Fallon 1951 Part 6: Hearts and Minds

I’m still stuck in the year 1951. Four stories in the Fallon Standard brought home the idea that 75 years ago, our local community was relatively small and isolated. Yet, many here were interested in the larger global community and respected our interconnectedness as humans. 

A View of Londoners: The March 14 edition reported that “A former Fallon young man and his wife were recently presented at a party held at Buckingham Palace on February 22. They were Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Propps.” The information came from a letter sent by the young man’s mother, Mrs. Ethyl Propps, who had lived in Fallon with her family when the late David Propps was the extension agent. The news item noted that “Herbert is a graduate of the local high school and is now in the diplomatic service of the U.S. stationed in London.”

Ethyl wrote that, at the Palace event (like a scene from “The Crown”), there were “about a thousand guests, diplomats and wives from all the countries of the world.” The reigning monarch was King George VI. She also supplied insider views of life in London. She praised the Brits for their stiff upper lips in the aftermath of World War II. “I think Londoners are brave and wonderful people.”  Food was still rationed: “Fresh vegetables are not plentiful except for Brussels sprouts and cauliflower, which get rather tiresome,” and electricity was not reliable. She wrote that store windows often remained unlighted at night, and people closed heavy curtains to help keep their houses warm. The streets were often dark and cold. She was interested in transatlantic politics: “I think the British people were very scared when they thought Truman was going to use the atom bomb in Korea or China. They felt that Russia would retaliate at once by dropping a bomb on London. … They do not want to go through another blitz, especially if they think America would escape the bombing while either directly or indirectly causing them to be attacked.” 

A View of Koreans: Cpl. Kenneth Rost, whom you met previously in this column, was sent home on leave from Korea in the summer of 1951 after being twice hospitalized for combat injuries earlier in the year. He shared with the Standard on June 27 that he had made friends with a Korean interpreter, Manha Hu. He had kind things to say about his Asian “buddy,” praising him as being remarkably bright and hardworking. Hu, said Rost, tried to explain the Einstein theory of relativity to him. The Korean spoke English fluently and knew several European languages as well. 

Rost, having been raised in the Lahontan Valley, was surprised by how difficult everyday life was in Korea. It was especially hard, he said, to farm. “It seemed to be the worst place in the world for farming. Korea is nearly all mountains.” Rost said that he had climbed a mountain, 11,000 feet high, to find a small patch of corn growing. “Wherever there is a level spot, high or low, they farm it with the most primitive of tools.” He described a type of plow pulled by a Korean acting “as a horse,” and added that the more fortunate families used the family cow to pull the plow.

Echoing Rost’s sympathetic views of the everyday lives of Koreans, Marine Capt. Elliot Lima, on leave to visit his parents in Fallon, urged local citizens to send clothes and food to Koreans. 

A view of our battle against communism: The February 14 issue of the Standard reported that Methodist Bishop Donald H. Tippett was the featured speaker at the Fallon Rotary Club luncheon. He and Mrs. Tippett had just returned from a round-the-world trip covering some 33,000 miles.

Said Tippett, “We are not going to whip this Communism by guns and men…. If we win every military battle, we won’t win if we don’t win the war of ideas.” He praised the work of missionaries abroad and medical and agricultural assistance programs.

It is my hope that 75 years later, most of us, like Propps, Rost, Lima and Tippett, at least try to see into the hearts and minds of our global neighbors.

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