the throes of World War II. As young
men and women found themselves
fighting foreign enemies in unfamil-
iar territory, most any comfort from
home was welcomed.
State Teachers College (STC) li-
brary and manager of the school
bookstore, she also helmed the
STC Alumni Committee. In that role,
she regularly wrote and sent copies
of the student newspaper, The Holly
Leaf, to SU students, faculty and
alumni serving overseas.
clippings about the soldiers, in
some cases even after they return-
ed from the war. Salisbury Univer-
sity's Blackwell Library presents a
sampling of these materials in the
digital exhibit "STC Serving Our
Country," available at http://www.-
salisbury.edu/library/archives/coop-
er_wwii/cooper_intro.asp.
with assistance from senior English
and political science major John
Plinke of Greensboro, Md., the ex-
hibit includes photos, correspon-
dence, newspaper clippings and
more discovered in the Anna Coo-
per Alumni Committee Collection of
the SU Archives at Blackwell. Uni-
versity Archivist David Ranzan su-
gain of Denton, Md.; Thomas Flow-
ers of Hooper Island, Md.; and Rob-
ert Heatwole, Robert Hill Jr., Walter
McAllister and David Somervell of
Salisbury.
alumni Vernon "Pat" Gawain, Rich-
ard Schallon, Chas Elliot, David Pe-
rry, Philip Haddaway, Olin Beds-
worth Jr. and William Hollis. Their
words convey pride, optimism and
sometimes fear.
thousand miles from good old STC,
I would have said they were crazy,"
wrote one student, identified only as
Charles, while stationed at the U.S.
Naval Training Station in Great
Lakes, Ill., in February 1944. "But
here I am in the best outfit in the
world."
in September 1944. "If Adolph isn't
shaking in his shoes, he should be."
soon would be over in a letter dated
April 1945, adding, "There are so
many things I would like to tell you,
things I would not have believed
myself had I not seen them with my
own eyes. It is just one big mess
over here."
welcome. In fact, it turned out to be
a hot one ... the heavy barrage of
4.7 shells and smaller stuff like 20
mm burst all around us, but we got
through it all right."
and if I ever get out of this army,
I'd like to enroll for another year. ... I
guess the army taught us a little les-
son that we couldn't learn in books
the value of a good education."
lications such as The Federalsburg
Times to military camp and ship
publication Stars and Stripes. Their
headlines shared more horrors than
the soldiers' sometimes-censored
letters could: "Reds 91 Mi. From
Berlin; Shut Ring Around Breslau,"
"6,000 Planes Rip Rail Net; 800,000
Nazis Killed in East," "509 Jap
Planes Destroyed on Honshu." The
Phillips News, newsletter of the
Cambridge, Md.-based Phillips
Packing Co., encouraged its
employees to "Help End the War in
'44."
the Service Honor Roll plaque, un-
veiled at SU on Dec. 8, 1942.
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