[Interview Begins]

SPRAGUE: Today is June 6th, 2023. This is an interview with LaNore Anderson, who served in the United States Coast Guard Women's Reserve from September 1944 to March 1946. LaNore entered the service as LaNore Saint Angelo. Is that correct, LaNore? Yeah. Okay. Am I loud enough for you? Yeah. Yep. That's good. This interview is being conducted by Luke Sprague at the Veterans Home in Appleton, Wisconsin, for the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Oral History Program. It should be noted to the viewer that the interviewer knew LaNore while growing up in Thorp, Wisconsin. People also present in the interview room are daughter, Quinlan, and son, John. Okay. To start off, LaNore, where did you grow up?

ANDERSON: Thorp. No, I grew up in Frederic [laughs].

SPRAGUE: Okay.

ANDERSON: I grew up in Frederic and moved to Thorp after I was married.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And what did your family do in Frederic?

ANDERSON: Oh, well, my mother was postmaster for, I think, 18 years, and my dad worked with Thorp…Oh, oh, oh…It was a factory. And then he was selling cars. And that's what we lived there for, what, till I was married. And then when my husband was transferred to Fort Wayne, moved down there.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

ANDERSON: I work for a firm finance before.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And when you were growing up in Frederic, what schools did you go to?

ANDERSON: Like, public school. That's all we had. We didn't have parochial school until Frederic.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And that's Frederic, Wisconsin, correct? Yes. Okay. So tell me about later in your life after high school. What did you do then?

ANDERSON: Oh, I went into the service and I was in Florida and I went out to San Francisco and out there.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So we're going to dig into both of those. Did you attend some university or college before you went?

ANDERSON: Yeah. So I went down to Wisconsin for a year before I went out to the service.

SPRAGUE: University of Wisconsin at Madison.

ANDERSON: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

ANDERSON: I was one of the first class at Thorp, what's a woman's, uhh, I can't think of it now. Where the women stayed, Liz Waters.

SPRAGUE: Liz Waters.

ANDERSON: Well, first year of Liz Waters.

SPRAGUE: Oh, really?

ANDERSON: Yes, We were the first. The summer school kids stayed there, women stayed there. And we were the first class that they had.

SPRAGUE: The first class of women. Oh, really?

ANDERSON: Stayed there? Yeah. That was our first year.

SPRAGUE: And what year was that about?

ANDERSON: I can't remember. I'm sorry.

SPRAGUE: That's okay. That's fine. So you're going to college? Where were you when Pearl Harbor happened? The attack on Pearl Harbor? Where were you at that time?

ANDERSON: Well, I was in Minneapolis.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

ANDERSON: And that was when the war broke out.

SPRAGUE: What were you doing in Minneapolis?

ANDERSON: I worked in an office.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

ANDERSON: Secretary.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Do you remember what office you worked for or what company? [Anderson laughing]. No?

ANDERSON: I can't remember, sorry.

SPRAGUE: Okay, that's fine. So before you entered the military, what did you do just before joining the Coast Guard?

ANDERSON: Well, I was at Wisconsin for a year.

SPRAGUE: Okay, so that was just prior? Okay. You talked about this in the other interviews, but tell me a little bit about why you wanted to join the military.

ANDERSON: Well, it was because I was living with another girl. And that day I said, you know, guess what? And she said, What? And I said, I joined the Coast Guard. And she said, her face dropped, she said, I joined the, well, it was another group. What in the Dickens was the name of it? Anyways, her group was out on the West Coast and mine was on, you know, in Florida. Oh, yeah.

SPRAGUE: Mm hmm.

But. Oh, it was just. Neither one of us had ever discussed that at all. But she joined one, and I joined the other.

SPRAGUE: Did did any of the rest of your family serve in the military?

ANDERSON: No. I had two brothers, and they both died. Young men. And so I was all the family we had.

SPRAGUE: Mm hmm. And what was your mother and your father's name?

ANDERSON: Louis Saint Angelo and Victoria Saint Angelo. Victoria was postmaster in Frederic for 18 years. And she resigned after that 18 years and then they did a little traveling and enjoyed life.

SPRAGUE: Were there any uncles that served or not?

ANDERSON: That was there, Frederic.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Okay. And why did you decide to join the Coast Guard or become a SPAR [the United States Coast Guard Women's Reserve used an acronym derived from their motto: Semper Paratus–Always Ready]?

ANDERSON: Pardon?

SPRAGUE: You are a SPAR, correct?

ANDERSON: Yes.

SPRAGUE: Okay. What influenced you?

ANDERSON: I have no idea. Because it just so happened that the girl I was rooming with join the WAVES, and neither one of us had discussed this at all, it just so happened that she joined the WAVES and I joined the SPARS.

SPRAGUE: But no particular reason, huh?

ANDERSON: No.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

ANDERSON: Well, and of course, I went to San Francisco for training and she went out to the East Coast for her training.

SPRAGUE: Uh huh. Okay. So can you tell me: at the time, were you in Frederic, Wisconsin?

ANDERSON: Mm hmm.

SPRAGUE: Or in Madison? No, you weren't. You were in Frederic. What was the enlistment process like? How did you join?

ANDERSON: I don't know. We just, it was odd, because we both joined our following

SPRAGUE: Branch?

ANDERSON: Yeah, and we hadn't discussed it at all.

SPRAGUE: Okay. At what age did you join the military?

ANDERSON: Oh, golly. I must have been…I have no idea.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Do you happen to remember any of the recruiting policies and requirements to join the Coast Guard at the time?

ANDERSON: Well, I didn't know what it required, but I found out pretty soon we had three months in Florida and then we were transferred to San Francisco.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

ANDERSON: And I spent the rest of my time in service in San Francisco.

SPRAGUE: Yep. We're going to get to that. We're not quite there yet. I'm going to ask you a little bit about some other places first. So what did your family say about you joining?

ANDERSON: My parents were all for it. They said, you know…I guess I could have done the most ?? [damn?] thing. They lost their only two boys, and so I was the only one left. Well, my god.

SPRAGUE: So the next step. I assume you went from Wisconsin to Florida directly. How did you get there

ANDERSON: To Florida?

SPRAGUE: Yes, ma'am.

ANDERSON: By train.

SPRAGUE: Train? How long was the train?

ANDERSON: The Minneapolis to Florida?

SPRAGUE: How long was the train ride?

ANDERSON: Oh, it was quite a trip, but I don't remember. I mean, it was a good day and a half, I think, you know, to get there, as I remember it.

SPRAGUE: I remember now when you left Minneapolis, were you still a civilian or were you already in uniform when you left Minneapolis?

ANDERSON: No, I wasn't in uniform until we got down to Florida.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And you arrived at and I'm assuming Palm Beach.

ANDERSON: Mm hmm.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And tell me a little bit about where you stayed, the building you stayed in.

ANDERSON: Well, it was outside of West Palm Beach, and it was in a big facility. And we had our training there for, I think it was three months there and then transferred. I was transferred to San Francisco, and that's where I spent the rest.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Do you happen to remember if the training for the SPARS, do you remember if it was in a hotel? The Biltmore? Yeah.

ANDERSON: Oh, former hotel. Big place.

SPRAGUE: What was that like?

ANDERSON: Well, it was different because it sat out in a like, I don't know what you'd call it, like an island, you know, this facility. And that's where we had our training.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Oh, what was what was in the training? What did you. What did you how did you train?

ANDERSON: Well, mostly, you know, we had nothing before or prior to it, so they told us what we were there for and how long it would take.

SPRAGUE: Mm hmm. Did you have anything with, like, physical training?

ANDERSON: Yeah. Oh, there were, you know, I really, my mind is dozens. I can't think about that right now.

SPRAGUE: Do you happen to remember the uniforms?

ANDERSON: Oh, yeah.

SPRAGUE: Tell me about the uniforms.

ANDERSON: Yeah, we had our uniforms.

SPRAGUE: And what do you remember? Do you remember anything special about the uniforms?

ANDERSON: No, I don't. Okay. You know. Okay, everybody have the same one. So…[laughs].

SPRAGUE: Uh huh. Within the spars? Yeah. Did you remember anything special about the SPAR's uniform? No.

ANDERSON: No, I don't know.

SPRAGUE: Okay, so you said the training was about three months.

ANDERSON: Yeah. Transferred to San Francisco, and that's where I spent the rest of.

SPRAGUE: Yeah.

ANDERSON: Till the end of the war.

SPRAGUE: We will get there. We're not there yet, but we're getting there. Do you remember there being other services at Palm Beach? Other military services?

ANDERSON: No, I don't remember anyone else.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Did you have any men in your unit? Men. Males.

ANDERSON: Pardon?

SPRAGUE: Men in your unit, in the building and in the Biltmore. Or was it all women?

ANDERSON: I'm sorry. I don't understand.

SPRAGUE: Were there men like. Were there men at at the Biltmore Hotel, or was it all women?

ANDERSON: Oh, it's all women.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Did you do any testing while you were, like, taking written tests at at the SPAR training at Palm Beach?

ANDERSON: I don't think so.

SPRAGUE: Okay, let's see.

ANDERSON: We were there for three months, I think was and then were transferred to San Francisco and that's where I stayed until the end of the war.

SPRAGUE: Okay, So one other question here, and we'll finish up with Palm Beach. When you were at Palm Beach, did you learn did you find out that you were going to become a mailroom censor or not, or was that later.

ANDERSON: There was going to be what?

SPRAGUE: You were going to become a censor, a mailroom censor like you did in San Francisco. Did you find out what your what your occupation was going to be? Or was that later?

ANDERSON: Oh, that was later.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

ANDERSON: We didn't know until we got out there what we were going to do.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Good to know

ANDERSON: Know. We lived right in San Francisco in a big rooming house.

SPRAGUE: Where was the rooming house.?

ANDERSON: Huh? And it was up on, what they call the hill?

SPRAGUE: Okay.

ANDERSON: I can't remember what they call the hill. That's where we were for the time we were in the service.

SPRAGUE: And while you were living at the rooming house in San Francisco, where did you serve? Where did you do your job?

ANDERSON: Oh, down on the main drive, downtown San Francisco. And they had us working there, you know, in the office.

SPRAGUE: Do you happen to remember the name of the office, what they did there?

ANDERSON: No, I can't remember. I wouldn't be able to look it up, but I can't anymore.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Do you maybe think it was maybe a Coast Guard office or a Navy office or an Army office or a Navy office, maybe?

ANDERSON: Well, it was a business office, and that hill wasn't a chicken's name [laughs]. Anyway it was, you know, a business office.

SPRAGUE: And when you mean business office, was it a company, a private company or working for the government?

ANDERSON: No, it was a government office. We checked…

SPRAGUE: Mail.

ANDERSON: Mail…

SPRAGUE: Correct.

Anderson: …Is what we did.

SPRAGUE: Yep. So where was the training to check the mail?

ANDERSON: We did everything right from the first day. They told us what we had to do and…

SPRAGUE: Yeah.

ANDERSON: That's what it was.

SPRAGUE: Was it walkable from your place on the hill?

ANDERSON: Oh, you could walk but it was a good trip, right? 'Cause this was right downtown.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

ANDERSON: And we were out close to the, I can't think of the cathedral, but that's where we were.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Okay. And the Coast Guard assigned you to California. You didn't have a choice, did you? You were assigned to California and to San Francisco?

ANDERSON: Mmmhm,.

SPRAGUE: So they trained you on site be a mail room sensor? How did they tell you to do your job?

ANDERSON: Well, you know, they told us what was acceptable in the mail and what was not acceptable in the mail.

SPRAGUE: So did you cut out pieces or…? Tell me.

ANDERSON: I had to black out some of the area, you know, that mentioned any place, any streets or anything like that, we had a black cut out.

SPRAGUE: And did you end up also cutting out or was that something else?

ANDERSON: Well, they usually just blacked it out.

SPRAGUE: Blacked it out.

ANDERSON: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Did you have any letters that you had to just reject and send back?

ANDERSON: Yes, we did. Not very many, but there were a few.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Were there any particular letters you remember?

ANDERSON: No. No.

SPRAGUE: Did you have anybody try to use code in the letters? Code words or tricks?

ANDERSON: I don't know for what reason, you know, that they were blacked out, but yeah. Yeah, that they had certain things that they would not allow. Especially specific the streets or, you know, places.

SPRAGUE: Yeah, that makes sense. Did your peers, did the women you live with know that you were a censor?

ANDERSON: That I was what?

SPRAGUE: Did other people know that you censored mail?

ANDERSON: Yeah, they knew. Yeah. They were both in the Coast Guard too. They were sisters, you know, and they were in the Coast Guard. Where we stayed was all her workers in San Francisco.

SPRAGUE: In the Coast Guard.

ANDERSON: In the Coast Guard.

SPRAGUE: And your roommates, two of them were sisters. That's what you're telling me that stayed with you in San Francisco. Okay.

ANDERSON: They were from one of the Dakotas, but I don't remember if it was North or South Dakota. But they were from there and they were sisters.

SPRAGUE: Do you happen to remember their names?

ANDERSON: I would have it down someplace, but that's a long time ago [both laugh].

SPRAGUE: Oh, I know it is. I'm with you. But did you ever get any grief or gruff?

ANDERSON: Did I ever what?

SPRAGUE: Get any grief or feedback or people were upset that you were a censor or they just kind of accepted?

ANDERSON: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. It was part of the war?

ANDERSON: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. They understood that it had to happen?

ANDERSON: Mhhhmm.

ANDERSON: Where we stayed was a former, uhh I know what I say, it had a huge entryway and stairs. Great big stairs going up. And, you know, I can't believe how beautiful that building was at one time, but it was taken over for this reason to educate people working in their office.

SPRAGUE: How many stories was the building?

ANDERSON: I would say at least three. We have an elevator, remember, going up there? And it had a big reception room. I mean, it was big and a big stairway coming down. I suppose it was there for, you know, I imagine for a hotel or something at one time and taken over.

SPRAGUE: Was it a brick or a wooden building? A brick building or a concrete building?

ANDERSON: I don't know. I remember it had elevators up to the fourth floor.

SPRAGUE: Okay. What other things did they do in that building, other than censoring that?

ANDERSON: That's all. They took it over.

SPRAGUE: The whole building? In downtown San Francisco?

ANDERSON: Yeah, they took over the whole building to educate feminine workers.

SPRAGUE: Wow.

SPRAGUE: Were there ever men that you interacted with downtown when you were working? Were there also men in the building working?

ANDERSON: All the people in that building worked in, you know, different jobs. You know, for them, but I imagine for service work workers.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Do you remember? You don't remember any particular letters that were interesting or. ..?

ANDERSON: No. Back then, probably I would remember, but I can't remember any more.

SPRAGUE: Okay, no problem. Did you read each letter?

ANDERSON: Oh, when we would get letters that were questionable, you know, then we would read them and black out some. Not a lot, but as the war went on, you know, they carried less and less about those letters. I don't think there was that much information in there that would have destroyed anyone.

SPRAGUE: Did you did you ever feel guilty about censoring a letter?

ANDERSON: Yeah, you do. You know, in a way, it's a, you know, it's something you don't care [laughs]. But we did have to block it out.

SPRAGUE: So who censored your letters? Did someone censor your letters?

ANDERSON: No, my letters weren't censored.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Was there a supervisor that, like, overwatched?

ANDERSON: Our officer was from Canada and as soon as the war was over they were going to go right back. But he was an officer there.

SPRAGUE: Was he a Canadian officer?

ANDERSON: No, he was an American.

SPRAGUE: But he had Canadian roots or..?

ANDERSON: Yeah, I don't know why they lived in Canada, but they they liked it. And they were going to go back to family. I babysat for them one night. They had, I don't remember, a couple of youngsters and they wanted to go someplace. And I said, 'I'll baby sit, I'll sit with them' and I sat out there and then when they got home they had a cab take me home, take me back to the hotel where we lived. My two roommates were from the Dakotas and they were sisters. And the three of us had we had one bedroom and then one…What do you call the upper floor?

SPRAGUE: A loft or a bunk?

ANDERSON: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Bunk beds.

ANDERSON: One bunk.

SPRAGUE: One bunk for three of you.

ANDERSON: One bunk and then on extra thing.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

ANDERSON: I had the upper bunk because there were the first there so I got the one that was left.

SPRAGUE: And I don't know my hills in San Francisco, but could have that have been Beacon Hill, maybe?

ANDERSON: Beacon Hill, your right.

SPRAGUE: And it was in a hotel on Beacon Hill, okay, gotcha. What happened if you came across a letter not in English? What happened then?

ANDERSON: As I remember it, we take a our officer and say 'what should we do?' He was in charge with anything like that.

SPRAGUE: That officer who was in charge, who had Canadian roots, was he a lieutenant? A captain? Do you remember?

ANDERSON: No. I just know that it was an officer.

SPRAGUE: Or was he an NCO, a noncommissioned officer, a petty officer, or a commissioned officer?

ANDERSON: He was a commission officer.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Do you happen to remember his name?

ANDERSON: No.

SPRAGUE: No. Okay.

ANDERSON: I imagine I would have material that would have it in someplace, but…[gestures].

SPRAGUE: Okay, we can look at that later. That's fine. That's good. So tell me about your in the hotel. What's a a typical working day look like? You get up…

ANDERSON: They serve breakfast.

SPRAGUE: In the hotel?

ANDERSON: Yes.

SPRAGUE: Wow.

ANDERSON: You have your breakfast and then you went to work.

SPRAGUE: How did you get that work?

ANDERSON: Cable cars going down and back.

SPRAGUE: And you reported for work about when?

ANDERSON: I would imagine at 9 o'clock. Probably. I'm not sure.

SPRAGUE: Sure. Okay.

ANDERSON: Well, that was a long time ago.

SPRAGUE: Yeah, No, I understand that it was a long time ago. I'm just curious in case you worked a swing shift or you worked the night shift. But what you're telling me is you worked a normal day shift.

ANDERSON: I think everybody in that office worked the same hours.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Cool.

ANDERSON: We had a nice officer. He was very, you know, you could talk to him and he understood. He came down from Canada and he said the family wanted to go right back when the war was over.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. So what was the pay like?

ANDERSON: That I don't remember.

SPRAGUE: No.

ANDERSON: Everybody got the same amount, I think.

SPRAGUE: Uh huh. While you were in the SPARS do you remember any of the songs that they sung or anything like that?

ANDERSON: No. Well, yeah, the ones that everybody else knew [laughs].

SPRAGUE: Other than in training were people singing them or do you remember any of the names of them by chance?

ANDERSON: No.

SPRAGUE: Okay. So what were some of the interesting discoveries in the mail room you worked in? What were some of the interesting things? Maybe not you, but other people found?

ANDERSON: You know, nobody has asked me this for years and I don't remember that.

SPRAGUE: Okay, That's okay. I'm just curious to see if, you know, you've had something come in and you remember in your head, wow, this was a really different day. Okay, so tell me about when you met your husband in San Francisco. Tell me about that.

ANDERSON: No, we met before.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Where did you meet?

ANDERSON: In Minneapolis.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

ANDERSON: He stayed at a house where friends of mine stayed, you know, roomed. And that's how we met. Through my friends.

SPRAGUE: So you met him in Minneapolis.

ANDERSON: Met him in Minneapolis, Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Before you went to Florida?

ANDERSON: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Okay. What do you remember about meeting your husband?

ANDERSON: Oh. Oh, Oh. Well, he roomed with fellows that I knew from my hometown, and that's how we got to know him. That was the only thing. And I don't know.

SPRAGUE: So when you went to Florida to train, when you went to Palm Beach, how did you keep in touch with your husband or did he come down or…?

ANDERSON: Oh, I didn't know him. Well, I knew him as a friend, you know.

SPRAGUE: As a friend. Yeah. Okay. And so let's go back out to San Francisco. The war is still on. And how did the war wind down for you? What was that like as the war ended?

ANDERSON: Well, they celebrate, believe me. And now, you know, the whole, of course they were all, you know, big buildings and everything. Everybody was celebrating at the end of the war. You were lucky if you got back to bed at 2, back to home, you know, if you were ?? [a guy? went out?] We didn't leave. I didn't leave that building, but a lot of them did. It was pretty chaotic at the end of the war.

SPRAGUE: And when you were talking about the building, was there a parade or something? And were you were still in San Francisco at the time, or had you come home?

ANDERSON: San Fransisco, yeah. A lot of celebrating. Everything on TV and everything was…The dancing in the streets.

SPRAGUE: How long did that last?

ANDERSON: All night. All night.

SPRAGUE: Was there a ticker tape parade or just a parade in general?

ANDERSON: Well, I went to bed.

SPRAGUE: Okay, so tell me about you getting discharged from the military. When you left San Francisco what happened next as the war ended?

ANDERSON: The war ended and then we got married out there.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

ANDERSON: And that way we could take a train back to Wisconsin. And so…

SPRAGUE: So, go ahead. Sorry.

ANDERSON: We were going to get married back at home, and then we decided that we better get married there. And so that's what we did.

SPRAGUE: And you got married in the city of San Francisco?

ANDERSON: Right.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Which church?

ANDERSON: Yeah, the big Catholic church.

ANDERSON: And when I think about my folks came out and were there from when we got married and then we could get back to to Wisconsin because we were out of the service.

SPRAGUE: So tell me a little bit about, if you would, please, your husband service and meeting you in San Francisco.

ANDERSON: Yeah, he was on a flight in San Francisco, but down a ways from from San Francisco, so he would come up to to the, you know, would get a ride up and usually, like this [puts thumb up].

SPRAGUE: Hitching a ride.

ANDERSON: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: So maybe he was in the Army Air Corps or Army Air Force?

ANDERSON: Yeah, he was in the Air Corps.

SPRAGUE: And it sounds like to me like he was back down the valley further to the south, maybe south of San Francisco.

ANDERSON: Yes, he was.

SPRAGUE: Okay.

ANDERSON: …Had a field down there.

SPRAGUE: Okay. And how long was he stationed at that field?

ANDERSON: Oh, from the time he got in there. Gosh, I would say three years, maybe. And he was was in a flight. And I don't know what he did in the flight, but that's where he got his training and so on.

SPRAGUE: Mm hmm. So were you regularly able to visit or he'd come up and meet with you?

ANDERSON: Oh, yeah. You know, it was a big stairway because this was, I imagine, a hotel, you know, and it was a huge, big stairway. And when you get out of your room you, of course, went up in an elevator and when you would come down, you could come down the stairway if you didn't go down by elevator. And it's a huge, big stairway. It's huge. Wow.

SPRAGUE: You had mentioned in another interview or maybe even in the pre-interview, was the place where your husband served. May be called Hanford. Hanford, California?

ANDERSON: I don't know if he knew Hanford, California or not.

SPRAGUE: Okay, that's fine. That might not be correct. That's okay. When you got out of the military, what rank were you?

ANDERSON: I have no idea.

SPRAGUE: Okay, that's fine. Well, could you have stayed in if you wanted to stay in the military?

ANDERSON: No.

SPRAGUE: Did they tell you you have…?

ANDERSON: We both wanted to get out of it as soon as we could. And everybody else that we know wanted to get out. Oh, man all… But, it served its purpose.

SPRAGUE: So you returned back to Wisconsin?

ANDERSON: Mm hmm.

SPRAGUE: Where did you settle down?

ANDERSON: We settled in Thorp, where I came.

Off-screen voice: Frederic.

ANDERSON: And then my husband went to work in Thorp, in Frederic. And after he was working for a few years, and we were living in Frederic, then he was transferred to Thorp, to the headquarters. And that's when we moved the family down there. And we moved in across from the office where he worked. And we were there until we left. You know, they they sold out and moved to Minneapolis.

SPRAGUE: You're talking about Thorp Finance Corporation? Yep. Okay. I remember that. And you had children in Thorp or raising children in Thorp?

ANDERSON: We had three sons or four sons [looks off-screen. Indistinct off-screen voice. Laughs]. The first one was a son and then we had four daughters and then we had three sons.

SPRAGUE: Okay. When you got settled in, did you or your husband end up using any of your veterans benefits like the VA bill? Home loan?

ANDERSON: Oh, I imagine he checked everything, you know, that they could do. Yeah. And Thorp Finance, we were there until they moved to Minneapolis. And some of the families moved with them. But we decided with our family that we didn't want to move to Minneapolis, so he got a job around there and we stayed there.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Did you keep in touch with anyone you served with?

ANDERSON: Oh, we did then. But, you know, I don't know. Almost 100 years old. Lacking a few days now [laughs].

SPRAGUE: Yeah, exactly. So coming up on your birthday, aren't we?

ANDERSON: Pardon?

SPRAGUE: Your birthday's coming up?

ANDERSON: Yes.

SPRAGUE: June 16th. Okay. Well, did you. Did you join any veterans organizations?

ANDERSON: I can remember, it seems to me like we did in. Well, yeah, I think we, you know, didn't join a few.

SPRAGUE: Maybe the American Legion.

ANDERSON: Legion? Yeah, some of those.

SPRAGUE: So what involvement did you have with them?

ANDERSON: Oh, at that time I was raising a family. There wasn't an awful lot ?? [it could be?] other than just like, you know, to belong.

SPRAGUE: Yeah. Yeah, I understand. What is it like being a veteran?

ANDERSON: Oh, I. I guess we're just, I'm happy that we could. And I don't know. I just glad that we were in the service and we did what we could do.

SPRAGUE: Okay. You received a quilt of valor and we have it here somewhere, hopefully. And can you tell us about the quilt? Let's go ahead and bring it into the frame.

ANDERSON: I just received it. She came and brought this and it was something else. I was was amazed at the work and everything. And it's beautiful.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Yeah, We just got through Memorial Day. Any thoughts on Memorial Day?

ANDERSON: Yeah.

SPRAGUE: Memorial Day.

ANDERSON: Memorial Day.

SPRAGUE: What do you think about that one?

ANDERSON: Well, I try to, you know, abide by what's going on and so on now.

SPRAGUE: Okay. What do you what do you think your life would be like if you hadn't served?

ANDERSON: If I hadn't served?

SPRAGUE: Correct.

ANDERSON: I hate to think of what it would have been. I did get, you know, ?? [inaudible] of traveling and I'm glad that I joined. That's all I can say.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Why did you want to do this interview?

ANDERSON: Well, in fact, I didn't know what it was all about, truthfully. Well, I guess it worked out okay.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Did we miss anything that you'd like to cover?

ANDERSON: No, I thought it was a good life, and I'm glad I did join when I did and get out when I did.

SPRAGUE: Okay. Well, then we're going to go ahead and conclude the interview. Thank you for your service, LaNore. Thank you for your service.

ANDERSON: Oh. Thank you. And I'm glad that I did.

SPRAGUE: Okay, This concludes the interview.

[Interview Ends]