World War II comes to northern Maine - CHILDREN'S WARTIME ADVENTURE NOVELS

New England locations are featured in several middle grade and young adult novels published during World War II.  My latest book, Children's Wartime Adventure Novels - The Silent Generation's Vicarious Experience of World War II explores these stories and how they inspired and indoctrinated a young generation too young to fight, but not too young to be affected by a global war. 

In the first of this three-post series, I wrote about locations in western Massachusetts -- Smith College and Mount Holyoke College -- that were settings for two books for girls on officers' training in the WAVES and Women Marines.

In the second post last week, I talked about two boys' novels that show us New London, Connecticut, locations, including the Naval Submarine Base, where young men train during World War II.

Today, in the third and last post in this three-part series, we have a look at a book for girls set in Maine that blends the war and the home front.

Carol Rogers in War Wings for Carol by Patricia O’Malley, is an administrative assistant in a regional airline in northern Maine.  The author worked for the Civil Aeronautics Association from 1938, for Transcontinental & Western Air, Inc. (TWA) and was employed by (its later incarnation) Trans World Airlines in the public relations department at the time of the book’s publication.  Ms. O’Malley brings the details of a career for young women as stewardesses and administrative staff to, in this case, a wartime setting

War Wings for Carol begins with her arrival in a rather isolated town in northern Maine where a small regional airport now shares its facilities with an Army Air Transport unit, which gives Carol and the reader a window on the mundane but very necessary non-combat military units which ferry supplies to the front.

Along with the nuts and bolts of airline administration, we are treated to Carol’s impressions of a part of the country with which she is not familiar, and the author describes New England in sometimes lyrical prose.

“The cities were built along the banks of rivers, and the rivers were lined with miles of red brick mills, chimneys belching tall columns of thick black smoke in defiance of an enemy which would reduce mankind to slavery.  For this was the heart of industrial New England, where thousands of men, women and machines had been mobilized into the unconquerable army of American production, where the wheels of democracy turned unceasingly, grinding out implements of victory.”

It is the dead of winter when she arrives on a connecting flight from Boston and Bangor.

“There were farms outside the villages, their red barns dark against the white earth.  In the distance, small hills rose against the western horizon and they flew across the icy Kennebec at Augusta, where the dome of the capitol rises in stately dignity above the very site where the men of the Massachusetts Bay Colony established the first trading post in America.”

She is to be assistant to Mr. Ingram, the Vice President of the fictional New England Airlines, and because he must travel a great deal, he leaves important duties in her lap, including the hiring and training of new air hostesses.  They are in northern Maine, close to the Canadian border, where they share the airfield with the Army Air Corps, and do some contract work for the military, carrying cargo and supplies along with its regular passengers.  Mr. Ingram hired Carol to take many details off his shoulders.  “‘It’s a big job for a girl and I thought a long time before I made up my mind to take you.  But women must shoulder men’s work, and I suppose we’ll see more of it before this thing ends.’

“After a few minutes of reflection, during which Carol sat quietly, he added, ‘And they always do it as well…or better.  It’s a sad commentary on the stronger sex, Miss Rogers, but it’s true.’” We can hope the young female readers took note of the praise.

The Army airfield is described without hyperbole:  “Two Flying Fortresses and their fighter escorts were making a spectacular showing against its backdrop. On the ground, squadrons of bombers were lining up for reconnaissance practice, and pursuit planes were waddling out of hangers into position for take-off.  Trucks, tractors, jeeps and station wagons sped in and out of the post gates.”

The small town nearby has changed with the war: “Men in uniform were everywhere.  They stood in doorways and they walked up and down, talking.  They filled the drug stores, drinking innumerable cokes and cups of hot coffee.  They jammed the movies and they patronized the shops and brought a wave of prosperity such as the little town had never known before.” Much could be said of many, many towns across the United States during the war.

Another loving passage on New England brings the story through the crisis and past a challenging winter.  “Spring in northern New England is not like spring anywhere else in the world.  She is not a hoyden here, who leaps at your throat and forces you to notice her presence.  She doesn’t hurl herself in your path.  Spring in New England is a perfect lady.  She has been taught how to enter a room and takes her time making an appearance.  She knows that winter lingers, loathe to leave the land on which he had such a long, secure hold.  But she also knows that victory is inevitably hers, so she walks softly and is gracious in her conquest.  She is all the more beautiful because of her good behavior. The snows melt, the hills turn green, the rivers break free from their bondage, and the waters sing as they carry the ice cakes down toward the sea.   The skies are washed, and crisply starched and ironed, and the chirp of the robin is heard in the early morning from the branches of trees that are giving promise of the gracious abundance which is to follow.”

Carol deals with wartime administrative problems, encounters a Nazi spy, and agonizes over one of their military supply planes lost in a winter storm somewhere over Maritime Canada.

Children's Wartime Adventure Novels is available in eBook directly from my online store here.

It is also available in eBook from Barnes & Noble, Apple, and a wide variety of online shops here.

It is also available in eBook, paperback, and hardcover from Amazon here.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts - A Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War;   

Comedy and Tragedy on the Mountain: 70 Years of Summer Theatre on Mt. Tom, Holyoke, Massachusetts;

 States of Mind: New England, 

A Tragic Toast to Christmas -- The Infamous Wood Alcohol Deaths of 1919 in Chicopee, Mass.; as well as books on classic films and several novels.  Her Double V Mysteries series is set in New England in the early 1950s.  

TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

Westfield River -- Agawam, Massachusetts

 

 

Here are three postcard views of the Westfield River in Agawam, Massachusetts.  They are all published by the Springfield News Company and printed in Germany, as was common in the early twentieth century.  The cards all date from around 1908, and are tinted.

You'll note that on the cards the river is called the Agawam River.  The earliest English settlers to the area named it that for the Agawam tribe that lived in the area, but eventually came to be called the Westfield River.  It begins in the Berkshires and ends in the Connecticut River, forming the boundary between the towns of Agawam and West Springfield.

Despite these idyllic scenes, by the mid-twentieth century the river became terribly polluted, as many of our rivers were through industrial contaminants, but today is clean for swimming, fishing, and its locally famous Westfield River Whitewater Races.

Four aerial views of Springfield, Massachusetts in the 1920s

Here are four aerial views of Springfield, Massachusetts, all probably taken at the same time around the mid-to-late 1920s.  They are from a set of postcards published by the Aerial Service of Hartford, Connecticut.  Above, starting from the southernmost section of the city, we have the Everett Barney mansion, estate, mausoleum and grounds of Forest Park.  The Connecticut River is on the far upper right.

Next, we have the lower State Street area, specifically focused on what the postcard publisher calls The Educational Center, but which we have come to know as The Quadrangle.  The library can be seen, as well as the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum, The Springfield Science Museum, and the building which currently houses The Amazing World of Dr. Seuss.  In this photo, the Museum of Fine Arts is absent, as that was not built until the 1930s.  Also absent is the Lyman and Merrie Woods Museum of Springfield History, which was not constructed until 2009.

St. Michael's Cathedral can be spotted, the Springfield Armory, Classical High School, and Springfield Technical High School, which we covered in this previous post.

The next view shows us the city's downtown with Court Square, the City Hall, Campanile, and Symphony Hall prominent in the photo.  The new Memorial Bridge, completed in 1922 spans the Connecticut River on the left.  Horizontal near the top of the photo we have the rail line and train station.  This view gives us a good look at Springfield before Route 91.

Our final view is of the northern section of the city and the expanse of what was the new Springfield Hospital, what would later become the main building of Baystate Medical Center.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts - A Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War;   Comedy and Tragedy on the Mountain: 70 Years of Summer Theatre on Mt. Tom, Holyoke, Massachusetts;   States of Mind: New England; as well as books on classic films and several novels. Her latest book is Christmas in Classic Films. TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

Hampton Ponds, Westfield, Massachusetts

 

Hampton Ponds, Westfield, Massachusetts, from a postcard published in the early 1900s.  Today, the Hampton Ponds State Park now borders the southern shore.  

Do you have memories of spending summers at Hampton Ponds?

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Comedy and Tragedy on the Mountain: 70 Years of Summer Theatre on Mt. Tom, Holyoke, Massachusetts; States of Mind: New England (collected essays from this blog); The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts; and Beside the Still Waters - a novel on the construction of the Quabbin Reservoir.

Link to recorded Zoom talk on BESIDE THE STILL WATERS - a novel of the Quabbin Reservoir

 

Here is a link to my recorded Zoom talk  earlier this month on the historical background of my novel Beside the Still Waters for the Holyoke Public Library of Holyoke, Massachusetts, for those of you who were unable to join us.

The novel, a family saga, is about the four towns that were demolished to create the Quabbin Reservoir in central Massachusetts in the 1920s and 1930s.  The story is about community and the loss of community, and how our hometowns make up a big part of our family heritage and our personal identities.  Photos and map images accompany the talk. 

Here's the link:

Author Talk-Beside the Still Waters - Zoom

I hope you enjoy it.   For more of my books on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple iTunes, Kobo, and a variety of other online shops, please see my website here:  www.JacquelineTLynch.com.

Thanks for reading...

Jacqueline T. Lynch

Mount Sugarloaf - Deerfield, Massachusetts

You are standing on the back of a dead giant man-eating beaver.  According to Native American legend.  Maybe so.  This is the view from Mount Sugarloaf in South Deerfield, Massachusetts.  It's only just over 650 feet high, but it's placement on a wide valley floor lends the view a strangely spectacular sense of drama.  Especially at peak foliage season.

We're looking south in the above photo; that's Mt. Tom in Holyoke on the horizon.  Here below is looking eastward.

Across the Connecticut River you can see Mt. Toby in Sunderland.  No dead giant man-eating beaver over there.  And the volanic energy that created it is long since dormant.  So, it's safe to bring a lunch and go for a hike.  Our only sense of urgency comes from missing what's left of the fleeting peak season.

Village Green - Woodstock, Vermont

The town common, or village green in Woodstock, Vermont. It is early spring, and the activities held here by the community are for another day. Today, we have it all to ourselves.


If you want to know more about Woodstock, here’s the marker right on the green to fill you in. These are the facts.  I like the one about it being the the site of the first ski-tow in the US, in 1934.

Poet William Blake provides some color commentary in “The Echoing Green”:

The sun does arise,


And make happy the skies.


The merry bells ring


To welcome the spring.


The skylark and thrush,


The birds of the bush,


Sing louder around,


To the bells’ cheerful sound,


While our sports shall be seen


On the echoing green.






Old John with white hair


Does laugh away care,


Sitting under the oak,


Among the old folk.


They laugh at our play,


And soon they all say:


‘Such, such were the joys


When we all, girls and boys,


In our youth-time were seen


On the echoing green.’






Till the little ones weary


No more can be merry;


The sun does descend,


And our sports have an end.


Round the laps of their mother


Many sisters and brothers,


Like birds in their nest,


Are ready for rest;


And sport no more seen


On the darkening green.



William Blake (1757-1827)

A Stroll from New Hampshire to Vermont

A little walk from New Hampshire to Vermont involves a little bridge.  Here we begin in Hanover, New Hampshire in the northern part of the state.

Across the Connecticut River in Norwich, Vermont, we come upon the site of a first settler, cabin long gone.  Only the historical marker to tell the tale.







You Are Here: The Pioneer Valley

You are here: driving down Route 5 (that’s “root”) crossing over the state line from Vermont to Massachusetts, and entering that other less official geographic entity of The Pioneer Valley, where the mighty Connecticut River holds court in a wide river basin rimed by blue hills, carved by the last glaciers that pulled out oh, let’s see, some time ago it was. Leaving fertile farmland, and a mess of dinosaur footprints. Have a look at this previous post for more on that.

Palmer's Washington Elm

On this voting day, no views of polling booths or campaign signs. Instead, the photo of an elm tree taken in Palmer, Massachusetts in 1906. Locals called it the Washington Elm.

It was part of local lore that George Washington rested under this tree while traveling the Boston Post Road, now Route 20. The magnificent old tree toppled in the Hurricane of 1938 (see blog post here).

The photo, part of the Palmer Public Library collection, was taken by D. L. Bodfish of Palmer. George Washington was a man who became an icon. The tree became folklore. The democracy represented by the icon and the folklore outlasted both.

The Flume - New Hampshire

New Hampshire’s Flume Gorge at Franconia Notch State Park takes you on a hike through granite halls, 19th century covered bridges, waterfalls and glacial boulders from the last ice age, and a wooden boardwalk that brings you up close in the gorge.

The Flume was discovered by a 93-year-old woman out fishing in 1808, so it shouldn’t be too much trouble for you to hike. As the spring comes upon us, and cabin fever drives us outdoors again, here is a great place to find that unique solace that nature offers.

For more on The Flume, have a look at this New Hampshire government website.

Been there? Done that? Brought your 93-year-old grandma? Let us know.

New England Islands

There are hundreds islands in New England, from as large as Nantucket to as small as Cormorant Rock off New London, Connecticut. Inhabited islands of year-round homes or summer cottages, and many uninhabited, left to the sea birds.

An old joke goes, “There was a terrible storm last week, and the ferries weren’t running. Those poor folks on the mainland were cut off for days.”

This photo showing US Mail boxes labeled “on island” and “off island” illustrates the line of demarcation in the island dweller’s hearts and minds. There is the island, and then there is everyplace else.

Been to Nantucket? Martha’s Vineyard? Block Island? Name the island of your choice, and let us know.

Fun at the 45th Parallel

The above photo depicts the roadside monument in Perry, Maine marking the 45th parallel. It’s a swell parallel, as parallels go. It marks the halfway point between the equator and the North Pole (not exactly halfway, having to do with the bulge of the earth at the equator, but “almost halfway between the equator and the North Pole” doesn’t sound as nice).

You can also find other markers to this swell parallel in Franklin, Vermont; Richford, Vermont; in Stewartstown, New Hampshire; in Clarksville, New Hampshire, and a whole lot of other places all over the big wide globe. Some of them are small signs, others, like this beauty, which actually looks like it’s showing the equator and not the 45th parallel, are imaginative monuments to something that sort of exists but which we cannot see. Man divides up the earth into quadrants, boundaries, meridians. It is our need for direction, and our need for precision, that makes us paint imaginary lines across the earth, and then celebrate them with a monument to say that they really do exist.