Living with Shortages
We moved during the middle of the war years. We moved to Elmdale on January 1, 1943. Elmdale was a small farming community about 6 miles east of Abilene.I remember the date because January 1 was often moving day for sharecropping families. When you drove down the road, you’d see an old pickup, or maybe a trailer hauling all of a family’s earthly goods – usually a couple of bedsprings and mattresses, maybe a couch, a kitchen table and a kerosene cook stove.
We moved onto a farm known as the “Neal Place.” The house was bigger than the one at Clyde. We had four rooms, but it was much older, and there was no paint on the house. Our first winter there, our source of health was a drafty fireplace, the kind that burned your frontside and froze your backside. But that was common in that area. There was no electricity as there had been in Clyde. So there was no radio. Our way of staying in touch with the world was the Abilene Reporter-News, which was delivered to our mailbox a day late.
As the war went on we were faced with shortages. Gasoline was rationed. You had a sticker in the windshield of your car which told the station owner how much gasoline he was allowed to pump into your vehicle. The average motorist got three and a-half gallons of gas a week. More was allowed for trucks. Since we had a pickup, we got more. I think it was probably ten gallons a week. However, we were also able to buy gasoline from the Cities Service wholesaler in 55 gallon drums because we had a tractor. They were very generous about selling gasoline for farm tractors because farming was so essential to the war effort. You weren’t supposed to use it in your vehicle, but sometimes the tractor gasoline went into the pickup anyway.
Other rationed items included sugar, shoes and tires. At some point during the war, the tire companies began making tires out of synthetic rubber. Flats were common and if you went on a trip you expected to repair the flat on the side of the road. Most people didn’t have spare tires. I really hated it when we had a flat on the tractor. Daddy would break the tire down, fix the tube and then air the tire up with a hand pump which took forever. I had to hold the rubber hose over the valve stem while he pumped and I sure got tired of it.
Of all the rationed items I think I disliked sugar rationing the most. We learned to pour syrup on our corn flakes. My parents sweetened their coffee with it, and that may be one reason I’ve never liked coffee. We almost never had enough sugar for a pie or cake. After the war was over, I remember my mother baking a caramel pie. I thought it was wonderful. I came in after school one day, and she was outside doing the washing or something. Anyway, I found the pie and helped myself. I ate about half of it. In a little while I realized my mistake. I was sick at my stomach, and for awhile I thought I might never want to see a pie again. I wasn’t even sure I would live to eat anything again. I didn’t get punished. I guess the stomach ache was punishment enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment