Interview With James Steltz

Posted on 03/19/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with James Steltz of Marysville, WA conducted by phone by Patience Rogge on February 19, 2008 from the Fort Worden History Center.  Mr. Steltz served in a military police detachment at Fort Worden from 1951 to 1953.  Here he describes his duties:

“I did gate guard, highway patrol, town patrol, everything connected with MPs, it was a pretty quiet situation at Fort Worden. We were kind of by ourselves.  When we got drafted most of us had quite a bit of age on us.  I was about 23 or 24 at the time, and so were the rest of the people in the MPs.  We soon got smart.  If there was trouble downtown, you took the long way around and when you got there there was nothing going on.  That’s the way it happened, because if you took somebody in and made a report, the next morning somebody at the office would have to call you and ask a bunch of stupid questions.  About once or twice like that and you got an entirely different perspective. We went over to Fort Flagler by ship.  It ran back and forth several times a day and even at night.  We had one guy at Flagler from Port Angeles who was a prince of a man, I mean he had a build like an Atlas.  He spent his entire time in jail.  He never went overseas. We’d march him to chow, breakfast, dinner and supper. We had a barracks right to the east of Alexander’s Castle.  It was an old temporary barracks that sat right up there on the cliff.  It blows and rains once in a while in Washington State, and it would rain right through the shiplap on the side of that building.  The barracks were all heated by coal and they usually had some individual who kept the furnace going.  The water was heated by going through the system of a boiler.  It was very primitive. “

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Interview With Robert Stead

Posted on 03/19/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with Robert Stead of Federal Way, WA conducted by Patience Rogge on March 29, 2005 at the Fort Worden History Center.  Mr. Snead worked at the Fort Worden Juvenile Diagnostic and Treatment Center when he was a student at the University of Washington from 1958 to 1961.  He first worked in Security and later as a Cottage Parent.  Here he discusses how the staff dealt with discipline problems:

“There were the solitary confinement cells in the cottages where they’d take them down and put them in just an enclosed room with no windows and just a door.  It was all steel cased on the inside and they would just sit them down for a couple of days. But the lockup was just a regular old jail, big clanky doors and the whole schmear.  They’d put them in there for a couple or three days or whatever.  I remember there was one kid that  some of the staff had had some experience with prior.  This is a boy that’s 16 or 17 years old.  They were bothered enough by this young man that he never did get in a cottage.  He came in and they put him in a cell and then they took him from the cell down to Green Hill (the juvenile prison in Chehalis, WA), so he never got the diagnostic treatment that the others did.  I don’t know what their experience was with this boy.                 That was the only one I remember that didn’t get into the cottages.  It was generally the older boys who went into that unit and they stayed for a day or two and then they’d go back to the cottage.  But this boy never made it to the cottage.”

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Interview With Penina Keen Spinka

Posted on 03/19/2012 by fwohp4481

 

From the interview with Penina Keen Spinka of Sun City, AZ conducted by Patience Rogge by telephone from the Fort Worden History Center on December 5, 2006.  Ms. Spinka is the daughter of Jack Keen (1920-1990), who served in the US Army at Fort Worden during World War II from 1942 until he suffered the loss of his hearing (date unknown).  Here she relates two stories her father told her about his Fort Worden days:

“It was the first time he had to be on guard duty.  He was very nervous because he had never held a gun except in practice and he was hoping he wouldn’t have to shoot anything or anybody.  He was doing the walk he was supposed to do and he heard a sound where he wasn’t expecting one. He was very tense. He said, ’Who goes there?’ the way they taught him to and he didn’t hear anything, just some more noise.  He had his finger on the trigger when he heard ‘HOO’.  It was an owl, what he had first heard  was a fluttering of wings. He had thought that maybe somebody was trying to take pictures of the Fort.”

How he lost his hearing:

“He wore glasses.  They didn’t have enough helmets for people who did.  His helmet didn’t fit over both ears with the glasses on, so he pulled it tight over his right ear but left his left ear was exposed to the sound of the cannons.  It was pretty loud.  The more target practice he did the less he could hear out of his left ear.  He told someone who suggested he have his hearing checked.  He did, and it turned out he had lost most of the hearing in his left ear.  They (the Army) said, ’We don’t need a deaf soldier here.  Why don’t you go home? Here’s some paperwork, fill it out, get it signed, and you can leave.’                  So he did and he never even stopped to ask if he was entitled to anything at all.  He just said to my mother, ‘I can go. Let’s get out of here before they change their minds.’  So they went back to Brooklyn and that’s probably why I was born before the end of the war.”

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Interview With John Siebenbaum

Posted on 03/19/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with John Siebenbaum of Port Hadlock, WA conducted by Patience Rogge at the Fort Worden History Center on May 29, 2007.  Mr. Siebenbaum  helps maintain the historic Redmen’s Cemetery on Discovery Road in Port Townsend as a volunteer.  The Improved Order of Redmen is a fraternal organization that traces its history back to pre-Revolutionary War New England.  It had affiliates, called Tribes, all over the nation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  The Port Townsend Tribe established its cemetery in the 1900’s, and went out of existence in the 1930’s. Here Mr. Siebenbaum describes his connection to the organization:

“If you’re going to fall over out there behind your lawn mower someday—who could ask for a better place as far as I’m concerned?  In 1904 my German grandfather [John Siebenbaum (1/31/1852-6/25/1939)] and my German grandmother [Wilhelmine Stichnoth Siebenbaum (8/22/1871-7/3/1959)] were the high chief and chieftess of the Port Townsend Tribe with the headdresses and everything.  Grandpa never spoke English without a German accent and Grandma could speak English pretty well.  High chief for a Redmen’s Lodge!! They were a couple of Germans!  She was a little tiny woman and he was a big strapping man, big.  I remember that they thought the Masonic Lodge was only for rich people.  The Redmen did wonderful, all kinds of charitable things, and maybe they did have fun.”

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Interview With Valerie O. Koschnick

Posted on 03/18/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with Valerie O. Koschnick of Centralia, WA on February 12, 2004 conducted by Patience Rogge. Ms. Koschnick is the widow of Robert Koschnick, the Superintendent of the Fort Worden Juvenile Diagnostic and Treatment Center when it closed in 1971. She was Supervisor of the Social Service Department of the Center, and the family lived in the Commanding Officer’s Quarters. Here she discusses the final days:

“It was very stressful… My husband was very, very busy as superintendent trying to find or help the other staff members to get a job and make sure all the children (the residents) had places to go which were suitable for them. …We were out of housing and jobs and it was very stressful. Our children—one of them was in junior high and the other one was in high school—very much did not want to leave and were very upset to say good-bye to all our friends there.”

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Interview With Susan B. Sidle

Posted on 03/18/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with Susan B. Sidle of Port Townsend, WA conducted by MonaLou Stefflre on May 20, 2003 at the Fort Worden History Center.  Ms. Sidle was one of the founding members of the Friends of Fort Worden, and has been a volunteer in the Park since 1979.  Here she describes the origins of the Guard House Visitor Information Center and Gift Shop:

“The state was getting more interested in Friends groups at the time ( the early 1990’s) so Gwen and Alan Dunham went to a meeting at one of the state parks near the Columbia River where they had a lighthouse and a gift shop.  They became quite interested in that possibility, thinking it would be a nice thing because we all felt there was a real need for a visitor information center and thought that might be a role that the Friends could fulfill; and a gift shop, if that was possible.  At first, we decided to set up a table in the park office in the summer and people took turns trying to staff it and answer questions.  Jim Farmer (the park manager) felt that might take some of the pressure off the front office where people were always coming to ask questions, although it was needed for registration.  So we saw that as another need that could be filled.  We didn’t raise a lot of money in those years, just whatever people donated .  We put out a newsletter, we had a few hundred dollars.  The park centennial was coming in 2002, and Jim saw that the Friends would have a role in that, because there was a need to have funds for things that were not coming through Olympia.  The Friends agreed to be the official sponsor of the centennial, initially I was co-chair with Joe Wheeler.  Since the Friends were going to handle the money, I stepped down as president and became treasurer of the Friends, which involved being treasurer of the centennial for several years.  Alan Dunham took over as president of the Friends.  At that point we realized that the Guard House  could serve as a possible location for the information center and gift shop that we had envisioned, and saw that as a major centennial project that would have long term benefits for the park.  Jim Farmer was trying to develop ways to get money through the state to bring a lot of the buildings up for the centennial and had had a lot of luck in getting capital appropriations, but the Guard House was not a high priority.                The University of Oregon School of Architecture had a group that specialized in historic preservation that had worked with Oregon State Parks.  They were interested in what was happening here and worked with Washington State Parks, they said they would like to be involved in the restoration of the Guard House.  Jim was able to get enough state funds so they could do that.  In the early 90’s they came up for a year and brought their students and did the complete renovation of the Guard House, which also provided a new restroom and handicapped access, both badly needed in that part of the park.  By ’98 or ’99 we had the possibility of establishing the visitors’ center and gift shop we had envisioned.  Grant and Barbara Davies, who had experience in retail, took on the task of establishing the gift shop and did an incredible job.  By the time the centennial happened, we were well equipped with all kinds of good things that could be sold to raise money for the Friends to do things for the park and at the same time provide information for people to learn what was available in the park and the community; to help with questions about the park rental housing, what was going on, or what to do with their kids or how to hike the trails.  In the past few years the Friends have become a well run and well funded organization that has become a significant part of Fort Worden State Park.”

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Interview With Dean A. Shute

Posted on 03/18/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with Dean A. Shute of Rochester, WA conducted by Rick Martinez at the Fort Worden History Center on July 17, 2003.  Mr. Shute worked at the Juvenile Diagnostic and Treatment Center from 1968 to 1971.  Here he describes the first time he faced a potentially dangerous situation:

“ A young man named Russ in the boys’ cottage had been put in isolation.  He was breaking some windows in the isolation room.  They called me down there because I had kind of a good relation with this kid.  I didn’t know at the time that this kid fluctuated in and out of psychotic episodes.  My first indication was when the staff said, ’You’re going to have to go deal with the psycho. He’s breaking out windows and we’re going to have to move him into the cube in the center of the room.’  The cube was a big cement block just big enough to have a bed in it and nothing more.  It had a locked door and a wire mesh grill above it, there was wire mesh in the vent on top and a single bulb for light.  This kid was claustrophobic, fantastically claustrophobic.  He’d become very frightened and very combative.  So I knocked on the door of the room they had him in and said, ‘Russ, it’s me, Mr. Shute.  He had his bed against the wall, the mattress lying on the floor and I had to force the door and let the mattress roll up a bit.  There was glass everywhere in the room.  He had broken quite a few windows.  He had no shoes or socks on.  When I stepped into the room, I gestured to him to sit where he was on the window sill.  He started to slide off, and I said,’ Sit, sit, don’t get down on the floor, Russ, don’t get on the floor.  This is broken glass—that stuff is going to hurt.’  This had nothing to do with his behavior, didn’t touch on anything other than to make him aware that the staff was concerned for his safety.  He was holding a large piece of glass the shape of a curved dagger with a sock wrapped around it.  He held it up and I said, ‘Just hold on to that but don’t get your feet on the floor on this stuff.’  I was not trying to take his weapon away but I was trying to stay safe.  I asked the security to get me a broom.  I started sweeping and said, ‘Sit there, but don’t throw that at me.’  I had learned very early to get the student talking, and to lay down a rule.  This time the rule was:  I’m not going to fight you and you can hold onto this piece of glass but you can’t throw it at me. So, that was the agreement and it gave him a little bit of power.  I swept that room four times while we were talking and it was super clean. At one point while he was still sitting on the ledge, he took the dagger and said, ‘Here, you might as well have this,’ and he threw it in the pile of glass and I swept it right out the door.’  Then I asked Russ to hop down and give me a hand with the mattress.  I could have handled it by myself, but I was trying to build a sharing experience about doing something together.  We set the mattress up and he sat down. ‘Now, tell me what happened,’ I said.  He came right to the point and told me that he was very frightened about being locked up because he was claustrophobic. This kid was not in real good shape emotionally.  Jack, the security man I knew, was on duty.  God bless his soul, Jack agreed the kid should stay in the room where he was but he had to promise not to break any more windows.  That was my first real experience (with violent behavior). I remember it because I’d never had the occasion before to get one of the kids to stop and listen and start talking.  When they’d start talking, they’d start to defuse, and this was very good.”

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Interview With George A. Sahly

Posted on 03/18/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with George A. Sahly of Eugene, OR conducted by John Croghan by phone from the Fort Worden History Center on June 22, 2004. Mr. Sahly served in the US Army 369th Engineer Amphibious Support Regiment Shore Battalion  at Fort Flagler, WA and Camp Desert Rock, NV from 1951 to 1953.   At Desert Rock, he was in charge of the camp post office. Here he describes some experiences and characters at Desert Rock:

“The major wanted us to put on Class B uniforms, the temperature was running 110 to 115.  It was hot enough to fry eggs on the hood of a jeep.  One of the cooks went out and cracked two eggs and they cooked!  Class B uniforms were a wool shirt and wool pants with a necktie.  That goofy sucker went strutting down between the tents and headquarters company with his Class B uniform on and everybody laughed.  Nobody did it.  He swore he was going to court martial us all but we stuck together and nobody wore them.  We had a one star General who was in charge of Desert Rock, and we had a Sergeant who didn’t have room for the hash marks that were running up and down his arm, he’d been in the Army well over 30 years.  The Sergeant came into the post office to get his mail, and the General came in behind him and started saluting him.  The General said ‘If you don’t salute me or my jeep, I’ll never forget this as long as I live.’  The Sergeant turned around and looked at him and said,  ‘General, I’ve been on this base 15 minutes and I’ve saluted you and that God damn jeep 13 times and if I’m here another 30 years, I’ll never salute you again.’  He turned around and walked out.  At that time, we were on Class B rations, that tinny beef and Spam.  The Sergeant was in Supply.  He came in the mess hall and went through to get his meal and asked the cook, ‘Why are you serving this stuff?  We’re supposed to be on Class A rations.’  The cook replied that we hadn’t received any Class A rations.  The Sergeant said, ‘You will tomorrow.’ He proceeded out the tent and over to the General’s.  You could hear him because he talked so loud. He said, ‘General, what are you eating?  Will you eat this crap?’  The General said no.  The Sergeant said, ‘We’re not either.  We’ll have Class A rations tomorrow.’  And we did.”

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Interview With John A. Rich

Posted on 03/18/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with John A. Rich of Camino, CA conducted by John Croghan from the Fort Worden History Center by phone on June 28, 2005.  Mr. Rich served in the U.S. Army 356th Engineer Boat and Shore Regiment during the Korean War Era, he was stationed at Fort Worden in 1951-1952.  Here he describes his experiences in Korea:

“From Yokohama we got on an LST and went over to Inchon all the way around the Korean Peninsula and got off at Inchon. I took one of the most frightening rides of my life then. I was in Inchon for a couple of days before they loaded me on a train, a little Korean putt-putt.  I rode that train all the way from Inchon down the Korean Peninsula to Pusan.  We got stopped about 15-20 times.  There was firing and shooting all the way along.  I thought, ‘Oh, my God, if this train doesn’t get blown up and run off the track someplace, go off a bridge or something, it would be amazing.’  But it made it all the way to Pusan, it took two days.  That was a very hairy ride!  At that time, there were still a lot of Chinese and North Koreans and whatever all over the peninsula.  They see a train going by with Americans on it, they’re going to shoot at it.”

He was then assigned to the 501st Harbor Craft, and assigned an LCM.

“I was there about a week when they called me into the office, gave me a chart and said my boat was down at the dock and to go to Koje-do.  During the Korean War the U.N. (that’s spelled the U.S. military) captured a hell of a lot of prisoners—North Koreans, Chinese, Mongolians, even Russians, men and women.  They sent them all down to this island group that is southwest off the tip of the Korean Peninsula in the South China Sea. It’s a string of about 25 volcanic islands, Koje-do is the biggest.  It is about 14 miles long and 6-7 miles wide.  Most of the prisoners were there.  On Koje-do and six other islands there were about 350,000 prisoners.  They had them segregated by either sex or nationality, there was one island just for troublemakers.  My job was to run a ferry boat between the islands. It was about 25 miles from one island down to the end of the string.  Every day I’d run one way and stay overnight down at that island and then run back, just back and forth and back and forth. Eventually they got about a million prisoners all together and there was too much stuff to haul . The mike boat got too small, so they told me to go back to Pusan and turn in my boat and they gave me a Landing Craft Utility, a much, much bigger boat.  It was 114 feet, 56 feet wide, weighed about 100 tons with three main engines and two diesel generators.  I ran that back and forth until the end of the war. The war ended in June of ’54, in the meantime we had Operation Little Switch and Operation Big Switch.  In Little Switch, we traded 150,000 North Korean and Chinese prisoners for 15,000 American GI’s.  I never got to see the GI’s, but I had to go to the various islands and pick up three, four, five, six hundred of these prisoners and bring them back and then take them out to the ships.  I don’t know where they dropped them off, but they took them up north.  About three or four months later, they had Operation Big Switch, where they traded about 400,000 Chinese, North Koreans and what have you for American GI prisoners.  The ratio I think was about 25 to one.”

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Interview With Elizabeth L. Reid

Posted on 03/18/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with Mrs. Elizabeth L. Reid conducted by Patience Rogge on October 11, 2007 at Mrs. Reid’s home in Port Townsend, WA for the Fort Worden Oral History Program.  Mrs. Reid was employed as a Cottage Parent at the Juvenile Diagnostic and Treatment Center from 1958 to 1962.

Here she describes her relationship with the girls in the cottage and a chance encounter years later:

“I did make friends with several of the girls, I had my favorites. I shouldn’t say that, but I did.  One day after I wasn’t working there anymore, I was in the Bon Marche department store in Seattle.  I was shopping, just looking around, all of a sudden it was quiet and suddenly came this voice, ‘Mrs. Reid! Mrs. Reid!’ I thought ‘Who in the world is that?’  Here came this girl running—it had been about ten years since I had worked—she came running towards me and stopped right in front of me.  She said, ‘You are Mrs. Reid, aren’t you?’ ‘Yes,’I said.  I could remember her first name was Mary but I couldn’t remember her last name.  We had the nicest visit.  She had married and had a little girl. The child wasn’t with her but she showed me a picture of this darling little girl.  She said, ‘You know, being at Fort Worden was the best thing that ever happened to me.’  So that pleased me. None of the girls ever ran away from me when I had them out.  I substituted in the boys’ cottages in the summertime once in a while.  The boys were more respectful to me than a lot of the girls.  Some of the girls were downright nasty.  A lot of the boys were really respectful to a woman and I enjoyed working with them.  I had a boy and a girl of my own so I kind of knew the ins and outs of little things.”

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