Cloquet postmaster's war role is on display

A card arrived at the Cloquet post office as war loomed in the early 1940s. It was asking postmasters from across the country to consider signing up for military service.

Clarence Scheibe was 40 years old. "He said, 'Oh well,' and signed it," his daughter Maggie Scheibe said this fall. It was just a few weeks after the Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center in Superior announced its latest exhibit, "Post Office in the Pacific," featuring Scheibe and his work in the Army in keeping the flow of mail and information going in the South Pacific.

Scheibe went into service in 1942, in New Caledonia and then the Solomon Islands. He went from his outpost in Cloquet to running the entire South Pacific mail operations. Part of his early work was maintaining confidential communications between Washington, D.C., and allied command posts, with a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. It was dangerous work.

Maggie, who was once the Superior Public Museums collections manager, had a wealth of material to offer the center. Most of it was in letters kept by her mother, which she discovered in her 20s, after her father died in 1973. Clarence destroyed the mail he received from home.

Over the years, there wasn't much that came out in family conversation about Clarence's service. The letters told more than Maggie had ever known. "Wow," she recalls saying. "Almost every letter I read had me thinking, he's a good writer."

"She helped put it together," said Briana Fiandt, the historical center's director of exhibits and collections. The exhibit is expected to be up through next summer.

Junior volunteers helped make the huts seen in the

display.

"I'm so grateful my dad's story can be told," Maggie said. "What he did was so important. It kept the war running."

Family of service

The Scheibes arrived in Cloquet in the late 1800s. Clarence's father, Sam, was also the local postmaster. Into the 1950s, postmasters were assigned by the sitting U.S. president, so the Scheibes were installed whenever a Democrat was in office. During the war, Elsie Scheibe took over her husband's duties at the Cloquet post office.

The Scheibes helped people escape the fire that destroyed much of Cloquet in 1918. Maggie, who now lives in Duluth, said she heard more about those heroics than what her dad did in the war.

The Solomon Islands were the scene of several major land, sea, and air battles between the allies and the Japanese. Keeping communications was vital to the efforts there. Scheibe's letters show the importance of the region, casually mentioning a visit from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

There's also the human touch, mail keeping the spirits of soldiers up with news from home. In one of Scheibe's letters home, he responded to news that Elsie was pregnant. "That was me," Maggie said.

The exhibit has descriptions and layouts of military post offices in the Pacific Theater. An interactive display includes letters and other mailed materials.

Intern Cathy Taylor wrote in a museum blog this summer about her experience putting the postal exhibit together.

"He had saved a lot of everyday type military orders and reports, but now and then something in the (collection) would catch my eye," Taylor wrote. "Also preserved were letters and cards, most sent from him to his wife on the other side of the world. What came out of all this paper was a man who had a strong sense of duty to his country and dedication to the postal service, who was also far from the family he loved."

"One of the things I found touching was his list of instructions to Elsie as she headed into her first winter without him being there, wanting to make sure everything was right to keep his little family warm and safe," Taylor wrote. "He longed so much to be home and caring for his family. Despite the hardship of being apart, he wrote to her: 'But what I am doing now will always help both of us the rest of our lives.' It was through the mail that they were able to keep communication flowing, just like every other soldier and loved one waiting to be reunited."