The Longest Ride – Part I: A Man with a Mission

The longest UNRRA livestock trip of which I am aware lasted five months. The 32 seagoing cowboys who signed on to the S. S. Carroll Victory in November 1946 were aware that the ship would take horses to Greece and then go down to South Africa to pick up more horses to take back to Greece, and possibly repeat the trip to South Africa, which it did. I have a number of accounts of this trip and will share their stories over the next several posts.

S. S. Carroll Victory, photo © Charles Lord

Charlie Lord signed on to the Carroll Victory at age 26 with a mission in mind: documenting the trip photographically for publication. Lord had spent three-and-a-half years in Civilian Public Service during World War II, serving part of that time at the Philadelphia State Mental Hospital at Byberry. In May 1946, Life magazine had published some of Lord’s photographs, taken on the sly, of the horrendous conditions and treatment of the mentally ill. These images shocked the country and gave impetus to a reform movement for more humane treatment of mentally ill persons. Lord knew that UNRRA seagoing cowboy crews were often interracial, following the success of the experimental interracial crew during the summer; so this time around, in the age of Jim Crow, Lord hoped to capture a story of an interracial seagoing cowboy crew working together in harmony.

Lord wrote a postcard to his wife September 26 after arriving at the Naval Landing Building in Norfolk, Virginia, to get his seaman’s papers. What he saw in Virginia troubled him. “The segregation burns me up,” he told her. “It cuts my heart every time I step on a street-car, bus, or ferry and see a little sign ‘Segregation of Races,’ a synopsis of laws of Va. as effective June 11, 1946 etc. Every motorman is a deputy sheriff in case of trouble!”

A maritime strike kept Lord waiting a month in Newport News, Virginia, before he was able to sign on to a ship. He took advantage of the time to take photos of the Terminal Stockyards where the livestock were collected, inspected, and culled and photos of the Brethren Service Center office.

Horses awaiting shipment at the Terminal Stockyards in Newport News, Virginia, October 1946. Photo © Charles Lord.

“I talked with the fellows at BSC office about the article for Life,” he told his wife. “They are quite interested and will give me full cooperation. They think UNRRA will too.”

Seagoing cowboys in line for assignment to a ship, October 1946. Photo © Charles Lord.

When shipping resumed, Lord had a choice between a ship headed for Poland or a ship going to Greece and South Africa – a choice he had to make before knowing the racial makeup of the cowboy crew. He chose the longer trip. “I hope it is the wisest course,” he told his wife. “It will lose much of its significance if the interracial angle falls through. . . . I should be able to get 2 or 3 stories out of the trip, one using pictures only of Greece and back for a typical trip, one using all pictures for an amazing trip and a very non-typical one, and one emphasizing the interracial aspect for Look or Ebony perhaps. It seems an opportunity impossible to pass up. It is almost the first and last time a person can make such a trip without paying a lot for it probably.”

From the album of fellow cowboy and photographer Paul Beard, courtesy of Heifer International.

“This trip means endless photographic opportunities, but alas, that means endless film. . . . I will be in Greece 3 different times for several days each time, at two ports in Africa with a chance to spend a few days ashore, each time we’ll go through Suez Canal, along Egypt, and when loaded, we may even go around Cape Horn and up western coast clear around Africa to save horses from the terrific heat of the Suez. The water temperature itself gets up to 90º they say.”

Next post: Life on board

An Amish Seagoing Cowboy’s Story: Clarence Stutzman

Clarence Stutzman grew up in an Amish community in Hutchinson, Kansas. When I interviewed him in 2015, he said, “It’s still a mystery to me how my mother let me go.” When he read of the need for seagoing cowboys in the Mennonite Weekly, he thought, I can do that.

“I was a light-weight guy at the time—17 and 120 pounds. I remember my mom saying, ‘Aw, you’re too small, they wouldn’t take a child like you.’ I went ahead and sent in a letter. The first thing I knew, I get a telegram to report to New Windsor, Maryland. No questions asked. No physical, no interview, no nothing.”

It was a big thing in those days to get a telegram. “I guess my folks were so shocked they didn’t know what to do.” He said they didn’t want to go against MCC, so they agreed and bought him a train ticket.

On arrival at the Brethren Service Center in New Windsor, Maryland, where the seagoing cowboy office was located, he sorted clothing and did other relief jobs for a couple of weeks the end of December 1945 until his ship was ready to go.

On the campus of the Brethren Service Center, former Blue Ridge College. The old gym on the right housed much of the relief activity. Photo credit: Howard Lord.

There he learned that he had to be 18 to get a seaman’s card at that time. Fortunately for him, his birthday was December 31, as his orders were to report to his ship January 1st. He made it on board the S. S. Virginian when it departed from Baltimore for Poland January 4, 1946.

The cowboy crew on Clarence Stutzman’s ship, the S. S. Virginian, January 1946. Photo courtesy of Alpheus Rohrer.

“The trip was life-changing for me,” Stutzman says. His experiences mirrored those of other cowboys who went to Poland. Floating mines in European waters, a tour by UNRRA in the back of an army truck that took them to former concentration camps and battlefields, acquiring souvenirs. He bought a songbook from an old peddler scavenged from the abandoned Danzig Mennonite Church .

The Danzig Mennonite Church destroyed in World War II. Photo credit: Stutzman’s shipmate Richard Rush.

Title page of a songbook retrieved from the Danzig Mennonite Church by seagoing cowboy Levi Miller, summer 1946. The title means “The Day Begins.” Photo by Peggy Reiff Miller.

One souvenir in particular initiated the change in Stutzman’s life—a belt buckle that he cut off a dead German soldier’s uniform. Being Amish, he knew the German language. The buckle bore the words “Gott mit uns,” meaning “God is with us.” Having been taught all his life by his Amish and Christian upbringing not to fight, this hit him hard. 

Belt buckle of a German soldier. Peggy Reiff Miller collection, from the
family of cowboy Milton Lohr.

“We were thinking of the Germans as very heathen for what they were doing—not that there might be Christians on the other end of the fighting. When I saw that this was a Christian fellow and he was killed on the battlefield, how Christians were fighting each other, it put me into a real paradox theologically.”

Unlike Amish cowboys Cletus Schrock and Lores Steury who were excommunicated for taking their trips, Stutzman was welcomed home and treated well. His theological questioning had begun, however. About four years later, he left the Amish church and joined a Mennonite congregation. His obituary says he lived an “incredibly full life….He was full of ideas, grand plans, ingenuity, wonderlust [sic], and eternal optimism.” He traveled the world and had two patents.

“My experiences were real wide,” he told me. And it all started with a cattle boat trip to Poland.

Extra post: “The Most Important Gift Catalog in the World®”

Have you ever been “given” a cow, or a goat, or a flock of chicks for Christmas, in name only, with the money going to Heifer International for them to provide that animal, along with training, to help lift a family out of poverty? Or have you ever received Heifer’s “Most Important Gift Catalog in the World®” at holiday time from which you can select such a gift for someone?

This catalog has been published for many years now. I’m currently working on a book about the first decade of the Heifer Project, and I’ve just come across a story which shows this idea was alive already in 1946, four years after Heifer was founded in 1942.

Here’s the story in the words of Thurl Metzger, then serving as volunteer administrative assistant in the Heifer Project office at the Brethren Service Center in New Windsor, Maryland, through Civilian Public Service:

It began several weeks ago at a farewell party given for Wayne and Wilma Buckle. They are a couple who gave a year of service at the Center here and helped to start this plant in operation. They requested no gifts; instead, an offering was taken in honor of their service for a donation to the Heifer Project. This amounted to some thirty-odd dollars and at a later meeting the group decided to complete the amount necessary to purchase a heifer — the “Wilma Buckle Memorial Heifer”. A scheme was worked out for inter-department competition. Any department could use whatever means they chose, consistent with the ten commandments, but each was to keep the amount collected a secret. The climax of a final party was the heifer auctioning. A barefooted lassie from deep in the hills of Virginia led in the heifer whose udder looked surprisingly like a base-ball glove and whose four legs had shoes on. Each department was authorized to bid the amount which it had raised. The bidding was lively; the excitement was high and the cow performed well. When the bidding was over and the addition completed, a total of $512.30 had been contributed [enough for two heifers]. The money was given by the employees of the Service Center, many of whom are volunteer workers. There are now about 125 people here.

Still trying to think of an appropriate gift for that hard-to-buy person on your list? Heifer’s catalog is now also online. Choose your animal here.

Happy Holidays!

 

A Seagoing Cowboy Romance

Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to relate a seagoing cowboy romance story. In June 1945, two programs of the Brethren Service Committee pulled together a farm boy from Indiana and a college girl from California.

As World War II came to an end in Europe, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) laid plans for shipping livestock that June to help Europe’s farmers rebuild. When the Brethren Service Committee (BSC) agreed to recruit the cattle tenders UNRRA would need, a call went out through the church and to its college campuses for men to serve. Manchester College freshman Earl Holderman responded and found himself on the way to the Brethren Service Center in New Windsor, Maryland, arriving June 13.

The Brethren Service Center, a former college campus purchased by the Brethren Service Committee the previous September, was humming away as a collection center for clothing and other war relief activities. LaVerne [CA] College juniors Kathryn Root and Bernice Brandt responded to a call for short-term volunteers to work at the center on their summer vacation. After a three-and-a-half day cross-country train ride, Katy and Bernie arrived at the Brethren Service Center Saturday, June 9.

Windsor Hall at the Brethren Service Center served as the girls’ dormitory. Photo: Ken West.

“Our part of the work is carried on in a huge room on the 1st floor of the Girl’s Dorm,” says Katy in her journal Monday, June 11. “There are boxes stacked clear to the ceiling to be opened. It is interesting work – sorting, mending, labeling, baling, stenciling, cutting out new materials, receiving made up garments. We feel happy about each bale that is finished.”

Bernie and Katy outside their dormitory. Photo courtesy of Kate Holderman.

Her happiness scale perked up a little more that Wednesday. She notes, “The fellas who are to tend the shipload of cattle going overseas are beginning to arrive….When we came down at 5:00 to eat supper, the guys from Indiana were sitting on the steps. They looked at us & we sorta looked at them – that was all there was to it. After supper, we had a good time getting acquainted with them….Earl Holderman and Gordon Keever were the two most interesting.”

The next day, Katy notes, “Well —- I got better acquainted with one of the cattle fellas this evening. After supper, Earl Holderman suggested that Bernie and I show him around – so we did….He asked me to go to the skating party with him the next night.”

Earl Holderman at the Brethren Service Center. Photo courtesy of Kate Holderman.

After the skating party, “Earl and I sat on the gym steps for quite a while and talked. He’s surely nice. He will be 21 in July. He is about 5’9″ tall – has a good build – nice brown eyes, brown hair, a nice big grin and a wonderful personality. He is very well mannered. He stayed out of school for 2 years between High School and College and farmed with his Dad. I surely wish he wasn’t leaving here so soon. We’ll hardly have time to get acquainted before they leave.”

It was time enough, however, for Earl to know Katy was the girl he wanted. After only four days, Katy notes on Sunday, “He wanted me to take his class ring – I didn’t know whether to or not. It’s all happened so quickly that I’ve hardly had time to catch my breath. I wish I knew more about him – Indiana is such a long way from California.”

Earl was not to be daunted by her refusal. His attentions continued up to the night before he was to leave to report to his ship. Eight days after they met, Katie says, “I hated like fury to have tonight end….I’m so afraid he might not get back from overseas before we go home. He gave me his ring and this time I took it. Hope I’m not making a mistake!”

Earl was able to get back to the Center for a night before his ship left. “He wants me to be his girl for always,” Katy says. “I just didn’t know what to say.”

Pursued by one of the Civilian Public Service guys stationed at the Center while Earl was gone, Katy stayed true to her commitment to Earl, even with doubts along the way. Letters flowed both directions. Katy told of the goings on at the Center and a whirlwind weekend with the girls to New York City, full of Broadway shows, automat food, and shopping; and being awakened Saturday morning by an “awful crash,” later seeing the Empire State Building on fire “way up towards the top” where a plane had crashed into it.

Earl wrote of being seasick the second day out, “feeding the fish” more than 21 times. But he got his sea legs and wrote about seeing the ancient ruins around Athens, then Salonica; of the dangerous waters around Greece they were in where ships were sunk by mines the week before; and of seeing a volcano erupt off the coast of Naples.

Some of Earl’s crew at the Acropolis. Photo courtesy of Kate Holderman.

Earl’s ship got back the beginning of Katy’s last week at the Center. Before he left, he had asked her to join his family at their cabin on Lake Syracuse for a week if he got back in time. He asked her again on his return, and Katy did. She had a grand time meeting his family.

Katy and Earl at his home in Nappanee, Indiana, August 1945. Photo courtesy of Kate Holderman.

Katy returned to LaVerne to finish her degree. Earl returned to Manchester for a semester and then moved to California where Katy’s uncle gave him a job. They married December 29, 1946, and celebrated 59 anniversaries before Earl died in 2006.

Nanorta Goes to Greece – Part I

Not many seagoing cowboys got to accompany their heifer from farm to recipient. The summer of 1946, Jim Long, just out of high school, did. His father, Rev. Wilmer Henry Long, pastor of Trinity Evangelical and Reformed Church in Norristown, Pennsylvania, hatched the idea of documenting the journey of one heifer. He named the heifer “Nanorta.” The children of Trinity and Ascension E&R churches sponsored Nanorta. Slides and still shots captured from Rev. Long’s 16 mm film and Jim’s diary tell the story.

The church school children purchased Nanorta for the Heifer Project from Silver Lake Farm, Center Square, Pennsylvania.

Nanorta stopped by Trinity Church Wednesday, July 10, 1946. for a visit with the children on her way to the Roger Roop Collection Farm in Union Bridge, Maryland, with other heifers and a bull from Silver Lake Farm.

Jim and his father lodged at the Brethren Service Center in New Windsor, Maryland, for the night, where Jim’s supper cost 40 cents.

While Nanorta rested at the Roop Farm the next day, Jim and his father took the train to Baltimore to get their seaman’s papers. “The process was easy,” notes Jim. The process for getting the livestock to the ship is quite another story.

Jim and his father arrived back in New Windsor in time for the loading of Nanorta and 197 additional animals into railroad cars on a sidetrack in Union Bridge.

Jim had a little trouble getting on the train. “Had to hop the train while it was moving,” he notes. “I used the wrong arm to swing on and fell off because of my back pack. But I got back on unhurt…. We made it to Baltimore at 8:30 PM after a very bumpy ride in the caboose.”

At 2:30 AM Friday, Nanorta’s train was shifted to the west side. “We slept in a vacant caboose,” Jim says. “We left Baltimore at 11 AM on the Baltimore and Ohio RR. We made Potomac Yard at 4 PM. We slept at the Bunkhouse from 10 PM. While in the Potomac Yard we watched RR cars being ‘humped’ – pushing cars up a hill and then letting them coast down the other side and being individually switched to the proper track to remake up the new trains for the continuing trip. This also required the use of automatic air compressor rail brakes to slow up the cars so the ‘hook up impact’ could be controlled and hopefully the goods inside the car not damaged.” Dinner at Potomac Yard cost $1.01.

Watering the heifers along the way. Wilmer Long photographer.

Saturday morning, “Left Potomac Yard at 3:20 AM on Chesapeake and Ohio RR and arrived in Richmond at 10:10 AM. We left Richmond yard at 12:30 PM on way to Newport News. At about 3:30 the train stopped along side Levinson’s stock yard to get the animals off the train in preparation for the trip to the ship.”

Jim and his father walked about one-and-a-half miles along 160 RR cars to the stockyards. “We saw cattle herded across the road and into the barn,” Jim notes. The first leg of Nanorta’s journey was over.

One of the Levinson brothers drove Jim and his father to Newport News where they checked into the Warwick Hotel at $2.75 per day. There they met up with two of Jim’s high school teachers who would accompany them on the trip. And there they stayed for the next week, waiting for their ship, the S. S. Villanova Victory, to come in, checking in frequently at the Brethren Service Committee’s seagoing cowboy office near the docks, and playing lots of pinnocle.

A week after arriving in Newport News, Jim, his father, his two teachers, and four additional cowboys finally boarded the Villanova Victory and got ready for their trip. Nanorta would be loaded with the other livestock the following day.

“The VV is a nice ship,” says Jim, “and our quarters were great, by ourselves at the back of the ship in one big bunkroom. The meals are good.”

Ready to sail!

[to be continued in the next post — in the meantime, Merry Christmas!]

Heifers to Belgium, 1945

Even before the Heifer Project became official in April 1942, Dan West was in communication with officials of the Belgian Commission for the Study of Post-War Problems. Dairy cattle were needed in Belgium. So it comes as no surprise that Belgium was one of the first countries to which Heifer Project animals were sent after World War II in 1945. Two shipments totaling 335 heifers went to Belgium that October and November. Mennonite seagoing cowboy Noah W. Schrock of Orrville, Ohio, started his trip that October at the Brethren Service Center in New Windsor, Maryland:

Sorting clothing at the Brethren Service Center, New Windsor, Maryland. Many seagoing cowboys helped with this task while waiting for their ship assignments. Photo courtesy of Brethren Historical Library and Archives.

     There we helped paint and sort, pack and bale clothing. On Oct. 15 we went to the Roop farm where they had 350 cattle. “Brethren Heifer Project.”
     We loaded four car load for Williamsburg, Virginia. In three days we arrived in Williamsburg, Virginia. I rode on the engine or caboose. Every so often the R.R. Co. rule was to water the cattle. So they had to unload, water the cattle, and load again. Slow process. This was done 3 times.
Now the Long Shoremen were on strike, so I had to wait till I got orders. After spending a week or more with friends . . ., I got orders to report to a boat named ‘Wooster’ [Charles W. Wooster]. I watched them load 216 [UNRRA] horses and 124 cattle. On October 25, Charles Rohrer from Indiana and I started sailing. “The old ark are a movering”.

Rohrer, cowboy supervisor, of North Manchester, Indiana, continues the story:

Charles Rohrer at dockside with one of Heifer Project’s donated heifers, November 1945. Photo courtesy of Brethren Historical Library and Archives.

     I was given charge of the colored help, who were the cowboys, and were supposed to feed, water and bed the cattle. I am proud to say we did not lose any of our cattle, but gained five, as we had 5 fine baby calves by the time we arrived in Belgium. The ship’s crew became very fond of our baby calves and were constantly coming down to the hold of the ship to pet and admire our livestock.
Many seamen remarked that it was so peaceful down with the cattle that it seemed almost as reverent as a church, and we assured them they were with God’s cattle on His mission of love and good will.
We are all very happy and joyful to see Bishop’s Rock, the first land we sight . . . . We proceeded very cautiously up the English Channel because of the danger of mines and sunken ships. . . . After 16 days of sailing we arrived at the mouth of the Sheldt River, which flows from Belgium and Holland. . . . All along the river were points where the battle had raged, and buildings were skeletons of blasted and burned rubble.
When we arrived, I was amazed at the wide spread destruction. Over 3000 buzz bumbs alone had fallen on that unhappy city; hardly a building has all its windows and roof intact. . . . Most families lived in one room, as they receive only a little over 200 pounds of coal per month.
Food is scarce and very costly. . . . I cannot understand how the poor people live.
The Belgians were overjoyed to receive the gift of cattle. Their newspapers from all over Belgium gave us the warmest kind of welcome. . . .
The Belgian officials graciously escorted me around over Belgium, to inspect the places where the Brethren cattle were to be placed. They have 120 TB hospitals, which were very short of milk, plus a great many orphanages. Our cattle have been pro rated among these very worthy institutions. It was a joy to see the warm reception given me as I toured ward after ward of these institutions. Poorly clad children and adults sang American songs and cheered for America, and often thanked me personally, for those who were so kind as to give them help in so generous a manner.
I informed them, thru the interpreter given me by the Belgian Government, that it was our religious belief in brotherly love which prompted the gift. . . .
I can recommend this trip as a most profitable one, not in dollars and cents, but in experience and service to the Kingdom of God.

 

A calf born on the ship gives joy to a Belgian on arrival in Antwerp, November 1945. Photo courtesy of Brethren Historical Library and Archives.

The Convergence of UNRRA, the Seagoing Cowboys, and the Heifer Project

By June 1945, the Heifer Project had, on their own, made two shipments of heifers across the seas to Puerto Rico, an overland shipment to Mexico, and two to Arkansas. A program of the Brethren Service Committee (BSC) of the Church of the Brethren, with other denominations participating, the Heifer Project was intent on sending cows to provide relief to the victims of World War II.

During the war, 44 of the “united nations” created UNRRA, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, to assist countries devastated by the war. As plans for UNRRA took shape, BSC’s Executive, M. R. Zigler, lobbied UNRRA to include Heifer Project animals in their shipments. The sending of six bulls to Greece in May 1945 served as a test.

When UNRRA began shipping livestock in earnest the end of June 1945, the seagoing cowboy program was born through an agreement between UNRRA and the BSC: the BSC would serve as the recruiting agency for the cattle tenders for all of UNRRA’s intended shipments. In return, UNRRA would ship Heifer Project animals free of charge and under the terms of the Heifer Project, meaning the animals would be a gift to the neediest of preselected farmers. UNRRA recipients had to pay a bit, depending on UNRRA’s agreement with the receiving country.

The Seagoing Cowboy Office at the Brethren Service Center, New Windsor, MD. Circa 1946. Photo courtesy of Brethren Historical Library and Archives.

Over the course of UNRRA’s two-year active life span, 4,000 of the approximately 300,000 animals shipped were from the Heifer Project. It’s the seagoing cowboy stories from these UNRRA/Heifer Project shipments I’ll be focusing on during this 75th Anniversary year of Heifer International.

Heifer Project cattle bound for Ethiopia waiting to be loaded onto the S. S. Rock Springs Victory (out of sight on left), March 1947. Photo credit: Howard Lord.

In getting the seagoing cowboy program off the ground after UNRRA’s first two livestock shipments [read about them here and here], the BSC made these recommendations to the Heifer Project Committee in their June 25, 1945, meeting:
1. A foreman should be appointed who would be the spokesman for the entire group. [This was carried out. And a cowboy supervisor was hired by UNRRA for each crew, as well.]
2. Plans should be made for religious worship on the boat. [When UNRRA’s shipments mushroomed, this happened only when there were cowboys in the crew who initiated it.]

Cowboys on the S. S. Norwalk Victory take time for Sunday morning worship en route to Trieste, Italy. February 1946. Photo credit: Elmer J. Bowers.

3. An Educational Director should be appointed. This would include some education on relief needs, livestock needs, language of country which men are going to, church participation in the program, etc. [This fell by the wayside. Tending the animals left little time for anything else.]
4. Recreational program should be planned as on the return trip the men will apparently have no work which will occupy their time. [Some of the crews did take recreational equipment with them, but many had to devise their own pass-times. And the cowboys were often co-opted by the Captain to clean out stalls or do other work on the return trip.]

The Attleboro Victory crew enjoys a game of volleyball on the way home from Greece. December 1946. Photo credit: John Lohrentz.

The June 25 Heifer Project Committee minutes also state, “There was considerable discussion on the selection of these men that are to accompany these shipments. It is felt that we should make this a real testimony, as this is the kind of religion that talks.” These high ideals for this seagoing cowboy program at times bore fruit. But UNRRA’s shipping program and the need for cattle tenders increased so rapidly that just getting the required number of men on the ships was all BSC could manage at times. Ideal cowboys or not, however, these shipments of livestock on their own spoke volumes to grateful destitute recipients.

Gratitude from Silesian Heifer Project recipients

During this Thanksgiving weekend, it is fitting to share expressions of gratitude from early recipients of heifers delivered by the seagoing cowboys. This post takes us to war-devastated Czechoslovakian Silesia in 1946 and comes from a bundle of thank you letters sent to the Brethren Service Committee and the Heifer Project.

A December 23, 1946, letter from the Czech Child Welfare Foundation Vojtechov in Brno gives us an overview:
“The cows donated by the Church of the Brethren are rendering excellent service and are helping by their precious product to restore great numbers of our citizens who contracted tuberculosis and other diseases during the war, either in concentration camps, prisons or through deprivations and malnutrition. Your assistance shall never be forgotten. Thousands and thousands of people are helped by your gifts and are sincerely grateful to you.”

Frank Vojkuvka: “I didn’t have any milk for the children and the entire family suffered from under nourishment. Heartiest thanks for the donated cow.” Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

From the Evangelical Parish orphanage in Trinec near Tesinsko, June 19, 1946:
“Toward the end of the war our orphanage invaded by the German armada was completely damaged. They left us merely empty iron beds and even those were damaged. Many orphans whose parents were killed in Concentration camps of Germany came to us. . . . We had a big holiday when we brought the cow home. No one could believe that it was given to us free.”

Kosarova Frantiska: Your fine cow means for us and especially for our 2 girls 5-1/2 and 1-1/2 y. so much easing our food supply. Since we have enough milk again we are all healthier.” Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

From Elizabeth Moravcova, Bolatice, June 20, 1046:
“My house was so damaged by bombing that it couldn’t be lived in. It was shot at by artillery from three sides. And you can imagine the crumbling and shattering caused by explosions in town. The furniture which I bought just before the war with money I painstakingly gathered was all gone. Our clothes and shoes were confiscated by the occupying army. And that was the way with kitchen equipment and other things in the home. So, after the war we are starting anew. I am beginning alone because until now my husband has not been reported. I am alone with two children – a 5 year old and a three year old boy, also an elderly mother. So I must work hard all week and have the children help me.
“If you can imagine the situation you will know how grateful I am for this gift. It means for me the greatest means of livelihood. It has become a member of our family. I thank you once again dear friends most heartily for this precious gift and believe me that we will think of you the rest of our lives and be grateful. May you live there over the sea happily and may God bless you.”

Kosarova Frantiska: “The wounds of warfare are healing gradually for us, especially as we are so fortunate to have such generous friends.” Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

From Anna Dostalova in Stepankovice, April 14, 1946:
“The war was bad and brought much evil to us. It razed our buildings, killed livestock and nothing was left except our ravaged home and six hungry children. The youngest became ill and died. He was longing for milk at that time to which the children have been accustomed. So when the cow arrived there was much happiness. Five eager children jumped about me and the cow. When I brought the first milk they stood around with their little pots each one eager to taste the milk from America. It has a wonderful flavor. The cow is now well settled and feeds well. For your goodness, I thank you again!

A note from Family Kysuconova: “Grandmother, parents and 3 children are thanking most heartily for the generous gift of a fine cow given to them. This cow is their saviour from starvation.” Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

And lastly, from Frantisek Martinik of Poruba, undated:
“The help given me by this gift [of a cow] is immense. . . . The friendly and sacrificial attitude of the selfless Americans in help to the Silesian people is proving that there are still good people in the World despite of the hatred in Warfare and that Love didn’t die and never will in human hearts.
“This truth and by deeds proved Love is warming and strengthening our spirit and gives us courage to rebuild our homes and reconstruct our beloved but war torn country of Silesia.
“The Lords providence may reward your magnificent deeds, we shall never forget what you have done for us.”

Heifer International continues this great work. Giving Tuesday is coming up! Consider a gift to Heifer in gratitude for all we have been given.

Special Crew #1: Brethren seminary and college students dialogue with German Christians

Throughout the two-year period of UNRRA livestock shipments, several special seagoing cowboy crews were put together. The first, a group of 33 Brethren, mostly seminary and college students, left seventy years ago this week. The idea for this special crew was hatched by a group of Bethany Biblical Seminary students the spring of 1946 as an experiment in Christian service. Having heard reports of questionable behaviors in some cowboy crews, they felt that a carefully selected group with high standards of conduct approaching their job in a strictly Christian attitude could set a pattern for the future.

Students from Bethany Biblical Seminary and Brethren colleges gather at the Brethren Service Center in June 1946. Peggy Reiff Miller collection, courtesy of Ivan Meck and Guy Buch.

The group met at the Brethren Service Center in New Windsor, Maryland, for orientation. Before sailing, they made a concerted effort to gather relief goods to take with them to distribute overseas. Ivan Fry writes of collecting money and going on a shopping spree, on which they bought two cases of baby food, a case of condensed milk, a half carton of raisins, a carton of liver soup, a case of dried pea soup, and two bottles of cod-liver oil, in hopes of finding a children’s home to give them to.

The cowboy crew boards the S. S. Queens Victory for their trip to Germany.  Peggy Reiff Miller collection.

On June 8, 1946, this select crew left from Newport News, Virginia, on the S. S. Queens Victory, carrying 785 horses destined for Czechoslovakia. They docked in the port city of Bremen, Germany. Upon arrival, some of the cowboys set out to find deserving people to whom they could give the supplies they had brought with them. They also sought out German Christians with whom to engage in dialogue.

Cowboys load an Army jeep in Bremen with their relief goods. Peggy Reiff Miller collection.

Pastor and Mrs. Erik Urban, Bremen, Germany, June 1946. Peggy Reiff Miller collection.

A couple of the cowboys headed into the city to find a pastor and happened upon Pastor Erik Urban, who turned out to be the head Lutheran pastor of Bremen and an associate of theologian Martin Niemöller. Some rich experiences developed from this contact, including a dialogue between the cattlemen and a group of German Christians – enemy meeting enemy – each realizing that they were in Pastor Urban’s words “as one in Christ.”

The affects of the war on the German populace was brought home to the cowboys when a plan laid at home was scuttled. They had desired to have a fellowship meal with a group of German Christians. The seminary students had decided a large quantity of dehydrated soup would serve the purpose well – all the Germans would need to do would be add hot water.

Ruins of Bremen, Germany, June 1946. Peggy Reiff Miller collection.

After meeting Pastor Urban and delighting him and his wife with the prospect of this substitute Lord’s Supper, the disadvantages perpetuated by war made themselves known. First, there was the lack of dishes. Then, there was nothing in which to heat the soup, and if there were it would be difficult to find any fuel with which to heat it. But the clincher was that “Pastor Urban was unable to find a room anywhere in the city which was both intact and large enough to allow the group to sit around a table and eat.” [from “The Enemy was Christian” by Byron P. Royer, Bethany Biblical Seminary Bulletin, October-December 1946]

Conrad Snavely. Peggy Reiff Miller collection.

These experiences of Christian fellowship, along with witnessing the leveled rubble of the saturation bombing poured on the city of Bremen by the British and the Americans, left an indelible mark on these cattlemen of the S. S. Queens Victory. Conrad Snavely says of the trip: “It made me more interested in working for social justice.”

Roger Ingold in Bremen, Germany, June 1946. Photo: courtesy of Roger Ingold.

Roger Ingold says his life was completely turned around by the experience. It started him thinking in a more international way than ever before, leading him to become a missionary to Nigeria. In looking back at the seagoing cowboy program, Roger credits it for being a great recruiting tool for church workers of all kinds. He says, “People who had gone and had been part of that program came back and wanted to do something to make a difference in the world.”

 

 

Next post: Special Crew #2: Mennonite high school and college students come of age on a cattle boat

Activities of Heifer Project as seen from the Roger Roop Collection Farm, Part II

The Roger Roop family played an important role in the development of the Heifer Project that touched all of their lives, from Roger and Olive to their daughters Shirley and Patricia, and later baby Elaine.

Roger Roop with daughters Patricia and Shirley, fall 1945. Photo: Robert Ebey.

Olive and Roger Roop in a later photo with daughter Patricia Ann. Photo: Rouford Coonts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my 2003 interview with Olive, she recounted how “the shipments came in by rail at night, and the station agent would call us and Roger would go in and get the men who were with the cattle, one or two, and bring them out and we often would have just a little something for them to eat or drink and have a place for them to sleep at night. And then the next morning, they would have trucks ready and bring the cattle out to the farm. But they almost always came in the night.” One trucker from Virginia was a particular aggravation. He would come in at night blowing his air horn, waking the baby. “I didn’t like it,” she said. “But I could tell you so many good things.”

For daughter Patricia, the farm was an exciting place to be. She recalled in a 1976 Messenger article, “Along with the cattle came many colorful people to share stories with us. I especially remember Milo Weaver because he used to help me peel potatoes for all the men my mother, sister, and I had to feed.”

One of the good things Olive mentioned was a local trucker, Vernon Gladhill, who volunteered his truck and time hauling cattle from the train to the farm and back to the train for shipping to Baltimore. This was his way of contributing to the Heifer Project, he told Roger.

The work load for Roger became heavy as the Heifer Project mushroomed. The 15 acres originally offered free of charge soon expanded to rental of the entire approximately 130-acre farm and buildings for $800, with a salary of $1800 for Roger and $400 for the use of equipment including truck, tractors, hay baler, grinder, etc. Kenneth West and Wayne Keltner, two Civilian Public Service workers, and Rouford Coontz, all stationed at the Brethren Service Center in New Windsor, were assigned to help out at the farm. Seagoing cowboys waiting shipment would sometimes help, as well.

Roger wrote in one report, “There were days when things were a bit hectic due to cattle at the farm needing care, animals arriving, then cattle needing to be read by vet for Bangs disease and TB [tests they had been given].” Incoming cattle had to be recorded, numbered, and maybe have blood drawn. “Bloating happened on several occasions,” Roger said, “as well as freshening heifers needing help on some occasions when placenta had to be removed manually.”

A saying around the farm was that “we could expect the unexpected anytime.” Like the night the family was awakened by a terrific rumble. “Apparently something had spooked the cattle,” Roger said, “and they stampeded. The next morning we found two heifers in the field with broken legs.” They were butchered and the meat was used in the kitchen at the Brethren Service Center.

“Sometime later we experienced another stampede,” Roger wrote. “We had worked a long day…. About 10 o’clock that night someone said that a large group had broken out and gone out across the field. Ted Albaugh and I knew the lay of the land so we went out and got around them. It was a clear, moon light night. If some of you have read western stories that speak of ‘Saint Elmos’ fire you will understand what I have to share.

“While we were bringing the cattle back to the barn something must have spooked them for they turned right around and ran toward us. We could see the bluish-green light in their eyes which was caused by fright. We were too far from any fence to outrun them so we ran toward each other, cupped our hands and yelled at the top of our voices. The cattle did part and ran on either side of us. If they had not done so we would have been trampled to death. I’m wondering what was the color of our eyes!

“Fortunately, of all the volunteers and others who had any part in work at the farm, none were injured.”

Some 3600 head of cattle were processed at the Roop farm during the three years of its operation. Roger became ill with undulant fever in 1948, after which collection activities were transferred to the Berkley Bowman farm.

Next post: Fifth Friday, In Memorium