Panama

   In the summer of 1946, Eleanor took an airplane in St. Paul, MN.to fly to Panama where Fred had been stationed. She recalls that the plane must have stopped at every airport between St. Paul and Florida where she would catch the plane to Panama. In Florida, she found that she needed a photograph to get a visa to enter Panama, and she was fortunate that she had some snapshots of her and Janet. She really didn't have to worry about the details when she went to England as the Army made all the arrangements. She received her visas and boarded the flight to Panama where she was seated with "two Mexicans who had been drinking beer and eating chili all day". The stewardess found her another seat, so the flight didn't turn out too bad, but it was exhausting. Upon arriving in Panama the sun was so bright and the temperature was so hot that she wondered why she had come. Fred soon found her and they went to the apartment he had rented above a bar called the Buzzard's Nest. The neon sign flashed on and off all evening. They had no furniture so Janet's crib was the top drawer of the chest of drawers. She remembers that they had no money,but she found an English 20 pound note in her purse which they took to the bank and received almost $50 American.
   After a couple of weeks, Eleanor went to apply for a nurses position with the Canal Zone Authority. People had told her there was a long waiting list for positions, and she probably wouldn't get hired. She was hired that day as she was given priority status because she was a veteran.  Throughout her career in nursing, Eleanor has been helped time and time again by the fact that she was a veteran. She makes no apologies for being given opportunities which she feels she earned by serving her country.
   Once she was hired by the Canal Zone, she qualified for housing, so Fred, Eleanor, and Janet moved into housing that was so close to the Canal that she could see the boats coming through the canal from her kitchen window. It was hot during the days, and rained a lot, but the evenings always cooled down to a comfortable level. She rode a bus to work and the Panamanians were very respectful of her because of her nursing uniform. She hired Brenda, a  Panamanian woman to watch Janet when she went to work. Brenda would buy fresh fish from the local fisherman, so they enjoyed great seafood while in Panama. They did take a few trips, but as Eleanor reminded me " it isn't a very big country."
   When she was preparing to retire, Eleanor learned that the civil service had given her credit for the two years that she worked in Panama,  that surprised her because when she left, she was given money that she believed was her retirement fund. This is a vivid memory, as she was given a thousand dollar bill as part of the payment and worried that she would get robbed all the way home from the office.Shortly before they returned to the U.S., Fred was sent to McCook,  Nebraska with his bomber squadron to drop feed to cattle stranded in the Blizzard of 1948-49.
   My wife's parents, Russell and Mary Mund were stranded in North Platte, NE in early 1949 by the same blizzard that brought Fred's bomber squadron to Nebraska.