A Sunday in December
As the curtain descends on Act One. Bright lights illuminate the gloom in the auditorium. My feet reach for the hard floor and I leave the comfy, plush seat. Into the winter’s bleak weak sunlit marble hall I muse over my sister’s performance As the lead in the high school play (She’s only in her first year!) The lace collar on my party dress...
Elsie Johnson
Being born on December 29, 1921, has always been tough on me – everyone is broke and the holiday let down is over! I was the first born to Elsie and Lewis Honanichl who lived in Perry Iowa. Mom was a school teacher and Dad was a conductor on the Milwaukee R.R. Perry was a farm and R.R. center population 6,000 and about 40 miles from Des Moines,...
Greatest Generation
According to Tom Brokaw, the greatest generation was the people who survived The Great Depression of the 1930’s and World War II. That group would include my four brothers and some cousins, including Jeanne Bevier Trenholm, who served in the W.A.C.S., the Women’s Auxiliary Corps Service. My oldest brother, Bill joined the army in 1940 as he felt...
How "The War" Affected Our Family
There were always two brass shells from World War I that decorated our dining room buffet. These were brought from France by my father as a souvenir from my father’s service in World War I. I went into nurses training hoping to join the Navy on completion. I still remember spending a day with friends in Chicago when we heard the announcement of the...
I Was A Prisoner of War
The following is an interview of Mr. S., a Jewish American soldier held as a prisoner of war in a German Camp during World War II. “My mother was a great baker. After I was liberated from a German prisoner of war camp where I had been held for seven months, I was allowed to go back to Waterbury on leave. “What my mom baked, in my honor, landed our...
Jeanie Henry
I was born in Brooklyn, NY where I attended grade school. Then I graduated from Westover – a girl’s boarding school in Middlebury, CT in 1939 and went to Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY for 3 years before leaving to work in the Brooklyn Hospital as a Red Cross Nurse’s Aide during the war. In 1944 I married Don Henry, a naval attorney....
Lois Keating Learned
The last of six children, I was 5 years younger than my sister. She and my four older brothers were all born within eight and a half years; thus I’m an only child in a big family. The older five were born during affluent years, while I arrived in the middle of the Great Depression. My father was a stock broker and a member of the New York Stock...
Marie Sturm
Life in Prague During German Occupation Marie Sturm was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in June 1925. Marie was an only child and lived with her mother who worked for the postal service and her father who was a craftsman. Her father fabricated glass signs and restored wood furniture in a highly skilled fashion of the time - transforming the wood to...
More Interviews With Veterans
I went to a pancake breakfast on recent Sunday morning and was lucky to get these four veterans to talk with me… #1 of 4 Interviews “ I enlisted in the Navy for 3 1/2 years during the Korean War period and trained at the Bainbridge Naval Station”, Dan told me as we sat around a table at the fundraiser pancake breakfast. “I would say I was lucky...
My Favorite Holiday Memory
My favorite holiday memory took place in the war year of 1944. I was, as an infantry man, engaged in battle in France and Germany. This began in July. When Thanksgiving arrived in November we had not eaten a hot meal for over three months. Those cold meals were known as C and K rations. On that date we were surprised to see trucks arrive and take...
My Non-Job
In the Spring of 1942, I was finishing up my 3rd year of college. Pearl Harbor had taken place; the country was at was; most of the boys I knew were in uniform including my 2 brothers. Several of my friends had left college and had no plans to return. I was an adequate student, but no scholar and my future dreams included hopes for a husband and...
My Wedding Day, August 12, 1944.
It was my wedding day, August 12, 1944. in St. Augustine, Florida. All was planned for a 4 pm ceremony. At noon, the telephone rang. It was my bridesmaid, Laura, in Jacksonville, Florida. I can't get to your wedding - they won't let me on the bus, she exclaimed. Transportation was very restricted during the war. Service people got priority....
Officer Training or Not
This is one of six stories that David T. Daniel has added from his time in the Army during World War II Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 2. NO GOLD BARS FOR ME At the end of 17 weeks of basic training, those of us that were pulled from college ROTC were given two choices. One was an immediate transfer to Fort Benning, Georgia, for officer...
Pomperaug Pioneers
Deep in the soul of each Story Chip glows the knowledge that shared experience enriches us all. We see this most clearly in the eyes of our seniors with their accumulated wealth of adventure, sorrow and personal triumph. Pomperaug Woods is a retirement community in Southbury, Connecticut that includes among its many programs one that helps the...
Professors Who Influenced My Life
Prior to World War II, I attended a small Methodist college which was largely liberal arts. This college had a mandatory ROTC from which I was called into active service in November 1942. For the next 3 years I was in the military (note that I have written several Story Chips about these experiences). Many friends in service were college boys who...
Rationing
Rationing - well a lot of it was about food but what I remember best was shoes! The first time I had to go before a rationing board was probably in 1942 when I went to apply for a coupon for some nursing shoes. I had just completed a Red Cross nurse’s aide course and was ready to start work in the hospital – but I had no appropriate shoes. I was...
Rest and Recuperation at Home
This is one of six stories that David T. Daniel has added from his time in the Army during World War II Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 4. MILITARY A SHORT STAY AT HOME I arrived from Europe at home in later June, 1945. My mother, a very stern person, never commented to me by letter, anything she heard about me. My sister, who lived...
Scars and French Honors
This is one of six stories that David T. Daniel has added from his time in the Army during World War II Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 6. POST WAR MILITARY REMINDERS // After discharge I closed my mind to everything that happened for three years. I never looked up an old army friend nor did I join any of the...
Street Sounds
When I was a kid we lived on a dead end street in Brooklyn – one could stand at the foot of the street and survey the NY skyline and the Statue of Liberty. On foggy nights the tugboats went up and down the river singing their mournful songs and if we had guests they would come to breakfast bleary-eyed from lack of sleep. We were all so used to it...
Sugar
About 1943, my town got its first supermarket, the Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, forever known as the A P. Before then there were small shops comprising of the green grocer for fresh fruits, vegetables and dry goods, such as cereals and canned soups; the bakery; the butcher’s shop; the fish market; any dairy products were delivered to the...
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