Depression Lines
Fathers Day
From Liz Martinez
If you attended PS 75 back in the late 50's this was very typical. For Father's Day we used to get this seashell from the school. We didn’t have to buy it, for some reason the school always had them. We used to take these seashells and water paint them: they were always done very colorfully. We use to wrap them in drawing paper and give them to our fathers on Father’s Day. But the part that makes me wonder, now that I think about it, was that these seashells were supposed to be ashtrays, and my father was not a smoker. Yet he never ever mentioned that; he was always so happy when I gave him the typical PS 75 father day ashtray made out of a seashell and water paints.
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Writing as a Healing Tool
From Danielle
I would like to know your take on writing as a healing tool with the elderly population. What kind of writing could be healing and what types of healing could be accomplished? Do any of you have a story related to writing and healing?
Healing Tool
From Steve
I don’t know about a healing tool, but I think something as simple as writing letters to seniors, especially to ones that live alone and do not have computers, would be a great morale booster. It would let them know someone cares and that always makes a difference in someone’s health. Plus you could ask a couple of questions in each letter about their life or family and use that as a form of gathering stories from them.
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Gold in the Streets
From Doc Ellis
You are right when you say it is the “gold in the streets” of a great America that lures immigrants here. When my grandfather came here in 1904 looking for that gold, he wrote his family back in Europe, "it's true there is gold in the streets in this country, but you don't just bend over and pick it up, the idea is that the "gold" is golden opportunity and you work for it.” It's been a concept in my family for, now, 100 years.
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The Great Depression
From Kari Harnick Age 14
I am doing a paper about lifestyles in the U.S. in the 1930's and about the Great Depression. Can you send me any stories that could help? Thank you.
Reply to The Great Depression
From Milton J. Long Columbus, Ohio WWII vet age 80
Kari, I was about your age during the hard time of the Depression. The thing that I remember most was how people worked together in order to make it. The ones that had relatives or friends in the country were lucky because it was a source of food. My dad was a jeweler and he would take food in return for repairing a person’s watch or clock. The churches were active in helping their members. People traded food items with friends. The city set up a soup kitchen in the center of town and fed people that needed food. The banks didn’t want to have to take people’s homes away so they would work with them to pay the interest on their loans. It was a country working together. The people in the very large cities had to depend on food kitchens to survive. We made it and the country was better off for having been through the Depression.
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Car Blueprints
From Anonymous
I am looking for information on 1918 car blueprints. Does anyone have any idea of value?
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Gas Prices
From Bernie
1930's gas stations had very competitive prices. I remember 8 gallons for a dollar.
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Claiborne Family
From Bill Miller
I was wondering if you could help me. I am researching a Civil War soldier from Petersburg Virginia by the name of G.W. Claiborne. The “G” might be Gregory, but I am not sure. Any information would be very much appreciated.
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Fredrick Raymond Buechler
From Tina
Hi, my name is Tina and my girlfriend, Jen, told about your group. I am looking to find information about my father. He died when I was 12. All I know is that he was in the Navy and was a part of WWII. Could you help me? Thanks so much. I will have to find out some more information. All I know is his name was Fredrick Raymond Buechler and he was in the Navy. I don’t know where to go to get more information. Thanks so much for your help.
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Interior Guard Duty
From Milton Long
Have you ever wondered what kind of stories the subject of Interior Guard Duty might bring to light? In the first place, it was outside, not interior. You had to know your general orders or you were in deep trouble. In the second place, they had you guard an empty warehouse with an empty rifle. Does that make sense? Now when they line you up in 3 ranks, which make 3 shifts of guards, they line you up by height; the tall boys on the right and the short ones, like me, on the left. The tallest soldier gets Post 1 and the shortest soldier, like me, gets Post 24. Post 24 is so far out it takes the relief 15 minutes to reach you! It then takes another 15 minutes to get to the guardhouse, and by then you have lost 30 minutes of sleep. What Guard Post does the Officer of the day visit? You guessed it, Post 24, my post because I am the shortest. Now he has me call the Corporal of Guard Post 24. Well, Post 23 finally hears me and he calls the Corporal of the Guard Post 24 and so on until it finally reaches the Guard House. The Corporal of the Guard wakes up some of the sleepy soldiers, loads them in the jeep and heads out to Post 24. Now this has taken at least 30 minutes by the time they arrive at Post 24. Now the Officer of the day spends another 30 minutes chewing out the Corporal of the guard for taking so long. So this is the life of a poor soldier on Guard Duty in WWII.
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First Sergeants
From Doc Ellis
Back in 1942 when I was a (very) young recruit at Harding Field, Baton Rouge, La., our First Sergeant scheduled reveille and roll call was at 5 a.m. or some such. We'd fall out for the call and then back in the barracks for whatever. Some of us, not too bright, figured that it was so damn foggy at 5 a.m. at the field that the First Soldier - Roy L. Warn - wouldn't notice if instead of breaking our necks to get fully dressed for roll call, we'd just stay in our skivvies but slip into boots, that magnificent wool overcoat and the (censored) caps. After roll call (or was it role call? Damned if I can remember) we'd just hustle into the barracks, finish the tooth-brushing, etcetera and get dressed for breakfast call at 6 a.m. (never could figure why the bastard didn't just wake us up and let it go until 6 a.m. when we'd be all dressed and ready for the mess hall march), but he was in charge not us. Then, this one morning when some of us were clad only in the boots, coats and caps, Sgt. Warn read the roll/role call, called us to attention and marched us to the mess hall. When we got there, he ordered, "You guys who ain’t uniformed, peel off them coats and go on in the chow line!” It was as simple as that and there we were in our boots and skivvies, getting howled at, laughed at and whistled at by all the guys in our company and every other unit in the mess hall. Sgt. Warn never pulled that stunt again; he didn't have to. Believe me, every man back in the barracks was fully dressed for roll/role call. I've had a lot of First Sergeants in my time but was never able to outsmart any of them.
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Man's Inhumanity
From Bernie
War is man's inhumanity to man. Many outrages were committed during the course of actions. I do recall the Malmedy massacre of Dec. 1944, when Nazi German soldiers executed three hundred Americans because they were "unable" to take them prisoner.
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German POWs
From Doc Ellis
I remember, as the war neared it's end, in downtown Rheims, France, where a beautiful park had been, there was a barbed-wire fenced-in compound holding hundreds, maybe thousands of German POWs, and when my buddies and I had need to go by there, I'd look at them pressed against the fence staring back at us; some were as young as I was then, 20, and looked as frightened and lost as I'd have been had it been me in a German holding pen instead. Strange, isn't it, how things turn out?
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Published in U S Legacies Magazine June 2004
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