A Life to Remember

The War Efforts

I came home from school one day and immediately started my chores. My grandmother walked into my room as I was making my bed. "Barbara, why didn't you make your bed before you left?"

"I'm sorry grandmother, I was late this morning. I ended up having to run all the way to school." I remarked.

"Speaking about school, have you done anything to help the war effort in class?" she inquired.

"We discussed what bonds are, and we are having a dance soon. We are going to invite the boys from Westover," I explained as I rushed around cleaning up my sisters doll clothes that they had left out the night before. "Where's father?" I asked.

"He's fixing the blackout curtain in your brother's room. It fell while you were in school," She explained. I walked down the hall and knocked on the door as I peered into the room. No one was in the room but my father.

"What happened?" I asked him.

"It fell off the window, I guess I didn't put it in right the first time." I watched him hang the heavy black cloth over the window. No light could come in or out with it closed. "My father was an air raid warden, so he knew how important it was to keep the windows blacked out at night." My father would patrol the streets at night. He would check all the houses that he was assigned to, and those who didn't have black out curtains would be arrested. So he understood the seriousness of his job and he knew that the curtain had to be fixed that day. I was walking away when I heard my father shout. "Barbara, do you want to go to the store with me after I fix this to get groceries?"

"Sure," I answered enthusiastically. I liked doing anything that would get me out of doing my chores.

"Alright," he exclaimed, "Let's go!" He grabbed the ration stamps that were on the table, we got in the car and took off towards the store. When we walked into the store, there was a long line. Even though it was boring, it got me out of doing my chores, so I was happy. Since the war started we had ration tickets. What you saw on the ticket, is what you would get; no more, no less. Since everyone was fighting in the war, there wasn't a lot of farmers left to grow the food, so the food supply was down. Also because of the amount of food we had to send to the soldiers, there wasn't a lot for the people left at home in America. We stood in line for what seemed like hours, but eventually, we were able to get the groceries that we needed and we headed home.