To the Editor:
I received another email message this year with the video about the ladies of North Platte, Neb., who met every troop train that passed through during WWII with treats for everyone on board.
The railroad soon gave them a restaurant building to accommodate the young men and women who had 10 minutes off the train.
With Memorial Day approaching, I would like to tell readers of a special service performed by the Tryon community for our young men and women in uniform during WWII.
The “Home Friendly Club” was started by the Rev. Dr. and Mrs. George Farrand Taylor by seeing every one of them off at the train station, giving them a steel cross and a prayer book, and offering prayers in their behalf. The Taylors asked them to send their address as soon as they had one and promised to send a newsletter from home every month while they were gone. They also suggested that they not respond because they would “not have time.”
They did respond, and soon there was a room full of volunteer ladies answering their mail and preparing the newsletter that was filled with news going both ways. Other ladies were baking cookies and putting other goodies together to send to every one of them. Their legacy is about twenty scrapbooks containing the letters, which I believe should be better preserved.
This is another “uniquity” (my word) of Our Area (capitalizing it was one of the late Bob Witty’s usages in his Foothills Chronicles columns) that makes it a great place to live.
– Garland O. Goodwin
Columbus