Jessica: How long was your school year? I know that it’s 180 now, but there must have been more time off?
Dillard: We started right after Labor Day and we always got out the last of May. Usually around May 29. Yeah, because I don’t think we had any spring vacation. But, yeah, we always got [...]

June 10,2004
Kristi Mizner: How did your father feel about the war?
Wayne Christensen: He didn’t really talk much about the war but when he did he said it
was a serious time. He was right out of high school around the age of 18 to 20 so he
didn’t know what to expect and the war really [...]

June 9,2004
Kristi Mizner: How did you feel about WWII?
Jack Rice: We did what we had to do to protect our country and to keep it from being
taken over by foreigners, because Japan and Germany wanted control of the U.S.
K: What year did you leave Yelm?
J: January 9, 1942
K: What did you do in [...]

June 8,2004
Kristi Mizner: How did you feel about WWII?
Wayne Vancil: I was hyped up about the war, but I didn’t want to go to war. I knew my
number was up so I went to Seattle to sign up for the military. Before I was called to go
anywhere I went to Alaska for a while [...]

Nisqually Valley News
Pfc Phil Martin, Son of Mr. and Mrs. P.J. Martin, now of Tacoma, was at home on a short furlough this week.  Phil spent Tuesday in Yelm visiting with friends here.  he is a graduate of the Yelm high school with the class of ‘41.  he has been stationed at Jefferson Barracks, MO., [...]

During World War 2 the war effort enveloped the daily life of Yelm’s citizens. Everything a person did was expected to add to the war effort. The government helped encourage this idea by creating a point system on rationed foods, providing jobs that made the worker feel like an active participant, and providing many other [...]

Introduction: Norma Zimmer was a longtime singer on the Lawrence Welk Show.  In her memoir she talks about working in the fields around Yelm.

Her Story
Dad’s third bout with pneumonia occurred the following spring. He almost died of suffocation by was saved when the doctor cut out a rib section and inserted a lung drainage [...]

By Ross Garmon (2004)
Nisqually Valley News editorials, during 1942-1945, cast a light on how World War II influenced the daily lives of the Yelm, McKenna, Roy, residence. Nisqually Valley News papers from 42-45, showed how small the Nisqually Valley area was. With Boy Scout picnic articles making the front page, it’s hard to imagine that [...]

By Max Peterson

Yelm has always been a patriotic city. The city’s proximity from Fort Lewis ensures that many of the citizens are connected to the military in one way or another. Therefore, during World War II, Yelm was largely connected with the war effort and contributed what it could. In the local newspaper, the [...]

Nisqually Valley News
A lifelong resident of this state is Ed Brown of the Browns Bros. Garage, for he was born at Roslyn, raised in Roy, and hat resided in Yelm since 1924.  Before this date he had occasionally worked here as an assistant to his brother, George.
While on a leisure trip to Los Angeles during [...]