My mother was small (born the last part of December 1933) when Pearl Harbor happened on December 7, 1941, but she had clear memories of living through the war years later when she started blogging. I've put her recollections below. As she says, there are lots of movies about the war itself, but not very many about what it was like for civilians during the war.
Dee
On December 7, 1941, I was 7 years old. It was a Sunday but I don’t remember if we had been to church, tho’ we most often did go. For some reason, I doubt it; perhaps my parents had already heard the news on the radio. I truly don’t understand why this is so etched in my memory because I was too young to understand it. I found Don standing on our big front porch, looking up, watching airplanes overhead and listening to their drone. When I asked what he was doing, he answered by telling me that the “Japs” had bombed Pearl Harbor. Don would have been eleven years old and now when I think back, his understanding of the entire situation was remarkable.
Within a short time, Don knew how to identify all the airplanes we could spot. When we heard planes, we ran outside and observed them. He had pictures, I think from comic books or somewhere, and he drew dozens of air battles all over his notebooks and everywhere he found a clean sheet of paper. I don’t believe we were unusual because lots of other kids did the same thing or, at least, the boys did. I was not on their level at all, but the little tag along that trailed them everywhere. They seemed to know they were stuck with me and tolerated me right well.
left, Bobby, Elva, Wilma/Mamaw, Don
Back when Don started school, he had school for me, every afternoon when he came home and I pretty much went to first grade along with him. So, in 1941, it was not at all strange for him to demand that I learn all he learned about war. We learned about the military branches and sang their songs at the tops of our voices. Later, we had maps and traced battles, and were avid radio news listeners.
My husband told me that he grew up pretty much the same way. His Dad was older than mine but had also been in WW1. Tony liked to dig foxholes and he and his friends staged battles. One day, Tony’s dad told him that he and his little friends could dig a super fox- hole, giving them fairly exact size and depth. After several days of hard work, the foxhole became the pit for a new out-house, in the back yard.. Those “boys” laughed about that for years, no hard feelings at all. Their beautiful old home did not have indoor bathrooms until after the war.
At school, we were told to scout around for scrap metal, for war materials. We also saved the tinfoil from chewing gum. Adults did this too and sometimes when a train went by, we would see open train cars filled with scrap metal.
At the beginning of the war, everyone was getting geared up for the war effort. People worked together and it was at least a good feeling to feel we were helping a little.
History is both public and private. I have studied a lot about World War II, but I want to talk here about how that war affected my childhood, and of course it’s a very subjective story. When Pearl Harbor happened I was 7 years old.
After Pearl Harbor, many men enlisted. I remember very well my dad leaving the house one morning and my mother being weepy all day. I am guessing this was early 1942, maybe January. Like me, my mother was not a person who cried easily so this was disturbing. Finally, after I questioned her repeatedly, Mother said Daddy had gone to enlist in the Army. He had been a sergeant in the previous war, so he felt he might be needed.
When he returned that afternoon, he told us he had been turned down because of his age. He was almost 46 years old, plus he had three kids.. I don’t think he was at all happy about being rejected for service. He was probably in better physical condition than most younger men. I believe it was about then that he began to try to figure out how best to get his family safely through that awful war.
at left, the family about early 1940's, Elva, Wilma/Mamaw, Bobby, Papa, Don
I don’t have handy a timeline to consult in regard to battles or politics, nor do I see a need. There must be thousands of books about all that. No, I am just trying to remember the effects on our little family.
Dad decided that we would be safest if we lived on a farm. He grew up on a farm, and knew a lot about farming. He got a job as manager of a huge farm, under 1000 acres, in Moore, S.C. Moore is located between Roebuck, SC and Woodruff, SC. The nearest large city was Spartanburg. Moore had a general store, a tiny post office, a three room school, and a small Methodist church. A few years ago, we drove back through Moore so I could show my kids --- and the town had not changed. Bruce laughed and said he’d always thought I was exaggerating but I had proved my point.
Three men owned the farm and were Dad’s bosses. Their names were Sitton, Ligon, and Ligon. I believe the Ligon brothers owned most of it. I don’t remember their first names. They owned big cloth mills in that area of South Carolina and had government contracts to make cloth for military uniforms.. When they found out that Mother was such a good seamstress, they sent bolts of flawed cloth to us. This cloth would have probably been destroyed, as it would have maybe a grease streak all through the bolt or a dye off color etc. Mother and Dad would open the bolt and cut out the bad places, on our big dining room table. Mother was less than 5ft tall and those bolts were big and heavy.
Mother made everything from those bolts of fabric - mostly khaki cloth, shirts, blouses, dresses etc. On my dresses, she was so clever, using lace, rickrack, etc. to make the cloth look a little more feminine. Pants were another problem, just too difficult for her to sew. They measured out cloth and sent sizes to Dad’s sister, in Smyrna, my Aunt Georgia, and she made pants. My dad was a really big man, 6’4, and he loved having pants that actually fit for a change. He never had an ounce of fat on him. The cloth from the Navy uniforms was a welcome relief from all the khaki but we did not receive as much of it.
The farm meant we lived in a pretty white frame house, with grass in the yard, and I think it was on a dirt road. There was a fence out back and sometimes an animal was brought in to eat the grass.
We had a huge barn with a fenced in lot. In fact, almost all the farm was fenced for the animals. We had three cows, two horses, and several mules. Sometimes we had little calves - I loved them. Daddy, Bobby, and Don each had a cow to milk. Don pretty much made a pet of any animal he dealt with.
We had several cats but they were not allowed in the house. Their job was to keep the barn free of rats. One day, Mother noticed that Don’s cow had stopped giving as much milk as previously. Dad investigated, and found cats with milk all over their faces where Don squirted milk to them. They loved that. Don was scolded but my parents were amused.
We were very much aware of the war and kept up with the news as well as possible. I am thinking the postman must have brought our newspaper. Rationing was with us but living on a farm was surely a plus. The biggest headache that I remember was the lack of tires. Rubber was definitely needed for the war effort so any new tires were retreads, and they were patched up sad looking items. Tire blowouts were common and I hated the feeling.
We had ration books for lots of things but Mother dealt with them. I just remember they were always in her purse, carefully guarded. Some rationed items were sugar, coffee, meat, tea, chocolate, gasoline, leather shoes, and lots more. Silk was needed for parachutes, and nice stockings were mostly not available. I remember ladies mending the ones they had. Ladies always wore stockings back then.
Some goods and foods were very scarce but I don’t know if that was because they were not grown or produced in this country, or if they were needed for our military. My cute Aunt Hazel absolutely adored pineapple and was thrilled when she could find a can of it. I don’t remember ever hearing anyone at all complain about the lack of anything. People shared ways to cope with shortages. Women everywhere shared recipes that didn’t require rationed items. Mother used to have lots of little recipe booklets that she used but she could have written them. I may still have them somewhere.
When we first moved to the farm, we had no electricity, running water, and certainly not central heat. When the house was built, there was a nice room for a bathroom but the fixtures were not plumbed. We had a nice kitchen sink but no water. We did have a nice outhouse, which was a big novelty. At night, 2 or 3 kerosene lamps were placed on our dining room table so we could eat and do homework, read, sew etc. The room next to the kitchen was heated with a fireplace and surely got some heat from the big wood stove we had to use for cooking. Mother’s beautiful gas range sat in a corner, never used.
Going to the outhouse at night was scary. Mother and I most often used slop jars with lids, in the bathroom for privacy. Also, there was a vanity with a place for a pan of water and a mirror so we could wash up.
There was a deep well, maybe 50-60 feet from the back door so we could turn the big wheel and draw water. The water was very cold and delicious. We had to carry buckets of water from the well to the kitchen, for all our water needs, cooking, dishwashing, people washing, clothes washing, etc. A bucket of water is heavy and I was never able to carry a full bucket, which meant lots of trips. Finally, Dad was able to buy enough pipes to pipe water to the kitchen sink where we could raise the pump handle up and down to get running water into the kitchen. We still had to heat the water on the wood stove.
When our house was built, the war had started. So all the materials needed for plumbing and wiring were just not available. We did get on a long waiting list and finally got enough wire for electricity. What a joy to be able to listen to the radio, which I did constantly.
I loved the popular songs, and learned all the lyrics. Some songs we all loved were: I’ll Be Seeing You, I’ll Get By, There’ll Be Bluebirds Over The White Cliffs Of Dover, My Buddy, Just A Prayer Away, When Day Is Done, Deep Purple, and on and on - plus some from the first world war. Dad’s favorite, or one of them, was Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree (with anyone else but me). Behind our barn was a huge pasture that had a spring and shallow creek, kind of at the bottom of a V, where the animals came for water. The acoustics in that hollow were wonderful. My favorite thing was to slip down there and sing all the songs I’d learned, really belt them out thinking no one could hear me. The cows and dogs often followed me so guess they enjoyed the concerts!
Our old upright piano always moved with us and gave so much pleasure and welcome respite. .Mother played, and I still have her music books. She may not have been the greatest piano player in the world but I thought she was. Unlike me, she could not play by ear, so we had to stick to the notes. She played light classics and the beautiful old hymns and often sang them along with us. She had studied voice in college, although her major was Home Economics. People dealt with the worry and fear of war in their own way. Mother’s way was prayer and she often sang it. She was the hardest working woman I ever saw up close and sometimes I could tell when she was really worried by what she was singing. God Will Take Care of You was what she sang when she was most upset. She sang that when Daddy went to enlist and when Bobby left for the Navy at 17 yrs old.
My maternal grandmother, Granny Butler, came to visit and usually stayed a long time. I loved having her. She could be stern but was often funny and she and Daddy liked each other. She would say, “ Elva, we are going to play the piano.” That meant I was to stand by her and sing with her and of course, I did. She liked The Old Rugged Cross and In The Garden. Her sister, my Great Aunt Willie, was the pianist at the First Baptist Church, in Acworth, Ga., for years, and she played for me when I visited there from college. If I was in town visiting they expected me to sing for them and I loved it. Pity they didn’t hear me sing in the cow pasture where I did some of my best singing!!! I was reminded of my pasture singing years later, when I sometimes sang for the troops, at USO Shows , during the Korean War. I used a mike if we were outside, of course.
Left, Elva and Don as kids. Right, towards the end of the war, from left: Don, Elva, Papa, Bobby.
#teachinghistorywithmovies, #learningthroughmovies, #lessonsonfilm
Recent Comments