40 Then and Later

Jack and Alice, 1990s

The Places

Jack's home town, Santa Rosa, California

In Santa Rosa, at the airport, where the Sonoma County Airport is now, that was our training base. Suppose that Red Pelizzari from Michigan came to Santa Rosa, and he said to somebody, “Where were the barracks that we stayed in here when we were training, when we had the P-39s here?” There are no barracks left there, or anything.  There’s all buildings built around there, big buildings. I know where they were, down in the eucalyptus grove. The eucalyptus grove’s even gone now. So if Red Pelizzari came out there, I could tell him where things were, but anybody else, how would they know? They’d say, “Yeah, there were some old tar paper buildings over there.” That’s what they were; they put tarpaper on the outside, anything at all at that time, to get some housing. Oh, they tore most of them down. There’s probably little remnants of them that there are left yet.[1]

Beauvechain, Belgium

In 1995 Jack recognized nothing of the airbase where he spent
months near Beauvechain, Belgium.

 Staplehurst Airbase, England

[In 1968] we saw the pig farmer in the little town there. Our airfield was just a strip of farmland cut out with wire matting put down, and when we went back, why, here it’s a farm. The sheep are out on the hills and the man was tending his pigs with a coat and tie on. Everything changes so much, and it’s been pretty near fifty years.[2]

Staplehurst Advanced Landing Ground, tents in the
apple orchard, 1944

Staplehurst Advanced Landing Ground Memorial on the site
of the airfield, now Chickenden Farm, 2010

The Staplehurst monument inscription. Photos courtesy of Alan Wright,
County Kent, England.

And the People

Jack forged a bond with the Hendrickx-Leemput family during his stay at their home in Belgium. It survived the years through letters (translated by family members) and Jack and Alice's occasional visits.

Lique (plaid blouse) and family, 1945

Lique and Jack, 1995

Jack and Derrick were already married in wartime. When they sent their P-51s aloft, their wives' names soared above enemy and friendly lands.

Jack and "Alice"

Derrick and "Camille"

An easy camaraderie developed among the three P-51 crew chiefs from Sonoma County, California. Their friendship, forged during shared wartime experiences, persisted during easier times, with their wives and children, right up to the end. They called each other “Sarge.”

Kellar, Derrick, Winkler, Germany 1945

Jack and Alice Kellar, Jean and Wally Winkler, Camille and Erwin Derrick, 6 June 2000

In Memory

Jack J. Kellar (1921-2006) and Alice M. (Streeter) Kellar (1921-2004)

Jack and Alice, first photo, 1938

Jack and Alice, a last photo, 2003

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[1] Jack J. Kellar, interview about his first years after high school by Judy Kellar Fox, 12 April 1993; cassette tape recording and transcription held by the author. Lightly edited excerpt.

[2] Ibid.

39 A Thanksgiving Return

Jack, trimmed-down

Army rations had an effect on Jack’s appearance. After only three months he noticed, “My clothes are fitting a little looser than they did when I left the states.”[1] Fourteen months later he remarked, “I weigh about 168 lbs now.”[2] And he was plenty tired of wearing his uniform. “Honey you mentioned about clothes for when I get home. I have had to go around for so long with a hat on & my jacket buttoned up and I’m sure tired of it. I just want to get some clothes on that I feel comfortable in and wear them the way I please.”[3]

Jack at enlistment

Jack was aware of other changes, too, less visible, and potentially more important.

“This laying around and not doing anything is really getting on all of the fellows nerves. We sure aren’t what we were a couple of years ago. Some of us were talking the other day about when we get home. I wonder just what things will be like. I know we have changed. We don’t notice it among ourselves but I know people at home will notice them. I sure hope there won’t be too big a change. Only one thing I’m sure & positive of honey is our love for one another. No body or nothing can ever change that. Our love will go on forever.”[4]

In late October final preparations to return home finally were afoot. Jack wrote to Alice from Camp Top Hat, a repatriation tent camp near the port city of Antwerp, Belgium. So close now!

The Port of Antwerp

Hello mummy,

How you. We are just laying around here not doing much of anything but we turned in our money today and we are having our physical inspection in the morning so I guess it won’t be too long before we board ship. It is sure windy here. I hope tomorrow is the day. I’ll wire when I get in the states. I love you.[5]

Derrick had gone home about three weeks before Wink and me. Wink and I went to Antwerp, Belgium, and boarded the S.S. New York Victory to return home.

Winkler, Jack, and friend onboard ship

Can't cross the ocean fast enough

It took two weeks, and part of the trip was on rough seas. Entering New York harbor in the early morning and seeing the fireboats displaying water from big nozzles was a great sight. Even greater was the Statue of Liberty, and then fresh milk and doughnuts from the Red Cross.[6]

The promised telegram, identical to the one
Jack sent his mother

After two or three days at Camp Shanks the trip across the United States in a C-47 airplane was an experience. It seemed that we landed about every hundred miles to get fuel and food. I don’t know how many days it took us to get out on that plane. Eventually we arrived in Sacramento, California, where we were taken to Camp Beale in Marysville for discharge.

We got in there at night, and they started processing us for release at two o’clock in the morning. I’ll never forget, one officer came in and said, “How many of you want to join the reserve?” No hands went up, and he says, “Those of you who would join the reserve can miss the two-hour meeting that’s going to take place in the next building.” Some of the hands went up right away.  I went in to the two-hour meeting and slept through the whole thing. I was tired, so I didn’t hear much.[7]

Alice knew exactly what she wanted to wear when she picked up Jack from Camp Beale. “I want a black suit with black and white fur trim and a black hat with fur trim.”[8] She made the trip in the 1941 Pontiac, all clean for Jack’s return. Camp Beale was about one hundred forty miles from Santa Rosa, a long drive for Alice, especially because she wasn’t feeling well.^[9]

 Alice was there to meet me on Thanksgiving Day, November 22^nd 1945, just three years and one month since I enlisted. What a great day to see Alice and be with her again. She picked me up in the [1941] Pontiac that had the longest hood you ever saw. I’d been riding in Jeeps with a hood about this long.[10]

The Kellar family reunited around Jack’s mother’s table. Herald, discharged from the service a month earlier, brought his wife and the daughter born during his overseas absence. David brought his family, with three children now. Betty and her new husband rounded out the group. Jack’s mother prepared turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, and stuffing, all the foods Jack had missed so much in the service. The meal, piping hot on the table, began with grace, “Dear Heavenly Father, we’d ask thy blessing . . .” Herald was stoic, but Jack shed a few tears.[11]

Mary Elizabeth and Dave, Idella, Henry Mayfohrt, John, Jack, Eunice, Alice
Florence, Herald; Bobby, Davey, Janie

 What a great thing to be home and be with Alice. We spent Thanksgiving in Santa Rosa, and then we spent that night in San Francisco. I bought a few civilian clothes, but Alice did not feel well, so we went back to Santa Rosa. Her mother looked into her mouth and said, “You have the measles.” And she was right![12]

Jack in his new clothes

 They had married “for better or for worse.” For three years of their young marriage they had endured fear and uncertainty, the anxiety of the worst. Now, as soon as Alice was well, they had only the better to look forward to. They were going to build their own home; they were going to start a family. 

They had plans.

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[1] Jack J. Kellar (England), letter to “Dearest Alice” [Alice (Streeter) Kellar] (Santa Rosa, California), 5 April 1944, excerpt.

[2] Jack J. Kellar (Germany), letter to “Dearest Alice,” 26 July 1945, excerpt.

[3] Jack J. Kellar (Augsburg, Germany), letter to “Hello darling,” 4 October 1945, excerpt.

[4] Jack J. Kellar (Germany), letter to “Hello darling,” 6 October 1945, excerpt.

[5] Jack J. Kellar (Camp Top Hat, Belgium), letter to “Dear mummy,” 25 October 1945, excerpt.

[6] Jack J. Kellar, interview about his first years after high school by Judy Kellar Fox, 12 April 1993; cassette tape recording and transcription held by the author. Lightly edited excerpt.

[7] Jack J. Kellar, interview about his first years after high school by Judy Kellar Fox, 12 April 1993; cassette tape recording and transcription held by the author. Lightly edited excerpt.

[8] Betty (Kellar) Lowdermilk (Goleta, California), telephone interview by niece Judy Kellar Fox, 16 January 2018.

[9] For the distance, see Google Maps (https://www.google.com/maps : accessed 11 September 2018), directions for Santa Rosa, California, to Beale Air Force Base. For Alice’s health, see Mary Idella (Muth) Kellar, “Diaries” (MS, Santa Rosa, California, 1930–1962), a collection of thirteen one- and five-year diaries with nearly daily handwritten entries. The diaries passed from Idella to Jack and then to his daughter Judy. Entry for Tuesday, 20 November 1945: “[Alice] is not feeling so good.”

[10] Jack J. Kellar, interview, 12 April 1993, lightly edited excerpt.

[11] Mary Idella (Muth) Kellar, “Diaries,” entries for 21 and 22 November 1945. Also, Betty (Kellar) Lowdermilk, interview, 16 January 2018. Also, Jack J. Kellar, interview, 12 April 1993, excerpt.

[12] Jack J. Kellar, interview, 12 April 1993, excerpt lightly edited.