Yours for Victory, Sincerely, Richmond, Virginia: World War II through Richmond GI Letters

In 1941, the Young Woman’s Missionary Circle (YWMC or “the Circle”) of Highland Park Methodist Church officially began its scrapbook of “Letters, clippings, etc. from our Boys in the Service – World War II.”¹ Though the YWMC listed no official date beyond the year, the scrapbook seems to have been started prior to the official declaration of war on December 8, 1941, following the events of Pearl Harbor. Of course, war and rumors of war had been stirring prior to that culminating moment, with peace-time conscriptions in the United States (the first ever peace-time conscription in the country) having begun on October 16, 1940. It was that following December 1940 that the Circle gained its first “pen friend,” in the words of Corresponding Secretary Margaret Rose Sieg. This first of the “Boys,” was Linwood “Mutt” Givens Wilhelm.² At the time, Linwood was stationed in Fort Story Virginia, one of the first duty stations in what would come to be a 31-year military career.³ Like many of the others, Linwood had attended John Marshall High School, an all-white school prior to desegregation. Before his 1939 graduation and subsequent enlistment, in anticipation of what was to come, he began training through the school’s Cadet Corps program, where he obtained the rank of Captain.⁴

In many ways these December 1940 letters are representative of many of the letters that the Circle sent in the following years.⁵ They are generally positive (jolly even) and filled with hope, sentimentality (albeit in couched fashion), and unsurprisingly, churchly wishes and blessings. This general attitude is not unintentional. In an April 20, 1941 letter, Margaret Sieg revealed to Mrs. James A. Richardson, a local woman involved in a variety of clubs and activist organizations, that her goal was for the Circle to be “a forceful undertone of good. Let us be the powerful current of Builders in His Kingdom, moving in the opposite direction of worldly evils.”⁶ Thus, the work of the Circle was not just a “privilege and pleasure,” but matter-of-factly missionary work, intended to steer the servicemen away from “inferior evils and entertainment furnished them by the unscrupulous.”⁷ Sieg concludes, “don’t get discouraged if you do not receive a letter for each one written. They say one answer to each three letters written to a Service man is good.”⁸

There will be sorrow and happiness to be met as we journey along, and a smile will make a channel for a tear, and just as it is darkest before the dawn, so there is to be laughter after tears and life goes on.

-Margaret Sieg (1940)¹⁰

As expected, since this was missionary work, much of the servicemen the Circle reached out to and corresponded with were not necessarily Highland Park Methodist attendees, nor necessarily even regular churchgoers. Instead, they were simply local young men who the Circle became aware of through various methods, such as seeing their names published in the paper, word of mouth, and existing social networks. For example, Harry Galli played on the same junior baseball team as a Sieg–likely Arthur Sieg Jr., a nephew of Sieg who also went on to serve in the Navy during the war.¹¹ In later correspondences, this chain of connection becomes more and more apparent as the men inquired about one another, requested each other’s mail address, and even led fellow local servicemen to the group.

Because of this lack of familiarity between the Circle and their “Boys”, much of the letters’ conversations leans towards the “get to know you” small talk variety. Returning to the two Linwood December letters as a model, we see the following topics brought up: seasonal matters, such as the weather and holidays (“As it is nearing Christmas…”); local happenings, both at the church (“Tonight at our Church…”) and in Richmond more generally, especially football; and questions about local points of interest and areas near their recipients (“Some of our number visited Fort Monroe… you can tell us something about it, and if you are located near the wall.”).¹² Finally the Circle ensures to almost always include some supplemental items, from homemade candies, literature, pamphlets, newspaper clippings and stamps, to prayers, poems (including original works), stories and fun facts (“Interesting facts about New Year’s celebrations in other lands and in other times: The Persians gave eggs to their friends on New Year’s Day…”).¹³

In the year that followed, the draft did its work and the Circle did likewise. By April 1941 it gained at least three new pen friends:¹⁴ Richard “Dick” Hart Thomas Jefferson High School) and Harry Hoffman Galli (Varina High School) quickly became regulars¹⁵ while William A. Rolfe (John Marshall High School) only has a single letter in the Circle’s scrapbook. Yet William is regularly mentioned in others’ correspondence throughout the scrapbook and is repeatedly included in listings of the Circle’s “Boys,” suggesting further correspondences that did not make it into the scrapbook.  William Rolfe is also notable for having been a survivor of both Pearl Harbor and the battle of Midway, which took place just six months later.¹⁶

Following these momentous events and the official entry into war, the number of GIs the Circle wrote to more than doubled in less than a year’s time. In an October 24, 1942 letter, Sieg noted “Our Circle now has fourteen.”¹⁷ Likely because of this influx, the Circle produced two membership lists, called “Honor Roll’s” by Sieg, in 1943.¹⁸ The first, compiled in April, consisted of twenty members, two of whom, G. Parker Bendles and M.A. Staples, had mothers who were themselves members of the Circle.¹⁹ In November 1943, a second list featured nineteen members;  Bendles and Staples were not included but Leon Bourne Montgomery, who joined the armed forces immediately after graduating from John Marshall High School along with seventeen of his classmates, was added.²⁰ While other slight changes in membership occurred in the following years, there tended to little influx, excluding the expected decrease following V-Day and “V-J” Day. During the war years these Richmond Virginian GIs would go on to see the world, sending letters from China, England, France, Guam, Germany, Italy, Japan, Marshall Islands, New Guinea, Panama, Peru, and the Philippines amongst other places.²¹

What also changed over time was both the substance and tone of the correspondence between the Circle and its “Boys”. While the small-talk, positivity, and churchliness remained, the ominous specter of war began to linger in the background, and, at times, rear its ugly head. This becomes apparent in descriptions of encounters, both favorable and otherwise, with local populations during the U.S. island-hopping campaign; accounts of the capture of Japanese prisoners of war; and even the censorship of one of the letters by military officials. ²² Of course, also with war comes death, and the Circle felt this impact with the death of John Walter (J.W.) Garbett III.²³ Like his two brothers Leslie and Earl (E.W.) who also served in the military during the war years John was a Richmond native and a Highland Park Methodist attendee for some years.²⁴ Thus, Staff Sergeant J.W. Garbett found himself in northeastern France on October 31, 1944, where, while leading his squad in combat, he lost his life.²⁵ In the subsequent February, Highland Park Methodist Church held a memorial service to honor him.²⁶

Richmond, of course, suffered too, though Margaret Sieg and the Circle always strove to remain positive, in accordance with the agenda she originally described to Mrs. Richardson. Regardless, casual references and allusions to the hardships around them do occasionally slip out. Mentions of rationing, victory gardens, “hard-times” social parties, and war stamps appear throughout the correspondence.²⁷ Sieg even makes mention of “office boys” having difficulty getting off work to enjoy recreational sports, as well as older women taking up jobs out of wartime necessity to “help win the ‘V’ictory.”²⁸

But in many ways normalcy remained of course, and life continued on. Correspondences show that civilians and servicemen alike look forward to time off or furlough. For the latter group, boredom and busyness came in waves, à la the classic, and much complained of, military “hurry up and wait.” ²⁷ Both at home and abroad, all looked forward to the joys and despairs of local sports, and some of the soldiers even played in impromptu leagues during their downtime, alongside reading, movies, and the occasional USO event.²⁸ Promotions occurred, age and disease came for some (including then-President Roosevelt), and many got married (including Linwood Wilhelm, Harry Galli, and William Rolfe), which Sieg happily announced in her more newsletter-esque correspondence.²⁹

Once Victory Day arrived, correspondence slowed. Many of the men were soon either released from service or granted permissive furloughs back to Richmond, both of which the Circle annotates in their scrapbook and Sieg highlights in her newsletters. But, of course, just because the conflict and combat  ended, service itself did not end for all. As Sieg writes in the V-J Day letter (August 15, 1945)“They still have a big task ahead…We need man to build a world of Peace. You have already done a good job and you must keep the Faith and be proud of your opportunity of having a part in this rebuilding.”³⁰

Thus, even with the war concluded, the Circle’s mission was not. As military operations shifted to rebuilding Europe and the wider world, the Circle aimed to continue the upkeep of the servicemen’s morale and Christianly spirits. So, the correspondence continued throughout 1946. Many of them left the service; some returned to Richmond, others did not, while still others (such as Linwood Wilhelm) remained in the military for years to come. Finally, in 1947, the scrapbook project closed for good, although as an author of one of those letters, William R. Ford states, “there is plenty of work to do.”³¹ Yet the intricate details of that work, and whether the Circle continued to keep in contact with these peacebuilders, are now lost to time. Likewise lost is a portion of the words left for posterity at the end of the scrapbook by the magnanimous Margaret Sieg. The paper itself withered away and dissipated, leaving her entries beyond the February 17 (year unknown) equally lost to time. The sole entry that remains reads as follows: “I hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I enjoyed getting it together. Margaret Sieg Feb. 17^th.”

Likewise, Highland Park Methodist Church itself has now passed into history, shuttering its doors in 2007 after opening them more than a century earlier in 1893.³² Over the years, the church underwent extensive remodeling, much of it intended to accommodate the growing number of students and worshippers who flocked to its doors.³³ But, as with all things, its time eventually came to an end as its congregation slowly dwindled in its later years.³⁴ Though HPMC is gone, the building itself remains, and today, 3001 2nd Avenue is home to the congregation of the Fresh Anointing Cathedral COGIC.

-Kali Plaisance