Herrin (Illinois) Couple Remembers the War

Juanita Ramsey was standing at the door of her parents' house on the Herrin-Colp Road when she got the telegram. Before she could open it, the delivery boy told her the contents. "If you're husband's a soldier, he's missing in action," he said.

Sixty-three years later, Juanita's eyes shine and her voice trembles as she describes the day. She and Walt were married in September, 1942, and not long after he volunteered to join the war effort. "He always wanted to fly, even when he was a little boy," she said.

Even though he was married and living in St. Louis, away from his family in Herrin, when Walt decided to join up, he had to get his father to sign his paperwork. "You couldn't volunteer at 18 then," he said. "A year later, we were drafting 18-year-olds."

The Ramseys met their senior year in high school though both had spent their lives in Herrin. "He didn't know my name, but he knew who I was. When they would come to town, they'd drive by our house and I was the girl who was always climbing the tree, or wearing roller skates or walking around on stilts," she said. "He'd tell his family he was going to marry me someday and his older brother would tell him he was going to marry me first."

Then, when they were seniors, Juanita noticed him. "He had won an award and at the ceremony, I thought, 'Well, he's cute.' So I sent him a congratulatory note. And then later that day he was in my study hall. He had never come to study hall before."

After that, it was love at first site, she said. They graduated and married in September.

Both had been part of President Franklin Roosevelt's alphabet soup to end the Great Depression, the New Deal. In this case, Herrin High School offered vocational training and small paychecks for odd jobs through the National Youth Administration. Walt learned to operate a machine lathe and Juanita learned to operate a drill press and to read blueprints.

To find a job after they were married, Walt moved the coupled to St. Louis, but as the war drew on, he told his new wife what he wanted to do and she agreed. He volunteered for the Army Ari Corps and she went home to live with her parents.

"Pretty soon they came through recruiting girls to go to riveting school and they would guarantee them a job when they were done," Juanita said. "My sister wanted to go and I decided to go along. At first, they told me I was too small. At 18, I only weighed 95 pounds."

But Juanita convinced them that she could do it and went to school. Then, the graduates were offered jobs en masse at the River Rouge Ford Plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan making planes for the war effort. "They had these rooms, not even apartments really, kind of like a barracks, for us to live in and we had a parlor for entertainment. I even did some entertaining. I used to tap dance," she said.

The plant made C-24 cargo planes and B....bombers. "One day we were working along and someone came in asking if there was anyone who could operate a drill press, so of course, I said I could. Then, a few days later, while I was working on the drill press, they came and asked if anyone could read blueprints and I volunteered again."

Her ability to read blueprints meant that Juanita was assigned the task of assembling landing lights for the planes. But after a few months, she was missing her new husband and used the money she had save to join him in Texas where he was undergoing flight training to be a flight engineer.

"I guess I should have stayed there and save up a nest egg. That's what a lot of women were doing, but I wanted to be with him," she said, smiling at the man she has been married to for 65 years this month.

Eventually, Walt's training ended and he was deployed to the war. He sent Juanita home to Herrin to stay with her parents. So, it was in that house on West Herrin Street that she answered the door just a few months later to hear the news. Walt, who was a week shy of his 21^st birthday, had been shot down and was MIA.

"My mother was hysterical and I was numb. I think I just went outside and wrapped my arms around a big tree," she said.

It was not until much later that Juanita would find that Walt was in the machine gun turret of the B-17 bomber when the plane was shot down. Walt's unit was stationed in Italy and flying bombing runs to Munich. They were near Zagreb, Yugoslavia, when they were hit.

"He didn't know at first that they had been hit, until he started seeing the parachutes of the other crew members. And, the hit had knocked out the planes electrical system so Walt's efforts to get out of the turret failed," she said.

'Then, one of the other crew, Jake helped Walt get it open. He was standing there with his parachute on but didn't want to jump. See, Jake was Jewish and he said, 'If the Germans find me, they'll kill me'. So Walt pushed him out of the plane."

What Walt didn't take the time to explain to Jake was that he would have died anyway if the plane went down, and it almost happened anyway. As Jake left the plane, it exploded. Walt was thrown clear.

"I don't remember anything after that. I don't remember pulling the ring (to activate his parachute). I remember hitting the ground," he said.

"I tell him God had plans for his life," Juanita added.

In Yugoslavia, Communists helped the American soldiers get back to the Allies, but it was slow going and in Herrin, Juanita knew nothing about what was going on. Six weeks later, the telegram delivery boy was back at her door.

"My mom didn't drive much in those days, but she could drive enough to get us out to the country to his parents' place," Juanita said. "They saw the car coming and knew we were bringing news about him. By the time we got to the driveway, the whole family was gathered around. I still think it was one of the best days of my life when I got to tell his parents he was safe."

A model airplane, a B-17, hangs in the corner of the Ramsey's living room, close to the cross stitch Air Force emblem Juanita made to denote Walt's years in the service. She saw much of the world while he was in the service, living in Japan and on Air Force bases around the world for portions of the next three decades, but eventually they came home to that house on West Herrin Street. And the region is home to their youngest children, the pair that Walt refers to his as his nuclear children.

"When I was younger, they didn't think I could have children," Juanita said. "But then we had our oldest son and then a couple years later, another. When we had the third boy, I decided we were done. I just wasn't going to have a daughter."

And, in the meantime, Walt as still flying for what had become the U.S. Air Force. "At one point, they were observing nuclear testing and flew too close to the test," she said. "When they got back, they told them that based on the radiation detection necklaces, they were lucky to be alive and they would never have any more children."

The experts were wrong, Walt said. They had two more children, a boy, Jim, who lives in Herrin, and finally, the daughter Juanita had always wanted, Ginger, who now lives in St. Louis. But, Juanita said, the nuclear children certainly have shown the effects of their father's exposure.

When Jim was having his wisdom teeth removed, the dentist said the roots were intertwined, like someone who had been exposed to radiation. And, as Ginger entered adulthood, she had a series of unexplained kidney problems until tests showed that she had three kidneys, one lying directly on top of the other, Juanita said. The issues were easily resolved once they were identified, but Juanita believes they show a direct correlation to Walt's service record.

As, she believes, does his current health. He has had several health problems, including a bad back. The back problem she thinks can be traced directly to his years flying "Old Shake" as some of the aircraft were affectionately dubbed.

Juanita said another thing she has discovered over the years is a firm belief in miracles. From Walt's escape from the plane to finding a bus pass when she desperately needed it, Juanita believes that God offers miracles great and small to those who are looking for them.

And, she believes, we should never be too quick to judge what we can and can't do, or what we might be good at. "When I graduated from high school, there were really only two career options for women, teaching and nursing, I couldn't image myself doing either. But I spent the last 40 years as a Sunday school teacher and I love it. I think I could have been a good teacher. And, when we came back to Herrin, it was to care for our parents as they got older.

"After we lost them, I cared for my elderly aunt until Walt started getting sick. Then, she went to live with her daughter because she told me I couldn't take care of her and him too. So I guess I've always been a caregiver too," she said.

Of course, at 83, they get some help from their son Jim who lives in Herrin and are hoping to have a granddaughter come live with them next fall when she attends SIU. "I told her it would be good to have her here, but she has to have her own car to drive to Carbondale."