Published: November 13, 2009 08:47 am      

WWII takes center stage in the 1940s

The year 1940 marked a time that America was coming out of the Great Depression — which came to a halt as we turned our attention to the Second World War. (The Armistice Monument at riverfront shows 144 of Clinton County’s finest who gave their lives in that cause.)

Lean times were the norm during both the Depression and the war years which followed, but the “feeling” was different — in that everyone was on a mission to help out during WWII.

For example, Bill Clark relates of his war years, “On Eight Avenue South, in the 400 block, two grass islands divided the street. The east end had a wooden shed where people put scrap iron and tires. We collected papers and took ’em to the junkyard; collected grease and took it to the butcher shop. Often, the butcher stuck his hand in… to feel for anything that added weight. If a kid ran out the door, you knew he’d likely tried to cheat the butcher. We collected bottles behind billboards on Fourth Street — for 5 cents each; lots of fights over those bottles. Kids collected tinfoil from gum or candy wrappers and some cigarette packs. Dave Sohr (later a judge), had a ball the size of his head. Our block’s Air Raid Chief, Fred Grahm, used to look for houses with lights on during drills. We hated to see a Western Union kid on his bike…always afraid some neighbor just had a war casualty. The bikes’ inner tubes had so many patches, you couldn’t see the rubber.”

A CHS basketball player in the early 1940s, Bud Frimoth, says he never knew how coaches got the gas to take teams on road games back then, or how his grocery store Dad came up with meat during the war years. But, on the other side of town, a contemporary named Joe Walton, working at Eddie’s Market, recalls being secretly sent out to farms to pick up freshly-slaughtered meat (probably for the Black Market.)

Bud also mentioned that, “Getting meat and sugar during the war years was a bit dicey.... I’m not sure just how Dad managed. But I do remember when he was on Fourth Street, he and the station owner across the street would exchange gas for meat on occasion. Of course, you could only get four gallons of gasoline. People had A-B-C stickers, based on their status. That was the era of red and blue chips used in rationing.”

Norma Hammer came out of the Depression with a strong sense of impending events, which then became focused on the war.

“I remember when Pearl Harbor was bombed…I was at the movies…it cost only 10 cents to get in…and when I got home, all the neighbors were standing outside talking,” Hammer said. “There were airplanes flying over and, though I didn’t understand what it was all about, I knew it was serious. We, like many people, lost neighbors and friends in the war. I remember when a man across the street from us got married. He was in the service, and the new wife came to stay with his family. She had a beautiful singing voice and sang ‘One Dozen Roses’ to the man’s two young brothers. Her husband was killed a few months later.

“I also remember rationing, especially when we needed shoes real bad. You had to have a stamp to buy a pair of shoes...and we didn’t always have the money…so we put cardboard in our shoes when we wore holes in ’em. I tried to make sure no one saw the bottoms of my feet at school.”

This author was deprived, but lucky…having been born in 1939. I always felt like I missed out for not living through the Depression or growing up on a farm like my mother. I don’t have the painful memories of either, but I also didn’t learn their good lessons…except, by extension, through family members.

Most of my siblings were gone during the war. So, though I was the eighth child, our family seemed small…with just me and my sisters at home. When our mom died in 1981, her last words to me were, “Gary, if we knew then what they know now…you wouldn’t be here.”

She said it with a glint in her eye but, still, who really needed another child at the end of the Great Depression? So, if you like my columns, you can thank my mother and a large family for sharing stories of Clinton’s history and nurturing a love of the past in me.

My brother Dick recalls many things. Times were tough back then, during the Depression and the war years after. So if you had something, you didn’t flaunt it. Most people were suffering, even though things didn’t cost much.

“Sometimes Dad gave you lunch money; sometimes, he forgot to put the 17 to 18 cents on the table. But, you didn’t say a word; you just did without.”

Nearly everyone found a way to have fun, somehow…even if it took odd jobs and pop bottles. A dime would get you into a double feature movie. And paper routes helped carry many a boy through, on into high school.

At Milo Johns Rexall Drug Store, Lyman Wareham had an idea (back when it was still okay to smoke). Like lots of things then, cigarettes were rationed. Early in the war, he opened several packs of cigarettes and put them in a large open-mouth jar at his store’s register. Then he put up a sign saying, “If you need one, take it — If you have some extras, please put them in the jar.” The jar never ran dry throughout the entire war.

And then, it was over. Dave Sadler says his earliest vivid memory was, “standing outside our apartment at 907 S. Fourth St., and St. Mary’s bells were ringing (it wasn’t Sunday or time for the noon Angelus to be ringing). People were screaming, horns honking — and I asked my mom, ‘What’s happening? What’s going on?’ And she replied, ‘The war’s over! Your brothers are coming home!’”

And so it was during the years 1930 to 1945 … hard but glorious times in the history of America. Our people toughened up and learned valuable lessons which, in turn, helped them weather WWII as well as win it. The whole era coalesced to produce the most successful country ever…as we moved into the second half of that century.

Learn more about the war years and the Iowa WIPES in Herrity’s next column.



Gary Herrity is the Clinton Herald’s historical columnist. His column appears on page 5A on Fridays.