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House renovation reveals life of WWII sailor

POCATELLO, Idaho — Sarah and Nicholas Hofeldt know Vernon P. Peyron only through a few old clues found inside a secret room in their Sixth Avenue home.

After removing a closet wall in their master bedroom to access electrical wiring, the young couple discovered a veritable time capsule of long-lost and yellowing photographs, books, certificates and cards.

The old documents provide a chapter in the life of a sailor who served during World War II and apparently once lived in their old house, located near City Hall.

While taking out the trash on a recent morning, the Hofeldts found more evidence about the mystery man — an inscription in the curb they somehow missed before discovering the historic cache: “Vernon Peyron, class of 1943.”

The Hofeldts hope to make contact with Peyron, his family members or anyone with information about any other people mentioned in the old records they’ve found to learn more of the story.

“For all the years we put our garbage can on the street, we didn’t notice it,” Sarah said. “I just want to know who the guy is now. I want to meet him. It is so neat.”

The 8-square-foot hidden room houses a few shelves, masonry from an old chimney, pea-green walls and a date written in red crayon — April 26, 1960. Sarah crawled inside to search for treasure when only the bottom portion of the closet wall had been cut out. After feeling around in the dark, she pulled out a leather-bound portfolio caked in dust.

She wiped away the dust to expose a picture of two American flags, both with only 48 stars, and the Liberty Bell at the center. After a continued search, the Hofeldts retrieved a host of additional relics from the 1940s and earlier. There was a color photograph of Peyron’s ship, the U.S.S. Hollandia, signed by C.L. Lee.

“If you look him up on the Internet, he’s the captain of the ship,” Nicholas said.

Two identical certificates, one large and one wallet-sized, certify that Peyron was on board the ship and is thereby entitled to ownership of one of its planks.

There’s a black-and-white photograph that Nicholas describes as “classic of the times” taken at the Long Beach Saloon. It depicts a guy in a bomber’s jacket, a guy holding a cigarette, a few sailors and a pretty woman at the center. There was a history book on the war with a copyright date of 1945.

“Because of when it was written, it was a really fresh version of what happened. Nothing is really filtered,” Nicholas said. “It refers to the Japanese as ‘Japs,’ which is obviously not politically correct.”

His father, Doug Hofeldt, is a history buff and was especially excited about the book, “A Pictorial Review of WWII,” which he took home to read. “That history book, I think, was really quite eye-opening from the aspect of what actually took place shortly after World War II. They didn’t sugarcoat it like the modern history books,” Doug said. “WWII is a fascinating war. I loathe war, but I’m really fascinated by the history, because we just time and time again repeat ourselves.”

Another photograph they found depicts faded images of sailors with the caption on the back, “Vurl Mason and me at Pearl Harbor taken three months ago.”

On the lighter side, there’s a photograph of men in drag posing with a sailor dressed as the Greek sea god Poseidon. The caption on the back reads, “I’ll explain this when I get home.”

The photograph came as no surprise to Doug Hofeldt, who immediately recognized what was transpiring in the photo as an initiation rite for sailors onboard vessels after crossing the equator for the first time. Doug remembers the odd celebration for his brother upon crossing the equator.

Along with the photograph, the Hofeldts found a tongue-in-cheek congratulatory certificate with the seal, “Davy Jones, his majesty’s scribe” and the words “Imperium Neptuni Regis” at the top.

A line from the small text reads, “Vernon P. Peyron, having been found worthy to be numbered as one of our trusty shellbacks, he has been duly initiated into the solemn mysteries of the ancient order of the deep.”

The Hofeldts gained some insight into Peyron’s high school years via an English composition notebook, complete with verbs, nouns and pronouns underlined for each sentence. Based on the notebook, they know Peyron was a sophomore at Pocatello High School in January 1941.

The collection also included several greeting cards, the oldest of which is a sympathy card sent to Charlotte Peyron, dating back to 1919.

Other items of interest found in the hidden room include: a television safety booklet, a brochure for Ponderosa paint, the book “Fluid Mechanics,” an algebra book and a French-English dictionary.

Other names in the documents include William and Robb Dooley, Bob Peyron and Clifford Patrick Milligan.

About six years ago, while doing electrical work in their son Aidan’s bedroom, they found another treasure in line with their recent discoveries. They hung the relic, a gold plaque dated 1943, in their laundry room.

The plaque’s inscription reads: “In recognition of patriotic service rendered to the nation by encouraging the planting of company and individual victory gardens.”

“We had never heard of a victory garden,” Sarah said, adding victory gardens were considered patriotic at the time, because they enabled people back at home to feed themselves and their neighbors and freed up food for the troops. “We’ve heard from various people that at one time, this whole area was a garden.”

Perhaps the greatest mystery to the Hofeldts is why the WWII memorabilia was walled up in the first place.

Whatever the reason, it’s given the Hofeldts a personal connection with history.

“Having a link back to something as historic as WWII in the house is neat,” Sarah said. “You read about it in history books in school, but you never get to hold a piece of it unless you go to a museum.”