Hubert Seipel: Trust in the Lord and Live Your Life (Part 2)
In the second part of our conversation with 97-year-old WWII veteran Hubert Seipel, he reflects on his experiences aboard the USS Lexington and life after the war. He also shares his wisdom gained from nearly a century of life, including his thoughts on the importance of family and faith. Tune in to continue listening to the the wisdom of Hubert Seipel.
Hear him talk about:
His visit to post-war Tokyo and Pearl Harbor
His long and happy marriage of 73 years, and his advice for building a strong partnership
Farming throughout his life and how technology has changed
Personal responsibility and the importance of keeping your word
How younger generations can get involved
If you missed it, listen to the first part of Hubert Seipel’s story.
Image courtesy of the Seipel family.
“Always try to do the best you can and don’t be afraid to step forward and do something. Don’t just sit back and say, ‘Let someone else do it.’”
Read the Transcript for Episode 2
Wisdom of Age, Episode 2
Hubert Seipel: Trust in the Lord and Live Your Life (Part 2)
Stacy (as narrator): Welcome to the Wisdom of Age podcast, where we journey with our elders back in time, learning about life as they lived it and the lessons they learned along the way. I'm Stacy Raine. In episode one of Wisdom of Age, we heard from 97-year-old Hubert Seipel. We learned about his life growing up in the Midwest during the depression, we learned about him joining the Navy at just 17 years old at the height of World War II. During his time in the Navy, he served as a fireman on the USS Lexington as part of Naval operations in the Pacific. His ship, the USS Lexington, was the first large aircraft carrier that went into Tokyo Bay after the Japanese formally surrendered in 1945.
Hubert: Well, that was kind of thrilling, although it was still, I guess you could have said the same thing if you were sitting home watching it on TV. But, I know I'd never get back to Tokyo, but even as bad as Tokyo was, it was something to say, well, I've been in Japan, I know, even if there was just nothing left, but it was, it was kind of good to say, well, we was over there, we finally whipped them, and we, we saw what was left.
But, unfortunately, it didn't last. We always thought it was a big war was going to be it, but it didn't last very long. Peace just didn't, it didn't hold.
Stacy (as narrator): Peace did not hold. Five years after the end of World War II, soldiers, sailors, and Marines began shipping off to the Korean War.
Stacy: When you went into Tokyo, you said you had a liberty there for a little bit and it was kind of leveled. Did you see any of the Japanese people?
Hubert: Oh yeah, there was always kids getting around selling some kind of kimono or any kind of stuff they had to trade for cigarettes. That was a big thing. Trading for cigarettes or stuff, yeah. Of course, the ship, you weren't supposed to take any off there, so somebody put them in the sole of your shoes and try to walk off with a pack of cigarettes in there or something.
It's kind of like everything, you know, you're always doing something. But, you saw, the people in general, of course, of course, natural hostilities. There were with kids, there's always kids, give them gum or candy. They're resilient, I guess, that's what, that's what they are. I guess makes the children come on and take through things and come on and the next generation comes on and sometimes better, sometimes not.
Stacy: You said you weren't supposed to take cigarettes off the ship?
Hubert: No, no, because they knew what you were doing. That was considered a contraband.
Stacy: Oh, really?
Hubert: Yeah, because if it would have been allowed, those guys would have probably carried them over to the card store, you know, trading for kimonos and fancy stuff or Samurai swords or anything like for souvenirs. That's what you're trading for, souvenirs mainly.
Stacy: And they didn't want you doing that.
Hubert: It wasn't, it wasn't kosher to be doing that, no.
Stacy: I see.
Hubert: I think it was because you weren't supposed to fraternize with the enemy even though the war was over.
Stacy: Yeah, that makes sense, doesn't it? What else did you do on liberty that day?
Hubert: Just walk around and look, there was really nothing to see. There was nothing absolutely, well, we, I shouldn't say nothing. We walked over and they would walk over and the, uh, Imperial grounds are still, you could see the Imperial Palace and some of the things that weren't totally wiped out, but basically the buildings and being wooden and stuff, you know, they'd been dropping firebombs for practically two months before the last part of the war, so there was basically just hardly anything standing, but like I said, the rebuilding, we helped, I guess, rebuild them, which is great, but now they've got a beautiful city over there, which I guess would have never happened if it hadn't tore everything down. Or it might have, but not to complete like it did.
Stacy (as narrator): Hubert's ship, the USS Lexington, the first large carrier to go into Tokyo Bay, participated in nearly every major naval campaign in the Pacific from 1943 to 1945, according to the National Park Service. It was even nicknamed the Blue Ghost by the Japanese because she kept returning to battle even after they would proclaim her sunk.
Hubert was on this ship for about two years, nearly the whole of his time in the Navy. He talked a bit about the USS Lexington's history of carrying Marines from island to island.
Hubert: Of course, now you understand, I wasn’t on it the first part of it. But our ship's book that I have at home, it on says, From Tarawa to Tokyo. And that's one of the first islands Marines hit was Tarawa. The fleet would go in and bomb, the ships and airplanes would bomb. And your Marines whom I respected very much and the soldiers would go in and the invasion would start, and like I said, it didn't look like sometimes we did much good because the Japs would come up out of the coral caves that they'd carved, and it was fight man for man, and it was pretty high priced real estate that we purchased going up from one island after another.
Japan, Tawara, Saipan, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, there was a lot of them. And those Marines, they had to hit them one after another. I've got nothing but respect for them.
Stacy (as narrator): Hubert was on the ship for a long time, and I wondered whether they ever got to have a break from the ship and have time in some sort of port.
Hubert: Uh, the only time we really ever got off the ship, we went into Eniwetok Atoll to take on supplies and some of the other ships needed repairs. The whole fleet more or less kind of went in there. And, uh, they gave us liberty over on the beach that day. Of course, I'd been in the fire room straight for over six months there, and so I go over on the beach, and of course there's nobody else around, so everybody's running around in their skivvy shorts, and I never got so damn sunburned in my life as I did that day. I feel that every inch from the top of my head to the soles of my feet, and I said, never again.
Stacy: That sounds painful.
Hubert: Well, it just didn't realize how much the sun and the water and the reflection of the coral, how much that sun can do to you.
Stacy: Hopefully you had enough fun that day to make it worth it.
Hubert: Oh hey, it wasn't any, it was not worth it at all. I had a couple of warm beers and that was about it.
Stacy: So you said you had a few buddies that you palled around with on the ship. So cards was kind of the main thing that you would do to pass the time?
Hubert: Yeah, that much did. If you had books, anybody had a book, it got read pretty good. Everybody passed 'em around and uh, but basically we played just not gambling game, just card games.
There were a few Bridge players, but most of us Pitch or Pinochle or some games like that and just sit around. Like I said, the other guys were on duty, so you had to kind of hang out with fellas from the machine shop, the engineering division, because they were all on about the same basis. Or you tried to get a little sleep time in between, and of course, if there was a chow line, you had to get through the chow line and all that stuff, but basically we'd sit down and just shoot the bullet and do what you had to do after the war.
I was going to go to Alaska and everything else. We had all kinds of wild tales that you wouldn't do, but you just sat around and we kind of killed the time, actually.
Stacy (as narrator): What an experience to have served in World War II on one of the ships that saw so much combat action in the Pacific. I asked Hubert if he had a particular memory that stood out from his time in the service.
Hubert: Not really. I think the first time I saw Pearl Harbor, I guess and saw the Arizona, and the damage was even that many years later still evident.
It was probably about as jarring of things I actually really saw because like I said, in the fire room below deck, you don't see the battles going on. You don't see the air battles or nothing going on. So, you, you realize it's there, but you only, you might hear that over the squawk box or the different calls coming in, bogey on and such and such, or coming in at two o'clock, and you know what's going on, but you don't know whether the close are going to get you or not. So, it's just touch and go, but seeing the Arizona and stuff, knowing them guys that had been lost, that was probably as much jarring, until, like I said, I saw Tokyo and how that was leveled, and think of what it would have been if it had been coming the other way and we hadn't stopped them after Pearl Harbor.
I mean, if the Japs had really went ahead and stayed with it on December the 7th and taken the island, it would have been almost an impossibility to ever come back, I think. Because Pearl Harbor was, it was a pearl, no doubt about it, for the fleet, especially.
Stacy (as narrator): The attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, resulted in a devastating loss of life. Some 2,400 Americans were killed during the attack. Over a thousand more were wounded, and the Pacific Fleet was significantly damaged. The Battleship Arizona, which Hubert is talking about here, is one of the saddest stories from Pearl Harbor.
The bombings that hit that ship killed 1,177 of the some 1,500 crew on board, nearly half the casualties that day. It was the attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II. I think it was this that Hubert was thinking about when he answered my next question.
Hubert: Well, I think truly the basic thing I learned in the service, that basically, all of the men going in, and the ladies also later on, they were really, really putting country first. I mean, they, they were, they were really proud to serve for their country, and, uh, didn't consider it necessarily as much of a duty as it was an honor to serve for your country, because your country's worth fighting for. I don't know if people think it is today, but it is.
Stacy (as narrator): I was curious if after so much experience, if there was anything he would tell his younger self if he could.
Hubert: I guess just try to be, be honest with yourself and do the best you can. Always try to do the best you can and don't be afraid to step forward and do something. Don't just like sit back and say, let, let George do it. Let's go out and do it, get in there and help.
Stacy (as narrator): In the two years that Hubert spent on the USS Lexington, he went home only twice. Once around Christmastime in 1944, and again once the war was over for Christmas in ‘45.
Hubert: I remember we came back through Pearl Harbor, and they took the planes off, and they put army cots on the hangar deck, and I don't know how many troops, you know, all the troops was over there, getting them back home was a logistical problem. And I don't know how many soldiers and Marines or whatever we had on the whole flight deck was just loaded with Army cots for the, from Pearl Harbor back to the Los Angeles, and I don't, a lot of them got seasick, but it was quite an experience there. And it was, you go row after row in the old flight deck and think of the, or the hangar deck, and think the size of that.
So, I don't know how many troops we had on there that we hauled back to the States, but they were, no transportation for that many troops was out there from one, you know, from one island to the other, all this Army, Marine, and everything was out there. It was over, getting them back home was a big job, so we just left planes over the Hawaii, or the flight deck, had a few planes up on it, but as far as operational, we just went from there, it was just a transport for men coming back to the states, that they had enough points to get out and get home and get ready to get discharged.
Stacy: What were they like when they would get on the ship? Were they just so happy to be going back home?
Hubert: Yeah, if they weren't seasick, they were happy to be going home. Yeah.
Stacy: Yeah, that's true. So they were just stacking people into that ship, right? Getting everybody back.
Hubert: Yeah. Chow lines were just almost continuous, getting them all fed I guess, that was Cook's problem, though. That wasn't ours. We just had to keep the ship going.
Stacy: Right. It was a big problem, though. I bet you were popular if you were keeping the ship going.
Hubert: Well, they didn't probably realize the firemen were doing it, they were just anxious to get home. They didn't care exactly how.
Stacy (as narrator): But it was the first time he went home, in Christmas of ‘44, when he met his future wife, Maryle. He had one week of leave, though probably half of it was spent traveling between where he got off the ship in California, and Maryville, Missouri, where he lived.
Hubert: Their family moved up from St. Joe while I was gone and I had a buddy that had an accident when he was a youth and he hadn't been able to march. His ankle was cut real bad. And anyway, him and I was coming around that evening and happen to go in the bowling alley. Not much place to hang out in Maryville and that's where I happened to met my wife and so then the next year when I got home and then I got to see her again, and then when I got home, we ended up getting married.
Stacy: That's when you met her. Was that one week home?
Hubert: Yeah. And then we corresponded. And, and, and the next year when I got home, then we started going together and we got married in the following February. Fact of the matter is February the 14th would have been our 77th anniversary.
Stacy: Oh, wow. You were married for over 70 years.
Hubert: Yeah, we, we, we had 73 years, we had a good run.
Stacy (as narrator): They have a chance meeting in the bowling alley, had a hamburger and made a date for the next day to go to the dance hall. It must have gone pretty well because he left probably a day later to go back to California. Back on the ship, back through Pearl Harbor, back on duty to island hop as they would call it, with a promise to write.
Hubert: So we got started and like I said we corresponded. Of course I took her address and I wasn't a great writer and mail wasn't too good in the Navy I think. I think her first letter caught up with him about two months later or something. Yeah, sometimes the, the fleet mail didn't get out there very good in those days.
Stacy: I bet, yeah. Had a little ways to go, huh?
Hubert: Yeah, well, and you was moving and they was going someplace else. I don't know how they kept track of where it went, but eventually they had mail call once in a while. Some guys would get a ton of mail. Some of them, we didn't get hardly any. I guess you had to have a lot of people writing to you. They obviously got piled up.
Stacy: Do you remember getting that first letter?
Hubert: Not really very much. No, I really, and I, I didn't save any letters or she didn't either for, so we got no, no historical letters to go by .
Stacy: Yeah. What was it like when you came back home for good in ‘45 and you got to see her again?
Hubert: Well, then we, we were going together. We, we wanted to get married and again, being only 20, I had to get my mother to sign for me to get married.
Stacy: Oh, really?
Hubert: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. She could. She was old enough, but in Missouri, you had to be 21 to do anything. So I had to get my mother signed for me to get married.
Stacy: What does she think about that?
Hubert: Well, she thought it was awfully young, but she did finally go along with it. And she, her and Maryle clicked off good and she, everything worked out.
Stacy: And you had such a long and beautiful marriage. I'd love to hear your advice.
Hubert: Yes, we were, we were blessed with that and we had our ups and downs, but we basically agree to disagree once in a while, but basically on the same plane.
Stacy: What's your advice for a key to a happy marriage?
Hubert: Well, first off, you've made a commitment. So keep it, keep your trust and actually put them first. Don't, don't put yourself first all the time. They're trying to do the same for you. So let's make it reciprocal anyway. And a true marriage, you're, you're concerned about each other. You're not considering about yourself.
Stacy: I love that. That's good advice. It's very good advice. Did you, you guys stayed the whole, you're still in Maryville, right?
Hubert: Yes, still the same. My wife said she's the only one that's living in the same house when we got married. Actually, we didn't have it when we first got married, but I said, well, I couldn't move all this stuff you've got anyway.
Stacy: Oh, that's funny. I'm sure she rolled her eyes at you when you said that, right?
Hubert: Yeah, they didn't go over too good either.
Stacy (as narrator): When Hubert thought about his future while he was on the ship, outside of going to Alaska, which he did eventually get to do with his wife Maryle, he thought maybe he'd go back to farming, or maybe he would take advantage of the GI Bill, go to college, and become a lawyer.
But Maryle's brother died in a car accident shortly after they got married, and so her mother talked him into working at the meat packing plant where they were part owners. When Maryle's father passed away years later, Hubert ended up taking over their part of the plant and running it. Eventually, once he sold the plant and retired, he made it back to farming.
Hubert: We had the farm that, uh, our father-in-law bought. And, so we, I bought it, then I added to it, and I added some more to it, and I just actively farmed it until about 94, then I retired. Started renting it out. I still have an interest in it, I have what you call a cash rent. I, I, cash rent the pasture and stuff, but the other ground I have a crop share lease, so I get to go out and ride in the combine and ride in and plant with all this modern new machinery.
Stacy (as narrator): Hubert has seen farming change quite a bit over the years, and it was the technological advances in farming that he discussed when I asked him about the positive things that have come about in his lifetime.
Hubert: From the day I was a kid farming with a team of horses and plowing down one row of corn at a time to now they've got machines that plant 24 rows at a time and count each one and drop each kernel perfectly and never over plant the rows and the combines, they come in and tell you how much bushes you're making in the acres, what the moisture content is, everything you need to know, it's right at your fingertips.
That technology, it blows it away. I don't know if they make as much improvement in the next 50 years, they might be farming on the moon. I don't know. But there's been marvelous technology, good tech, a lot of good they had. We've had bad stuff, but there's a lot of good.
Stacy (as narrator): He and Maryle had six children over the years, three boys and three girls, all still living except for his son John, who died of cancer about six years ago. He has 14 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren. It was a lot of love, I said, and I asked what he hoped he had taught them.
Hubert: Well, what I hope I’ve taught them is, be trustworthy and honest. Uh, hopefully religious by, but, I'm not sure that's taking good with all of them. But above all, live the golden rule: Do unto others that you want them to do unto you, and that would, that's important. I think you consider the other person first, not yourself.
Stacy (as narrator): Along with all that love, Hubert's also had a lot of loss in his life. Of course, he's 97, so that's kind of a given, but he had a lot of loss early and often. His dad died when he was five. Then his youngest brother Norbert died when Hubert was probably 10.
And his brother-in-law, who was the best man in his wedding, died shortly after they got married. Not to mention all the loss of life he must've witnessed during his time in the war. His sister died in her late forties in that tragic car accident. And then he lost an adult son to cancer. Most recently, he lost his wife, Maryle, after 73 years of marriage. I asked him how he goes forward carrying all of that loss.
Hubert: Well, as I got older, I think probably I realized your faith and trust in God and living a life where, as best you could, I think that's about all you can really accomplish and it'll help you to do as much as anything else for you. Your family and friends are always there with you and there for you. And I think good family life is probably the core to any good, or the happiness in general.
And I think probably the, maybe our American scene when we really lost a true family group across the country, that's probably hurt the country as much as anything. Because family is still an important part, I think, of anybody. I know it is in my life. Still today, that's families. Faith and then families is an important thing.
Stacy: And you feel like that might be part of our challenge these days, is that there's not as strong a family unit.
Hubert: I do think that's, that's the worst, I think so much of our problem stems from the fact that the children don't have that guidance and maybe some rough, rough love. You know, you, you've got to have tough love. You can't just let every kid do what he wants to do from day one because if he does, he goes up thinking anything's alright. I think, I think you need some tough love in family life. And we have some, but we don't have it like we used to have, I guess I should say. I know there certainly a lot of families working hard, real hard, but it needs everyone. It takes a village to do it, you know.
Stacy: Something you said in an article that I read was that your generation's been referred to as the greatest generation, but you said you'd say it was just the generation that stepped forward. So what do you want, you know, the young generations, or my generation or ones after me, to know about stepping forward?
Hubert: Well, again, it's not to think everything for me, not being “I” person, be a “we” person, an “us”, we can do it. We've got to do it, or we can do it. But I alone, I can't do it all. And you've got to consider that your other people also have got feelings. You've got to consider that and, try to get along with people. That's the main thing. It’s just people can't get along with each other. And above all, we, be honest, keep your word. If you tell someone you're going to do something, even if it's, be there at five o'clock, be there at five o'clock, keep your word. Good Lord, that's the least you can do. We can all make a difference. No matter how small you think your role is, everybody could make a difference.
Stacy: If people could take those things to heart that you just the advice that you just gave them, how do you think it might change the country?
Hubert: Oh, I think we'd have a whole different country if you really, honestly, you started considering do it for the country not just for me, you know, my party or this that or, that's another thing, the division in our country, it’s getting, it's almost a wide gap. I don't know that, I hate to say it, but I'm scared of the next election coming up. It scares me. Who will get anybody? Have we got an honest man in Washington? I'm beginning to doubt it. And that's, yeah, that's what's leading our country. It's, to me, it's scary.
And I think if anything a youth can do is get off their tails and get out and vote. If you don't like something, at least get out and vote for it. Don't just sit home and gripe about it.
Stacy (as narrator): I thought that was great advice, to participate. After 97 years, time in World War II, raising six children, running a business, he's seen a lot. So I asked him what he thinks about where we are now as a country.
Hubert: Well, first thing, I see a great lack of love of country. I don't think people really realize the country that we've had and the country that it is and the country it could be if everybody got together and quit bickering and worrying about making their own millions.
And there'd been some ups and downs, and we're nothing like we are now. And like I say, the changes in farming and farm machinery, it's amazing. And yet, at the meantime, we still can't seem to get along with each other. We're busy trying to kill each other off or run them off the globe. That's, that's a sad part of it. Everything could be so great. Half the world is starving, the other half is getting filthy rich. It's a, it's a rat race. And that's kind of the whole thing of it, I think. We need to get back to, as the Bible says, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Stacy (as narrator): This statement, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, The Golden Rule is in the Gospel of Matthew from the Bible. It reminded me that I had heard that he has a very strong and great faith. He attends Mass every single day. I asked him how his faith has impacted his life.
Hubert: I really think it's probably key to my life. I really do. I think some place along the line as the country got away from prayers and school or this that, and people going to church. I think our whole moral fiber just went right down along with it. And, I truly think that faith and belief is a key to a happy life. You've got to trust in God. You're not running it. You might think we're running it, but we're not running it.
Stacy: You're 97 now.
Hubert: Yep, got four months carved into 98 already.
Stacy: All right. You know, you've got the long view. What would you say is your secret to longevity?
Hubert: The good Lord let me have it.
Stacy: I love that.
Hubert: I've always, as I say earlier, I think I said it, I, I maintained when I was born a mark went up on the wall when he is gonna call my number. So I just hope it's out there past a hundred. I'm trying to shoot for a hundred, but we’re not guaranteed nothing.
Stacy: Well, my last question for you is, what do you know for certain after 97 years on this earth.
Hubert: Well, the sun will come up in the morning. Other than that, like I say, I've had 97 years and I appreciate every bit of it. I hope I get more, but I know I'm not guaranteed tomorrow even, so, you've got to live and do the best you can every day and, and hope for the best, pray for the best, and all the best to you.
Stacy: And all the best to you.
Stacy (as narrator): That's the second and final part of my conversation with Mr. Hubert Seipel. I hope you enjoyed his reflections and the wisdom he shared. I want to extend a special thanks to Hubert for being the first guest on this show and to his granddaughter, Melissa, for helping with the episode. And the next episode, you'll meet Betsy Samuels, the longtime owner of a Christmas tree farm in Virginia.
If you have a guest suggestion or just want to share your thoughts, head over to wisdomofagepodcast.com. If you enjoyed this episode and want to support the podcast, you can follow the show in your favorite podcast app, leave a rating and review, and share it with a friend.
Wisdom of Age is a Raine Media production, produced by me, Stacy Raine, with editing and sound design by Sandra Levy Smith. To discuss how we can help you bring important stories to life through sound, visit rainemediaco.com to get in touch.
Thanks for listening.