One of my earliest recollections was Bunker Hill in Ashtabula, Ohio. I was four. Our house, an old white two-story colonial had been modified to house two families. We lived on the ground floor; family friends the Baylors lived upstairs. Their son, Lloyd, Jr. was my age. We both loved the outdoors and the large sand pile that sat in our back yard. One day as we sat playing on our sand pile we heard our dads talking about the importance of being able to get to the other side of the world in a hurry to stop “them” from another attack.

“Lloyd, let’s find a short cut to where “them” are.”

“We could make a tunnel so we get there before the attack.”

“Good Idea, let’s go.”

Our tunnel had just been started, but when finished it would be a quick route to wherever.

Bunker Hill Sandbox, 1942

Tunnel excavation begins.

Sometime during my fourth year, Mom and Dad decided to get a house trailer. The first place we parked the trailer was under the golden yellow glow of the Shell gas station logo. I remember Dad’s bargaining with the station owner about the price:

“No that’s too much. The rationing has your gas sales way down. I’ll give you this much to help you out.”

I didn’t know what rationing was, but I was glad Dad got to keep some of his money. Dad had taken a job a couple of years prior, driving a bread truck, and selling door to door for Weikart’s Bakery. That’s where he met Lloyd Baylor, a baker at Weikart’s. That’s also where he met Mom while delivering bread and pastry to her parents’ home in North Kingsville.

The Baylors stopped to visit one evening. While Lloyd, Jr. and I sat on the floor telling each other about our new adventures, we overheard our parents talking. Because of rationing (that word again) sales were way down. Both Dad and Mr. Baylor, as well as others, had been laid off (another new word). After the Baylors left and I was being put to bed, I asked Mom what those words meant.

“Rationing means we can only buy part of what we would normally. Laid off means the bakery doesn’t need Daddy to make deliveries, so he has found a new place to work. The reason this is happening is because of the war.”

“What’s a war?”

“A war is when a lot of people are fighting with guns, and many are being hurt very badly.”

“Are we going to be OK?”

“President Roosevelt is trying hard to keep the fighting away from our country.”

Soon we had moved our trailer to the Adams trailer Park, eight miles from the factory in Cleveland where Dad was working. The park was an old farm with a faded white house, a red barn and several outbuildings on one side of the property and a rut-filled and bumpy driveway leading to 25 trailers on the other side. We were the first trailer inside the park and closest to a busy Route 20. This had advantages, but it was very noisy with all the highway and driveway traffic. In the summer we moved to the back of the park partly because of the noise, but I think mainly to have space for a tent. Grandpa came and slept in the tent all summer. He had gotten a job at a defense plant so had moved from Ashtabula to be close to work. We were part of a new statistic: during WWII the largest number of people migrated within the U.S. in the history of the country. Individuals and families relocated to industrial centers for good paying war jobs and out of a sense of patriotic duty.

Dad’s job at Parker Appliance was as a machinist, a trade he had learned when in the 3Cs working on the Hoover Dam project. Parker was known for its dependable hydraulic connectors for aviation, and Charles Lindberg’s leak-free fuel system. Parker grew from 910 employees when WWII began to the 2600 needed by 1941 to keep up with government orders. Dad worked in the bomb sight division; his draft classification was 2A. The number 2 being the importance of the job he held. Mr. Baylor wasn’t drafted immediately but did get called later and served as a baker in the Navy.

During the time we lived at the Adams Park I had several playmates. Most were from my age (5 years old now) to about 10. We spent much of our time playing baseball, hide and seek, tag, kick the can, and exploring the old farmstead. We did do our share of playing war games with our toy guns.

“Lookout! I just saw something in that tree! I think there’s two or three there!!”

“Pow, Pow, Pow! I got one. Keep your eyes open for more.”

Even the birds we saw flying became enemy pilots on a mission.

Sometimes we kids just visited other residents of the park. We asked about their families and talked about the war.

“Good morning, Mrs. Peters. How are you and Mr. Peters today?”

“We’re good. Mr. Peters had to leave for work a little early today had to pick up a friend on the way in. What have you boys been doing all morning?”

“Oh, just goofing around.”

“Would you like to come in and help me snap beans?”

“Sure!”

The scariest event at the trailer park was the county’s weekly simulated air raid. Sirens would sound warning all residents that a simulated air attack was in progress. In the daytime everyone was to find shelter wherever possible until “All Clear” was sounded. At night all lights were to go off and driving was stopped. I had heard adults talking about the air raid on Pearl Harbor by the “Japs”. I was sure these air raids of ours, if not the real thing, were at least preparation for what surely was to come. Adults were diligent about keeping lights off and obeying the rules. I was told that police were watching and would arrest anyone who didn’t obey. During one air raid drill Mom had a cake baking in a little portable oven on top of the stove. She turned on a light to see if it was done.

“No! We’re going to get bombed or at least arrested for having a light on!”

“No son, that’s why trailers all have venetian blinds. If they are closed properly, you can’t see a light inside”.

Dad even took me outside to show me. This satisfied my immediate fear, but the uneasiness an air raid siren creates remains today and will forever jar my inner being.

During the war most men in the park and some women worked in defense plants. Dad’s friend Buster was also a resident of the Adams trailer camp. He had taken a job at the factory where the luxurious Cadillac automobiles had been made. Now they were making heavy duty war machines. One day Buster arrived home in an ambulance. Somehow, he had gotten his ankle tangled up with one of those huge war machines--or one of the machines that made them. Miraculously his ankle wasn’t broken, but it did resemble a large ball of raw hamburger. It was mid-summer and too hot to spend all day inside. Air conditioning had not yet been invented. When he was outside, swarms of flies constantly tried to get at his ankle. It wasn’t bandaged as Buster claimed his Dr. thought it would heal faster if left open. Whenever anyone had the time, they would go to Buster’s and fan the open wound to keep flies from landing. I spent many hours with a piece of cardboard, fanning the exposed ankle.

Between the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, and the D Day invasion of Europe in June of 1944, there were more Homefront industrial casualties than military casualties. This led to a much-needed improved workplace with better safety and more regulations.

In the spring of 1942, the rationing program started. Families were issued ration stamps that limited how much they could buy per month. The primary items involved were gasoline, tires, meat, foodstuffs, fuel oil, sugar, fat, butter, clothing, vegetables and fruit. Black Markets appeared quickly.

Buster’s ankle finally healed. He was so grateful to all who had helped through his ordeal, that he wanted to have a picnic to show his gratitude. With rationing in place how do you get enough food to feed 70 people? The Black Market. Buster found the right person and was able to pay enough to come up with food and steaks for 70 people. The picnic was the event of the year.

Everyone was expected to be active in the war effort. Rationing was a way of life. The sale of certain commodities would create a shortage for those in uniform. People at home were asked to “Use it up; Wear it out; Make it do; or Do without.” On December 8th the United States declared war on Japan. On December 11, Japan’s ally Germany declared war on the United States. Out of an overall population of one hundred thirteen million, sixteen million Americans served in the military. At the same time, the United States increased its war production on the Homefront, serving not only the needs of our armed forces, but of our allies as well in what President Roosevelt called “The Arsenal of Democracy”. This increase in production led to unprecedented social changes. Initially white middle-class women were recruited to the work force followed by minority men, and finally minority women. Women and minorities were met with resistance but the need was great. The opportunities for minorities opened the door a crack, and eventually the door to equal rights opened wider and led to the civil rights movement in the upcoming decades.

In the summer of 1944 Dad bought a 5-acre plot in the old Connecticut Western Reserve of Northeastern Ohio. We moved to Geneva. Our trailer was parked in front of an existing four-room house that needed substantial work. Doors and windows were missing, part of an interior wall had collapsed, the roof leaked, and it was built on heavy wooden posts. Dad wanted a basement.

Dad still worked in Cleveland, 50 miles away. I think the move at this time was for my benefit. I was now 6 and school started a month after we made the move. Platt R. Spencer was a small township school with 12 grades and a total of 400 students. When I started, the war was still raging in both Europe and the Pacific. My classmates and I did all we could to aid in the war effort. There were scrap iron drives, paper drives, rag drives, and we gathered milkweed pods to be used as flotation material in life jackets for the Air Force and Navy. Every week each of us was urged to bring our dimes to school to buy stamps for our books that, when full, could be turned in for a 25-dollar war bond.

Rationing was still on, so building material was nonexistent. Dad found and bought ten old railroad box car doors. Every day after school, Mom and I tore them apart and straightened the nails so they could be used again. The repair and remodeling were done mostly on weekends when dad was home, and relatives were able to come and lend a hand. Dad, Mom, the extended family and I were working on the house: I was sweeping up sawdust, Mom and Grandma were washing windows, Dad and Uncle Larry were putting in the back door and Grandpa was “supervising” when this bulletin came over the radio:

“Japan has accepted our terms fully. The Whitehouse has just announced WWII is over.”

I can still hear the loud and joyous shout that went up as we heard the news.

Hurrah

Intro to WW II

MULE SKINNERS