by Gordon Ryan
Turning off the radio, Tom took his toast and a glass of milk into the living room, but before eating, he knelt down to offer his morning prayers. After rising, he sat munching his solitary breakfast and staring into the flames.
He thought about the news report. Two men were found frozen to death in a hobo camp on the west side of Salt Lake City ...
He also thought of Father O’Shea, whom Tom had met in the Rose Garden of the Holy Cross Hospital, that night when Katrina lay so badly injured. He remembered what the Catholic priest had said to him: God speaks with many voices and none of them are His.
After a time, Tom downed the rest of his milk, rose from his chair, and quietly made his way back to the bedroom. Fumbling around in the remaining moonlight, he found the shoes and clothes he had taken off the night before and slipped quietly out of the room, somehow managing to do so without waking Katrina. When he reached the kitchen, he quickly dressed and pulled on his overcoat. He scrawled a note to Katrina, saying he would be gone for a time, then, with a glance up the stairs to see that no one had yet awakened, he opened the door and stepped into the winter morning air.
It was long after dinner before Tom returned to Draper to find the family gathered in the living room, where the two women were seated on the floor in front of the fire helping Jessie cut out paper dolls. They all looked up as the door opened. Tom stomped the snow off his overshoes and removed his overcoat before stepping into the living room.
“Where in the world have you been, Thomas? I was about to call the police,” Katrina said, frustration in her voice.
“I’ve never gotten lost in Salt Lake,” he said, smiling as he leaned down and held her cheeks in his nearly frozen hands.
She squealed at the shock and Jessie quickly stood, reaching up her arms for Grandpa to pick her up. Instead, he sat on the floor beside the three women, touching Jessie with his cold fingers and nodding briefly at Seby who remained silent.
“Well, where have you been, President Callahan?” Katrina pressed.
“I’ve been all over town, actually,” he said, drawing out the question without answering. “I’ve been to the hospital to see Moses.” His face saddened for a moment. “It’s not good, Katie,” he said, shaking his head. “They’re going to have to place him in a long-term care facility. Mary was actually pleased to see me. She’s still a strong woman, but she’s going to live with one of her daughters.”
“Is she all right, Thomas?”
“Not really, but we’ll keep watch on her, and she has many friends.”
Katrina looked at him for several seconds, and he knew from her look that he could postpone the issue no longer. It had been many years since Tom had been able to actually get away with keeping secrets from his wife.
“I bought a large warehouse,” he blurted out, and even Seby leaned forward in his chair, laying aside the book he had been reading.
“A what?” Katrina exclaimed. “What in the world do we need a warehouse for?”
“For the soup and the beds,” he answered.
“Thomas Callahan, stop that this instant! Tell us the full story and stop playing your silly little games,” Katrina demanded.
“I also arranged to buy Valhalla from Mary. She was thrilled. She couldn’t think of living in that big house with Moses in a hospital.”
Katrina just sighed, a deep exhale escaping her lips, and her look growing firmer each moment. Teresa glanced at Seby and gave him a knowing smile and a wink, which said this was a game her father loved and seldom had the opportunity to play.
“Katie, I’ll take you there for a nice vacation, in fact, I’ll take all of us, if you can get away, Seby, but Katie, you and I are not going to retire to Hawaii.”
Katrina’s eyes grew wider.
“I’m not yet fifty-eight, Katie. UTB is gone. I saw that firsthand the other day, and it hurt to see it. But I’m not ready to retire. I thought I might be, but I’m not. And you know the Brethren,” he smiled. “They aren’t going to let me retire at such an early age. And I’m not bishop material, we all know that,” he laughed, receiving a peck on the cheek from Teresa for his candor. “So I needed to find something to do—something of my own choosing.” He paused, glancing around the room.
“Katie, we’re going to move back into Valhalla, and I’m going to open a rescue mission—what the papers are calling a ‘soup kitchen’ for the homeless.”
The three other adults seated around the room were silent for long moments with only Jessie, holding Tom’s hand and trying to climb in his lap, making any noise.
“What do you know about soup kitchens and homeless people?” Katrina asked, her voice incredulous.
“Only what Sister Mary taught me, dear Katie. There are always people who need them. And now, from what I read in the paper and see on the streets, that’s a growing number.”
Within two weeks, Tom had acquired about seventy-five cots, bedding, two commercial-grade stoves, and a kitchen full of dishes and utensils gathered from various sources, including—Tom thought most appropriate—from several restaurants that had gone under as a result of the gathering economic depression.
The word spread quickly around Salt Lake County, and almost from its inception, the soup kitchen began the daily feeding of several dozen men.
At first, Tom had not wanted his wife to work in the facility, which the vagrants began calling Seagull Inn in honor of the divine rescue of Salt Lake City’s original inhabitants. But one afternoon, when several workers were held up by transport problems, Katrina accompanied Tom to the facility and was treated so respectfully and courteously by the visitors, who appeared so grateful for her efforts, that she insisted Tom allow her to participate in his work. He agreed.
Where most of the men—and an occasional woman—came from was an eye-opener to Tom and Katrina. Expecting to find mostly rural Utah men who were out of work and gathered in the big city seeking employment, they quickly discovered the men were from a variety of places and circumstances. As the transients passed through the food line, hat in hand, they almost all mumbled words of appreciation to the ladies, including Katrina, who were serving their food. Many had heavy accents. There were southern men, Yankees from New England, Texans, and perhaps most surprising, quite often English, Scottish, Irish, and European immigrants, who had come to America in search of opportunities, much as Tom had done several decades earlier.
When Tom sat at one of the tables, having soup and bread with the men, he was told that the same conditions existed all over America and that Seagull Inn was only one of hundreds of similar facilities, some of them government sponsored, located in cities across the nation.
How Seagull Inn had become occupied so quickly also became readily apparent as the men chatted with Tom and his staff. Without thought to a specific location, when Tom had sought out a large, open-area warehouse, he had obtained a building two blocks from the terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad yards, not far from Temple Square. Railroads, the men informed him, were their primary source of transportation and—not that they didn’t like Utah, they’d laughed—those unlucky enough to hop a freight headed north during the winter months ended up in the hub of the Intermountain West: Salt Lake City. Tom discovered that if they were unsuccessful in finding work, most men would head south during the winter months, seeking a more hospitable climate.
Perhaps the most depressing aspect of Tom and Katrina’s discoveries was the knowledge that, by far, the majority of those traveling in search of work had left families—wives and children—someplace “back there.” It ate at these men, and drove them to fits of depression to think that they were unable to obtain work sufficient to send money home. The little work they were able to find—day laborer jobs for the most part—barely provided for their own sustenance. How their families were surviving at home was something that collectively, almost to a man, they could not bring themselves to dwell upon.
In the fall of 1932, the American public had turned President Herbert Hoover out of of
fice, blaming him in large part for the economic woes of the nation. It was hardly his fault. Greedy men seeking a fast buck on the basis of little investment were ultimately responsible for the depressed state of the economy. Even so, Hoover was defeated, and the charismatic former governor of New York, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a man of immense personal charm and wealth, was elected. Like Winston Churchill in England, Roosevelt had come up through the privileged classes and had served in functionary roles in government most of his life. Churchill and Roosevelt were alike in that each had been involved with their respective nation’s navies, with Roosevelt having served President Wilson as Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
By early summer 1933, Seagull Inn had established itself as a respite, and while the overnighters diminished with the advent of good weather—Seagull Inn had facilities for 175 overnight residents—the soup line remained a popular and busy daily scene, far beyond the departure of winter.
Tom spent much of the summer of 1933 visiting old banking and business associates, committing them to donations for Seagull Inn operations and the purchase of food supplies. He made several presentations before the Salt Lake City Council and the Salt Lake County commissioners, finding that with government support came government regulations. No one disputed the volume of traffic in the city and the need for such services, but committing public funds to the support of welfare projects brought with it a host of demands that the recipients provide some form of labor for their meals and lodging. The local city council seemed determined to follow the national trend of establishing work camps and putting the nation’s unemployed to work doing public service jobs. President Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and Works Progress Administration (WPA) legislation had become the model for the nation.12 Tom was determined that Seagull Inn would remain merely a temporary safe haven for those who needed a meal, a bed, and perhaps several days of rest before moving on in their quest for permanent work.
One noontime in October 1934, when Salt Lake City was suffering through a rather warm Indian summer, Tom was in Ogden to see about opening a second Seagull Inn. Katrina was working behind the serving line in the Salt Lake facility, dishing up meals and helping out the full-time staff. They had served over a hundred meals, and she was trying in vain to push a wisp of loose hair back beneath the hair net she was wearing when she looked up to see two well-dressed gentlemen in the food line. One of them was David O. McKay, newly called second counselor in the First Presidency of the church.
“President McKay,” she exclaimed, trying to remain composed. “To what do we owe the honor of your visit?”
“Good day, Sister Callahan,” he smiled. “The President and I thought we would try out the newest hot lunch spot in town. We hear the food’s mighty good,” he said, his pleasant smile revealing his joy at the charade.
Katrina looked to the next man in line and lost all her ability to cover her surprise. President Heber J. Grant accompanied Brother McKay, and both men stood, each holding a tray.
“Hello, Sister Callahan,” President Grant said. “Brother McKay insisted that we needed to eat at Salt Lake’s finest new establishment, and here we are,” he smiled.
Katrina quickly filled their trays and then came out from behind the serving line to escort them to a table where a half-dozen somewhat disheveled men already sat.
The two church leaders greeted each of the men and shook their hands before sitting down.
“We’re so glad to have you here, President and Brother McKay,” Katrina said. “I’m sorry that Thomas is gone. He’s in Ogden. He thinks we need another soup kitchen before winter sets in.”
“And he’s probably right, Sister Callahan,” President Grant said as he started in on his potatoes, mixing a spoonful with the day’s vegetables. “It’s a wonderful work you and Brother Callahan are doing here with these men. We’re living in very difficult times.”
“Thomas will be disappointed that he missed you,” she said.
“Give him our love and tell him the Brethren admire the work you and he are doing here. I’m sure the Lord is pleased with your efforts,” President Grant said.
Chapter 14
In the early 1930s, United States Marine Corps Headquarters, Washington, D.C., was an efficient, if not well-staffed place, manned by career marine officers in a corps greatly diminished by the “between-wars” reduction-in-force mandated by Congress. The total strength of the Corps had been reduced to roughly 1,200 officers and 16,000 enlisted marines.
From 1931 through 1934, Captain Callahan was assigned to the War Plans Section, Pacific Operations Division, working as executive officer to another naval academy graduate who had chosen to be a marine, Lieutenant Colonel Hanscomb, Class of 1915. Two other junior officers and nine enlisted men comprised the remainder of the division.
Working on the U.S. military color-coded contingency war plans, Tommy was assigned specific duties in refining “Plan Orange,” the battle scenario for a hypothetical war between the United States and Japan, to be fought primarily in the Pacific Ocean through naval engagements. A half dozen other color-coded war plans divisions existed, each designated to prepare U.S. forces for potential conflict against multiple enemies, both European and Asian.
By 1935, after Japan had begun her conquest of weaker Asian nations, Plan Orange took on a more urgent status. Then, when President Roosevelt appointed General John Russell the new commandant of the Marine Corps, the War Plans Section acquired a heightened sense of mission, and Tommy received a new assignment: to accompany a select group of navy and marine officers who were assigned to reconnoiter a number of Pacific islands that had been recommended as potential forward base deployment sites. For the next seven months, from January to July 1935, Captain Callahan took a tedious tour of the out-of-the-way scattered islands, traveling by ship and by PBY, the navy’s new, long-range flying boat. Built by Consolidated Air, the PBY extended the range of flight to over 2,500 miles, and throughout 1935, it was extensively tested, officially becoming part of naval aviation in 1936.
Upon the team’s return to Washington, D.C., the plans they presented to the commandant and chief of naval operations were well formulated, and according to Lieutenant Colonel Hanscomb, Tommy was in line—as Tommy had requested—for assignment to what had been designated as Forward Defense Battalions, which would staff the outposts.
But early one Thursday morning in August 1935, Tommy was called in to see Colonel Hanscomb and that order was changed.
“Sir, Captain Callahan reporting as ordered,” Tommy announced formally as he stood in front of the colonel’s desk.
“Stand easy, Captain. I’ve received a call from the commandant’s office. We’ve been directed to see the general at sixteen hundred hours.”
Tommy stood silently, his hands clasped behind his back. Hanscomb looked up from his desk, shook his head and proffered a slight frown.
“The commandant’s gunny gave me a head’s up on this one. I’m sorry, Captain, but I’m afraid you’ve been passed over for command of one of the defense battalions.”
“Sir?”
“I know that’s what you wanted, but apparently the commandant has other plans. Exactly what those plans are, we’ll have to wait until this afternoon to find out.”
At fifteen-fifty-five, Lieutenant Colonel Hanscomb and Captain Thomas Callahan were in the outer office of the commandant of the Marine Corps, General John Russell. At precisely sixteen hundred hours, they were shown into the general’s office.
“Sir, Lieutenant Colonel Hanscomb and Captain Callahan reporting as ordered,” Hanscomb said.
“Stand easy,” General Russell said. He looked both men over and then motioned to a small cluster of chairs in the corner of his office. Hanscomb and Tommy sat but remained rigidly upright, a holdover from their academy days.
“Did you enjoy the Pacific tour, Captain?” Russell asked.
“I did, sir.”
“And what did you learn?”
Tommy glanced quickl
y at Hanscomb, then back at General Russell.
“Sir, as the colonel indicated in our final report, the primary sites for strategic defense were determined to be Wake Island, Midway ...”
“Captain, I asked what did you learn?”
Tommy hesitated for a moment, shifting nervously in his chair. It was most unusual for a general officer, much less the commandant, to ask the opinion of a lowly captain.
“General, in my uneducated opinion ...”
“Captain, I’m going to ask you once more,” the general said, fixing Tommy with a withering stare, “and if you consider the education provided to you, free of charge I might add, by the United States Naval Academy, followed by two years at Stanford to obtain your doctorate—two years during which the Marine Corps received nothing of your services, I might add—as having left you ‘uneducated,’ then perhaps we need to reconsider your commission as a marine officer,” Russell said brusquely.
“Aye, aye, sir,” Tommy replied. “In my opinion, sir, the islands chosen are the only logical choices, geographically logical that is. However, sir, I submit that they are indefensible without a naval task force standing by to aid in their overall defense.”
Russell nodded. “Go on.”
“Sir, the islands are remote and would be totally dependent on outside supply. There are limited water resources, and the lines of supply for food, ammunition, and other matériel, are long and vulnerable to enemy interdiction. The logistics of supporting a battalion of marines on each of those locations would be staggering. I must assume, sir, that the marine battalions would be positioned to provide a delaying action in the event of attack and that a naval fleet arriving to join the battle would be the only hope such a unit would have of surviving.”
