World War II and the Home Front: Helen Castle

Helen Castle was 19 years old when Company E from Shenandoah was called up. She talks about the parade of soldiers marching to the depot. At the front of the parade, the soldiers carried a banner: "Shenandoah is for Co. E Today and Forever."

I was 19 years old; I was working at F. W. Woolworth store. They left that day, and the manager of the store closed the store so we could go outside and watch the parade go down Main Street to the depot. And at the front of the procession were soldiers carrying this banner. And that’s how come I know about the banner. It says Shenandoah is for Company E Today and Forever.
They were carrying that as the group marched down Main Street. So, sometime during that day, someone at that depot carried this banner back to the armory and put it there somewhere. In 1948 when Dale Castle, my husband, started working for the guard, he found the banner in the closet. So he brought it home and rolled it up in a map container, and he wrote on it save for future reunions. Well, it was 25 years or something like that before they had a reunion. By this time, he had forgotten about the banner. It was sitting in the closet in our house. After he had passed away, I was moving things around in there and I found this banner. So, at the next reunion, I brought the banner to the reunion. So, it finally got to a Company E reunion.