RSS 2.0 NEWS FEEDSLetters from the Home Front: Carmel Vila
Posted 07.16.08 at 2:58 PMThanks to Carmel Vila, of Jefferson, Louisiana, for this unique description of the wartime dinners that her mother served to servicemen far from home. Paris is now anticipating the many soldiers who will be training at Camp Maxey, but let’s hope that the men and women don’t have to suffer politely such meals from well-intentioned “cooks” (about like me).
“Generally there were at least five of them, and my mother would begin dinner with a glass of unsweetened grapefruit juice, served in small jam glasses. She always put a sprig of mint on each glass, trying to make it festive and gay. Then she would present the baked chicken, her specialty, and one could always bet it was overcooked. It was dry, stringy, and tasteless, but the boys had been taught manners, and they smiled and said how really delicious it was. Then, of course, Mother would pass around the lumpy mashed potatoes, overly thick gravy, and overly large peas, since they were cheaper than the small ones . . . The garlic bread was spread with heavy masses of butter and garlic, both needing to be melted much more than they had been, and sometimes an extra treat was a few corn muffins, burnt and hazy looking, but presented with a smile.”
“Along with the oversized peas, a bowl of fried carrots. Yes, you’ve read it correctly--fried carrots were passed, and everyone took as few as they could manage. Mother had read in McCall’s (a popular women’s magazine) how carrots could be cooked any number of ways, and the way she seemed pleased with was either boiled to pulp or fried black. The young men ate some of everything, no matter how it looked. It was a food comedy, and how they kept straight faces, I will never understand. Their faces must have hurt when they left my home.”
“Our dessert was always cut-up slices of watermelon, sometimes cubed, sometimes cut in shapes--one never knew what to expect. Many of these were Yankee boys and not watermelon eaters, but she would smile her sweet, southern smile and say, ‘Now don’t be bashful, son. Eat your nice melon, and then we’ll have coffee.’ They would push it around the plate, and in the end, they would squeeze the juice out, leaving only fiber floating on the plate. Watermelons were very cheap during those years and fed a multitude of folks. Each Saturday she purchased a mid-sized melon for thirty cents, and we had melon every day of the week. I grew to think everyone had melon as dessert.”
“Finally, after Mother and I cleared the dishes, she would bring out the coffee pot, which was old and dented, but she was convinced that the coffee which poured from it was the best that money could buy. Sometimes she would put whipped cream on top of the coffee, making it, in her eyes, much more festive, and she would then offer a ten cent bag of those vile little after dinner mints of pastel colors to end the dinner properly.”
“Sometimes the guys would help Mother with the dishes, and when all of the thanks had been said, and all of the repeat invitations had gone out for another Sunday dinner, the guys and I would walk down the block to my best friend’s house, where we were able to play records and dance in her basement. She always had Kool Aid and gingersnap cookies, and some of the other girls would come to dance as well. When the time came for the guys to take the bus back to camp, my mother was already making plans for the following week’s dinner. She worked from early Sunday morning until four in the afternoon on Sunday, but she was always ready with her dinner and enjoyed the young company that I brought. They adored her, and for years we received Christmas cards from some of them thanking her for her southern hospitality and her fine dinners.”
Letters from the Home Front: Joan Novak
Posted 07.14.08 at 10:59 AM
Joan Novak writes from Baxter MN that she was only ten years old when the war began. Her mother will be 100 in December. However, Joan remembers much about those years.
“I do think the economy is going to have a severe setback some time in the future. It will not be as bad as the depression, but the younger set will be devastated. They are not used to going without. Too much easy credit is out there floating around to cover their every whim. I think it will be a good thing if it does not last too long. The world needs a ‘come-up-ance,’” she says.
I asked her what she remembered of women’s affairs during the war. “Cosmetics were not a priority with me at age ten. Nylons were almost impossible to get . . .
silk stockings were still in vogue (if you could get them). Leg makeup was used by the women. Some even drew lines down the back of the leg to make fake seams. Needed help and a steady hand for that.”
“When my mother worked in the defense plant, she sewed copper wires on the dials for submarines. It was piece work. They got paid for how much they put out. A quota was set, and if they went over, they got more money. The women had breaks of ten minutes in the morning and ten in the afternoon. They cut the cigarettes in half so they could finish smoking before the ten minutes were up. Bathroom smoking was permitted.”
“We did not have a car, but we lived close enough to work so my dad and mom could walk. They had an hour for lunch and came home to eat. Ma would prepare things to eat the night before, and I could finish cooking or heating the meal. When the factory whistle blew, every kid in the neighborhood knew they better be home for dinner.”
“The first big purchase after my mother went to work was a big white refrigerator. Up to that time, we used ice for keeping things cold. I remember taking the red wagon and walking to the ice house to buy a big block of ice. Then we would ask the clerk for a chip of ice to eat on the way home. Sure was glad to get a refrigerator.”
Montague County
Posted 07.07.08 at 1:37 PMHere’s an interesting website to investigate: http://www.totty-families.org/diary/jun1876.html.
The great-great-great-granddaughter of Capt. F.M. (Frank) and Rhoda Totty has transcribed numerous years of the diaries that Rhoda kept from 1876-1881, and she has put them online. I am their great-great-granddaughter. John Harvill was their son-in-law, married to Anna, one of their several daughters. My Harvill heritage is long and rather colorful, and its roots are in Montague County, Texas. I return to this scenic county once or twice a year, and each time that I do, I feel it calling to me.
I spent much of my childhood on a big ranch that my father owned, most of it playing and riding horseback on over 900 acres. My dad, habitually a very cautious man where his family was concerned, just turned me loose on my horse, once he was convinced that I could start it, stop it, and turn it right or left.
I had great times on that ranch, usually by myself, riding on roads, across pastures, and even in the deep canyons that once marred the landscape. Now they are dammed up and provide bottomless pools of precious water. The canyons were magical worlds of their own, the banks towering above me, and the beds so wide, and often filled with dry sand that I could ride in them.
This past weekend I returned for our annual homecoming, and several of us made a pilgrimage to a nearby ranch property to see the old Bean Cemetery, where the Tottys are buried. (The Beans were their neighbors.) It’s overgrown with bull nettles and thorny briars and poison ivy, but I did see the two Totty graves, side by side. About a quarter mile from the cemetery, we found the Totty cabin site.
Comments: 0 | Article Continues ... Continue Reading & Comment »Home Front Letters: Lottie Thompson
Posted 07.02.08 at 3:45 PMI had an interesting letter from Lottie Thompson of Lewistown, Penn. Lottie remembers the ’40s quite well, but she wasn’t writing about the ’40s this time.
She was just telling her news and what she does in her routine, and something she said really caught my attention. I thought to myself: we’re on the way back to how it was in the ‘40s. Give a listen to this.
“… I’m making plans to move up around there to be closer to my girls. They tell me I will be sorry, but I still think I need to be near them. With the price of gas, I can’t expect them to come down to see me. Yes, my girl friend has a car. When pay day comes, she and her son and another friend of ours and me all go to the bank and the food stores together. We try to make one trip for us to the bank, food store, and the drug store to get our medicine in one trip.”
Here we are in the age of technology, and our retirees (and a lot of other folks, too) have to band together and share cars and split the cost of gasoline just to do the monthly chores. They did it that way when they were young working folks and gas was in short supply. I wonder if any of them feel a bit like they’ve been in this situation before? How funny. If it weren’t so sad, it’d be funny.
Comments: 0 | Read & Comment »PJC Housing in 1946
Posted 06.13.08 at 10:05 AMHow far we’ve come at Paris Junior College.
On Jan. 7, 1946, The Paris News printed this headline: “Housing Seen for PJC Vet Students.” Married veteran students were soon to be occupying three-room pre-fabricated houses on campus. Dr. J.R. McLemore, president of the college, had applied through the Federal Housing Authority at Fort Worth for 12 houses for the coming term and a total of 24 for next fall.
Married students were then occupying two trailer houses and one apartment. Unmarrieds would find plenty of room in the dormitories, he said, and the existing cafeteria could take care of “unlimited numbers.”
The proposed houses would be insulated, easily constructed, durable and adequate for the needs of a couple. They would contain a combination living room and bedroom, a kitchen, and a bath, and they would be ready for occupancy almost immediately because of the ease with which they were constructed.
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