Dog River Crier, #41, 1987, Julia McIntire, editor

From an article written by Dorothy Hammerschmidt whose husband taught physics at Norwich University, in the 40's.

Memories of Vetsville

"Spring of 1946. Cadets and faculty were returning to Norwich University from World War II, many of them now with wives, and some with children. Housing was short in Northfield, and the married student veterans could not be housed in the college dorms. So 'Vetsville' was created, rows of war-time constructed trailers set up like a Monopoly board, and about as convenient as those little game pieces, with a toilet trailer and a wash trailer in the center of the set. The twenty-four trailers and two 'conveniences' were placed on a flat treeless plain in Northfield Center between George Davis' garage and the University, and the vets began to move in in early May.

"The trailers were 15' by 20,' brown exterior, buff walls inside. The center was a galley just wide enough for two people to pass sideways, lined on one side with cupboards, a tiny workspace, a minuscule sink, and with a water container with a spigot at one side of the sink. This was filled with water carried from the laundry trailer.

"The back door opened from this galley. At the other end of the trailer, 15 feet away, was the front door. At each side of the front door stood two kerosene heaters which were to heat the trailer through the long Vermont winter. They were black, columnar. You had to turn a stopcock near the bottom, wait until some kerosene had run into a pan, and then drop a lighted match through the grating above, about 2 feet from the pan. If the match dropped into a pool of kerosene it went out. Drop another, then another. After half dozen or so tries the match might drop near the end of the pool, and slowly catch. Repeat the process with the other stove, and finally a little heat would begin radiating the room.

"The rent for this unfurnished trailer was $25.00 per month. An apartment in town, with several rooms, and heat, if such could be found, was $35.00 or $40.00 a month.

"The two sides of the trailer were furnished according to the vet's means, living room/study/dining room on one side, and bedroom on the other. Each of these spaces was about 8 feet by 15. The windows were small and high; sitting, one could see the tops of the mountains, or the slope of the University grounds, rising toward the parade ground.

"It rained for the first week we were there in early May. The ground had been bulldozed and was a muddy quagmire, through which we slogged to get to the toilet trailer and the wash trailer. After a week or so the maintenance department of the University laid duck board walks between the individual trailers and those two central conveniences, and to the road. After the rains stopped, came sun, dust and heat. Even in May the trailers were stiflingly hot on a summer day.

"The trailers were constructed so that the two sides folded up against the central galley-way for transporting. With such construction some things were predictable.

"Minimal insulation-trailers in direct and unremitting sun-no shade, no grass. In June there was a spell of un-Vermont like heat. Dust swirled in the flats around the trailers. On several days in a row the temperatures rose to an unprecedented 100 degrees in the sun. We took our lunches and fled, to eat on the banks of the Dog River after a cooling swim to bring body temperature back down to normal.

"Then the other extreme. A Fourth of July picnic was rained in by pelting storms. Our friends, the McIntyre's and children and George Burnham, Administrative Assistant to Norwich University's president Dodge, were our guests, and we enjoyed the meal while rain streamed down outside. It was common knowledge among our trailer residents that one always drank sparingly (drinks meaning two trips outside) especially when it was raining. So we warned out guests.

'Mudsville, Shantytown. The names for Vetsville changed with the times. Pleasures came from other things. We were the only faculty couple in the complex; the others were students, cadets who had returned with wives and children, and aged by war experiences. They were friendly and trying to return to civilian life as well as they could. Vetsville was short on amenities, and the change from soldiering to student normality was a hard one. For that period, in 1946, there were classes, studying, swimming in some cold Vermont stream, bull sessions which dug into their war experiences, mountain climbing, and then the winter and skiing.

'Our summer in Vetsville was lightened by the bird sightings of spring (Parula, Canada, bay breasted, chestnut-sided warblers, redstarts, veeries, thrushes, gold finches and purple finches, Baltimore orioles) and the beautiful large moths (Cecropia, Luna, Polyphemus) which flew to the screen doors of the lighted toilet and laundry trailers and could be examined in the early morning light

"The trailers were later replaced by the housing which stands to the south of Northfield Center on Route 12A, real housing (known to many of us as the Prefabs). The vets finished their studies and left, Norwich returned to normal. Vetsville disappeared, leaving no traces except in memory.