Elders from the Mad River Seniors and Evergreen Place Senior Center
agreed to be interview subjects for HUMS eighth-graders who prepared
questions about the 1940s and 1950s - years around when the book was
set. World War II stories became much sought after as students gained
historical background in social studies classes. The information
gathered in the interviews is being utilized by the eighth graders as
they either write personal essays about the interviewing experience or
narrative essays focusing on one of the stories told during the
interview process.
In some cases, students chose to embellish stories and snippets they
heard during the interview and create an interview-based historical
fiction narrative (in the style of When the Emperor was Divine). The following essays exemplify two of the writing style choices: one is a
reflective personal essay, the other is historical fiction. Both were
written by eighth-grade students at HUMS:
An Interview with Polly Gallagher
By Marla Davidson
I interviewed Warren resident Polly Gallagher about her early life in
the years of the 1940s through 50s to get a firsthand account of the
action. But it wasn't exactly the action that I was expecting. Though we
often hear dramatized war stories, or gruesome Holocaust accounts,
Polly provided a much more valuable insight, that of an average citizen
in the smaller towns of America. Throughout her life, she has stayed
close to home: She grew up right in Warren village, attended Waitsfield
High, and went to college in Burlington as a beautician. She was here
when the Town Hall was the upstairs section of the Warren Store, when
the East Warren Schoolhouse threw sugar on snow parties, before the
Pitcher Inn burned down, and through the floods and storms. She has
hardly ever left Vermont, and neither has her family. Staying in one
area all those years has given her a very accurate perception of how
things have changed over time, and from that I was able to determine
just how dramatically our country has changed since World War II.
When I asked her about how her childhood was affected by the war, I was
interested to hear that it hadn't much. She explained that the only
noticeable effects were the ration stamps (pronounced ray-SHUN), which
put limits on butter, sugar, meat, and other things. But owning the
Warren Store, her parents never suffered too badly from these cuts, plus
they had their own vegetable garden out back. Others weren't so lucky.
One alcoholic used to come in and, having no money for liquor, would buy
vanilla instead because vanilla is 40 percent alcohol. The Warren Store
used to have gas, and that too required ration stamps. Once, she told
me, she and her siblings had been attending the pumps, when a man
decided that no one would notice him, and drove off without paying for
the gas. They took off down the street yelling and screaming at him to
come back, and amazingly, he did.
MANNING THE PUMPS
Manning the pumps wasn't the only thing that she and her siblings did.
From a very early age, she was made to work in the store, often at the
deli counter slicing meat. "I was too short to reach the hanging scale,"
she recalled, "So I had to stand on top of an orange crate just to read
the numbers." Working at the store forced her to interact with people
all the time, which she says has made her very outgoing in later life.
She didn't have much of a chance to be outgoing in school, though. In
her graduating class there were only about six or seven students. When
comparing schools then to those now, she said they're entirely
different. There was definitely no alcohol or drug usage, the schools
only provided the basic core subjects, and once a week they were each
given one spoonful of cod liver oil (rich in vitamins A, D, and Omega 3,
as well as calories) using the same spoon. "It was girls first, then
boys. I'm amazed we never got sick," she told us with a grimace. She
rode to school in a pickup truck that was used to cart sawdust in its
spare time. It had the back window taken out, wooden benches in the bed,
and absolutely no cover in the winter. They also had to do plane watch
duty, in case of air raids. They sat for four-hour shifts in an outlook
post at the top of Fuller Hill, and if they saw a plane, they would have
to identify it and phone it to New York. None ever came.
FIRST TV
Phones were present in most homes, but Polly said her family was the
first to own a TV. It was small, and black and white, but people came
from all over the town to watch the news, which was pretty much the only
thing on. Even with a TV, they mostly listened to the radio for
entertainment. "The Shadow Knows" was her favorite program. She couldn't
remember any specific toys or products that they played with, but she
did mention that the store used to sell cookies by the weight, and as
always, there was a rack of penny candy. The penny candy of her time,
however, actually cost a penny.
Her family was very involved with the community. Her father sold his
meats door to door, as well as at the dances that happened every
Saturday. She and her siblings went to sugar on snow parties up at the
East Warren Schoolhouse, went skiing at Sugarbush (which her family had
previously owned), and attended Sunday school. She took piano lessons
and still dances to this day. Her parents knew practically everybody,
which wasn't surprising when Warren had less than 500 residents. Because
they lived in such an isolated community, the bigger problems that
America was having didn't seem to affect them. They didn't have Japanese
neighbors, or any people of mixed heritage for that matter. People
didn't talk much about the war, not because it was a looming issue but
because they had other more present things on their minds. No one in her
family was in the service; the only government-related thing her father
had ever done was three terms in the Legislature, but even that he
rarely talked about.
PROTECTED FROM TURMOIL
Because of the small, quiet environment that she grew up in, Polly was
protected from the turmoil of the 1940s. The isolation of Vermont kept
its economy steady, never soaring high, never crashing low. In her home
she grew confident and assured, but still connected to outsiders through
the store. Though she has almost never left the state, she has become a
very outgoing, worldly person, and all of these good social skills
stemmed from the Vermont community culture in which she was born.
Perhaps this goes to show that we don't have to look far to recognize
the culture that is shaping us as we speak. It isn't necessarily the
mainstream events or the oddball anomalies but the everyday things that
surround us. They are so regular, so expected, that unless we step back
and look at our lives as a timeline, we hardly notice how things have
changed and how we have changed alongside them. This interview showed me
how slowly but steadily our little towns have changed. The Mad River
Valley we live in today is not the same one that Polly grew up in. We
are much more universally connected. As Polly's culture shaped her
identity, our culture will affect us in another way, and who's to say
how we will end up?
Suns and Stripes: A fictional narrative based on an interview with Ellen
Bruno
By Sophie Rayfield
Kukiko Arlington lay in her bed, gripping to her memories as her body
weakened. Physically, it was the year 2015 and she was an elderly woman
of 92. In her mind, however, she was 18 in 1941 and her life was being
torn apart.
Kukiko stifled a laugh as her best friend made a face at her from the
other side of the classroom. They were practicing hiding under the
desks, one of their weekly drills, and they were required to be
absolutely silent.
When the drill was over, Kukiko straightened up and ran a hand through
her straight dark hair. It was her hair, her narrow warm brown eyes, and
her Asian skin color that revealed where her parents came from. Tokyo,
right in the heart of Japan. They had moved to Hawaii when Kukiko was
just an infant, and she didn't remember being anywhere but Hilo, the
city she lived in.
"Alright, just remember your exam next week," the teacher called. "You
may all go home now."
Kukiko walked home with her friend, Natsu. They lived in the Japanese
area of the island, and they lived on the same street as well. As they
got nearer to their homes, they noticed younger kids playing marbles and
older ones riding bikes.
"I don't think the drills are ever going to help us," Natsu said as they
reached her house. "Why do we have to do them?"
"You never know," Kukiko said, shrugging. "Although if something
happens, I only hope it doesn't happen at Pearl Harbor."
"Well, why not?" Natsu asked. Then, a look of comprehension crossed her
face. "Oh, right, Hiroshi is stationed at the harbor."
"If he dies, I don't know what I'll do," Kukiko said. She shook her
head, not even wanting to think about the boy she loved dying.
"He'll be fine, Kukiko," Natsu assured her. "I'll see you later."
"See you," Kukiko said. She passed another game of marbles and then
entered her own house. As a doctor, her father was tending to one of the
neighbors with a broken arm. He had been a doctor of the highest
respect in Tokyo and he had brought his skill with him to the Japanese
section of Hilo.
Her mother was in the kitchen making dinner out of vegetables from
their garden and some local fish. The radio was beside her as she
cooked, updating the public of the recent volcanic eruption.
"How are we supposed to focus on the volcano when our country is this
close to declaring war?" her mother muttered. Kukiko smiled and took a
seat at the table. "Ah, Kukiko. Help me with these vegetables, will
you?"
Kukiko stood to help her mother with vegetables when suddenly the
announcement on the radio changed.
"Urgent news, Pearl Harbor has been bombed! I repeat, Pearl Harbor has
been bombed! The Japanese have attacked the waterfront and are still not
letting up. If they are not stopped, it is possible that all of the
island will perish and-"
Kukiko's mother switched off the radio.
"We don't want to hear that," she said shakily. "I'm sure it's not as
bad as they're saying. We'll find out the worst of it in the
newspapers."
Kukiko took a breath and willed herself to believe her mother. After
all, what else could she do?
A week later, after President Roosevelt had declared war, the pictures
appeared in the newspapers. They sent the people in Kukiko's
neighborhood into a panic. They hadn't expected it to be so horrible.
Kukiko herself took one look at the clouds of smoke, the explosions she
could only imagine the noise of, and the bodies lying in the water and
she knew at once what the telegram waiting on the kitchen table would
say.
"Kukiko, come read your telegram," her mother said softly. She had
already read her own telegram, telling her that her uncle, residing by
the harbor, had been killed in the bombing.
Kukiko took a deep breath and then approached the kitchen table. She
opened the telegram and scanned the words printed on it. When she
finished, she placed it calmly down on the table and bit her lip to keep
the tears from coming.
"What does it say, darling?" her mother asked.
"Hiroshi was killed," she said. Her own voice startled her. It was
strangely calm and not her own.
"I'm sorry," her mother said, stroking Kukiko's arm. She had a brief
mental image of Hiroshi doing the same thing when he found her upset,
and she pulled away.
"I'll be in my room."
She left her mother alone and sat in her bedroom. The Japanese had
bombed Pearl Harbor. She was American, but in appearance and ancestry,
she was Japanese. She felt like she should feel torn between her
heritage and her country, but instead, she only felt betrayed. She had
been proud of her Japanese roots, and now she just felt dirty just
seeing her reflection in the mirror on her wall. Her people had bombed
her country, and she felt awful for the Americans who had lost brothers,
sisters, husbands, or wives.
And on top of her feeling of betrayal and sympathy for all the
torn-apart families, Hiroshi was dead. He had promised to bring her back
a ring when he returned from service, a promise of eternal love for
her, and now he was gone. Just gone. Forever.
* * *
"She keeps going on about a pearl and a hiroshi," a young woman said
when her father entered the room. She had been sitting by the bedside of
her grandmother while her father was out getting rice for his mother.
"Mother?" the young woman's father asked, sitting by Kukiko and touching
her arm. Her eyes flickered open. "Mother, it's me. Scott. Are you
feeling okay?"
"Pearl," Kukiko said weakly. "Hiroshi."
"What are you talking about, Mother?"
Kukiko didn't answer. She couldn't get Hiroshi out of her mind. Of
course, after the war, she had moved over to the mainland and married a
pure American man, but now, on her deathbed with her husband three years
dead, she couldn't help remembering everything about Hiroshi and the
attack in which he died.
The attack had made her Japanese heritage a thing to be feared, not to
be proud of. She had lived for the remaining four years of the war and
many years afterward being avoided on the streets and treated unfairly
by most Americans. It had been a miserable time for her, especially
following Hiroshi's death, but in the long run, it had been beneficial.
Being part of such a hated minority for so long, she had become a much
more accepting person.
"What's Hiroshi? Is that a person, Grandma?" the young woman asked,
bringing her grandmother back to the present. She stroked Kukiko's arm
encouragingly. Kukiko looked down at her arm, and just like the day when
her mother touched her arm sympathetically at learning of Hiroshi's
death, she had a brief flashback to Hiroshi stroking her arm. She
smiled, and for the first time in her life since December 7, 1941, she
was truly happy. She felt the happiness take its long-lost place in her
heart and she closed her eyes. Finally, after 74, she joined her first
love in the place he had been since the day thousands lost their lives
in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
{loadnavigation}
