Boxcar Beauties
Then Concealed, Now Revealed!
By T. C. LangfordSummer 1944
My father, Gerald (Gerry) L. Matthews, was hired at the age of fifteen, along with other students, to work the summer off-school months for the Preway Company of Wisconsin Rapids, WI. Initially he was a gate monitor but, upon reaching his sixteenth birthday that July, he was given additional labors, such as wheel barrowing loads of concrete over narrow boardwalks, and was assigned to the shipping department to help load railroad boxcars with pallets of cartons containing field stoves for use by the armed services. [These portable kitchens could be set up anywhere and, when stacked within their frameworks, allowed for several to be used at once.]
Shipments went out from Preway’s own set of tracks at the end of a downtown line; boxcars would be backed up to be loaded and then pulled out after loading. Gerry’s gate monitoring post was located adjacent to a set of these tracks, and he worked several weeks preparing the boxcars to carry their shipments to numerous (but unknown to my father) destinations. He was required to line the interior walls of the boxcars, about halfway up, with rolls of kraft paper which were stapled in place. Because of this particular job, he came up with his own unique and novel way to help the (WWII) war effort at that time.
There would be lapses of time when the parked railcars sat empty waiting for the pallets to arrive and all that blank paper they were lined with inspired Gerry. During one of those slack times, my father came up with the idea of creating a surprise for the men on the receiving end, an incentive to speed up the unloading process and make their job more enjoyable. He put his artistic talents to work and, with a black marker, drew on the stapled kraft paper life-size “pinup”-style (all in good taste—clothed!) female figures in various poses; he tried to make them all different!
As the pallets of field stoves arrived, he had to number, stamp, and load the boxes, stacking them several cartons deep on both ends of the boxcar, up to the mid-section/doors on either side; the drawings were thus, of course, completely hidden from view. The center section was left open for the doorways on opposite sides and framed out with wood to keep the boxes in place during transport; then the doors would be sealed up. The secreted artworks would not be seen again until the boxcars were emptied.
When the fully loaded boxcars arrived at their destinations, the beauties “concealed” could not be “revealed” until those on the other end started their job of unloading. Obviously, for those who would have to unload, a persuasive incitement was provided—as the upper stacks of boxes were removed and the guys began to see the very tops of the images, they, of course, would hurry to finish moving the pallets out and quickly empty the entire boxcar so they could behold all the gals!
Only people at the stops where the boxcars were unloaded would ever see these pinups [the field stoves having been unloaded and sent on their way to various WWII sites] =But what happened to the PIX? Were they left in place for the next loaders/unloaders or were they taken down? Could any of them possibly still be in existence, kept as memorabilia by anyone? The artist himself never kept any of them, nor took any photos during his job, and was able to do only a few boxcars during his summer sting (truly “limited editions”!). Does anyone recall hearing someone talk about them, possibly from those who saw them during, or participated in, the unloadings?
We are curious to find out if anyone, at the railroad’s destinations (unknown to us) where these The summer kitchen was then used for food preparation and preservation. During the months when cows, lambs, chickens and hogs were slaughtered, the kitchen would be full of meat being readied to smoke or soak in brine. The boys helped their mother can vegetables, fruits, and even beef by placing the food into mason jars and then inserting the jars into a rack that could be lowered into a huge pot of boiling water. After the contents were cooked and then allowed to cool, a vacuum was created that would suck the lids of the jars down tight and they would subsequently be sealed.
With no electricity and no refrigerator, canning insured that food was always readily available. Although an icebox did serve as a source of food storage, the ice blocks cut in thick chunks from the local lake in winter months were not suitable for anything other than helping to keep food items cold. Drinks did not have ice added to them, but were instead served at room temperature. The ice chunks were stored in an icehouse built specifically for that purpose. The large blocks of ice were placed on sawdust and then covered with another layer of sawdust. When readied for use, excess sawdust would then be washed off prior to placing the ice in the box.
It was in this setting that Cliff’s passion for all art forms grew. During school one day, he saw that another child had drawn something particularly well and, in Cliff’s usual steadfast and logical fashion, he thought, “If he can draw the best then I can do it even better.” He started with pencil drawings and soon fellow students and everyone else were clamoring for their own personal portraits. A self-taught artist, Cliff created his first pastel and oil paintings when he was only thirteen.
“I want more than anything else to go to art school,” he told his father every chance he got throughout his teenage years.
But having successfully insured that his family survived during the Depression, Senior insisted that Cliff follow in his older brother’s footsteps and attend college in order to obtain a business degree. Senior’s around a pot-bellied stove that sat directly in the center of the room. The stove provided the only heat on cold winter mornings when up to three feet of snow covered the hard frozen ground. During the day, the children took turns going out and getting wood from the shed to place on the fire. Recess was a welcome relief but only during those months when the sun shone brightly enough to chase away the chill. Connecticut’s harsh winters usually meant that students would be expected to spend recess time with their heads down on their desks while taking a long nap.
The farmhouse in which they lived encompassed what Cliff fondly refers to as, “four bedrooms and a path” to the outhouse. By then, the youngest of the three boys was born and the siblings all shared one bedroom. This enabled the family to maintain a guest room and an extra room for all of the sewing necessitated by their mother to mend and create their clothing. In addition, there was a main kitchen built directly in the house and a summer kitchen set off to the side.
A huge black iron oven sat directly in the middle of the main kitchen and provided heat for the house. It was vitally important that the fire in the oven never go out over the stormy winter months, so every family member took extra care to be certain there was enough wood on the flickering flames. In the evenings, it was especially crucial to “bank the fire” before everyone went to bed. Banking was achieved by piling wood up and around the sides of the oven to insure the optimum amount of warmth while the family slept. Still, early mornings would find Cliff and his brothers chipping away at the ice that formed overnight in the water basins and bowls. The worst thing, though, was running through the snow to the outhouse where Cliff notes, “the Sears catalog was there but it wasn’t for reading and you didn’t linger.”
“In fact,” he adds when remembering those icy mornings, “you ran like heck going out there and sometimes you ran so fast you’d pass yourself still going out on the way back in.”
In addition to heat, the round black oven also contained two fireboxes—one for baking in the middle of the oven and one for cooking on the stovetop. The family members would slide a handle into a notch on one of the round covers on the top of the stove in order to lift off the covers to fuel the fire. Once the covers were replaced, one could cook on the entire surface of the stovetop.shipments of Midwest field stoves were sent, remembers these anonymous “boxcar beauties”—my Dad’s little bit to help the war effort?!
During Gerald Matthews’ Preway employment, at lunch break one day, he took some red and blue indelible pencils and drew a “pinup girl” with Hawaiian grass skirt, lea, and flower in her hair—but not on paper! He drew it on the muscle of the wide area of his lower arm. When he would make a fist and wiggle the muscle, the girl would dance! The next thing he knew, guys were lining up during lunch to have him draw on their arms, too!
The indelible pencils were rather brightly colored but, after a couple days and washings, the picture would begin to fade and look like read tattoos, eventually disappearing. (My father has no idea how many fellows he drew these “temp-tattoos” on—dozens?)
To test the waters of the military, Gerry joined the National Guard and went to summer camp where he was a radio operator and plotter, directing coordinates for air/artillery canon. He later went to enlist in the Air Force (in ’48), serving during the Korean conflict. His talents led him to a career as a professional commercial artist and self-taught architectural designer, and his works can be seen in various places throughout the United States and overseas.
My father has always been interested in art—he started drawing while still in his high chair! Now retired, Gerry Matthews (formerly of Wisconsin, New York, Illinois, and California) currently lives in Apopka, Florida. The author is the eldest of his four (4) daughters and resides in Longwood, Florida.
© Copyright 2003T. C. Langford