[or-roots] Looking for a Challenge

Tue Nov 18 12:19:00 PST 2008

Wife's WWII mail still needs delivery

Dusty Hoag lives in a bit of a time warp, anyway.  He buys old houses and fixes them up.  He has been working the past few months on a house in Goldendale, Washington, about a two-hour drive from his home in Portland.

"I think Goldendale is kind of an up-and corning spot," Dusty says.

The house he bought there a while back was built in 1880.  lt was a wreck.

"People said, 'Why did you buy that old abandoned place?'  Well, it wasn't abandoned.  It was just in horrible disrepair.  You name it, it needed it."  At this point, Dusty estimates he's 60 percent done.  

Last Friday, Dusty and a helper, Eric, were working on the kitchen, trying to remove a cabinet and countertop.  When they finally came loose from the wall, "all kinds of stuff fell out."

There was a fly-swatter, from back when they were made of cloth.  Dusty found six combs, three pencils and an old buttonhook, used to close tiny buttons on women's shoes about 100 years ago.  There were old buttons, a trivet, a pair or scissors, a single Camel cigarette and a pamphlet with recipes: "FIAVOR for variety," it sang.

There was a package of Silk brand waxed paper bags, the kind mothers put sandwiches in before plastic bags arrived. 

And there was an envelope.  Dusty picked it up.  It was the tissue-thin stationery people used long ago for airmail correspondence.  "The envelope is white, arid around the border it has red and blue stripes," Dusty says.  "So that makes it red, white, and blue."

The envelope was sealed; it had never been opened.

He turned it over.  "A/CB. Wayne Spalding, Jr.," it read.  A number followed the name.  The address was for some kind of military base in Orangeburg, S. C.

The return address?  "Mrs. B. Wayne Spalding, Jr.," it said, "Goldendale, Wash," A letter from a wife to her husband.

Dusty was amazed.  "There were a lot of cool things about it," he says.  Clearly the number was a military serial number, and the address was probably that of Camp Shanks, the largest Army port of embarkation during World War II.

Dusty served in the military from 1991 to 2000.  “I was a captain in the Marine Corps.  I served in peacetime.  I joined up during Desert Storm, when I was attending Arizona State.  By the time I got in it was over.”  He spent his nine years in North Carolina, Okinawa, Japan and finally Pohang, South Korea.

Dusty's service means a lot to him.  "Last week (Monday Nov. 10) was the Marine Corps birthday, and the 11th was Veterans Day.  We started the demolition on Veterans Day, and three days later we found the letter."

Dusty wondered how old the letter was.  How long had it been lying behind the counter in the house in Goldendale?

"I immediately stopped working and sent Eric to do something else," Dusty says, "and I got online."  It took him about 20 minutes to discover when B. Wayne Spalding Jr. served in the military.

In the U.S. National Archives, Dusty discovered the full name of the letter's intended recipient was Bruce Wayne Spalding Jr.

He lived in Clark County.  He was a U.S. citizen with a high school degree, born in 1923.  He enlisted Feb. 3, 1943, in Tacoma, his previous occupation was carpentry and he was married.

Dusty briefly considered opening the letter.  "But I immediately decided that would be a very bad idea.  It wouldn't be right. I was in the military, and this is obviously a military letter."

Still, he did a little more detective work.

The letter felt substantial.  "I have a 500-watt work light and I actually held the letter up to the light.  I couldn't read anything.  Clearly she wrote it, folded it, put it in the envelope, licked it and sealed it, and never mailed it.  It just got lost."

The letter is more than 60 years old, Dusty figures.

He'd like to deliver it to B. Wayne Spalding.  "I thought if anybody should open this letter, it should be him.  He might still be alive.  He'd be 85.  It would be great if he could open it.  Or his kids."

But a Google search turned up only a single Seattle area 2006 obituary for a woman named Mabel Marie Wilson who was "preceded in death by daughter, 'Constance M. Hurlbert, and husband, Bruce 'Wayne' Spalding."

Was Mabel the author of the letter in the 1940s?  If so, does she have any living children who might want a letter written by their mother to their father decades ago?

One thing seems certain: It's not a "Dear John" letter, written and then not sent after Mrs. Spalding had second thoughts.  Because on the back of the envelope is written "SWAK."

Someone had to tell Dusty that means" sealed with a kiss."

Dusty is hoping someone might help him track down a member of the Spalding family.  Until he does, he'll keep the fragile letter.  Unopened. 

Margie Boule: 503-221-8450; marboule at aol.com

>From the Tuesday, November 18, 2008, Oregonian, page B1, B2.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://omls.oregon.gov/pipermail/or-roots/attachments/20081118/822783ac/attachment.html>