Canteen stories will last as long as there are any World War II veterans.

Dick and Shirley Linn of our town were among more than 300 people attending an annual WoodCarvers’ week-long workshop at Doane College in Crete recently. They sat at a cafeteria table with another carver, Mansel Johns of Madison, Wis. When he saw the name of their town on their name badges, he recalled that he had received free coffee and food twice during the war at the North Platte Canteen and remembered those stops fondly.

Johns asked if the Canteen still existed. Linn told him Canteen memorabilia is now housed at the Lincoln County Historical Society Museum. And Johns gave the Linns a cash donation for the museum.

And in the mail to the Telegraph is a postcard from LaVon Fairley Kemper in Littleton, Colo. She had received a clipping from the Telegraph from her cousin, Mary Fairley of North Platte, telling about Martin Steinbeck’s web site that tells much of the history of the Canteen.

Mrs. Kemper wrote: “I taught in North Platte (my home town) from September 1942 to May 1946 and worked at the Canteen many evenings and weekends. I was known as ‘Teach.’

“I’m 81 now but am still amazed at the Canteen miracle, how the food poured in from surrounding communities to feed hundreds of boys daily throughout the war. This place was the social center for single young ladies (few fellows in town) and the mothers whose sons were away in the service and to home town people, helping the war effort.

When Mrs. Wright’s son was killed, she was back the next day. ‘I can help someone else’s son,’ she said.

“Never a scandal or crude behavior.”

“May God bless your day.” LaVon Fairley Kemper.

The Canteen was a marvelous chapter in our town’s history and the memories of it say something about the culture of the World War II generation. We probably will never quite recapture the unity of purpose and concentration on a single goal that the war brought to our town, our region and our country.