Dinah Mathews Sours and Christopher Sours

[00:01] DINAH SOURS: My name is Dinah Sours I'm 87. Today's date is Wednesday, August 31, 2022. We're in Boise, Idaho, and my interview partner is Christopher Sours who is my son.

[00:25] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: And I'm Christopher Sours I am 63. And today is Wednesday, August 31, 2022. We are sitting in Boise, Idaho. I'm with my mother, Dinah Sours and we're really excited to be here, mom. We're excited to talk to you about this. You had quite a varied life and in your 87 years, but we wanted to kind of have you tell us and ask you some questions about your. Your youth from when you were five to about 18, I guess, during the second World War.

[00:59] DINAH SOURS: Right.

[01:01] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: And I was maybe by starting asking if you could talk a little bit about some of the conditions and where you were in England in 1940.

[01:09] DINAH SOURS: Well, actually, it was 1939, when the war started, when Hitler invaded Poland. And so Britain went to war at that point. And we lived on the outskirts of one of the major ports called Southampton. And I think at the beginning of the war, Hitler thought it would be a good idea to knock out the major two major ports in England, which were Southampton and Liverpool. And so we did start with air raids right off the bat. And my father organized the neighbors and mostly ladies, and they built an air raid shelter, which I think still stands to this day because he did such a good job, they couldn't knock it down. Anyway, so we went from a very bucolic, quiet life to suddenly having to organize ourselves for errands. And that meant that my father, if an air raid siren went off, my father and brother had to make sure that all the water mains, gas mains and electric outlets in the house were turned off. And, of course, everything locked up. My mother had to get my grandmother out to the air raid, child, because the air raids were, I think, almost always at night at the beginning. And so she would get my grandmother, who was very elderly, out to the air age shelter. And then my older sister had the business of getting her two younger sisters out dressed in their dressing gowns, out to their age shelter. So that was quite a production before the air raids started.

[03:23] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Well, as time went by, things were looking pretty grim. France had fallen. Hitler was looking across the English Channel with his binoculars. And America was, at that point, not interested in joining the war effort. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about what spurred on the evacuation of children from southern such as yourself.

[03:49] DINAH SOURS: Yes. Well, it was. It did look as though the Germans were going to have a pretty easy time walking in. And so my parents found out about this scheme to evacuate children. And I told other people it was strange because so many English. Well, yes, so many english children and Scottish came to this country or to Australia or South Africa, while at the same time, a lot of children from Europe, often many, many jewish children, and then children from Czechoslovakia, and that's. Came to Britain, actually. So it was this great shift of children. And my father found out about this scheme and being very adventuresome himself, I think he would like to have done it, too. Signed us, well, three of us up. You had to be five years old. And so I just made it. My younger sister was only two, so she stayed home with my parents. And so we were given, you know, orders about what to bring. And we each had one suitcase and had to report to London a certain date. And I always remember it because we drove up to London, but you couldn't have headlights on because of the raids going on. And so luckily, my father was a very good driver, so we made it up to London in time to the hotel there where they were gathering the children.

[05:48] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Did your mother and father explain to you, do you remember? I mean, you were so young, of course, but did they explain to you why you were going with Cliff and Sheila and where you were going?

[05:57] DINAH SOURS: Not a great deal. I think that my mother was upset about the whole business, of course, and her sister, one of my aunts, came to help her because we had to have a certain, for instance, two nightgowns and two dresses and one coat, that sort of thing. She came to help my mother, and I remember she told me not to be frightened because the Indians were very friendly in America.

[06:31] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Oh, gosh.

[06:33] DINAH SOURS: And they did not. They mainly stayed in the woods.

[06:37] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Yeah, that's helpful for a five year old coming across the Atlantic.

[06:41] DINAH SOURS: So, anyway, that was about as much explanation that we had. But it was very good because, you know, it was very disruptive to our life. The school closed down, and it made life very difficult most nights. The raids always seemed to be at night, and the raids would start. So we each had, as I say, our job to get out to the airy shelter with all the neighbors, which was good.

[07:17] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: So my recollection is you took the train to Liverpool. Is that where the staging area was for the evacuations?

[07:24] DINAH SOURS: Well, for us, yes. We took the. As I say, my father drove us to London, and we met at the hotel there. And then they put us in groups, which was too bad, because I really only went along to keep my older sister company, supposedly. And they didn't realize that they would put us in age groups. So, in fact, I hardly saw her. But, yes, then we went from London by train up to Liverpool, but it took. We spent one most of one day in underground. In the underground train tracks. Excuse me, because there was a raid on most of the day, so. And then we got to Liverpool finally, and they put us in a house there, which promptly was bombed. Hit by one? No, the kitchen was gone. I remember, because we didn't have any breakfast, and they kept us there until the boats were. The convoy, rather of boats, was organized because they didn't go out one by one. Excuse me.

[08:42] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Yeah, my understanding is there were passenger ships or a ship, but then you were surrounded by a convoy of warships protecting you.

[08:51] DINAH SOURS: Well, they took us out part of the way into the Atlantic, but, of course, they couldn't go very far, so they got us out from Liverpool on our way, and then instead of going straight across, we zigzagged and went way up north. We saw an iceberg one day, and we went way up north to avoid the submarine, the german U boats, which.

[09:24] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Is interesting, because at that point, I think they thought the U boats could only go 300 miles off the coast of Ireland, but in fact, they went farther. And. Interesting. You could tell us maybe more about it, and what you knew about it was the city of Benare is there was an ocean liner in a convoy that went out ahead of you.

[09:43] DINAH SOURS: We were supposed to be on that convoy.

[09:45] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Oh, you were?

[09:46] DINAH SOURS: Yeah, because we were delayed that day.

[09:48] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Well, lucky thing, because the ship was sunk with many children killed.

[09:53] DINAH SOURS: Yes.

[09:53] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: And I believe because of that, you had already left in your convoy, but they stopped the evacuations after that.

[10:01] DINAH SOURS: Yes, that's right.

[10:02] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Is that right, Claudia?

[10:02] DINAH SOURS: Yes, I think we were the last, or nearly the last to go out because it became too dangerous. And, yes, that was Portugal, and it was a very worrisome time because they didn't let parents know where anyone was at that point because they didn't want the Germans to know where boats were. So my parents didn't know that we weren't on that convoy, but we were on a much smaller ship, actually, and I'm not sure. I think it was a british ship, although I think I told you my one memory was I could never find the dining room. And finally, and I was slightly seasick, and it took nine days for us to get across. But I always remember once I did make it to the dining room and I didn't really like the look of the food too much, but a cook appeared from the kitchen. I'd never seen any chef dressed all in white with a hat, you know, with this big knife. And he said, if you don't eat your dinner. So I ate my dinner that night.

[11:24] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Scary time for a five year old. It's kind of amazing. I mean, because one of the ships was sunk in your convoy, wasn't it?

[11:29] DINAH SOURS: Oh, yes, the ship next to us. We did have a warning one night, and we all had to wear our life vest all night, and we were locked in our cabins, and it was very uncomfortable because in those days, the life jackets weren't those nice, soft kapok. They were made of boards, I think it was kapok boards, actually. They were like wooden boards, so you really couldn't lie down and see. So it was one time my older sister was trapped with me, and I remember she read me comic books. But, yes, the boat in our convoy was sunk, very sadly, but we continued. We were supposed to land, I think, in New York, and instead we went down the inland waterway, wasn't it, down in Canada? And that was a beautiful sight. It was at night and going down the river, all the lights were sparkling, and, of course, we hadn't seen that for a long time.

[12:42] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Oh, because of the blackout.

[12:43] DINAH SOURS: Yes. Right.

[12:45] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: It was in Montreal where you landed?

[12:47] DINAH SOURS: I think so, yes. And we were met by these kind ladies who gave us each a huge bar of Hershey's chocolate, which proceeded megas all sick, often nine days at sea. So we did not make it a glamorous entrance into Canada.

[13:08] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Oh, gosh. Maybe you could tell us. I mean, it's interesting because your parents didn't know where you went for three months.

[13:15] DINAH SOURS: Three months, I think. Yes, because they didn't want the Germans to know where any ships were at all.

[13:22] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Hard to imagine these days, isn't it? Not knowing if your children was on, you know, had survived or where they ended up for three months.

[13:28] DINAH SOURS: My mother did figure something out, and I can't remember what it was now that she realized we hadn't made that convoy. And I can't think how she figured that out at the time.

[13:45] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: And then from Montreal, you all were split up, weren't you, into different families in the United States?

[13:50] DINAH SOURS: Oh, yes. Well, we went down from Montreal by train to New York, and, as I say, most of us weren't a little the worse for the wear after the Hershey's chocolate. But anyway, we made it down to New York and stayed at the Gould foundation home in the Bronx. It was a big orphanage, I guess, really. And they very kindly made room for the older children, had a great time, would take. My brother was taken to the World's fair, which was on at the time. The only thing I remember was that they had a piano, and I just had the most wonderful time banging. And I always remember my sister Sheila saying, these kids came from our group saying, sheila, quick, come. The boys are trying to drag Dinah off the piano. That's all I remember about the ghoul foundation.

[14:53] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: That's too funny. And then from there, you and Sheila and Cliff went to different communities in Ohio, is that.

[15:01] DINAH SOURS: Yes. A lot of the children had somehow or other had connections in this country, in America, and went straight away from New York to families that their parents knew or something. We did not have any sort of connection. So we went by train out to Cincinnati for some reason or other, never knew why, and went to another home there. And they were very kind, very nice place. And I think they took a photograph of us and put it in the newspaper and said, are you in need of three children? And apparently the family that my brother went to, who the marvelous people, offered to take the three of us, but they said that they were a little bit older, and they said that I called the man Janet and uncle Bill. And Janet was a little too old for young children, so only my brother went to stay with that family, and my sister and I went to another family, a younger couple, and they had one child, their own daughter.

[16:27] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Did you see Cliff much in the. You were there for about a year and a half or two years?

[16:31] DINAH SOURS: Two years, yes.

[16:32] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Did you see Cliff much during that time?

[16:34] DINAH SOURS: He was very good. He'd cycled down. It was in the next town. He was in the next town about 5 miles or so, I guess, away. And he would occasionally cycle down. And we did go up once or twice to Ann General Bill's. And I mainly remember it because they had two St. Bernard dogs, enormous dogs, bounding toward you. But no, we stayed with that family for the first two years. And actually, while we were there, we started. Went to the school there in Wyoming, a suburb of Cincinnati. And then the husband, doctor Srminger, was taken into the navy. And so we went out, moved out to Indianapuru, Indiana, and lived there for about a year or so. Went to. Started the school there. I did not like that spot at all, for many reasons. Then they, for some reason went back to Wyoming outside of Cincinnati, and then they were called back to Indiana. At that point, the mother decided it was too much with the three of us. So she had a very. I don't think she had realized how long the war might go on, because when we first arrived, she made a great effort to show us America. I mean, we learned all the anthems of all the armed services and went to a native american reservation to see real life. And they were very friendly. And while we visited the caves in Kentucky, this sort of thing, then, you know, she realized that the war was still going on and gotten a little. It became too much for her, really. So they, she, the husband and wife and daughter went back out to Indiana, and we stayed at their house. It was quite a big house. We slept. My sister and I slept on the top floor, and the grandparents were on the second floor. We used to eat dinner with them, but the rest of the time we sort of scrounged for ourselves.

[19:22] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Yeah. And then didn't Aunt Janet find out about this? You were kind of on your two.

[19:27] DINAH SOURS: Girls running around wildlife. Yes. And so she didn't approve, and so she came down one day and said, why don't you put your things in your suitcase and come stay with us? So. Which was like going to heaven, you know. They were the kindest people and very strict. I was telling somebody, it was yesterday, I was telling some friends that the first day, morning that I got, because we had, Sheila and I had been used to getting up and scrounging around some breakfast or something in our own. And I got up because I had a room to myself for the first time. They had a very big house. And I remember going to the top of the stairs in my pajamas. I didn't comb my hair or anything, and I thought, I'll go find some breakfast. So I went out, and there at the bottom of the stairs was Aunt Janete, dressed beautifully and smiling cheerfully at me and saying, oh, good, you're up. Why don't you run back and wash your face, comb your hair, and get dressed, and then we'll get breakfast. And I thought, uh oh, the wild life has ended.

[20:49] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Well, it must be quite a change because, you know, you came from a pretty humble home in England, you know, to middle class. Middle class. To the Matthews and Bill Matthews. Aunt Janet's husband was the grandson of one of the proctors, so they were very well off. And that must have been quite a shock also.

[21:10] DINAH SOURS: Yeah. Although they were. I mean, it was an enormous house. They had maids and a cook and a chauffeur and that sort of thing. But we were never given the impression that they were there to serve us particularly. And Anne Jean Nockville were very modest. I know Uncle Bill was famous in the village, Glendale, Ohio, because when people would come, you know, they'd have friends for dinner and they ate very formally, you know, and apparently after dinner, they'd all go into the living room and promptly at 11:00 Uncle Bill would stand up and slap his thighs and say, well, good night. That's it. They didn't lead a wild life at all.

[22:03] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: So you were there for the last three years of the war?

[22:07] DINAH SOURS: Yes. Right.

[22:09] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Two and a half.

[22:09] DINAH SOURS: Two and a half, yes. And that was like going to heaven.

[22:13] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Did you, did you travel much with them?

[22:16] DINAH SOURS: No, we weren't allowed to. My brother had. They had an island up in Canada and a house in Florida. And my brother, for some reason, at the beginning of the war, was allowed to do that. He did go up to Canada one summer, and in the winter they went down to Florida. But when we joined them, I think they became more restricted as the, America came into the war, and so we did not. We went to summer camp instead, my sister and I and the Matthews, you know, as you said, he was one of proctor and gamble offspring. I mean, they had a lovely house and a swimming pool. So I was in heaven. They could have just left me there.

[23:11] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Well, you know, one interesting part of this, I think, and like to hear more about it from you is your youngest sister, Joe, Jocelyn Statler. She put together a book called Special Relations, and it's a book of letters that she found in your mom's attic, I believe, of letters mostly between your father and Aunt Janet in the United States. Also from you all and a few from the stromagers.

[23:36] DINAH SOURS: Not from me.

[23:37] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Yeah, well, you. I think there's one in there. You were pretty young, but, yeah, maybe tell us a little bit about that relationship with, especially your father and Janet writing letters back and forth, because it's an amazing set of letters in this book that's been put together.

[23:52] DINAH SOURS: Yes, it was very lucky and very good of my sister Jo, who was clearing out my mother's attic, excuse me, and found these letters that were just disintegrating because they were very poor quality, the blue air mail letters at the time. And, of course, a lot of them have been censored. They would cut out sections and so everything was very. In very poor condition. But Jo thought it was interesting enough to try to preserve many of the letters, really. And you're right, Anne. Janet, my father developed a sort of special relationship. Well, in fact, the book's called special relationship put together. But they did develop a very definite relationship and would occasionally make my mother write a letter or Uncle Bill write a letter. So it was very interesting. And I think they were very good letter writers in those days, weren't they?

[25:03] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: They were very detailed. Not the letters in these days of emailing text. It's fascinating to read the letters in the book because they're so in depth and they're exchanging ideas of politics and race relations in the country. I think they were kind of ahead of their time and some of their thoughts. It was pretty interesting, really interesting to read the letters and to see, since they knew little at that point, people didn't travel like they do now. And it's fascinating reading your father's opinions of Americans and Janet's opinions of the English and each correcting the other.

[25:39] DINAH SOURS: That's right. Because my father traveled a lot because he'd gone to sea when he was very young.

[25:44] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: That's true.

[25:45] DINAH SOURS: And so he'd been all over the world, but he had never encountered a family like the Matthews. And they were extraordinary because they purposely hired people. I won't say nationalities, but they usually were not hired by people in their class. And I think I told you that Uncle Bill's mother, who was one of the proctor daughters, used to give black people in those days weren't given home loans by banks, period. And so grandmother Matthews used to give interest free loans to black people in the community. In the community there, so that they could buy houses that would have been.

[26:42] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Must have been in the early 19 hundreds.

[26:44] DINAH SOURS: Well, yes. No, I think it was made. She did that mainly in the twenties, probably in the thirties. Yes, something like that, yeah.

[26:52] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: It was quite a. Quite a family with that. Do you have any, like, special, like if you had a happiest memory at that time? Do you have one?

[27:00] DINAH SOURS: Oh, well, many. Aunt Janet, I mean, gone, for instance, at Christmas, my family and the first family we stayed with, you had one present, you know, that was it. Well, they were very careful about showing their riches, but at Christmas, Aunt Janet went Wild and we would each have a chair and it would be piled with presents. Yes. So that was just glorious, of course, for me. And it was a lovely community. It was a very small school, so I made some good friends. In fact, I was talking to one of my fourth grade friends from Glendale, Ohio, last night and we were talking about perhaps taking a trip together at some point. So it was a lovely community. And as I say, the Matthews were very good. They were very religious. They were very strict Episcopalians, but they didn't make a fuss about it. Two of the uncle Bill's sisters were protestant. Nuns who worked in Hawaii. I'm not sure what they did, but they were very modest, in spite of the fact that they had this beautiful house and they did not live lavishly.

[28:39] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Yeah, it's interesting. So as time went on, Roosevelt decided not to listen to Joseph Kennedy anymore, the ambassador, convince the Americans to enter the war finally. And time went on and years went by. And cliff, he was able to go home a little earlier than you.

[29:02] DINAH SOURS: It was the end of the war. He desperately wanted to go home, to go into the army, or preferably the air force. He was very keen on flying, but they wouldn't let us go until the end of the war, so, poor thing, he was held back until the bitter end. He did finally go into the british army, but, of course, it was after the war. And here was this boy who had lived in restrained magnificence, never washed a sock or anything in his life, was sent out to Egypt and put in charge of the officer's laundry.

[29:44] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: That taught him a lesson, didn't it?

[29:47] DINAH SOURS: Typical british army.

[29:49] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Oh, he had some great stories from his time in Egypt and Libya, I think, and 1940s and all he did. So how many months later was it when you left to go back?

[30:02] DINAH SOURS: It was. It was. Goodness, I can't remember. Quite a while, I think, before it was organized.

[30:12] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: But then you and Sheila went back, and there's a funny on the French.

[30:16] DINAH SOURS: Yes. Actually, Uncle Bill was very concerned about angelic being upset, you know, because, of course, we'd all be, excuse me, become very fond of one another. So he arranged for a chaperone to take us to New York by train. And there we came back on a ship called the Ile de France. It was a french ship that the British had taken during the war, and so there were very few civilian cabins on it. But Sheila and I had a very nice outside cabin. And then, I think I told you, above decks, they were bringing back 400 british RAF cadets who had been sent to Canada to learn to fly. And so here was my 15 year old sister and 400 years. And she had the most fun of anyone on that voyage back, whereas I was left to meditate the ocean once.

[31:25] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Again, there and back. What was it like, you know, when you got back home, your houses had been requisitioned by canadian troops?

[31:33] DINAH SOURS: Well, no, actually, nothing. We were in the village, but it was my father's job, was taken over by the government, and he was put in charge of civilian gasoline for the section of southern England. So he was moved, so they had to leave the house. It was taken on by refugees from. I don't know where they came from, but for a long. And then, well, after the war, they finally sold the house because they had to move to a very quiet part in Sussex.

[32:14] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: What was it like reuniting with your parents after all those years?

[32:17] DINAH SOURS: Well, it was very strange. I think I told you getting off the boat was very funny because, you know, I'd gone off a very skinny little five year old, and I came back this extremely well fed, buck tooth ten year old, full of self. And my sister in England, you know, when you were a teenager, I tell you, when you're 17 or so, you could put some powder on and rouge her a little. But here was Sheila, barely 15, I think, 15. And she had lipstick on and high heels and very well dressed in a suit. And I always remember my mother's expression as we came down the gangplank off the boat. First of all, she saw me this fat little saying, dinah. And then she saw Sheila in this.

[33:23] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Outfit with all the RAF cadets.

[33:25] DINAH SOURS: Oh. And they were all up above on the deck. They hadn't got off the bed. They were all yelling, goodbye, Sheila. Goodbye, Sheila. And my mother, horrified.

[33:35] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Well, it's interesting, kind of as we wrap things up here, we stayed in contact with the Matthews in Ohio. I always thought she was my grandmother for a long time.

[33:44] DINAH SOURS: Oh, really?

[33:45] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: For years I thought I had three grandmothers and very close the family's. Angena came to Joanne and I's wedding, and we all were close with their cousins. And you maintained a great relationship with.

[33:58] DINAH SOURS: So kind to me because I'd planned to go into nursing in London. And my older sister wrote to me and said, oh, we'll go to Westminster Hospital to train, because they have the prettiest uniforms. So I wrote to them, and they had a two year waiting list. And meanwhile, Aunt Jane and uncle had said, well, come visit. And they sent a ticket for me to go over there on the boat. So of course, I said, oh, that's a great idea. So off I went, not realizing that that was it. You know, I got there and they realized I was not trained for anything. I'd gone to an academic high school in England, and so they sent me off for a year in Boston to learn type and shorthand, which I was not very good at. And so that was the end of my living in England.

[34:54] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Yeah, well, except for a couple one year, right when we went back. And, yes, dad studied there.

[35:00] DINAH SOURS: I eventually married an american, and he had a Fulbright scholarship to spend a year at a hospital in London. So we did go back then. But, yes, I meant to say. What were you saying about keeping in.

[35:17] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Touch with the family?

[35:18] DINAH SOURS: Yes, keeping in touch, yes, they were very good. They really sort of. We were all part of one family and, as you say, made a great effort to come visit us even after you children were born.

[35:36] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Well, I think that the book, you know, the letters back and forth with the exploration of the different countries carried over, because here's, you know, Cliff, your oldest brother, he ended up in the United States. Joe ended up in the United States for a while. And she's back here now.

[35:52] DINAH SOURS: Yes.

[35:53] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: And then some of my cousins had just studied american studies in the United States, so there's a lot of cross.

[35:58] DINAH SOURS: Oh, absolutely.

[36:00] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Yeah. It's really. It was fascinating what?

[36:03] DINAH SOURS: Yes.

[36:03] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: How we kept in touch. Yes.

[36:05] DINAH SOURS: Actually, three of us, three of the four of us married Americans, so that was quite surprising.

[36:12] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Well, thanks for sharing all that, this fantastic hearing once again. And, yeah, I think it resonates with the world situation with Ukraine and refugees, different times, different refugees, but people sending their children away and how difficult that must be, especially as time passed, thinking back then when there was no social media and how your parents must have felt and you as a five year.

[36:36] DINAH SOURS: Old going through that. Right. Yes, it was very different time. And I'm afraid things haven't improved very much, sorry to say.

[36:45] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: Well, we'll focus on the good story that you have. And it all ended up being well.

[36:49] DINAH SOURS: And it showed how wonderful these people were who took us in, you know, I mean, who would you take? Three strange children. I don't know what I want.

[37:03] CHRISTOPHER SOURS: I would like to think. Yes, but you're right. I don't know until it happens, you know, took courage. Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing all that with us. It's really fun and. Yeah, that's wonderful.

[37:14] DINAH SOURS: That's great.