"If you don't know where you come from, you don't know where you're going." Sister Addie Wyatt
Author: Molly Martin
I'm a long-time tradeswoman activist, retired electrician and electrical inspector. I live in Santa Rosa, CA. molly-martin.com. I also share a travel blog with my wife Holly: travelswithmoho.wordpress.com.
The route of the 3rd Division during the war is posted at the HQ entrance: Morocco, Tunisia, Sicily, Naples-Foggia, Rome-Arno, So. France, Rhineland, Cent. Europe.
Ch. 86 My Mother and Audie Murphy
In July 1945, the Third Infantry Division moved its headquarters to the spa town of Bad Wildungen, Germany, and that’s where Flo was stationed during the Allied occupation.
Bad Wildungen was known as a significant storage site for looted German cultural treasures, with American forces discovering vast caches of art and artifacts in bunkers there in April 1945 as the war ended. The town itself remained relatively undamaged, becoming part of the American occupation zone.
Audie Murphy returns home in June 1945 to a hero’s welcome of parades, swarming reporters and his face on the cover of Life Magazine. At just twenty years old, he is celebrated as the most decorated American soldier of World War II, awarded the Medal of Honor along with more than 30 US and foreign decorations for extraordinary valor in combat. The public sees a slight, soft-spoken Texan who embodied courage and sacrifice, but behind the accolades Murphy carries the psychological weight of prolonged frontline combat, the loss of close comrades, and memories that will not easily fade.
In the years after the war, Murphy remains connected to the Army even as he struggles to adjust to civilian life. He continues to serve in the Texas Army National Guard, eventually reaching the rank of major, and becomes an outspoken advocate for recognizing what is now known as post-traumatic stress disorder, then poorly understood and often dismissed. By publicly acknowledging his nightmares, insomnia, and dependence on medication, Murphy challenges the myth that heroism ends suffering. His postwar Army career, marked by continued service and hard-won honesty, expands his legacy beyond battlefield valor to include a lasting contribution to how veterans’ mental health is understood and discussed.
Stratford-upon-Avon, as we all know, is the 16th-century birthplace and burial place of William Shakespeare. The medieval market town in England’s West Midlands is about 100 miles northwest of London. The Royal Shakespeare Company still performs his plays in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and adjacent Swan Theatre on the banks of the River Avon. Flo visited in mid-June, 1945.
She attended the Shakespeare FestivalStratford-on-Avon Red Cross club. Photos from Flo’s albumShakespeare’s houseFlo didn’t identify this woman, her host at the Red Cross clubSailing back to the Continent. Leaving England for Dieppe at the end of the week-long leave.
Stratford-upon-Avon had faced the threat and effects of the Blitz through scattered incidents and as a sanctuary, rather than being a central target for sustained bombing like larger industrial or military centers. During the war the town provided refuge, with people from heavily bombed areas like Birmingham coming to Stratford for quiet and respite from the relentless night raids.
Flo arrived in London in June, 1945 for a seven-day leave. In a postcard to her family Flo wrote:
“London is huge and interesting. Not as badly bombed as I had thought. Weather much like Seattle. Have walked holes in my feet. Everything terribly expensive.”
She ran into a friend from Seattle, Jim Quitslund, who was staying across the street from her billet.
With Jim Quitslund, the Army friend from Seattle, billeted across the street in London.
Big Ben. Photos by Flo WickParliamentTower of LondonTower of LondonSt. Paul’s CathedralThe wax museumGovernment buildings seen from across the Thames
The Blitz focused on London
Starting on September 7, 1940, London faced 57 straight nights of bombing by Nazi Germany, part of a concentrated eight-month campaign known as the Blitz.
Flo wrote that the bombing damage was not as bad as she had thought, but she may not have made it to the East End, which sustained the most bombing. The Luftwaffe raids were aimed at disrupting the British economy by targeting docks, warehouses, and industrial areas. The damage was devastating, characterized by massive fires, widespread destruction of working-class housing, and high civilian casualties there.
An estimated 18,688 civilians in London were killed during the war, 1.5 million were made homeless. 3.5 million homes and 9 million square feet of office space were destroyed or damaged.
In June Flo got a seven-day leave to travel to the UK. In a postcard dated June 11, 1945 she wrote her mother that she flew from Austria to Paris on a C-47. On the plane she photographed “kraut generals, fellow passengers en route to prison.”
Flo stopped in Paris for a couple of days to visit her sister Eve who was still working as a nurse at an army hospital there. Then she traveled to London by boat.
On the C-47, Flo captioned this picture “Kraut generals, fellow passengers en route to prison.”Flo’s postcard to her mother on her birthday. Bob is Flo’s sister Eve’s husband, also in the military and stationed in England.Flo’s sister, Eve, with the C.O. of the 203rd general hospital in Paris.Flo and her sister Eve who worked as a nurse at the 203rd general hospital in ParisLondon welcomes the US Armed ForcesFrom the postcard back: American Red Cross Rainbow Corner, whose doors never close (opened Nov. 11, 1942) welcomes and serves the American Forces with food, entertainment, information, tours and hospitality. Rainbow Corner is the meeting place of Americans in England.
Red Cross Service Clubs
During WWII in England, the American Red Cross ran numerous “Service Clubs” and “Aeroclubs,” like the famous Rainbow Corner Club in London, serving millions of GIs with food, lodging, and recreation, with numbers constantly changing as troops arrived and departed, but focusing on large operations near bases.
London was the biggest city in the world
At the beginning of the war in 1939, London was the largest city in the world, with 8.2 million inhabitants. It was the capital not just for the United Kingdom, but for the entire British Empire. London was central to the British war effort.
On June 2, 1945, the Third Infantry Division assembled for a division-wide review in Salzburg, their ranks drawn up before their headquarters. Flo was there with her clubmobile crew, Liz Elliott and Janet Potts, watching as Seventh Army commander General Alexander Patch presented decorations and commendations. A Congressional delegation stood in review alongside Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson, among them South Dakota Senator Chan Gurney, the first chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Forces.
June 2, 1945. This is the last picture of the three Red Cross clubmobilers together–Janet Potts, Flo Wick and Liz Elliott. Fritzie Hoaglund never returned to the crew after having been hospitalized.
That day, Lieutenant Audie Murphy of B Company, 15th Regiment, received the Medal of Honor and the Legion of Merit in front of his entire division. Five other Third Division soldiers were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and the Silver Star, their citations read aloud to the troops who had fought across Europe and now stood at attention in peacetime formation.
Gen. O’Daniel shakes the hand of 1st Lt. Audie Murphy of B Company, 15th Regiment, 3rd Division. Murphy received the Medal of Honor and the Legion of Merit on June 2, 1945 in front of his entire division in Salzburg, Austria. Photo: Dogface soldier collection
The ceremony took place at a site heavy with layered history. Built in 1700 as a Baroque summer residence for the Prince-Archbishops of Salzburg, the palace later became a Nazi showpiece where Hitler hosted Axis leaders and stored looted art as the Reich collapsed. Captured by the U.S. Third Infantry Division in May 1945, it was repurposed as headquarters of the American Occupation Authority during the decade-long U.S. presence in Salzburg, before eventually becoming a casino.
Gen. J. W. O’Daniel 3rd Div. Commander; Flo Wick, ARC; Gen Alex Patch 7th Army commander. June 1945. Schloss Klessheim SalzburgA delegation of the US Congress witnessed the Audie Murphy ceremony. Chan Gurney, South Dakota, the first chairman of the US senate committee on Armed Services, is seen here with Flo.Letter from Sen. Gurney to Flo’s parents. He thought they were South Dakota constituents. Flo was born in Redfiled, SD, but the family hadn’t lived there since she was a baby. They lived in Yakima, WA. Her father had died in 1938.On June 2, 1945 the 3rd Division staged a grand review at Schloss Klessheim.Soldiers march past the reviewing stand. photos from Flo’s album
When Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945, the U.S. Army in Europe suddenly had to shift from fighting to occupying a defeated nation. More than two million soldiers now had to be sorted into three paths: those who would stay in Germany as an occupation force, those who would be sent to the Pacific for the expected invasion of Japan, and those who would finally go home. Because the Army had more men than it needed for occupation and redeployment, it also had to begin discharging veterans fairly and quickly.
General George C. Marshall had foreseen this challenge. Drawing on hard lessons from the chaotic demobilization after World War I, he ordered the Special Planning Division in 1943 to craft a method that would release soldiers on an individual basis rather than by entire units. With divisions in Europe filled with late-war replacements, unit-based demobilization was impossible—and delay risked unrest among idle troops.
After gathering input from commanders worldwide, the army created the Adjusted Service Rating Score, universally known to GIs as the point system. It offered an objective way to determine who went home first. Points were awarded for time in service, time overseas, combat campaigns, decorations, wounds, and dependent children:
1 point per month in the Army
+1 point per month overseas
5 points per campaign
5 points per decoration for merit or valor
5 points per Purple Heart
12 points per dependent child (up to three)
This system became the backbone of America’s demobilization in Europe.
Janet and Flo hand out the last donuts to soldiers as they board the train for homeSalzburg train station. Photos from Flo’s album
Flo stayed on in Europe until March, 1946, and I had assumed she signed up to serve in the Red Cross during the occupation. But I think she was just as anxious to return home as all the other American soldiers and staff–she just couldn’t get out any sooner. It’s not clear whether Red Cross workers received points, or whether they even fell under the rating score system.
On Soyal Native Americans marked the shortest day of the year
Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado. Photo by Judson McCranie. (CC BY-SA 3.0) It is believed that ancestors to the Hopi built and lived in Cliff Palace from about 1200 to 1300 C.E.
My Regular Pagan Holiday Post: Winter Solstice
My queer family chooses to forgo holidays shaped by a christian tradition steeped in homophobia and misogyny—a church that has long covered up sexual abuse against children and parishioners while scapegoating queer people. Recent comments by Pope Francis only underline this contradiction, reaffirming the catholic church’s ban on ordaining gay men and punishing and defrocking priests who question that policy or support what it calls “gay culture.”
So we create our own rituals instead—queer, chosen-family–centered traditions. We look to other cultures for inspiration, especially pagan and pre-christian practices that honor the natural world and community rather than dogma.
We can learn much from Native Americans that might help us through what is shaping up to be a particularly dark period in our history and present.
Soyal: Winter Solstice and Renewal
On the winter solstice, Hopi and Zuni peoples perform a ceremony with the intention of achieving unity and strengthening community. Soyal is held on the shortest day of the year. It marks the symbolic return of the sun, the turning of the seasonal wheel, and the beginning of a new spiritual cycle. Soyal is a time of purification, prayer, and renewal, when the community prepares itself—spiritually and socially—for the year ahead.
In the days before Soyal, families create pahos, prayer sticks made with feathers and plant fibers, which are used to bless homes, animals, fields, and the wider world. Sacred underground chambers, called kivas, are ritually opened to mark the beginning of the kachina season. The kachinas are understood as spiritual messengers who carry prayers for rain, health, balance, and right living. Songs, dances, offerings, and storytelling strengthen community bonds and pass ethical teachings from elders to children.
Soyal also dramatizes the struggle between darkness and light. Through symbolic dances and ritual objects, such as shields representing the sun and effigies symbolizing destructive forces, the community enacts the tension between chaos and order, drought and rain, winter and warmth. The message is not that darkness must be destroyed, but that it must be faced, respected, and brought back into balance.
The solstice itself becomes a sacred pause: a moment when time feels suspended and people are invited to examine their lives. It is a season for letting go of harmful habits, reconciling conflicts, offering forgiveness, and setting intentions rooted in responsibility rather than personal gain. Gifts are exchanged not as possessions, but as blessings and goodwill.
Creating Our Own Rituals
Soyal reminds us that human life is meant to move in natural cycles, not endless acceleration. Rest is not weakness; it is a form of wisdom. Renewal begins with humility, gratitude, and shared responsibility. Personal healing is inseparable from the health of the community and the land.
The enduring spiritual mission expressed through Soyal is the same across Hopi villages: to promote and achieve the unity of everything in the universe.
While that vast unity may be beyond our vision, we, too, seek to strengthen our community and mark the return of light. At winter solstice, we gather ourselves and our loved ones, shaping rituals that keep us connected to one another and to the slow turning of the year. We invite friends to help us trim our solstice tree, contribute to the local food bank, have neighbors over for hot chocolate, read poetry and stories aloud, bake cannabis edibles, host impromptu living room dance parties, cook savory soups, plant flower bulbs. With neighbors, we make signs and join street protests to raise our voices against fascism. We look for the sacred in everyday life.
The Canadian labor movement is ahead of the US in recognition of the issue of workplace violence, because of the Dec 6, 1989 Montreal Massacre of 14 women who were murdered that day at Ecole Polytechnique by a man who didn’t think women should be engineering students. There was a struggle then to get the Canadian Labour Council to recognize the issue, but the victory has carried forward.
IBEW Canada Statement Mourning the Loss of Amber Czech and Condemning Violence in the Workplace
Toronto, ON – November 17, 2025
Today, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Canada International Vice President Russ Shewchuk issued the following statement:
“IBEW Canada mourns the loss of 20-year-old welder Amber Czech, who was brutally attacked and killed at her workplace in Minnesota. We extend our deepest condolences to Amber’s family, friends, fellow workers and her community.
“Although Amber was not a member of the IBEW or affiliated Building Trades Unions (NABTU/CBTU), what happened to her should never happen to anyone—anywhere. And while this tragedy occurred in the U.S., the loss is deeply felt across our union community in Canada. It’s a stark reminder of the work we must keep doing to ensure such senseless acts never happen again.
“Violence has no place on our job sites, in our offices, or in our union. We owe it to Amber, and to every worker who has been harmed or threatened, to build safe, respectful, and inclusive working environments, free of violence and cruelty.
“IBEW Canada stands with all who advocate for ending gender-based violence, and all violence in the workplace. We commit to ongoing training, conversation and action that promote equity and dignity for all workers.”
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) represents approximately 70,000 members in Canada and 873,000 members and retirees in North America who work in a wide variety of fields, including construction, utilities, manufacturing, telecommunications, broadcasting, railroads and government. For more information, visitIBEWcanada.ca or IBEW.org
It’s time for our US labor unions to condemn workplace violenceand do something about it.
tradeswomn musings 