NOTE--To see an on-line version of this newsletter, copy this link and paste it into your web browser: http://www.reminisce.com/rd.asp?id=310&firstname=$$firstname$$&emailaddress=$$email$$&refurl=$$refurl-link$$ If you would like to change or edit your email preferences, please visit your Personal Preferences page. http://www.reminisce.com/RD.asp?ID=311&pmcode=$$refurl-link$$ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ REMINISCE Newsletter - January 2008 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dear $$firstname$$, We’re warming you up in this chilly January by starting off with a story about a family who warmed up the local clientele with a moonshine business. The trick was avoiding the “feds.” And we hope our other stories, trivia and humor manage to warm your hearts and keep your spirits bright. Consider another heartwarming avenue by clicking on the ad at right to get a preview of the 1940s DVD set. http://www.reminisce.com/RD.asp?ID=317&pmcode=$$refurl-link$$ Our readers’ real-life stories and photos are sure to bring back heartfelt memories for those who lived through the fascinating decade and deliver a history lesson for you other viewers. Stay warm out there! —The Folks at Reminisce ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In this issue: --> Moonshine Memories --> Picture This! --> Mom’s Employment Agency --> Life on the Home Front --> Poem: Just a Little Hanky --> Over the Back Fence --> Time Capsule Trivia --> A Thought to Remember ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Moonshine Memories ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By Heidi Ridgley, Seymour, Wisconsin A ringing phone at Ridgley’s Saloon, in Pulcifer, Wisconsin, meant more than a friendly hello in the late 1920s. From 5 miles away, the nearest tavern-keeper sounded the warning: “The statesmen are on their way. Hide the moonshine!” “Two statesmen came every time,” says Mabel Marr, formerly Mabel Ridgley until she remarried after her first husband’s death. “One of them would run into the bar and the other would run into the house, in case you were running there to hide it.” About three times a year, the call came from Cecil or Gillet, the nearest towns northwest of Green Bay. Mabel and her husband, Royce, would scramble to get the moonshine, made illegal by Prohibition, out of the bar. One day, they received the call too late. The statesmen were already at the door. The Ridgleys generally buried their 5-gallon whiskey jugs beneath the dirt floor in the basement. This time, one jug had not been buried. “My brother-in-law ran down to the river and set it in while I ran to the basement with the pint of whiskey we always kept on hand,” Mabel remembers. She said she slid a 2-foot board out and placed the pint behind a hollow wall filled with bottles of moonshine. “When I started up the steps, the statesman was standing there, and he was a big man,” Mabel says. “I was shaking like a leaf. He asked me, ‘Where’d you hide it?’ and I replied, ‘Hide what?’” Walking around the basement, the statesman hit the walls with a stick. Mabel thought, for sure, he’d hit the spot and the bottles would all rattle. The raids could not be prevented. If business was good, the “feds” figured it was because of the sale of moonshine. If you didn’t let them in to search, they would get a warrant and raid your place anyway. That’s why tavern-keepers would hide the barrels in spots not easy to find. “We would make good money, which was hard to come by back then, but you had to be careful. If they found it, you were issued a fine. They couldn’t close you down,” Mabel recalls. In the kitchen, a 6-inch tin matchbox nailed to the wall could be slid to one side. A cut along the oilcloth wallpaper matched the design. If a statesman ever had lifted the paper, he would have found a hose with a tap on the end inside a hole only two inches wide. This hose led up to a jug of moonshine underneath the roof, a hollow spot above the kitchen. In the morning, after three or four jugs were delivered to the house, one would be hoisted to the trapdoor on top of the roof. One time, a statesman didn’t come to destroy the moonshine at Ridgley’s Saloon; he came to drink. On the recommendation of a mutual friend, he dropped by the tavern on his way to arrest someone else for the same thing. After paying for several drinks, he went on his way. Mabel and Royce bought the tavern in 1925, and they raised five children there. The children’s birth certificates listed their father’s occupation as “soda parlor operator.” When the Depression hit, business declined, so Royce went back to his previous job of making boilers. People still came in to drink, and Mabel ran the bar. The night before the banks crashed, Mabel gave a customary deposit to their neighbor, the banker, to deposit the next day for her. The money was to cover liquor checks that were already written. “We had to repay the beer and whiskey bills,” she said. “The first checks were no good.” With the realization that all their money was gone overnight, thoughts of panic and deep depression ran through Royce’s mind. Mabel, realizing this, hitched a ride with a neighbor to Green Bay. There she stood outside, in line for hours, to retrieve money at a bank that had not folded. Unknown to Royce, she had managed to save $1,000. “When I got home, I threw the money in his lap and he began to cry,” she recalls. I told him, ‘When you went away on errands, I’d take $10 out of the till and put it in the bank…on a good day, I’d take out $20.’ I don’t know what made me think to do it…guess I was saving for a rainy day.” Mabel and Royce agreed. That rainy day surely had come. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Picture This! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CAP-AND-GOWN KINDERGARTEN. “I am pleased to share my graduation photo from kindergarten, in 1930,” writes Robert Egerman of St. Cloud, Minnesota. “I am in the first row, fifth from the right and second to the priest’s left. The photo was taken at St. Mary’s Grade School, St. Cloud, Minnesota. The signatures of Rev. Luther Fink and my teacher, Sister M. Assumpta, graced the bottom of my Certificate of Graduation.” View Image: http://www.reminisce.com/RD.asp?ID=313&pmcode=$$refurl-link$$ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mom’s Employment Agency ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By Bob Hostetler, Hamilton, Ohio It was the late 1960s, and my family was the poorest on the block in a solidly middleclass neighborhood. My friends sported the latest fashions; I wore my brothers’ hand-me-downs. Other homes on the block boasted fine furnishings and color televisions; our carpets were threadbare and I was convinced our black-and-white TV was old enough to have John Cameron Swayze reporting the invention of the wheel. Other families parked two cars in their garages; my father worked long hours to keep our 1957 Ford Fairlane running, and my mother rode the bus an hour each way to her job every day. Yet, for all our apparent poverty, we were the only family I knew that employed an ironing lady and a cleaning lady. In the days before permanent press, my father would take a basket of clothes each week (which Mom had predampened and rolled up) to a widowed woman simply called Mers. Every week, we would drive far across town to Mers’ tenement apartment, pick up the basket of ironed clothes, and pay her for her work. Once home, Mom took the clothing out, piece by piece, and ironed it again. “Why do you do that?” I’d ask. “She missed a spot,” Mom would say. “But you do this all the time,” I’d respond. “Why do we pay Mers to iron for us if you’re just going to do it over?” Mom blushed. She must have felt the implied reproach in my words. She just shrugged and, with a smile, would say, “Mers needs the money.” It was the same with Mrs. Grubb, our cleaning lady. Another widow living on a limited income, Mrs. Grubb came to our house every week. She was a cheerless woman who seemed to approach every cleaning task as though my siblings and I had created it solely to make her life miserable. And we paid for it, too. Mrs. Grubb left behind streaked windows, sticky linoleum floors and half-dusted surfaces every Thursday. Every Saturday, Mom would put my brothers and me to work correcting Mrs. Grubb’s work. “Why do we have to do this?” we’d ask. “I don’t want people to think we live in a pigsty,” Mom would answer. “We wouldn’t have to clean as much if we didn’t have a cleaning lady,” I’d venture. “Why do you pay her to clean if we do it over a few days later?” Of course we knew what Mother’s answer would be: “Mrs. Grubbs needs the money.” My mom died when I was still a boy, and her relationship with Mers and Mrs. Grubb mystified me for years. I always suspected there was more to these arrangements than I could understand, but I never got it…until just recently. My son arrived home from school one day and saw Tim, a friend of mine, painting my home office. “Why is he doing that?” my son asked. I shrugged, saying, “Because I asked him to.” “But you just painted the whole first floor last year, didn’t you?” The words were out of my mouth before I knew it. “He needs the money,” I said. In that moment, I heard my mother’s voice, and the light suddenly dawned in my head and my heart. I realized then, as I didn’t as a child, that my mother taught me how rewarding it can be to give to others in need. She could have told me and my brothers that Jesus commanded us to “give to the needy (without letting) your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret,” but she showed us instead. It’s a lesson I hope my son has learned from me…just as I learned it from my mother. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Life on the Home Front ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By Maggie Fitzgerald Fuller, Garden Grove, California On the cold, cloudy afternoon of December 7, 1941, I was listening to the radio when it was announced that the Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbor. I was 14, and I didn’t even know where Pearl Harbor was! In my high school, the next day, the principal called a special assembly. It was there that we all listened to President Franklin D. Roosevelt announce that congress had declared war. Since clothing material was in short supply, men’s trousers were being made without cuffs. Women’s underwear was made without elastic because of the shortage of rubber, so buttons on the side held them up. Tires were nearly impossible to buy, so retreads came into being. During scrap drives for war materials, children would go from house to house with their wagons, collecting paper and metal. Our school homerooms vied to bring in the most scrap: toothpaste tubes, newspapers, tin cans and, in fact, anything metal. Later on, I got a job with State Farm Insurance. If you needed a new pencil there, you had to turn in the stub of your old one first. Theaters changed films on Wednesday and Sundays, and most people I knew went to the movies twice a week. Newsreels between the double features showed footage of the war. Between features, volunteers would walk up and down the aisles collecting for the Red Cross and selling stamps for War Bonds. They cost a dime apiece. We’d paste them in booklets until we had $18.75 worth of stamps. Then you could turn them in for a $25 bond that matured in 10 years. In Bloomington, Illinois, where I grew up, there were many companies that conducted schools for servicemen to instruct them on how to fix machinery or become mechanics. This brought in small units of soldiers to our town. To get to their schools, they would march in formation from their quarters and, of course, whistle at the girls along they way. Truck convoys of troops would roll through en route from one base to another, wolf-calling and whistling as they went. Before morning classes at the university, the sailors would assemble and have a flag-raising ceremony—very impressive. We young girls hoped we raised their morale because they sure raised ours! In the news, there were many stories about the bombing of Britain, the “London Blitz” as it was called. Toward the end of the war, the Germans attacked London with “buzz bombs,” so called because of the buzzing sound they made. When the buzzing stopped, the bombs would fall to the ground and detonate. I used to be quite fearful at night, worrying about being bombed as the people in Britain were. There was so much empathy for those in harm’s way. To this day, when a plane flies overhead, I listen for a difference in pitch. President Roosevelt was such a wonderful, reassuring leader. When he died the spring of my senior year, it felt like our father had died. I felt cheated because I was looking forward to voting for him when I turned 21. It was particularly sad because he died just a month before Victory in Europe Day, and the whole country felt he should have been with us for the victory. On August 14, 1945 (Victory in Japan Day), everyone was so happy! I was living in a rooming house since graduation that June, and everything was closed...even all the restaurants and grocery stores. Unfortunately, I had nothing in my room to eat. But I was still happy. My girlfriend Mary Lou took me to her home and we made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to celebrate. When the servicemen came, they were eligible to go to college on the GI Bill. They could apply for unemployment, too, and received $20 a week for a year. It was called the “52-20 Club.” They usually wore parts of their old uniforms as everyday clothes, as money and materials were still in short supply. They were all very proud of their medals and ribbons, especially their “Ruptured Duck” lapel pin. This was awarded to all veterans upon their honorable discharge. When the men were deactivated and on their way home, they were still in uniform, so the Ruptured Duck signified to Military Police that they had been discharged, rather than being AWOL. The pin was actually a replica of an eagle, but was irreverently called “Ruptured Duck” because that’s what most of them thought it looked like. After the war, everyone seemed to live on a shoestring. But out of all this, in my opinion, came the best-educated, most serious and hard-working generation in our country’s history. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Poem: Just a Little Hanky ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By Richard Troup, McConnelsville, Ohio My late wife’s mother, Adelaide Lawton, age 99, long ago started a family tradition by making a hanky into a bonnet for a grandchild’s baptism, along with the following poem: I’m just a little hanky, As square as square can be, But with a stitch or two, They make a bonnet out of me. I’ll be worn from the hospital, Or on the christening day, Then I’ll be carefully pressed, And neatly packed away. For her wedding day, So we have been told, Every well-dressed bride, Must wear something old. What could be nicer Than to find little me A few stitches snipped A wedding hanky I’ll be. If per chance it is a boy Someday he’ll surely wed So to his bride he can present The hanky that once adorned his head. View image: http://www.reminisce.com/RD.asp?ID=312&pmcode=$$refurl-link$$ Richard Troup’s daughter, Nancy Harmer, is pictured on her wedding day holding, along with her grandma Adelaide Lawton, the little hanky that she wore as a bonnet at her baptism. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Over the Back Fence ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From his window, a neighbor was watching a little boy digging a hole in his backyard. The little boy dug and dug, and the hole became larger and deeper. The man went out and asked, “Sonny, what are you doing?” The little boy replied, “I’m digging a hole to bury my goldfish.” The man said, “Isn’t that hole too big for a goldfish?” The little boy replied, “No, my goldfish is in your cat’s belly.” —Wava Osborne Jefferson, North Carolina ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Time Capsule Trivia ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From the decades spanning the 1920s to the 1960s, try to guess what year these historic events took place. The answer is given below, but no peeking! 1. Cuba’s Fidel Castro is welcomed to the U.S. after assuming power from military dictator Fulgencio Batista, but his emergence as a communist leader keeps him in disfavor. 2. After months of rigorous physical and mental testing, the “Mercury Seven” astronauts are chosen for the U.S. space program: Gordon Cooper, Scott Carpenter, John Glenn, Virgil Grissom, Walter Schirra, Donald Slayton and Alan Shepard. 3. On February 3, the world of rock and roll is stunned by the news that Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and Jiles Perry Richardson (“The Big Bopper”) have all died in a plane crash near Mason City, Iowa. 4. Popular songs include The Battle of New Orleans by Johnny Horton, Charlie Brown by The Coasters, Come Softly to Me by The Fleetwoods, Kansas City by Wilbert Harrison, Mack the Knife by Bobby Darin and Teen Angel by Mark Dinning. 5. Westerns are king on television, with Gunsmoke, Wagon Train and Have Gun, Will Travel rating as the top three shows and two more westerns, Bonanza and Rawhide, premiering. Click below for the answer to Time Capsule Trivia. http://www.reminisce.com/RD.asp?ID=318&pmcode=$$refurl-link$$ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A Thought to Remember ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The only person who can make money by going into a hole is a miner. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This email was sent to: $$email$$ HAVE A FRIEND who enjoys the good old days? Feel free to forward this newsletter! If this newsletter was forwarded to you, please use this link to sign up for yourself. http://www.reminisce.com/RD.asp?ID=314&pmcode=$$refurl-link$$ If you do not want to receive further editions of this Newsletter, please use this link to unsubscribe. http://www.reminisce.com/RD.asp?ID=315&email=$$email$$&pmcode=$$refurl-link$$&OptID=63 To learn more about Reiman Media Group’s use of personal information, please read our Privacy Policy. http://www.reminisce.com/RD.asp?ID=316&pmcode=$$refurl-link$$ Copyright 2008 Reiman Media Group, Inc. 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