Thursday, December 1, 2022

Chicken Ridge

November 28, my Sister Patsy’s been gone from me 8 years.  She remembered rationing during WW II.  

The newspaper clipping is from The San Bernardino County Sun 29 Nov 1942, Sun · Page 11

Oh, dear, glad this was 80 years ago and not today.  One pound would not last me 5 weeks.  Sister Patsy said rubber was rationed, too and Momma cut little strips from inner tubes to make her underwear.  

Sister said—“Everything was rationed during the war.  You had stamps the government issued each family and certain things were very hard to buy because of shortages. To buy a rationed item you had to find somewhere that had the item and give them your government stamp and the money to purchase that rationed item.  The things I remember that we could not get were sugar, coffee, elastics , gas and tires for a car.  Denver was a thriving place in that day. They had 3 stores. Mr. Beck’s store also was the post office. Grandpa said Mr. Beck got his job because he was a Democrat. Grandpa Gaddy belonged to the Republican party. Grandpa Gaddy sold gas, fixed flats, sold groceries and soda pop.   Mother made my underpants.  She cut old inner tubes into strips for the elastic to keep the bloomers on my skinny frame. There was not much stretch in the rubber.  It was a pretty good trick to get the strip of rubber the right length. My bloomers were always so sung that either they cut into my skin or so loose they were always trying to go south while I ran and played.”  She wrote this in 2006.  She passed in 2014.  Miss her deeply.


 

3 comments:

Donna. W said...

She was one of a kind.

Margie's Musings said...

I remember all that rationing. I was old enough to have it impact me. For one thing, even bubble gum was rationed. My mother worked in a grocery store and was able to buy my sister and I enough to give all the kids in our home room at school.Because it was so rare to get any, the teachers let us do that.

Sugar was also rationed and so were a lot of other things

Far Side of Fifty said...

We have my husbands parents ration books. Gasoline and tires were also rationed. Those we bad times, as I recall my Mother In Law saying they traded ration coupons so they could get enough gas to make a visit home from Omaha to Park Rapids Mn