A Tree Man at War
More missives from E. L. Kammerer's Army service
In my work as a volunteer at the Sterling Morton Library at the Morton Arboretum, I’m often lucky enough to come across (or be sent by staff and volunteers) letters, papers, and photos relevant not only to my grandfather E. L. Kammerer’s work at the Arboretum, but his life in a broader sense.
Recently, another volunteer passed along a folder containing letters sent and received during my grandpa’s time in the Army during WWII, which I’ve written about previously:
In the trove of his papers that my family has kept, I’ve found a number of papers related to his service, but it was intriguing to see how he corresponded with his colleagues during this same period compared to, say, his brother or my grandmother.
Earlier letters, like this one from November of 1943, discuss his training days. In 1943, he would have been 37, and as someone in my early 30’s, I cannot imagine subjecting myself to rigorous military training at this age—it makes my joints ache just to consider! I don’t have to guess how difficult this initial training was; grandpa Kammerer makes mention of it in his letters to Arboretum staff.
“Tomorrow marks the first month of my service with the U. S. Army and thus far my greatest difficulty is trying to keep up with the youngsters.”
He writes that he is able to keep up without issue during drills and in marksmanship (in fact, he would go on to earn a sharpshooter designation due to his skills with a rifle), but notes that the obstacle course has been a trial and his endurance isn’t what he wished it was. He mentions specifically that his knees have made this field training all the more challenging. He notes that he received some basic instruction in camouflage and states that it is his “prime interest,” which I think makes sense given its relation to local flora - inarguably his prime personal and professional interest.
Later in November of 1943, my grandpa suffered a bout of rheumatism, earning him a lengthy stint in the hospital due to severely inflamed knees and ankles. His letters to colleagues from this time were the ones I found most interesting, despite his being laid up in bed for weeks. He describes the experiences of his fellow patients, though noting that many are reticent to discuss what they’ve been through. He mentions “boys from the South Pacific (veterans of Guadalcanal, etc)” that are recovering from Malaria, fellow servicemen who were stationed in Iceland, “an aviation gunman shot down over Sicily,” a Jewish refugee who had been in a concentration camp, a young Italian boy from New York who had been on a hunger strike the entire 3 weeks he had been in the Army, and “a miscellaneous collection of 35-38 year olds with arthritis and rheumatism in their joints,” of which he was, of course, one.
Although he didn’t go so far as to embark on a hunger strike, evidence of my grandfather’s longing to be back at his beloved arboretum is sprinkled throughout all of his letters home.
Dear Clarence, Your good letter bringing news of spring activities at the Arboretum made me homesick to be back at my desk again - if the prevailing opinion here is any criterion, though, it will be at least another year or longer before we can even think of returning to civilian life. Of course, anything can happen between now and then - and we’re all fervently hoping something will.
By this time, March of 1944, he at least had his obstacle course days behind him - now attending Army Clerk’s School and putting his ferroequinology hobby and knowledge to good use: “had it not been for the fact that during my interview at the Reception Center - I stated my knowledge of the railway systems of the U. S. as one of my hobbies - I might still be firing furnaces. This seemed to interest the personnel department more than anything else.” He mentions the possibility of being stationed in the Transportation Office, routing train traffic.
He also mentions to Clarence that his biggest struggle in Clerk’s School is the typewriter - ironic given that my grandmother was a typing teacher for a number of years! Clearly, her skill did not rub off on him, and surely he benefitted from having a secretary assigned to his office at the Arboretum. Almost all of his personal letters are handwritten rather than typed. At his stated average of 6 words per minute, I can understand why!
“Tell Evelyn I won’t be so critical of typed material when I return.”
The Arboretum’s wartime functioning was affected by more than just my grandfather’s absence. In a letter from Clarence Godshalk in February of 1945, the Arboretum Director wrote of his concerns regarding a new bill currently in the Senate:
“if this should go through and if there is actually a need for our eighteen to forty-five year old men in war work, it will put the Arboretum in a pretty bad position. We think right now we are about to rock bottom as far as help is concerned, but should our men that are under forty five have to go into war work it would leave us with only Johnson, Jake Mey, Westover, Tony Drendel, Berg and myself.
Luckily, the war wouldn’t prove to go on much longer and my grandfather would return to work there before the year’s end.
My grandfather’s passion for the Arboretum and its mission, and his love of plants, is endlessly intriguing, but learning about other facets of his life has also been an exciting endeavor. Like any of us, he led a life that occasionally deviated from his central path, and being drafted was certainly departure. And I find that as central to his story as any planting list or garden diagram!
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