A History of the Wife (51 page)

Alvira “Pat” Vahlenkamp married Charles “Chuck” Melvin, an air force pilot, in September 1943. When he was sent to France in the spring of 1944, Pat enlisted in the WACS under the assumption that another serviceman would then be freed to go overseas. Though her husband was not initially happy with her decision, he later became very proud of her. Her letters to him evoked the daily exertions demanded of women in basic training and her dream-time worries about her husband.

Darling Hubby,

. . .

Fort Des Moines, Aug. 13, 1944

Sunday was just another day here for we G.I. gals. Only, we were able to sleep until 6:30. Ate at 8:00. Drilled until noon mess. Lecture at 3:00 until mess. Then we were off. We all have our uniforms now. So five of we girls went to the P.X. and Service Club. Didn’t stay longer than an hour. . . .

Darling, please, keep on loving me. Will you? That’s all I want. That’s all I need. I miss you dreadfully and I think of you constantly. I

dreamed last nite that you didn’t love me any more. It was awful. . . . If only right now you were with me and we could live our lives together alone, I would be so happy.

Love, Pat
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From her barracks on the base, Pat wrote that she had an upper bunk where it was “nice and cool” in the summer, that she had survived KP (kitchen duty), and that the army “is getting better every day.” Pat didn’t hide from her husband the satisfaction she derived from her work as a WAC, even as she tried to reassure him that she was still, first and foremost, a devoted and faithful wife. “Of course, I know what my husband thinks of the WACs. But, Darling, always remember your wife is still your wife. WAC or no WAC and she loves you and you alone.”

Dorothy Barnes and James R. Stephens graduated from college in Cali- fornia in June 1942 and, with the cloud of war over their heads, they eloped to Arizona three months later. When J.R. was called up for active duty as a Signal Corps photographer, Dorothy decided to enlist in the WAVES.
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She spent boot camp at Hunter College in New York City, an experi- ence that left her with few fond memories. “We hit the deck before dawn and fell exhausted into bed at 2200 (10:00
P
.
M
.) Spud locker detail (as the navy called it) working in ankle-deep water peeling beets and potatoes, guard duty where I actually was given a baton and told to guard a gate, classes in military organization, and learning navy songs used up the day. After lights out I’d cry into my pillow.”

Somehow she survived basic training and then radio school in Ohio, before being posted to Treasure Island Naval Station in San Francisco. During this time J. R. was sent to the Pacific, and there were long peri- ods of silence when Dorothy did not know whether he was dead or alive. When the news came that he had made it back to Hawaii, she excitedly applied for a transfer to the islands.

“The big hurdle,” as she recounted years later, “was the interview with the captain, commanding officer at Treasure Island Naval Station. I’d heard he was very strict about whom he’d approve, that one had to convince him of selfless intentions to get an assignment there, so for my interview I had imagined a little patriotic speech.”

But, instead, she blurted out the truth—that she wanted to be with

her husband. The captain, surprisingly, approved her request, with the caveat that the reason for her transfer remain between the two of them. Once they were both stationed in Hawaii, Dorothy and her husband had to overcome numerous obstacles for their off-base meetings in makeshift accommodations. Before long she was pregnant. In that preg- nancy was considered a major infraction for women in service, Dorothy was relieved to be discharged from the navy a few months later.

“FOR THE DURATION”

The patriotic stories of women shipbuilders, airplane repairers, WACS, and WAVES received much public attention during the war years, so much so that they overshadowed the efforts of women with more mundane occupations. Most married women were full-time housekeepers. For every one wife working for pay at the height of the war, three others remained unsalaried at home. Mrs. Keith Frazier Somerville, in her bimonthly newspaper column from Cleveland, Mis- sissippi, acknowledged a definite wistfulness on the part of those who were out of the limelight: “I and all the other non-military housewives here about who neither rivet nor weld but remain behind to keep the home fires burning! We are to be called W.I.N.K.S.—“Winks” . . . Women in Numerous Kitchens!”
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Mrs. Somerville’s “Dear Boys” column for the
Bolivar Commercial
weekly was addressed to servicemen from Bolivar County in all parts of the world. A former schoolteacher and active community member, the writer was well situated to keep them informed of their loved ones at home and their friends abroad. The “Dear Boys” columns sketched the scene in small-town America at a time when everyone—except for some stay-at-home wives and mothers—seemed to be on the move.

Local soldiers were constantly being transported from training camps and specialized programs throughout the land to posts abroad in Europe and the Pacific. Their sweethearts and wives met them wher- ever they could, in boomtowns that had no rooms to rent, in temporary housing with shared kitchens and bathrooms, in their own homes when the servicemen had precious leave.

In column after column, Mrs. Somerville reported the flood of wed- dings that was sweeping through the nation. On June 18, 1943, she wrote:

Dear Boys:

“America is on a matrimonial spree,” says Kate Burr [a journalist and radio commentator]. “Every month, 150,000 couples are married! Despite other shortages, there seems to be no priority on love!” Well, our Bolivar County youngsters are no exception to the general rule. They’re at this marrying business, too, as I’ve told you before. Last Monday, out at San Diego, California, Bill Lowery and Myrtle Lindsey were quietly married. . . . Billy is feeling super fine these days, but the Navy still has him doing “limited service.” You know he . . . was one of the first of our boys to be wounded in action. Well, a pretty Delta bride should be all the tonic he needs! . . .

On Friday, pretty Joyce Shular (fortunately entirely well now from a recent appendectomy which postponed her wedding) is to be married to Robert Hays, formerly of Port Gibson, but now working for the

A.A.A. [Agricultural Adjustment Administration] in Washington. . . . And as soon as he gets his wings (sometime this week) out at the

Corpus Christi Naval Air Base, Nevin Sledge is coming home to wed that talented Brenda Wilson. . . .

That marrying bug has struck Pace [neighboring town] too. Had you heard that Robert Grantham, home on a twenty-day leave after a year in Hawaii, married attractive Edith Lott last week? He couldn’t be let- ting brother Gray (a cook at the Port of Embarkation, New York) get ahead of him. . . . You know Gray married Ethel Quinton when he was home last December! And Rufus Aycock married recently too, a pretty Georgia girl. He’s paratrooper, up in North Carolina now. . . .

But I’m not through with Pace’s wedding yet! Frank Thompson grad- uated from the Glider School at Lubbock, Texas this spring and married Betsy Worrel the very same day!

Brides were invariably portrayed as “pretty,” “talented,” or “attrac- tive.” Almost every column announced another war-hastened wedding, always with approval. As Mrs. Somerville opined on July 2, 1943: “With all its ups and downs, marriage is still a pretty good institution, preferable with all its imperfections to unmarried bliss!” On December 3, she noted that the latest statistics suggest “at least two million new brides in 1943, or about fourteen marriages per 1000 population. Dur- ing World War I, we had eleven marriages per thousand, so you boys are doing better than your dads did!”

Babies, too, were being produced in record numbers, with the birth rate climbing from 2,466,000 births in 1939, to 2,703,000 in 1941, to 3,104,000 in 1943. Although some Americans voiced concern over the future of these children, many of whom would be fatherless after the war, the overwhelming consensus was that babies, like marriage, were good for the nation.
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Taking note of the increased birth rate, Mrs. Somerville wrote on March 12, 1943: “Have you heard about the Boom in Babies?... a bunch of our servicemen are new fathers! ‘Jimmie’ Newman (Lt. James V.) from out Pace way was home from Keesler Field not long ago for the arrival of his wee daughter, and ‘Pete’ Gammil (Lt. Tom L.) flew home to Skene from Phoenix, Arizona, with his month old twins, a four pound girl and a five pound boy! Naturally his wife (Frances Foster of Greenwood, a Delta State girl) came along to show the home folks their treasures!... And a sure ‘proud papa’ is Ralph Collins Reed, home from Camp Pendleton (the biggest Marine camp of all, at Oceanside, California) to visit with his son and wife (Lorraine Ruscoe).”

After another list of weddings and babies reported on January 7, 1944, Mrs. Somerville added this interesting piece of information: “You knew, didn’t you, that if a baby is born after the father goes overseas, Uncle Sam will send its picture by V-mail [a special wartime letter] to the dad!”

On December 3, 1943, she noted that Elaine Tyler had come home from Camp McCain, Mississippi, with her daughter and baby son “for the duration,” while her lieutenant husband continued to serve his country. “For the duration” was a common wartime expression imply- ing that the present situation, while uncertain in length, was only tem- porary. Wives and families hunkered down with the expectation of resuming a “normal” life at war’s end. In the meantime, they would do their best to take care of themselves and—like Mrs. Somerville—send smiling pictures to their far-flung “boys.”

HOUSEKEEPING ON THE HOME FRONT

Nonworking wives and mothers (that is, three out of four married women) stayed at home caring for the new wartime babies and children of all ages. Sometimes they had the care of their parents as well. It was no easy task to be a homemaker in a wartime economy, when house-

hold help was hard to come by, even for those who had the money, and store-bought items were pricey and scarce. Rationing of gas, meat, sugar, coffee, butter, and other fats made transportation chancy and meal preparation challenging.

The 1942 edition of
The Good Housekeeping Cookbook
acknowledged that “the war is bringing new problems into the home kitchen.” These included “food rationing, changing prices, scarcity of some food, and gaps on grocers’ shelves because our government had needed almost the entire supply of certain food for our armed forces and our allies.”
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The cookbook contained a Wartime Supplement that told homemakers how to cope with some of these problems. They were advised to buy in quantities that leave a minimum of leftovers, to plan meals for two or three days so as to cut down on trips to the market, to be sure that daily meals are adequately nutritious, and to “cheat the garbage can in every conceivable way.”

In italics, cooks were admonished:
“Save every scrap of fat that you would ordinarily throw out.”
These could be strained into a container, put in the refrigerator, sold to the butcher, and ultimately used in the mak- ing of explosives. A poster issued by the U.S. government printing office graphically showed fat dripping from a frying pan that was fun- neled into explosives. The caption read “Housewives! Save waste fats for explosives! Take them to your meat dealer.”

Tin cans had become precious because they were made of materials that were needed for war production.
The Good Housekeeping Cook- book
reminded housewives to “save every can. Remove labels, and wash thoroughly, as cans cannot be used unless they are very clean. Remove both top and bottom of can, flatten each can with the foot until the sides nearly meet.” Then they were to be taken to the col- lecting center.

A special section of the cookbook contained a list of fourteen sugges- tions for the “The Business Housekeeper,” a euphemism for the working wife. She was advised to keep her menus simple and to take advantage of packaged quick-frozen vegetables, fish, meats, and fruits, as well as prepared biscuit, muffin, and griddle cake mixes, and canned breads. At the end of the list of timesaving hints, the fourteenth suggestion reminded the housekeeper to keep up her appearance. “Never fail to smooth your hair and to powder your nose before you announce dinner. Then you can greet your family and guests with a smile that isn’t put

on.” Throughout the war years, whether in factories or in homes, women were told that looks counted and that their looking good (i.e., feminine and even glamorous) contributed to the national morale.

While few food items were officially rationed—Americans never faced the privations known to our allies in Britain and France, or our enemies for that matter—many items were in short supply. The short- age of fresh and canned vegetables and fruits impelled many home- makers to grow “victory gardens” and can their own produce. The shortage of butter led to the introduction of margarine on the Ameri- can table. Initially, the dairy industry prevented manufacturers from giving margarine the same color as butter, and one had to add a pellet of dye to transform its unappetizing white substance into a glowing yellow.

The shortage of clothing obliged many women to mend and sew and resize clothes passed down from older siblings and friends. Finding shoes for growing children was an ongoing challenge. Household appli- ances like toasters, egg beaters, refrigerators, and washing machines were all in short supply.

A
Harper’s Magazine
article of April 1944 titled “Housekeeping after the War” took note of the many difficulties homemakers were facing, especially in the service sector. “Commercial laundries collect and deliver less frequently than they did. . . . It takes forever to get a vac- uum cleaner, or iron, or leaky faucet fixed. . . . The grocer and butcher have in many cases stopped delivering. Shopping—with fewer clerks in the stores and with many transactions complicated by ration coupons and tokens—takes longer than ever. Getting to market, tak- ing small children to school, and many other errands that used to be done easily and quickly by car now have to be done on foot, or by bus and trolley. And the supply of domestic workers is drying up so rap- idly that fewer housewives than ever have anyone to help get the work done.”
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The privileged 10 percent of American families with full-time servants before the war were probably reduced to half that number by 1944.