Encoded for the Experiencing War web site for the Veterans History Project.
The recording of the interview with Jeanne Bellman was digitized.
This transcription was encoded with minimal changes to the original text in an effort to preserve original content and idiosyncrasies of the person interviewed. Period language and terminology are also retained. Encoding is literal with regard to the transcriptionist's capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. Spelling errors are indicated with [sic]; however, recurring errors in spelling within a single document have been marked the first time and not subsequently.
Just for the record, the date of this tape is December 17, 2001. The place of the interview is Claremont, California. And I'm Justin Shapiro of Claremont Colleges interviewing Jeanne Bellman, resident of Claremont. What was your maiden name?
Lisker, L-i-s-k-e-r.
What's your current age?
75.
Wow. Where were you born and raised?
Chicago, Illinois.
And your family background?
Well, my father and mother both came over from Europe, Ukraine, to be exact, he in 1911, she in 1913, and they're both deceased now.
What is your educational background?
I have a Bachelor of Arts degree from Roosevelt University in Chicago. I also attended what then was Herzl Junior College and the University of Chicago.
How did you like the University of Chicago?
I loved it. I couldn't afford to stay there, though. We were __ Jewish, and --
It's a fantastic school.
-- I had to work my way through, and it was too hard to go to school there and work at the same time.
I actually was able to go to the -- they have, they call them the laboratory schools?
Yes. You went to school there?
When I was growing up, I went there part of the time. Yes.
Well, just for your information, I interviewed the parent of a little girl who was in that school, because I was taking an Ed. course there, and that was one of the requirements --
Yeah. I really -- I loved --
-- to talk to the parent -- well, it turned out the parent, too, had gone to the lab school. I have a grandson going to the lab school at University of Colorado at Greeley, where our son teaches.
Wow. I loved it. I thought it was a great school.
Oh, well you appreciated it. It's good. It's quite different from the public school.
Oh, yeah. It was a wonderful place to --
Did you go to a private high school, too?
Yeah. I went to the Latin school. It's one of the older --
There's a Latin school in Chicago?
Yeah.
I never knew that. Where?
It's downtown on North and Clark.
For heaven's sake. No. I never knew there was a Latin school.
It's actually been around since, I think, 1888.
Well, it shows you. I didn't hear of it probably because I grew up in an immigrant neighborhood where, who dreams about about things like that, you know. Anyway, go ahead. I'm not interviewing you. You're interviewing me.
Well, they want me to ask you what your current occupation is.
Housewife. Homemaker. That sounds better.
Homemaker. Okay. And your current address?
1012 Lake Forest Drive, Claremont.
At the time of the war, were you in a relationship, married, or single?
No. I was single.
You were single.
Yeah.
What was your spouse's war-time occupation?
I think he was in school most of the time. He was not in the service. He was a student.
Did you have children at any time during the war?
No. No.
This is regarding your war-time work.
Okay.
Where did you live and work during the war?
I was in Chicago, and I went to school and also worked part-time. The name of the company was Ohmite Manufacturing Company, O-h-m-i-t-e, and they made resistors and rheostats for the war effort.
Wow. What was that like?
Well, I was working in the office, and you know, with the kinds of thing that people who are working their way through school get to do, you know. Find things that people lost, files, you know, they haven't got time to look for. So that's the sort of thing I did.
What was your main war-time activity?
Student.
And you were at several different colleges during the period?
Well, okay. I graduated from high school in 1943, after which I immediately entered Herzl Junior College and went to school there for two years until I got my A.A., and worked part-time all that time, full-time summers and Christmas and part-time during school. Then I took a year off, which would be from '45 to '46, to earn money so I could go to the University of Chicago. Now we're getting out of the war period, so --
Well obviously, you were employed outside the home. And the particular industry -- if you could describe exactly what the company that you worked for did.
Well, as I say, they manufactured resistors and rheostats for electrical equipment.
Which was used for planes in the war?
I really don't know. I was like 17 to 19 years old at the time, and I worked in the office. If I had been on the line, you know, the factory line, I probably would know a lot more about it, but they were just words to me at that time.
What was your title there?
Look-up girl.
And your specialty at work was doing filing and --
Yeah. That sort of thing. Then I learned shorthand and typing, so I then did secretarial work after that to finish my school career.
What did you like and dislike about your work?
Well, I liked the people I worked with. The work itself was not very demanding, which was good since I was a student. But people were very nice. Most of them -- what can I say? Not professionals. I'd working class, lower middle class people. But very patriotic, shall I say? We really were into more work to help the war effort.
What special rules or conventions did you follow working for this company?
No particular ones. No particular -- you know, I mean it was whatever the hours were, and do our job, and because it was unionized, we had, you know, breaks in between, between entry in the morning and lunch, let's say, another break in the afternoon. But other than that, there were no special rules other than those called for by the work itself.
With whom did you work at this plant? Predominantly women?
Mostly women in the office, although I have to say the supervisors were men.
What about the general employees that were working on manufacturing?
I don't know. I didn't have anything to do with the people who were in the factory part. My guess would be a high percentage of women, because there just weren't that many men during the war. And the work was not terribly demanding physically, you know. It was this kind of thing. And women are pretty good at that. So that's my guess.
I wouldn't have imagined that you were unionized, but were a lot of your co-workers unionized?
Well, the plant was, so I think that many of us belonged to the union. It was not a requirement. It was not a closed shop.
What sort of friendships did you develop?
Well, there were at least two other young women who were working their way through school. One went to Wheaton College. And I can't think of where the other one -- anyway, we had something in common because we worked part-time. Oh, one was also in high school, and she became a good friend of mine afterward. And we kind of felt that -- we were in contact after we both quit working and were in college ourselves. That was pretty much it.
Were there a lot of young people working then?
Not too many. There were those few of us who were working part-time, and most of the other people were, I'd say, maybe women who had husbands in service or boyfriends in service, and they were mostly there holding the fort down, you know. It was that sort of thing. It was not the kind of job or the kind of place where you'd say it was a career. And besides that, most women at that time didn't look at their jobs as career.
Was it a sort of company where the product would only really be in demand under a war-like condition?
Well, no. What I would say, that it would have been in a greater demand because of the greater emphasis on the machinery of war. In fact, I don't even know if they're using that, you know, with all the electronic conversion that we've done since then. I don't know if those things are even in use any more.
Did you have any families or friends in service in the war?
Yes, I had some friends. I lost two of them. And also some cousins who were in service. But we were fortunate. We didn't lose anybody in the family during the war.
Where were most of them stationed?
Well, one never went overseas, and he was mostly in Texas, and the other one was in the Battle of the Bulge and came out of that okay.
Your two friends that didn't make it -- where were they stationed?
You know, one died before he ever got to be overseas. He was in the Navy B12 program, and at age 19 he had a brain --
A brain tumor?
Not a tumor. I can't remember what we used to call it. I imagine one would say it was an aneurysm that had burst. And he died. And the other one was overseas in Germany and got killed. At least that's where he got -- you know, now a lot of things are coming out about that war, from the fire accidents, all sorts of things that happened to guys who lost their lives not necessarily fighting. Yeah. Well, you're seeing that now. You're hearing about it now. Let's put it that way.
I think it's an interesting thing to be conducting these interviews now in light of what's been going on in the U.S. since September 11th and thinking about the war period.
This is the fourth time for people like us. And I remember when I was in school we would celebrate, actually celebrate Armistice Day for World War I, and a have a program every year November 11 in the elementary school, and so on. And then here comes World War II, followed by the Korean conflict, followed by Viet Nam. So, you know, there's a lot of experience.
How would you compare the sense of patriotism in the U.S. now compared to the way it during the World War II?
I'm not really qualified. I can only tell you that we felt patriotic at that time. It's because, you know, England had already been in war for two years before we entered.And I remember the very day that Germany invaded Poland, and the very next day -- I think it was Labor Day weekend in our country -- France and England both declared war. And it was two yearsthat we were aware of the war in Europe and what was happening with Germany. And if you can believe it, especially what was happening over England, we really had fears that, if Germany beat England, that they would come over and bomb the east coast here. See, that's a fear I think wehave not had since then.
Do you think September 11th was really the first indication the U.S. has had that its enemies can attack its home soil?
Yeah. Yeah. Although I should point out that after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, there was very much fear here. But -- I wasn't here, but my brother had already moved out to southern California in 1943, so we heard about, you know, the anti-aircraft guns on top of the hills, the Hollywood Hills, and that sort of thing, that I think they felt that part of it much more here. In Chicago, in the midwest, where it's not only the oceans but all that land between the midwest and the oceans, we felt safer from that point of view.
Do you remember what you were doing and what you were thinking when news of Pearl Harbor --
Yes, I do, as a matter of fact. It was a Sunday morning, and we were -- my parents and I were having breakfast, and I had the radio on. And as it happened, I was listening to a broadcast from England, and the program -- Harold Lasky was on the program. And they suddenly broke in to say that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. So I do remember that. I remember the day that President Roosevelt died, for example. I remember I got on a bus that day, and the bus driver said to me, "Have you heard the news." I was on my way to school. And I said no. He said, "President Roosevelt died." Well, I tell you, that was a shock.
We can only imagine because it's --
You can't imagine. Twelve years. I mean I was young, like -- let's see. This was 1945 when he died, so I was 19 years old. Okay. For most of that time, he had been president. We couldn't picture ourselves without him as president. Of course we found that we had other people that took over, but it was quite a shock. You're too young to even remember whenKennedy died, but I can remember our children were in elementary school when Kennedy died, andthe shock on their little faces. The school let all the children come home that day in 1963. Soit is quite a shock in every generation to have the president assassinated.
Our parents have told me just how devastating that was, and my dad compared it to September 11th, the way he was just glued to the television and radio.
That's right. For four days. I remember that, and I'm sure our sons remember it, too.
I just wanted to ask you some general questions about war time. How did you feel about the war?
How did I feel about it? Well, patriotic. Something that had to be done because of what was happening in Europe. There was no question in our minds but we had to do this. And we were behind our soldiers and sailors and airmen overseas a hundred per cent. Anything we could do, we did.
What were your friends or family, friends' and family's feelings about the war?
Same.
Same?
Yeah. There was no question. Maybe being Jewish had something to do with it, because we all knew who our enemies were in Germany, so there was just no question.
Speaking of which, I mean it's come out over the last four or five decades, really what went on in Germany with the treatment of Jews, but at the time how widely publicized was it?
It wasn't very widely publicized, but it was known. But the people at the top, the leadership knew, and a lot of the Jews knew, because, you know -- at all levels, because the Joint Distribution Committee and all the top Jewish organizations were trying to get help for those people and were trying to -- trying to get the government to let them to come into this country. And it was very difficult for that to happen because -- especially in the midwest, where people just didn't understand. I don't know if your father told you this or whether he knew about it, but during the war there were some very conservative Congressmen and Senators from the midwest who made sure that there was no action taken that might bring us into the war. And that's because of our experience in World War I. I mean we were going to end all wars, so we got all ready, and we settled the war over there as we beat the Axis powers, or whatever theywere called in World War I. And then the same thing happened in Europe all over again. So Ican understand some people not being anxious to get into the European war again. Of course, Jews had a special reason to get in, because of all the people that were being murdered, literally, by the Aryan groups. So it was very hard for people at the top, knowing what was happening and knowing at the same time they couldn't get the Congress to do more about it.
What do you think about the theories now that Churchill knew about the Japanese planned attack on Pearl Harbor but intentionally didn't advise Roosevelt because he couldn't America to get involved?
I am not in a position to say. I don't know. I can tell you that I read a book, the title of which and the author of which really escapes me now, but his point was that Roosevelt himself behaved in such a way as to almost force the Japanese to attack us, because hewould not allow them to get the oil that they needed for their society, and it almost forced them to attack us so that they could get their hands on this. And there's that theory that -- there's some people who believe he did that in order to get us involved in the war, that was the only way that we'd get over and help Europe, Britain, and France, especially Britain, because they really were heroic. You probably heard about that. They were unbelievable during that war. Those people really suffered. I need to tell you my husband and I made a trip to England in 1975, and many of the people that we met there remembered the war and were really affected by it and remembered it. You know, 30 years later, and they were still talking about that war.
Yeah. Especially given England's proximity to Germany.
To Germany. That's right. And they were bombed in London particularly. Well, we were in Portsmouth, and Portsmouth, of course, was the port from which the battleships sailed, so those people had a lot of navy veterans living in Portsmouth at the time. So the war so permeated Portsmouth at that time.
Wow. Back on these questions.
Go ahead.
Did you live with your family and friends or co-workers?
I lived with my family.
Family. In what ways did the war change your activities or habits?
I can't say that it did. In one way, at least, it was -- the war afforded me the opportunity to work my way through college, because up until that time part-time work was not really available. You either had a full-time job or you didn't work. And women especially,you know -- you worked until you got married, and after that you expected not to work any more.However, things got -- so many women went into war work, and some went into the service even. You know, that's when they created the groups for women during World War II, the WAC's and the WAVE's, and the WASP's. So many of them went into the service, and this created a shortage of sales people, say, in the department stores, of clerical help in offices. The government, Iunderstand -- I have a friend who was originally from Canada who told me that they actually recruited in Canada young women to come down and work in Washington for the government. So therewas abig shortage, and that created an opportunity for me to be able to go to school and work part-time.
Another question would be, being in Chicago and being in, I guess, Chicago in the 1940's being such a primarily manufacturing-based city, with all these men abroad fighting the war, we've talked a lot about Rosy the Riveter. Did you see a lot of women that were working on the assembly lines, building these planes?
Yes, there were quite a few. As a matter of fact, my own aunt did that, to theshock of the whole family, because her son was in service, and she wanted to do something. And so -- I don't know. She was 45, 50 years old. She got herself a job in a factory and worked.
Wow. Were you or others in your community treated differently because of your gender, ethnicity, race, or other factors?
No. I would not say that.
What were some of the first changes in your life after the war started?
Well, the things that happened were things that haven't happened since then, but they were sort of first-time things for me. For example, you couldn't get a new car after 1941. There were a few '42 models made, but after that they went completely into war work, tanks, whatever, and there were no new cars to be had until 1946, I believe it was. So the result of that was you patched and repatched your tires. You you know, you couldn't buy tires either. And I remember one time we were coming back from a resort in the country in the summertime, andI had arrived with somebody on a Sunday night. He had big car. Six of us coming home, becauseyou tried to take turns using your car so you could save your gas and your tires. Okay. So here's this guy driving. I am not exaggerating. It was 60 miles to this town. We had four flat tires between when we started and getting back to Chicago.
Because they just weren't --
Well, you wouldn't buy a new tire, so how many patches can a tire take? You know. At that time you had those inner tubes, you know. They weren't solid like they are now. Just personal experiences like that.
Did you have any additional responsibilities after the war started?
No. I can't say that. We all wrote letters, you know. One thing that happened was that my brother and my sister-in-law and their baby, who was born in 1941, moved into our house from their apartment, because he needed to get into war work, and his salary was not great enough for them to maintain their own apartment any more. So they moved in and lived with usfor the duration.
Were there any social activities you were involved in at work or with your co-workers?
Just the usual, you know, holiday parties and things like that There wasn't much dating, boy-girl dating, unless it was with soldiers, because most of the boys were gone. You know. There was a lot of going out with your girl friends during war.
How did you entertain yourself during the war?
Oh, the way I generally did. We went to movies a lot, ate downtown. You know, a lot of movie theaters downtown in those years.
I'm sure a lot of them probably still exist.
Chicago, Oriental, United Artists were three of the big one.
The buildings are still around.
The buildings are.
The Oriental is still --
There were more department stores than there are now. Because I took a look down there the last time we were there. It's different. State Street is different. Is it stilla mall?
Yeah.
See, you had traffic on State Street in those years.
Actually, you know, I want to say they started allowing traffic aside from buses and cabs to go down State Street.
There are now?
Yeah. But a lot of the older department stores like Carson Pirie Scott and Marshall Field's are all still around.
They're still there, but The Fair, where I had a part-time job, which was located on State and Adams, has been gone for a long time. So was the Boston Store. It used to beacross the street from Carson Pirie Scott. And there used to be a Goldblatt's downtown, and Rothschild's, The Hub. I think they've been gone for a very long time.
So I mean Chicago in particular being -- now you can look at a lot of the buildings and a lot of the stores, and many of them are still around. Even if the store isn't, the building is.
The buildings are. Yeah. I would say that.
Did yourself or many of your friends get married during the war?
No. A couple of them did. One got married immediately before the war. I guess he was going overseas. But they were divorced within a month after he came back, though. There was a lot of that. You know, I'm going overseas. And you didn't have -- the young women and young men didn't have the same kinds of relationships they do now. You know? A physical relationship was something an awful lot of them did not do until they got married. So that made the difference.
How common was it to see divorces?
It was after the war that the divorces started. Before the war, there weren't too many. It was uncommon.
Did you go to any of the weddings of any of your friends?
During the war?
Yeah.
I had two cousins who were married during the war. My friends were married afterward. Immediately. Some -- stretching from about 1946 to about 1952. But the two cousins were married during, the one in 1943 and one in 1944.
Was there anything in particular about the weddings --
No. They were big weddings. The usual whing-ding, you know. Well, the unusual part for one cousin -- I didn't find out until later. He was the one in service in Texas. He was supposed to get a pass to come home for the weekend. They cancelled the pass. And he knew this whole thing was, you know, planned, so he went AWOL for the weekend. And on the traincoming home, he met an officer, who was Jewish, as it happened, and told him the story about he was going home to get married. And he was not punished when he came back, and his unit had gone over seas. And he never went, so he was just fortunate.
This is the second side of our tape.
That's okay. You were just asking me a question. Which one was it?
What were the effects on your physical and mental health during the war?
Yeah. In a way, from what I could see, I think people were healthier mentally. Physically, the schools in high school particularly I can recall -- remember I was there until 1943 -- they made an effort to get everybody in shape. And I can remember that they changedour gym schedules, P.E. schedules from twice a week to four times a week. And it was quite a strain on the facilities at the high school, even though I went to at that time the largest high school in the United States. So --
Which high school did you go to?
Boston High.
My dad went to Roosevelt.
I know about Roosevelt. I had some friends there, too. Well anyway, Boston at that time had over 7,000 students, so I mean it was big.
Sounds like a college.
Well, it was almost. In fact it had some three buildings, which was unusual for a high school at that time. But anyway, I digress. We were busy. You know? And we tried to do what our government said was important to do for the war effort. For example, we had rationing, for example, of meat, of shoes, of gasoline. Those things that they thought they wouldbe short of were rationed, but not so much that anybody really suffered. You know. People who had small children, for example, whose feet grew quickly, had to buy more than three pairs ofshoes a year for the little ones. So maybe the parents could buy only two pairs a year. You see what I'm saying?
Yeah.
But I can't say we really suffered because of the rationing. It was nothing like the rationing that went on in Britain, for example.
Did you notice that -- I mean if you had any younger teachers, predominantly men, if any of them were part of the service?
No. As a matter of fact, at Roosevelt -- no, not Roosevelt. At Herzl there were only a couple of male teachers, some of them, I think, past retirement age that came out of retirement to teach because the young male teachers all went to service of one kind or another, maybe intelligence or whatever. But I can still remember the one young man that we had. Evidently he had some physical problems and he couldn't, you know.
Another one. I like hearing about the whole experience.
Go ahead.
Did you have any worthwhile experiences because of the war?
Worthwhile experiences. Well, as I said, I probably was able to go to school longer than I would have been had it not been for the war. That's the worthwhile, the most worthwhile experience I can say. And it was possible, because of that, to do some things after the war that I never would have dreamed doing before the war. Some traveling, and so on. It's hard for people today to understand that before World War II life was much more limited because of the economic situation prior to World War II. So your ambitions were, you know, to get a job and have a family and take care of them, and you -- and have enough to eat and enough clothes, and hope you could educate your children. But, you know, it didn't go too much beyond that.The war made it possible for a lot of people to grow a lot more than they ever would have been able without the war.
We've often talked in class, a large part of our curriculum has been talking about the depression and really how World War II was a catalyst for bringing America out of the depression.
Well, there's some -- it's probably true. The president tried very hard to do all sorts of things to get us out of the depression, but actually, I think they finally came to the conclusion that it wasn't -- it really wasn't until the war that we began to really come back economically. But I was having special reference to the young men who were in the service who never would have been able to afford to go to school if it hadn't been for the GI Bill. That GI Bill was the most wonderful thing that happened to young people in this country ever. Probably the most wonderful thing the government ever did, second maybe to the Homestead Act, youknow, where they gave people land to go out and farm. But I had several friends who never would have been able to become professionals without having had the service and the GI Bill when they came back. And I must say, for just informational purposes, I was in college after the war,and when the young men came back in 1946 and entered school in September and the following January -- because the war ended in August, remember -- it made such a difference in the classroom. They had experiences. They had been around. And up to that time we were just kids. Now wehad adults in the class who had their own opinions, who didn't hang on every word the professorsaid, who had their own thoughts and attitudes about things. It just made life so much more interesting to be in school at that time.
It's funny you mention that. We had someone who was a Claremont McKenna alum.who came to speak to our classes and some of the representives of the college last week, being it's the sixtieth anniversary of Pearl Harbor. He had been at Pearl Harbor the day it was bombed.
Really.
Yeah. And he had said when he left he was really -- he had some different experiences to come to school, because he was part of the first graduating class at Claremont McKenna when it was called Claremont Men's College.
That's right. Claremont Men's. When we came here, that's what it was.
What was your most memorable experience, most memorable character, and your most humorous experience?
Gosh. Well, I guess my most memorable would probably have to be the summer of1944 or 45 when, in the little town where we went on summer vacations, the army had a bivouac there with a bunch of soldiers. And of course all the girls had -- we danced with these youngmen. And that was exciting. Aside from going to the UN -- USO, that was the most exciting thingthat we girls had happen to us. And all these young man swarming all over the place. Absolutely swarming. It was kind of an interesting experience. I had come in the night before onthe bus with my suitcase, and some soldier just came up to me in the dark and said, "May I carry thisfor you?" And I'm scared to death. I said okay, you know, I guess. And you know, he was waiting for payment, shall I say. And I just got in the door and closed it just in time.
Wow.
You know, on the one hand I felt guilty; on the other hand, I had to look after myself at that point. So that was another experience. That was another memorable experience. Humorous. Well now, that's a little more difficult. I can't say I had any --
It's kind of a difficult question because --
Well, you know, I just don't remember. You know, you have -- people all have stories about things that happened, but I can't say that I had any at that time that I remember.
Have you visited any memorials or participated in any commemorations of the war?
I have visited memorials in Washington, up in Sacramento, but I have not participated in anything, since I didn't have anybody close, you know, that didn't come back.
Just some general questions on World War II.
Okay.
Was there a lack of social opportunities and friends because of the war?
Somewhat, because of the age that I was at and the men were mostly gone. Buton the other hand, things were loosening up economically, so we could afford to do things ourselves, we girls. And I had a group, several of whom would go out together, or one or two of uswould go out together. But I had a lot of friends. I didn't stay home on Saturday night very often. I was with girls. You know. I had a good time.
How did your community respond to the war and civil defense initiatives?
Well, Chicago is a big place --
Yeah.
-- you know, and the whole city, you know, became one big war machine, you could say, because at that time there was still -- well, just one example. Chicago at that time was the railroad center. There were literally thousands of soldiers coming through every day,andmore on the weekends. So there was that. All the railroad stations were full of service menandwomen. So that was one thing. Then there were people who moved up from the south for jobs in war work in Chicago, so there was a lot of activity that way. It put a strain on the housingstock. And of course, we had ghettos at that time in Chicago, and I think probably there still are ghettos there, if I know Chicago at all.
There are.
Yeah. I figured as much. But otherwise, it just -- the life, the pace of life quickened and got more interesting and more exciting. One other thing that I remember being very impressed with that, we had daylight savings time continuous through the winter, which meant that, when I went to school in the morning, it was absolutely black outside, except that where we lived it was very bright with artificial lighting, because we lived on Jackson Boulevard and Polanski Road (ph) at that time, and there were street cars running and buses running, and it was very lively. And it was like when people came home in the evening at 5:00 or 6:00 o'clock, that's the way it was at 7:30 in the morning, people going to work. And the other thing was that -- this was something I never remember happening before or after. People would stop their cars at the traffic light and ask if they could give anyone a ride.
Really?
That's right. So that wasn't anything that was kept up after that. But I remember that. And to me it was very exciting. I'm 17 or 18 years old, and I'm going to school with my books on the bus, and the same kind of people are going to work, and it's black outside, and it's all very exciting.
I know you didn't have any children, but from what you could see, did child care change for mothers?
Child care. I think in those days they probably -- if the mothers had to go to work, there were family members who took care of the children. You didn't have day care centers or anything like that.
Had older children that would take care of them?
My big brother took care of me when my parents went out, which was very often at night. You know, during the war, when people didn't have a lot of the money, the way they generally amused themselves, young people or married couples, let's say, would play cards with their friends in various people's homes. But if you had children who went to school, you had older children stay with the younger ones. And my big brother stayed with me until I was -- well, until he went on his jobs, and until I was about 12, and then finally I was allowed to stay alone.
How were you able to cope with any war-time shortages? Did you experience any?
They weren't really a problem. We had less than we could have had, had we not had rationing, but we didn't suffer in any way at all.
Did you have a victory garden or other ways to get enough food?
We just bought it.
You just bought it?
Yeah. We lived in an apartment, so we had no way to have a garden.
Especially in Chicago.
No. I lived on the west side, a pretty crowded area. Nobody had victory gardens there that I knew about. They did when they owned their own homes, you know, but not where I lived.
From what you could see -- I know you didn't experience any, but did you visibly see any shortages or rationing of food and/or gas?
Yes. We had that. My father was in the kind of business where he needed to drive a car all day, and actually, I don't know how he got all the gas he needed, but he managed to get it. Because gas, of course, was rationed. But he managed to get it. I don't know whether he traded with people who didn't use as much gas as they were allotted or what, but he managed to get what he needed.
You were talking about how difficult it was earlier without the production of cars and tires.
Yeah.
But talk about the recycling of rubber, grease, or other commodities that were now in short supply.
Well, it's funny. I'm still saving fat. You know that? We started saving fatin cans. Now, of course, I just do it for convenience. I fill the can and I throw the wholecanaway, you know. But that's what we did. We saved fat in all kinds in a can. And I don't know how they picked it up. I can't remember. My mother probably knew what to do with it.But anyway, my father used the same car. He needed his car for his business. But the last carhe bought was in 1941, and he didn't get another one until 1946. So I remember that we -- you know, he had trouble getting tires, and taking care of the tires, and getting the car fixed up and kept in repair so he could use it. But we had a car. A lot of people didn't have cars then, you know. But we had one, because he had -- he had learned to drive in the twenties. And I canstill remember that, whenever we went anywhere, we had to pick up their friends who didn't havecars, for rides, or you know, going from one house to another or whatever. My dad was always the driver. We always picked up their friends. I got very accustomed to sitting on people's laps.
From where you could see, to what extent was there hoarding or like activity?
Not much where I was. I would say maybe the butcher, but that's about it.
What were your feelings about the war when you heard newsreels or radio reports?
Well, as I said, fear. Sometimes relief. When we won battles, pride. Depending on what happened. But we certainly kept in touch. Every night. Every night either during the meal or after the meal. You know how people gather around the TV now? We used to gather around the radio that way to get the latest news and hear the reports from Europe or Japan or wherever.
The final statement is your post-war experiences. How did you feel when the war ended?
Elated. Relieved.
What was the -- what was really the general emotion in your area when --
Well, everybody -- there was great happiness, great joy that it was over. Andof course the people whose children or husbands were overseas were just beside themselves with joy. It meant they were going to come home, you know, and life would go back to normal, hopefully. It was somewhat of an adjustment afterwards, but the adjustment was all positive, I would say.
What did you do when you heard the news about V.J. Day and V.E. Day?
I don't think I celebrated in any particular way. I remember where I was on V.J. Day. I heard the news at this place where I worked at the time, and there was great joy. And of course, when we went home, it was all you talked about at home over the dinner table or after dinner, whatever, you know. Otherwise, in my case we just went on doing the same thing wehad been doing, going to school, studying, you know, that sort of thing.
How would you describe ultimately how the war changed yours and the people you had touch with lives?
I think it broadened our lives very much, because it opened up educational opportunities to people of my generation. And for people of my parents' generation, they were in a position to do better financially then they had been before, because of no more depression. And people began traveling. For example, my brother had moved out here in 1943. In 1946 my mother and dad for the very first time got on the train and came out here to visit. And I'll never forget it, because my mother's whole family came out to the railroad station to say good-bye.That's the way it was, you know, then. So that -- it just opened up the world to us more,I think. And you know, things in Europe -- it's so much easier to travel in Europe now. Well, it won't be now, but I mean up to September 11th, it was so easy to go all over Europe, which was nothing like that in the thirties. I mean there were people at every border inside, you know,the country you were leaving and the country you were entering, and papers were constantly being checked, and there was a whole lot of more red tape, which disappeared after the war, fortraveling. Now, those people who were in Europe -- there were a tremendous number of refugees afterwards. People who went to Europe immediately at the end of the war said it was awful. We didn't get over there for the first time until 1975, so it was a long time later, but I understand that the conditions in Europe were terrible after the war.
With all the destruction?
All the destruction. In fact we got to see a little bit of it in Portsmouth when we were there. They purposefully left it untouched to remind people of what it was like. But there were people who were homeless and starving and had run away from wherever they had comefrom originally. And you know, there were these huge camps for them, because there were that many who were on the move, so to speak. It was like a second army of displaced persons, you know. And I understand people who were over there were just, you know, overwhelmed by all of this.
I know you said you only worked in the plant for a short while when you were in college.
Two years. Yeah.
What did you do after you left?
Oh, okay. After I left, I needed to earn some money, so I went to Chicago. So I took a year off, and I worked in another office for a year and saved my money and then went to Chicago for a year. And after that I had to take time off again, and I realized that I just simply could not afford to go to Chicago. So what I did then was work full time for two years for the Hearst Corporation in Chicago for International News Service, and went to school at night until I got down to where I needed only one more semester's credit to get my degree, so I quit. And then I went to school full time for a whole semester and graduated after that. So that was until 1950. After that, I started teaching for a while. I met my husband, we got married, and in 1952 we moved to Columbus, where he was a graduate student at Ohio State. I don't think you want to go beyond that.
Okay. Is there one thought in particular about your war-time experience that you'd want to share with future generations?
One thought? No. I think I could share what I shared with you, and if I had normal conversation, you know, maybe I'd remember a few other things that made a deep impression on me, but I think that pretty well covered it.
In closing, anything else that I should ask you that I've missed?
I can't think of anything. And even if you didn't ask me, I told you what I remember of it. The years, the war years were not bad for me. I was fortunate. You know. It wasn't -- if you were out in the boondocks and lost members of the family or were isolated in any way. In Chicago life went on pretty well unless, of course, you had close relatives who went away and didn't come back. I mean those were tragic times. We were fortunate in our family.
I really appreciate your sitting down with me.
It was fun talking to you about it, because you know, when my husband and I talk, I think those of us of our generation --