Summary

Story

Letter from a family member discussing how her mother wouldn’t let her brother join the army until after graduation for fighting in WW2.

Country Draws Closer

His mother wouldn’t let him join until after graduation.

World War II

During World World II, my grandma was in high school. She was 16 years old.

Owen’s brother Bern L served in Italy. He worked on trucks, cars, etc. He was a maintenance worker.

My grandma was getting ready to go to play practice. She was listening to the radio when she heard Pearl Harbor had been bombed. She was all alone, so she went to play practice. At play practice, everyone was shocked, amazed. They couldn’t believe that another country would do that to anyone.

Some boys tried to enlist right away. Grandpa Dean was in high school. His mother wouldn’t let him join until after graduation.

The whole country drew closer together. People would do anything for the war effort. Women joined the workforce because the men were gone. People were very patriotic.

They had ration books to buy everything.

They allowed so much for every family. Amy and Florence shared their stamps so Grandma Mary could buy canned milk to feed her babies.

Grandma Mary didn’t get her high school yearbook. The class decided to go without to help the war effort. She wishes today that she had one to see her old high school days and friends.

Grandpa Dean’s father, Owen Dean, Sr., ran a sand and gravel business. Business boomed after the war. The country built the steel plant to help with the war. Owen Dean, Sr., provided sand and gravel for the plant to help with the war effort.

Food was hard to get because they sent everything to the soldiers. It was difficult to get meat, sugar, etc. The people didn’t mind though. They would do anything for the soldiers that were fighting.

Girls painted their legs to look tan because they couldn’t get silk stockings. They would draw a line up the back of their legs for the seam line to fool the eye. Nylon wasn’t invented yet. It wasn’t proper to go bare legged.

Grandma Mary was the representative girl for her high school class. The representative boy went to the war and was killed. It was traumatic for those lost people. People hated Japan. It was an evil word to mention.

The Things Our Father’s Saw is other first hand accounts of the “war over there” and Rick Atkinson’s Pulitzer Prize books on WWII like the Guns Last Light (a three part series) are simply amazing. All four books are definite must reads in my opinion.