ALMA DRUFFEL

By Lyndee Giese and Stefany Larsen

On Monday May 7, 2001, we walked into Mr. Craig McCormick’s class not knowing fully what to expect. We had been preparing for weeks to interview older individuals about their experiences during the Great Depression and World War II, and now the day had finally come after once being postponed because of a fire in the school.

After the bell had rung, our teacher went through the list of individuals who were able to attend that morning.  After several minutes we, Lyndee Giese and Stefany Larsen, learned that we would have the privilege of interviewing Mrs. Alma Druffel of Colton, Washington.  When everything was arranged for the rest of the students, we began to walk around the room in search of our interviewee.  After only a moment of searching we saw a beaming older lady dressed in a bright red suit jacket.

"I believe this is her,” Lyndee whispered, and of course it was.

We decided to take our interview down to the high school cafeteria. There we began to learn the story of a wonderful woman and her experiences in our country during a significant time in history.

Alma was born the daughter of farmers in Colton, Whitman County, Washington.  She was the oldest of six girls and was only nine years old when the Great Depression hit.  Being young and in a rural community, Alma described how the Depression seemed to just pass her by. Her family was able to provide themselves with anything they needed. Cows provided milk, cream, butter, and meat, they raised a big garden, and they canned their food.

“We were never hungry,” Alma told us very matter-of-factly, “We didn’t feel the Depression like the people in the city.”

This part of the interview surprised both of us to a certain extent.  While preparing for the interview, we had done quite a bit of research about the Depression and the World War that followed.  We had always assumed that everyone in the country had gone through difficult times, but as we talked to Alma, we were able to see another side of the story and understood that some suffered more than others.

Alma stated, "I do think the Depression was not hard on me, a nine year old, but it definitely was for my parents.  Although we never went hungry we did without many other things.  I remember mother saying later, when we asked her about those times, that they had not any idea where the money would come from for our next pair of shoes.  My parents kept all those worries away from the children, I am certain of that."

When we asked Alma about her experiences during World War II, she enthusiastically began her story again.  Alma was a Senior in High School when Pearl Harbor was bombed.  She was in the middle of preparing for her Senior High School play for which she had two performances that day.  The afternoon matinee went on without delay, but between the first performance and the second evening performance the bombing was announced.  The next day at school, Alma recalls a school-wide assembly was held where everyone listened via radio to the President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, declare war. 

Alma admitted to feelings of fear, but she was also overwhelmed with feelings of patriotism that were rapidly growing throughout the country. She remembers several of her male classmates were ready to leave right away to enlist.  This, she said, her teachers discouraged, as there were only a few months before school was out for the summer, and all the young men who were seniors were encouraged to wait, which they did.

Being in a family full of girls, Alma told us how no one in her immediate family had to go to war.  Her father, as well as many other farmers and their sons in Colton, were exempt because they were thought to be serving their country through raising food on their farms.

However, little did Alma know that her future husband would be her friend, a man who had enlisted in the United States Air Force and was preparing to serve his country as a dental technician in Panama.  Paul Kirpes had been a classmate of Alma’s at Colton High.   Alma told us how she wrote to her future husband every day that he was gone to war. 

But, “I wrote to many boys,” Alma said with a grin.  Alma was able to recall little of what her husband and others did during the war.  She told how the letters she received from the soldiers had to be screened, so the young men were extremely cautious about what they wrote.  She was often unaware of their location and the majority of the activities that they were participating in. 

After high school ended in the spring, Alma stayed at home for a year to help her mother around the house and to help her dad by driving a truck in harvest.   After that year, Alma began to consider her options for college.  She decided to register at Washington State College (now Washington State University) and major in pharmacy. She explained that pharmacy usually was not a major for girls, but as the war had taken many of the young men, it was not an issue anymore.

Alma spent her first year at WSC in a fraternity house because all the dorms were filled with Army recruits who were finishing their final year of study before they left for the war.

“So, when I tell my kids that, they think, 'Wow, mom lived in a fraternity house,' ” she added with a chuckle.

Alma remembered the soldiers walking around campus in formation, not being able to communicate with anyone on their way to class.  There were times when she was able to socialize with the soldiers during USO dances at the armory.  After the soldiers had finished their studies, however, the dances ended, as there were very few males left attending the college.   After the soldiers left, the women were able to move into the dorms again.

Again, as in the Depression, Alma herself was affected very little by the war.  Her entire family was able to stay home, and, living so close, she was able to see them often.  Alma did know others who were not as fortunate as she.  She described to us the gold stars hung in the windows of homes where mothers had lost a son in the war.  Alma said she remembered several gold stars in the Colton area.  She told us also that she could only imagine how hard it must have been for those who lost sons, brothers, fathers, or husbands in the war.

Alma went to work at Corner Drug after graduating from college. She later worked at White Drug for a total of twenty-six years, but “I raised a family first,” she added.  She went on, then, to proudly tell us about her four children and her husband, Paul Kirpes, who she married after college.  Both Alma and her husband continued to farm after the war.  Though cancer claimed Paul's life in 1978, she still holds the happy memories of the thirty-one years they had together.  Alma remarried four years later to John Druffel.

Alma’s experiences lent a hand in helping us understand what World War II was like for many people. We would like to thank her for taking the time to share her experiences with us.  We enjoyed listening to her stories and hope she is satisfied with the summary we have made about her life during the Depression and the War.