I wanted to let you know that I somehow got on Mr. Odel's mailing list, and I have found it very interesting. It is not about our family, but his home is Yukon, same as what I call home. There is about 10 years difference in our ages, and the things he lived through, I can still remember my parents talking about! When I started school, and only then, did I come to realize other kiddos around me did not eat meat like we did. Some could not believe we had meat once or twice a day, or bacon, etc... I can remember Dad and Mom saying that ole OLEO would kill ya... so Paul and I shared a bit of history together. He went to Yukon Schools, and I did to for the first 7 years. He is now in a Vets home in Lawton, OK. and is morbidly obese.. I am close..haha.. I will not post all his things here, but only the ones that resemble my experiences. Enjoy!
Los Angeles 1941-1944
I was living in Los Angeles during the World War 11 days 1941 to 1944. My parents both worked for Lockheed Aircraft building P-38 bombers. At night every time a aircraft flew over the air raid sirens would go off and every one had to turn out their lights in their houses, pull the window blinds all the way down put out any cigarettes. There was an Air Raid Warden in every block and he better not see any type lights coming from your house. You would be arrested and pay a big fine. We went through this several times a night, The spot lights would go up on the Aircraft to identify it as friend or foe. Every household had pictures of friendly aircraft and unfriendly aircraft.
Everyone in the family had a ration book for that month. Every thing was rationed, meat, shoes, food, gasoline and sugar. You had to have a stamp for everything.
All of the beef, pork, chickens, bananas, sugar, most fruits, nuts, chocolate candy bars, especially name brands like Hershey bars, milky wave, snicker bars, butter fingers, chewing gum all went to the service men. A candy bar named ping came out during the war. If you had five cents you could buy any candy bar if they were available to civilian for five cents. Americans for
The first time learned to eat lamb that was just about the only meat you could by in the Grocery stores. Saturdays if you had a meat ration stamp you could stand in a long line in hopes that you could buy one beef roast. When the store start running out of roast those women would get into fights over who got the last of the roast.
After we moved off the ranch in New Mexico I never did see bacon, or real butter, Hershey bars, milky waves until we moved back to Yukon, Oklahoma in July of 1944. If you went to DUNNS GROCERY STORE in YUKON, OKLAHOMA at 7 a.m. you could buy a pound of bacon and a bunch of bananas and a pound of real butter. During the war they came out with white oleo that you had to add a package of colored powder and with your hands squesse that oleo until it was the color of real butter. Oleo was nasty tasting until you got oleo that looked like butter. That was nasty tasting stuff .
January 24, 1944 my only sister was born in a Hospital in Los Angeles, California on my parents 12th Wedding Anniversary. Grandma DOLLIE SANNER a friend of my Grandmother (ADDE ELIZA TICE) ODLE lived in Los Angeles with her son GEORGE SANNERS. She came to stay with us that week my mother was in the Hospital having a baby. We loved Grandma Sanners she would get down on the floor on her knees take a long piece of string and tie it¡¯s ends together and lay the string on the floor in a circle. We would but marbles in the center and she would shoot marbles with my brother BUD (ORVILLE LESTER ODLE) and me for hours. She would play rook cards and a card game called Flinch. One day that week in January 1944 Grandma Sanners and I was walking down first street past MIKE and ANNIES GROCERY STORE when to our surprise we saw one green banana in the store window priced at seventy five cents. We had not seen a banana since 1940. We kept walking by it and debating should we pay seventy-five cents witch was a lot of money back then for that green banana. We bought it and divided it into half¡¯s and ate it. I made a silent vowel to my self right then and there if I ever saw the day when bananas were plentiful again, I would buy them every day.
We lived in a brand new housing project called EL LISO VILLAGE it was about a block from the First Street Bridge in the roughest most dangerous part of Los Angeles. My best buddies were LARRY SMITH and LLOYD MORRIS. Larry was from Arizona and he moved with his parents after the war to Fontana, California. LLOYD MORRIS was from OKLAHOMA and he and his father JOHNNY MORRIS stayed in LA. LLOYD was in the Air Force the same time I was but I lost track of him. El LISO VILLAGE was built for government workers housing.
The picture shows would collect aluminum for the war drive. Back then your mother¡¯s cookware was aluminum your Grandma cooked out of cast iron or enamelware. You could bring one of your mom's aluminum kettles for the war drive and get in the picture show free, thus saving a dime. All that scrap metal went to build airplanes or ships.
Every one planted a ¡°VICTORY GARDEN,¡± in their front yard. By raising your own vegetables you helped the war effort. No one minded the sacrifices at home. Our Service Men and women were sacrificing their lives so we could live in freedom here in America. GOD BLESS OUR SERVICE MEN AND WOMEN. AND GOD BLESS OUR VETERANS!
By Paul L.Odle, Sr.
Lawton/Fort Sill Veterans Center
P.O. Box 849
Lawton, Oklahoma 73502
1-580-354-3287
1-580-512-4767
Paul_OdleSr@yahoo.com
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