Establishing the Canteen
From left, Rae Wilson, Edwina Barraclough and Katie Foust greeted servicemen during the early days of the canteen.
A letter written to the North Platte Bulletin (now North Platte Telegraph) by then 26-year-old Rae Wilson was part of the spark that established the canteen. Wilson, on the day following the Kansas troop train incident, contacted friends, businessmen and civic leaders regarding her idea. At a meeting on December 22, 1941, a canteen committee was organized with Wilson as chairman. The canteen officially started December 25, 1941, as young women met soldiers traveling through North Platte that Christmas Day and presented them with snacks and small gifts.Canteen workers originally had to prepare food items in the nearby Cody Hotel and store their treats in a maintenance shed near the depot. Wilson then personally approached Union Pacific President William M. Jeffers for permission to use the vacant station lunchroom for a canteen center, which Jeffers promptly ok’ed. The workers moved into the lunchroom shortly before January 1, 1942.
Wilson headed the canteen volunteers until March 1942, when stress and responsibility of the work brought on an illness that later necessitated her moving to California. Mrs. Helen Christ, wife of a UP conductor, was then appointed general chairman and served in this position for the duration of the canteen's operation.
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