Priscilla describes VE Day in Milwaukee. Her letter also mentions "Gertie," a mallard duck that laid eggs on a piling below the Wisconsin Avenue bridge. Gertie's efforts to safeguard her clutch held the attention of not only Milwaukee but also the nation, and provided people with a welcome distraction from the war.  (Alumni Papers, Priscilla M. Holloway Papers, 1919-1946).

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718.

May 8, 1945 (V. E. Day)

Cheri,

This morning at 8:00 a.m. (Milwaukee time) President Truman read over the radio his V.E. Day Proclamation, telling of the victory in Europe and asking us to remember this was only half the victory.  And he designated next Sunday as a day of solemn prayer of thanksgiving.

I did not hear all of it then as I had to go to work.  All retail establishments and many offices were closed, but we remained open all day.  It caused some feeling of bitterness, not particularly because anyone wanted to indulge in carousing.  But we all felt that our office work contributes nothing so vital that one day might not have been spared to commemorate the victory of right over might in Europe.

It was like working on a Sunday--the streets were empty and there was almost a feeling of oppression in the unearthly quiet.  All taverns in Milwaukee did not open this morning and will remain closed until tomorrow.  Which is as it should have been.  There still is the other half of the war to fight and win.  I think you might be interested to know that the Boston Store erected its huge flag on the front of the building--you remember the one that is three or four stories high and almost as wide as the front of the store itself.  And in each of its Wisconsin Avenue windows was a flag almost as large as the windows themselves.

Instead of riotous revelry we in Milwaukee had a feeling of deep reverence on this day--we remembered the many men who died in the flower of their youth that this day might be.  Surely on a day like this there cannot be a man or woman who does not believe in God.  German might was unbelievable in its strength; but it was a ruthless might that said it did not need God.  And God let it go its own way--alone.  The end we saw today was inevitable for such a logic--or lack of it.  Napoleon said in the heighth [sic] of his cynicism "God is on the side of the mightiest battalion."  But today proves that cynical observation is quite the opposite from true.  God is on the side of the man who goes on his knees to Him and says "Please, God, help me to do what is right."

Tonight they played on the radio transcriptions of Mr. Truman's speech and Mr. Churchill's speech.  And all day and evening the programs have been solemn and dignified, with patriotic and religious music interspersed.  I think you would have like [sic] Hildegarde's closing speech.  I cannot reproduce it verbatim of course, but I shall try to give you the feeling of it.  She reminded us that before the war she had performed much in Europe and she told some of the things she remembered--the peaceful hills of Devonshire, the white cliffs of Dover, the beautiful valleys of the Seine and the Danube, the waving fields of grain in the Ukraine, the gay little sidewalk cafes of Paris.  And she hoped that those things would remain unchanged in a greatly changed and changing world.  The speech was beautifully done and it seemed very sincere.

One of the things about this V.E. Day that must be interesting to you as a journalist is the scoop that Edward Kennedy of AP pulled in getting the word of this event to New York 24 hours before it was due to be given out.  He has been suspended and cannot send any more copy from Europe at least.  It was a scoop of course, but in getting it out he seems to have broken his word not to give out the news until a certain time.  Everyone else kept the pledge.  I don't know if you will consider his act justified or not.  I'm afraid I don't.  In a war of this magnitude a personal journalistic scoop seems quite unimportant.

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Amid the welter of war and victory and memory, we have a rather touching event taking place in Milwaukee at this time.  A little more than a week ago a mallard duck began to lay eggs in a hollow of one of the piles of the Wisconsin Avenue bridge near the Gimbel boardwalk.  In all of the noise of traffic a mother begins to prepare for her annual "blessed event".  She has been christened "Gert" by someone (probably a newspaper man) and the name has stuck.  Each night and each morning there appears a story about her in the papers.  She laid a total of 9 eggs and is now incubating them.  The bridge tenders have wired a floating raft to the piling and keep it supplied with grain to feed her.  She comes down once or twice a day to eat, but the rest of the time she sits on her little nest, oblivious to the crowds that watch her continuously.  The city had let a contract for the renewal of the pilings of this bridge, but has now informed the contractor that the job must wait until Gert has hatched her brood!  D. says amid the miseries of our world, this little event does something toward restoring one's faith in humanity.  She has something there, hasn't she?

Today I got off my letter to the trial address you asked me to use on one letter just to see how long it would take to reach you.  Let me know, won't you?  Using the number of the letter if you can so that I can check to see how long it took.  (I mail my letters to you the day after they are written--for they are usually written after the last mail collection)

Your # 299 came to me today with its interesting analysis of the position of women in Phillipine [sic] society.  That is, the very unfair and rigidly enforced single standard by which men may have mistresses but a woman may not even be compromised by circumstance and not fact, and thus become a pariah.  It is almost difficult to believe, for one brought up under the free and easy American scheme of things which demands as much fidelity from the husband as from the wife.  And after all, as you said, our system is the real Catholic Church system--fidelity is not a feminine matter alone.  Isn't it odd that the single standard system was actually most rigidly enforced in countries that supposedly were entirely Catholic countries?

I note you say (in answer to a foolish statement that I had made) that you consider me 100% loyal as a wife but that "My criticism lay in your interpretation of the term".  By which I take it you mean my penchant for wanting to do everything myself when you would prefer me to let the doing to you.  As I said in another letter recently on the same subject, I am attempting to wean myself of such bossy ways.  I am rather a curiosity in that way myself, for honestly inside myself I want to be a clinging vine.  But habit is a strange thing--it is much harder to break than to acquire.  Which does not alter my determination to break myself of that one.

Thank you for the information on the battle stars.  I hadn't counted Guadalcanal in my considerations at all, had I?  May I ask another question?  Is it a fact that there is such a thing as a Phillipine [sic] Liberation ribbon--given in addition to the star on the Asiatic theatre ribbon?  Mary Bowen said there was, but it is possible she is mistaken.  I shall have to write her a not about the campaign stars for I know she will appreciate having that information, as will the rest of Ken's family.

On this solemn day of thanksgiving I ask God to bless you and keep you.  For I love you more than you will ever know.

Priscilla

P.S. I thought you might like to know that Hep has given me hell all day!

P.