"In preparation for writing a book, tentatively entitled "World War II in Mid-America," I have conducted oral interviews on 33 people of a small mid-western American community that had lived during and through the war. These people represent a wide and diverse range of those living in that area at the time: male, female, military, civilian, adult, children, farmer, factory worker, etc. These interviews were designed to gather information on how World War II affected the interviewees' lives. As such, questions were asked during the interviews about their lives prior to, during, and after the war.
Upon beginning to compile this information I realized that there was much more information in these interviews than I could use in my original book idea, yet I find this information to still be very interesting and valuable to both the historian and history buff alike. Therefore, I've decided to publish one or more of these interview transcripts here as well as provide all 33 interviews to both the Wisconsin State Historical Society and the Waupun, Wisconsin, Historical Society for their archival use.
What follows are two of these interviews – a husband and wife, both of who lived through the war years – which are expressed, whenever possible, using the exact words and colloquialisms spoken by the interviewees. As such, as is the prevailing custom, I have chosen to insert ellipses whenever the interviewee halts his speech or leaves a sentence or phrase partially or wholly unfinished. In addition, only slight alterations or additions have been made, when in not doing so would have made it difficult for the average reader to easily follow. These will appear, as is customary, in brackets, or in the case of short corroborative text, in parenthesis. The later solely to help the reader understand locations and other non-readily apparent subject material. My interview questions and comments, and those of Mr. James Laird of the Waupun, Wisconsin, Historical Society, who attended the interview and also asked a few questions, appear in bold. Any miss-quotes of the interview, misspellings of personal or place names, or editing, spelling, or punctuation errors are solely my responsibility. As such, I most humbly apologize in advance for any such inaccuracies…"
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