Ogden

'We schoolkids bought war stamps and filled albums'

Joyce Ogden

I was in junior high during World War II, and the first thing that happened to my family was when we were relocated from a small town to the "big city."

My father was too old to draft - he fought in World War I - but his small business was declared "not essential to the war effort." However, he could get a job in a war factory and release a younger man to go and fight.

We wound up on the third floor of a walk-up apartment building that was built after the Civil War. Mother went back to work for the first time (in the same factory, but on a different shift), so I was one of the first "latchkey kids."

I had to come home right after school, get my father's supper, pack his lunch, and get him out to catch the 5 p.m. bus.

Then I had to start supper for my mother while keeping track of my younger brother. Saturday afternoons, while little brother got to go to the movie matinee, I was given money to ride the bus one hour each way to a special meat market just to buy two pounds of ground round.

We school kids bought war stamps and filled albums with $18.75 worth before turning them in for a $25 war bond.

When it was time to mail holiday packages to my only relative in service (an uncle) it took three trips to the grocery store on the corner to weigh the package so it wouldn't be over a certain weight. I could tell you much more, but you get the idea.

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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