HomeMy WebLinkAboutWar at Home
World War IT at Home
Martha Frances Shock Henry
December 7. 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Things changed in the
United States of America. Our men went to war and soon it was on both sides of the
globe. We joined with the European countries as well as the Pacific. People at home had
to make sacrifices as well as the military. Defense plants began to make products for the
use of the military. Food stamps were issued, limiting the use of amounts of certain
foods, shoes, sugar and other products. Many women went to work. Some worked in
airplane factories and were often referred to as "Rosie the Riveter". America
enthusiastically supported the war effort.
Because shoes were scarce, people in some respects took better care of their
shoes. You had to have a shoe stamp to purchase a pair of shoes. Shoes were made of all
leather. They could have new heels and new haIf soles.
Some people were greedy. They rushed out and purchased one hundred pounds
of sugar before the limitation was put on. I heard of one family who purchased 100
pounds of sugar and placed it in the basement. They lived fairly close to the Missouri
River. October of 1941 itrained 30 of the 31 days if October. This family's basement
was flooded and all of their sugar was lost. Most people were cooperative of the rules.
Many people volunteered at hospitals, worked for the Red Cross and many other
units. During scary times drivers were to drive with dim lights. Called "Brown out"
1
1
lights. Of course in the early 1940' s lots of people did not have automobiles. Lots of
towns had city buses. My family walked to church, the grocery store and elsewhere.
Even if you had a car you walked a lot of places.
Families raised "Victory Gardens". They planned new and different casseroles
and other dishes that would stretch the meat items, which would stretch the limited items.
Other items that were rationed were tires and automobiles were hard to purchase. For
sometime after the end of the war there were long waits to purchase a new automobile.
In small towns families looked after each other. If a son was killed the town people
supported them.
In June 1941 I had some difficulty in getting a job because I was not 21 years old.
I did get a job as the County Supervisor of Cole County National Youth Administration
Hot School Lunches. There were seven county schools. I was paid $1 OO/month I was
provided with a car. We picked wild blackberries, wild plums and wild gooseberries at
one school. We canned them. We had gardens. Vegetables were canned for the school
year. Each school had at about two cents a day plus Surplus Commodities. Many
schools used kerosene stoves. I had an emergency appendectomy on December 2, 1941.
After I returned to work after Christmas I found that the Hot Lunch programs had been
discontinued because of the war. I had no trouble getting another job. I had turned 21.
I was a dietitian at the Missouri Stat Tuberculosis Sanitarium. I was twenty years
old. The hospital had one thousand patients and three hundred employees. The various
2
State hospitals and facilities raised various food products and shared them with other
hospitals. Sometimes the contributions were so ridiculous they were laughable. For
example the Fulton Facility (school for Deaf and mute) sent about 800 pounds of
radishes. Another sent a thousand pounds of turnips. Turnips aren't the most popular
vegetable. Our Administrator liked Turnip kraut. Needless to day it was not very
popular. Surplus commodities were sent to hospitals and institutions. One time they sent
a ton of tangerines. Sadly they were about half rotten. A dumpster was moved up to the
dock, Good ones were thrown into a tub of water and the bad ones into the dumpster. At
Christmas Surplus Commodities sent the turkeys for our Christmas dinner. These turkeys
were alive. We dressed them, cleaned them and cooked them. We needed a large
number of turkeys so they were loaded into large roasters and placed in to revolving
ovens. It was Christmas Eve. About suppertime one of the revolving shelves dumped its
turkeys into the bottom of the oven. What do you do? You cool the ovens. In the
meantime we sent to the dairy barn and ordered a new pitchfork. We sent it to Surgery to
have it sanitized. The turkeys were forked out. The oven repaired. And started again.
About nine 0' clock in the evening the same problem arose. This time we could fork out
the turkeys. We placed the turkeys in a steamer to finished cooking them. My job was
to plan the diets, supervise the cooking and serving and also plan the special diets as the
diabetics, etc. An example of quantities of food-It took 500 pounds of potatoes per
meal. Our facility had its own dairy and beef cattle. I was paid $75/month plus room and
board.
3
I left that job in February 1943 and journeyed to Watertown, SD where I was
married. I had married my college sweetheart. We had graduated from the University of
Missouri June 13, 1941. Shortly after that I went to St. Louis where I got another job.
My husband went to North Africa and Italy.
First I managed a Scruggs, Vandervoort & Barney Department Store's Employee
Cafeteria. I was Paid $120.00 /month. We had an average of 1500 for lunch plus persons
for coffee, rolls, snacks etc Monday through Saturday. The store had a tearoom and they
took more than their share of the meat stamps. It was quite a job to prepare the poor cuts
of meat that we could purchase with our share of the meat stamps. We developed a tasty
meat and Hash Brown Potato cake and many other things.
In April of 1945 a man came to see me and offered me a job to manage a cafeteria
for the McQuay Norris Defense Plant at double my current salary. I told him I had to
speak with my boss. He agreed, but I found out he had already talked with her. One
week later I changed jobs. The plant was a four floors building. The operation was
secret. Between eleven a.m. and one pm we fed three thousand people at lunch. No one
knew what went on, on any of the floors or what the final product that was manufactured.
The fourth floor ate first and no one came in the dining room until the last one of them
left and the third floor employees filed into eat etc. We had four U shaped cafeteria
counters. As I recall, monthly food orders amounted to over $20,000. Our numbers were
large enough that we did not have as much trouble with food stamps as at the other places
where I worked. My pay here was $240/month, plus lunch.
4
By fall of 1945 the war was over and the plant was closing. My husband returned
home. My husband had to spend sometime in the Jeffurson Barracks Hospital. I had a
finishing up job. All the eqnipment had to be "mothballed". This meant cleaning well
and covering with grease to preserve it.
After my husband's convalescence and terminaJ leave we returned to Jefferson
City, MO. He regained his old job. It was decided that he would return to the University
of Missouri to work on his Masters Degree. I went to the University and applied for a
job. I had the huge title of Assistance Director of Residence Halls. The ROTC Building
was being converted into a cafeteria for the Veterans who were returning to the
University. Dr. Marita Monroe, my boss, asked me if I knew where there was some
equipment she could purchase for the cafeteria. I told her yes. Immediately she called
McQuay Norris and purchased the equipment sight unseen. Missouri can be hot in the
summertime. This was before air-conditioning. She employed me to go to work as soon
as the equipment arrived. Cleaning that equipment was the dirtiest job I ever did. There
were about 500 veterans who ate in the cafeteria. We were supposed to get housing. The
Wherry Housing was not fInished, so we lived at my Mother's. I was paid $225/month.
He started to school in the fall. He was teaching a course in Mechanical Drawing.
Christmas Eve he received a telegram from the Air Force telling him to go to The
University of Chicago for a course in Meteorology. He remained in Meteorology the rest
of his life. Retiring for the Air Force Reserves in 1979. retiring in 1985 as Professor
Emeritus from Texas A&M University.
5
What did McQuay Norris make? The Proximity Fuse of the Atom Bomb.
6