Category Archives: 1940s

The Askew women at the Commercial Hotel

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2012-11-12-wadena-055The Commercial Hotel (on the National Register of Historic Places, now repurposed as the Commercial Apartments), is a three-story Queen Anne Style, late Victorian brick building on South Jefferson St. in Wadena, Minnesota, that served as an anchor for the Askew family, especially the women of the Askew family, for decades. I’m still trying to understand this aspect of the Askew family, so this post will serve as a place to gather my notes and sources about the Askews at the Commercial Hotel. I have a lot to learn about this subject, so please do leave comments if you can further illuminate the subject.

In the Spring of 1901, Joseph Askew and his wife Jane leased a three-story brick hotel called the Wadena Hotel. They soon renamed the hotel the Commercial Hotel, as their target customers were travelling salesmen who came by train and needed a place to eat, sleep, and display their goods. After a time, Joseph purchased the Hotel for an estimated $10,000 (the equivalent of about $275,000 in today’s dollars).

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Clyde and his union shop

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2011-11-22-024 (1)Another loose photo I found among my grandmother Harriet Prettyman’s old photos. It’s a photo of Clyde Askew, my great-grandfather, and fellow employees at his place of work in the late 1940s or early 1950s. I believe my grandmother said he worked as a machinist at the General Electric plant the utility company (PG&E?) that was just down the street from where they lived in Oakland, CA, at the time.

As with the majority of the family photos I have, this one has no inscription on the back, so I’ll have to rely on details contained in the photo for hints as to where and when the photo was taken.
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Wadena H.S. 1941 yearbook

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Detail of HarrietMy grandmother, Harriet (Askew) Prettyman, attended Wadena, MN, public schools from kindergarten through her high school graduation. While organizing some of her old photos, I came across her Wadena High School yearbook from 1941. She had apparently taken it with her to her 40th high school reunion, as there are photos and other materials from that reunion, and she had written “deceased” next to the yearbook photos of all of her class members who had passed away. Other than that and some scotch tape to fasten several of the photos, the yearbook appears to be in pretty much the same condition that it was in when she first received it.

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Gert Askew and daughters in S.F. Chinatown

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1945 Chinese Skyroom p1Whew. I like to write a post or two per week, but it’s been a busy several weeks since my last post. My time has been stretched really thin over these past weeks, primarily between travel, family, a bad cold, and writing a $500k NSF grant. I’ll do my best to get back on the family history blogging rails. Towards that end, I’ll see if I can get a few posts written this weekend to get some momentum built up again.

For my first post today, I present this charming souvenir photo I found recently while continuing to organize my grandmother’s photos.

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Samuel Askew, horseman

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I got an email today from Rebecca Komppa, a newspaper columnist and local historian in the Wadena county area of Minnesota. I had helped Rebecca with an article she wrote on the Arlington Hotel, a hotel that my 3rd-great-grandfather Joseph Askew built in Menahga, MN, in 1891. This morning, she got an email from a man named John who’s a great-grandson of Joseph Askew, asking for my contact details.

It turns out that he’s my second cousin, twice removed—in other words, he’s my grandmother Harriet’s second cousin. Joseph Askew had six sons, but only three lived past childhood: William Henry Askew (1864–1927), Wilfred Lawson Askew (1873–1953), and Samuel “Sam” Clarence Askew (1876–1954). John told me that Sam Askew, Joseph’s youngest surviving son, was his grandfather.

For today’s post, I want to present a couple of interesting photos I’ve scanned of Sam Askew. One is housed at the Wadena County Historical Society, and the other is in the possession of my great-uncle Gordy Askew.

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In memoriam

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Sever Severson's headstone, 1864Memorial Day is a day set aside to remember and to honor the American men and women who have died while in military service. Unlike Veterans Day, which celebrates the service of all U.S. veterans, Memorial Day is specifically set aside to commemorate those who died while serving.

In this post, I’d like to commemorate the sacrifices of family members who have died while in the service of our country. If you know of people I have missed, or if you know of details beyond what I’ve presented here, please let me know in the comments section.

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Color photo from ca. 1942

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1942 Minicolor print front v2I’ve recently seen a few color photos from World War II, but I thought that must have been a rare, expensive, and exceptional technology. Today I found a small (2¼ by 3¼ inch) color photo of my grandmother, Harriet (Askew) Prettyman, from around 1942.

The photo is of Harriet (on the right) and an unidentified woman (perhaps Valborg Marie “Vollie” Berdahl) with an unidentified man (perhaps Harriet’s half-uncle and Vollie’s future husband, William Leighton “Bill” Askew) between them, sitting on a sandy beach. The women are are barefoot and are wearing two-piece swimsuits, and the man is wearing trunks, a white t-shirt, sandals, and has a towel over his neck. The two women are each holding a slice of watermelon. There’s a bottle of what is presumably tanning oil next to Harriet’s feet, and a pair of sunglasses to the left of the other woman. Continue reading →

You’re in the Navy Now

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WEPs cruise book photoAs I mentioned in my previous post (on my grandfather’s service on Kwajalein Island), my grandfather, William Eugene (“Bill”) Prettyman served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. In this post, I’ll present a few of the documents I’ve found so far concerning his military service. I’m trying to figure out when and where he served, so I’m gathering everything I can that can help answer that question.

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Bill Prettyman on Kwajalein atoll

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1943 ?- Bill Prettyman in KwajaleinMy grandfather was a navigator for the U.S. Navy during World War II. From photos he sent back (probably to his future wife, Harriet Askew), it appears he spent some time in Micronesia, on the South Pacific island of Kwajalein. He never mentioned his time there to me, and I haven’t yet been able to find any other record of his being on Kwajalein besides these two photos.

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Dorothy Black’s WWII care packages

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2013-01-20-001Sometime in the first ten days of October, 1944, a paragraph was written in The Daily Olympian about the World War II care package activities of my grandmother, Dorothy R. (McMurry) Black. She and my grandfather, Vernon C. Black, were married on December 18th, 1940, in Olympia, Washington, and by September, 1943, Vernon was in the Army, receiving basic training at Camp Abbot, a now-long-abandoned training facility near Bend, Oregon.

The short item was written by Alice Adams Watts and included in her “Here and There” column, a feature of the newspaper’s section, “Department for Women.” It’s just one paragraph, but it imparts a lot of insight into my grandparents’ relationship, my grandfather’s gastronomic preferences, my grandmother’s packing acumen, World War II food rationing, and more.
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