WWII started on December 7, 1941, I was 9 at the time, so I remember, "life" as it was in those days. Earl Hyer had the grocery store across the street from our home at 319 South Brown Street in Dayton, Ohio. We were one of his best customers, so I imagine he got us through "rationing" without too may problems. He let me put a big white apron on and do odd jobs around the store.Had the big Philco radio in those days, spent may hours in front of the radio. H. V. Kaltenborn, Walter Winchell, Peter Grant from WLW in Cincinnati, received all the war news on that radio. Got all our war news through this radio, and of course the newspaper. I remember times also that paper boys would be yelling "EXTRA" on every street corner in Dayton.
We had relatives, neighbors and patients of Dad's who were in the service, Red Wallace, Bob Shook, one of the Sturr family, as I recall, not sure if Charley Parlette was in or not. I remember Bob Shook had the USS Yorktown torpedoed out from under him. I remember when he came home on leave after that. I forget how much time he spent in the water, it was a few days.
We collected cans, scrap metal, had a Victory Garden, and some sort of "pods" we collected that they used in parachute making. We had a company of Waves that we often saw marching to a building in the NCR complex. We later heard they were working on some sort of secret coding device. Have seen them often marching in the morning and the evening.
The war did not hit our family too badly, we were lucky.
