Home Front # 2

On The Home Front #2

Some goods had a luxury tax tagged onto them. Leather, fur, nylon, cosmetics, jewelry and many other items considered luxury by the government were not only scarce but, with the added 10% tax, cost considerably more than their worth. Black Markets flourished. Anything could be bought for a price. I remember hearing about people who paid exorbitant prices for scarce items they wanted. I don’t know where the people who sold these items got them. No one asked.

As a teenager during the war, Dorothy missed the niceties young girl's desire. She hoarded her one tube of lipstick like it was gold. When she didn’t have nylon stockings, she smeared her lower legs with leg make-up and drew a seam up the back of her calf with an eye brow pencil. 
      

Dorothy graduated high school in 1944 but didn’t have a prom. Many schools discontinued the prom during the war years. There weren’t enough young men to escort the girls. A popular song during this time lamented the shortage of men. The lyrics went like this.

            “They’re either too young or too old.           

            They’re either too gray or too grassy green.

            The pickings are poor and the crop is lean.

            What’s good is in the army,

            What’s left will never harm me.”

            Almost every home hung a one foot square flag in the window. Most had blue stars emblazoned on a white background trimmed with red. Some had two, three or more stars; each represented a family member in the armed forces. Some families had all their sons in service. Occasionally a gold star took prominence in the center of the flag. It stood for a son who made the ultimate sacrifice. As the war continued on, more gold stars appeared. At times, a black wreath adorned the door of the grieving family.

            Dorothy wrote to a few service men, mostly with V-mail, a shortened letter on one page that went through mail censors before being photographed and transported as thumbnail-sized image in negative microfilm. Upon arrival to their destination, the negatives would be blown up to 60% their original size and printed. The 37 mail bags required to carry 150,000 one-page letters could be replaced by a single mail sack. The weight of that same amount of mail was reduced dramatically from 2,575 pounds to a mere 45. This saved considerable weight and bulk in a time in which both were hard to manage in a theater of the war.

            The post office encouraged V-mail to the boys overseas. Some of their letters back home arrived with cut out words, phrases or sometimes whole sentences, making it difficult to read. The censors monitored every piece of mail to make sure no information could be leaked to the enemy. Slogans abounded in newspapers and magazines reminding the public to watch what they said in case a spy might be listening. “Loose lips sink ships.” 

            One of Dorothy’s beaux sent a picture of himself in Navy uniform. I thought he was the most handsome guy I ever saw. I stole his picture and hid it under my pillow. I prayed for the safety of my secret sailor, Jimmy Mullholl.

            Every skirt or blouse I wore was either nine years out of date, a direct hand-me-down from my sister, or home made clothing sewn on Mama’s sewing machine. I often saw Mama hunched over the Singer, her fingers guiding the cloth, her foot pumping a rhythmic beat on the treadle. She bought remnants from the fabric stores on the lower east side of Manhattan. She once heard that Jewish merchants don’t like to lose the first customer of the day, so she made a point of going to their stores early on Sunday morning. After the store had been closed on Saturday for the Sabbath, the merchant, eager to make a sale on Sunday, became willing to lower the tagged price. Mama loved to haggle for a bargain.

            Mama bought my shoes a half size too big so “I could grow into them.” Wearing the same shoes every day eventually wore a hole in the bottom. If the cobbler had leather, the shoes could be resoled. Many times, Daddy cut pieces of cardboard to fit inside the shoes to keep my feet off the pavement. When the cardboard wore out, as it did very quickly, Daddy cut more, until we could have the shoes resoled.

....to be continued

On The "Home Front"

On the “Home Front”

by Mary Fahey

I don’t remember the bombing of Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into the Second World War. Since it happened in early December 1941, my thoughts, at age six, circled around the upcoming Christmas festivities and Santa’s visit. I didn’t take notice of something that happened so far away from our apartment in Brooklyn, New York.

  

Andrew & Anna Fahey, Mom & Dad 1940’s   

        

 I do remember the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. I picked up on the anxiety of the adults around me as they spoke in hushed tones. Christmas felt subdued that year as young men rushed to war. Nineteen- forty- two proved disastrous for our troops, fighting on two fronts and getting badly beaten. On the “Home Front,” we fought the war in our way. We saved everything. Scarcity and deprivation became the normal way of life. If anyone complained about the lowered standard of living, someone reminded him “Don’t you know there’s a war on?” It became the mantra of daily existence.

            Before the word “recycling” came into our vocabulary, we recycled daily and called it “making do with what we have.” We wound string, saved from wrapped packages, into a big ball. We saved the foil from Daddy’s cigarettes. I remember times when cigarette packs were unavailable and Daddy had to buy “Loosies.” I went to the store for him and bought two or three at a time.

The storekeeper kept the loose cigarettes in a bin much like those in which he kept penny candy. Daddy had to pace himself and not smoke them all in one day . . . there may be none tomorrow.

Mama saved any fat poured from the roasting pan of cooked meat and brought it to the butcher in exchange for ration coupons. Each family received a ration book monthly, used sparingly, toward the purchase of scarce items. Whatever the war effort needed, was rationed at home. They rationed rubber, metal, aluminum, and nylon, as well as food staples like flour, sugar, butter, dairy and meat. Each purchase required ration stamps. Mama used them wisely so they lasted the month.

            Mama saved bacon fat in a washed out Campbell’s’ Soup can to later use frying meat, potatoes, eggs, pancakes and anything else that needed frying. Food tasted better fried in bacon fat. We had oleo margarine to substitute for butter. It didn’t look anything like the margarine in today’s markets. It came in a plastic bag and appeared shiny white like Crisco.  An orange blob lay in the center. To get the desired yellow color of “pretend butter,” we broke the bubble and kneaded it into the white stuff with our fingers. It didn’t look very appetizing.

During this time, my sixteen-year-old sister Dorothy developed a craving for making fudge using lots of butter and sugar. Mama admonished her to stop making fudge because she ran out of ration coupons before the month ended.       One day, Mama took me to the playground and told Dorothy, “Don’t you make fudge while I’m gone.”     

            “I won’t,” Dorothy said but as soon as we were out of sight, she got the butter, sugar, Baker’s chocolate and saucepan out and made her fudge. She wrapped it in wax paper and hid it in the bottom of her dresser drawer. Then she washed, dried and put away everything she used in making her forbidden sweet.

            When we came home, Mama told Dorothy to help me get changed while Mama made dinner. As Dorothy took off my sweater, she said. “Did you have a nice time at the fudge?”

She meant to say “park” but her guilty conscience got the best of her and the slip of her tongue gave her away.

            “Did you make fudge?” Mama said, and went into a rant about the sugar and butter that Dorothy used. “Don’t you know there’s a war on?”

  

Big Sister Dorothy & me Easter 1942      

....to be continued