Interview With Marcella Younce

Posted on 02/19/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with Marcella Younce of Port Townsend conducted by Mona Lou Stefflre on July 15, 2002 at the Fort Worden History Center. Mrs. Younce grew up in Port Townsend and married Jack Younce, the son of a noncommissioned officer stationed at Fort Worden in the 1930’s:

“I know why you’ve got all the rabbits around Fort Worden…My husband Jack and his good friend Howard Petrie… decided they would make some money one summer and raise rabbits and sell them. …at first the families were buying some rabbits from them for their Sunday dinners and everything seemed to be going fine. Then the rabbits started multiplying so fast, they didn’t know which were the boys and which were the girls. They didn’t know how to separate them and they just multiplied so fast that Jack and Howard couldn’t get cages built for them, then they realized that even when they started school again they had to get up early and cut hay and get food for these rabbits…People weren’t buying as many as the boys were raising, so they were just overwhelmed. They decided one day ‘to heck with it’ and they just opened the gates and let these rabbits out. So, they’ve been multiplying up in the woods ever since, and that’s where all these rabbits came from.”

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Interview With Mel Wortman

Posted on 02/19/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with Mel Wortman on June 1, 2004 conducted by Patience Rogge by phone from the Fort Worden History Center. Mr. Wortman served as a member of the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission from 1984 to 1996. Here he discusses the development of “Memory’s Vault,” the art installation on Artillery Hill:

“The law required Parks to spend X amount in the arts…so we had construction projects going that required X amount of money to be spent, and unfortunately the way the interpretation of the law was that the Arts Commission would decide what was going to go there. And so they decided first, before my time, that grotesque looking thing over there on the lawn as you go up the hill. That was one of their projects. And then came the ‘Memory’s Vault’. And there were some Port Townsend way out folks (who) convinced the Arts Commission that this concept would be a great thing. The director at the time, Jan Tvetin, decided the best way was to let them put it in, but we could choose where it went. He decided and the commission approved, if you will, hiding it up there. … The vegetation has grown up considerably in front of it but not that much. It was the intent of the director and myself, and approved by the commission to sort of hide it because we didn’t want to see where they had spent a million and a half or some such ungodly number of dollars. It was a fabulous amount of money and people were paid. Then there was a guy commissioned from Port Angeles who was, if you will, a weirdo. He was to come up with the inscription on the plates. … Jan and I had a look at them, and I being a World War II vet, I just about blew my cork because one of the lines was…where it said the sailors who were dying of syphilis, the soldiers who were dying of syphilis and so on and so on…I tried my best to change it but decisions were made…I do believe our agency would have gone to court (but) the Parks Commission didn’t have the authority. So right after it was built then someone went up in the still of the night with a center punch and a hammer and obliterated it so you couldn’t read it….”

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Interview With Richard Wojt

Posted on 02/19/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with Richard Wojt of Port Townsend conducted by Wendy Los at the Fort Worden History Center on October 26, 2004. Mr. Wojt was a science teacher at the Fort Worden Juvenile Diagnostic and Treatment Center from 1961 to 1964. Here he discusses some of the methods he used to get the residents interested in learning:

“We built a big aquarium in the classroom and we’d pick up samples on the beach, on inclement days we could make observations of what was going on in the aquarium. I had a great big cage where we kept white rats and we taught the rats to do all kinds of things. The kids enjoyed that. We had birthing and the mother rats would teach the baby rats how to use the trapezes… They followed their mothers and saw how their mothers were getting food. One rat I remember got injured so she couldn’t climb any more. The habit of the other rats was to go up, go across, pick up the piece of food, (and) come all the way down. She would wait at the pole down there and as they were coming down, they were hanging onto the pole. She would grab the food and instead of fighting her for it, they just turned around and went out and got another piece. I guess you could come to the conclusion that (they were bringing it for her).”

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Interview With Helen Virden

Posted on 02/19/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with Helen Virden of Marshall, WI conducted by Patience Rogge by phone from the Fort Worden History Center on May 27, 2008. Mrs. Virden , the widow of U.S. Army Sergeant Kenneth M. Virden, lived in NCO quarters at Fort Worden in the 1950’s. Here she recalls a tragic incident involving a family friend:

“We met a lot of nice people (at Fort Worden). There was one couple that we met there, he had been in a Japanese prison camp. He came home and his wife got pregnant. She went into to the hospital to have her baby and he was so excited. My husband and I were great friends with them. He called me up, my husband was working, and said she was going to have the baby. ‘So, Helen, come on up and have a drink with me.’ I said ‘Oh no, I can’t do that. I’ve got the kids.” He said, ‘Oh, come on.’ I said, ‘No, I can’t, I’m sorry. But next time I see you, we’ll have a drink.’  That night he went and had some drinks, went home and went to sleep on his couch with a cigarette. It caught fire and he died. It was so, so sad after all those years being in a Japanese prison camp. It was terrible.”

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Interview With John Vekich

Posted on 02/19/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with John Vekich of Tacoma, WA conducted by Oran DeBois at the Fort Worden History Center on January 24, 2004. Mr. Vekich served in the U.S. Army 248th Coast Artillery during World War II. At Fort Worden, he worked as a CID investigator. Here he describes some of his work in law enforcement:

“Unfortunately we had a mess here. I investigated the first murder they had (at Fort Worden). It was a boy who married a lady who liked more than one man and he just couldn’t take it so he killed her right behind the NCO Club, then he committed suicide. I had the task of assembling that and making about a 60 page report. In those days they didn’t have a coroner. We worked with the sheriff’s office. Port Townsend was a third class city so they didn’t have felony authority, didn’t have the court that could handle anything. They had only one cop, he was the chief and the police commission and everything. We cracked a couple of burglaries in Pierce County and Port Townsend that involved soldiers.”

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Interview With Mary Swift

Posted on 02/19/2012 by fwohp4481

 

From the interview with Mary Swift of Olympia conducted by Rick Martinez at the Fort Worden History Center on October 12, 2002. Mrs. Swift , daughter of Lt. Col. Floyd D. Robbins, lived at Fort Worden from 1940 to 1945. Here she describes what it was like at Fort Worden on Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1941:

“We were here on Pearl Harbor Day. It was exciting but yet it was scary; because, number one, we did not know where Pearl Harbor was. We’d never heard of Pearl Harbor in those days. My dad always turned on the radio first thing in the morning. We were getting ready to go to church. He was eating his breakfast and the news came over the radio. He immediately jumped up so fast. He ran and put on his battle clothes, his leggings and his boots and all those things. So we knew it was serious. He just dashed out of the house and ran across the parade grounds, and then just disappeared. We stood on the porch crying, ‘What’s goin’ on, what’s happenin.’ We were so scared.

This fort came to life on that day. Sirens started going off and the bugle calls, assembly. Soldiers were running in every direction. We thought the Japanese were still on the way. We had had air raid drills, so we knew what you do. Our basement was our air raid shelter, and they had a main air raid shelter someplace up there by the brig or somewhere in there; and so we all went to our basement thinking they’re still coming.”

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Interview with Ella Sandvig

Posted on 02/19/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with Ella Sandvig of Port Townsend conducted by Teddy Clark at the Fort Worden History Center on January 18, 2003. Ms. Sandvig worked at the Fort Worden Juvenile Diagnostic and Treatment Center from May 1958 to May 1971 as clerical supervisor in the social services department. Here she discusses the final day of the Center:

“It caught me very unaware because we’d been dwindling down gradually with less and less work to do and I stuck it out to the very last day. A lot of people transferred and left so we were kind of a skeleton crew. The last day came and I got ready to leave and some of the bosses came in to say goodbye and the women who worked for me gave me presents. It just dawned on me all of a sudden what was happening. By the time I got down to my car in the parking lot I was crying. I had not even given a thought to how I was going to feel when those doors closed for the last time. It was traumatic. A lot of people faced it earlier than I did. A lot of people took it very, very hard. A lot of people fought the state over what they were doing with it. I didn’t do that because I thought the governor probably had a lot more information about what was right for this place than I did. So I didn’t join the group that petitioned and fought for it. It didn’t feel right to fight to save a job. It felt like they were fighting to save their jobs when sometimes people have to make decisions about change regardless of who loses a job.I don’t think that was very popular with some of the other people there but that’s how I felt about it. I took it very hard the last day, but I didn’t up until that last day. It just hadn’t occurred to me how I was going to feel, because we had all worked so closely together and we knew people were scattering off all over the state.”

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Interview With Ann Robson

Posted on 02/19/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with Ann Robson of Issaquah, WA, conducted by Pam Clise on October 11,2003 at the Fort Worden History Center. Ms. Robson’s parents, Pauline and Tom Scott worked for the Fort Worden Juvenile Diagnostic and Treatment Center from 1959 to 1972. He was director of education and recreation and she was the secretary for the superintendent. They lived in Bldg. 6E on Officer’s Row. Here she tells of an incident that reflects on the community feeling of the Center:

“I remember when my cat got stuck up in this really tall tree right next to my house…my dad said it had to stay there until it came down. I was just mortified that that cat was going to be up there for days. Not really knowing any better, I saw the maintenance men and I said, ’Can you get my cat down?’ They came over with this big ladder and got the cat down for me and my dad was furious, he said ‘We don’t need to bother them for that.’ But then they came back and put this big piece of metal around the tree so that the cat would go up the tree and hit the metal and go back down, so they didn’t have to do that anymore. Now, that isn’t a very profound thing but it kind of symbolizes that everybody took care of everybody here, everybody was caring. Whenever all the people that worked here got together with their kids (they) seemed to have a good time and enjoy it. That’s what is important.”

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Interview With Tom L. Riley

Posted on 02/18/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with Tom L. Riley of Port Townsend, conducted by Patience Rogge on June 20, 2008 by telephone for the Fort Worden Oral History Program. Mr. Riley was a civilian employee of the U.S. Army working in fire prevention protection for more than 30 years:

“…until the time I retired, every GI that I ever saw smoked…when I made my annual fire loss reports, I’d check how many fires you’ve had and what caused them…about fifty per cent were from smoking, and the loss of life the same way. That’s right, especially (because of) the wool blankets the Army has. I’ve actually seen husky soldiers that could have gone through the wall to get out of those buildings, because they were two-by-four shiplap in those days. And when I would get there to investigate the fire, he’d still be in the bed, and of course, he’d be dead. He just lay there and burned to death. What happens is that they’d breathe the fumes from those wool blankets and it ‘d actually anesthetize them….then they’d just go to sleep and that’s it.”

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Interview With Phil Rich

Posted on 02/18/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with Phil Rich of Port Townsend conducted by Patience Rogge at the Fort Worden History Center on September 25, 2008. Mr. Rich taught history at the Fort Worden Juvenile Diagnostic and Treatment Center. Here he discusses two of his more memorable students. Full names are not given because of privacy concerns:

“Probably the most memorable was DP. Every person you may interview will remember DP. He was a young man who was born on the other side of the law. He just could not stay out of trouble. He was not here because he did anything really terribly bad, perhaps ran away. I don’t know if he stole cars or anything but he was just a young man who had had the worst breaks, I think, of any young person. He should never have gone through life that way. I don’t know if he’s still alive or not. I remember one of the interviews he was telling at a student review board meeting. He was telling us, ‘You can’t beat me, I’ve been beaten by the best.’ I felt so sad that the young man had that experience. One of the other students I remember very, very well, his name was MG. When we first started teaching, there were some classrooms in one of the cottages. MG would constantly move his desk up against mine and bump and bump and bump. I would tell him to move his desk back, get away from my desk, you are bothering me, get back. It was just an ongoing thing. One day my patience wore thin. I went around my desk and picked his desk up with him in it and gave it a pretty doggone good heave across the room. After that, he never bumped up against my desk, except one day I was looking down on some paperwork and all of a sudden my desk started bouncing, bouncing, bouncing. I thought it was MG. I looked up and his desk was five feet away from mine. He threw his hands up in the air and said,’ Mr. Rich, it’s an earthquake!’ And it really was an earthquake.”

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