A Nebraska Farm Girl in Puerto Rico, 1940

Even the drive from the hotel in San Juan to a home in Arecibo intrigued Virginia. The ride in a car with two other teachers cost her $1.00, but she had to send her trunk and another bag by express, so she was expecting a bill for that, too. The road, lined with trees on both sides, wound through the hills and valleys. Along the way, she saw “people walking everywhere, some carrying things on their head, some pushing a wheelbarrow filled with avocados, payayas, etc. some leading a skinny old horse loaded down with green bananas.” She saw dilapidated looking “houses built up on stilts, pineapple and sugar cane fields—double yokes of oxen pulling walking plows.”1 Nothing looked like Nebraska.

The home where she stayed was spacious and comfortable, however. She wrote to her parents: “What a lucky girl am I! I came over to Arecibo yesterday morning and am now comfortably settled in a nice Puerto Rican home,” the home of Juan and Carmen Garcia who owned a store in town. Others in the home included the Garcia’s two teenage daughters Rina and Zorita; their niece, also named Virginia, a home demonstration agent who worked with 4-H clubs; and a married couple, also Puerto Rican.2

Besides our Virginia, the “Americanos” in the house included Alexander “Al” Sullivan, an English teacher from Worcester, Massachusetts who was entering his second year of teaching on the island.3 The Garcias were expecting two additional teachers and a social worker to arrive soon to add to the number of boarders. “And if that isn’t enough,” Virginia writes, “I might mention the colored servants,” four of them. The house was large enough that it didn’t seem crowded.4

The piazza in front of the house particularly fascinated Virginia. It teemed with “little ragged dark-skinned urchins running everywhere playing in the narrow dirty streets – beggars and street venders going up and down in front of open shacks crying out in Spanish. Some of them barefooted with big straw hats and some of the urchins absolutely naked. Then again you see Puerto Rican men and women very well dressed carrying their umbrellas, going shopping, etc.”5 It was a mixed bag.

Virginia Troutman in Puerto Rico, 1940.

 

She described her first breakfast with the Garcias: “Puerto Rican cheese and crackers and a big soup bowl full of oatmeal, but you would never recognize it as oatmeal.” She took time to find out how it was made: “They take oats, soak them, pound them up and run them through a sieve until they get a starchy juice. Then they add sugar and milk and cook it. It tastes like custard with an oatmeal flavor.” She liked it better than oatmeal at home. To top it off she was served “a tall glass of iced peach juice and a cup of hot chocolate.”6 Not bad at all.

On Sunday, she attended high mass with the Garcia women and Al Sullivan. Afterward, they went to the casino. Back at the house, guests filtered in and out all afternoon, and two of the anticipated boarders arrived. Later in the evening they went dancing where drinks were served. “Imagine me getting away with a Cuba Libre / Coca Cola and rum. And then ready for school. Oh me! Oh my!” she wrote in a daily diary.7 She wouldn’t dare put that in a letter to her parents.

She met Mr. Andras, her superintendent who assured her that if she got homesick for American food, she could come to his house and bake her favorite pie. Andras explained that there were two schools, Jefferson and Roosevelt, but they didn’t know for sure which would be her assignment.8

The day before Virginia was to start teaching in Arecibo, she didn’t know what school, what grade, what subjects, nor even the time of day school started. She felt apprehensive. Sullivan tried to reassure her that there wasn’t much to do the first week and “as much as you see fit to do thereafter.”9

The next day, she faced her students. “Imagin[e] . . . my feeling of helplessness,” she writes, “being led into a room with eighty black eyes peering at you and being told, ‘This is your room.’ No paper, no pencils, no books, no chalk and pupils whose knowledge of English is limited . . . to a few nouns. Well one must start someplace. . . .” Later she went to the store and purchased notebooks, ink pens, and a clock. After supper, she worked on her class roster. “My heart goes out to the poor little creatures . . .,” she writes, “and I’m afraid I’m falling for a little fellow who is very striking in black and white, Victor by name.”10

The next day went a little more smoothly. She had one boy in the class, Raymond Cliville, who had lived in New York and spoke English well. At 3:30, Sullivan stopped by and they walked to the Garcia home together. Her books arrived that evening and she began making plans to teach English vocabulary building. She was teaching the slower learners and they were rowdy. Other teachers told her there wasn’t much she could do with them. That was discouraging, but Virginia was determined.11 Even visiting Sullivan’s classroom was discouraging. It was much nicer than hers, and he seemed to be taking everything in stride.12 On Friday, she lost her self-control with the children. She didn’t tell exactly what happened, but she was hoping nothing came of it, and she was she very glad it was Friday.13

That evening, Gallega, a new friend, invited her on a planned weekend trip to El Yungue, a popular mountain recreation area. “It should be an experience,” she writes. “100 sandwiches, 72 bottles of Coca Cola, and 9 quarts of rum which all adds up to ??”14 That should be a great stress reliever.

On Saturday, after laundry and ironing, the group left for the mountain in two cars. She rode in Felix’s car with the other Virginia, Marian, and Sullivan. In the second car, with Gallega driving, rode Julio, Paco, Thelma, Willie, and Margot. They arrived after dark and hauled their gear using flashlights along a path and across a river. They spread out a blanket and shared their food and drinks. At a restaurant nearby, they enjoyed more drinking and dancing. Exhausted and a little tipsy, they finally went to their cabins, one for the men and one for the women, and slept.15

On Sunday, they swam and socialized in much the same way.16 On Monday, they piled into their cars and drove back down the mountain. They stopped at Luguillo Beach, where Virginia swam in the ocean for the first time in her life.17 All in all, it was a rowdy and refreshing weekend for a Nebraska farm girl in Puerto Rico.

Post Card depicting El Yungue (from booklet)

Virginia's note on back of post card.

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1 Virginia Troutman, Arecibo, Puerto Rico, to Mrs. Clint Troutman, letter, 24 August 1940; relates news from her adventures in Puerto Rico, her new home, people she met, and teaching responsibilities; Troutman Letters, CD compiled by Leo W. Nelsen, Jr., copy privately held by Z. T. Noble, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] Anderson, Indiana.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 Virginia Troutman, Record, diary, 25 August 1940; contains daily entries from 10 August 1940 through December 1940; original privately held by L. W. Nelsen [ADDRESS FOR PRIVAE USE], St. Louis, Missouri; scanned copy sent to the author.

8 Virginia Troutman, Arecibo, P. R., to Mrs. Clint Troutman, letter, 24 August 1940.

9 Ibid.

10 Virginia Troutman, Record, 26 Aug. 1940.

11 Ibid., 28 Aug. 1940.

12 Ibid., 29 Aug. 1940.

13 Ibid., 30 Aug. 1940.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid., 31 Aug. 1940.

16 Ibid. 1 Sep. 1940.

17 Ibid., 2 Sep. 1940

© 2017, Z. T. Noble

Virginia in Puerto Rico: On the Boat and In the City

On Thursday, 15 August 1940, my dad’s sister, Virginia Troutman, age 24, “bid Miss Liberty ‘Goodbye’ promptly at 5:00 o’clock,” two hours later than scheduled,1 from the deck of the ship SS Borinquen,2 a passenger liner built in the United States in 1931.3 The names on the passenger manifest were mostly Puerto Rican, with the exception of eleven, including Virginia, whose address in San Juan was “Department of Education.”4 Apparently, Puerto Rico’s Department of Education had been recruiting teachers from the United States. But that was not the only factor for Virginia. A former teacher from Winside High School named Ashford lived there with his wife and children and taught in one of the schools.5 He had likely encouraged her to come.

That boat ride was rough. She wrote to her parents that she and her fellow passengers “enjoyed their supper immensely,” but “only a few good sailors held on to theirs.”6 She was not a good sailor. “From then until about two I thought I’d die,” she adds. “Then I went up on the deck hung my head over the rail and let the wind and the rain beat down upon ‘poor sick me.’” She had apparently gotten a recent perm for her hair, for she adds parenthetically, “(You should have seen the new permanent the next day.)”7

After her stomach was sufficiently emptied, she collapsed into a deck chair. Then help came. “The night steward found me . . .” she writes,  “and made me comfortable with pillows, blankets, and ice cold lemonade.” Shortly, other sick passengers began to filter to the deck. She wasn’t able to eat the next day, but by Saturday and Sunday, she was adjusting to the motion of the ship, and food was looking appetizing again.8

On Saturday during a life-saving drill, Virginia learned the difference between first- and  second-class travelers. The former enjoyed access to a “swimming pool, sports deck, tea room, ball room and what not.” As second-class passengers, she and the other teachers were crowded into the back of the ship with no amenities. That was disappointing to learn.9

The ship docked in “the quaint old city”10 of San Juan, Puerto Rico on Sunday, August 19.11 Virginia expressed relief to have solid ground under her feet again, although she still felt the rolling of the ship. She drew a wavy line to illustrate.12

Virginia's first letter home from the Palace Hotel, San Juan, P.R.

The teachers were soon ensconced into rooms in the Palace Hotel where Virginia roomed with Idamay Demmors, age 23, a teacher from Boonton, New Jersey, whom she found to be “very nice.”13 Their room was “huge [with] two large beds, clothes closet, desk an [sic] bath. . . , large balcony windows and no screens. . . . And of course we have huge mosquito nets over our beds.”14 This was a far cry from the farmhouse room she shared with Neville in Nebraska where many families still had outdoor toilets.

The best news was her teaching assignment in the city of Arecibo, population about 13,000, which was a “choice assignment.” She felt relieved to learn that she would not be the only American teacher there. Idamay’s assignment was good, too, but in the mountains.15 Virginia felt a little apprehensive about being the only teacher who didn’t have a four year college degree, but her five years experience must have given her the confidence she needed. 

Envelope of letter to Neville, 22 Aug. 1940, 3 cent stamp.

She and the other teachers spent the first week in San Juan seeing the sites. She notes that American soldiers and sailors stationed there “can be seen most any place and any time of the day.” She adds, “A homesick kid from N.C. took us through the old fort of San Cristobal yesterday.”16 The teachers would leave for their teaching assignments on Friday.

Virginia’s adventures were just beginning.

Appendix

Besides Virginia and Idamay, the other Anglo-American teachers bound for Puerto Rico traveling on the SS Bourinquen from the U. S. included the following17:

Name	Age	City	State	Page
Martin Dubner	23	New York	New York	9
Robert Friend	26	Brooklyn	New York	9
Joseph Kavetsky	22	New York	New York	10
Helen Louise Murphy	22	Natick	Massachusetts	10
Martha Rowinkel	39	Chicago	Illinois	11
Margaret Roeb	27	Butte	Montana	11
Mary Cornelia Roberts	26	St. Louis	Missouri	11
Martha M. Robinson	35	Fall River	Massachusetts	11
Eugene W. Robinson	26	Brockton	Massachusetts	11
Dorothy Marie Soully	21	New Haven	Connecticut	11
Helen Vrabel	24	Bayonne	New Jersey	11
Katherine Sarah Yeagle	25	Kansas City	Missouri	11

Virginia noted that several Puerto Rican teachers from the States were included in their number on the Borinquen,18 but their names are difficult to distinguish from other Puerto Rican passengers since their addresses do not include the designation “Department of Education.”

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1 Virginia Troutman, San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Clint Troutman, letter, 20 August 1940, relates news of her travels to Puerto Rico, the voyage, her living conditions and placement for teaching; Family Letters, CD compiled by Leo Nelsen, Jr.; copy privately held, by Noble [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] Anderson, Indiana.

2 “Puerto Rico, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1901-1962,” citing Virginia Troutman; digital image Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 27 May 2017).

3 “Borinquen (1931),” Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borinquen_(1931 : accessed 30 May 2017).

4 “Puerto Rico, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1901-1962,” citing Virginia Troutman, 15-19 August 1940; digital image Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 27 May 2017).

5 Virginia Troutman, San Juan, P. R. to Neville Troutman, letter, 22 August 1940, sends birthday greetings, a gift and several postcards, and tells about meeting with Ashford and his family; Family Letters, CD compiled by Leo Nelsen, Jr.; copy privately held, by Noble [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] Anderson, Indiana. She never mentions a second name for Ashford.

6 Virginia Troutman, San Juan, P. R., to Clint Troutman, letter, 20 August 1940.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

11 “Puerto Rico, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1901-1962,” citing Virginia Troutman, 15-19 Aug. 1940, p. 11.

12 Virginia Troutman, San Juan, P. R., to Clint Troutman, letter, 20 August 1940.

13 Ibid. Also, “Puerto Rico, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1901-1962,” citing Idamay Demmors, 15-19 Aug. 1940, p. 9.

14 Virginia Troutman, San Juan, P. R., to Clint Troutman, letter, 20 August 1940.

15 Ibid.

16 Virginia Troutman, San Juan, P. R. to Neville Troutman, letter, 22 August 1940.

17 “Puerto Rico, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1901-1962,” citing names and page numbers noted chart, 15-19 Aug. 1940.

18 Virginia Troutman, San Juan, P. R., to Clint Troutman, letter, 20 August 1940.

A Nebraska Farm Girl in New York City: VirginiaT., 1940

After Virginia’s stressful experience with her first teaching job, she went back to Nebraska State Normal School and Teacher’s College at Wayne1 where she lived in Pile Hall2 with a good friend, Irene Dangberg.3 She needed to further her education and prepare for the next adventure.

Upon completing her teacher certification, Virginia secured a job at District 24, Wayne County, Nebraska, where she taught four years.4 During this period in the summer of 1937, she and Neville traveled to Virginia to visit their brother Verne (See “Sisters. . .”). While there, a tall, slender young man named Raymond DeBord5 caught Virginia’s eye, and she caught his.6 But they lived far apart and a summer visit was too short to make life-changing decisions. Nonetheless, they wrote letters.

In 1939, Winside schools hired Virginia to teach in the intermediate room.7 Not only had Virginia been a top student herself, but also she encouraged her students to excel.8 She taught at Winside for one year.9 

History of Winside, 1942, by Jones & Dimmel, p. 97

Then her adventurous spirit prevailed. She applied for and was hired to teach in Puerto Rico.

And off she went, first by train: the Pacemaker, New York Central’s “premier all coach service” between Chicago and New York.10 In a letter to her parents, she raved about her good nights sleep, the boy scouts in her car who entertained the passengers, and the sights of the Hudson River from Albany to New York City: West Point Academy, Sing Sing Prison, and the Palisades of the Hudson.11 She complained about having to pay $3.00 a night for a room at the Commodore Hotel, and she felt astounded by the fact that she could walk for blocks from building to building “and never be out on the sidewalk with the sky above [me].”12

Envelope mailed from Commodore Hotel, NYC.

After settling into her room, resting, and freshening up, Virginia set out to find a place to eat.  Her description of her experience is priceless:

 “I knew the food was above my style here at the hotel so I walked down to the lower level of Grand Central and spotted an air-conditioned restaurant that didn’t look so ritzy. But lo and behold when I got to the door there was the head waiter to show me to a table. I almost collapsed when he brought me a menu. The cheapest thing I could get was a sandwich for 75¢. So I ordered a tuna fish sand. Then the darn waiter asked what I’d have to drink and I ordered a glass of milk. The tuna fish sand. filled a dinner plate. I got 13 slices of bread—5  different kinds, three slices of tomato, half of a hard-boiled egg, half a head of lettuce and a whole can of tuna. When I asked for my check, would you believe it when I told you that I had to pay 20¢ extra for the glass of milk. I gave them a dollar and said Good Night!”13

 She had learned her lesson. The next day, she found a dime store lunch counter on Fifth Avenue and paid five cents for her lunch. Her favorite, though, was an innovative method of getting food that she had never before seen: the Automat. “They are cafeterias where you can get anything from soup to nuts by putting a nickel in a slot," she writes. “All food except steamed dishes are behind little glass doors all along the walls. You put in your nickel and the door flops open. What won’t they think of next?”14

That night she went to Radio City Music Hall to see “Pride and Prejudice,” which was “swell.” But what dazzled her beyond words was the “floor show . . . . presented by the R. C. A. symphony orchestra, ballet, and glee club.”15

And so after two days in New York City, the little Nebraska farm girl reported to her parents that she felt like “one of these New Yorkers who seem to like no one quite so much as themselves. I’ve learned to strut down 5^th Avenue and Broadway, crowd at every corner, speak as if you were commanding an army, keep your eyes straight ahead and look at no one unless it’s a cop.”16 She had adapted.

The next leg of her journey took her by boat to Puerto Rico.

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1 The name of State Normal School and Teacher’s College was changed in 1949 to Nebraska State Teacher’s College at Wayne and then in 1963 to Wayne State College.

2 Mary Troutman, Winside, Nebraska, to Virginia Troutman, letter, 26 March 1935; relates information about a teaching job opportunity and cousin news; Troutman Letters, CD compiled by Leo W. Nelsen, Jr., copy privately held by Z. T. Noble, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] Anderson, Indiana.

3 “The Bride’s History: To be Opened on Their Silver Wedding Anniversary,” not dated, but the bride married 27 Oct. 1946; Troutman Letters, CD.

4 Ibid.

5 Raymond DeBord and Virginia Troutman were actually third cousins, but they probably didn’t know it. Their common ancestors were their great-great-grandparents, Oliver Pratt and Mary Fulks Pratt. Their grandmothers, America Ann Pratt and Susan Marion Elizabeth Pratt were first cousins.

6 “The Bride’s History . . . “

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 F. M. Jones and F. J. Dimmel, The History of Winside, Nebraska (no place: no publisher, 1942), 97.

10 “The Pacemaker,” AmericanRails.com (http://www.american-rails.com/pacemaker.html : accessed 24 May 2017).

11 Virginia Troutman, New York City, New York, to Clint Troutman, letter, 14 August 1940; relates details about train ride to New York City and her impressions of the big city; Troutman Letters, CD.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid.

© 2017, Z. T. Noble

A Letter: Stories of Homesteading

Letters. For many years after I married, I used to spend Sunday afternoons writing letter to my parents 500 miles away and to my siblings scattered here and there. Regularly, for years, my aunts and my mother penned letters to each other. My mother kept all the letters and now I have some of them. Many of those letters have helped me piece together the family history. Being a genealogist, family history is my passion and letters are crucial. It pains me that people no longer write letters. Yes, they communicate other ways, but the beauty and intimacy of letters are gone.

Once in a while, the impact of letters takes my breath away. This past week it happened again when I received an e-mail message from my cousin, Jill. She had found a letter among her mother’s papers that she found fascinating. The writer, Edith Hillier, had been a close friend of Jill’s and my grandmother, Mary Troutman. Gracefully worded and filled with stories of the Hillier family’s adventures homesteading in Montana, the letter is a treasure. Jill wondered if we could locate Edith’s descendants to see if they would like to have the letter.

Well, you know I took the challenge.

Since Edith had been my grandmother’s friend, I figured, I ought to be able to find her living in Wayne County Nebraska at some point in time. And, I did. She lived in Brenna Precinct in 1920, same precinct where my grandparents lived. She was age 37 (about four years older than Grandma Mary), married to W. R. Hillier; they had two children, Anabel, age 11, and Ralph, age 9. Mr. Hillier was working as a hired man for W. K. Dobeneker.1

I found that Edith Irene Hall had married William R. Hillier on 20 June 1907 in Hennepin County, Minnesota,2and that’s where they lived in 1910. They had a one-year-old daughter Laura A. (for Anabel?). William worked as a carpenter.3

When William registered for the World War I draft, the family lived in Hennepin County, Minnesota, his next of kin: Edith Irene Hillier.4 Doesn’t that appear as if they have lived in Minnesota for at least eleven years, then moved to Nebraska between 1918 and 1920?

But no. In telling the homesteading stories, Edith says children are three and four years old.5 That sets this homesteading tale at about 1913-14.

Without this letter, would the family know Edith and William had homesteaded? Maybe there were stories. Maybe Edith entertained her grandchildren with homesteading tales. But, maybe, not. What a treasure the letter could be for the family!

So I built a Hillier family tree on Ancestry and posted a scanned copy of the letter for the Hillier descendants to find. I hope they enjoy it.

Here is an excerpt:

Excerpt from Edith Hillier letter to Neville Troutman, 1957.

Edith also tells about a horse falling through the roof of her dugout henhouse where she kept “a lovely bunch of Buff Orpingtons” she had “raised by hand.” The roof of the dugout was covered with boards and straw. Foraging for food on a snowy winter night when temperatures dipped below zero, the horse found the straw and his hind legs fell through the roof. Edith tried to free it, but it was too frightened.6

She hitched her horse to a buggy, wrapped her children in blankets, loaded them into the buggy and set out to get help. She tells about driving her horse through snow up to its belly and taking hours to go four miles. She was terrified her children would freeze, but she made it to a neighbor’s homestead, and the man set off to town two miles away to get Edith’s husband.7

When the family returned to the homestead the horse was dead. They couldn’t get it out of the henhouse, so they just buried it there in the hillside. She moved her prize chickens into the family’s shanty (temporarily, I hope). She added, “That was one of the many things that made me tough.”8

Buff Orpington, photo by Rebekah Noble, used with permission.

The letter also revealed tidbits about my Aunt Neville’s family, but I’ll save that for later.

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1 1920 U. S. census, Brenna precinct, Wayne County, Nebraska, population schedule, enumeration district [ED] 218, p. 4-B, dwelling 288, family 300, William R. Riley family; digital image Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 15 May 2017); NARA microfilm publication T625, roll 1003.

2 “Minnesota/u002C Marriages Index/u002C, 1849-1950,” database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 15 May 2017), entry for William R Hillier and Edith I Hall, 20 June 1907; citing Hennepin County. 

3 1910 U. S. census, Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota, population schedule, enumeration district [ED] 205, p. 13-B, dwelling 70, family n/a, W. K. Dobenecker, see W. R. Hillier and Edith Hillier; digital image Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 15 May 2017); NARA microfilm publication T624, roll 706.

4 “U. S. World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918,” images Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com, accessed 15 May 2017), card for William Riley Hillier, serial number 3481, Local Draft Board, Hennepin County, Minnesota. 

5 Edith Hillier, Atkinson, Michigan, to Neville Lamson, letter, 17 October 1957; relates information about homesteading in Montana and other news about her family; privately held by Jill Gran [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] Pierce, Nebraska.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.