Dear Christina.

I've heard it said that most of the significant events in a person's life usually happen during a single decade.

And that's certainly true with me.

During the 1940s, I graduated from high school.

The country went to war.

I went to college.

I met a man, fell in love, got married and had my first child.

It was an exciting time.

And looking back some 50 years later, the memories are warm and comfortable.

I realized that at the ripe old age of five, you may be a little too young to understand.

But I'm hoping that one day you'll read this letter and maybe you'll feel like you know your Grandma Betty a little better.

Along with this letter goes a small train case.

In it are what I consider some important pieces of my life.

You will find pictures, mementos, and dozens of letters written by me, mostly.

I've always been big on letter writing and have gotten many old letters back from family and friends in recent years.

Many were written to your grandpa when he was in the war.

I was so surprised he had kept them, and now I'm so happy to be able to share them with you.

I think you'll gain a better understanding of how the world looked then.

And what a lovely place Fort Wayne was back in the 1940s.

Back home again in Indiana.

April 10th, 1940.

Dear Aunt Alice.

I'm listening to Hoosier Hop in your honor and trying not to think about what I have to do at school tomorrow.

A bunch of us seniors are filming an actual movie.

It's supposed to show the proper etiquette for boys and girls.

And I play one of the lead girls.

I'm so nervous.

I know I'll never get to sleep.

The movie is silent, so I don't actually have a speaking part, but it's important just to say I always dreamed of being a movie star like Carole Lombard.

This may be my big break.

Let's hope I'm not Stinker Rooney.

Well, gotta put up my hair.

At least I'll be beautiful.

Wish me luck.

I hope you're coming to my graduation.

Can you believe it?

I'm almost finished.

Love, Betty.

P.S.

if I don't make it as a movie star, maybe I can be on the radio.

I lay in front of the radio, hour after hour and listening to programs like the likes of the Shadow.

What evils lurk in the hearts of men?

The shadow knows.

And the Lone Ranger.

Hi-yo, Silver.

And then there is Henry Aldridge.

Coming, mother.

And then gangbusters.

You hear the change?

Clank!

And then.

Then there was Fibber McGee and Molly.

And he's always full closet of stuff falling out of his closet.

That was hilarious.

And Digger O'Dell, the friendly undertaker.

Ha ha ha!

And then there was Baby Snooks.

That was interesting.

Charlie McCarthy and Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, I should say, with Mortimer Snerd.

And, that those were a fantastic program.

And of course, we can't leave out Jack Benny with Mary Livingston and Rochester and the every Christmas season, the tree with gold, timber and all that.

And then Gene Autry.

I'm back in the saddle again.

Those were the days listening to radio program.

And one was real scary.

It was called Inner Sanctum Mysteries with the squeaky door.

And they always open the door at the beginning of the program with rusty hinges.

And he closed the program by closing the door.

And Tom Mix at a quarter to six.

And it was just like kids do a TV the day we lay there and listen to the radio shows.

Jack Armstrong, the all-American boy.

What was the guy on Sunday night?

My dad never met Walter Winchell.

We got more information from Walter Winchell than from any other source, I think.

Yeah.

We never missed.

We never missed his show on on Sunday night.

The Hit Parade was wonderful.

It was on Saturday night and we dropped everything and listened to the Hit Parade.

Fibber McGee and Molly and Amos and Andy.

Lowell Thomas for the news and things like that.

You know, everything had a tinge of patriotism.

The standard radio shows, you know, all of them wonderful, wonderful programs I grew up with, whether it was Lux Radio Theater or, I Love a Mystery or, wonderful Fibber McGee and Molly kinds of things.

You know, my my entire week was punctuated by radio listening and, and imagination as I sat there.

And we always waited for Fibber McGee to open the door of his closet and everything come crashing out.

Phyllis Bertolini and his all girl orchestra.

And Evelyn with her magic violin.

A couple of times I remember when the radio went on the bum and we were lost because we didn't have had the money to have it fixed right at that time.

A tube would go out or whatever, and, we'd always be so happy when we, if we get home and the music was playing because we knew the radio was back on.

December 16th, 1941.

Dear Aunt Alice, I can't believe the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor.

I heard on the radio that so far they think about 3000 Americans were killed.

I feel so bad for their families.

What a sad Christmas this will be.

As I remember, when they bombed Pearl Harbor, we were a group of us had been down in southern Indiana to organize a club, and we were on our way back home.

We heard it on the radio when they bombed Pearl Harbor.

Thats Sunday morning.

Yeah, yeah.

I remember we were at my grandmother's house on that Sunday because it was her birthday after church, and my cousin went down to get some pop and about 2:30 or 3 came back and he said, the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor, man, that family reunion got.

We packed up and went home.

Everybody said, and this is funny, we turn on the radio.

And I didn't realize it until you did the radio show.

We just sit there and we watch that radio like you would TV.

I don't know why you couldn't see anything.

We were glued to that thing for hours.

Yeah, I mean, after that happened.

But I remember the day of Pearl Harbor, we were driving to Ossian, and I heard it on the car radio, and, that just changed everything, of course.

Many of the boys I graduated with have already gone to the utility center to sign up.

It just seems so strange to me that everything can change.

So quickly.

Lots of my girlfriends husbands will be going overseas.

How frightening.

We were young and bold and brash and brave.

And it was the right thing to do to get involved as soon as you could.

My brother was three years older than me, and, he wanted to go very much.

And, so I remember, my parents and, it was one Saturday morning.

We took him to his induction center, and that's the last time we saw him Until he got out.

We never saw him.

He never had a chance to come home after basic training or anything like that.

Mother gave me a hug, and, I had a whole big old kiss, and, Dad shook my hands and gave me a hug and said, be careful, keep safe.

And I don't remember, crying, but, I know, I felt like crying, and I felt like crying, especially when, my dad shook, he and my dad shook hands because I'm.

I'm sure my dad was very, very proud of him, but he he he couldn't tell him that.

He couldn't tell him that.

But that was a, gesture that that made everyone know that he was proud of him.

He had the little satin, flag hanging in the front window with one star in the middle of it.

I was so lonely and so frightened and so sad.

I had envisioned as perhaps I'd get shot down.

And my parents would never know.

If you'd like to express some of your ideas on the war situation, on rationing, on any aspect of Fort Wayne's war effort.

Just write a card to... Dear Aunt Alice, out and see what.

Well, I'm trying to get used to rationing.

It took dad several sessions trying to explain how it works, and I guess all I've really figured out is that mama uses sugar a lot more than I do.

So I give her my stamps.

Everything was in short supply.

Everything from shoes to gasoline to meat.

Shoes.

They said they were using old leather for the soldiers shoes, so there was none.

The all the factories and stuff went to war.

Something for the war.

They stopped making everything else.

So there's things like shoes, imported things like sugar that there was not very much of in this country that was imported.

Of course, it became very short supply.

The meats, was going to the soldiers to feed them, and it was understood by the people that they we went to a rationing and the government put out a rationing book for each family.

And, you had, stamps that you had it came out in the paper.

What stamps were allowed to be used that way?

They could is the volume of an article went down.

They could lessen the amount you were allowed to have with the stamps.

And so you had issue days for the stamps and you could use them.

Fat.

They claim they were using the Fats, something in munitions besides food.

And so, the women would save their drippings of the from the bacon or whatever they cooked, and they return it back to the store, to the meat market, and the meat market would actually buy it back and give you some little coupons, little token.

And those didn't have a date on them, so they were good whenever and, so very often, if you really didn't need the meat, you'd go and buy a small piece of meat with your coupon, and your change for the coupon came back in a little token and that did not have a date on it.

So if you want to have a big dinner for the family, you could you had enough tokens.

You could use them to get your meat.

Shoes were again, in short supply because of the leather used for soldiers.

And if I remember right, we were allowed two pairs, one pair every six months, two pairs a year.

And for kids growing up, that's not very many shoes.

All everything sports, they stopped making cars.

Gasoline was, of course, very highly rationed.

And, there was an A sticker, a B sticker, and I believe a C sticker.

The A sticker was for the general public that what everybody was allowed to have was so many gallons a week.

And then a B sticker, which my dad did have was for the people working for defense plants that needed to drive when they couldn't carpool.

And my father was on machine repair and he was called in.

So he had a B sticker.

And then I believe the C stickers were for farmers so they could buy fuel for their tractors so they could produce food.

So it was, it was logical.

I think the worst part of it was we couldn't go out and buy a pair of shoes like we wanted because we had ration stamps and they didn't last very long, especially when you danced all the time.

And like I did.

I've planted a small victory garden at home, mostly tomatoes.

Mama does most of the watering and weeding because I'm so busy at the hospital these days, I don't get home as often as I used to.

I love being a nurse.

Suffering through chemistry really paid off.

I'm helping coordinate a scrap metal drive the hospital is sponsoring.

Kids from all over have been bringing pieces of metal to the hospital parking lot.

Now I need to round up a large truck to haul it away.

I really feel like I'm contributing to the war effort.

It feels good.

My father was a civil defense warden, so my at home memories had to do with an extremely patriotic family.

We saved everything that had to be saved.

We used our stamps wisely.

Our rationing stamps wisely.

My father checked the block during blackouts at night, and I remember his helmet.

Well, I remember walking with him during the summertime around our particular block in northwest Fort Wayne, out West State Way where I was born.

And, I can remember I know I was young at the beginning of the war or 11-12, that kind of age.

But I remember being deeply concerned about the lightning bugs that they would light themselves to such a degree that perhaps planes flying over might be aware of the light.

When we were so careful to keep it very dark.

So I had some direct relationship, even though I had not much family, actually, in the war on the home front, we were very much involved.

A siren would sound.

They would, I think, tell you in the paper they going to have a practice air raid and you hear the siren.

That meant you had to turn all your lights out.

In order to enforce that, they had a block captain that wore out one of these white helmets, and it come down with his flashlight.

And, say, hey, lights out now, you had to do what he said, or he turned you in.

And I was still young enough that, I was afraid of the dark.

And, I was one that went to sleep with a light on my room.

Well, it was a blackout.

You weren't allowed to do that.

So my dad took a small light bulb, a low wattage bob, and used bluing on it so that it would not show.

And that was acceptable because then they could not see it for an air raid.

And, that was my little light and my little nightlight I had.

Dear Aunt Alice, last night I went out on a double date with my friend Tammy and two soldier boys she knows.

We had a swell time.

My date's name was Jim, and he was really nice.

He's from Fort Wayne and stationed at Bear Field until he gets his orders.

We went to a Clark Gable movie at the Emboyd and stopped at Gardners afterwards for a hamburger.

To tell you the truth, I don't remember much of the movie, but I remember a lot about Jim.

Very handsome in his uniform.

I can't remember how long it's been since I went to a movie.

I used to go to the Emboyd Theater, the Paramount.

A bag of popcorn, a box of Milk Duds, a serial, Fu Manchu or Jungle Girl.

The newsreels, coming attractions, a cartoon or two, and a double feature from 12:00 noon until six.

My life was on Well Street in the theater, and of course, the movies were wonderful.

They were wonderful, particularly those that had the World War Two theme.

Every Saturday afternoon, the Indiana Theater on Broadway.

Of course, they would have double features.

They would have a long with the double feature.

They have serial.

Oh, yes.

You had to watch that serial.

Oh, no.

Ran for about 13 weeks to keep you coming.

And of course, they have a newsreel about cartoon, maybe two cartoons and maybe even a travelog.

We didn't go to the movie by the name of the title.

Where are you going tonight?

We're going to see Clark Gable at so and so, you know, at the movies, we always knew who we were going to see, but we didn't know what they were playing in.

And see, we're going to see Spencer Tracy or Bette Davis, you know.

One thing I did notice that's new since the war at the movie, the colored people had to sit upstairs in the balcony talking to some of the brothers and neighbors.

Troublesome the problems of they had to go see them there about six weeks before I did coming into downtown Fort Wayne for entertainent, food, or a movie.

Going to the bar or something.

I think so, they go bad.

Me, I suggested, well, let's form a committee of 20.

We've gone to the movie this Friday night.

Told my commander what I was going to do is, he says which one are you going to?

I told him.

He said, well, I have some of the white officers down there when you get there.

Sure enough, we went to this theater on Jefferson.

Yeah...probably the Emboyd.

Across from Hillman's.

Yeah, yeah, we got 25 soldiers clean, looking presentable.

No drunks, no loud talking.

We go on this joint.

Guy points upstairs.

I said, like hell we are, right?

I said, where these people go to.

We got a popcorn, a candy bar and pop and we followed them right in.

We went halfway down the aisle, took two rolls of us.

So something told me to check that door again.

So sure enough, I went back the owner that theater is calling Baer Field to send the MPs down.

So I come back and to told the guy.

I said tell you what, By the time these MPs get here, we'll be standing right on both sides of this alley, waiting on.

And I told the first one to come through here.

I am an army officer.

I'm black.

I'm with my brothers.

I said, if you want problems, you come to the right place, He stood back and he looked at me and says “are you from Baer Field?” So what does that insignia say?

And we haven't seen nobody like you.

Welcome to the club.

So we had to stand off.

So I told the guys, I said now I'll tell you what we're gonna do.

Since they not pushing us too far, we'll get up and walk out in an orderly fashion.

But I told that manager, we'll be back with 100 strong.

This was like Friday.

Saturday.

We had 150 now and we didn't have no problems.

And the three of us went to the Jefferson.

That was when we still had his rights, that Charles was kind of limping because he had been shot with a bullet to through his thigh and he was recuperating really about well, but he was ready to go back.

And we went in there and we sat in the middle, of course, and this little usher, little fuzzy face rascal came down, says, you guys got to move.

He says, where are you going to take me?

Well said.

You got to move to the other side.

But I said, I'm getting ready to go some place to do some fighting for you while you stay staying here telling my people what to do.

I suggest you get out of here and leave us alone.

And we sat back down.

I said.

The manager, I guess decided to leave us alone.

Well, Willa Martindale of Warsaw, Indiana, was one of our winners.

She quotes her brother, who she says there had always been a home boy, and when cookies arrive, it's like a visit from home, he says.

When word gets around he's received a box from home.

His tent is full.

But that doesn't worry him, though, because when any of the other fellows get a box, he get the box.

He gets his share too.

But he right.

It makes the boys feel more like fighting for their country when they feel someone cares for them.

And this is Robert Carsen of Angola, Indiana, sent an interesting letter.

Her brother, who's a label trainee, write that often he wished he had a homemade cookie to eat because, after all, when he was at home, he could go to the kitchen for a bite between meals.

Any time.

He hastens to say that the meals he gets in the Navy are really swell, and they can go to the ship store for candy bars and so forth.

But those things can't take the place of.

Dear Jim, I hope these cookies make you feel a little more at home down there at Camp Polk.

They're your favorite.

I feel like writing you all the time.

I miss you, and even though we've known each other only a few months, I feel like I've known you all my life.

Tammy got a v mail letter back that she sent to Artie over in Germany marked missing.

She's so scared.

We're hoping it was a mistake.

I know you're anxious to put your training to good use, but I just as soon you stayed stateside.

Of course.

I'm selfish.

I'm so proud of you.

I know you're going to help win this war.

Please be careful.

I'm praying for you.

More cookies on the way.

Love, Betty.

Dear Jim, took the train to Chicago this weekend and it was packed.

Tammy and I had to sit on our luggage practically in the aisle.

I had no idea it would be so busy.

This was the first three day weekend I've had in months, and Tammy wanted to get out of town one last time before she starts work at GE.

So we saw the sights.

Boy, Chicago sure is big and there were soldiers everywhere.

I kept hoping I'd run into you, even though I know you're on a ship somewhere.

A girl can hope, can't she?

No word yet on Artie.

I'm glad Tammy got that job.

It'll keep her mind occupied.

Just about every woman I know is working in defense plants now.

I think that's swell.

Anything we can do over here to make your job easier, I'm all for.

My husband tells the story of his sister, who is some ten years older than he, right out of high school.

At that time, or not long out put on her coveralls and covered her hair and went to General Electric and became one of those women on the line.

And that was a totally women out in the workforce.

That whole kind of involvement was new.

I'm certain that some of my classmates mothers became involved in that way.

Mine did not.

But it was, very, very different for women.

I think it was very good for them.

Of course, as we, you know, would understand.

But it made a difference in women.

They felt very much a part of the whole American scene, I think.

Just as they may have gotten the right to vote some years before, but some other kinds of rights of involvement came with the war.

Their importance, I think they were more than just the girl that was left behind.

I said, I'm going to go to town.

He says, what for?

I am going to Fort Wayne to G.E.

to get a job.

So I took my car in town, parked in the parking lot, went down to the snug restaurant, jumped on the red, white and blue victory bus and came over and dropped us off at the GE on Broadway.

And I walked in and there was a lot of people there for jobs, walked in, filled out your application, and they hired me, took my picture and said, start tomorrow morning at seven.

I worked in a defense plant, had been Horton's, and I think they made conventional washers, and I visualized tracer bullets.

It was sort of an unwritten law, but but as soon as you got married, because I remember one girl came down to the store and she said, you have to marry this guy.

But she had this good job, you know, and she didn't know whether to marry him or keep her job, because if she got married, she had to quit her job.

After you got married, you didn't work.

It was a sign your husband couldn't support you.

The only way you could quit in a defense factory is you either was going to service, you were going to college, or you were going to die.

Now that's it.

If you quit with no other reasons, out you end.

You couldn't work for eight weeks.

And that's that.

That held true.

If it didn't make any difference if you quit any place, the government said if you quit and you don't have a legitimate reason for quitting.

You don't work for eight weeks.

It was a penalty.

Things had changed drastically at that time because there was a large influx of help from the South, workers from the south to come in to work at the factories, because about that time, was the first time that the local manufacturers that hired blacks as laborers in the factories, we had had women working in their as clean up people and, elevator operators.

Dear Jim, well, it's Saturday morning, and mama and I are going to catch a streetcar downtown and do some window shopping.

We could drive, but the streetcar is much more fun.

And besides, gas is at a premium these days.

Oh, the streetcars, they were fun to ride.

In the summertime, the windows would be open.

We didn't have air conditioning, you know, so you can hear everything going on would be open.

And they chuckle.

And when they cross the road crossing, you know, you can feel all those tracks on the front and everybody was just peaceful except for, you know, on the track.

And when they get to the place where they stop and you get off, oh, I wish we had them.

Up on Broadway, speaking of the busses and trolleys, at 330 in the afternoon, driving down Broadway, there would be 18 or 20 little busses in a line waiting for the day shift to get off.

It was fun.

So, ride on a streetcar.

It really was fun to ride a streetcar, because the streetcar would wobble a little bit like this.

And they only cost $0.07 to ride one.

Or you can get a pass for all week for a dollar and go anywhere you want, as much as you want.

Once in a while.

Mom would have had a lot of shopping to do and wed get one, and I would borrow it and just ride around all Fort Wayne and see places I never saw before.

Just enjoy it tremendously.

And they had wicker seats and their beautiful wicker shoes and the as they got to the end of the line, the conductor would conductor would pick up, his equipment, the change bought for box and just disengage his hand and walk to the other end.

While he was doing this, we flipped seats to face the other way, then go back on the other.

I was going down the back.

Now there's only one person on the car.

I was always like, and I was going.

And the streetcars weave, they weaved, you know, they just we'd normally.

And so I was going and then I was going around the corner and I went a little too fast and broke a trolley pulled right off up at the top, right on the top of the car, you know, and so I, I, told her, I said, well, I'll be right back.

So I was going to go and call him up and tell him what happened at the transit office.

And, and he, he, he said, well, I'll tell you, the guy that was in there said that he used to work for the transit company and he would go he would do it, but he wouldn't be insured.

So he told me exactly how to climb up there on top of the streetcar and not don't get electrocuted and tie the pole down.

See?

So I says, oh, I said, well, I think I'll just go in and talk, tell him what happened, hope and figure, and they might come out and do it, you know.

So I went in there and told them what happened, and they told me the same old thing that he'd told me to do.

So I went back out and he'd done it.

They wouldn't come out.

And they said I had to do it, and he'd gotten up on top and done it for me.

Get four streetcar checks for a quarter.

And, go downtown.

If you wanted to take a little extra trip, you would get a transfer so you could go farther for your money and then come back, you know, and, we would go now, I yeah, this was in the 40s.

There was a whole lineup of dime stores down on Calhoun Street, and you would just make the rounds.

You would just go down, go through all the dime stores just for fun, more than anything else, and get weighed in front of the Lincoln Tower.

They had a scales out there.

You get weighed.

I don't even think you had to put a penny in there.

So, of course, Wolf and Dessauers was the big meeting place and everything else.

We hung around there a lot.

We'd go to Walgreens and get all the great limeade in the summertime.

It was great.

And Wolf & Dessauers had their tea room in the basement, not tea room, but their lunch counter in the basement.

Sometimes we'd stop in there and or, go to Murphy's and get one of their donuts.

Beautiful.

It's a wonder.

Weighed in all way 200 pounds.

I can remember when black people couldn't sit down in the Walgreens.

Now they talking about immigration and all that after the war.

So that was after the wars and before the war.

That was not the case.

And that was not the case before the war.

In fact, before the war, black people owned businesses all up and down Calhoun Street.

Before the war.

My mom and I used to get up and clean our houses up on Saturday morning so we could go shopping in the afternoon down at, Murphy's and Grand Leader.

And, Wolf & Dessauers was a wonderful store.

It had the huge columns in, and at Christmas time it was just so cute.

It was elegant.

That's what it was.

And we would go to the tea room, which was on second floor.

Third floor, I can't remember, but that was our treat to ourselves for, having a little, a little bit rough at times.

It was one black guy.

His name was Sam Horton.

He was from Missouri someplace.

He was the only black guy in that whole school.

But, they were members of the junior branch of the NAACP.

There was a white tower right up the street there.

That hamburger joint.

Its still it there.

It's still there.

Powers.

All the boys, and it was all boys school when they that night, when they get through studying, they'd go up there to eat, the man when wouldn't serve him.

I had an incident there too.

And that way, before you get started, and you know what they did one night, they went in there.

I was a part of it, too.

Me, Maurice and Guy and, Hill's twin.

Joe.

Joe Lyons.

We went in there and took every seat and we ordered milk and hamburgers, and the guy told us that we had to take ours out, and nobody moved.

These white guys, it's mostly white guys.

And yeah, this is after the war.

And we did the same thing with Walgreens.

But what downtown off Calhoun was Walgreens.

They wouldn't you go and get a milkshake.

You had to take that milkshake out.

Yeah.

And these same guys.

What, they didn't know that the assistant manager of that Walgreens was, was going to school at it at Concordia.

So he was one of us.

He didn't let them know we were coming, and we did the same thing down there.

But that's what broke that down.

This letter is a continuation from earlier this morning.

Mama and I had a great time downtown.

And to tell the truth, I spent some money.

We splurged and both got permanent waves, and I got a new pair of shoes with my ration stamps and perfume.

I'll send you a picture of my new hairdo.

They would put your hair in, rollers and make them, you know, they made them rollers really tight.

There was, pad, felt pad, under the rollers, which would kind of was supposed to protect your head from getting too hot or burned or whatever.

And, then they would put these this machine was up here, and it would bring a curler.

Curler.

Clamp.

Really.

That was electric down here.

And put them on each roller, and then they would turn it on, and it will you could hear it, hear it snap and crackle and, one time I got a perm, and the lady that did it walked away.

She did not stay with me.

I mean, anybody under this contraption needs somebody there right now.

And she walked away, and, I was, I had a I got a burn right here by my ear, but, it, it wasn't it was pretty scary, really.

But I'm telling you, it was worth it all because your hair was just gorgeous.

Because my hair was just as straight as anything.

And, so it was worth it all.

Y'all.

Lots of times you had to have a flower in it on one side or out here.

Not a real flower, a fake flower, and, usually white and, where you wore my hair long and kind of straight.

Like, except I wanted to look great for my senior picture.

So I went home and I put all these pin curls in my hair, pin, curled it, and it came out, and I was supposed to get my senior picture taken the next day.

And it's in the it's in the, yearbook right now.

And I never looked like that.

My hair never looked like that.

I couldn't get the curl out of it.

It was terrible.

I would have been lost without pin curls because every night, without fail, my hair was long.

Every night rolling those pin curls.

And when you had hair that was shoulder length or longer, winding that hair to put that pin through was an endless experience.

The perfume I liked was, Emerod by Coty.

I like that a lot.

And then, another one was Wind Song that I liked a lot.

I remember this awful stuff called Blue Waltz.

I have always in those years was devoted to Faberge because I wore either wood hue or Tigris.

I wonder why I chose those now, but I thought they were wonderful.

And I mean, I use them not sparingly.

I was, well, squirted.

White shoulders.

I went up to have R. Nelson Snider sign my yearbook and he said, what kind of perfume is that that you have on?

I said, it's called White Shoulders.

And he wrote in my book, hurrah for White Shoulders.

I had a friend who is still my very good friend, a grade school high school friend, and we still are best friends who wore Taboo at Northside and still wears Taboo.

You would get a hat that was probably not very expensive and you knew it didn't look very good, but you wore it anyway.

I don't know why you wore it.

It's pretty bad, but we wore them.

We wore them.

We wore those hats.

And then summertime.

If it was, 90 degrees out, we wore white gloves to church, turn the hymnals with the gloves on and wrote with the gloves on.

I think we just thought it was pretty spiffy.

I remember a friend of mine and I going downtown to Murphy's and getting a bottle of this leg makeup, and people called it, well, we thought we put it on our legs and we thought it looked pretty.

I'm sure it was.

It was streaky and orange and horrible, but we decided it was so interesting that we'd go a little further and we coated everything.

I can remember a summer going to Hamilton Park, which is kind of our summer hangout over in the North End, and I can remember being covered with that leg makeup and thinking I was beautiful.

And I'm sure it was just awful.

I heard that, some girls would put leg makeup on and then, to make them, to make everyone believe that they had hose on, they would take an eyebrow pencil and draw a seam up the back of their legs.

Dear Jim, I signed up to work at the USO downtown two nights a week.

They said they needed hostesses to help serve refreshments and entertain the boys from Baer field.

I figure I can give six hours a week for such a good cause.

The USO was on the corner of a Harrison and Washington.

Big building on the corner.

And I played the piano there and entertained the guys in the service.

And I was also a hostess in the officers club.

Downtown.

Baer Field, of course, people, soldiers would come back down Broadway, going into town to the USO and, I'd see soldiers just falling out of a truck almost every so many had a truck, and I, I'd see them and I salute them, and they salute back.

And, it was just Fort Wayne's just loaded with soldiers.

It was a place to entertain the servicemen, to dance with them.

And we had refreshments, and I played the piano and they sang.

At that time, the military, as was the city of Fort Wayne, was, very much segregated.

There were two USOs here.

There were the one on, I think, West Washington Street and one on Lafayette Street.

Or the one was for the, the white soldiers to go to, the other was for the colored.

Sadly to say, too, at the at the air base.

I have newsletters, by the way, that was put out by the, the soldiers here during the war called Beacon, the weekly newsletter.

I have some of them with me today, and you may want to look at them.

They were mentioned in there.

The chapel services on Sunday will be by Chaplain Jones at 8:00, maybe 7:00 for the Catholic, 830 for the Protestant Colored Soldier of the meeting building six at 2 p.m.. So we're somewhat of a of a of a division there that, today we almost can't believe.

But it was indeed real.

And, it was, occurred.

I wonder if you have the chance to relax at all over there.

Any dancing music, since that's all people do here for fun, dance, dance, dance.

Well, they had good dance down there.

And my favorite song was Glenn Miller, In the Mood.

Well, we could really dance to that.

There was Keenan Hotel used to go to.

Once in a while they'd dance there, but not as much.

It wouldn't run as popular as, the Van Orman and the Berghoff Gardens and the Allen Hotel.

And the Indiana City that was in Indiana near the Kenan did jitterbug.

Yes.

We had a lot of rhythm.

On Sunday afternoons we go out to Trier's Park, and they had a dance hall out there, and then they had live music, too.

We'd pay maybe $0.10 to dance for as long as we want to do.

We get our hand stamped, you know.

In the summertime where you really would like to be was at Lake James, because Bledsoe's was a place that provided for you not only the wonderful opportunity to dance, which was so a part of your psyche at that time, but under such romantic circumstances, to dance in that outdoor pavilion was wonderful.

The Charlie Barnett Band was here last week at the Palace.

They were really swinging.

The trombone player's name was Mac Marlow, and he came and sat with a bunch of us during a break.

He's played with all the greats.

With Charlie Barnett, Woody Herman, Les Brown, Harry James and after a while I was up at CBS doing the Hit Parade and Show of Shows.

The telephone company used to give us a little datebook, and I put in even the wages.

As a matter of fact, Clark, Terry and the others, when they narrated the lyrics and they mentioned what they got paid with, we got 50 or $60 a week.

That was a lot of money.

Oh, Harry James, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey.

Ted Williams was one.

Let's see, Fats Waller, Stan Kenton was the one in the group, who, of course, Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey.

Spike Jones, he had to be good to play that band.

Because I said Les Brown and all the Dorsey brothers, when they were together, when they were split up, you know, they couldn't stand each other.

And, of course and Bing Crosby and I don't know what band he played.

He sang with them.

And of course, Gene Cooper, the drummer.

My land.

He knocked himself out.

They had a lot of goofy songs in the 40s, like, Mairzy Dotes Dozy Dotes.

And they had, Jeepers Creepers, where'd you get those peepers?

And if I knew you were coming out of baked a cake.

At the Palace Theater, and this was even in early 40s, later in the early 40s, they were they were had a stage show there.

They had vaudeville, the Paramount Theater had a stage.

They brought entertainment.

Big time.

Oh, and a game they called Big Band.

They came here at all and noted individual singers, now standard people, they came here and Peg leg Bates and all those fellows that were great dancers and stuff, you know, we sit upstairs and we sit upstairs.

And that was one of the things that they didn't like.

And we you could go down, go round and back into the alley and go behind, go backstage with the guys.

But when you went into the theater and stuff like that and went upstairs in the balcony and right.

Dear Jim, Ill beside myself with joy, I can't believe on this hot August day the war is over.

No describing the feeling to think this was over, that all our sacrifices had not been in vain, that the boys would be coming home.

When those airplanes, when I was working downtown and the airplanes went over and threw those papers out.

Tune in a certain station on radio for more details.

And everyone was shouting and jumping up and down and yelling, hurray!

Hurray!

The war is over!

The sirens went off.

We thought we were under attack again.

The sirens went off about 730 in the morning and everybody scrambled out to the flight line.

Oh, we got to get up and down and do what we have to do.

And instead everybody was just sort of strolling around.

What's what is this?

Japan surrendered.

Because we all hooting and hollering and yell and scream and we couldn't wait to get home.

And I can remember being on Calhoun Street at that particular time and feeling such a surge of involvement and such a surge of patriotism.

I know there was a lot of celebrating, a lot of tears, a lot of I wish this and I wish that and what's going to happen now, the boys coming home and but he not coming home.

And I saw people coming out of buildings and they were waving their arms and they were yelling and, they were hugging each other, and, so then I realized, the war must be over.

And more people came out.

And after a while, bell started ringing every bell, every bell there was must have rang for 3 or 4 days.

I don't know who rang all those bells, but somebody did, and I. I'm certainly glad they did.

People just went crazy.

And, somehow we got down to Calhoun Street.

It was just loaded with people, waving flags, making noises, just having a good old time.

And a lot of people ended up in there, church of their choice to, to pray for what just happened.

I happened to be in Chicago on V-J day and leave.

I was still in the service, and, needless to say, it was pretty hectic time.

I wish I could remember what happened.

Well, I could I could tell you this is probably the only time in my life I missed a meal.

President Truman came on the radio, I think it was about 5:30 and said made.

And there was an out.

No, he didn't come on.

But they said that President Truman was going to make an announcement at 6:00.

Well, it was already established that as soon as peace was declared, all the taverns would be closed.

The taverns and liquor stores, everything.

I got up from the table, I said, wife, I'm going to the liquor store.

I don't I'm not kidding.

I came back with a whole paper sack full of booze.

So, like I say, I wish I could tell you what happened, but I don't celebrate.

I don't, we celebrate all the day and half the night.

Have they given you any idea when you'll be able to come home?

Do you have enough points?

Will you come by ship?

Will you muster out of Baer Field?

Will you be able to call when you land?

I'm so excited at the thought of you actually being here in my arms.

I don't think I'll ever let you go.

I'm dreaming about your return day and night.

Oh, thank God you're coming home.

It was a great feeling.

I've been gone for three years.

It was three years, and it was really a great feeling.

When I got back in there, got a chance to see my family and everything was really nice.

Well, I was happy just to be home.

I ain't no big deal party, no, he he came to see me and, I was just flabbergasted.

He came to see me first before I even went home.

And I was so happy and and I just, I when I saw him, I just ran and grabbed him and he grabbed me, and and it was just wonderful.

It was just wonderful.

I'll never forget that either.

Oh, that was great.

I can remember I was I wasn't in the same room when he came in the house, and I could remember hearing him talking to my mother, and she was just so tickled to see him.

We, you know, we hadn't seen him the whole time.

He had never been home the whole length of time.

He'd never come home.

And so it was a great day.

Dear Aunt Alice, he's home.

December 30th, 1945.

Dear Aunt Alice, this has been the best Christmas.

Jim asked me to marry him on Christmas Eve, and we've already set the wedding date for Valentine's Day.

I hope you'll be there.

We went downtown just before Christmas and looked at the beautiful Christmas light display.

Wolf and Dessauer is famous for.

They had to put it up for several years due to the war, but this year it's up and it says.

And now the lights are on again all over the world.

I think it's prettier than it's ever been.

I just can't seem to stop smiling.

See you in February.

Love, Betty.

I sent my wife a telegram on Monday and I said, how about we see if we can get married this weekend?

We did it.

Needless to say, my mother in law wasn't too happy with.

And when the war was over, a lot of girls made their wedding dresses out of the parachutes.

If they were marrying, you know, and Air Force guy, they get in parachute and they'd made the dress out of that.

And that was a wedding gown.

The the music was great.

The flowers.

Everything.

And I was waiting there for my beautiful bride to come down the aisle.

And as we were in our service, in the wedding service, it the day had been very.

And it's cold and snowy and cloudy and so on, but, so they had the during the wedding, after it was all over, we turned around and the sun came through the windows just live on us where we were.

And I thought, that's I've got to be a good, good symbol.

September 13th, 1946.

Dear Aunt Alice, Catherine came into the world at 2:30 p.m.

yesterday, 7 pounds, eight ounces.

Jim is passing out cigars.

Mom and dad are getting my old cradle ready, and I'm flat on my back wondering whose baby is it, anyway?

The nurses seem to get to see her more than I do.

I may go nuts laying here for six more days.

I quit work after my fifth month and really haven't missed it.

I'm looking forward to staying at home and taking care of my new family.

I can't explain the feeling I get when I look at that little girl.

I just want to cry.

She's so helpless, so perfect, so much a part of me.

July 9th, 1949.

Dear Aunt Alice, Catherine is almost three.

Where is the time going?

We had her picture taken on a pony yesterday.

What the heck?

We splurged.

The live ponies that they brought door to door to get the parents to buy photographs.

And they would come with the chaps and the cowboy hat and the kerchief and the gun and holster, and get you all dressed up in this outfit and actually put the pony right in your front yard and take your picture, and then try to sell the parents a set of the photos, of course.

And what parent could resist?

There is a family a few blocks away that has three children with polio.

I'm praying we get through this terrible epidemic.

So far she's healthy and we haven't been to Municipal Beach at all this year.

They closed it recently, thinking that that may be how the disease is spreading.

They had a large quarantine sign on our house and people walking by would actually cross the street.

They were so afraid of polio back then, and mom said that the dairy would not pick up our empty milk bottles.

Back then.

You had the the milk crates that you sat out on the porch, and the milkman came and picked up your empty glass bottles and left you your new order.

They would not even take our milk bottles back because they were so afraid of the virus.

And then she said, the mail that was picked up.

Somehow they sterilized the mail that was taken from her house.

So it was a very scary time.

Our neighbor, Mr.

Patrick, dabbles in home movies.

When the neighbor kids learned that they asked him to make a movie starring, who else.

They decided on a bank robbery and took great joy in fleshing out a plot and costumes, complete with a mustache for the villain.

Mr.

Patrick had the premiere yesterday for the neighborhood, and I must say it was pretty cute.

Even Catherine sat still for the whole three minutes.

We're lucky to have such nice neighbors.

Oh, by the way, did you see?

Look magazine quoted Fort Wayne, the happiest city in the United States.

We're all very proud.

And copies of the magazine sold out in a matter of hours.

Look Magazine came in 1949, when I was the senior, when Fort Wayne was voted, you know, the happiest city and photographed for the cover of luck, All My Best Friends.

I was in the building rehearsing a dramatic declamation for the state speech made.

I have never gotten over that.

I could have been preserved for posterity on the cover of luck, and I wasn't out on the riverbank where I was almost every noon hour.

But I was in there preparing for this state speech made, and all my friends were on the cover.

Well, it's about time for Catherine to wake up from her nap, so I'll close.

Can you believe how much has happened in the last ten years?

It was so fast and hectic in the beginning, and now it's so peaceful.

Love Betty.

In this train case are some of the very best years of my life.

I love grandma.

My favorite clothes in the 1940s was would you believe this corduroy knickers long, long wool socks.

And of course, being in the winter, I'd wear a wool plaid coat at the top.

Things are I had a brown helmet with goggles.

You know, when I put that outfit on, I thought I could conquer the world.

During high school, it was just normal hair parted, I guess.

You know, when I got older, I don't know when.

This is exactly when I did.

We were early married years and things like that.

I cut a crew cut.

Now, I parted down the middle.

Do you remember what you wore in the 40s?

Oh, yeah.

Everybody wore zoot suits.

Ever.

I forgot about that.

Well, you know, it just didn't get before the war opened up.

The guy was getting into a long coat You called the me down.

Your suit passed down pass your knees.

You had to zip your pants up to get in them.

To take your socks off.

And your knees.

Now what you need.

I didn't know this.

And we didn't wear that.

They had change and hang up all the way down.

Melvin Gray was the man for Melvin Gray.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Mustache.

He had a brim on it.

Yeah.

It was leased alongside Melvin by six inches one second.

You got to be kidding me.

Oh, no.

Tell 'em, Parker.

Wyatt Earp.

Yeah, he had a brim on his head that would overshadow his shoulders .

Everyone had padded shoulders.

What was unique about it - the way hed shave his mustache and he would have sideburns.

Yeah.

You'd have, velvet lapel on a suit.

Easy.

And, his suit coat would look almost like today's overcoat.

You know?

And the pants would be way to cover the collar.

Yeah, they had to be all the way up to your chest.

Tell me about the cover.

You need suspenders to hold them up there.

Yeah, this is suspended, right on your chest.

Oh, yeah.

What about you?

Cover the car?

Yeah, well, he had it all.

Kind of funny car he would do.

When?

When Melvin went into the service with us.

He was so outstanding in his dress that everybody on the post to have their picture made with generals and colonels, everybody, you know, he was he was the only guy in the service that could put on his civilians.

Everybody else in there's oh he had kept busy with it, put on his picture made with him, you know, and he had he actually had a chain.

I'm talking about a key chain thing and he can skip rope with, you know, jump in and out of that chain walking.

I mean, he he was, and five, two.

Oh, he was a good fighter.

He was quite a kid.

But, you know, his his clothes, I would suppose on today's market, his clothes probably cost as much as any you can find around, because he had a man tailor made and there and the tailor was not cheap even for those time.

No dollar was a dollar.

And everybody wore knob toed shoes.

That's the long shoes.

Just to see if your foot was size nine, you bought a size 12 and these three foot.

Precisely.

Straight up on the end.

Knob toed.

Yeah.

I don't care how, like your foot was back at the side at the end of it, it would come to a point and you have real pointy now, I've told you so that I got a lot of money passed down in all this.

Maizy doats and dozy doats and little lambs.

He divey a curly divey do, wouldn't you?

If that's all I remember.

Oh, well, it looks like we might have a might have time for that when I was on tour.

And it seems to me the number with the label I remember you would do nicely, boys?

Guy.

You.

Mean.

Ernie.

And.

While, sir, it looks like our lot of time is just about up.

May we come back again next week?

Long.

About the time the clock strikes.

Myra Berghoff and Cliff Garfield will be back to sing for you along with the Debunaires.

From the studios of WOWO Fort Wayne, we have presented Indiana Indigo.

That program came to you from Fort Wayne.