The Way It Was: A Boyhood Memoir 1934-1948

By Donald H. Brown

This book is a memoir of my boyhood, the 14 years between 1934 and 1948, Memory is the way we allow the past to live in the present. But the past is not experienced in a vacuum. Memories have locations in a particular time and particular places. Th is brief memoir is attempt to share my boyhood as shaped by the Great Depression of the 1930s and the World War II years of the 1940s. In the writing of these pages it became evident to me that indeed the experiences of my childhood have greatly shaped the person I am today. It is hoped that this modest memoir may at once be an enjoyable read as well as encourage the reader to recall his or her own childhood days and reflect upon how that time may have shaped their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456741532

Donald H. Brown

Donald H. Brown is a retired United Methodist Pastor. Growing up in Allendale, N. J. in the 1930’s and 1940’s, Don knew what it was like to grow up in “small town USA”. In this brief memoir, he writes of how the closing years of the Great Depression and World War II years provided the milieu in which his boyhood was shaped and experienced In addition to his vocation as a clergyman, Don’s drawing and painting have been an ongoing avocation of his. The tension between his call to ministry and his love of art is a persistent theme thoughout his memoir. Don, and his wife Gail, have 4 children and 12 grandchildren, for whom this memoir was written. He currently resides in his home town of Allendale, N. J..

Book preview

The Way It Was

A Boyhood Memoir

1934-1948

Donald H. Brown

missing image file

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2011. Donald H. Brown. All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 06/24/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4567-4153-2 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-4154-9 (sc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011902143

Printed in the United States of America

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

This book is dedicated to my grandchildren:

Patrick

Treya

Erin

Alexander

Thomas

Caroline

Lindsay

Melissa

Eileen

Tristan

Trevor

Julianna

A PROLOGUE

(Where I Came From)

I came out of darkness.

Out of nothing.

Or maybe there was Something.

I don’t really know.

But suddenly there was light.

Bright light.

So much light that there was

nothing but light.

A mighty blast erupted

hurling the beginnings of me

out and out,

far and far

with millions,

no trillions and trillions the likes of me.

For 10 billion years

I sojourned the Universe,

wandering, a pilgrim, from place to place

waiting to become fully and uniquely me.

And gradually it happened.

Endlessly, it seemed, I circled

my live-giving star.

Round and round.

Until, slowly but with certainty,

my cosmic home appeared.

A sphere of beauty,

warm, green, blue

with water and pure air,

it welcomed me,

and for 4 more billion years

nurtured me toward birth.

The birth itself a miracle.

Out of the swaying oceans

I came together cell by cell.

First I swam, then I crawled, then I climbed,

then I walked

and then I sat…and thought.

What a birth!

14 billions years of pregnancy.

With opened eyes I looked

out, and up, and down

and saw an awesome universe:

the womb that had formed me

and mother earth who now cradled me.

And I was not alone.

Many had preceded me,

some brown, some black, some tan

and like me, some white.

And all had journeyed through the stars with me.

My place of arrival was in

a random place on planet earth

of rolling hills and scattered lakes

in New Jersey and more

in Allendale town, quaint and small,

in 1934.

That is where I learned

what it is to be alive:

to have consciousness, to feel, to taste,

to laugh, to cry, to love.

to be a human creature

with a planetary home,

to lift up praise for the mystery called life,

and worship with adoration and joy

the wonder of it all.

And in moments of reflection

allow myself the space

to ruminate and contemplate

the reason of my epiphany

and ask the questions:

Why?

What for?

What purpose?

What, after all, is the meaning of it all?

DHB

(The following pages are some reflections of my first 14 years of life in which I allow myself the space to ruminate and contemplate some of the events and happenings that shaped my life and gave it meaning and purpose.)

FORWARD

Once upon a time…. So begins many a story. Once upon a time there was a princess, a castle, a knight, a fairy godmother, or Harry Potter! Whatever, Once upon a time… reminds us that we all live or lived, once upon a time." Our lives are stories of our own making. And depending upon how old we are and to whom we are telling our story, some of our stories are of a time long ago.

This is memoir of my boyhood, lived primarily between the years 1934 and 1948, now more than 50 years ago. Or to make it seem even more ancient, more than a half a century ago! I am writing it primarily for my twelve grandchildren, for whom I already, in their child-like eyes, appear quite ancient. How old are you, grandpa? is a question they have put to me more than once, trying to fathom the unexplainable and unimaginable time that separates grandchild from grandparent.

Memory is the way we humans give shape to experience. The English writer, G.K. Chesterton once wrote: We live in the past because there is nothing else to live in. To live in the present is like proposing to sit on a pin. There’s not enough space and place to live on the head of a pin. We keep sliding off into the past. We can only hold on to the present through the gift of memory. Indeed, without memory, even the present ceases to exist. So, in a very real way, it is the past that makes the present possible.

This modest Memoir then is a small attempt to allow the past that I have lived to be present in the lives of my grandchildren and perhaps, even in ways unimagined, to give shape to their future.

But the past is not experienced in a vacuum. Memories have locations.

We not only live in a particular time in history, but also inescapably a particularized place in history. For me, a then little town in northeastern New Jersey called Allendale, was the place where this memoir found its origin. Places shape experiences and hence our memories. Our place of home, of play, of school, of neighborhood all impact how we each come to understand the world about us. The importance of place on my life is evident through this catalog of memories.

Memory can be a source of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.

Every person is a memoirist who can use the narrative of his/her own experiences to uncover meaning and purpose. And thus, in the broadest sense of the word, a memoir is a kind of narrative incarnational theology,–-a way of talking about God by telling human stories; of discovering how our little stories are related to and are connected with the Big Story. Whether we realize it or not, we all become theologians, either implicitly or explicitly, when we tell our stories; for all theology is at heart autobiographical.

A word about the arrangement and content of my writing. Instead of following a strictly chronological record of my boyhood, I have chosen to relate my story by individual chapters, which tell their own story from beginning to end. Instead of presenting the reader with a whole loaf of bread to digest in one reading, I have presented my boyhood in slices…each to be savored and digested as a mini memoir in and of itself.

Finally, need it be said that every memoir is a collection of selected memories? This is not an exhaustive account of my boyhood. And perhaps what I have eliminated would have been more instructive than what I have included. I cannot say. The unconscious mind does its own editing! What I can say is that my effort of a memoir is not an attempt at self-glorification, but rather, a modest effort to provide a window through which I celebrate and reflect on a portion of my life with those who inherit a portion of me as grandfather.

Enjoy.

Contents

A PROLOGUE

FORWARD

A TIME-LINE

PARENTS

SIBLINGS

PLAYLAND

PLAYMATES

THE APARTMENT

THE NEIGHBORS AND THE NEIGHBORHOOD

AUNTS AND UNCLES

SCHOOL DAYS

THE WAR YEARS

CHRISTMAS GIFTS

THE ENTREPRENEUR

MY MUSE

58 WOODLAND AVENUE

MY SPIRT JOURNEY

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEGEMENTS

A TIME-LINE

The 17th century poet, John Dunne once wrote, No man is an island, entire of itself. No life is lived in isolation. We are all, to some extent, influenced and shaped by the times in which we live. The events, happenings, fads and fashion of our years, provide an ambience and culture that unavoidably mold the persons we become. It is the context of our lives.

For my boyhood years, that context was framed by the years 1934 to 1948.

I was born in the year 1934, on a Thursday, April 19th in the midst of what history now calls The Great Depression of the 1930"s. Unemployment was rampant, money was scarce, wages low, and poverty not uncommon. (My father was out of work, and near death from pneumonia in the room next to where I was born.)

The cost of living in 1934 was, by our standards today, amazingly low.

+The average cost of a new house was $5,972.00.

+The average income was $1,601.00 per year.

+A new car could be purchased for $625.00

+The average rent was $20.00 per month.

+Tuition to Harvard University was $410.00 per year.

+A movie ticket was .25 cents.

+ Gasoline was .10 cents per gallon.

+ A first class postage stamp was .03 cents.

The cost of food also was comparably low.

+ Sugar was .59 cents for 10 pounds.

+Milk was .45 cents per gallon.

+Coffee: .35 cents a pound.

+Eggs: .17 cents a dozen.

+A loaf of bread: .8 cents per loaf.

Life expectancy was 59.7 years.

A lot was happening in 1934.

+A Luxury Liner (The Morro Castle) burned off the coast of New Jersey near Asbury Park, leaving 130 people dead.

+The first Donald Duck Cartoon was released by Walt Disney.

+The first x-ray photo of the entire body was done in Rochester, N.Y.

+The St Louis Cardinals won the 1934 World Series.

In the national and international news in 1934:

+Franklin D. Roosevelt was president, having been elected in 1932.

+The Great Smokey Mountains National Park was established.

+The gangster John Dillinger was shot and killed in Chicago.

+Shirley Temple appeared in her first movie.

+Bruno Hauptmann was arrested for the kidnapping of the Charles

Lindbergh baby.

+Bonnie and Clyde are killed in a police ambush in Louisiana.

+Adolph Hitler was elected president of Germany.

+The luxury liner, Queen Mary, was launched in Scotland.

+The Academy Award Winning Film was, "It Happened One

Night", starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.

+Duke Ellington’s, Cocktails for Two, and Benny Goodman’s

Moon Glow was among the top songs.

That was 1934, the year of my birth.

But that was just the beginning of the culture that embraced my boyhood. Time continued to unfold and shape the cocoon in which my life took form.

In 1936:

+The novel, Gone With The Wind won the Pulitzer Prize for literature.

+Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to a second term as President of the United States.

+Sonja Henie was the world figure skating champion.

In 1937

+Joe Louis knocked out James Braddock to become the first African-

American to win the Heavy Weight Boxing Championship.

In 1938

+Walt Disney’s first full length animated film, Snow White was

released. (It was the first movie I remember seeing.)

In 1939

+The New York Yankee World’s Fair was held on Long Island; "A World

Of Tomorrows" was the theme.

+Kate Smith first sang, God Bless America, written by Irving Berlin.

+John Steinbeck’s, The Grapes of Wrath was published.

+Joe DiMaggio began his career as the center fielder for the New York

Yankees.

+Judy Garland starred in the film, The Wizard of Oz singing,

Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

+Germany invaded Poland on September 1st, (the week I started

Kindergarten.)

1940:

+Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to a third term as President

defeating Wendell Wilke.

+May 9th, Germany invaded Holland.

June 9th, Norway surrendered to Germany.

+ August 8th, Germany began the bombing of England.

1941:

+June 22nd, Germany invaded Russia.

+U.S. began massive Lend Lease program to assist England in

Her fight against Germany.

+December 7th, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian

Islands. Congress declared war on Japan and Germany.

+Bud Abbott and Lou Costello starred in the movie, Buck Private.

+The OPA (Office of Price Administration) was established to monitor the rationing of food and other goods, and to prevent hoarding and profiteering.

1942 to 1945

+Air raid drills are practiced, and towns and cities are instructed to do

black out procedures during night time drills.

+Victory Gardens are encouraged by the government in all backyards

to help with food shortages.

+USOs are formed all over the country to entertain service men.

+Honor Rolls are erected in towns, listing those hometown men who

are serving in the Armed Forces of the country.

+Red, white and blue window flags are displayed in the homes with

someone in the services. One white star in the center for each person

in the family in the armed forces. A gold star indicated a soldier killed in action. (Three homes in Allendale had gold stars flags in their windows.)

+Many automobiles are garaged for the duration of the war. Gasoline was limited to five gallons a week to keep people from driving so as to save on rubber tires.(My father put our 1934 Lafayette up on blocks and left it in the garage from 1943-1945)

+Coffee, sugar, meats, and other foods are rationed. Books of stamps and tokens limit the amount one can purchase.

+Popular Movies of the time include:

-Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart (1942)

-Road to Morocco, starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, & Dorothy Lamour

-Guadalcanal Diary, starring Anthony Quinn (1943)

- 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, starring Van Johnson & Spenser Tracey, 1944

-See Here Private Hargrove, starring Robert Walker, (1944)

-Meet Me in St Louis, starring Judy Garland & Margaret O’Brian

-Battan, staring George Murphy & Robert Taylor (1943)

(I saw all of these movies at the Warner Theater in Ridgewood)

+On Broadway, Oklahoma opened

+West Point Army Football Teams star Glenn Davis & Doc Blanchard (I listened to Army play football on our family radio)

+Popular entertainment radios programs (especially Sunday Evenings) included: The Jack Benny Show, Fiber McGee & Molly, Amos ‘n Andy,

Henry Aldrich, The Kate Smith show, The Lone Ranger, Gang Busters & The Green Hornet. (We listened to these programs around the kitchen table on Sunday nights while my mother fed us biscuits and hot chocolate.)

+Popular afternoon children’s radio listening included: Hop Harrigan,

Terry & the Pirates, Little Orphan Annie, Jack Armstrong, Captain

Midnight, and Tom Mix. (I came in from play every afternoon beginning at 4:45 to listen to each of these 15-minute programs.)

+The music of the 40’s featured the big bands of Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and Glenn Miller. The jitterbug was the dance of the era.

June 6, 1944 D-Day, the invasion of Normandy, France by allied Forces along a 60-mile strip of beach. Germans begin retreat in Europe.

September 1944 General MacArthur leads U.S.Army & Marines

in the recapture of the Philippine Islands from the Japanese.

(My Uncle Hal was on an LST ship in this invasion)

April 12, 1945, President Roosevelt died in Warms Spring Florida.

Vice President, Harry S. Truman became President.

April 25, 1945, The United Nations is chartered in San Francisco.

May 15, 1945, Germany Surrenders. World War II is ended in Europe.

August 6, 1945 First Atomic Bomb is dropped on Hiroshima,

92,000 casualties.

August 9. 1945 Second Atomic Bomb is dropped on Nagasaki,

73,000 casualties.

August 14, 1945 Japan surrenders and signs peace treaty onboard

The battleship, USS Missouri, marking the end of World War II.

(The town fire trucks rode through town with sirens blaring to

celebrate the surrender)

1945 marked the demobilization of the country: defense manufacturing

ceased and commercial goods were again produced. 12 million returning

service men created a severe housing shortage, sparking a boom in

housing developments. Inflation caused a sudden rise in living expenses.

Labor strikes were frequent as laborers attempted to keep up with the

cost of living.

1946 Winston Churchill first spoke of the Iron Curtain Russia puts

around Eastern Europe. The Cold War has begun.

1947 Jackie Robinson is signed as a third baseman for the Brooklyn

Dodger, to become the first African American to play major league

Baseball.

1948

April 3, 1948 U.S. Congress enacted the Marshal Plan to assist the

economic rebuilding of war-torn Europe.

President Truman ordered the Berlin Airlift, U.S. response to the Russian attempt to isolate West Berlin from the rest of Germany.

Korea was split at the 38th Parallel; Communists occupy the north,

U.S. supported government in the south. Seeds of Korean Conflict

of 1950 are sown.

French troops battled Communist supported troops in Indo China.

Seeds of Vietnam War are sown.

This was the world I knew as a boy growing up between 1934 and 1948. It was a time of great turmoil with World War II having the greatest impact upon my worldview. Much of what follows in this brief memoir will reflect the ways in which this social milieu shaped and influenced my life.

PARENTS

It is difficult to be objective about one’s parents. At least it is for me, especially as I attempt to remember them as a child, which seems so long ago. What is remembered are either the unhappy, traumatic moments or the special moments of joy and happiness. But the long stretches of childhood time in-between are just there, and difficult to recall and relive, although, of course, each and every day was filled with activity and happenings. It has always seemed to me to be unfortunate that early childhood memories are so difficult to come by. So much is happening in the first few years of life. And yet so little is remembered.

Perhaps then the remembering of my father and mother needs to begin with what I have learned of them before they became my parents. That may assist in reconstructing them in the memory of my childhood.

My father, Harold Disturnell Brown, was born in Brooklyn, New York on February 5th, 1902. He was the fifth of six children and the only son born to my grandparents, Rufus Hazen Brown and Isabell (Belle) Annan (Disturnell) Brown.

I was never to know my grandmother, Belle Brown. She died at the age of 48 years, before I was born, in 1917 of breast cancer. My grandfather Rufus, is