The Shanghai Address, Part 3 of 3

Pencil sketch of Shanghai by Art Price.

(Continued from yesterday... This is the conclusion of a speech that Art presented at a Southampton Methodist women’s club sometime during the second half of 1950.)

It was against the rules for anyone to go on liberty in Shanghai alone.  I always went with this buddy of mine and usually there were 3 or 4 more of us.  Even then we never went in the old Chinese section or even down a side street at night.  Plenty of sailors out alone with too much to drink ended up in the river.  Plenty of Chinese would murder just for the value of the clothes a sailor wore.

I saw the body of a Chinese in that river, the Huangpu, and it wasn’t pretty.  It was wedged in between the dock at N.O.B. and a ship tied up there.  No one paid much attention to it and after 3 or 4 days the Chinese police got around to taking it out.  It was a coolie so no one cared who he was or how he died – one more or less didn’t make any difference to them.

Dinner on board the ship.  Pencil sketch by Art Price.

They only well fed children I saw while there were from an orphanage.  The Navy gave a Christmas party for 100 of them and I was drafted to work at it.  They were toddlers or up to older girls who looked after the younger ones.  The woman
in charge was also Chinese.  They gave the Christmas story in Chinese along with folk dances, etc.  I wish I could say it was a Methodist orphanage but I really don’t know what organization ran it.

I’ve just told you some of the things I saw in Shanghai.  There were other more sordid things going on in that city I’d better not tell.  There’s certainly plenty of room for Christianity there but it’s hard to teach a starving child not to steal.  It seems impossible that anything can be done for them when you’ve seen them but maybe it can.



Ships at anchor in Shanghai.


(Friday – Setting the stage:  September 1950.)

© 2011 Lee Price

The Shanghai Address, Part 2 of 3

Art's charcoal sketch of a child beggar in Shanghai.

(Continued from yesterday... This is the second part of a speech that Art presented at a Southampton Methodist women’s club sometime during the second half of 1950.)

The docks were haunted by thousands of children.  At chow time, they would stand alongside the ship and shout, “No momma, no poppa, no chow chow,” with tin cans in their hands, but if you felt sorry and gave one of them something you were immediately besieged by hundreds of them.

The gangway watch with a .45 automatic, an
officer waving a fire ax, and a mob of hungry
children.

One time the cook on the ship came out of the galley and went to a bin that was on deck to get some apples.  The kids on the dock spotted him and a mob of them tried to come on board shouting for chow chow.  The gangway watch with his .45 automatic and an officer waving a fire ax kept them from overrunning the ship.

When we went on liberty in the city there were always crowds following you trying to sell things.  One thing they seemed to think no sailor should be without was a leather blackjack, and maybe they were right.  One time when my buddy and I were walking down Nanking road, one of the principal streets, we stopped to look at a little carved chest one of the peddlers was trying to sell us.  In a minute, we were surrounded by a mob.  I knew what that meant in Shanghai and grabbed for my wallet.  There was a little hand in my pocket along with it, a kid no more than 4 or 5 years old was picking my pocket.  We both got out of that crowd in a hurry.

To be continued...

Art (on the right) with two friends in Shanghai.

(Tomorrow – part three of Art's speech on Shanghai.)

© 2011 Lee Price

The Shanghai Address, Part 1 of 3

Art's pencil sketch of some Navy friends.

The following is a speech that Art presented at a Southampton Methodist women’s club sometime during the second half of 1950.

Art with a monkey on his
shoulder that he cared for
while in Shanghai.  It was
a tradition on the ship for
the Quartermaster to take
care of the monkey.  Art
was not overly fond of his
temporary pet.

I was in Shanghai in December of 1945 and January of 1946, but I don’t think the Chinese I saw there would be typical of all the Chinese people.  At least, I hope not.  I was at the Naval Operating Base there and later on board a ship tied up along the riverfront down the river from the city proper.  Most of the people I saw were the ones who lived right on the river.  You’ve probably heard of the Shanghai waterfront where hundreds of thousands live on sampans all their lives.  The slips in the river were constantly surrounded by these people, begging or trying to sell us souvenirs.

There was one family that lived on their boat at the stern of the ship I was on.  For two weeks, they stayed there simply to pick up the garbage that was thrown out of the galley.  The cooks would lower the garbage can to them on a rope, and they would dump it into boxes or anything they had. There were two women, a girl, and a baby living on that boat.

Art's pencil sketch of
a beggar in Shanghai.

The people were so terribly poor they would pick up anything that floated in the river: paper, sticks, boards, anything at all.  And if it didn’t float, there were other boats that dragged the bottom with long rows of fish hooks tied to sticks to pick up scrap iron off the bottom.

While on this ship, an LST (Landing Ship, Tank), they had the hull chipped and painted, from bow to stern, by coolies.  In the states, it probably would have cost thousands to have civilians paint that ship.  There it cost about $20 and that included a contractor’s fee.

One day while the coolies were on board, we had some rice for chow that the ship had picked up in Shanghai.  It was so alive with worms you could hardly see the rice, but before anyone could throw their rice over the side the coolies took it and ate every bit of it.

In this country, it’s hard to realize how strong the caste system is in China and other countries.  At N.O.B., the Naval Operating Base, they had hundreds of them working, young boys and old men worked side by side with no thought other than that they would always be coolies, as their fathers had been and their children would be;  all they ask is enough to eat to stay alive.  They were laying a cement floor on the second floor of a big warehouse converted into our barracks.  All day long they trudged up and down the stairs with half of a 50-gallon drum slung between them filled with cement.  The stairs in all the warehouses were built with steps only two or three inches high so coolies could carry heavy loads up and down them.

To be continued...

This may be the LST mentioned in the speech.

(Tomorrow – part two of Art's speech on Shanghai.)

© 2011 Lee Price

Images of Roulston's

Art working at Roulston's, circa 1950.

A couple more pictures have turned up of Roulston’s, where Art worked as a grocery clerk during his courtship with June.  Located on Main Street, the Southampton Roulston’s was one of hundreds of Thomas Roulston & Sons chain grocery stores located in Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island.  The chain was headquartered in Brooklyn and the oldest stores dated back to the 1880s.  In the 1940s, the Southampton store was managed by Rodney Pierson, a distant relative of Art’s.

Apparently, Art worked briefly at Roulston’s prior to his time in the Navy.  When he returned to Southampton in 1947 after his service as a Navy Quartermaster, he went back to working for Rod Pierson at Roulston’s.

In August 1944 (when Art was 17 years old), Rod Pierson wrote the following recommendation for Art, possibly connected with Art’s looming service in the Navy and/or his application for Quartermaster training:

August 8, 1944

Southampton, NY

To whom it may concern:

Arthur W. Price has been in my employ for the past two months during which time I have found Arthur to be honest, upright, and conscientious in every respect.  I do not hesitate to recommend Arthur very highly.

F. Rodney Pierson

Another image of Roulston's from the time when Art
was working there.

An image of Roulston's, circa 1920.  A special thank you to the
Southampton Historical Museums and Research Center for this delightful
image of old Southampton!

(For Monday – Art's 1950 speech to a women's club about his experiences in Shanghai.)

© 2011 Lee Price

Dinner at the Windmill

“Last night, I went to the movies with Frank Hoffman.  Then he and I and Joe Cerullo watched wrestling at the Anchorage for awhile then went to the Polish Hall and saw the rest of the boys there.  Then to Peter’s, took Frank home, and out to Julie’s with Joe.  We stopped at Pete’s again on the way back and met Bruno, Farmer, and Singer there.  Then back to the Windmill to eat, and finished the night at the Hampton Bays Diner.  Finally got home at 4 in the morning.  I stuck to beer all night.  Today I discovered a small dent in my rear fender opposite the driver side.  That’s what I get for parking outside of gin mills!”
                                                                       Art Price
                                                                       Letter to June Anderson, Dec. 19, 1949
                                                                       (Bold emphasis added.)

Located at the intersection of Windmill Lane and Hill Street (Jobs Lane), the Windmill Restaurant was a popular restaurant near Agawam Park (across from the cannon).  Although this is the only time that the Windmill is specifically identified in the letters, the casual mention suggests it was well known to everyone.

Let’s turn back the clock and take a closer look... 

Here’s an exterior shot of the Windmill Restaurant, dating to the time of the letters:

Here’s an interior view with the Windmill’s staff:

And finally, here’s a menu from the Windmill (with 1950 prices!), as reproduced from The Southampton Press:

A special thank you to the Southampton Historical Museums and Research Center and the Rogers Memorial Library for these great images of Southampton, circa 1950!

(For Friday – Images of Roulstons.)

© 2011 Lee Price

Songs of Summer 1950 (Part 3 of 3)

Continued...  A romance in the Hamptons wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the beach.  For this brief series, June’s and Art’s beach photographs will be accompanied by the number 1 hit songs of 1950.

The #1 song in August 1950 was “Goodnight, Irene,” a folk standard performed by The Weavers with an orchestral arrangement by Gordon Jenkins.

“Irene, goodnight,
Irene, goodnight,
Goodnight, Irene,
Goodnight, Irene,
I'll see you in my dreams.”

And then June must have taken the camera and snapped the only picture in the bunch of Art on the beach.

(For Wednesday – A trip inside the Windmill Restaurant.)

© 2011 Lee Price

Songs of Summer 1950 (Part 2 of 3)

A romance in the Hamptons wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the beach.  For this brief series, June’s and Art’s beach photographs will be accompanied by the number 1 hit songs of 1950.

The #1 song in July 1950 was Nat King Cole performing “Mona Lisa,” written by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston with an arrangement by Nelson Riddle and backing by Les Baxter and his Orchestra.

“Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa,

Men have named you
You're so like the lady

With the mystic smile
Is it ’cause you’re lonely

They have blamed you?
For that Mona Lisa

Strangeness in your smile?

“Do you smile to tempt

A lover, Mona Lisa?
Or is this your way to

Hide a broken heart?
Many dreams

Have been brought

To your doorstep
They just lie there and they die there
Are you warm, are you real, Mona Lisa?
Or just a cold and lonely lovely work of art?”

(Tomorrow – More songs of summer.)

© 2011 Lee Price