Wed, Jul 15, 1942: haul water

"Uncle Orrin is going to thresh to-morrow.  Barbara is going to haul water for him."

--Letter from my grandmother, Bloomington, Kans., to my father, Salina, Kans., July 15, 1942.

Farmers shared labor by forming threshing crews that went from farm to farm to thresh wheat (i.e., pitching the stalks of wheat into a machine that separated the grain from the rest of the plant).  My aunt Barbara was fourteen years and taking on the role often assigned to children when threshing parties came through: hauling water.  My Dad wrote the following about threshing when he was younger. “Threshing wheat was an annual task which I remember vividly for the first time in the torrid summer of 1936.  Bill Hill owned the community's threshing machine, and George Tribble the steam engine which towed the thresher between farms at about two miles an hour.  Farmers traded labor with one another, and the threshing crew of two dozen men had a welcome morning off if the move were distant.  Ordinarily farm life was isolated and solitary.  Threshing wheat was a very exciting event because it brought a multitude of neighbors and workers to our place for a day or two.... For making the rounds every half hour on my horse Old Tony, I made fifty cents, and had a few dollars of my own at the end of the season.”  Farmers began acquiring combines in the 1940s, which combined harvesting and threshing.  This new technology eliminated the shared labor of threshing crews.

(source: Sidney DeVere Brown, Kansas Farmboy: A Memoir of Boyhood and Youth [2008])

Wed, Jul 15, 1942: married

“Forgot to tell you Glennagene (Berger) was married in May.  Her husband is in the army so she is staying at her folks.”

--Letter from my grandmother, Bloomington, Kans., to my father, Salina, Kans., Wednesday, July 15, 1942.

Glennagene’s wedding took place during a surge in marriages that happened as the U.S. went to war.  We can imagine many reasons for this upsurge: economic optimism as government spending on the war effort practically eliminated unemployment and a desire to enjoy the present given an uncertain future.  One other reason may have been to avoid conscription or combat.  Americans expected, rightly to some extent, that draft boards would be less likely to draft married men than single men.  Marriage rates shot up (by 50% in one survey) when Germany invaded France and talk of conscription began in the spring of 1940.  They shot up again after Pearl Harbor.  Similarly births spiked nine months after Germany invaded France and again nine months after Pearl Harbor.  Although most of these marriages lasted, the haste to marry also led to a doubling in the divorce rate from 1940 to 1946.  (Berger was my grandmother’s maiden name; however, I am not sure who Glennagene was.) 

           (Sources: William L. O’Neill, A Democracy at War: America’s Fight at Home and Abroad in World War II [New York: The Free Press, 1993], 86;  John W. Jeffries, Wartime America: The World War II Home Front [Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996], 87-88).

Wed, Jul 15, 1942: get into everything

“Woodrow and one of his brother-in-laws came out Sun. eve.  He said Maryjane has decided to come back so they are coming after the children next Sunday.  It is lots of work taking care of them because they get into everything they come to.”
--Letter from my grandmother, Bloomington, Kans., to my father, Salina, Kans., July 15, 1942. Woodrow was my grandmother’s brother.  His young children, Philip, age 4, and Carol, 2½ , had been staying with my grandparents while Woodrow and his wife, Maryjane, were separated. 

Thu, May 14, 1942: patriotic pageant.

“The Augusta Commencement will be given Fri. eve May 22nd.  A patriotic pageant written by H. H. Robinson will be presented at that time.  However this next Sun. evening May 17th is Baccalaureate Sermon.  Suppose we will go as Barbara plays in the band.”

-- Letter from my grandmother, Bloomington, Kans., to my father, Southwestern College, Winfield, Kans., Thursday, May 14, 1942.  Robinson was the Augusta High School principal.  His patriotic pageant was just one example of the ways that schools promoted support for the war and contributed to war efforts.  Others were organizing bond drives, collecting scrap for recycling, and distributing ration books.  

           (In May 1942, my Dad was finishing up his freshman year at college.  He likely spent most of that summer on the farm with his parents; so there aren’t many letters to quote from until the fall when he returned to school).   

            (source: "Education," in William H. Young and Nancy K. Young, World War II and the Postwar Years in America: A Historical and Cultural Encyclopedia,  Vol. 1. [Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2010], 293-298) 

Thu, May 14, 1942: sang her solo

"Well Aunt Ina sang her solo Sunday and the miracle is we all seemed to survive afterwards. It wasn't so bad but it wasn't so good.”

-- Letter from my grandmother, Bloomington, Kans., to my father, Winfield, Kans., May 14, 1942.  Ina, my father's aunt, lived on a neighboring farm.  My father’s family attended the Bloomington Methodist Episcopal Church, where Aunt Ina sang her solo that Sunday.

Thu, May 7, 1942: a solo

“Dorothea is getting out of singing with Ina Sun, but Mrs. Haring said Ina asked if she (Mrs. H.) would accompany her (Ina) on a solo.  So don't suppose we can talk her out of it.”

-- Letter from my grandmother, Bloomington, Kans., to my father, Winfield, Kans., Thursday, May 7, 1942.  Ina, my father's aunt, lived on a neighboring farm.  My father's family attended the Bloomington Methodist Episcopal Church, a mile and a quarter from their house, where Ina was scheduled to sing her solo. 

Thu, May 7, 1942: Ration Book

“I am sending your Sugar War Ration Book which I suppose you are to give to Mrs. Sellars until school is out and we must be sure to get it to bring home then so be sure and take good care of it.

“To-morrow is the All School Picnic at Augusta and then the band is giving their Victory Program at night.  We are going in if nothing happens.  The admission is a 25¢ War stamp or more and you get to keep the stamps.  The band is divided into two groups to see who can sell the most stamps & bonds.  So Barbara asked Aunt Stella to buy stamps and Uncle Frank bought a $1000 bond so she almost fell over she was so tickled but this morning she found out that Dick Alley had seen Ed Varner and he (Ed) got a $1200 bond from Dick and of course Dick is on the other side from Barbara so don't know which side will win.”

-- Letter from my grandmother, Bloomington, Kans., to my father, Southwestern College, Winfield, Kans., Thursday, May 7, 1942.  Throughout his college years, my father lived at Mrs. Sellars’s boarding house.  Since she cooked his meals, he apparently gave his ration book to her.  His uncle Frank was wealthy from oil revenue.

            Civilians in the United States suffered nothing like the civilians in other combatant countries in World War II.  Yet they were called upon to make sacrifices, by buying war bonds and by restricting consumption.  And, of course, many made the enormous sacrifice of losing a loved one in combat.  Unlike the current Afghanistan War and Iraq War, all Americans were continually made aware through their daily lives that the country was at war.  The Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply had been created in April 1941, before the war, and would be replaced by the more powerful Office of Price Administration (OPA) in August 1942.  After Pearl Harbor, the agency implemented a series of rationing programs on items such as gasoline, tires, canned food, meat, butter, sugar, coffee, and shoes.  Consumers had to master the use of complex ration books containing coupons with expiration dates, in order to buy their allotted share of restricted products.  Tires were the first products to be rationed, in January 1942, since Japan controlled Southeast Asian sources of rubber.  The government also put in gasoline rationing and a ban on pleasure driving, again to conserve tire rubber, in December 1942.  The OPA took coupons away from some drivers, found to be driving for pleasure, and not for an acceptable reason, such as work, health, religious services, buying necessities, or handling emergencies.  The difficult-to-police ban on pleasure driving was lifted in September 1943, although tire and gas rationing continued.
              Food rationing affected farmers, such as my grandparents, less than it did many others.  Their farm was self-sufficient in most food items, except sugar and tea.  Rationing likely affected their son away at college more.  Sugar was the first food item to be rationed, starting in April 1942.  It was scarce, in part, because German submarines made shipping from sugar plantations in Cuba and Central America difficult, and, in part, because the U.S. was shipping food to allies in Europe.  The sugar allowance was initially 8 ounces per person per week.  In March 1943, butter and meat rationing began.  Meat consumption (excluding chicken and fish) was limited to 4 ounces per person per day.  People in the military, however, received ample supplies of meat, over half a pound a day in the army, and about a pound a day in the navy.  Victory gardens became a popular way to compensate for food shortages.  By one account, they provided 40% of vegetable production during the war years.  Rationing restrictions began to ease by the summer of 1944, but did not fully end until 1946.  (Sources: "Rationing." World War II and the Postwar Years in America: A Historical and Cultural Encyclopedia. William H. Young and Nancy K. Young. Vol. 2. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2010. 574-581. Web. 13 Apr. 2012; Harvey A. Levenstein, Paradox of Plenty: A Social History of Eating in Modern America (University of California Press, 2003), p. 85; Susan B. Carter, et al., eds., Historical Statistics of the United States: Earliest Times to Present (Cambridge: Cambridge U Press, 2006)

Wed, Apr 29, 1942: Victory Concert

“The band is having a Victory Concert a week from Friday.  We (the band members) get out Friday afternoon to sell tickets.  To get a ticket one has to buy a War Savings Stamp (any kind, 10¢, 25¢, 50¢, etc.) or a bond.  The money is turned over to the United States.  The band gets nothing but experience.”

-- Letter from my aunt, age 14,  Bloomington, Kans., to my father, 17, Southwestern College, Winfield, Kans., Wednesday, April 29, 1942. 

            My aunt's activities that Friday were part of the second of eight war bond drives during World War II. This one lasted from April 12 to May 1, 1942, and raised $18 billion.  Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., wanted to sell bond not just to the wealthy and large institutions, but to average Americans, including schoolchildren like my aunt, in part to raise money, but more importantly to sell the war and to make Americans "war-minded."   Judging from the tone of her letter, my aunt may not have been entirely sold on the idea. 

The federal government spent only $8.9 billion in 1939 (this itself was a large increase over pre-New Deal spending); but the government laid out an average of $75 billion annually during World War II.  Higher taxes, bonds, and the printing of money paid these increased expenses.  The Treasury Department started the Series E bonds for average citizens, in the spring of 1941.  It targeted two other series, F and G, at insurance companies, and corporations.  The government termed all three bonds defense bonds until Pearl Harbor, at which point they became known as war bonds.  In all, Series E (the ones bought by the general public) accounted for $33.7 billion (about 17%) of the $186 billion of bonds sold during the war.

Bond drives drew heavily on popular culture to sell bonds and the war itself to the broad public.  Advertisers organized under the War Advertising Council (the forerunner of today’s Ad Council), professional athletes, the movie industry, songwriters and musicians, commercial illustrators, and individual celebrities, such as Lucille Ball, James Cagney, Fred Astaire, Humphrey Bogart, Bing Crosby, and Bob Hope, were all involved in the effort to get Americans to buy bonds.

Schoolchildren, like my aunt, were encouraged to participate by buying defense savings stamps, which came in 10¢, 25¢, 50¢, $1 and $5 denominations.  Once a child had $18.75 in stamps pasted into their book, they could trade that in for a bond worth $25 at maturity.  The Treasury Department's "Schools at War" program encouraged these purchases by providing schools with materials containing "stories, plays, songs, and recitations that linked the buying of savings bonds and stamps to the value of democracy, citizenship, and patriotism."

Sources: William L. O’Neill, A Democracy at War: America’s Fight at Home and Abroad in World War II (New York: The Free Press, 1993), 138; John W. Jeffries, Wartime America: The World War II Home Front (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996), 31-36; "War Bonds," in William H. Young and Nancy K. Young, eds., World War II and the Postwar Years in America: A Historical and Cultural Encyclopedia, (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2010), 2:751-759.

Tue, Apr 14, 1942: got to read

"Sunday I got to read about 113 pages of 'Pride and Predjudice.' Don't know when I'll get to read the rest of it.  It is real interesting and quite a bit different from present day novels."

-- Letter from my grandmother, Bloomington, Kans., to my father, Southwestern College, Winfield, Kans., Tuesday, April 14, 1942.  My grandmother was a schoolteacher, homemaker and farmer (although I imagine she referred to herself as a farmer's wife).  She obviously had very little time for recreational reading.  Pride and Prejudice had been made into a movie in 1940 starring Greer Garson, Laurence Olivier, and Edward Ashley, with a screenplay by Aldous Huxley and Jane Murfin. (source: imdb.com)

Fri, Apr 10, 1942: little kittens

“Stanley has been sick and I had to bring our two new little kittens up to the house for him to see.  Stanley's kitten is yellow, black and white and he named it Fuzzy.  Mine is all white.  I can't think of a good name for it (and don't suggest McArthur).”

-- Postcard from my aunt, Barbara Brown, age 14, on the farm at Bloomington, Kans., to my father, 17, a freshman at Southwestern College, Winfield, Kans.  Their little brother Stanley was 8.

         General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964), was Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area in World War II.  He and his forces had just fled the Philippines for Australia in March, and given his famous “I shall return” speech.

         Cats had important work to do on the farm, catching mice.  But, as this letter makes clear, they were also loved as pets.  As they do on many farms today, cats lived outside in the barn and got much of their food on their own.  My grandparents did, however, give them some of the milk from the cows.  I remember stories of (and perhaps saw) cats waiting around while my grandfather milked the cows, knowing he would occasionally squirt some milk in their direction so they could catch the stream in midair.

          Source: “Douglas MacArthur” on Wikipedia.org.