Vera Lilly remembers helping her mother at the canteen where pheasant sandwiches were served to World War II soldiers passing through.
"For a few moments, they were all smiles," she said.
She and four others who won't let that part of Aberdeen's history be forgotten are being honored this week for seven years of hard work. On Saturday, the group behind Aberdeen's World War II Pheasant Canteen will receive two awards from the American Association for State and Local History. The other four team members are Marilee Frankenberger, Patsy Weigel, Lila Schwalbe and Ruth Casanova.
The Pheasant Canteen team will receive an Award of Merit from the association's Leadership in History Awards. The group also will receive a 2013 History in Progress Award from the Leadership in History awards committee, one of only three such awards that will be presented nationwide this year. The awards will be presented at 2 p.m. in the ballroom of the Ward Hotel, 104 S. Main St.
Sue Gates, director of the Dacotah Prairie Museum, said the awards recognize what a group of dedicated volunteers can do. The museum helped put together the nomination for the awards.
"They've earned it," she said. "They need to be congratulated."
The Pheasant Canteen display is in the old Milwaukee Road depot on Main Street. The five women got together in 2005 to begin assembling the display and began collecting items for the Canteen display in 2006.
The women built the display because it's important for the community to remember the canteen and to "honor the people who worked here and the troops who came here," Weigel said. "It's just our way of saying thank you to the veterans and their families."
The exhibit is in the same building where the Red Cross/USO Canteen operated from 1943 to 1946. During those 30 months, free lunches were served to more than 586,000 troops. Weigel and Casanova also worked at the canteen with their mothers when they were young.
When the trains arrived in Aberdeen, soldiers "just stumbled out" of the train, anxious to eat, because they knew pheasant sandwiches were waiting for them, Lilly said.
The women working at the canteen always had a birthday cake handy for soldiers who were celebrating their birthdays.
All of the food was handmade.
"Nothing was automatic," said Casanova.
Area towns and organizations would volunteer to staff the canteen. Local Boy Scouts and high school girls also helped. Area farmers donated pheasants.
Many parents sent letters to Aberdeen thanking the community for serving their sons and daughters who were in the service.
A short film about Aberdeen's efforts, produced by McQuillen Creative Group, is shown at the canteen display and is also available online. During its first 10 weeks on YouTube, the film was seen 24,000 times in 30 countries.
The exhibit was put together with care. The display is small but it's authentic, Lilly said.
"To me, that's the most important thing," she said. "Everything here is real. It has local ties."
One of the items is a U.S. flag that Lilly's family received after her brother, Robert J. Grosz, was killed in the Battle of the Bulge in Germany on Jan. 22, 1945. When she sees the flag, she thinks of her brother.
"It seems fitting to put it here rather than hide it in the closet someplace," she said.
Another item is a bottle of liquor that was bought by a group of World War I veterans. The last man in that group, an Aberdeen man, took it to City Hall. It later made its way to the canteen display. That bottle has never been open, although "We were tempted," Frankenberger said.
The women are especially interested in telling young people about Aberdeen's hospitality during World War II. They remember presenting a program in 2007 at Roncalli Elementary School, where students were transfixed.
The women, known for their trademark red jackets, are not done with the World War II Pheasant Canteen. They will continue adding to the collection here and there and "making everything we have better," Lilly said.
"As long as we are physically and mentally able, we will never be done," Weigel said.
All five women are back together this week. Frankenberger, who lives in Colorado, flew into Aberdeen on Wednesday for Saturday's presentation.
This is also a big weekend for Casanova, who celebrates her 65th anniversary today (Oct. 12).
The public is invited to Saturday's award ceremony and reception, which is sponsored by the Brown County Historical Society.
As part of the festivities, the canteen display will be open Saturday from 3 to 4:30 p.m.