Weather Hindsight

Community newspapers such as the Topaz Times are a good source for researching the seasonal weather at a particular place. I don’t just mean the temperatures and annual rainfall, although that information is there, too. But community newspapers make the weather come alive by telling how it affected residents.

The Topaz Times didn’t attempt to forecast the weather. Instead, it provided information on the previous day’s highs and lows. On January 19, 1943, for example, this desert community had a low temperature of -9° F and a high of 38° F. On July 9, 1943, the low was 57° and the high was 100°.

The October 17, 1942 issue provided the following statistics: from November through April, the average monthly snowfall was 4.6 inches (ranging from 2.4 inches in November to 7 inches in February). As for rain, the average precipitation for the entire year was 8.16 inches. But these numbers present only part of the story. The real information comes in the vignettes from actual occurrences.

That little bit of rain came with a spectacular show. Here is a description from Tomoye Takahashi’s “Women’s Mirror” column in the July 31, 1943 Topaz Times.

            What a hectic life we lead in Topaz. If it isn’t tolerating the blistering 104-degree heat in the shade (113 in the barracks), it’s being frightened to death by the sort of thunder storms we used to see in the movies. That last one was a humdinger, shooing everyone into the nearest shelter, snatching laundry off clothes lines, and hurtling empty boxes dangerously down the paths. We saw a hat go sailing over the housetops. The most spectacular thing, though, was when the tar roofing above Ed Shiroma’s room, 9-6-A, ripped off going past the Kido’s of SF Tonkin fame all the way to rooms C-D. Then in the terrifying gale, brave men of the neighborhood climbed onto the roof and sat, stood, and crawled over to keep the flapping roofing down while others made motions to tack it in place. All this, under torrential rain and a fierce wind. Oddly enough, there were crowds from adjacent blocks standing in the downpour, just to watch.

But the worst of the weather came from the unpredictable but far too frequent dust storms. If you look closely, you can see one behind the building in the picture at the top of this post.

Here is Evelyn Kirimura’s description of an Easter storm. It appeared in the “To the Women” column in the May 1, 1943 Topaz Times.

            Probably we underwent the oddest Easter weather of all our born days the last weekend. Nowhere else, we believe, with the possible exception of another relocation center, did people venture forth to church services with one hand clutching a wayward hat and another grasping aerial-minded skirts; panting for air; choking on dust; and walking at a 60-degree angle.

Then there were the smaller dust storms that looked like miniature tornados. Here is another description from the “To the Woman” column, this one in the July 10, 1943 edition.

            Still a source of much amazement are the whirlwinds which disturb the still air with a mighty onrush of dust and debris, leaving stunned residents in their wake. Most of us, in an attempt to judge the direction of a whirlwind, have speeded or slowed our pace accordingly. If speed is the element, what more peculiar sight could a visitor view than a group of office girls, seemingly in full possession of their senses, screaming and running in the heat of the mid-day sun.

Temperatures are just temperatures, but weather becomes personal in a community newspaper.

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The photograph at the head of this post was taken at Manzanar War Relocation Center on July 3, 1943. Dorothea Lange took the picture as part of her official duties as an employee of the United States government. Because it is a government document, the photo is in the public domain.

All editions of the Topaz Times are also in the public domain.

Humor behind Barbed Wire

Like many community newspapers, the Topaz Times ran a weekly comic. Its first cartoonist was Bennie Nobori, and his main character was a boy named Jankee (probably a take on Yankee). That was also the name of the comic. You can see Bennie and Jankee in the photo at the top of this post.

 

Bennie Nobori used daily life at Topaz as the subject for his cartoon. The residents ate together and did not have refrigerators or cooking stoves in their rooms. So if they didn’t want to eat the food in the mess hall, they had limited options. And the cooks must have served a lot of fish, because that’s the topic of two separate comics.

 

Here is the one from the January 30, 1943 issue.





And here is the one from the March 27, 1943 issue.



Residents weren’t allowed to take their pets with them when they left home, but a few people managed to obtain new pets after they arrived at Topaz. So the cat in the comic is uncommon but not unlikely.

 

Here is one more comic that shows life in Topaz. This one is from the April 10, 1943 issue of the Topaz Times.

 

 Could you maintain your sense of humor behind barbed wire?

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The photograph at the top of this post shows cartoonist Bennie Nobori drawing Jankee. The picture was taken by Francis Stewart on March 11, 1943 as part of the photographer’s official duties as an employee of the United States government. Because it is a government document, the photo is in the public domain.

 

All editions of the Topaz Times are also in the public domain.

 



Yankee Ingenuity

One definition of “Yankee” includes anyone who is a native or inhabitant of the United States. That includes Japanese Americans living in this country during World War II.

The Japanese Americans living on the West Coast were forced to leave their homes with only what they could carry. When they arrived at Topaz, Utah, their living quarters consisted of a small room with four walls, a floor, and a roof. The only furniture the government provided was one army cot for each person. Although the residents did get to place catalogue orders, the extremely small salaries the United States paid them for full-time work limited their purchasing ability. So they had to be resourceful.

Just how resourceful were they? As you can tell from the picture, they managed to build tables and chairs from scrap lumber and to find pictures to decorate their walls.

This is another instance where a community newspaper can help us understand how people lived and, in particular, how they responded to adverse circumstances.

Here is the “To the Women” column from the February 20, 1943 issue of the Topaz Times.

INGENUITY

            When the resident of Topaz resettles, he will be a master of ingenuity. His knowledge of floor-saving devices in itself should make him a man of no small importance in times where housing is at a premium.

            For instance, he no longer will scoff at double decker beds, even if he has to take the upper. He will use every corner space for useful shelves from ceiling to floor.

            And as for being able to make something out of nothing, one of these days former residents will practically furnish their homes with orange boxes and two-by-fours.

            Beautiful pictures in magazines will come into their own. Snow scenes and other landscapes will grace city walls where once they merely decorated sheet rock partitions.

            Give the relocated resident a piece of sheet rock in the future and he will become a seven-day wonder. He will make partitions with built-in bookshelves which will become the marvel of urbanites.

ON THE OTHER HAND

            All of the carry-overs of center life may not be as useful, however. For instance, we must remember that the main function of the soup bowl is a dish with which we serve soup—to be drunk with a spoon. We must remember not to serve everything from coffee to tea in the bowls and drink said beverages directly from the bowl. We must remember not to rush from the table, carrying every dish we have used. We must remember that there are separate dishes for desserts, that it is not necessary to clean a place on our dinner plate for the jello or what-have-you.

            We must remember not to pass our cups to the end of the table as soon as we are seated. We must remember not to treat china dishes with the same abandon as we did our enamelware. Whether we do or not will be amusing to note.

Most people don’t think of Japanese Americans as Yankees, but they are. And the ones who were incarcerated during World War II were masters at exercising Yankee ingenuity.

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The photograph at the top of this post shows a family sitting around a homemade table in a barracks apartment at Topaz, Utah. The picture was taken by Charles E. Mace on January 3, 1945 as part of his official duties as an employee of the United States government. Because it is a government document, the photo is in the public domain.

All editions of the Topaz Times are also in the public domain.

A Community Newspaper

I’ve been reading PDF copies of the Topaz Times as research for a book I’m writing. The newspaper was printed on a mimeograph and the pages were double-sided, so the ink sometimes bled through. There are also places where the lettering is faded or perhaps the ink never filled in well. People worked with what they had in that time and place.

The time was 1942-1945, and the place was Topaz, Utah. It was a community of Japanese Americans who had been displaced from their West Coast homes and incarcerated in the Utah desert. But it was still a community, as is obvious from reading its newspaper.

As an aside, small town newspapers are a great way to learn about a particular time and place. Not that Topaz was exactly small. With 10,000 residents, it was one of the largest cities in Utah. But the Topaz Times was still a community newspaper. It told of births and deaths and engagements and marriages and carried a lost and found column.

The paper covered local politics (within the barbed wire expanse officially called The Central Utah Relocation Center) and local sports and entertainment events. There was an education page covering the preschools, elementary and high schools, and the many adult education classes. The Topaz Times printed letters from former residents who were now on the outside and information from the camp administration.

But there was very little news about the war and what was going on in the United States in general. If it directly affected the Japanese Americans, it was covered. If it didn’t, they had to get their information elsewhere.

Maybe some of that was censorship, even though the Japanese American staff claimed there was little or none. But it could also be a result of limited resources. If you have only so much paper and ink and personpower, wouldn’t you concentrate on the news that most directly affects your readers?

Newspapers are valuable research tools. The ones that cover national and international news are good for discovering historical background and learning what happened when. But if you want to know how people lived, read their community newspaper.

I’m grateful somebody had the foresight to archive the Topaz Times and make it available on the Internet.

But how many other community newspapers have been lost?

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The photograph at the top of this post shows Rose Nakagawa working as a mimeograph operator for the Topaz Times. The picture was taken by Francis Stewart on March 11, 1943 as part of the photographer’s official duties as an employee of the United States government. Because it is a government document, the photo is in the public domain.

All editions of the Topaz Times are also in the public domain.

Ludwig van Beethoven

My favorite composer is someone I wouldn’t have wanted to know.

Ludwig van Beethoven was born in December 1770. We don’t know his actual birthdate, but he was baptized on December 17 and the custom was to baptize infants within 24 hours. His birthplace was Bonn, in what is now Germany.

Growing up, Beethoven’s family consisted of his father, Johann, his mother, and his two younger brothers. Beethoven’s father was an alcoholic who taught his eldest son music by beating it out of him, locking him in the cellar, and making him practice when his body craved sleep.

By the time Beethoven was fourteen, his father’s alcoholism had gotten so bad that he couldn’t provide for his family. So Beethoven took a job as assistant court organist at a modest salary to support his mother and younger brothers.

When Beethoven was seventeen, his patron sent him to Vienna to study with Mozart. Unfortunately, Beethoven’s mother fell ill, and he went home. She died several months later but Beethoven stayed in Bonn for several more years.

Beethoven returned to Vienna to stay in 1792, when his patron arranged for him to study with Papa Haydn. (Mozart had died in the meantime.) Unfortunately, Beethoven was not a model student. When Papa Haydn gave him homework, Beethoven either used something he had written earlier or paid someone else to do it. Even worse, he kept “borrowing” money from the softhearted Haydn, claiming that the stipend he received from his patron wasn’t enough to live on. Haydn learned the truth when he wrote the patron (without Beethoven’s knowledge), begging the patron to increase the stipend. That’s when Haydn discovered that Beethoven was also receiving a salary and when the patron discovered he was wasting his money.

But that isn’t the only reason I dislike Beethoven as a person. After his brother Kasper died, Beethoven tried to wrench his nephew Karl away from Karl’s mother, Johanna. Beethoven filed for sole custody of his nephew, and years of litigation followed. Johanna may not have had the strongest morals, but there is no evidence that she was an unfit mother. Still, Beethoven had important connections, and Johanna was only a woman. (That made a difference at the time.) So even though Johanna fought her brother-in-law—and even regained custody for one brief period—she eventually lost all legal rights to her son.

Johanna wasn’t the only loser. Within months after his father died, the nine-year-old Karl was forcibly taken from his mother and sent to a boarding school. He ran away and returned to his mother, only to be forcibly removed again. At one point, Karl attempted suicide, and his relationship with his uncle was tumultuous all the way up to Beethoven’s death.

A brilliant but disturbed man, Beethoven’s life was filled with delusions. Johann wasn’t really his father: Beethoven was the illegitimate son of royalty. He wasn’t born until two years after the date on his baptismal certificate. Eventually he even came to believe that Karl was his son. Most of these delusions had been shattered by the time he died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1827.

When Beethoven was twenty-six, he began losing his hearing. That was a disaster for a pianist and composer, and he hid it as long as he could. Beethoven was clinically deaf by 1818, yet he composed his most masterful works after that date.

 

Beethoven longed for love but never married, although he did have a love affair (possibly plutonic) with a married woman. He was known for his mood swings and his temper. He may have had bipolar disorder, and no one can claim that he had an idyllic childhood. Even so, I’m glad I didn’t know the man.

But I love his music.

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* The 1820 portrait is by Karl Steiler.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Have you ever watched “Toddlers and Tiaras” or any of the other reality shows populated with selfish, controlling stage mothers? Then you know what kind of father Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had.

Mozart was born in Salzburg (located in modern-day Austria) on January 27, 1756. He was baptized Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, so where did Amadeus come from? Theophilus and Amadeus both mean “beloved of God.” Mozart just used the French version (Amadé).

Mozart’s father, Leopold, was a musician who struggled to make a living. When he discovered that his two children, Wolfgang and older sister Marianne, were musical geniuses, he decided that they would support him.

From 1763 into 1766, the young Mozart (7-10 years old) and his sister made a grand tour of Europe, playing in concert halls to large crowds and being hailed as the protégées they were. They were paid well, but Mozart never saw any of it.

For one reason or another—probably because she was a girl and girls were supposed to marry—Marianne dropped out of the concert scene and Mozart became the primary breadwinner for the family.

In 1777, Mozart made his second trip to Paris. Leopold was unable to go but sent his wife to keep an eye on the 21-year-old Mozart. The trip was a failure on several levels. Mozart was unable to find a job, his father kept interfering even from afar, and his mother died.

After her death, Leopold ordered Mozart back to Salzburg. Mozart refused to go, so what did Leopold do? He used guilt. He wrote to Mozart claiming that Leopold and Marianne were destitute and needed the salary Mozart was guaranteed if he returned to Salzburg. Worse, Leopold told Mozart he was responsible for his mother’s death. Neither was true, but the lies achieved their purpose.

For a while, anyway. Mozart hated his employer and his life in Salzburg, and he finally found a way to get fired so he could move to Vienna. Once there, he married Constanze Weber against his father’s wishes. Leopold refused to pay the dowry that Mozart should have had and eventually disinherited him, as well.

Unlike her brother, Marianne stayed in Leopold’s good graces and was the sole beneficiary of his good-sized estate. Since Leopold himself was a failure as a wage earner, you can imagine where the money came from.

At first, Mozart earned a decent living as a freelance composer in Vienna. By the late 1780s, however, both his popularity and his finances were on the wane. Mozart wasn’t willing to compromise his musical integrity to please his audience or his critics, and the people of his day didn’t appreciate the complexity of his music. According to Emperor Joseph II, there were “too many notes, my dear Mozart.”

Mozart also may have hurt his financial situation by making fun of the aristocracy he relied on to commission him to write music. His great comic opera, “The Marriage of Figaro,” was about the follies of the aristocracy, and many considered it an insult.

Was Mozart murdered? His tragic death at the age of 35 has fueled much speculation, but the rumors started with a man in an insane asylum. The truth is that Mozart probably died from bad doctoring.

At his death, Mozart left a wife and two sons, no money, and a musical legacy that is priceless.

Next week we’ll talk about another composer who had a father from hell.

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* The portrait by Johann Nepomuk dela Croce is circa 1780.

Papa Haydn

Unlike Bach, Franz Joseph Haydn achieved fame and adulation in his own lifetime. He was also unlike Bach in two other ways. Where Bach was lucky in love and offspring, Haydn’s marriage was loveless and childless. And unlike Bach’s experience in Leipzig, Haydn enjoyed (yes, literally enjoyed) the vast majority of his career, which he spent working for the Esterházy family.

Before Hayden went to work for the Esterházys, his musical career had ups and downs. He experienced both as a choirboy at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna. Hayden had a beautiful soprano voice and was much in demand to sing at parties and other private events. But he needed those gigs because the choirmaster appropriated the money that was supposed to feed the choirboys. Haydn was petted and fed by the hostess and patrons whenever he sang at a social engagement. Otherwise, he went hungry.

But if you’re a boy, that beautiful soprano voice doesn’t last forever. Well, there is one way to extend its life, and the choirmaster was in favor of doing so. Fortunately, Haydn’s father heard about the choirmaster’s plan and forbade the operation. So Haydn kept his manhood but lost his value as a choirboy.

At 17, Haydn was thrown out of St. Stephen and left to fend for himself. For the next eight years, he eked out a living giving music lessons and performing at private events.

Then he got his big break. Many members of the aristocracy had their own orchestras, and Count Morzin hired Haydn as court music director and composer. It was a good position while it lasted, but the Count ran into financial problems and had to disband his orchestra.

Haydn didn’t remain unemployed for long. Prince Paul Anton Esterházy hired him as vice-conductor of music, and Haydn lived a mostly carefree life from there on out. Paul Anton was succeeded by his brother Nicholas, who kept Haydn on. By the time Nicholas died, Haydn was ready for a change and jumped at the chance to tour in London, where he stayed for eighteen months. He made a second trip to London before ending his career in the employ of still another Esterházy, Prince Nicholas II. Haydn was much loved and much esteemed when he died peacefully at the age of 77.

I mentioned that Haydn lived a “mostly” carefree life after the first Prince Esterházy hired him. Haydn was happier away from his wife than with her, and the Esterházy lifestyle helped. The court musicians spent long months away from their families at the Prince’s estate in the Hungarian countryside. Most of them missed their wives and children and looked forward to several months off while the Prince retired to Vienna.

That leads to the story of Haydn’s “Farewell Symphony.” One year Prince Nicholas lingered in the countryside longer than usual and showed no sign of leaving. The court musicians grew unhappy as their visits home were delayed. Finally, Haydn wrote the “Farewell Symphony” and performed it for the Prince.

The symphony begins with a full orchestra, but as it goes on the instruments thin out. Haydn instructed the musicians to blow out their candles and leave the stage one by one until only Haydn and his concertmaster were left. Then they also blew out their candles and exited. Prince Nicholas loved the symphony. He also got the point.

Fortunately, Prince Esterházy had a sense of humor. But so did Haydn. That’s part of the reason his students and orchestra members called him “Papa.” He was good-natured and took care of the musicians who worked under him, as the “Farewell Symphony” demonstrates. Simply put, Papa Haydn was a nice man.

That might be part of the reason why Haydn and Mozart were great friends in spite of their age difference. (Haydn was 24 years older than Mozart.) They also formed a mutual admiration society that lasted their entire lives.

Papa Haydn’s good nature was probably also the reason he eventually forgave Beethoven. Forgave him for what? You’ll have to wait two weeks until my Beethoven blog.

But next week you’ll learn about Haydn’s close friend, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

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* The 1792 portrait is by Thomas Hardy.