Prisoners of War in New Mexico Agriculture
Abstract of Interview
CONSULTANT: Marcel Mortensen
TAPE NUMBER: RG2000-094
DATE
OF BIRTH: December 9, 1923
SEX: Male
DATE(S)
OF INTERVIEW: July 26, 2000
LOCATION
OF INTERVIEW: Mortensen
residence, Cotton City, New Mexico
INTERVIEWER: Mollie Pressler
SOURCE
OF INTERVIEW: NMF&RHM__X___OTHER_____________
TRANSCRIBED:
YES__X_____ NO_______
NUMBER
OF TAPES: One
ABSTRACTOR:
Sheila Klug
DATE
ABSTRACTED: April 23, 2001
QUALITY
OF RECORDING (SPECIFY): Good
SCOPE
AND CONTENT NOTE: Details Mr. Mortensen’s work as a carpenter’s helper
installing cabinets in the prisoner of war
(POW) compound at Lordsburg and his experiences driving Italian prisoners to
Virden, where they worked cleaning irrigation ditches and picking potatoes and
onions.
DATE
RANGE: Circa 1941-1945.
ABSTRACT
(IMPORTANT TOPICS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE):
TAPE
ONE, SIDE A:
Mr.
Mortensen was born in Virden, New Mexico, in 1923 and lived there most of his
life. When he heard about the camp
being built in Lordsburg, he and some friends went there and applied for jobs.
They were hired as apprentice carpenters and worked with men installing
cabinets in the compound. After
this work was completed and before the prisoners arrived, he went back to work
on the farm.
His
uncle, Marion Mortensen, was a farmer in Virden growing onions, potatoes, and
small grain. These are
labor-intensive crops, requiring extra help at harvest time. In addition to
harvesting the crops, they cleaned the irrigation ditches out by hand, an annual
job. The consultant drove his
uncle’s pickup truck (which had a flatbed with seats rigged on it) to bring
fifteen to twenty POWs from Lordsburg to Virden and back.
He believes these prisoners were Italian.
One
of his most vivid memories is hearing the POWs sing in harmony as they drove
through Lordsburg. He reports the
POWs brought their own lunches with them and while he does not remember what
they ate, his impression was that it wasn’t a very large lunch.
There
was only one guard for the POWs and the consultant felt they did not do
much—“just there as (laughs) decoration, I think.” He felt the prisoners would not try to escape, as they had no
place to go. He said the farmers
“were tickled to death to have them.” He
had no opinion on how well administered the camp was or if the prisoners were
being coddled, although he believes they were treated well.
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