The hundreds of letters written back and forth between the Eyde brothers during World War II tell a dramatic story of what it was like to live through that time, from the earliest days before Pearl Harbor all the way to the end of the war. Between them, the brothers took part in some of the most pivotal battles of the Pacific front, from the very first offensive against the Japanese to the atomic bombing that ended it all.
And in between, their letters tell a story of how different people react to the experience of war, a story of how families coped with sending their sons to fight and how those same sons tried to protect their parents from the truth of it, and a story of how people are the same across generations and circumstances.
Lucky for us, the Eydes didn’t stop writing each other at the end of the war, and their later letters give us a window into how their lives turned out. At least two of their later paths were dramatically shaped by their experiences in the war.
The final episode of the “Letters From War” podcast wraps up the story of the Eyde brothers, and reveals two other major surprises — how the letters came to be saved and then abandoned in a storage locker in Arizona, to be found decades after World War II by a complete stranger, and also letters from a historical icon, whose early writings were contained in the same boxes that preserved the Eyde brothers’ correspondence.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
DAN LAMOTHE: Japan surrendered unconditionally on Aug. 14, 1945. It was just days after the U.S. military had dropped two atomic bombs, effectively wiping out the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The war in Europe had already been over for months. In April, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in a bunker in Berlin. Germany surrendered a few weeks later.
When Japan signed their formal surrender on Sept. 2, aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, World War II was over.
At least 15 million people died in battle. At least 40 million civilians died, as well, possibly many more.
Incredibly, all of the Eyde brothers survived.
John stayed on Tinian a bit longer, then joined his brothers back in the United States in 1946.
The letters from the brothers tapered off a bit after the war, but lucky for us, they never stopped.
Frank, Sanford, Ralph and John kept writing each other for many years. Their later letters reveal the paths that they each pursued after the war and the ways that their lives were shaped by their experiences.
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Frank, the oldest, who had once been on a path to becoming an enlisted leader in the Marines, never really recovered from what he’d been through.
He continued to flounder for most of his life. He was arrested at least once. He struggled with alcohol and moved about veterans’ facilities all over the country.
Frank’s brothers grew increasingly agitated with him over the years. They went from trying to support him both emotionally and financially, to hiding money from him and urging each other not to fall for his latest plea for cash.
JOHN EYDE: Frankie boy is out of the jail now after serving 20 days and we all hope he can change his ways, but that will take a lot of doing and it looks like it’s up to God and Frankie boy himself!
SO much for Soapy and we leave him hoping that he will get ahold of himself someday. He will as soon as he forgets there is booze on the earth.
SANFORD EYDE: The main thing in the meantime is to keep Frank from coming north.
Don’t send him any money because he probably has almost half as much as you yourself have accumulated at least.
Any money he needs can come out of his trust fund, that is what it’s there for, to make it easier on us until it is depleted. Every time he gets picked up he will have to sit it out.
This extends the life of the fund and also the life of Soapy, although jails are not the proper place for alcoholics, as they are not criminals, but sick people.
So much for that, it’s getting late and I’ve got to hit the sack.
Hasta la vista, hasta luego,
Sanford
LAMOTHE: Despite his troubles, Frank outlived both John and Sanford.
John, the baby brother, was the first to go. He fell ill with a brain tumor in 1962 and died at a VA hospital in Madison, Wisconsin.
Sanford died in 1971 at 56 years old.
Letters about Frank dwindle after Sanford’s death. He was always the brother who stayed closest to Frank. Frank himself had stopped writing much years before.
We do know that he settled down in Rockford as an older man, with a male partner, and seems to have found relative happiness.
Frank lived to 83 years old before passing in 1996.
Ralph returned to Rockford after the war briefly but didn’t stay home long. After his experiences in the army, he decided to go right back to serving overseas as a civilian, and embarked on a long career working for the government.
Ralph initially took a job with the U.S. Atomic Commission and witnessed nuclear tests over the Pacific. It put him back in the Marshall Islands, the same place where he once had been blown out of a foxhole by the Japanese.
RALPH EYDE: May 24, 1952
To Whom it May Concern:
I am writing this letter hoping that someone at the cemetery will used the enclosed $10 in cash to buy a wreath in time for Memorial Day to be placed on the grave of P.F.C.Edward Jewell, formerly of Company K, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, who was killed in action on Attu in May of 1943.Thank you very much for your cooperation.
Sincerely — A buddy,
Ralph L. Eyde
LAMOTHE: The rest of Ralph’s career took him all over the world — under somewhat ambiguous circumstances. Vietnam, Zaire, Easter Island, all over Europe and the Pacific.
For a couple of years, Ralph was posted in Saigon, during the height of the Vietnam War. Documents show he was assigned as a civilian employee to oversee Navy construction.
He wrote his brothers throughout the 1960s and 1970s, telling them not to tell anyone where he was.
RALPH: Monday, June 8, 1959, 6:30am
Dear Sanny and John,
You fellows sure sounded good on the phone last week, and the next time I call will be from L.A. in about five months. The time is going by very good and everything is fine with me. Thanks for keeping my whereabouts a secret, and that is a good way to describe my movements — “in and out” all the time. Ha, ha.
Yes, sir, I’ll be back in the States about Nov. 1, and that will be a great feeling.
Say hello to Frank and stay in there pitching, fellows.
Adios and lots of luck.
Love to you all,
Ralph
LAMOTHE: When Ralph died in 2003, his obituary said that he served in the CIA. We asked the agency whether that’s true. They won’t comment. We asked them whether he maybe served as a contractor instead, supporting the CIA. They would not comment on that, either.
And there’s no one else to ask. About this or most of the other missing pieces of the family’s history.
None of the brothers had any children. The Eyde brothers’ story ended with Ralph.
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When Joe Alosi found the letters in Arizona about a decade ago, he tried and tried to find surviving family members. To give the story back to the family it belongs to.
He never did, and eventually, Joe stopped looking.
VICKI VENHUIZEN: That is John sitting. And his brother Frank. Well, it is two different uniforms, right? Right. One is in the Marine Corps, and then that is in the Army uniform.
LAMOTHE: That’s Vicki. She’s their second cousin and the last family member who really remembers the Eyde brothers. Her last name is Venhuizen, not Eyde. And she moved out of Rockford years ago. That’s part of the reason Joe couldn’t find her.
But we did. With some friendly help from the Rockford Library, I tracked down the names of some distant relatives of Ralph’s. They didn’t really remember him, but they pointed me to Vicki — and she definitely did.
I invited Vicki to meet Joe a few months ago in the same Arizona pizza shop where I first sat with the family’s letters last year. I wanted to bring together perhaps the two people on this planet who think about the Eyde brothers the most, at this point. It seemed like it might help preserve what is left of their story.
VENHUIZEN: The last time I saw Ralph, he was in a nursing home. It was the last year of his life. And I had gone to visit him. I visited a couple times there. And he was a wonderful guy. Always pleasant to talk to. He loved to talk. Friendly, outgoing. Pretty much outgoing. Not as outgoing as John. Johnny was a hoot. My mother really felt close to him. Especially these two boys. Frank and Sanford were a little, a little more withdrawn. A lot more withdrawn.
LAMOTHE: Vicki told Joe that there were five other Eyde children who didn’t survive past childhood.
She told him how the Eyde brothers grew up less than two blocks from her mother’s house. And how the kids would cut through yards to visit.
And, in the pizza shop, Joe told Vicki about some of the stories that he read in the letters that stayed with him. Joe especially loved the letters from Frank, who was a Marine like him. And the letters where Ralph describes the battles on Attu and Kwajalein.
JOE ALOSI: I want to meet these guys, you know. I wish they were still alive. You know, true American patriots. Heroes, man.
VENHUIZEN: And I wish my mother, who just passed away three years ago, I wish I had picked her brain more. You know, because she knew all the childhood and young adult stories about them. So they were quite a bunch.
ALOSI: Yeah.
LAMOTHE: There are some things we will never know now about the brothers. Pieces of their story that died with them. Like what Ralph did after the war.
And there are some things that are unknowable now. That letters and documents and military records — and even family members — can never really describe. Like whether Frank found peace in the end.
But Vicki was able to solve one of the biggest mysteries about the letters: how they were abandoned in the first place. How they traveled more than 1,600 miles from Rockford, Ill., and ended up on the concrete floor in an empty storage unit in Arizona so long after World War II.
VENHUIZEN: I was with her the day she picked up the letters. And she was real careful where she parked the car that night — we were going somewhere — because she had all these stacks of Ralph Eyde’s boxes. She knew there were letters in it. I didn’t know the contents.
LAMOTHE: The car belonged to Judith Jones Ellis, Vicki’s older sister. Judy was the unofficial family historian.
Ralph — always a family leader and thoughtful writer — had accumulated the letters over the years. He stored them for safekeeping along with his collection of vinyl records.
VENHUIZEN: My other older cousin, Darwin in Rockford, took care of Ralph’s affairs after he went into a nursing home with ill health a couple of years before he passed away. And stored all of these things in his basement. So then when Ralph passed away, my sister Judy asked Darwin, and she brought them back to Arizona. I guess when Judy passed away, her daughter put these in storage and forgot about them or something. Obviously. And then Joe comes into the picture.
LAMOTHE: Vicki wonders what she would have done if the situation was reversed. Would she have kept boxes of a stranger’s letters? If anyone but Joe had found them, would they still exist today, or would they have been destroyed years ago?
VENHUIZEN: Oh, I want to thank him for not opening up a locker …
ALOSI: And not throwing them away, right?
VENHUIZEN: And not saying, “I don’t know these people.” A lot of people would do that. But Joe saw the value.
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LAMOTHE: Before we end this story, there’s one more cool aspect to the letters that I wanted to share.
Mixed in with the letters that Ralph saved were letters from other family members, and one in particular who would write the brothers all the time during the war.
EDYTHE EYDE: … Johnny came out to see my parents and me in Los Altos. It took me a week to catch my breath …
LAMOTHE: Edythe Eyde was a first cousin of the Eyde brothers. She grew up on an apricot farm in California. You’ve heard the brothers mention her a few times in their letters to each other.
Edythe worked at a war dog training facility during World War II.
She visited wounded warriors who survived combat.
In the letters she writes to her cousins, she comes across as an idealistic college student watching the war unfold around her and seeing her cousins caught up in it.
EDYTHE: … your play-by-play description of the battle was wonderful and positively scarifying. I could visualize the whole thing just by reading your letter. It must have been a dreadful experience indeed …
LAMOTHE: But Edythe wasn’t just the Eyde brothers’ cousin. Edythe Eyde grew up to become a trailblazer: Lisa Ben. She was the founder of the very first lesbian publication in the United States. Lisa Ben was her penname — an anagram of the word “lesbian.”
The magazine was called Vice Versa, and Edythe created each issue herself, working in her spare time using equipment from her job at a movie studio.
Distributing such a publication was illegal at the time.
Edythe would distribute her magazine at lesbian hot spots around Los Angeles, telling people to pass it around. And they did.
Vice Versa only published nine issues, from 1947 to 1948, but it is widely considered to have set the stage for other gay publications that followed.
Edythe continued to write for the rest of her life, often under the name Lisa Ben. She wrote for LGBTQ publications, and wrote and performed music. She died two years ago in California.
So, when Joe Alosi found the letters that told the incredible story of Frank, Sanford, Ralph and John, he found another piece of history, as well. The early writings of Edythe Eyde, in the letters she wrote to her cousins.
Her letters show some spunk, a lot of wit, and flashes of the talent that would eventually come to secure her place in history.
EDYTHE: Today is Thanksgiving Day and it occurred to me to be thankful for having such nice and handsome cousins with whom to correspond. Since it is a holiday, I have a day off from work and time to write …
… During this little outing, Johnny and I betook ourselves to a creamery, where we got thoroughly sozzled on chocolate ice cream sodas. After which we returned to the ranch and played with the chickens. In the evening, we went up to San Francisco via bus …
… I don’t remember if I mentioned sending in a song of mine to the “A Song is Born” contest or not, but anyway, the song was returned to me too, and they said they were sorry but they could not use it. Those two disappointments have really given me the blues. I feel lower than the bottom of the Grand Canyon. It seems the more fire I put into my work, the more of my work they put into the fire! Oh well …
… The other day a most amusing incident occurred at the office. My employer, Mr. Smith, was reading over one of his letters I had typed. “How do you spell ‘permanence?’” he inquired. “P-E-R-M-A-N-E-N-C-E,” I obligingly spelled it out for him. “That’s the way you have it in this letter,” he remarked. “I think it should be N-A-N-C-E.” “I don’t believe so,” quoth I. “I’ll bet you an ice cream cone to a cigar on it,” he boasted. “Done!” I exclaimed. Mm mm mm am I going to enjoy that ice cream cone.
I think I’d better end this letter, as this is about all of the news for now. Write soon …
… The land of L.A.
Los Angeles calls me,
its beauty enthralls me,
its people are cheerful and gay.
With its small friendly towns,
that are clustered around,
it’s a world of its own in a way.
Its valleys and hills,
its movieland thrills,
and it’s beaches and parks by the score.
Its palm standing guard,
on each wide boulevard,
are part of this land I adore.
I miss the concerts,
at Hollywood Bowl,
and the bright lights and nightlife I love.
Where the stars await you,
just around the corner,
as well as up above.
Fair land of promise,
where the Chamber of Commerce,
predicts lovely weather each day.
You’ve got Florida beat,
with your tropical heat,
and your orange blossoms perfume the breeze is so sweet.
It’s no wonder I idolize,
that sunshiny paradise,
the glorious land of L.A..
Edythe Eyde, Sept. 8, 1944.
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LAMOTHE: Thanks so much for listening. This podcast was a large project, and we appreciate those of you who stayed with us.
If this podcast inspires you to tell your story or your family’s story of writing letters during wartime, go to washingtonpost.com/lettersfromwar to share it with us. Or email us at warletters@washingtonpost.com. We’d love to hear it.
This podcast was produced by the industrious Carol Alderman, along with Julie Vitkovskaya and Jessica Stahl. Additional contributions were from Ashleigh Joplin, Dalton Bennett and Bridget Reed Morawski. Logo images for the podcast by Bill O’Leary, Matt McClain and Ricky Carioti.
The voice actors were Michael Ball, Zachary Burgart, Jeff Chiang, Brendan Wentz and Rachel Zeigler.
Thanks to Sam Pressler, executive director of the Armed Services Arts Partnership, and Fred Wellman of ScoutComms, who helped connect us with these veterans.
And, of course, thanks to Joe Alosi, Vicki Venhuizen and the countless others who helped us piece together this story.
I’m Dan Lamothe. This has been “Letters From War.”