Mice in the Freezer, Owls on the Porch: The Lives of Naturalists Frederick and Francis Hamerstrom

7 An Interruption: World War II

Theirs is the hollow victory. They are deceived. But you, my brother and my ghost, if you can go Knowing that there is no reward, no certain use In all your sacrifice, then honor is reprieved. —Herbert Reed, “To a Conscript of 1940” Hammy, with one small child and one on the way, had watched the coming strife in Europe in deep concern. He had always been against involvement in war, as his letter from Iowa reporting a California Supreme Court judgment indicates. Two clergymen’s sons were expelled from college for refusing to register for the draft; the court decided that even in land grant colleges, military training could not be forced upon conscientious objectors.”1 He had declared himself to be such an objector but after Pearl Harbor, when he discovered that that status required religious beliefs that he could not claim, he abruptly enlisted .2 A recruiting officer had told him of the need for more men with degrees and implied that a doctorate would ensure a research assignment . That was not to be the case. Their son Alan, who was of draft age during the Vietnam War and may have talked with his father about duty and principle, believes that his enlistment caused a temporary rift in their happiness: “It was the low point in their marriage. She was against war, and he hadn’t worked it out with her ahead of time.” Fran sniffed at this. “Alan was three—hardly old enough to remember those years.” Then she wrote out her reaction as she remembered 110 7 An Interruption World War II it: “I said, ‘The first whiff of war you sign up to enlist. Can’t you stand by your principles? You are being taken in.’” After a moment’s reflection , she added: “Of course I followed him from base to base with our young children.” Putnam Flint, himself a decorated survivor of the European theater in World War II, summarized the situation. “It was a difficult time for a lot of people. I only saw my brother-in-law once during the war, but it is clear he was no soldier. He had his lieutenant’s bar on the wrong side of his collar!” Throughout their early years, Fran had accepted Hammy’s decisions . When he had made up his mind, it did little good to argue, as she made plain in her autobiography.3 Whatever upset the enlistment caused, her code, “Follow your man!” remained intact. When he was in basic training in 1943, Fran, in Michigan, cared for their new daughter, Elva, born in March, as she polished up the Prairie Chicken Bulletin , a new venture of Leopold’s.4 She joined Hammy briefly at Randolph Field, Texas, for part of that time and then returned to Michigan; he came home in July, as a second lieutenant. Her feelings showed: “Hammy was of those ‘one-day wonders,’ as the career sergeants called the officers who got their bars in a single day. The only salute he really knew was the Boy Scout salute. Ann Arbor was then a huge training center for the Army, Navy, and Air Corps. On a walk downtown , he didn’t know whom to salute and who would salute him first. Peering intensely into a shop window when a uniform approached saved him.” Yet a summer letter from Randolph Field, the “West Point of the Air” according to the letterhead, displays a warm, natural interaction. He addressed her as “Lovely,” gave her several errands, reported a decision to buy tennis racquets in Texas, cheaper there than restringing in Ann Arbor. He spoke of the likelihood of transfer, and the heat. He wrote an illustrated note for Alan. And he said, “I’ve already told you . . . how delicious iced tea is here, and how often it is necessary to drink. Whenever I do, because it is so pleasant I think particularly of you. And whenever the breeze comes in my window at night—a blessed relief— I think of you coming in and running your fingers through my hair. Soon, I think, we shall be together and meanwhile, these poor substitutes help to make life more bearable without you. I love you.”5 An Interruption 111 So, after a temporary posting in Nebraska, he went to Idaho. Fran loaded the essentials into the trailer. With Alan beside her and Elva in a bassinet in the rear...