The Platform Girls
Among young North Platte women who worked as platform girls after school and on weekends were (from left) Bonnie Paul, Dorothy Loncar and Margaret McEvoy.
Some Australian airmen who visited the North Platte Canteen later wrote a thank you letter admitting that “the exceptionally pretty girls in attendance rather diverted our attention from the many dainties on the table.”In addition to the volunteers working inside the canteen were “platform girls.” These young women (canteen rules stipulated they had to be 16 or older) were on the station platform during train time. They would direct the servicemen to the canteen and distribute baskets full of fruit, matches or candy bars to those not wanting or unable to go inside. Another task was to patiently answer thousands of questions: recounting the canteen's history to the uninformed or telling boys from places like New York City about the geography, climate and population of Nebraska. They became experts on the distance and time from North Platte to other cities or from coast to coast.
Patsy Loncar (left) and Ruth Pyle of North Platte offered selections from a basket of cigarettes and doughnuts to a sailor. Uniforms for canteen workers were briefly tried in 1942, but identification of workers came to depend on the silk “North Platte Canteen” ribbons as worn by the two girls.
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