April • 2011 • NEWSLETTER

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Dear ##firstname[Friend]##,

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Did you know that our fascinating book about the Depression years, We Had Everything But Money, is available again through a reprinting? The priceless memories in this 162-page hardcover collection include stories of the Dust Bowl and intriguing black-and-white and color photos from the era. Among the 10 captivating chapters are Braving the Dirty ’30s; Beans, Bacon and Gravy; Make It Last, Wear It Out; and Christmases We Remember. For more information, click the book cover at left to find the page with this and other Reminisce books, or click here for more information.

As always, feel free to forward our newsletter on to a friend or family member. If this newsletter was forwarded to you and you’d like a copy of your own each month, just clink this link to sign up yourself.

—John Burlingham at Reminisce

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In this issue:

• Postcard Potpourri
• The British Home Front in a Child’s Eyes
• Stirring Up Memories
• Picture From the Past
• Time Capsule Trivia
• A Thought to Remember

Postcard Potpourri

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These postcards belonged to my mother-in-law’s oldest sister, Elsie. At 17 years of age, she left home and worked as a housekeeper in various cities but mostly in the Merrill, Wisconsin area.

As she received postcards from family and friends, she filed them in a postcard album. The cards were written to her spanning the years of 1907 to 1919. We greatly treasure these mementos of her life back then.

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—By Shirley Zuelsdorff
Merrill, Wisconsin

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The British Home Front in a Child’s Eyes

By John Graham
Denver, Colorado

I was 5 years old when World War II began. My father, a London metropolitan police inspector, retired when the war broke out. We moved to my mother’s home country of Wales, as far from the reach of Nazi bombers as we could get.

Our new home overlooked the sea near Pwllheli. On clear days, we could see the great medieval castles of Criccieth and Harlech. To the left was Snowdon, the highest mountain in England and Wales, and we could see the smoke of the narrow track railway engine that chuffed its way to the summit. Even on cloudy days, the sea below was beautiful in all its moods.

The hillside land around the house that my parents bought was a rocky wilderness. My father immediately built an air-raid shelter 9 feet into the earth, capping it with reinforced concrete and a garden. Stone steps led down to a room wide enough for two bunks and containers.

The war meant no road signs, no maps and a deep suspicion of strangers. Uniformed girls helped on the farms while soldiers marched up and down the local roads. Army camps were scattered around, and German planes flew overhead and bombed the naval camp during the war.

Just three miles away was a prisoner-of-war camp filled with Italians, mostly farmers conscripted into Mussolini’s army. They were allowed out on work detail, and one worked on our neighbor’s garden.

He arrived by truck each morning and spent the day cutting lawns and hedges as well as weeding. At breaks, he would drink tea and practice his English on me. One day, he didn’t appear, and I never saw him again. I still have the bronze five-lira coin he gave me.

Our garden was dedicated entirely to fruit and vegetables, and my parents ran a smallholding with chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys and pigs. The chickens were fed partially on kitchen scraps collected from neighbors in return for eggs.

Twice a week, I carried buckets to collect scraps and leavings and became an authority on what families ate. These chores earned me pocket money, first a sixpence and then a shilling (5 to 10 cents) a week. To supplement this pocket money and to buy a five-shilling National Savings account stamp for the war effort, I did other jobs. I collected wild rose hips from the hedgerows for the Ministry of Health’s rose-hip syrup distributed through the schools to keep us healthy.

We carried gasmasks everywhere and practiced sheltering in our school trenches regularly. One Christmas I received a beautiful blue oilskin case for my gasmask to replace the uncomfortable cardboard box with the string that cut into my shoulder.

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Stirring Up Memories

Breakfast Ham Ring

This dish is a dandy one for Easter Sunday because you can let it bake for 1-1/4 hours while attending church and have it ready for brunch afterward. You can also make it ahead of time or make it and freeze it. Can’t you just smell the delicious aroma of ham and eggs in the kitchen? Check out this fast and easy dish and other recipe ideas for Easter from our friends at Taste of Home.

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Picture From the Past

By Shirley Schuman
Las Vegas, Nevada

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This photo of Tippy and me was taken in El Monte, California, on Easter Sunday in 1952, when I was 5-1/2 years old. The photographer was my aunt Viola Hamby, who had taken me shopping for my very first Easter dress. I loved it! I remember Aunt Viola, who I called Da-Da, had used long strips of cloth to curl my hair.

After the picture was taken, Uncle Ray, Da-Da and I went to Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park—my first of many trips there—for a great chicken dinner. It was there I had my picture taken with a real American Indian next to a tee-pee. The park had a cowboy and Indian theme at the time.

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Time Capsule Trivia

Only sharp automobile buffs will have a chance at guessing all of these old-time car names from the corresponding definitions below. The answers to the quiz, shared by Pam Kappel of Ottumwa, Iowa, are listed at the end of the clues, but no peeking!

1. A kind of stone used for getting a fire sparked.

2. To cross a stream.

3. An intoxicated maker of bread.

4. To grind the teeth in anger.

5. A river in New York

6. A kind of cracker.

7. To rip an aircraft.

8. A French racecar driver.

9. A warm planet.

10. A jungle cat.

Answers: 1. Flint; 2.Ford; 3. Studebaker; 4. Nash; 5. Hudson; 6. Graham; 7. Terraplane; 8. Chevrolet; 9. Mercury; 10. Jaguar.

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A Thought to Remember

Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.

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