FRAN AND SAM FLEENER

Fran and Sam Fleener have lived on the Fleener place for the entire fifty years of their marriage, raising five children out there between Pullman and Palouse.  They now have six grandchildren.  The Fleener family, according to Sam, lives on "one of the oldest chunks of cultivated ground around."  The Fleeners first traveled west by covered wagon on  the Oregon Trail, arriving in Oregon City in 1872.  Sam's grandfather, David Fleener, after serving the South in the War Between The States, started out civilian life as a stage coach driver, then switched to hauling freight, which he considered easier than dealing with people.  He eventually found his way to Colfax, furnishing a lot of freight to that newly developing town.  He frequently ran a route on the Indian Trail that became the road that runs past the Fleener home. 

"He had the choice of all the land around here, thirty miles in any direction, and he chose this piece.  Wood and water were close by, that's probably why.  Anyway, he claimed this piece by Pre-emption in 1874," is the way Sam tells it.

David's grandson, Sam Fleener, lived on the family farm until he joined the Navy to serve in World War II.  He started his training at Farragut, near Sandpoint, Idaho, in Gunner's Mate School, then was moved south, by train, to Camp Shumaker, a reassignment base near Camp Parks which was a Seabee training center about twenty to thirty miles east of Oakland.  He was then assigned to a five hundred square mile ammunition dump in Hawthorne, Nevada.  There Sam did such duty as testing powder to see if it was still "good" and tracking storage of all kinds of American, French, and British ammo.

"It is amazing how much material was produced and moved during the war years, how the US could replace everything so fast, from fuel to ammo to training new recruits," Sam said, still in awe of the system that won the war.

The Hawthorne site included mountains and hills where land mines that were older and out of condition were blown up.  They also set off some smoke bombs.  That ammo dump was, however, located a long distance from the atomic bomb testing grounds.  Asked if there were any "accidents" while he was there, Sam replied, "No.  But I heard of two or three fatalities that happened later on after I was discharged."

He was discharged in Bremerton and returned to the Pullman-Palouse area to once again farm the land.  One day he was on campus at Washington State College in Pullman (WSU) when he was invited by a friend to go into the Commons dining hall where he met a girl named Fran.  They sat down together, had some chocolate pie, and were married in 1951.

Fran Trocinsky was born and raised in Glendive, Montana.  After she graduated as a Dietitian from Iowa State College in Ames Iowa, she was serving an internship in 1944 when a fellow from the Army came by one day, recruiting women to serve Uncle Sam. 

"Do you want to go overseas?" he asked.

"Sure," replied Fran, setting herself up for an adventure of a lifetime in the United States Army Medical Corps.  She rose to the rank of First Lieutenant long before she was discharged. 

She first reported to Fort Lewis, Washington along with nurses, dietitians, and physical therapists from all over the country.  There she met up with a sergeant who, Fran laughed, "Must have done something really wrong to get himself assigned to training nurses, dietitians, and physical therapists to march."  When it came time to complete her Basic Training, her unit went on a "forced march," walking five miles in battle gear, bootees, and full back pack, as shown in the picture included in this article.  The only difference between what the nurses had to do and what infantrymen did, besides the distance, was that an ambulance followed along, as Fran said, "In case we should fall faint." 

They all made it, stopping only once to rest under some trees.  When they arrived at their destination they put up two-person pup tents.  Then someone showed up with some gas, so they all had to put on gas masks.  The next day they hiked back to their base, none of them falling faint on the return march either.

Under heavy prompting from Sam to tell the story about the shoes with bows, Fran said, "While I was at Fort Lewis, I was invited to a dance, which I had to attend in uniform.  I only had those old-lady shoes," she grimaced, "You know, the kind with square heels that you have to lace up?  So I went downtown and bought a pair of shoes with bows on them and wore them with my uniform to the dance.  Everybody looked, but nobody said anything," she chuckled.  Sam wore an expression that said, "That's my Fran!"

When she went home on leave to Montana, Fran was walking down town in uniform when a neighbor shook her finger at her and said, "You bad girl!  Your mother ought to be ashamed!"  Actually, her mother liked the idea of Fran being in the military, having been a mom who thought girls should get to do what they wanted to just as boys did, a novel concept at the time.

After Basic Training, she and some other women from around the country gathered at Columbia, South Carolina to await orders to ship out to a destination unknown to them.  About a dozen of them went to New York City where they were met by eight or ten officers, all men, who took them out for a nice evening including a Broadway performance of The Late George Ashby.  Fran enjoyed the time in New York except she found herself, again in uniform, having to be saluting constantly all over the place since it seemed every man on the streets of New York was higher in rank than she, she being only a Second Lieutenant at the time.

A few days later, in early-1945, she was put on a boat with sealed orders and sailed from New York harbor, seven women to a cabin.  When she opened her envelope she was delighted to learn she was headed for Karachi, India as a replacement dietitian in a military hospital to work with wounded men.

The women onboard the ship had guards posted around them at all times to protect them from the American soldiers they sailed with. That practice served also to isolate the women from each other.  "They stood and protected us from nobody," Fran said.  "This one guy named Johnny was assigned to guard us.  One day I told him I needed a picture of him guarding me with a rifle.  I sat up on one of those big ventilators that comes up out of the deck and told him to come stand next to me so my friend could take the picture.  'Why not?' he replied.  So my friend took the picture of him standing there holding his rifle,"

The next day she looked for Johnny and discovered he was in the brig.  He had been arrested for talking to her.  "The officers were dead serious," she commented.  "I never did see him again."

She sailed on to Karachi, appropriately guarded, then flew to Calcutta to assume her duties.  She was assigned a Sergeant to work under her, so she got to give orders she didn't have to carry out.  She was billeted in a mansion the Indian owners had been "booted out" of, a place that had marble stairs and elegant appointments.  She had a maid that did everything for her.  "I threw my pajamas on the floor, went to work, and when I came home they were picked up and put away.  It was like living in a dream world!"  She had the opportunity to visit the Taj Mahal, which she described as "just like a jewel."  She got to see it at evening time and still recalls clearly the beauty and serenity of that famous place.

"I was just so darned dumb," Fran admitted.   Once when her friend, who called herself Hedy LaBarr, made arrangements to go out on a double date, she invited along a young Sergeant friend.  When they all got together it turned out Hedy's friend was a General.  The Non-Com nearly sank through the floor.  The General was gracious, but the meal they shared was "short" according to Fran.  In spite of such seeming blunders, Fran said, "I got a view of the world that I hadn't had before.  It was a time of my life that just would not have happened if it hadn't been for the war." 

When she set sail for home, after about six months duty, she headed east, so she ended up traveling all around the globe.  She spent some time in San Francisco working at the Presidio, then went to Fitzsimmons in Denver, where she was discharged.  She eventually ended up working as a Dietitian at the Commons on the WSC campus, where she and Sam met over chocolate pie.  She married Sam and has lived on the Fleener place since.  She returned to school, earning a Doctorate in Special Education at the University of Idaho.  "Can you imagine a husband so wonderful as to help me go back to school and earn a Ph.D.?" she asked.  I didn't have to imagine.  He was sitting there just as proud of Fran as he could be.