History - The War Years - Part Two
by Bob Gunter
Many people came to Sandpoint during the war years. Two of them were Beth Knight and Price May. Her story, in her own words, continues and she tells about their marriage and how a town made them feel welcome.
They had made an announcement at the USO that there was a sailor being married at the Presbyterian Church and anyone who wanted to go was invited. There happened to be at the USO a young man who was part of the Metropolitan Opera and he went to the church and asked the organist if she knew a particular song, and she said yes. He told the organist, "I'll be here to sing for the wedding." We didn't know that until we got to the church that evening and the church was absolutely packed.
For the next two and half years I lived at the Shooks and Price was out at the base. He went through hospital corp. and he was on a marine draft after that but by that time he was in dental school and then he went into the prosthetic school. They were sending boys back from the South Pacific where they had their faces shot up and they were doing reconstructive surgery at the hospital. They would then send them to the dentist and they would give them their new dentures and whatever was necessary. Price was working and making these dental plates that they needed to make them look whole again. He spent all of two and half years that he was in the Navy at Farragut in Idaho and we lived in Sandpoint.
The people of Sandpoint just opened their arms to the sailors. I believe I'm correct in this, the USO in Sandpoint was one of two USO's in the country that never charged sailors and their wives for a thing. You could go down and eat, you could go play, and they would see that you had a room if you needed one. The people of Sandpoint did all that.
We lived in this private home with a room and we just felt part of the family. We had to pay $2.50 a month. I went to work for the Bonner County National Bank and that was my start in banking, which I ended up in as my final work, in California. But the people of Sandpoint, I wish the world could be told what wonderful people they were to the service men who lived there. I think it's absolutely beautiful; we love it up there.
We drove through Sandpoint one time when we were on a trip and we stopped to look at the home at 414 Pine. We asked if we could come in and as we walked into the house it had changed because when we lived there in 1943, '44, and '45 we had a wood-burning furnace. I had to learn how to stoke the furnace because the Shooks went to live with their children every winter and they left Price and me in the house alone. I had to learn how to bank the fire so I could start it in the morning in the wintertime. They cooked on a big wood range and I had to learn how to cook on it. I ate there when Price wasn't on Liberty. I fixed whatever I wanted for my meals and I gave the Shooks my ration coupons for butter and sugar, and things like that.
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All photographs have been used with permission of the Bonner County Museum.
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