Seagoing cowboy L. W. Shultz unites Warsaw, Indiana, with Warsaw, Poland, 1945

A side story from Heifer Project’s S. S. Santiago Iglesias trip to Poland, of the two previous posts, revolves around Indiana seagoing cowboy L. W. Shultz.

L. W. Shultz photo and autograph in cowboy supervisor Clifton Crouse’s scrapbook. Courtesy of Merle Crouse.

One of those larger than life figures in the Church of the Brethren, with his fingers in many pots, Shultz was instrumental in the formation of the Brethren Service Committee (BSC) in 1939. He served on the committee through the years of World War II and was therefore involved in the creation of the Heifer Project, a BSC program.

In 1942, the year Heifer Project began, Shultz took a leave of absence from his duties as professor and librarian at Manchester College to work more actively with the BSC’s development of their relief work. So it comes as no surprise that when Heifer Project was preparing to send its first shipment of heifers to Poland in the fall of 1945, they called on Shultz to serve as cowboy foreman for the trip. He was sent to the UNRRA headquarters in Washington, D.C., to make arrangements.

Shultz was a mover and a shaker who didn’t miss out on opportunities. Somehow, through the Deputy Prime Minister of Poland, who was also the Minister of Agriculture and who was in Washington, D.C., at the same time as Shultz, Shultz made arrangements to take a trip to Warsaw while his ship was in Poland. And somehow, it developed that the city of Warsaw, Indiana, sent a gift of $1,000 with Shultz to be presented to the Mayor of Warsaw, Poland. The slowness in unloading the livestock and cargo off the S. S. Santiago Iglesias gave Shultz ample time for a three-day trip to Warsaw to deliver the monetary gift from Indiana.

L. W. Shultz, left, greeting Mayor Stanislaw Tolwinski in his office in Warsaw, Poland, December 1945. Photo courtesy of the Shultz family.

A year later, in November 1946, Shultz went as cowboy supervisor and foreman with another load of Heifer Project cattle to Poland, this time on the SS William S. Halsted. Before leaving home, Shultz had arranged for himself and three other cowboys to stay in Poland to lay plans for Brethren Service Committee work there. In his autobiography Shultz writes, “Our captain was determined that we all should return [to the United States] with him but on the last night in port we four went ashore AWOL and stayed over night in the home of an old cobbler. The next morning we went down to the dock just in time to see the ship pull out.”

During their travels, the foursome visited heifer recipients and distributed relief supplies they had brought along. Shultz’s service to Poland on both trips did not go unrecognized by the Polish people. In a December 3, 1945, thank you letter from the mayor of Warsaw, Poland, to the mayor of Warsaw, Indiana, for their monetary gift, Mayor Tolwinski writes,

As Mayor of the City of Warsaw, the most ruined city of all by the Hitler barbarism, I have the privilege to extend to you through Mr. Lawrence Shultz my heartiest brotherly greetings to you personally, and through you to the people of the City of Warsaw, Indiana U. S. A.

We are proud that the tradition of the struggle for freedom in the United States in which our Polish warriors took part, is still so deeply alive among the American Society as to express itself in giving the name of our city to an American City.

One of those warriors to whom Mayor Tolwinski refers was Tadeusz Kosciuszko, born in Poland in 1746. He came to America in 1776 to help during America’s war of independence, becoming a Brigadier General of the Continental Army. He remains to this day a symbol of Polish-American goodwill. A medal created on the bicentennial of Kosciuszko’s birth in 1946 was presented to Shultz on his second visit to Warsaw, Poland – a fitting tribute, as the city of Warsaw, Indiana, resides in Kosciusko County, named after the General. The medal now resides in the library of Manchester University [previously College] where Shultz spent so many years as librarian.

Kosciuszko medal awarded to L. W. Shultz. Photo: Peggy Reiff Miller.

Kosciuszko medal awarded to L. W. Shultz. Photo: Peggy Reiff Miller.

How ten Manchester College students ended up on the first UNRRA cattle boat to Europe

When UNRRA contacted M. R. Zigler, the executive of the Brethren Service Committee [see Nov. 14, 2014 post], in late spring of 1945 to say they had a ship ready, M. R., with his vast network of contacts, got on the phone and put the Brethren grapevine in action. Among other things, word was sent to the Church of the Brethren colleges, which by that time had completed their academic years and were gearing up for their summer sessions. Manchester College in North Manchester, Indiana, was one of those schools.

MC grad Keith Horn recalls having seen a notice on a bulletin board at the college about a ship going overseas with animals. Others learned of the trip through the Church of the Brethren Annual Conference being held at Manchester that year. On its opening day, June 6, 1945, the Brethren Service Committee brought news to the Conference: “[R]elief soon may be possible from the church in America to the church in Europe,” including “heifers by freight shipment.” M. R. Zigler spoke the next day of “news of big shipments.” In just a short time from UNRRA’s first call to M. R., much had transpired – from one vessel to big shipments.

These reports created a buzz throughout the campus. People talked about it on the sidewalks, in their rooms, over dinner – and it was while waiting on tables in the old Oakwood dining hall, that Manchester student Ken Frantz learned of the need for cattle attendants.

In all, ten Manchester College students signed up for this first cattle boat trip. The Gospel Messenger reported that there were 135 students enrolled in the Manchester summer session of 1945. Take ten of those students away, and the college lost over 7% of their student body that summer! But President Schwalm was supportive, as Richard Moomaw, a student leader on campus, relates. When he went to talk with the President to get permission to un-enroll, President Schwalm told him, “So many people are going, you should go, too!”

Because it was mostly a rural denomination, UNRRA had felt the Church of the Brethren would have enough men on farm deferment to provide the cattle attendants for their ships. But there was another deferment that figured into this story, as well – the ministerial deferment. Many of the MC students who went fell into this category. To maintain this status with the draft board, they had to be in school all year round – and that’s why so many of them were in summer school. But whatever the deferment, these students had to get permission from their draft boards to leave the country. Ken Frantz, who lived in North Manchester, recalls that he had no trouble with his board in Wabash. But it was a different story for his brother Dean, who was living in Sydney, Indiana, at the time. The Kosciusko County Draft Board refused to let him go, or he would have been on the ship with Ken, too.

For many of these students, this was something positive they could do to help put a broken world back together again. Gordon Bucher recalls that his mother, in particular, wasn’t too keen on his going. He was just 19, the war was just over, and she was afraid for his safety. But Gordon stood firm. He said to her, “a lot of people have been endangered for the last four years. We hope to do something good, whether we’re in danger or not.” It was a form of service and ministry for many of the cowboys. And two of them – Floyd Bantz and Ken Frantz – even postponed their weddings from early summer to late summer to be able to go.

In a very short period of time, the ten Manchester students had made their applications, gotten their draft board permissions, and were on the train to New Orleans by June 13. They sailed on June 24, 1945, on the F. J. Luckenbach headed for Greece with 588 horses and 26 cattle attendants on board – the first of the 360 UNRRA livestock trips made between 1945 and 1947.

The F. J. Luckenbach crew at the Acropolis in Greece, July 1945. For whatever reason, the cowboys on this ship were not allowed to take cameras on board. This is the only known photograph taken on this trip, likely by an unidentified professional Greek photographer who took pictures of tourists at the Acropolis. Photo courtesy of Ken Frantz

Watch for an extra 5th Friday post next week! Next regular post: Five Elizabethtown College students make the 2nd UNRRA ship out, but arrive first in Greece