John Varsolona

This picture shows the five Varsolona brothers after their return from the service. Left to right they are Sam, Paul, John, Charles, and Frank.

Upon entering the house of John Varsolona for my interview, I was very nervous, but I soon felt right at home. We sat down at the table in his homey kitchen, and he began showing me pictures from his service in the Navy during World War II. John served on two aircraft carriers, the Saratoga and the Idaho, during the war. He was involved in the bombing of the Midway Islands. John is also a part of local history in Arma. John, his four brothers, and two other families with the same number of boys, all served in the war. The amazing accomplishment is that they all returned home safely. Before serving in the war, John had a life filled with many different experiences. He was raised in a large Italian family in Arma, Kansas, then moved to Chicago to work after he dropped out of school. During his time in Chicago, he worked in Ward’s Baking Company. When the Depression hit, John returned home to help his father make brooms to sell at local stores. John also spent some time in the Civilian Conservation Corp in Minnesota helping to cut timber and stop forest fires. He was married to Verna Lee in September of 1939, and they have two children, a son and a daughter. John and his wife ran a liquor store in Arma, and John sold pop and beer for various companies before he retired. He has witnessed historical events, but John doesn’t see himself as a hero. John’s just an ordinary man who happened to witness some extraordinary events.

There was eleven of us, seven boys and four girls. They’re all dead now. Out of the eleven, all that’s living is Paulie and me. He lives in Kansas City. When she [my mother] would make spaghetti, she’d have a big pan that she’d set in the middle of the table, and she’d pour so much for each one of us. She’d also make her own bread. She knew how to make pizza before they ever put it on the market. She would make dough; she’d make so many loaves of bread and what dough she had left she’d get a pan and put it on there and spread it out real good. Then she’d smash it down and then she would turn around and she’d get these little anchovies, little fish, to put in there, tomatoes. She made a big pan and she had her homemade cheese. She would make this cheese and then grate it and sprinkle it all over there. She made pizza for everybody. St. Joe day she used to make homemade noodles, and we called them chicories; they’re little. What do they call them in America? Fava beans. No, not fava beans. They were about the size of a pea and round. We called them chicories. Fava beans were when she’d make the horse beans; we’d call them, you know, like a butter bean. She used to make that homemade, and Dad used to make homemade wine.

When I went to school all I know was what my mother taught me, and my dad and them was Italian. So, when I started in school I had to start learning American, and the first thing I had was my English. I couldn’t pronounce a word. We got a grade card every month or every three months, I don’t remember. Every so often we got a grade card to take home, and I would get my brothers to sign my card and then take it over there. Joe Skubitz, he was my teacher, one of my teachers, my coach in basketball, and my softball coach. What made me quit, [school] it was, we was graduating in a week or two, he [Joe] says, “If you don’t buckle down and get that English, I’m going to flunk you.”

I said, “ I’m doing the best I can.” English was hard to learn, and he kept pestering me. As long as I was playing ball, he didn’t say nothing. I played [baseball] against Don Gutteridge. Don Gutteridge and I great friends. I didn’t play with him, but I played against him here. We was the Arma Bulldogs, and he was the Kansas City Southern. We played against the Frontenac kids’ ball club, and they had a good ball club. Don Gutteridge was good. When I was playing with Don Gutteridge, I couldn’t have been no more than sixteen or seventeen. Hell, he wasn’t much more. He had what they used to call a coal miner’s team here. They had the Kansas City Southern. See, these little coal camps all had a ball club.

I keep my grades up so I could play ball; but after fall season was over, he wanted to push me. So about a week, maybe eight or ten days before graduation, I wrote to my grandma and I said, “I’m going to come up there [Chicago] and find me a job.” At first, grandpa wanted to take me to the coal mines. I went down, up and down them coal mines for about a week, and I said, “This thing ain’t for me.” It scared the devil out of me. They’d drop you about two hundred feet down in a cage, and then bring you up on a cage. You had to crawl to dig the coal and everything on your knees. I said, “Not for me.” So I wrote, and so Mary said,
“Well, come on. If you can find a job, ok.” That was in ’28, and that’s when I went to work in Chicago.

I got to work in one of the biggest bakeries. My brother Joe was an assistant manager, and he got me a job in Ward’s Baking Company. It was a big baking company. Do you know how they delivered bread? Just like they do now. They had electric motor cars, and they drove them all over town. Then at night, they come in and plug it in [the car] and run it. The job I got was greasing pans. We bake the loaves, and put it in the pan. Then I was to push it in what we call a food press, and let the bread move. Then the guy would take them out when they was through, put it in the oven, and a conveyor would carry them down there to the end. Then you would take them and put them on a rack. They didn’t slice them or nothing. Then they’d make coffee cakes, and all different kinds of cookies, and everything. Then the Depression hit. I was out of a job, and that’s when I come home.

My dad wrote and said, “Come on home. You can help us with the brooms.” He had bought a machine off a little midget guy who was in the Shrines. He had that broom shop, and he would raise the broom corn. We used to go out here in the field and cut it. Broom corn grows like khaki corn. We would go out there by hand, with a knife, and take and cut it off at the ends. Then we would bring it [the corn] over here, you know, where the nursing home is at [now]. That [land] used to be ours. That east stand by the ballpark. Grandpa owned two or three lots there, and this old house where grandma used to live before she went to Chicago made the broom shop. We used to go around to the grocery stores, and sell them a dozen at a time all over Pittsburg, Ft. Scott, around Newton, and Iona.
He [my grandpa] went to see Joe Schicoti. He was the president of the Arma elevator. They sold a lot of groceries all over five counties. Joe said, “I’ll tell you what. You sign a contract stating that you won’t go around selling [to] these grocery stores your brooms. Just sell to us.”
He [my grandpa] said, “Well, I can’t do that because I can’t sell enough.”

He [Joe] says, “Well, I’ll tell you what. We’ll sign a contract. I would take a gross every six months, and I would buy what you make.” That’s the way we sold our brooms after that. Then after that, grandpa started losing his help. This one got married, this one left, and I was in the CC [Civilian Conservation Corp] camp in Minnesota.

I went in the CC camps in 1933. I was in the first group. We went to Ft. Riley, and they shipped us out of there. They sent us to Park Rapids, Minnesota, and they put us in tents along the lake. All we did that winter was cut timber. You could hear the snow crack; it was so dry and so cold. It would get as cold as forty below. All we had were these stoves, these tents, bunks, and blankets. We went to Big Bear and Park Rapids. Then in the spring they had us fighting forest fires. They called us the Fire Fighting Devils. Do you know how we fought them? With a shovel and a pick. You would dig a trench and lay water lines. I got caught in one of them smoke things, boy, my eyes, I tell you! I couldn’t see. I stayed there till that fall; and that fall they moved me to Red Wing, Minnesota, the backwaters of the Mississippi.
At Red Wing, Minnesota, I went to Kaska Park. When I went to Kaska Park, I got to see where the Mississippi River began. A little creek. We camped there and we fought forest fires. We did soil erosion work.

That spring we got to play baseball in town. [in Red Wing] I was playing with Tony Semoncic. He was the pitcher and I was the catcher. This one outfit, this guy owned the Brass Rail. We used to go down there and drink beer. This guy says, “Why don’t you guys play for us? Then after the game I’ll give you a glass of beer or two.” We started playing with the Brass Rail. This scout came around to talk to Tony, not me. He says, “You know, we’d like to have you try out. We’ve got a minor league, a little minor league ball club down here, the Redwings. We’d like you to try out; and if you make it, we can take care of you.”
Tony says, “No, I don’t think I want to go. If you give my catcher [that’s me] a chance, I want him to catch me."

He [the scout] said, “That’s no problem. We can fix that easy.” We asked him what we got to do, and he said,
“You got to get out of the CC camps.”

We talked to the superintendent, and he says, “Well, I’ll tell you what we can do. We can carry you for thirty days at the camp. You come and live here, sleep here, but you go play baseball. Then you come back in the evening and eat your meals here.”

They took us down to the office of the Redwing shoe factory. He says, “I’ll give them a job. We can pay them eighty dollars a month, and [then] play baseball on Saturday and Sunday.” So I went there, me and Tony did. That first day they took us over there and give me a big pair of rubber gloves and an apron. This guy took us out to the tannery. This is where these cow hides and things come in. Our job was to cut the bailing wire, and spread the cow hide, and take water and wash the salt and everything off the cowhide. I said, “ Tony, I don’t know if I can take this.”

He says, “What’s the matter? Just scrape it and don’t pay no attention.” I did that a couple of days.
I said, “Tony, I can’t even eat. Them goddamn things have got worms. I can’t eat. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to quit.” I think we work maybe a week or two. That’s when I come back to Arma, and went to Farlington. They had just started building a dam [at Farlington, KS]. They start building that outlet. That thing is seventy-two feet high. The first job I got when I got there was driving a team of mules on them wagons. I got too old, and they released me. Grandma and I got married in September of ’39.

I was drafted on September 12, 1943. Farragut [Idaho]. That’s where I took my boot camp. We had six weeks of it. When you first went in, you got a blue jacket manual. Anything you want to learn, you would refer back to that. You had to learn how to swim before you could graduate. Every day we had, it was like a big football field, and all of us got out there. We called it the grinder. That’s where you went out there and done the sixteen count manual with your gun. You graduated in six weeks. Everything was moving fast. After you graduated out of boot camp, we made up the companies. After we took the boot camp in six weeks, we loaded up the troop train. They wouldn’t tell us where we were heading. They had all the blinds drawn, and black out. No lights on the train. After we got to Manhattan, they stopped us at the station. You got your couple of sandwiches. They give us a drink. They had some coffee there with paper cups and water and stuff. Everything darkened again, and they pulled us out of there, blinds and everything down. We didn’t stop for nothing. They said they would just let you look through the blind, and we went through Reno, Nevada. We had a straight shot through to California. I think it took us a day, a night, and another day before we hit Pasadena, California. They unloaded us a night, and they took us from Pasadena to Treasure Island where the navy base is at. We stayed there overnight. The next day each guy had several places to go where you was gonna board. You come along as they call your name.

You went up there, and they gave you your sea bag. Everything you got and you pack everything in them sea bags. That’s where you put all your clothes at. You didn’t have no lockers. You didn’t have no drawers, things to put your clothes in. You put it all in the bag. You pack that bag. You done your own laundry. You never used clothes pins when you done laundry. You used what you call the line. You never dared to say rope. You had to say a line. You done your laundry, you hang it there, and you tie it with about six inch lines. You got so when you tied your clothes, you done your laundry. Then you only had a smoke if you had, what you call, a lamp lit and a lamp out. You didn’t get to smoke until you was told to. Then when it was out, that was it. So, when we got our sea bags, you roll everything backwards, your collar, your shirt. You rolled them backwards, tied them with a line. That sea bag, when you unlash it, that was your bed. You turn around, you get aboard ship, and they give you a number where they put you. You hook it [the sea bag] there, and you climb in that hammock. Then when you roll it up, you had a sea bag; and that’s where you put all your clothes at.

You know what our pay in the army was? What we got? Twenty-one dollars a month. She [my wife] would get twenty-eight dollars a month. We got paid twice in the navy: on the first and the last of the month. The first one I didn’t have nothing coming. Next one, on the 28th, they would get it. After I got out of boot camp, I went overseas, and I got to be a first class fireman. I was a first class fireman. Down in the diesel engines we worked and everything. I turned around and got a raise. Seventy-eight dollars a month. A big raise. The Army, everyone got the same thing. The Air Force and all that the officers got more money.
We had ship’s service, you know what I mean? We had a canteen. You go there and buy candy bars and stuff. We didn’t get no beer or nothing like that. Coca-Cola was the only pop we got. We got our candy and stuff like that. Cigarettes was five cents a pack. Wings. That was the name of the cigarettes. We got one of them cheap ones. Wings, oh, there was several of them. The Red Cross would send us cigarettes. Five cents a pack. I used to smoke so much my damn fingers turned yellow.
They board me on the Saratoga, the big flat top. Planes fly off it. It was a carrier. I was on the crew that, what we called a catcher. A plane came in, we had a runway there, and the chute came down, and you catch that cable. Our duty was we caught them; we had to hurry up, get over there, pull the wings back, and put it down. We had one of these like a bobcat. They got to hook up on to it, and he would bring that plane right on around. We’d take it to the conveyor. When they take it to this conveyor elevator, it would take us down. When we got down below deck, it was like a big, long football field. When this pilot would come to get his plane they would holler a number and he would take off. One by one, they take off and go.

We bombed different islands. We had the privilege of bombing the Gilbert Islands when I was on the Saratoga. The Marines, they would take and open the gates and let them off of her boat. We’d take them and land them on shore. A lot of them got shot up. It was terrible. When we went back into Pearl Harbor, my god, it was a terrible sight. I got off the Saratoga, and I got on the battle hag. [When] We went back out, we had two escorts, one on each side. These destroyers, or tankers we’d call them, would take the hit. The second time we went out I transferred over to the Idaho, and we got out there we attacked the Midway Islands. Then when we got out there, they started firing these Jap planes. They would come in, these planes, and we didn’t fire a shell or anything. I was in the engine room, and the ammunition room. We helped to pass the ammunition on theses belts. We had sixteen-inch guns out there.
We got an order from our flag ship, which was the Pennsylvania. They give orders for all ships to return to Pearl Harbor because there was a big force, and we were going in for the Philippines. We took on some wounded Marines. We brought them back, and we got orders to let the Marines use our equipment. So one Marine and I, he used my equipment.

The only way you could take a bath was the GI bucket. [helmet] I got down with the fungus on my feet. I couldn’t walk or anything so we got back to Pearl Harbor, and I run into this fellow. He was a real good doctor, curious fellow. He said, “John, we’re going to keep you here.” My feet was just like junk, rotten. I was there for about a month or two; and this Jewish doctor, we come pretty good friends, he and I, and we talked all the time.
He says, “John, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to put you on the next ship that goes to the United States. I’m going to put you on it.” So, sure as the devil, after a couple of months, there was the Walsh, a big troop hauler. They shipped me back to California, to Frisco first. I was there for about a month; and then this other doctor sent me to Santa Cruz, California. I was there, oh, I don’t remember how long, but I was there quite a while. I was there taking treatments for my feet. It was all sores, and I couldn’t walk on the beach. They put a lamp on your feet, and try to bake them. I took electric treatments, and they finally got it pretty well dry.
The commanding officer of the outfit there, he said, “ You ain’t going to be no use with that or anything.” The next time he came by he said, “I got good news for you. I think you’re going to get a medical discharge.”

I says, “ You hurry it up. I’ll take it anytime.” He recommended medical discharge, and that’s when I come home. We got a little duck. We put it on our lapel. We call it the ruptured duck. Then we got three hundred dollars plus drop pay, and I got to come home. Well, I just got out of the service, and we went to Chicago, [my wife] and I, to visit my brothers and sisters. So when we got through visiting, we got on a streetcar. See, they had these crossings, and the trolley was way up there. At the crossing, they [the trolleys] would make a flash. Carl said, “We better get up to the front because we get off at the next stop.” We got up in the front. Just as soon as we got up there, the lights went out and a big, bold flash went across. It made a popping noise, and I got so scared that I tried to kick the damn door to get out of there. They finally got a hold of me, and got me settled down. I think they took me to the hospital for a check up and everything. That’s when that big flash scared the hell out of me. I thought I was back in the service. [war]

The war. It’s horrible! That’s something I wished had never, never happened. You don’t know what it is. You can ask my wife what she went through. Hell, they used to black out this and that, and then they’d ration gas, ration tar, and ration this. She can tell you what she went through. It’s terrible. Well, you don’t know. You got a husband over there. You got a brother over there, brother-in-law, or something. You don’t know if they’re going to get killed or not. There was sixteen million of us in the service. It was horrible. War is the worst thing that can happen. It still gets me when I think about that bombing and shelling that we did in the Midway. Boy, it still touches me. Remembering that just tears me up.

[There were three families that went to war from Arma.] There was five brothers. This one here [pointing to photo] is my brother Frank, this is my brother Newt (Charles), this is Paulie, this is Sam, and this is me. We have a history in Arma. It’s known all over by the Veteran’s Association, the press, and everything. There were five Kmetzs, five Kovacics, and five Varsolonas. We all belonged to one American Legion Post, the Arma American Legion Post. Since the Korean War, the Vietnam War, they made plaques, the legion did. There’s only two living in our family, Paulie and me. The Kovacics have Bill and Augie Kovacic. The Kmetzs only have those brothers Andy and Vic. Out of the fifteen, there’s six living.

I helped to start the American Legion here [in Arma]. I was the charter member when we started. We had the office install the fourth [of October of 1944], the night Pittsburg came over to form it. We used to meet at the Masonic hall; and after they installed us, we went to the Blue Moon. That was the great big Blue Moon dance hall. I’m a past president of the Eagles. I belong there sixty-six years.

I’ve been township trustee [of Arma] one of the longest. I think I hold the world’s record. I do! I believe I do. I got elected in the fall of November 1947, and took office in January of ’48. I’m in charge of putting all the poles up. I got two guys helping me. We take care of old cemeteries, and then we take care of some of the odd things. We take care of cemeteries like this one in Franklin. There’s mostly colored people buried there. Then we got one over there, Union Cemetery, about one mile west of Ringold and then one mile back north. Then we got another one over here, Smiley Cemetery, out by Greensdale. There’s a little cemetery, an old cemetery [by the state park]. We put up new street signs, name new streets and everything in Franklin, Capaldo, Ringold, Radley. [On my return from the service] my boss that I worked for at the elevator company in Mulberry, he says, “According to the law, they’re supposed to give you a job.”

I said, “Yeah, but I’d like to have an understanding. How much are you going to pay? ‘Cause when I left, I was only making twelve dollars a week, and married. No kids.”

I says, “I’ll tell you one thing, Charlie. You going to pay seventeen, you keep your job. Give it to somebody else. You know what I’m going to do?” You see, it was the law that you get 52-20. That was twenty dollars a week for fifty-two weeks, one year. I said, “I’m going to sit under a shade tree with a tub of beer, and I’m just going to sit there and drink beer. That’s all I’m going to do.”

I said, “I can make twenty dollars a week for one year without doing nothing.”

So, I put in for my 52-20. Clifford Smith, over here, he said, “ I know where you can get a job.”

So, I talked to mother, and she said to go down there and find out. So I went down there, and he [John] said, “Yeah. If you work, you can come to work summertime.” He sold pop and beer in the summertime. Nobody drank in the wintertime.

So I says, “Well, John, I don’t know. I gotta have a job that pays me all year round.”

I said, “Well.” So, that night came Albert Sutori, his partner. He says, “When I come in, John told me you were coming to work for us.” Well, there was three of them: Albert Sutori and Frank Kovacic. They owned the pop factory. So he [Albert] said, “We got together just a while ago, and we decided that we want you to come work all year round. We’ll find something to do. The pop you sell or something.”

So I worked. So, the spring of that year, I started working, and I opened up a new territory for them. I took it to Coal and Mulberry. See, they hadn’t been delivering pop out there. See, I knew all these people from working at the elevator, and delivering groceries and things. So, I went up there and, my god, you wouldn’t believe how much I improved. I sold pop up there to some chicken places, and I opened up Pittsburg. I sold beer and everything. By the summertime, about the time it got to the first of June, I really had the business picking up. I was selling truckloads of pop and everything. He [Albert] says, “John, starting June the first, your salary is going to be seventy-five dollars a week.”

I worked twenty-two years at the pop factory, and then they sold out. We had Coors. We got a franchise for Coors, and I pedaled Coors for twenty-two years. Then I had the liquor store. We opened the liquor store in ’58, grandma [my wife] and I did. She run it through the daytime, and I would run it in the evening. I was in the liquor store and A.J.[Menghini] came by. He said, “My mother wants you to come work for us.”

I says, “Well, ok. I’m looking for a job.” Then I went to work for A.J. They didn’t have no routes or nothing. They just took a pickup truck load, go here and sell, go here and sell. I said, “Hell, I work for Coors, we had to turn around, and take a truckload, about two hundred cases on a truck, big long truck. Then turn around, and had a route to make.

They said, “Do it the way you want to.” So, they got me one of them flatbeds.

He said, “Suit yourself. You can take Frontenac or Pittsburg, but that other route’s Frank’s and one is Johnny Wade’s of Parsons.”
So I started out, I said, “Hell, I ain’t going to do that.” So I went in Pittsburg, and go and sell here and there. I knew them all from different times. Next thing I know, I said, “A.J, you got sheets?”

I said, “Give me a book. I’m making the route sheets.” I went over there and the next thing I knew, he was paying my seventy-five dollars plus a bonus for what I sold. The first thing you know, after about a year, man, I was busy. I was selling because I got in good with the college kids, and they had spending money. They didn’t care. If they had a party, and you wanted to give them a case of beer, go ahead. The first thing you know, my business increased, and I had a hell of a time. You know what I sold mostly? We call them cowboys. Them sixteen-ounce cans. Now, you don’t even see them around. Sixteen ounce cans.

I was really selling the beer over there [Pittsburg]. They couldn’t get over it. I had Wilbert’s liquor store. That guy, when I had a sell on Busch, he used to sell more beer than anybody there. He would sometimes stack back there five hundred cases of beer. He was my biggest customer. He would sell over one thousand cases of beer a month. I really worked that business up. Then I come home; retired, but I didn’t retire. Grandma [my wife] retired and I had to run the liquor store. Her, grandma and I, we’ve been married sixty-three years. We’ll be sixty-four years this coming September the 9th. Now I got one boy and one daughter. I got three grandkids: her [Laurie] and Mandy and Ryan. That’s the three grandkids; but then since she [Laurie] got married, I call Troy a grandkid. Now Mandy got married to Shannon O’Shanna so he got to be a grandkid. So then, all at once, she [Laurie] got a baby, Trevor, and now I’m a great-grandpa. Mandy got Curtis; and I’m another grandpa, so that’s the way all the grandkids come in. Yeah, that’s quite a life.

This is a picture of John with his grandchildren. In the back row, from left to right: Troy, Trevor, Laurie, Ryan, Mandy, Shannon, and Curtis. 
John and his wife are in the front row.