though a lot of work was involved — an army runs
on its paperwork almost as much as on its stomachs — the young people still found
time to enjoy themselves. On the coast they were always near a beach, and Russo and her
sergeant took advantage of frequent swims. They had fresh eggs and fruit sometimes,
purchased from people in the country — a real treat after steady army rations.
In 1944, when the Battle of the Bulge occurred, Russo was home on leave because the war in Italy was stalemated. The Germans had dug into the mountains and regular Army troops couldn’t get them out. When she returned, she shared a ship with the 10th Mountain Division, which specialized in mountain maneuvers. “They rousted the Germans out, but we lost some good champion skiers,” Russo recalls, her eyes again moistening. “It was pretty rough.”
But the next thing they knew, Europe had peace.
Russo was one of three women who spent “a good share of a day and an evening typing
up the peace treaty with Germany,” she recalls, though she had no sense of being part
of a pivotal historical moment. “At the time, it was just work we had to get
done,” she says. “That sense of history doesn’t come until later.”
Perhaps some of it arrived with Russo’s Bronze Star, awarded to her and a few other
WACs for meritorious service during the war.
Russo and her fellow WACs waited for months to go home.
Massive numbers of male troops had to be sent home; others were mustered to the
still-active Pacific Theater. Right place, right time
While waiting, she attended the University of
Florence, from which she has a certificate, spent a week on the French Riviera, took in a
horse race and toured the palace in Monaco, as well as spending three days in Milan.
“We got to do things you don’t get to do when you’re just traveling,”
she says.
Russo seems to have had a talent for being in the right
place at the right time. She missed a bus and was wondering how to get back when she
hitched a ride with some fellows in a Jeep. Their officers needed someone with good
clerical skills to accompany them to Innsbruck, Austria, where some hospitalized German
soldiers were being interviewed, and on to Munich, Germany, where the Nazi horror began.
“Well, why can’t I go?” Russo asked. So she went. What most impressed the southern Idaho girl was the treelike over Brenner Pass — it was a surprise to realize that mountains could be so tall that trees couldn’t grow on them.
Eventually, Russo and the others made it home and,
like all returning troops, got on with their lives after this monumental experience.
She’s had plenty of time to reflect on it over the years. “I think we (WACs) had
a strong sense of our contribution, certainly stronger than the public does at large. The
regular Army men were so glad to have us because we could do the office work, and most of
them were stuck with farm boys who didn’t have any experience doing that kind of
work. It took the men a while to get used to us, but when they learned we could do a
multitude of things and weren’t fussy, they were pleased. Even when soldiers came
back from the field, they were so happy to see someone who could speak English. We felt
entirely welcome and part of the team.”
SPOTLIGHT ON TABLE 58 -- Compiled by
Betsy Henry
John Arbuthnot is thought to have been the immigrant
ancestor of this group. He was a political prisoner deported from Scotland after the
1746 Battle of Culloden. He went first to Maryland and then to Virginia, settling in King
William County. He married Dorothea Jones and they had a son, also named John. The third
generation of this family settled in Indiana. Descendants who are current and former
members of the AFA include:
Clarence F. “Lefty” Arbuthnot, IN, former treasurer of AFA
Terry Ashby, IL
Sherry Carlile, MO
Starla Arbuthnot Jeppson, ID
Cynthia Arbuthnot King, TX
Jo Ann Arbuthnot Mardis, IN
Lee, Michael, and Scot Mardis, IN
Diana Mathes, IN
Clarence Moke, IN
Olive Shoulders, IN
Susan Arbuthnot Tabor, KY
Jack Tevault, IN
Richard Tevault, WA