USO column attracts WW II-era memories
I recently turned a York Town Square post on York’s World War II USO into a column in the York Sunday News.
It drew several responses:
Martha Frankenberry could recall the USO but thought it was across from the South George Street post office.
That would have been the Alcazar ballroom, now Cobblestones.
Large meeting places were in demand during the war, and it’s possible the ballroom was used for large USO dances.
USO activities focused around the old York County Academy on North Beaver Street and the Pennsylvania Dutch Canteen, located in the school’s tiny gym… .
A separate USO serving as a home away from home for black soldiers operated out of the Crispus Attucks Community Center in southeast York.
Alyce Mae (Stallsmith) Suereth recalled that she went on a date with a friend to the canteen, and she sang the song “I’m Getting Corns for my Country.”
“I can’t remember one word of that song,” she wrote, adding that she was probably goaded into singing it.
By the way, she wrote, she married her date. They will soon be married 58 years.
