Reading The Sunday Comics - In The Shadow of War
The Funny Papers and My New Release 
Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy
Reading
what we called the “funny papers” was a Sunday tradition when I was growing
up. We all took turns with the comics,
sometimes spreading them out on the floor.
At an early age some of the humor escaped me but there were always a few
comic strips I could grasp and one of them was Mort Walker’s Beetle Bailey. Probably everyone who’s ever read the comics
knows about Private Beetle Bailey and his Army life at Camp Swampy. What many don’t realize, however, is Camp
Swampy came out of Mort Walker’s past and dates back to the time when he was a
young soldier stationed at Camp Crowder in Neosho, Missouri during World War
II.
Most of
Camp Crowder (which briefly grew up into Fort Crowder before the post was
deactivated) is just a memory but the “Crowder area” adjacent to the small town
of Neosho is now home to a community college, the local Y, several industries,
a Bicentennial Park with hiking and horseback trails, and apartments. The Missouri National Guard still owns a
portion of the former Army post and they still do military maneuvers on site.
I attended
my first two years of college at Crowder College which includes two of the
former administration buildings.
Renovations and additions have expanded the campus since my time but
back then it was easy to imagine the soldiers who once went about their daily
duties in the same space. I wrote a
series of articles for the campus newspaper, The Sentry, about the remnants of the former Army post. With my photographer at my side, we
backtracked out into the vast empty spaces gone to scrub brush to see one of
the old theaters, what remained of a PX, the train station platform, and
more. A lot of the areas where we went
are now fenced off and restricted but the experience fired my imagination. Learning Camp Crowder was nicknamed “Camp
Swampy” by some of the earliest arrivals and that Mort Walker was one of
several celebrities stationed there just added more fuel to the fire.
My just
released and first full length historical romance novel, In The Shadow of War, is set in Neosho and my heroine –
schoolteacher Bette Sullivan – falls for a soldier from Camp Crowder. After writing those articles for the college
newspaper and penning several non-fiction pieces about the former Camp Crowder
over the years, I enjoyed writing fiction.
I researched Camp Crowder online, visited the small but amazing museum
on the college campus dedicated to the Army years, and even drew on the stories
I heard from my grandfather and uncles who served during World War II. I also headed “out to Crowder” as locals say
and visited the sites which remain accessible.
Here’s the
blurb for In The Shadow of War:
Her
great-granddaughter wants to know if Bette remembers World War II for a school
project and her questions revive old memories….
Small town school teacher Bette Sullivan's life was interrupted
when the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941 but her world changed forever when she met
Private Benny Levy, a soldier from the Flatbush neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York stationed at Camp
Crowder, the local Army base.
Their attraction is immediate and mutual but as their relationship
grows their love and lives are shadowed by World War II. As the future looms
uncertain the couple comes together with almost desperate need and a powerful
love they hope can weather anything, including the war.
Book Trailer:
Excerpt:
“Come on, we can sit here a while if
you want,” Bette told him, settling her skirts beneath her as she sat on a
step. Ben lowered himself beside her,
still holding her hand.
“God, this is really something. We’ve got parks in Brooklyn, some of them
nice, but nothing like this. Prospect Park’s got a lake and it’s great, but
nothing like this. Whaddya call it
again?”
“Everyone just calls it the grotto,”
Bette said with a smile. She snuggled
closer to him so her dimity dress and his tan khaki shirt touched. His body heat contrasted with the cool of the
spring and made her skin tingle.
“It’s peaceful,” he told her, voice
just above a whisper. “It’s almost like church.
They all told me about the park, how to meet girls here, but no one
mentioned this. Thanks, Bette.”
“You’re welcome, Benny,” she
replied, his name rolling off her tongue as if she’d used it all her life. Then she recalled he’d said his mother used Benny. “Or do you prefer just Ben?”
Those delightful gray eyes met hers,
candid and open. “You know, most people call me Ben and its okay by me. My ma says Benny, my baby name, and so does
my kid brother half the time, plus maybe a few old people from the neighborhood
back home. I don’t think I’d tell anyone
else it’s kosher but yeah, you can call me Benny if you want.”
“Okay, Benny,” she said, trying it
out again with permission. She liked the
familiarity of the nickname because it fit the connection she felt with
him. He must have sensed something
similar because he put his arm around her and she rested against him, content.
They sat in easy silence for a few
minutes, a comfortable time stretching out sweet and comfortable.
“Hey Bette?”
“Yeah?”
Ben Levy faced her and traced the
line of her upper lip with one slow finger.
The sensation sent shivers through her with his touch lighter than a
butterfly’s brush.
“Do you mind if I kiss you?”
She ached for his kiss. “If you don’t, I’ll probably die.”
“I’ll take that as affirmative,” Ben
said as he put his lips over hers.
His mouth joined hers with a soft
caress evoking a deep tenderness within.
He kissed her like a porcelain doll, fragile and precious. Bette’s emotions kindled as his lips shifted
from sweet to heat and she returned his kiss.
Fever sparked between them with heat
and the sweetness of the syrup she’d drizzled over her pancakes. Bette tasted both coffee and his Lucky Strike
cigarettes, but she didn’t mind. His
scent infused her with longing. He
smelled like a man, of soap and cigarettes and sweat and just something so
quintessentially Ben Levy. She’d kissed
a few men, but no other kiss invoked her body and soul the way his did. In his arms, she forgot Robbie claimed her as
his girl and half the town believed it, too.
As they canoodled, her arm locked
around his neck, one of his hands strayed so it touched her breast through thin
fabric of her dress. Bette allowed him
the liberty and shocked herself even while she liked it. She wondered just how far they might’ve gone
if a sharp whistle hadn’t cut into their consciousness.
“Hey, Jew boy, is this the way you
spend Sunday mornings?” a loud voice shouted above them.
Ben released her and turned around,
bristling with irritation. “Whaddya want shmendrick?”
The unfamiliar word confused Bette
and she scooted over as Benny found his feet.
She feared there might be a fight but the whistler, another soldier,
snickered.
“I don’t want from nothing,” he
said, in the same nasal accent. “I just wondered if your shiksa knows you’re not pure goy.”
Benny laughed and the men
embraced. Surprised, Bette stood up
brushing her skirt and tugging it down to stay decent. They babbled in a language she didn’t grasp
putting her on the outside, left out.
Her happiness bubble threatened to burst until Benny put his arm around
her shoulders.
“Bette, don’t think I’m crazy – this
is an old buddy from Brooklyn. We went
to Erasmus Hall High together. Moses
Cohen, this is Bette Sullivan.”
“Pleased to meetcha,” Moses said
with a bow. “Your ma’ll like this one, Benny, a good Irish girl. Where’d you meet her?”
“Church,” Benny said. The word exited his mouth firm as a pebble. “You keep forgetting I’m really a shagetz.”
“Church,” Benny said. The word exited his mouth firm as a pebble. “You keep forgetting I’m really a shagetz.”
“You’re meshugeneh is what you are,” Private Cohen said. “So carry on,
Private Levy, as you were.”
Church bells from the little
Episcopal Church on the edge of the park pealed the noon hour as the other
Brooklyn soldier headed off through the park at speed.
“Its noon,” Bette said, wondering
just what all the talk meant. He’d been
at Mass so she wondered how he could be a Jew, too. What she knew about the
Jewish faith could fit into one fingernail so she ignored the issues raised and
stuck to something safe. “Aunt Virgie’s going to put dinner on the table
soon. We’d better go.”
She didn’t intend her voice to sound
resentful but it came out sounding like a little girl’s whine and Benny stopped
her at the top of the grotto steps. “Hey, baby, I know you got questions but
it’s copasetic. I got answers.”
The taut strings around her heart relaxed. “So give them to me.”
“I’m Catholic, like you know
already. You seen me at Mass. My ma’s Irish Catholic as they come, Mary
O’Hara with my grandparents in Ireland, still there. But my pop, he was Jewish, Aaron Levy. He died not long after my fifteenth birthday.
I’m from a mixed marriage, sweetheart, with a Jewish name and raised Catholic
as the Pope.”
“Can’t you be both?”
“Nope, no dice,” Benny said with a
wry smile never reaching his eyes. “To
be a real Jew, you gotta have a Jewish mama and I don’t. So the Jews think I’m Irish, half my Irish
relatives figure I’m really a Jew, it’s a crazy mess. I’m just me, though, so take me or leave me. I ain’t hidin’ nothing else. I meant to tell you but Moe beat me to
it. So what do you think, Bette
Sullivan?”
“I think I like you just the way you
are, Benny Levy,” she replied, linking her arm through his. Her decision came
fast and she’d stand by it. Whatever his heritage, whoever he might be, she
meant it. She liked him and she didn’t care about his origins. “So let’s go eat
dinner with my aunt, okay?”
Links:
A Page In The Life: http://leeannsontheimermurphywriterauthor.blogspot.com
Rebel Writer: Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy: http://leeannsontheimermurphy.blogspot.com
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