The last letter written to Robles del Rio, California

Today I noticed I have 15 followers, which is great, and I welcome the four new followers, whoever they may be.  For some reason, only 13 are identified on my dashboard, so I am assuming I have two additional stealth followers.  Maybe one of you veteran bloggers can explain the discrepancy to me.  In any event, everyone is welcome, and don't forget our big Followers Reunion in Bermuda this spring.

Yesterday I made several amazing discoveries in an old green army trunk in our attic:  I found bound copies of six of the reports that Maj. Gillham had been working on for Gen. MacArthur and the GHQ SCAP.  They are veritable works of art, with charts, graphs, maps, and the typing job is masterful, considering this was way before the advent of word processing or even electric typewriters.  There is no way I can include these in my blog, but if anyone is interested in them, I would be happy to go into greater detail about them.

My other discoveries were several personal items of Maj. Gillham, including his dog tags, his military ID, and several medals that he was awarded for service in WWII and during the Occupation.  I am trying to find a way to scan these, or photograph them, to include on this blog.  I also found a pile of old photos, some of which are pertinent to us here, and I will post some of them below, after today's letter.

This letter is a short one, the last one addressed to the Gillhams in Robles del Rio, since the family is now most probably underway on their trip east.  Maj. Gillham also comments on the growing influx of private citizens in Japan, usually sent over by private companies.  This is a fairly common phenomenon with all wars, most recently seen in our conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Tokyo
9 Dec 45

Dearest Love,

I don't know if you will get this before you leave Robles or not, but I said I would write you there until the 10th.  I am also writing to La Jolla and El Paso (Gen. Del.) and will write to Memphis.

I certainly hope you will have a nice trip and enjoy the reunion with your family.  It is nice to have a family to go to see.

Today is Sunday and it is a beautiful day -- but I have to work, so I can't take it all in.

The American civilians are coming in here in ever-increasing numbers.  They all have some sort of official job so far, in order to get in.  We call them the "carpetbaggers."  I guess they will gradually take things over here -- and at a very good salary for themselves.  Most of them get from $6,000 to $10,000 a year plus expenses.  They rate as experts, but I think that most of them were previously government clerks or small-time politicians.  Some of the WACS are taking their discharges and staying on as civilians.

I got a good box and I am gradually collecting a few more things for you and the children.  When I get it full I will send it on.  I sent one box to Atlanta.

I guess this will be my last letter to Robles, unless I hear from you to the contrary.

Good luck and have a good time.  I will be writing to you wherever you are as long as I know where it is.

Lots of love,

Bill

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This may be as good a point as any to offer a small biographical sketch of Maj. Gillham prior to his joining the Army.  He was born William Tucker Gillham on October 6, 1908, at the home of his parents, George Halsey Gillham and Effie Young Tucker Gillham in Memphis, TN.  He was an only child, although he did have an older brother who died in infancy.  His parents were married in 1898 and were by all accounts a fun-loving couple who were the life of all the parties they attended.  His father had many careers during his life, but the one he is remembered for most is that of a writer of stories for boys and young men.  His most famous work was The Adventures of William Tucker, the protagonist of which he named after his son.  The work was serialized in The Youth's Companion magazine in 1926 and published as a book in 1927. 

Pages 4 and 1 of a four-page circular touting George Gillham's book.

Pages 2 and 3 of the circular, with reviews of the book

William T. Gillham (who was known as Bill to his friends, but was William to his family) grew up in the small town of Kerrville, Tennessee, about 20 miles north of Memphis.  The town was named after the family of his paternal grandmother, Maria Henderson Kerr Gillham.  The family name is pronounced just like the name of the movie star Deborah Kerr, yet the town's name is pronounced like the words "curve ill."  William attended the McCallie School in Chattanooga and graduated in 1926, and that fall he enrolled at the Georgia School of Technology (now the Georgia Institute of Technology), or Georgia Tech, in Atlanta.  He majored in electrical engineering and was a member of the Theta Chi fraternity.  He graduated in 1930, having witnessed the Georgia Tech Ramblin' Wreck win the national football championship in 1928 and attended the very first night game at Grant Field in 1929.

One of the earliest photos of William Gillham (right), astride a burrow

with his cousin Edward Lang in El Paso, TX, ca. 1910

Young William in an undated photo

William as a teen in the 1920s

William with an unnamed college sweetheart at Tech, 1920s

He met his future bride at the North Avenue Presbyterian Church in Atlanta while at Tech and while Frances was at Girls High.  After graduation, he got a job with Southern Bell Telephone Company in Atlanta, and Frances attended the Georgia State College for Women in Milledgeville.  As a result of the stock market crash, however, he and most of his colleagues lost their jobs and he was forced to return to his home in Kerrville where, as he put it, he got a job with Standard Oil, i.e., pumping gas at a local filling station.  The couple finally married in 1933 in Atlanta, and they lived at his family home, called "the little brown house," in Kerrville.

He was ultimately hired back by Southern Bell and was sent to Knoxville, TN, where Emily was born in 1935.  By 1938 they were back in Memphis, where my mother, Monty, was born.  After a short stay in Jackson, MS, he and several other Southern Bell colleagues joined the Army and began officer training in Ft. Monroe, VA, in 1941.  The rest of his Army life should by now be very familiar to you.

Fourth Anniversary of Pearl Harbor

Today's letter marked the fourth anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, and on the letter itself Maj. Gillham double-underscored the date.  I tried to replicate that, but apparently there is no underscore, much less double-underscore, on this blog editor.

Maj. Gillham is still in a fog about the family's trip back to Atlanta, and we get the impression that Frances is not helping matters by being vague in her letters.  He comes pretty close to an outright scolding of Frances for this transgression, but he makes a nice save in the closing paragraph.

7 Dec 45
Tokyo, Japan

Dearest Love,

Well, just four years after they started it, here I am in Tokyo.  It was a long way off four years ago.

Received two nice letters from you today, one mailed the 26th and one the 29th of Nov.  Also got a clipping from Mr. Hay telling about his retirement, which was mailed from Jackson on 29 Nov.  The mail seems to bunch up a little, but I am well pleased with the way it comes through.  It seems definite that air mail is by far the best.  I had heard that before.

I am glad you got the Montague family together.  It was a fine thing to do, and one that couldn't be rushed.  You worked it just right.

I am very much in doubt as to what your plans are and I don't know if this will reach you before you leave Robles or not.  You said Father couldn't come, so I gave that up.  Now you talk like he might.  If he can that is fine.  I will have to get you to advance the money for the ticket as I have no funds to draw from now.  I sent $50 to you to Atlanta by F.O. check which you should get by Christmas, but that is for your Christmas.  I imagine a one-way plane ticket will be something over $100.

Darling, please remember the time element in our correspondence and try to think ahead.  Please don't make me have to pull answers out of you about vital questions.  It takes too long.

I know the children have had a fine time with their raft on the river.  I hate for them to leave there -- it is such a fine place for children of their ages.  Thanks for the other picture.  From the looks of your discarded proofs, your selected proofs must be excellent.  The proofs are a nice size to put in my wallet.

We are starting our busy period again now and will have to work straight through for about 10 days.

They are having a dance here tonight, the first one they have had.  I went down and looked on for a while.  There is an assortment of WACS, nurses, Red Cross workers, and a few Jap girls.  I don't think they would do so well in a normal competitive market.

I will try to write a note to Cousin John.

Thanks for the Coronet clipping.  It was a pretty picture and a well-written article.

My dearest darling, you are the one for me.  I love you more and more all the time.  The best thing here is being able to look forward to going home to you.

Much love,

Bill

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I am not sure who all came to the Montague reunion, but there were quite a few in California at the time.  Just this weekend I have been doing some research into the Montague line, and I have determined that my grandfather and Cousin Ellen were second cousins.  This means they shared a common set of great-grandparents, the male half of whom was Young Montague, born near Durham, NC, and later settling in western Tennessee near the town of Ripley.  Young Montague (who got his first name from a family last name) had a son named Adolphus Wiley Montague and a daughter Henrietta Helen Montague (among 12 total children).  Henrietta, who was known as Helen (pronounced HEEL-en) was my grandfather's maternal grandmother, and Adolphus (known as A.W.) was Ellen's paternal grandfather.  And yes, you will need to know all this for the test.

Ellen had two brothers, Donald and John (known as Jack, the owner of the Gillhams' house in Robles del Rio), and she had two children at the time, a daughter Terry Jean and a son Montague, who is known as Monte.  Any and all of these could have been at the Montague gathering, including Ellen's father, who Maj. Gillham refers to in this letter as Cousin John.

The Gillhams' youngest child, Martha, was born February 2, 1945, in Chicago, but Maj. Gillham received his orders to report to Fort Ord in California before Frances was allowed home from the hospital.  Therefore, he, Emily, Monty and their English springer spaniel Flip Flop motored west, and Frances and Martha stayed with friends in Chicago for a while before taking the train out to California.  Before they moved into Jack Montague's vacant vacation house in Robles del Rio, Maj. Gillham and the girls stayed for a few weeks at the home of Jack's sister, Ellen Montague Upshaw, and her family in Piedmont, CA, adjacent to Oakland.

Ernest and Ellen Upshaw, on the lawn of the Gillham's house

on Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, 1941

Top to bottom, left to right:  Ellen and Ernest Upshaw, Emily Gillham,

Terry Jean Upshaw, Monte Upshaw, and Monty Gillham,

at the Upshaw's house on Arbor Way, Piedmont, CA, 1945

Three children with names derived from Montague:

Monte Lang, Monty Gillham and Monte Upshaw,

Piedmont, CA, June 1945

Our family has stayed fairly close to the Ellen Montague Upshaw family over the years.  In fact, Monte Upshaw was in New Jersey for a business trip in 1974 and was at our home the night Hank Aaron hit his 715th homerun, as we all watched on an old black-and-white TV set.

 I have traced our lineage back to a Peter Montague who was born in Burnham, Buckinghamshire, England, about three miles from Windsor Castle and Eton College.  He sailed to America on the Charles in 1621 at the age of 18, having to work on board to pay his passage.  He settled in Virginia near what is now the town of Suffolk, and he eventually married the daughter of Samuel Mathews, the Royal Governor of Virginia.  This makes us part of the exclusive First Families of Virginia, that include the names Mathews and Digges (Samuel's wife's maiden name) on their list.