Ames Historical Society acquired a major resource in June of 2007: several collections relating to World War II military service participation of Ames and Story County men and women.  These collections, formerly kept at the Ames Public Library, were compiled by Library staff and volunteers in the 1940s and consist of four distinct files:

• Card file of 8,100 3 x 5 cards listing summary information (name, hometown, relative, place of training, branch of service, assignments, awards, etc.)
• Card file of  5 x 8 cards representing 152 names
• Scrapbooks in 26 three-ring binders containing about 2,600 names with accompanying newspaper clippings and some photos
• Album in wooden covers titled “Service Flag” containing pages representing 155 names with some clippings and photos.  A photocopy of all pages is also available.

Most of the records appear to be taken from newspaper stories.  This view shows one of the 26 volumes of three-ring binders, each full of newspaper clippings which are stored by the Ames Historical Society.  There are clippings that are not recorded on the 3x5 cards and there is information on the 3x5 cards that cannot be found in the clippings notebooks.

During World War II, someone typed (on approximately 8,100 3x5 cards) information about men and women who served in the various branches of the United States military.  Almost all of the men and women were Story County residents.  Residents from other counties are thought to have entered the military from ROTC at Iowa State College (now Iowa State University).

Some of these military records span three cards; others contain only a name and branch of service.  Some of the cards contain the person’s military serial number, which is information that one would not expect to be a part of a newspaper story.  Therefore, it appears that some news releases from the War Department were the sources for some of the information.

• Names were entered, Doe, John R.
• When a nickname John “Slim” Doe was encountered it was entered as Doe, John and Doe, Slim.
• Do not search for Mrs. John Doe.  Wives were very seldom listed as Mrs. Jane Doe because it was the custom at that time to list John Doe’s wife as Mrs. John Doe.  When the name Mrs. Jane Doe or, more often, Jane Smith Doe appeared on the card, that name was entered as a key word.
• Kilborn, Alan Stetson.  Kilborn, Jessie Louise Howell is the listing for his wife.  Therefore, do not do a secondary, Howell, Jessie Louise if you know her maiden name.  She would appear as Kilborn, Jessie Louise Howell, the part after her husband’s name is NOT listed as Howell, Jessie Louise.
• The title “Mrs.” was not entered as a key word.
• J.Q. Doe – no spaces between initials
• Junior was meant to be Doe, John, Jr.  There may be other spellings.
• Theater was used.  Theatre was not meant to be used.
• Names were proofed with care, but other spellings or partial spellings should be used to search.  The original may have been typed wrong.  Some misspellings were corrected using the City Directory and the phone book and the scrapbooks, and by verifying by some internal means, i.e., address or common facts.

Last name
Home town (Ames sometimes lists only street address)
Citation, Decorations, Purple Heart, Bronze Star, Awarded
Branch of service of women members of the military
Prisoner
Died
Wounded
German
Germany
Japan
Japanese
Italy
France
England
Missing in Action
Killed

Army
Navy
Marines
Army Air Force
(See Key Words for women’s branches of the military)
Serial Number
Rank
Date Entered

Rev.
Homewood Golf Course
Tribune
Student Health
Unwirn
Alien Japanese Relocation Camp
Legion of Merit
Colored
Chaing-Kai-Shek
Milford Township
Ontario
Marfa, Texas
Tinian
Alamogordo
Stearman
World War I
Stalag
The Knoll
Texada (a middle name)
Iran
Sardinia
Croix de guerre
Legion of Merit
Croix Militaire de premiere   -- Belgium honor
Cadet, West Point
Hjalmar
Bankia (In the Russell Islands)
Samar
Calicoan

There were two sets of the 3x5 cards.  I began alphabetizing the two sets and then merging them sometime in late 2003.  When that was completed I began entering the information into the library’s computer.  The tedium was barely bearable.  Another method was sought.

Using transparent photo album pages, I invented and then constructed a template that held six 3x5 cards while they were being scanned.  There are 1,355 scans in this collection.  My wife Anita, also a volunteer at the library, helped with much of the template loading and scanning.  This assistance actually more than doubled the number of scans that could be done per hour.

It was during this process that Susan North retired and Janet Klaas assumed the supervision of the project.  This was about a third of the way through the project.

When the scans were completed we had a photographic record of the original documents but we did not have a way to access these records.  So I began making a record for each scan and typed in that record the key words that were found there.  This was similar to, but not as detailed as what was done at the very beginning of the project

Decisions needed to be made about what was a key word and what was not.  Spellings and abbreviations decisions needed to be made.  Information about conventions and style can be found later in this document.

At this writing, April 26, 2006, my vision for this project is that the scanned images be placed on the Internet.  A person searching for information could type in a keyword and all of the scans containing that name would come up on the screen.  The patron would be viewing a copy of the original 3x5 cards and would visually search those cards.  “John Doe” could produce from one to three cards and the cards could be found at the end of one scan and the beginning of the next scan.  “Corregidor” would produce all of the scans that contained that word.  “WAVES” would produce the names of all of the women who served in the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (U.S. Navy Women’s Reserve).

This would be valuable genealogical information.