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Private Willie Gillis: Rockwell's American GI
Distant from the activities of the war raging in Europe, Norman Rockwell was challenged to record his interpretation of the effects of World War II on servicemen, and on Americans at home.
His unassuming fictional private named Willie Gillis told the story of one man's army in a series of popular Saturday Evening Post covers depicting him engaged in mundane tasks like receiving a care package from home, peeling potatoes, reading the hometown news. Rockwell met his Willie Gillis model, Robert Otis "Bob" Buck, at an Arlington, Vermont square dance. Then fifteen years of age, Buck was exempt from the draft, but he eventually began his service in 1943 as a naval aviator in the South Seas. The name Willis Gillis was coined by Rockwell's wife, Mary Barstow Rockwell, an avid reader who drew inspiration from the story of Wee Gillis, a 1938 book about an orphan boy by Munro Leaf. The first Willie Gillis cover appeared on October 4, 1941, and the last after the war when this then familiar character enrolled in college on the GI Bill. Distributed widely, Willie Gillis enlargements were distributed by the USO, for posting in USO clubs at home and abroad, and railway stations and bus terminals. |