Murele Ipsen ‘43 — on his way to the Western Front
Our October newsletter featured a story that received a lot of interest. Written by Angela Duane, “Finding an Ex-POW who saved my Uncle during WW II” described the author’s experience in tracking down Murele Ipsen (CHS c/o ’43).
Murele helped save John Duane (Angela’s uncle) when they fled a POW camp at the end of World War II. Both men were imprisoned at Stalag 2, which was located near Neubrandenburg, about 75 miles north of Berlin, and about 300 miles from the Western Front.
With the war over, the German guards abandoned the prison camp. Then, it was up to the former prisoners to make their way to the Western Front and the Allied forces [at that point, the Allied forces were a bit east of the Rhine River]. Murele Ipsen played a major role in helping Angela’s uncle be a part of that journey, as John was badly injured. Murele assisted John as he (John) reportedly collapsed while trying to leave the camp.
Thankfully, John, Murele, and company had some luck along the way. As they walked westward, somewhere, somehow, this group of Americans commandeered a horse-drawn wagon—and the injured in their caravan could now ride to safety. Also en route, Murele Ipsen found a camera and film in a bombed-out camera shop. He managed to capture several photos, including the two shown above—a rare glimpse into the dangerous days immediately following the war. There was little law and order if any; a limited supply of food— and local citizens were probably hesitant to part with what they had (and, most likely, suspicious of American troops). There was also the possibility of crossing paths with German troops, who, like the Americans, were headed home—and desperate for food and transportation (not to mention, some being on the run to avoid prosecution for war crimes). [In today’s Seattle Times, Feb. 20th, there was a story about an ex-prison camp guard being deported back to Germany.]
John Duane, in wagon on far left — on his way to the Western Front
John Duane did eventually get home to Seattle, where he just “showed up on the porch” one day to a mother who had been hoping and praying for months after receiving notice that he was MIA (missing in action). A few months later, Murele called to check in on John but ended up speaking to his mother, letting her know that he’d been in a POW camp with her son. Years later, Angela was digging through old letters and found one from her grandma to Uncle John, telling him “a Murele Ipsen had called and that he’d helped carry John out of there” (meaning out of the stalag so John could join the others in traveling to the Western Front).
Angela was stunned, as there’d been little said about John’s time as a POW, and she was determined to find out more about the man who helped bring her uncle home. Uncle John eventually became Angela’s godfather, watching over her as she grew up. Angela also believes her uncle saved her life in that, because of him, she was able to pay for college. Without Murele Ipsen saving her Uncle John, none of that would have happened.
As it turned out, Angela (after a lot of online research) found Murele Ipsen, but he had suffered a stroke in 2019 and was no longer able to really communicate. Then, only a few weeks later, he died [Murele’s obituary is in this issue of the newsletter on page 8].
Woulda, shoulda, coulda . . . if only Angela would have started her search a couple of years earlier! –Angela is a writer and might have given us another great story on the aftermath of World War II. The adventure shared by Murele, John, and their comrades really does have all the makings of a book and/or movie!
by Angela Duane Holy Names Academy, Seattle – Class of 1986
Angela Duane
It all started with a letter—one of many that had sat in a box for years, stored in my father’s garage. We discovered them upon his death a few years back, and I’d taken some time to read through and sort them according to a decade. Still, I had missed something.
This summer, I perused the “1940s” stack, again, as I was doing some writing about our family and searching for clarity on the events surrounding my Uncle John’s experience abroad as an army soldier during WWII.
Uncle John Duane
Uncle John Duane was injured, captured, and spent months in a German prison camp—a story that holds a sacred place in my family history/lore. Still, the tidbits shared by older cousins and my father were often fuzzy in detail or sometimes conflicting and filled with gaps. —Not surprising, as the events of 1944-1945 had been a painful experience for my uncle. He rarely spoke of the war, so details were few and far between.
But back to the letters. I squinted at one of the yellow messages scrawled in my grandmother’s writing, postmarked August of 1945. It was addressed to my Uncle John, a couple of months after he’d been liberated and made his way back to Seattle from Germany.
Toward the bottom of the letter, my grandmother wrote:
“A Murele Ipsen called. He was one of the boys who carried you out of there when you collapsed. —Said you were in a bad way, bleeding from your nose and mouth. Said he saw you in the stalag! He was from Georgetown.” [Murele Ipsen, CHS class of 1943.]
I was stunned. A name. I had stumbled upon an actual name of someone who was witness to that which had been such a profound and altering experience for my uncle; a name of someone who may have had a major hand in shaping my own personal trajectory.
So, I started googling. I found census information, draft card information, and a few random links that showed old addresses in Kent and Burien—but I found no obituary or death date.
Murele Ipsen
Was Murele Ipsen still alive? It was possible. He’d be 95, but… it was possible. I continued to comb through search results and ended up clicking on a Cleveland Alumni Newsletter article. Murele’s sister Leona was mentioned, along with a reference to Murele’s capture in WWII!
I immediately email John Barton who had written the piece and held my breath. Would he respond? Would he think I was some sort of solicitor or weirdo trying to take advantage of an older veteran? Miraculously, John Barton emailed me back and agreed to reach out to Murele or his family if I drafted a letter of intention.
No problem! But… what was I to tell him? That I was still searching for closure, 31 years after Uncle John’s death? That I still wanted answers; clarity; insight into the life of my mysterious but beloved godfather?
Despite the altering experience of war, John Duane had been a kind, gentle, goofy soul—and he always watched out for me. He ready to me; babysat me; took me too/from school; lifted me up to see into Grandma’s cabinets; gave me my first calculator, desk, nail polish, desk lamp, first camera—the man even bought all of my Holy Names candy bars so I wouldn’t have to stand int he cold to help our school raise money.
Uncle John and young Angela
In a way, Uncle John also saved my life. I was a “good girl,” but my teen years were fraught with turbulence as I battled with my parents in a strict Catholic household. We were constantly at loggerheads, and it made for a rather stressful adolescence. Let’s just say my stuff ended up on the porch (along with myself!) on more than one occasion. After high school, I started college and then took a break about a couple of years in. Money was running short, and tensions were only worsening at home which didn’t allow for focus. I found work in a restaurant but was starting to turn toward not-so-nice people for comfort and support, heading down potentially dangerous paths. Then Uncle John died. It was a horrible shock that just about did me in. —But my godfather had been looking out for me ’til the very end. In a final selfless and generous act, he left me a college fund. I was able to finish school, move out, and I found some much-needed stability. Meanwhile, my family finally found some peace. I mean, I loved my parents, but sometimes people get along better when they don’t live together!
Well, I wrote to John Barton and told him all of the above, explaining that I wanted to thank Murele Ipsen for helping my uncle; a man who had such a major impact on my life. But I was also hoping that maybe Murele could shed some light on what, exactly, happened in Germany during the war.
Feelings of guilt and excitement clashed in my brain. Maybe my uncle wouldn’t want me stirring all of this up. Maybe I should just let it rest. Maybe it was time to accept that you just don’t get clarity of “closure” on everything in life. —I decided to leave it up to fate.
The wonderful John Barton Delivered my letter to Murele’s house in person (imagine—Murele’s place is just a short distance from him!). However, his stepson, Dale Leyde, quickly clued us in on a sad situation. Murele suffered a stroke last year, and his family doesn’t anticipate that he’ll live much longer.
Murele and stepson Dale Leyde
Fortunately, stepson Dale was kind enough to share what details he had heard about Murele’s capture. Separated from a larger unit, Murele’s group had surrendered upon a run-in with a German tank and ended up at the stalag listed on my uncle’s records. Hmmm.
My understanding was that my uncle had been wounded and in a hospital before ending up in the prison camp. Had my uncle really been with Murele during his capture? Once again, I was working with another set of conflicting information.
But let’s face it, stories told over time and through the lens of trauma can change.
My brother Peter and I discussed the information we’d been privy to over the years, comparing it to these new details. In an “aha” moment, we agreed that it was possible Murele and Uncle John had been captured in separate incidents but then ended up in the same camp. Then Murele could have helped Uncle John leave the camp when the guards bailed (following German surrender).
I also remembered a cousin had told me that Uncle John said the guards treated him “like a Jew.” My uncle could easily pass for Jewish, so I often wondered if that had affected his prison stay. The worst of it for Murele had been a head-butting with a rifle when he reached for a cabbage off a train rolling by. Perhaps my uncle faced more routine beatings??? It was possible that he could have been recently roughed up and was not in good shape the day they all “walked out.” —And the only reason he may have been able to actually/physically leave that place was because of Murele’s kindness and integrity.
Then… enter another clue from stepson Dale: He said that en route to the allied territory, Murele’s crew happened upon a bombed-out camera store. Murele found a camera and some film, then took a few pictures… one of which included a wagon. Amazing. All of the stories my own family had discussed over the years involved a “wagon.”
It was coming together: The camp… liberated. Everyone is leaving. Murele and perhaps a couple of other Seattle or west-coast kids stick together as they make their way out. Murele sees a bloodied John Duane collapse nearby, and Murele and some “other boys” help carry him through the gates. They snag a wagon en route to the allied territory; perhaps they take turns pushing injured or sick comrades who could now ride versus walk. Then they stop at what was left of the camera store, scavenge a camera or two and snap some pix before continuing on their way. —Was that exactly what happened? We’ll never know. But I think that’s as close as it’s ever gonna get.
Murele and his wife Rosemary
Dale Leyde told me he was glad I had such a good uncle in my life, and I told him I was glad he had such a good father in his life. It was a very nice conversation—he even said he’d try to dig up the aforementioned photos!
In the meantime, I am happy to have experienced such a beautiful (and almost impossible!) “connection in the time of Covid.” Connection across generations, history, time, and place. After speaking with John Barton, I cried for an hour as he reminded me so much of my father.
I felt like I’d made a new friend but that I was also given a gift of time travel to spend a few minutes with my “dad” again. After speaking with Dale, I felt a kinship in having been cared for by men of such special character and decency—and I also started to feel more at peace with my quest. I think that Uncle John would understand that my search for answers was just another way of staying connected to someone who had loved me so much and who had given me so much. Someone who I will miss forever.
But… the journey wasn’t quite over! A couple of nights ago, I stumbled upon an old email with a link to online POW records I’d found several years ago. I brought up my uncle’s record, and then I backtracked to the search tool. I held my breath and typed in Murele’s name. Success!
I compared the records side by side but could not cross-check their unit numbers as Murele’s was blank. Arrrgh! Then I paused. “Theatres” were listed for both men (a theatre is the area of capture). And… Uncle John had been captured in Holland; Murele had been captured in Germany. I scrolled down further, and… the same prison camp was listed for both. Wow.
So the theory about Murele carrying my uncle out of the camp was probably correct, after all.
In closing, I can’t say for sure that my “version” of such a long-ago chapter is totally accurate, but I’m fairly certain that my uncle made it out of that place because Murele Ipsen took the time to be a decent human being. —Because Murele Ipsen had been a soldier, and a gentleman.
Summer is over; fall is around the corner. The days continue to move forward, and Mr. Ipsen may not have much time left in this world. But I choose to believe that John Duane will be ready and waiting to help him through the gates of the next one. Thank you, Mr. Murele Ipsen, for taking care of my uncle and making it possible for him to return home to us. You saved his life, and because of that, you saved mine. Finally, a special thank you to John Barton for joining me on this journey.
Like many seniors coping responsibly with the lockdown, I sought to bring a semblance of order to a long-neglected area of my home – an upstairs closet piled high with newspaper clippings (1949-1991) and hand-written letters from those who once qualified as Seattle’s movers and shakers. Which is how I stumbled on a battered book titled “Cleveland Spirit.”
On the left side of the red-and-white cover is a sketch of snow-capped Mount Rainier atop a scaled-down Cleveland High School. On the right are dueling open-cockpit airplanes (presumably Boeing-built) followed by the numerals 1927-1928.
My discovery, of course, was the yearbook of the first students to graduate from Seattle’s then – newest high school. I am “unsure” – a better word than “forgetful” at 94 – how it came to be in my closet.
Besides being Cleveland’s first yearbook, 1927-‘28 is historically significant because it pretty much marked the end of this nation’s sometimes wild-and-crazy “Roaring Twenties.” The “Crash” that triggered The Great Depression began in ’29 and didn’t end until World War II.
Full disclosure: I was born in ’26, making me one year older than Cleveland High School, and graduated in ’43 – 77 eventful years ago.
Cleveland’s official colors in ’27-‘28 were “blue-and-white,” and its teams were The Highlanders. The colors, of course, would be changed to red-and-white, The Highlanders would become the Eagles and “Spirit” (perhaps used only once) would give way to Aquila.
The ’27-‘28 yearbook is signed by H.N. Gridley, principal of both Cleveland High School and Cleveland Intermediate School (junior high), which were first combined in a Georgetown elementary school building.
The first full-page photo inside the yearbook is of Charles Lindbergh (“Lucky Lindy”), who stunned the world by making a solo airplane flight from New York to Paris in 1927. Jeopardy question: “What was the name of Lindbergh’s plane?” Answer: “What is The Spirit of St. Louis?” Lindbergh also was Time Magazine’s Man of the Year in ’27. As for who appeared on the cover of Time the most times (“Who is Richard Nixon’’ (55 times).
I’d have preferred Audrey Hepburn.
I was a 13-year-old 9th grader upon arriving at Cleveland from Beacon Hill in January 1940. Almost immediately we “new” students heard about “The Trek,” which teachers and older students seemed to rank only slightly below The Lewis & Clark Expedition and the first ascent of Mount Rainier.
It started the morning of Jan. 3, 1927 at the Georgetown school. Principal Gridley led the march, at first on the level and then up “a steep hill” (huffing and puffing sound effects) as 525 high school students and their 22 teachers, plus 452 intermediate-school students and their 15 teachers pressed on to reach The Promised Land at 15th Avenue South and Lucile Street.
There they found a beautiful new three-story, all-brick schoolhouse named after Grover Cleveland, the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms in The White House as the 22nd president (1885-1889) and the 24th (1893-1897).
The new school had 31 rooms, an auditorium, a well-outfitted cafeteria, and at least one indoor sports venue. There was no blueprint for juggling the schedules of high school and intermediate school students so they wouldn’t bump into each other in the halls or the cafeteria. Nor were there any outdoor sports facilities. But the latter, everyone said, was sure to come. Someday!
The ’27-’28 yearbook was dedicated to Miss Alice T. Stach, “whose teaching (English) has lifted us to heights beyond the commonplace.” Besides Miss Stach, five other teachers from the ’27-’28 faculty were still at Cleveland when I graduated 15 years later: Gaylord Peltier, Dora Leavitt, Lynden K. Hassenmiller, Bill Maginnis, and Margaret Raine.
Hassenmiller, who answered to “Hassey” and taught science, coached virtually every boys’ sports team for a year or so, during which Cleveland suffered some horrific defeats (losing 65-5 against O’Dea’s basketball team). Hassey would finally settle on coaching golf, which had less pressure. Students took losses pretty much in stride, learning early to say “Wait’ll next year.”
Girls played only volleyball, basketball, and field hockey, where there was less pressure.
In addition to academics and sports, there were a variety of clubs. The Intermediate Boys’ Yacht Club showed imagination. It wasn’t for students whose families owned yachts, but for young men and a smattering of young women who designed and built small wooden “yachts” they showed off in a local pond.
Although the Latin Club had a handful of members, the school orchestra – open to all – had enough members to fill the chairs of The New York Philharmonic. No indication of how they sounded.
Two important notes: Ray K. Imus, who spent 35 years as Cleveland’s vice principal, had yet to join the staff in ’27-’28, and all women teachers had “Miss” in front of their names. They would continue to be “Miss” in the years ahead “because a married woman should not be taking a scarce job from a man.” Sexism 101.
Marguerite Fox was Cleveland’s first valedictorian and Mona Mueller its first salutatorian. Also speaking at the first formal graduation were Walter Fisher, representing the arts, Gunnar Carlson, representing science, and Marjorie Brown, who touched on both writing and dramatics.
Frances Beyering wrote the senior-class poem. The first stanza: “As we leave your doors old Cleveland/To face the world anew/We want to thank you dearly/For the things we owe to you.”
Fifteen years later, the poem I was asked to write was recited by the class of ’43 at a Moving-Up Day Ceremony. It spoofed many things and was followed by a dozen or so limericks aimed at high-profile grads. Joy Malde and Ruth Barnier, singer and pianist respectively, provided background music for the limericks.
The first graduating class was small, just 52 grads. Mine, 15 years later, was barely over 100. Class photos show boys and male teachers without a hint of a beard. Nor was there a hint of trousers on girl students and female teachers.
Many girls and women teachers did, however, have “marcelled” hair (tight curls) in the ‘20s. Fifteen years later their hair was “more relaxed.”
A nice touch in the school’s first yearbook was giving each grad an opportunity to say what he or she hoped to do in life. The boys wanted to be salesmen, engineers, lawyers, journalists, airplane pilots, and businessmen.
Although ‘stenographer” dominated the girls’ choices, even that of the valedictorian, some bravely hoped to become a church or theater organist, gym teacher or businesswomen. One even said “a rich woman’s traveling companion.” Two said simply “a housewife.”
One boy said his main goal was to become “a husband.” Perhaps he connected with one of the young ladies with matrimonial ambitions.
Class prophecies were provided, gratis, for each student – predicting a career on Broadway for one student and playing in one of the great symphony orchestras for another. The amateur psychology was also interesting: “Just because a man blushes is no sign he’s bashful,” and “Knows a lot but says nothing.”
In 1997, I emceed my old high school’s 70th birthday party in the school auditorium, which hadn’t changed much in well over half-a-century. There was a wonderful turnout, even a visit by Al Hostak, who had been a student at Cleveland High School for several years before launching a prize-fighting career in which he won the Middleweight Boxing Championship of the World. Al brought down the house when his arrival on stage was delayed because he didn’t hear his name being called. “Ya shoulda rung da bell,” he said, laughing as he ran across the stage.
Don Clifford (’44) and I closed the celebration by singing lyrics I’d penned to a melody [I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face] from Lerner & Loewe’s “My Fair Lady.”
The final verse:
We’d grown accustomed to this place, To all the times we didn’t win. We’d grown accustomed to the rain, To tests that were a pain. Tan cords, white shirts, saddle-shoes, and skirts, Were such a habit with us then, Like faded loves that might have been. Like Mr. Imus roaming hallways and rules that didn’t bend, Tardy bells and blackboard chalk – we thought they’d never end. We’d grown accustomed to a way of living that’s no more, Accustomed to this place.
******
Don Duncan spent 41 years on newspapers, 28 as a reporter and columnist for The Seattle Times. A Pulitzer judge in 1977. He won two national (Ernie Pyle) awards for human-interest writing and wrote two books. “Washington: The First 100 Years” and “Meet Me at The Center.”
Biggest coups: a solo interview with Elvis, two hours alone with Eleanor Roosevelt, and about 15 minutes with Princess Di, while the rest of the press corps was looking for her.
Wife of 69 years died two years ago.
He never worked for the P-I, which The Times staff called “The Pig’s Eye.” The P-I staff, in response, referred to The Times as “Fairview Fanny.”
