8-12-2016
This is a short story on how World War Two had an effect on the United States population when some resources were rationed to support the military effort.
Growing up in Readville, Massachusetts like other parts of the United States, the Second War imposed limited services for the population due to the Nations support of the War. Items were rationed such as groceries, meats and gasoline. The Civil Defense Office issued every adult a ration book and tokens on a monthly basis that allowed them to purchase items when they were available at the grocery store, the meat market and the gasoline station. My parents had their ration books and tokens. Due to the extent of rationing resources led to a movement by the populous to grow their own vegetables in their back yard. Hence the Victory Garden became a back yard garden to grow vegetables for their families.
Our Victory Garden was thirty-two feet long and ten feet deep in our backyard. My parents planted potatoes, corn, green beans, butter beans, peas, tomatoes, lettuce, radishes, turnip, and squash just to name a few of the vegetables that were grown in our garden. At the age of ten, my chore was to water the garden every day and to weed between the rows at least once a week with the hoe and rake. Weeding was really hard work. I had to work on my knees to get all the weeds from the rows of vegetables. Then I had to hoe between the rows and use the rake to clean up the garden. Working in the garden was hard work and on the hot summer days, I sweated a lot and drank water. For this chore, I was paid twenty-five cents a week. That was a lot of money a ten year old to have for spending money.
The Victory Garden kept us in food for the duration of the war. It taught us how to economize during a hard time in the United States. Vegetables that were not available because of rationing at the grocery store became plentiful from our Victory Garden. The hardest part of my chore was to pick the vegetables when they were ripe. I would gather the vegetables and bring them into the kitchen. My mother would keep what was need for the week and put them in the refrigerator. She would cook the remaining vegetable and put them in canning jars to be eaten later. The canning jars were stored in the coolness of our dirt cellar. This routine started in 1942 and continued through the War and into the early 1950’s when I went into the military.
