The Home Front: A Letter From England 1941

On Veteran's Day our gratitude goes out to the men and women who have served our country and our country's allies. Geoffrey Adams was a 1st cousin (2x removed) who served with the RAF during World War II. At least that is the family story, not as yet verified. I hope it's true. As my dad's grandfather told him, Geoffrey was a fighter pilot who upon being wounded was assigned to transport aircraft between Canada and the UK. The family in the states lost track of the family in Wales and England at some period after the war.

The Lion of Judah
Dad's grandfather, John E. Barker, Sr., so the story goes, was watching a newsreel at the local theater in Kaysville, Utah, with his grandson, when he thought he recognized his nephew, Geoffrey. Dad remembers grandfather jumping to his feet and telling the audience, "There's our Geoffrey!" Grandpa loved America and he loved his homeland, too. The war was a trying time as he worried about how his family in Britain was faring. He went to the movies often view scenes of war played out on his native soil. On numerous occasions grandfather would exclaim a quote he had read related to the war, "The lion of Judah will rise up and give us the victory again and again!" He had great faith and hope that good would win over evil.


Geoffrey Adams, far right, with his mother and father Jessie and Joseph H. Adams. The dog-eared corners are a testament to having traveled by post from Great Britain to Utah and then shared many times as the story was told of cousins far away.

Fighter Pilot or Civil Defense Worker?
Geoffrey's father, my Grandpa John's half brother, Joseph Harry Adams, wrote a letter in 1941 providing a glimpse of Geoffrey, one that doesn't quite match the fighter pilot story. If the letter is accurate, at that time Geoffrey was engaged as a civil engineer, supporting the war effort. RAF member of civil defense. It is possible he had trained as a pilot, served in air transport without being part of the actual fighting. Regardless of the details of Geoffrey's war time service, the letter serves as a window into worn-torn Britain.

Letter from the Home Front
Tan-y-coed, Mostyn,
Flintshire, Wales,
Great Britain
 
November 28, 1941
Dear John

It gave me the thrill of my life when I arrived home at dinnertime yesterday, to find a letter from America awaiting me. I can tell you I was very excited.

Well now, in regards to your query as to how we are progressing during these awful days. I do not know as I said before how George's family have faired in the air raids which have taken place over their part of the country, but I don't think they have been subjected to a lot, except for one particular 'blitz' over a neighboring city. You know where George lives [Yorkshire], and it was the city next to his town they concentrated on. We have had bombs in our village where I live, but they have done no damage, no one hurt, and the bombs fell mostly on the open fields.

I think the reason why we have had the bombs was that 'Jerry' was in a hurry to get rid of them, as probably the gun fire would be too heavy for him to get to his objective which would be the place where I met John when he was over in England. We are only about 12 or 14 miles away as the crow flies, so we get the full blast of the guns where we are and there is no sleep for us while the raid is on. We also get the pieces of steel from the bursting shells, so we have to look out.

An iconic World War II propaganda poster from the British National Archives (1).

This will appear a very disjointed letter I am afraid, but there are so many things I want to say my thought get a bit messed I am afraid. Now I must get back to your question regard[ing] food and clothing. Food, as you will have seen in the papers, is rationed, except bread and there is plenty of that. In fact, there is plenty of the rationed foods except that the distribution is somewhat faulty at times and of course some parts of the country do better than others - the country places I think are better off than the towns. There has been a very good harvest this year. I think millions of acres more land have been cultivated; but another problem arises there and that is man power for working the acres. However, I see the farmers are to have some thousands of men left to them for work on the farms.

It was given out on the wireless tonight we were to have some of your celebrated American 'Spam,' so perhaps before you get this epistle we shall have tasted it. I don't suppose it will be any better than our good old-fashioned 'home cured?' I have written the last sentence with a smile on my lips, so don't think we are not grateful for all the help we are getting from America - we are - very. We get clothing by coupons, but there are plenty of well dressed people knocking about yet.

You ask if I am in the service? I suppose I am as I am engaged on 'essential war work.' I am at an iron works as furnace manager and all iron-works are on war work. Geoffrey is a civil engineer, and he is engaged at Chester and is on civil defense work. He gets home each week end, and we hope to see him tomorrow. He will be on duty tonight at the headquarters of the civil defense force. These posts have to be manned every night, and his turn on duty is every fourth night. Only in the event of a raid are they very busy.

Monday Night, December 1, 1941
I had to break off last Friday night as it was bed time and I have had no time for writing during week end. Geoffrey cam home on Saturday and went back this morning. He tells me it is sixteen years since John [John E. Barker, Jr. served an L.D.S. mission] came over to England - that is about 1925. It was different England in those care-free years. We were living a care-free happy life here - not thinking of war and even then the Germans were preparing and thinking of having their revenge for the 1918 happenings. Well, we must not make the same mistake after this lot is over. When one thinks of all the people they have killed in occupied countries, and I don't mean soldiers killed in battle, but women and children and old men civilians - 30,600 in the town of Rotterdam alone, one wonders what the end of Germany is to be. I suppose and I think it is generally thought they will try to invade this country before the end of things, but they will have a hot time of it, and I feel sure that any who land in Great Britain will not live to tell of it. We are very slow moving but so is an avalanche - and that takes a lot of stopping when it starts moving. Your President, John, is a wise man and is very far-seeing, for which we are very grateful. He has had an enormous task on his hands, coaxing and leading your great nation along the path, as he so clearly sees it; for, don't make any mistake about it, if Hitler had conquered England in the September of 1939, America would have been his next real objective. But he didn't and that is where his plans came unstuck. But I imagine in these days of broadcasting you will all have followed events over here as closely as we follow events in America.

That John Lewis, the miner's leader, you have with you there seems a nasty bit of work. From what I read his people came from South Wales, and they are a queer lot down thee - some of them, that is. As you are probably aware, I have lived in North Wales for 36 years. Here the natives are not so fiery and pugnacious as in the South and when one understands them they are quite likeable people.

Perhaps you will let me know when you receive this. Your letter posted on October 9 reached me on November 27. I should think that was as long as when you sailed to America, John. I mean from leaving England to arriving in Utah. Allowing 6 weeks for this and six or seven weeks or perhaps eight before I receive a reply from Rose, we shall be well into 1942, and I suppose a lot of things can have happened by then. 

Your affectionate brother,
Joe   

Tan-y-coed, the Adams' home, is located two miles from the Dee River coast at Greenfield, Flintshire, England. It is adjacent to Holywell the destination of pilgrimages honoring St. Winefride who according to legend rose from the dead. The site has been host to pilgrims for over 13 continuous centuries.

Greenfield Dock on the River Dee (2) from the 94th Minute website.

Sources:
The letter was printed in The Kaysville Weekly Reflex, date unknown, but sometime after November 28, 1941. The article was headed "English Brother Writes Letter to Davis Man" with the introduction "Of interest this week was a letter received by John E. Barker, Sr., of Kaysville, from his brother in England. Portions of the letter are printed in this week's Reflex."
1. Picture taken from the British National Archives
2. Picture taken from The 94th Minute website. According to this site, Greenfield was the stepping off point for pilgrims headed to Holywell.

For Our Blessing: The Benefits of Work

He was a plate layer for the railroad. She braided and assembled straw hats. He alternated between gardener and agricultural laborer. She made boxes in a factory. He was a skilled weaver who assembled carpets in a manufacturing plant. She tended a loom at the age of eight and he was in the mines by nine years. Young and old, they worked for the meager necessities of life. 

Plate Layers at Whitacre Junction Station, Warwickshire Railroad, ca 1840

Labor Day. Not a day to do one's labor, but a gift to the workers of America, giving them an opportunity to enjoy a day off from that work. In response most people rush around in an effort to have fun. Once established to recognize the contributions of the worker to American life, this day has devolved into a day for families to have one last vacation before the end of the summer. Depending on the school schedule in any particular part of the country, it is an awkwardly placed weekend set just after the beginning of school where school children careen around in one last fling with their tired parents in tow. And then there are the commercial enterprises that offer no rest at all for their employees because business must go on, and it is generally acknowledged that American families can't have fun without spending money in the process.

Cheers to the workers throughout the world, not just in America, who labor to provide for the good of the family whole. Those moms and dads who struggle to supply the wants and needs of those for whom they are responsible. And then turn around and work to have fun on their day of holiday. The method of celebration aside, cheers to those who toil, especially those who toil in drudgery, who spend their day in dull, fatiguing or uninspiring work. Prayers to those, though, with no work available to do as that lot is the hardest of all.

I come from a long line of laboring class in England and America. Those few in England who had owned land had, by the mid-1800s, been reduced to the lives of workingmen and women, toiling primarily for the benefit of others. Those who owned land previously had not been wealthy, but had worked by the sweat of their brows, although with more autonomy in some cases. Those who were tenant farmers with legal contracts certainly had more stability than those who were itinerant agricultural laborers . Times were changed, however. If by circumstance, a head of family was still listed in the census records as farmer, his children were often agricultural or general laborers, railroad workers, factory workers, coal miners or colliers.  

Usually the wife was found to be “working in the home,” but some of these stalwart women were seamstresses and midwives. Many organized the necessities of the home and then tilled the garden as well, while managing a cottage industry on the side. They worked the land side by side with their husbands. Younger girls were hired out as milkmaids, brick makers, or in later years scholars. Boys often were working in the trades of their fathers or scholars. The luxury of going to school, however, was often found to be short-lived as they quickly assimilated into the working class. These were my people.

The Harvesters, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Netherlands - 1565

 Much to their distress, a few families were even confined to the poorhouse or from the records of the parish overseer of the poor records found to be on the charitable dole. A shroud for the burial of George and Fanny Randall’s son was purchased by the parish because they could not afford that necessity of their own. I am sure that x-Great Grandfather Randall would have agonized over his inability to adequately provide for his family. This undoubtedly took an inexorable toll that would have been heavy on his heart and soul.  I imagine the distress of Grandmother Randall who, no matter the effort, could not supply enough to heal the dying child so dear to her heart.

Dowlais Ironworks (the world's largest) by G. Childs. Merthyr Tydfil - 1840

The English civil and parish records create a bleak picture of the struggles in the Randall family during the Industrial Revolution. 

Yesterday was Labor Day 2015. A national holiday, Labor Day is celebrated the first Monday in September. It is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country (1). Working, though, provides an additional benefit to the fabric of America and the world. Beyond the tangible advantage to the economy of gainful employment is the psychological boost to the individual of self-respect and dignity (2). 

My immediate paternal grandfather was a descendant of those earlier Randall grandparents. He worked well into the night as a linotype operator throughout his adult life. He struggle with emotional and mental demands of his work. Joining a labor union must have allowed him the dignity of membership in an organization of men who understood his daily tasks and lauded his efforts. During the Great Depression he worked for pennies an hour, long hours a day. Grandma would sometimes walk through the dark streets to visit with him a moment in his most lonely moments. The anxiety of missing so many of the family's activities for so little monetary reward took a great toll on him as well. As difficult as this situation was for him, being without any work would have been much more stressful. I'm sure he was grateful for the ability to bring home a regular salary. Even pinched for money, he and my grandmother scraped together enough to purchase a small piece of farmland. This helped to augment payday wages.

Sources

1. http://www.dol.gov/laborday/history.htm

2. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865636237/How-work-benefits-the-workers.html?pg=all
3. http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/mrwj1171.htm
4. Note: Thank you to David Edwards for 2006 research in Wingerworth sources for Hibbs and Randall families.