It was a
different time. I won’t compare my childhood WW II years to COVID-19 today, but
I do remember: shelter at home; shortages; united efforts; quarantine; racial discrimination;
uncertainty.
I remember
the darkness. My formative years from birth to six were in Des Moines. We lived
less than a mile from the “War Plant.” (Solar Aircraft was a
government-converted industry for wartime production.) During black-out drills
we were isolated in our homes in total darkness at night for fear of being
bombed. Bombing in the middle of
country? That did not happen, but we did
not know that then. In the middle of a
crisis, one does not know how things will turn out--when the war would end, or
how. Mother put a tiny night light in our bedroom doll buggy so my sister and I
wouldn’t be afraid of the dark.
Shortages. Each family or individual was issued coupons for
such limited supplies as butter, sugar and coffee. My Daddy ran a gas station.
It was not a profitable time to run a gas station; petroleum was needed for the
war effort. People at home had to limit
driving; they were issued gasoline coupons. Each night Daddy would bring them
home; Marianne and I pasted them in booklets for him to turn in.
I remember
the shortages and physical limitations, but I also remember being united under
the leadership of FDR, a trusted president. President Roosevelt collaborated
with allies and encouraged while he organized people at home.
Entering
kindergarten at age 5, I carried newspapers bundled together with string to
school. School children collected scrap metal, and tin foil. (Recycling decades
later would not seem strange.) We saved dimes in stamp books; $17.50 in dimes could
be exchanged for a $25.00 War Savings Bond.
People planted
“Victory gardens.” This eased the burden
of commercial farmers working to feed troops and civilians overseas. Fruits and
vegetables were grown in backyards and on school grounds, and parks. By 1944 an
estimated 20 million victory gardens produced 8 million tons of food. (I think now of support for local organic
farming and sustainable agriculture.)
Diseases did
not stop for the war. Before a vaccine
for whooping cough became widely available, when I was 3 and my sister 5, Marianne,
and I and our mother contracted whooping cough. We were quarantined inside our
house for 10 weeks. Mother almost
died. Daddy couldn’t come home. He did
have two sisters in Des Moines. The health department put quarantine signs outside
houses to prevent highly communicable diseases from spreading. Though very young, I remember sleeping with a
sheet over my crib with a humidifier providing steam for me to breathe. (Although
widely considered to have been eradicated, outbreaks of whooping cough have
returned in recent years due to not all people having their children vaccinated.)
But the war was
the constant focus. An uncle and my older cousins served in the military
overseas. We listened daily to the news
on our radio.
Yes, the
United States came together. But not everyone.
I remember mother saying how upset she was that during time of struggle
and sacrifice, there were people who made profits off the war. I learned early
that during a time of crisis some will always look out for their own gain and
gratification.
And there
was racial discrimination. We were at War with two enemies, I heard as the “Nazis”
and the “Japs.” One the U.S. described as Hitler’s German National Socialist
Party, with the swastika symbol. The
other the U.S. described and symbolized as a “slant-eyed” people. Japanese Americans were incarcerated in
concentration camps. German Americans, such as myself, were not.
I was in
first grade when the war ended. I
vividly remember VE Day and VJ day, WW II ending in Europe and Japan. We celebrated
downtown in Des Moines. (We knew little
of the devastation of our atomic bombs.) And I remember, too, listening to the
radio, and for the first time hearing news other than about the War. I recall
being surprised. All my formative years I had not experienced anything but war
news. As a child I was not shielded;
this was my reality, even though Mother kept the small light hidden in our doll
baby buggy. What had I learned? What
shapes our lives?
But, of
course, times were different then. It
may have been a different time; however . . .
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