This was written by Nancy as a gift to her children.
When I was very young, many things in my life were affected by the war, although I didn't realize it at the time. Most days were, in fact, rather pleasant.
Looking back, life seemed a little more subdued then. Not very much to do -- not many places to go, except Sunday school and to visit relatives. There seemed to be all the time in the world and it was always sunny and warm, but maybe it seems that way to all kids.
Mama rode to the neighborhood grocery store on a bike with me riding behind. We had to have red cents to buy food -- something to do with rationing. I look at the old cook books with their sugarless, eggless cakes, but the only differences in food I remember were oleo instead of butter and saccharin in the iced tea.
1943 pennies were made of steel instead of copper. Since I was born in 1943, pennies my age are very distinctive. I think that was the only year they were made of steel.
The whole neighborhood had a rather pleasant animal smell -- chickens and rabbits in the backyards, cow manure in the gardens, horse droppings in the streets. It was patriotic to raise your own chickens and vegetables -- besides, meat was a little scarce in the stores. I likes to pick up the chicken feathers and make Indian headdresses out of them. I remember once when my mother wrung the neck of an old rooster, he didn't die at once, but ran around the yard in circles with his head flopping from side to side.
I loved to hold the rabbits, although they were almost as big as I was -- they were so white and soft and heavy. I liked to feed them bits of lettuce and carrots through the wire, but a little scared, too, of those big teeth.
I could almost always find a garter snake or at least a spider in the garden to scare our neighbor lady with. Mrs. Grasso would scream and back away in the most delightful way. She always had cookies for us -- I always thought they were special Italian cookies because they had a different taste from those my mother made.
The iceman and the milkman drove horse-drawn wagons. I liked to watch for them and pet their horses. The iceman's huge tong were fascinating and he would always chip off a piece of ice for me.
The wringer washer was out in the garage. I thought it was great fun to put the clothes through the wringer and see them squeezed so flat. Back then it seemed we did half our living outside then -- before central heating and air conditioning. In summer, the windows were always open and the attic fan was on day and night.
I don't really remember that many uniforms around -- except when Uncle Herman, Uncle Jesse, or Uncle Donald would come home occasionally in sailor suits, or Uncle Walter or Sonny Sorrel down in the street would come home in brown uniforms. I remember Uncle Felix in dress blues, but that may have been after the was when the Air Force became a separate service. I don't remember Uncle Robert or Arthur or Bobby in uniform, although I know they were in the Army. I remember that my mother and Aunt Thelma always wore their nurses capes to work in the winter. After the war they didn't.
Some of these memories undoubtedly occurred during the war, but some were almost surely in 1946, '47 or '48 because even though the war was over, demobilization and gearing up to peacetime production took time. Automatic washer, refrigerators, new cars, tires simply took time to produce and there were waiting lists of customers for all of them. I remember that we finally got a new Chevy in 1948 to replace our '31 Ford and promptly set off on a vacation in the Rockies.
