Dayton Stories Project
Story Circle Session #081195
Twin Towers Place
Dayton, Ohio
August 11, 1995
World War II
Interviewer: Bob Barr Recorder: Margaret Peters Transcriber: Holly Bergman Transcribe Typist: Sue Broadstock
Participants: Adeline Bellert, Loretta Brokamp, Molly Conrecode, Tony Dallas, Estelle Harmon, Frank Hartmeier, Rhonald Karns, Marty McCrate, Sister Mary Rose McCrate, Faye Nease, Lela Peffly, Marilyn Shannon, Norma Sullivan, Eliza Wilson
This session lasts approximately 1 hour and 5 minutes.
Due to its length the interview has been split into two parts.
PART ONE
PART TWO
The following transcription of the session has been edited, with repeated phrases or interruptions deleted to make the text flow more smoothly. It is suggested that visitors who find the text interesting take the time to listen to the audio portion of this session. A more detailed text will eventually be added.
Bob Barr opened the story circle and the participants introduced themselves. He explained the Dayton Stories Project and how to conduct the story circle. The group agreed upon the topic of memories of the Depression and World War II.
Margaret Peters
I was nine when the war ended, so I don’t really have any memories of it. My major memory is of the food stamps, and of making sure that we had enough to last until more stamps were issued. I think also it was during the war that we got that butter that was the white fat and you put a little orange thing in it and mashed it up until it turned color.
Molly Conrecode
I obviously was not alive during World War II. However, it’s a real legend in my family because my father and all of my uncles were in the service and some of my aunts were in WAVEs. And I remember that two of my uncles-well, in one family there were three boys that were al in the service and they had a system worked out in the letters that they wrote home about, a code system that could indicate where they were gonna be on their boats. They were in the Navy, I guess. So my grandmother would kind of be like central processing. And one time they found out that two of my uncles were going to be near each other, and my uncles arranged to get smaller dinghies off of their boats and they met each other in the middle of the ocean. And for all they knew, they would never see each other again. They did, fortunately they both survived the war.
Norma Sullivan
I remember V-J Day, and all the neighbors were running out in the street and decided to have a little parade. They grabbed a few little flags and they marched down our street, and down Jersey and up Huffman Hill and all the way back down. And they were singing and carrying on, and I missed going with them ‘cause I was ironing.
Lela Peffly told of the many places her husband was stationed in the U.S. and how she joined him when she could.
Tony Dallas
I was born a few years after the way, but it’s sort of strange the way the war is what brought my parents to this area. My father was going to Union Seminary in New York, studying to be a Methodist minister. And he and a number of other seminary students had come to the conclusion that going to seminary, sort of an ivy league sort of school, all this academic study and learning Greek and stuff, didn’t really resonate with the notion of the service that Christ speaks of in the Bible. One of the guys who was going to seminary in Yale or someplace had a thousand dollars and bought a house in, essentially, the ghetto in Newark. And that’s where my mother came into the picture. My mother and father had gone to college together in Michigan, and my mother came down, there was basically sort of a communal living thing in this house and taking drunks off the streets in Newark, drying them out, giving them food, and quite literally giving them the clothes off their back sometimes. There was no real sort of money to work with, they were there as a mission. After that they moved into Harlem, and had a house in Harlem and were operating in the same fashion. People would know it was a place where you could get free meals. If you came there you had to dry out, and it gave them a place to sleep, and give them some clothes.
An extension of the same sort of idea, there was a belief that sort of grew out of this of Christ’s pacifism, Christ’s belief in non-violence. And so there was, I think seven of them who refused to register for the draft. Even as ministers they probably would’ve been exempt, or at least given some other sort of status. And this was very not done, as I’m sure you know. World War II was a pretty popular war. And it was a big question as to what was going to happen. It was, like, headline news in the Times as to what was going to happen t these seven or nine seminarians. There was a thought that possibly they might be tried for treason and executed, because there was no real precedent dealing with this. As it turned out, they were given a jail sentence. I think the first sentence was either three years, or two years, or something. And my parents got married, like just before he went into jail. And that a big thing. They couldn’t get married in New York, they couldn’t get married in Ohio where my mother was from. And so they got a civil service down in Detroit, where my father was from, and came out of the minister’s house, and all these photographers jumped out of the bushes. And they had their wedding picture on the front page of the Detroit paper. They first wanted to set it up so it there were going to be like some sort of administrative positions in the prison. And they said that wasn’t the point. If they were going to prison, they wanted it to be as prisoners, not to be above other people. He was in prison for a year and a day, got out and his draft number came up again, or something or other and he had to go in prison again. The second time he was in prison, it was maybe two years the second time.
The first time he was in prison he worked in a hospital and he had ideas of possibly becoming a doctor. He was working as a nurse in the infirmary, I think. Second time he ended up going to a place in Kentucky and working as the head nurse of this basically a place for delinquent boys. It was sorta like a camp for delinquent boys. And he was in charge of the infirmary. And I think he might’ve been the first person to administer penicillin within the penal system. One of the things that he was specifically working with was venereal diseases and stuff, and he got this thing of looking at slides and determining whether people had venereal diseases. And one of the things was giving somebody penicillin. He remembers the first time giving somebody penicillin, looking at the slide the next day and it was, you know, completely gone. My mother, was trying to find a place near Kentucky, which she could visit him from And there was a peace conference in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where Eleanor Roosevelt was speaking. And she came up to Yellow Springs and decided it was a nice place to live, and that’s how we ended up in Yellow Springs.
Rhonald Karns
Just before Roosevelt declared war, I had met this girl in May and we got married in August. She was working out at Good Samaritan Hospital, and I had just come away from surgery. I was out working at Wagner Ford Road where the put the circle in, and she got a call that she could go to work, go into a factory somewhere. Well, she was doing all that out there at Good Samaritan, and I was doing fine there. I was asked to go into the factory also, so we both went over to Leland Electric and we were both hired at Leland Electric and we worked there the entire war, until the war ended in ‘45. And I was the first one in my group that made motors of all kinds. I did stuffing, and then put the little taps on the motors for the oil. And when they came out from the office and said, “War is over”, I was the first one that the foreman walked over to and said, “We don’t need you any longer.” Well, we both worked there until the war ended and then she went back into the hospital.
Marilyn Shannon
I too was a child during the second World War, but I remember some things about it. I lived in New Mexico at the time. My father was the supervisor for a manufacturing plant that made steel tanks, fuel and oil tanks, and so forth, and during the ward, the company began to make pontoons. The company that he worked for was the only company in New Mexico to get what was called the “Army-Navy E Award”, in which they gave awards to companies that did quite a good war effort. And I remember at the ceremony at the high school there were a lot of fancy government officials, and Navy and Army people and so forth. And I remember there was a program, and I was going around getting all these military people to sign my program. Probably one of my best memories of the war, though, had to do with an aunt that was staying with us, because her husband was in the Navy and they lived in California and they had no children, although she was expecting at the time. They came to live at our house. And she was a character. I think everybody has a relative or two who are real characters, and she was one of the. But aside from that, she was always interested in being first in line, or getting something for nothing, or something like that. So in the days when things were rationed and really hard to get, or perhaps a grocery store would get only so much Jell-O, I remember Jell-O being a really big deal, that was not in great supply. And whenever it came into the stores it quickly vanished. The same thing was true of cigarettes, although I would imagine cigarettes were even hard to come by. We’d always hear that cigarettes were down and such-and-such a place, and people would charge over there and there wouldn’t be any. But I remember things like Jell-O and sugar and things like that were in short supply. And her little scheme was, she would go down to the store and she would hide. It was rationed you could only have five pounds of sugar or something like that, or two packages of Jell-O, so what she would do is she would go down and she would hide these thins in different parts of the store, like behind the dog food or something like that. As many quantities as she could, and then the children in the family, and my mother and anybody else who was around, would to the store and then find the hidden treasure in the dog food and bring it home. I remember the metal drives, and victory gardens, and we had chickens which we’d never had before.
Frank Hartmeier
I remember food rationing and gasoline stamps. I was in the Signal Corps from ‘41 to ‘45, till the war ended when Japan surrendered. Mainly our ob was to assemble parts of ammunition and equipment for deportation overseas to Russia and Britain and all the allies. All the parts made for naval and aircraft to keep going. We packed all that stuff for overseas, mostly parachutes. And all this stuff was packed in waterproof wooden boxes.
Sister Mary Rose McCrate
When we were children, our grandparents live in Lima, Ohio, and Dad didn’t have a car. Back in those days nobody had cars, or they had cars, I guess, but they probably kept ‘em in garages. As far as I was concerned, they didn’t have a car, no one had cars, you didn’t see them on the streets because Roosevelt had diverted all the gasoline to the armed forces and so gasoline wasn’t available. So as far as I knew as a child, none of my friends families had cars either. And so we used to get on the train and ride up to Lima to see my grandparents and there were always a lot of troops on the trains. And they would always have these rest stops along the way, I don’t if the train was waiting at these stops a little longer or for what reason, but the Red Cross would be there, and they would be there with coffee and donuts, or hot chocolate and donuts for the troops. And I think one of the reasons I remember this is because Mom, I think we embarassed her to death and she used to remind us of it. We were kinda little yet and kinda cute, I guess, at least as far as these soldiers who were going away from home and away from their families were concerned, and it was real easy for us to con the donuts off the soldiers. And I really think the reason I remember that is because Mom and Dad were so embarassed that they would never let us forget it. I still, as an adult, love to rid a train and I’m sorry that they aren’t available to be ridden. One of my favorite things about riding a train was of course being able to run up and down the aisles and get those little cone-shaped cups of water, too.
Marty McCrate
I had two brother-in-laws who were in the service. And they both came through Europe fine. And one got home from there, the other-I don’t’ know why they were sent to Africa. Well anyway, the one boy was killed there; he is still buried there. But there’s one thing that I wanted to add that happened to some people here in Dayton. Their sons, they were both in the Navy, and it was Bill and the other was John Leahy. Now they were both on different shops, but when the papers were signed for the war being over, these shops met and these boys passed that paper of peace over to the other General. And those boys were the ones that passed it. It was William and John Leahy of East Third Street that was honored with that. And they had been in different parts of the world all that time and met back when the war was over.
Loretta Brokamp remembers her brother enlisted in the Navy.
Bob Barr
I think that after the war, all of us had to make decisions, and I graduated from Stivers High School fifty years ago this past June. Of course the war was over in August. And so, we were still fighting when I got out of high school, and I had to make the decision of what to do. So I decided I would go to college, because you got deferments when you went to college. So I left Stivers High School and went right to Otterbein College in Westerville. And of course the war was over in August, and everybody got all turned on, and I continued my college education my freshman year up there. And I had a job in the bookstore. You know about bookstores, they’re kinda the gathering places of colleges. And all these veterans stated to come back, and they had the GI Bill of Rights, which was one of the most wonderful things that this government ever did. These guys would come in there and they would get their books and their pencils and their pads and they were getting their tuition paid and $75 a month of money. And so, like I said, it’s a time of decisions. So I decided after one year of college that I would enlist in the Army. Now my dad thought I was crazy, but I saw all the benefits that people were getting from service- this is after the war is over. And they had 18-month enlistments. So I enlisted in the Army for 18 months, and served in Japan, which is another hole wonderful story. You know, we were conquerors if you would, and the reception we got was fantastic. But then I served my 18 months and I parlayed that into 30 months of free education, and that’s how I could finish Otterbein College and go up to Ohio State for a year. But I think the thing I remember is the matter of choices, of things that you could do at the start of the war.
Estell Harmon
My mother was a heavy woman, and she wore her shoes out easy. And we were working at Good Samaritan Hospital and she said, “Well my shoes is just gone, and I’ve got no stamps to get me any more shoes.” And there was a colored girl there, she said, “Miss Patty, I’ll get you a stamp.” And she says, “Can you get it?” And she says, “Yes ma’am.” And she come back in about two days later with a stamp and said, “Now, my boyfriend come over and I gave him the Sweet Lucy-it’s a drink of some kind-and I took his book and took his stamp out ‘cause he don’t need another shoes.” And then another time, Mom like to fry everything. Fry your chicken, fry your pork chop, everything flat. And she said, “I’m running out of stuff to fry my food in, and I don’t know what I’m going to do.” They said, “We get you 50 pounds, Miss Harmon or Miss Nolwich (?) Then.” And they said, “Well, how you gonna get it?” And she said, “Well, I’ll get it if you get the money.” She said, “It comes from Kentucky and it’s black market, but it’s good.” Mom got up the money and next thing I know we have fifty pounds of lard set in the kitchen.
Marty McCrate
We always went to Burkhardt Center. And the government was wonderful with us, really and truly. I don’t think we appreciated them as much as we should. I still have my cookbook,
The Victory Cookbook, I’ve still got it, it’s just a little paperback thing. And they told us how to save money and how to cook without the things we didn’t have. And it was really wonderful. It was a meeting place, they taught us how to cook and cook with the things we had, so we could cook without the things we didn’t have.
Norma Sullivan
I remember when I was in high school, the war started. And we didn’t have a prom that year. And we wanted to invite soldiers from the field and the nuns were shocked to pieces, strange men. We did not have a yearbook, a prom, or any social for our graduation. We got kinda left out. And I was going with a sailor, and you know, you all had a song assigned to you in your yearbook, and mine was, “I threw a Kiss to the Ocean.” It’s about a bunch of servicemen on a boat and things like that.
The group thought of other songs and sang, “The White Cliffs of Dover.” They spoike of Victory Gardens and canning.
Sister Mary Rose McCrate
We always had a Victory Garden and in one house that we lived in, we had cherry trees. And i can remember sitting and using a bobby pin and taking the seeds out of the cherries so that mom could can them Mom did a lot of canning back then. Green beans and whatever. But I think the best thing that I remember about the Victory Garden, though, was going and pulling fresh carrots out of the garden and just taking the mud off with your hands and eating them without even washing them. I couldn’t do that anymore with anything today, but I though that was great in those days, ‘cause they were really sweet, and you pulled them right out of the ground and the air didn’t have a chance at ‘em. They were still so sweet. Didn’t even waste any time washin’ ‘em.
Norma Sullivan
I remember the neighborhood prayer groups. The mothers would get together, and my mother belonged in our area. And on each day of the week a different prayer group would go over at noon. Just drop all your work, go in your house dress, and they would say the rosary together. And in my mother’s prayer group, every one of the service men were saved, and only one got shot in the leg and he survived. But they were all in dangerous situations, but they were all saved.
Marty McCrate
Tom McCrate was lost in North Africa. And he was sent there, and he was the one that drove the jeeps back and forth to the mail. And he was on his way back from mailing us a letter, and there was a little dunkey cart that came out in front of him, and it flipped his jeep and he was killed. After going through this war and everything in Europe, that’s how we lost him. My brother-in-law. I still have the telegram of his death. And I pictures of where he was buried, in Africa. We never brought him back, because Louis, the other boy-well there was three boys, really, in the service-Louise said that when they brought these boys, sent them home that their nametag was on the box, you know. And he said to his mother, “Well don’t bring him back, because you don’t know whether you’ve got the right body or not.” Because the names fall off, and they just picked them up and tacked ‘em on any box that was there. So you didn’t know for sure. This way, we know where he’s at, and we have this picture of his grave, and the graveyard and everything.
Marilyn Shannon
I remember going to the movies, and the part where they used to have the news, and you’d see all the latest war news in the movies. And also I remember, it must’ve been radio, ‘cause there was not TV at that time, they’d talk about different programs, and I forget the program it was, where they would be sending so many cartons of cigarettes to the boys....I can’t remember, those were Old gold, but there was something on the radio that they were saying, “And so many cartons of cigarettes are going to the boys.” How things have changed.
Bob Barr
I used to work at Rike’s when I was in high school, and they used to send me to the Keilson Tobacco Company. And I would go over there to get the daily ration of cigarettes to take to Rike’s Smoke Shop. And I’d walk over there, and I was only about a sophomore in high school, I guess, and bring back this box of cigarettes. And so help me, as you came back, it was almost like a bunch of groupies followin’ ya. I musta had six or eight people would watch whoever came into Kielson’s and they would follow you back to the Smoke Shop at Rike’s and buy ‘em as soon as they got there.
Marty McCrate
The thing that I remember was nylons. Nylons, you couldn’t get ‘em and you’d give your life for a pair of nylons. You couldn’t get ‘em.
Norma Sullivan
They were rationed too, and we opened extra charges around town between my mother and my sisters, so that when your name came up and you got to get a pair, then we all were taken care of that way.
Marty McCrate
We even had a little needle. You would stick it in, and then when you pull it back, it would mend your runs.
Norma Sullivan
[...used leg makeup] and one day at work, I left my desk, I had makeup on. And some kid sneaked up behind me and stamped “Handled” on the back of each leg and I was trying to stand with my feet under the desk the rest of the morning. And I had to go home to lunch three blocks away, and I tried to scrub it off, U used scouring powder and everything. And then I had to paint over, but it didn’t match the morning’s! And it was a little darker.
There was general discussion about seamed stockings and getting the seam straight.
Rhonald Karns
I did miss cigarettes quite a bit, I mean that was my smokin’ years. I smoked Bull Durham, and used to buy, what did they call it, Victory Cigarettes, where three packs were a quarter? And I smoked a pipe, half and half. I smoked it all.
Bob Barr
Did you ever use a cigarette making machine? How did that work?
Rhonald Karns
Yeah, oh yeah. Well, they used a crimp cut. Prince Albert was a crimp cut, kinda flaky, like But Velvet was stringy. You’d put your paper in the machine, then take out some Velvet tobacca and put it in there, and if you wanted a fat cigarette, you’d put a little more in. And you’d bring the handle up, and it would bring the paper to, and then you’d have to lick that last. I made money, I bought several rollers and my wife and I, we went into production. We made and sold cigarettes. Sell cigarettes for a penny apiece. A can of tobacco was, what, 10 or 15 cents. The machine was called Target. There was Target tobacco, too.
General discussion of cigarette slogans. “LSMFT is Lucky Strike means fine tobacco.” “I’d walk a mile for a Camel.” “Winston tastes good like a {clap clap} cigarette should.” In Chesterfield ads, girls wore the boxes and just dance, showing their pretty legs. That was after the war because it was on TV. At Marilyn’s suggestion, participants introduced themselves with a little history.
Sister Mary Rose McCrate
One thing that nobody mentioned was the air raids. Dad, because he was a parent when the war began, he was never drafted. But he did work as an air raid warden, and I can remember as a child, having to turn out the lights, pull down the blinds, and we could listen to the radio but we weren’t allowed to have lights on. I remember it being very scary, because we were supposed to be afraid to the lights on, for fear somebody would bomb us, and yet Dad was out there walking the streets with some kind of a little helmet on his head, and a flashlight in case he needed it. I remember that being kind of scary, ‘cause it seemed to me like there I was, hiding in the house when he was out there all exposed, you know. That’s one of the frightening things, I think, that probably many children were afraid if their parents were out.
Norma Sullivan
My father was also an air raid warden, and one day he missed the meeting and they forgot to tell him they changed the night. And he was out there all by himself, hollerin’ and knockin’ on doors with his flashlight, and everybody thought he was a little nutty. Thought he had his own private air raid signal. And we laughed about it so many times. One time we were in a restaurant and they called the lights out, everybody had to order another drink before they stopped. And I was with my aunt and uncle, my sister, and we had a bowl of popcorn in the middle of the table and you had to reach for the popcorn and before you know it you had somebody’s hand.
