Book is “Roll Call” of Linn County’s WW I Veterans

MARION - The loose-leaf book - bound by a blue leather-like cover with red and white string through two holes - has survived some 90 years. Steve Oakley of Marion hopes it survives at least that many more because, as a World War II veteran, it's important to remember those who served in all wars.

The book, "Linn County Soldiers and Sailors Serving Our Flag," pictures veterans in uniform. Some pictures are large groups in front of the courthouse before they left for war. Other pages depict collages of individual military portraits. One page says "Cedar Rapids," another "Marion." There's "Springville," "Mount Vernon," and "Linn County," too.

"I went through this book and found a lot of names of people who were around Marion when I was a kid," says Steve, 87.

He was born five years after World War I ended and raised in Marion. He remembers the hard times of the Great Depression after his father, George, lost his job at the packinghouse in Cedar Rapids. As the tenth of 11 children, Steve helped with the family gardens planted on vacant lots George rented.

"Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday we'd load up our vegetables on that old Model-T truck and we'd head to Cedar Rapids."

From 19th Street SE, they'd drive down Second Avenue and up Third Avenue ringing doorbells and shouting "The vegetables are here!"

"The women would run into their houses for their purses and buy from us," Steve says. "We just kept going until we sold all we had."

As winter approached, the family harvested horseradish and spent the winter preparing, canning and selling it.

Steve's father was nearly 70 then, so hadn't fought in the war. But late in 1941, after Steve had graduated from Marion High School, he learned the meaning of war on the homefront as he worked in the tin shop at Ned Jones Heating Company.

On Dec. 2 Steve turned 18, on Dec. 7 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, on Dec. 8 Ned asked Steve to get another job.

"I was in the first war," Ned said. "I know what happens. We won't get our materials. We won't need you."

Steve hired on at the LaPlant Choate plant until he went into the service in 1943. His mother, Minnie, didn't want him to go. She had a brother killed in World War I and two older sons in the service.

"I never really did get into combat," Steve says, which was a relief to her as he served as a tank gunner in France and Germany. His mother met him at the train station upon his return. He still remembers her words.

"My God, Steve," she said, "You left as a boy and came back a man."

Through a career mostly in industrial sales, Steve married, fathered four children and has six grandchildren. He has grown to appreciate history, especially that within a family. He can't remember who gave him this book, published by the Soldiers and Sailors Club of Marion, but he knows how important it is that it be preserved.

"I think somebody from the county should have this," Steve says. "I don't know if there's another copy around."

Comments: (319) 398-8323; dave.rasdal@sourcemedia.net