The Home Front

Jim Hoel, our father, was transported and processed into Stalug Luft III about 10 days after his capture, on May 17,1943. Though he was able to write home, apparently the brief posts he sent were not received until months later.

Although the date is not precise, it appears that Jim's parents, Omer and Olive Hoel, learned as early as May 19, 1943, through newspaper articles and Red Cross messages, that their son was missing in action. They did not learn he was a prisoner of war for another 50 or 60 days. Undoubtedly, thoughts of the worst passed through their minds but Jim's parents were people of faith and had, as all earlier generations do, lived through and learned from difficulties before.

During that frightening period Jim's parents received incredibly moving letters from friends, government officials and local statesmen expressing sorrow and praying for the best. These letters will follow in future posts.

Olive and Omer were tough folk and they withstood this period of "not knowing", with a deep faith that "Jimmy" was not dead.

Olive was born in Sparta, Wisconsin and Omer, as described earlier, in Canby, Minnesota. They met when Omer had some emergency surgery and Olive was his nurse. The fell in love and married. Omer was Norwegian. Olive was Swedish and despite the traditional jokes about antagonism between the two Scandandavian cultures, we never saw anything but love.

When World War I began, Omer enlisted and became an ambulance driver. One day while stationed in New Jersey, his ambulance became stuck on a railroad track and was hit hard by a train, killing all but Omer. He was taken to the hospital where the first report was that he had "a gut that was slit wide open." All present, save one, said essentially, "He's a goner." But one young doctor wanted to "give it a try to save this young man's life".

Olive heard about the accident in Canby and immediately gathered her first born, daughter Milnore, who was six months old at the time, bought a train ticket to Chicago and from there a ticket to New York and then on to the New Jersey Hospital.

Olive arrived with her baby Milnore to learn that one brave doctor's efforts had saved her husband's life.

Our grandmother always seemed to be about three feet tall to us. In fact she was probably a few inches less than five feet tall. But her courage and faith only now becomes clear to me. The letters you will see in the upcoming posts were carefully saved and responded to despite the fact that the better bet was that her son was dead.