War Stamps and Joyful News in Carolyn’s Yard

1944 -1951 (First to Sixth Grade)

“School days, school days, dear old golden rule days, reading, and writing and ’rithmetic, talk to the tune of the hickory stick . . .” When I started Kindergarten in 1944, at Roosevelt Grade School in Moline, Mrs. Hogland, the mother of Erladine and Jean, picked us up in her station wagon and took us to school. She had improvised extra seating in the back of the car by placing a long board on two blocks of cement, and that’s where I sat. I wore skirts with straps and crisply starched blouses with puffy sleeves. I also wore pretty little cotton dresses with big bows that tied in the back. Mom made them all. I wore my hair in banana curls. Mom would roll my hair in strips of dampened cloth before I went to bed, and then she would brush my hair around her fingers to make ringlets every morning. I brought a small rug from home, and took a short nap on it at school. I made a handprint out of plaster of Paris, which I still have. I remember we played Drop the Handkerchief in kindergarten: A tisket, a tasket, A green and yellow basket. I wrote a letter to my love And on the way I dropped it. I dropped it once, I dropped it twice, I dropped it three times over.

While we sang, someone was “it” and skipped around the circle of people and dropped a handkerchief near someone. That person picked up the handkerchief and ran after the person who dropped the handkerchief. We also participated in the war effort during World War II. We had little Savings Bonds stamp books (I still have mine) and once a week the teacher would sell us as many stamps as our parents could afford. Each book held eighteen dollars and fifty cents worth of ten-cent stamps, which could be exchanged for a twenty-five dollar War Bond, redeemable in ten years. Another part of the war effort was rationing. Mom and Dad had little books of stamps regulating the amount of food and gas we could buy. Meat, coffee, sugar, and butter were some of the foods rationed. I was playing with Carolyn Reichenberg in her yard when it was announced on the radio that the war was over. Ruth and John (Carolyn’s parents) were sitting on chairs outside and tried to explain to us what had happened. We jumped up and down, clapping our hands and shouting, “The war is over, the war is over.” I was about six years old, but I remember this very clearly. It was August 15, 1945, and the war was officially over. In first and second grade I learned to read. Our first book was about Dick and Jane, Baby Sally, their dog, Spot, and their cat, Puff. I have scoured used bookstores for years trying to locate a copy of this book. I’ve been told it would cost a fortune if I did find one. I rode the school bus after kindergarten. The only thing I remember about third grade is that Marilyn, Bob, and I had our tonsils removed on the same day by Dr. George Cook. My fourth grade teacher was Mrs. Grafton. I just loved her and thought she was wonderful. She was young, pretty, and nice. I discovered boys in fourth grade. I learned to tell time and memorized my multiplication tables that year. I also started wearing glasses. We had a contest in fifth grade to see who could read the most books during the school year. I won, reading over sixty books and doing a written book report on every one. I also started reading comic books about this time. They were very popular, cheap to buy, and I entertained myself for hours reading them.