Veterans’ voices saved by Valley Stream Historical Society

The following are excerpts from the Valley Stream Historical Society’s Oral History archives. Helen Dowdeswell, along with Agnes Libath and other members of the society, created the Oral History over the course of two decades, interviewing residents around town. Dowdeswell died in May 2010, and Libath died in September.

The tapes — nearly 200 of them — are available to the public at the Henry Waldinger Library. Some interviewees include Henry Anholzer, who was affiliated with Curtiss Airfield, Bert Keller, longtime assistant principal of Central High School, Betty DeGrace, mother of former Mayor John DeGrace, and Gordon M. Fairchild, who once owned the Pagan-Fletcher house.

As a tribute to Valley Stream veterans, the Herald recently transcribed portions of interviews the Historical Society has conducted with men and women who served their country.

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“It was at the very beginning of when they started taking women in. So, one Saturday morning I said to my mother, ‘I think I’ll go in and see what it’s all about.’ And she says, ‘OK.’ So I went in and they did all kinds of examinations. Then I’m standing there with my hand in the air saying, ‘Yes, I do,’ and I’m thinking to myself, ‘What are you doing?’ So I came home and I said to my mother, ‘You’ll never guess what I did,’ and she said ‘Yes I will. You joined. I knew when you left this morning you would.’ It was one of the best things that ever happened to me really, because I was a shy person. I made some wonderful, wonderful friends.” — Bertha Ballou, U.S. Marine Corps veteran. Interviewed Mar. 7, 1995.

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“On May 13, 1943 I was captured prisoner by the British. And the war in North Africa finished a few days later. So as a POW I traveled from Tunis to Algeria, and at the same time some of us were transferred to the custody of the American Army … After awhile when the allies land in Italy, all the Italian POW were asked if they would like to sign to cooperate with the allies. I signed immediately. I felt myself American, it’s true.” — Anthony Melillo, Italian POW. Interviewed July 16, 1998.

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“My father says, ‘You got a job yet?’ and I says ‘No.’ I saw his car parked one of the places he was workin’, and his partner said, ‘Why don’t you go to Grumman?’ And I says, ‘They’ll never hire me.’ So I went to Grumman as a part-timer, and 40 years later I left. I think they forgot I was a part-timer. And I retired in ’87 … I got drafted into the Korean War. I went to my basic training in [Fort Bragg] North Carolina, and my uncle who was in the army before me, he always says become a cook. So it was a new company, everything was new … I went to cook school, and that’s what I did all the time in the army.” — Peter Kaiser, U.S. Army veteran. Interviewed Aug. 5, 1996.

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“I volunteered to go into the Navy, and so in December they called me up so I had to leave my first successful office [as a podiatrist], and I spent four years in the service … I volunteered for the Navy. I think that was when President Roosevelt said if you volunteered you better sign in otherwise you’re gonna be drafted. So I went.” — Jules Shangold, U.S. Navy veteran. Interviewed May 18, 1989.

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“I always joke that I fought the Vietnam War in Florida. Before that point, in 1963, I was set up to Thule, Greenland … I was well above the Arctic Circle. It’s quite interesting the situation because in the summertime we were four months where the sun never set, it just went round and round in the sky. It was comforting and almost made me give a feeling of security when I saw darkness for a change. We had a two-month transition and then we had no sunlight for four months … It would get down around minus 20 there. Although you dress for it, I never got cold.” — William Price, U.S. Army veteran. Interviewed Dec. 15, 1999.