Alyssa Brown
During the last several months of my assistantship at the conservation lab, I had the great pleasure of treating and rehousing the third volume of Mrs. Jill Knappenberger’s scrapbook collection. This volume contains over 100 pages of photographs, onion skin letters, maps, newspaper clippings, and assorted ephemera, all stuck to and in between crumbling 80-year-old construction paper. Mrs. Knappenberger (née Pitts) served in the American Red Cross during World War II as a clubmobile driver, delivering donuts, coffee, and spirit to troops in Europe. Also known as Donut Dollies, the women in this role had the critical responsibility of boosting morale in the war-battered European theatre, primarily in Britain and France.
Jill’s adventures were harrowing at times, like when her clubmobile was surrounded by Germans for a week during the Battle of the Bulge. This was the United States’ deadliest World War II battle, and it was where Jill’s twin brother, Jack, was one of 19,000 killed. Leafing through the pages of her third scrapbook, you’ll find a more expansive range of emotion than you might expect. Of course, there’s the grief of the loss of her brother as she visits his grave in Belgium, newspaper clippings detailing the conditions of prisoner of war camps, and even photos of unidentified corpses lying in piles and in the shoulder of a road. But you can also find Jill and friends smiling widely into the camera, lying poolside in Monaco, and celebrating her marriage to co-worker Bradley Carroll. There are also items that reflect the humor of that era, like a lurid poem describing the prevalence of venereal diseases and letters from friends she made in Luxembourg. The scope of feeling found in Mrs. Knappenberger’s scrapbooks demonstrates just how dynamic and resilient the human spirit can be, even during one of the most devastating events in modern history.
For those who connect to history through personal stories, there’s much to be appreciated in Mrs. Knappenberger’s scrapbooks. The first item in the third volume is Jill’s Overseas Service Certificate from the Red Cross, issued March 6, 1946. The American Red Cross played a significant role in providing aid to soldiers and their families during the war, even before the United States joined. According to the Red Cross, “nearly every family in America contained a member who had either served as a Red Cross volunteer, made contributions of money or blood, or was a recipient of Red Cross services.”
After the Red Cross certificate, we’re immersed in the festivities for Jill and Brad Carroll’s spur-of-the-moment wedding in France. Photos of the couple and their friends under celebratory streamers, letters from the VIII Corps Headquarters approving the marriage, a letter from Mr. Carroll recounting the day to his new in-laws, newspaper clippings about the marriage from back home in Illinois, letters of congratulations, and the couple’s marriage license from the city of Neufchâteau all offer a glimpse into the happy beginning of the pair’s marriage.
The section that follows is an amalgam of items. There are photos, maps, restaurant business cards, and a playbill from the Carrolls’ trips to Brussels and Paris, the first stops on Jill’s tour of Europe. There are also ration cards for clothing and toiletries and a driving permit. Then we’re with Jill in Germany—maps, train tickets, a German vocabulary booklet, a piece of cloth embroidered with the Nazi Parteiadler—and then southern France and Monaco, right after V-E Day—photos by the pool and on a boat, travel brochures, and hotel booklets.
The second half of the scrapbook is mostly made up of photos from Mrs. Knappenberger’s remaining time in Europe and newspaper clippings and correspondence from after her return to the United States. In August 1945, she returned to the US on the MS John Ericsson and subsequently gave talks to groups in Illinois about her time in Europe. She also had a proper celebration for her wedding to Brad Carroll at her family’s farm in McLean.
Mrs. Knappenberger returned to the University of Illinois to complete her degree at ACES in 1949. She married Champaign attorney Gaillard Knappenberger in 1953 and lived in Champaign until her death in 2020. She was 101 years old.
Treating the third volume of the Knappenberger scrapbooks included creating a plan for each page of the book, surface cleaning and mending each page, and encapsulating each page in mylar using the conservation lab’s ultrasonic welder. Each page had a unique layout, as in any scrapbook. A goal of the project was to maintain the order and layout that Mrs. Knappenberger constructed while also allowing for ease of use and minimizing potential harm to the items. This required some creative and crafty thinking, which was fun! Luckily, I had two collaborators in absentia – Nani Hodges and Savannah Adams, former graduate assistants who worked on the first and second volumes of Mrs. Knappenberger’s scrapbooks, respectively. I adopted many of their innovative encapsulation techniques to structure the third volume.
Treating Mrs. Knappenberger’s scrapbook started as a daunting task, but it quickly turned into a passion project as I became invested in her story. Jill was 26 when she left Illinois to serve in the Red Cross. I was 26 when I finished with her scrapbook. It’s hard to picture myself in her shoes. She was immensely brave, generous, and full of charisma. All of these characteristics and more are evident in the pages of her scrapbook. Her story has encouraged me to live more fully. Thanks, Jill.
You can find Mrs. Knappenberger’s scrapbooks at the University Archives. Her experiences are also documented in other formats, including an Illinois Public Media interview, an article titled “Clubmobile Gal” by Illinois alum Maureen Holtz, and the novel Good Night, Irene by Mrs. Knappenberger’s co-clubmobiler’s son Luis Alberto Urrea.
