More of the interview my mom and aunt did with my Great-Aunt Ree, regarding her memories of World War II.
Transcript:
"June: Were y'all scared - when you heard it [Pearl Harbor]? Was it scary? You didn't understand what was going -
Ree: No, I didn't - you know, I, I knew what he was saying, but I wasn't old enough to, you know...
Ruby: To understand.
Ree: try to make any, you know...
Ruby: The impact.
Ree: Yeah. You, you know, you heard it and you knew it, but it's just like death. When children - people die. Children, they know it. It's happenin', but they don't understand it. Or they don't -
June: They don't understand what it means.
Ree: What it means or - you know. I remember, clearly, what happened then, that's never left me. I guess 'cause it was just such a devastating thing for the whole country. But um.... Yeah, we had our little Victory Garden across the street in the field. They give everybody a little piece of land to grow vegetables. [laughter]
June: [jokingly] So then you wouldn't starve?
Ree: Oh, yeah, well... It helped too, when they sent all the things to the, to the boys fightin'. And, you know, and we were on rations. We had ration cards for each person in the family got so much. So, you know. And you had to use your stamps out of your book to get certain things. And if you run out of stamps, you couldn't get no more until you got your next book, you know.
Ruby: So, how often would y'all get a new book? Is it...
Ree: Every month.
Ruby: Every month?
Ree: Mm hm.
Ruby: At the beginning of the month? Yeah, that's one of the things she had down here [referring to interview questions].
Ree: Mm hm. Yeah, there was um.... I don't know where it is now. I don't know why - it was with Daddy's things, with his billfold things. It wasn't in the billfold, but it was with - with 'em in the box. But it was one of the ration books. It still had a few stamps in it.
Ruby: Did it?
Ree: Yeah, and I've had it all these years...
Ruby: Did you have any, like, metal drives or rubber drives or anything like that?
Ree: Uh... Well, everything was, uh, rationed. And, people saved their grease. They used the grease for somethin'... for the war. But, everybody, uh, when they fried meat or bacon or anything like that, they had these cans that - well, they took vegetable cans and things and filled 'em up with grease and then turned 'em in. Yeah, they uh... you know everything was rationed. Then, uh... they did say that grease... I'm tryin' to think what it was - what they used it for. It was somethin' durin' the war.
Ruby: I think they used it with the bombs - to make bombs with.
Ree: Well, everybody saved...
Ruby: To make glycerin or somethin'.
Ree: Yeah, everybody saved their grease, they did.
June: What'd they do, turn it in somewhere?
Ree: Yeah, I don't remember where we turned it in, 'cause see, still I was a little girl and I didn't pay much attention to Mamma and Daddy. Yeah, and I didn't know what they did with it, I just knew they saved it and turned it in somewhere. Everybody did that. And uh... 'cause.... we bought, uh, stamps. The children in school bought war bond stamps. And uh, they called um...
Ruby: Saving stamps? I think they called 'em saving stamps?
Ree: When we got enough stamps in you got a...
June: Savings bond.
Ree: Yeah, after we got - we got, uh, enough stamps, you could get a that size [gesturing] bond. Then you could trade your stamps in bond. Everybody was investing in the country. You know, even the kids were buying the stamps."
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