My Daddy was a fun loving father to his six children and a good husband and provider to our mother. Daddy loved poetry, magic and jokes. I think he could have been a stand up comedian. When our country went to war he (as many young American men did) volunteered his services to his country, but due to a physical handicap he was rejected in 1942. Yet later in 1943 he was drafted into the service (and put where they wanted to put him). Here is a story about a wonderful Daddy and Momma who tried so hard to make it. This family was NEVER helped out by our government. What about the women and children who suffered so many cold nights with no food?

When Etta and Chess'L were married in June of 1942, it was war-time. Chess worked as a driver for military vehicles at Stockton Depot. Then he was a welder at the Richmond shipyards for a few months, during 1943. Etta worked in a little supply store inside the shipyard, until she suffered a miscarriage in May of 1943. The loss of that first child was devastating to both.

After Pearl Harbor was attacked, in December of 1942, Chess'L tried to enlist, but didn't pass the physical, due to a perforated eardrum. Later, during the summer of '43, he was drafted, and was inducted into the Army Air Corp. He was sent to Denver, Colorado for Basic Training.

Etta took a bus to Denver to be near her husband. She stayed in a hotel room, and went to work at an egg dehydration plant. After the Denver training, Chess was sent to Carson City, Nevada, still in Basic Training. Etta and went back to Sacramento, and found work at McClellan Air Depot, as an apprentice mechanic. Her Mother was employed there, also, as an aircraft mechanic (working there five years).

Chess'L was then sent to Biloxi, Mississippi to complete the training. A telegram arrived, from the lonely serviceman, requesting that Etta come down south to join him! Of course she wanted to, very much, but didn't have the funds. Her brother, Roy, then being 19, volunteered to accompany her, hitch-hiking to Mississippi! What an adventure! It took about ten days, sleeping in fields and on a huge rock at the edge of the Great Salt Lake desert. Some days no rides were offered. Sometimes rode in the back of pickups, getting sunburned and windburned! They got as far as Purcell, Oklahoma, where Brother Ed and his wife were living (Ed was in the Navy, teaching aircraft recognition). From there Etta went by bus to Biloxi. Roy went back home after a few days.

Chess'L had a short leave before he was to be sent overseas, and the couple went to visit brother Ed and Marie for a few days. Then, off to Lincoln, Nebraska, as a last stop-over before being shipped across the ocean... It was September, and the corn was in full harvest. A corn festival was filling the streets and the countryside with their floats and bands and colorful costumes! Chess'L was 23 that month. It was so very hard to say "Goodbye", not knowing if they would ever see one another again.... (Etta was pregnant, but unaware...) She returned to Sacramento, to her Mother's home, and went back to work for a few months. He was sent to Italy where his squadron was stationed for the duration.

Chess'L was a gunner on a B-17, and participated in 32 bombing missions over Germany. When Germany surrendered, the men were returned home. The plane first used in the missions was shot down over Germany, killing all the crew, with the exception of the radio man and the waist gunner, Chess'L Harper. Being in such close quarters on the plane, in his assigned position, he was unable to wear his parachute during the action. As the plane was blown apart, Chess'L grabbed his 'chute and put it on as he was in the air! The extensive practice and training he'd had made this emergency action possible. The radio man bailed out also, and the two men landed near a stream in enemy territory. As they were instructed during training, they salvaged a part of their parachutes for bandages, if needed, and rolled up the rest, weighing them down, and sank them in the stream, to keep from being spotted from the air.

After 15 days in enemy territory, with some hand-to-hand skirmishes,while trying to obtain food, the two men managed to arrive back at their station. The entire crew of the B-17 had gone through their entire training and battles together, so were very close. This was a terrible loss and tragedy to those remaining,as well as the families of the men who lost their lives in the mission. The war had to go on, so another plane was assigned.

Chess'L returned to the states, by ship, on June 30th 1945, and found that he had a son......eleven days old! His mission had lasted nine months! The atom bomb was dropped that same summer, and the war with Japan was over. Michael Vance was born June 19th, 1945, in Sacramento, Calif. Etta was living with her mother while Chess L was overseas, and "Mikie" arrived right on schedule! Mother-to-be and Grandmother took a taxi to the hospital, and it was such a wonderfully special occasion... A first-born! A perfect little boy, and his mother couldn't wait to get back home, to care for him and show him off!

Chess'L tried to settle down to civilian life, with his wife and new born baby, but found the "play-backs" in his mind too intense and traumatic to cope with. In the summer of 1946, Etta and Chess'L were in Pendleton, Oregon, where he was seeking work on farms. Another precious little life was soon to enter their lives, when Chess'L left for work and didn't return.....Etta and little Mike were all alone in a cabin in Pendleton when a baby girl announced her arrival....Laura Gale (9-28-46)!

There were some rough days there in that cabin court for awhile.... waiting to see if Chess would return... and no money or supplies. Someone gave them a box of apples, and there were some kind neighbors who helped in various ways... but no rent money... so after much thought and worry, Etta took her little family to Portland, Oregon, (Grandpa Marvin Harper sent them train fare, of $10), and spent a few weeks with Chess'L's father and step-mother, Mary. Chess came home after a month, saying he didn't know what caused his desertion, and that he wouldn't leave them again......But it did not work out that way.

It was now early March, 1948. One evening, Grandma Blanche and Ronnie knocked on their door, and surprised them with the long-absent Daddy! When Chess'L returned, he decided to re-enlist in the Air Force, since he'd had an honorable discharge and did very well in the service. He thought the re-enlistment would help him to re-adjust and keep him from straying again.

It was peace-time, and the Air Force sent Chess'L to a station in Alaska, where he remained for several months, working on the base, chaufering the commissioned officers and doing body repair and paint work on the military vehicles. So, Etta, Mike, Laura, and Randy were left behind as Chess'L was shipped off to Alaska. Due to financial difficulties, he applied for, and received, a hardship discharge and was home within six months.

The family soon moved to Portland, Oregon, where the same scene was re-enacted in the summer of 1949. August 30, 1949 another dear little girl was welcomed into the family (Teresa Lynne)...and they began a trip through the apple country, working in the orchards for a time. They continued south and east, through Utah, visiting cousins (the Sanbergs), then south to Arizona, to pick cotton.

It was winter now, being December, and the southland was having severe weather: snow!! No cotton-picking. The family and all the workers were in tents...in Waddell, Az., and no one had any money. It was cold and windy, with the wintry winds blowing under the tents, and all the children became ill with diarrhoea and pink eye! The only heat was kerosene two-burner stove, which didn't give out much in the way of heat, so the children had to remain on the beds, wrapped in blankets.

After a visit to an old-timer, elderly doctor, who prescribed castor oil for all the children.....even the four month old baby, the scourage was overcome! In the meantime Christmas Day rolled around, and a tiny tree was found somewhere, which Etta managed to decorate with bits of paper and materials of uncertain origin. From the company store, one small gift for each was purchased, on credit.

On Christmas morning, Mike with eyes sealed closed with the pink eye infection, opened and played with his gun and holster set, never indicating that he was troubled by not being able to see it. Remarkable for a five year old! Laurie, four years old, had a baby doll, and Randy, at two and a half, received a car (probably inspiring his later interest in automobiles), and Baby Teresa was given a pretty rattle.

There were many hungry people in that cotton camp, and our little family invited others in their tent to share with them the meager food supply. Etta knew how to stretch a can of mackerel, with oats and flour, etc., to make a platter of delicious fritters! Many an empty stomach was warmed and appeased in that not-so-warm tent that cold December!!

By the first of the new year (1950), with some of the snow and ice melted, Chess'L was able to weigh in enough cotton to get his family out of this miserable situation. They managed to get back to Sacramento, California, where Chess'L went to work at McClellan Field, as a mechanic. As the family became settled and feeling secure, once again the children's father vanished! When he returned in November of that year (1950), he found he had another baby daughter. Dear little Kathy (Katheryn Fae 11-2-50) arrived during the rainy, stormy winter, when most of the residents of North Sacramento and Del Paso Heights were concerned about, and watchful for the flooding! Most of the fears subsided as the storm passed through....

Daddy returned to find his family waiting for him, and was received back into his family, as it seemed the only thing to do.......He managed to stay put for four and a half months, at which time he told his wife she need never worry again about being deserted, as he was "at peace with the world", and having a wonderful family, a good job, and a comfortable house, everything would be ok. He told her to hire a babysitter in the evening, and they would go roller skating.... the activity they had enjoyed many times while dating, and in the first years of their marriage. He went to town (on some errand), and never returned.

Baby Susie was on her way at that time, which he didn't know. Sue was due in November 1951. The family was living in Del Paso Heights at the time, near Sacramento, California. This dear little girl was named Cynda Lee, but soon became "Susie" to the family. She was a happy baby, always with a ready smile, and seldom ever crying. Daddy was absent from this home, and no prospects of a reunion.

**This is what the war did to our happy little family. Daddy was so messed up he wasn't sending Momma any money from his checks for months at a time. Momma never gave up on caring for her six children, working full time and trying so hard to help Daddy. When would she ever get any acknowledgment for all the pain and suffering she had to endure while our father helped his country?

Please SOMEONE remember the FAMILIES of these MEN who suffered in battle, and some their minds became twisted and tormented. Most of them were good honest, and hard working young men. They loved their families and their country, and were ready to die for us.