Anita Loe Brooks
Part II
Our folks loved fishing and camping. Most of our “vacations” consisted of spending a great deal of time and energy setting up, cooking meals, heating water and cooking. Mother was the designated “head honcho” when it came to the meals. She planned the menus, made the assignments and followed through with complete command. She was an excellent cook and loved every minute of it! As I reminisce about these times I realize more and more the great heritage I enjoy. Our families were very close….two brothers and one sister marrying two sisters and one brother!!!
One of the sadnesses of life comes when one realizes that the opportunity of really having a relationship and getting to know the family members who live a distance away can never be really known or understood.
One of Mother’s older brother, Barney Lindley Lee married a girl from Salt Lake City who had been very active in the Church. (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints…the Mormons) .She had been raised in a very strong, active home and knew much about the programs. It was she who picked us up each week and took us to primary. We loved it! I personally feel a deep debt of gratitude for her faithfulness in giving us that opportunity. Grandpa Lee had joined the Church in Kelsey, Texas. Being the roustabout that he was he didn’t spend a lot of time with his family. Mother was usually sent to live with her grandmother, Belle, (Isabelle Crouch Lee Cummings) while the boys and Grandpa worked the “crops”. She was usually called sometime in the early summer when the crops came in and she would become the camp cook. As a result, she actually never completed a school year. That was always a deep regret that she didn’t ‘make her grades’. However she stepped up and was the ‘bookkeeper” when Loe Brothers Trucking got going!
In 1941 our lives changed dramatically! Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, sinking many ships and killing many of our service men. This began s new way of life for us. The United States declared war on Japan. Rationing became a way of life: gas, rubber. Butter. Coffee, Silk, Bananas, Chocolate, Sugar, Shoes. Metal was collected and sold. Air raid drills in school to practice being safe in school if bombed. Those classrooms near windows went out into the halls and knelt down covering our heads, others went out into the halls and knelt down covering their heads. This was shortly after my parents had built the “home of their dreams”. It was on a hillside overlooking the waters of the bays of Oakland and San Francisco. We had to cover all of our windows with heavy, black drapes so that the lights would not be seen off the coast from enemy aircraft if they came to bomb us! My father was an air raid warden that would walk the streets during these blackouts to see if there were any visible lights from the windows. It was such a frightening thing to see him put on his helmet and flack jacket and leave the house. If any light could be seen from your home you were told to put them out or have them shot out! Our central hallway in our house was our “shelter”. We could go into it and have lights that could not be seen from the outside…..I remember we had a bucket of sand and a shovel to put out a fire is need be.
I was 10 years old when the war began. The accrual bombing of Pearl Harbor was early on Sunday morning. I remember vividly feeling the fear and disturbance of “things as usual” but did not understand the magnitude of what had happened. When we went to school Monday morning we were immediately sent home and told not to return until our parents were notified. I still remember the chill of fear I felt when the air raid sirens went off! Being in the location we were, it was not unusual too hear them echoing even from other areas. One evening we watched search lights roaming the skies, I suppose they were looking for “unidentified” aircraft. With the location of the navel bases in the San Francisco Bay there was a lot of activity most of the time.
Our lives went on pretty much as usual, limited by a few wartime restrictions. All the girls, Wanda, Evelyn, Mirial , Belva and myself were taking dance lessons…tap and ballet. Our mothers would car pool to get us to lessons. One evening we were at our teacher’s home practicing for a recital coming up. The sirens went off so of course we had to turn out the lights! There were probably 50 students of various ages there. Candles were lit so it would not be so dark….most of us there were really frightened and crying. I don’t remember what they did to calm us down, but I think we sang and played little games for a while. This same night the fog rolled in so densely that you could not see your hand held up in front of your face. Heavy, dense fog was not a rarity in the bay area, and during that time of blackouts, sirens and underlying fear it somewhat scarred me for life. To this day fog is a very unsettling thing to me! ……anyway! Mother and Aunt Miriam decided we should start walking toward Uncle Ted’s house which was just a short distance away. We did!!! Mother, Aunt Miriam, Aunt Sidna ,Wanda, Evelyn, Me, Belva, Mirial. Trudging, frightened, crying. We thought we heard footsteps..which further frightened us……we did! Uncle Ted had started worrying about us and was out looking for us. We all huddled together and made our way to his house, which offered refuge and safety.
I think back now on the sacrifices that were made by our parents, to give us music lessons, dance lessons, family recitals and the great advantage of feeling so talented with a built in audience ……it was just wonderful.
During this war time nylon was invented. Instead of using silk, which they needed for parachutes, they now used nylon. It was a great breakthrough for the hosiery industry…..and for the vanity of women! Because the main resource for silk was Japan, and because we were now at war with the Japanese Nation. We would go to the hosiery mill, stand in line for hours to get two pair each. I don’t remember if we always used the hosiery we purchased, but we always bought whatever the allotment was. I remember specificly how difficult elastic was to obtain, but mother sewed quite a few of our undergarments and would use buttons to close the waistbands of our underwear.
Victory gardens were a very big deal! But no novelty at our house. My Mother was an avid gardener. She always had a big, beautiful garden. Big enough that she would can bottle after bottle of products from it. Beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, chard, lettuce, corn….you name it, she grew it! Mother was a very ambitious woman. She canned, sewed, gardened and cleaned house. Oh! Did she clean house! We washed walls and woodwork every week. Almost everything we did that was “fun” depended on “getting our work” done. As always, memories either dim or magnify with time….but I’m certain that mine are pretty accurate in this regard!
Many things were rationed during this period; mostly things that would feed or clothe the soldiers. Any material or substance that would help in the war effort was very hard to come by. Also, at this time, I became aware of margarine! Until then, Mother and Daddy usually had a cow, chickens and a very large garden. With the war effort and the many rationings of essentials, things were invented …or contrived to help us feel that life was “normal”. One horrible memory I have is of margarine! Because mother and Daddy usually found a way to have a garden and animals we were very used to raw milk. During the war this was not possible due to essentials that were diverted to the war effort. At this time Mother began to use margarine! I came in a one pound block with a little packet of yellow food coloring. My job was to mix….and mix……and mix these together until it looked like butter. Mother, being the perfectionist she was could not stand to see on tiny fleck of white. We would mix…and mix….and mix until…..at last….we had BUTTER! It, of course, still tasted like margarine, but it was yellow like butter!
Canning was a way of life in our (the extended) family. All the aunts would get together and have an assembly line. One of the girl cousins job was the washing and sterilizing of the jars. It was back breaking! We snapped beans, peeled peaches, pears and apricots, corn and tomatoes. My parents were very frugal…if we could glean a field of fruit or vegetables, we did. How well I remember the itch of peach fuzz! It was work, but being together was always fun and I look back with warmth in my heart. We loved our families and enjoyed any activity which allowed us to be together. Much “encouraging” was done to keep our minds and hands focused on the tasks at hand.
During the war all the men that were in jobs supporting the war effort were “frozen” in their jobs. If they quit they were drafted! Mother’s brother “Ted” (Serres Parron Lee) quit his job and was drafted into the Marines. I remember what a traumatic, sorrowful time it was to all the family. A family as large as ours had been spared the anguish of seeing any of our close relatives serve under hazardous circumstances during war times.
Being young and starry eyed those days were magic for young girls as innocent and pretty as we were. Having taken tap dancing all those years as children made very good “ballroom and jitterbug” dancers….and flirts. We were allowed to go to the Stake dances in downtown Oakland as long as we stayed together as a group…that is going to the dance together and coming home together. One night Merva , (Aunt Elsies’ daughter) met the man of her “dreams” and we let her talk us into her going home with him instead of with us. She was supposed to come immediately home….we would wait outside for her and all go into the house together. Well, she didn’t come straight home and we waited …..and waited, getting more and more certain she had been kidnapped, murdered ….or worse! When she finally showed up we were so relieved we forgot to be mad. BUT……….we never did split up again! !
We had wonderful fun times. That was before the term “extended family” came into use, but ours literally was an “extended” family. Almost everything we did, we did together . One wonderful memory I have is of a camping trip we took in about 1945 or 46. My Dad had broken his foot and he was unable to work for some time. Mother and Daddy decided to take ALL the kids on a camping trip. (all being Wanda, Evelyn, Fred, Mirial, Barbara, Belva Cal and me). The respective parents were to come on the weekend for an especially good time. Mother had planned all the meals for the week and brought the necessary food in ice chests. Roasted hot dogs (over the camp fire) were on the menu for one of the days. When Mother went to get the wieners out to cook over the campfire pit , there weren’t any!! A small hole was in the wrapper. She questioned all the girls and on one knew anything about the meat (about 5 pounds). She just knew we were responsible for the missing meat. We began to accuse each other…then went to the confidant mode encouraging a confession in private. (“you can tell ME if you really took them!) We began to squabble with each other. No one confessed to the taking of the meat!
My Father was a master at using situations and being able to get to the heart of any matter. He was not a fusser or lecturer but had a unique understanding of human nature. He decided to have a trial…”like they used in the Bible days,” he said. He lined us all up in a straight line. He then explained that he was going to throw a rock up in the air and whomever it fell onto was the guilty party! Of course this began to draw a large crowd of onlookers. Here is this man on crutches, with all these children….(11 girls and 2 boys) lined up…ready to feel the wrath of mother justice! One….Two…. Three…and he threw the rock! We all scattered like a hive of bees that had been hit with a stick. At this time Mother realized that all the children were not in line! So they again rounded us up, this time we were ALL there. They had excused the fact that Cal wasn’t there, Mother saying that “of course, he couldn’t be responsible for the five pounds of missing meat! But we all insisted that he had to be in line too!
Daddy tossed the rock high into the air and over our heads of course so we would not get hit. At this point Cal broke out of line and ran around behind us hoping to avoid being hit, but somehow He ran right under that rock! He did indeed turn out to be the guilty one! He had poked a little hole in the package and fed those hot dogs…one by one…to all the dogs in the camp! All of us there of course remembers it a bit differently, but it has been told and retold countless times, always bringing back wonderful memories.
Another camping experience comes to mind. We had gotten into our camp site early. Set up camp, played awhile, eaten our dinner, played some more and had our campfire activities, then went to bed. We were all settled in for the night. A rather sizeable group of adults came in later. They were making an unusual amount of noise for that time of night, i.e. loud talking, raucous laughter. …quite obviously alcohol had been part of their activities during the evening. Uncle Roy went and told them we had a camp full of women and kids and would they be quieter. They persisted in their partying and rowdy behavior until the wee hours of the morning . Daddy and Uncle Roy, with a bit of malice I’m sure…woke all we kids at day break the next morning. They told us we were going to have a baseball game. They placed home plate right in front of the tent of the rowdy campers! We played and screamed and hollered making as much noise as a group of kids could make. Pretty soon, the campers came our and said “Please, we get the message.” I’m sure they had hang-overs, headaches and whatever goes along with a night of drinking and partying. But they would not let us quit! We played until the rowdy campers got up and moved their camp! “More ways to kill a horse, then choking him to death on butter.”
We had many wonderful trips to Clear Lake in Northern California. Four families with kids and much unsophisticated camping gear made for quite a “hillbilly” appearance. Blankets and tarps were used as windbreakers. We slept right on the ground on blankets. No one in the family (that I remember) had tents. The main focus on our camping trips was fishing. We caught hundreds of fish the week or ten days we were there. Our parents were masters of innovation, doing all sorts of things with absolutely no equipment. We would have big boxes submerged in the lake that held the live fish in the water until they were to be fried for dinner each night. Oh! What wonderful fish fries they were!
Mother was the camp cook and she cooked over and open fire with very primitive equipment. Is there anything more wonderful until this day than the smell of food being cooked over an open fire? There is something very nostalgic to me when I smell bacon being cooked over an open fire with fried potatoes, bacon and cantaloupe!
Family memories are so precious! As I write these memories I seem to be living them again as vividly as if they were just now happening in my life.
Each Christmas we would draw names for gift giving throughout the family. It was a guarded secret whose name you got and who got your name. For much of the year we would sneak around and drop hints and listen carefully to find out what that person wanted most. Great fun!! It was also Mirial”s Birthday! (Mirial Arlene Lee, daughter of Barney and Miriam Lee) What a great advantage for her!
She always had a party on New Years Eve (before the family party) when we found out who got our name and what present we received from our secret namesake. The excitement was at a high level, and we looked forward to this party every year. Christmas day too, was an especially exciting day because as soon as we finished opening our gifts and had breadfast we made the rounds of all the family to see what Santa had brought them. Of course, all of we girls were so happy to show off our new babies!
Once in a very great while our parents would leave all the kids home alone while they went out to dinner. (I can’t remember ever having a baby sitter.) Most often we would go with them….This was our opportunity to play our favorite game’ “Who’s Got My Liver?”
The plot: A grandfather had died…, he was buried in a cemetery. A kid was told to go to the market and buy some liver. His mother gave him the money and off he went! He decides that he will spend the money on candy for himself…which he does! On the ways home he starts worrying about the trouble he is going to be in when he returns home without the liver. So on the way home he stops at the cemetery …digs up grandpa and cuts out his liver to take home for dinner!!!!.....
In the middle of the night, ( the lights are all turned off at this point) the kid awakens hearing a spooky voice saying, (over and over) “WHO’S GOT MY LIVER ? The end of the game comes when the dead grandpa catches the one that got his liver. All of this of course, is played out in the dark. IT SCARED US TO DEATH!! A sideline to this is in 1949, at my wedding shower, this is one of the games we played!! Vivian ( Roy’s sister) somehow got under one of the beds in Aunt Sidna and Uncle Roy’s house to hide, it was only about 5 inches off the floor, we had to lift it up to get her out! Now remember…all of us were 17 and 18 years old!
Our holidays were fun filled and exciting. Fortunately our parents were young and full of life…no extra money, but they were creative in the things they did for recreation. We always had firecrackers on the 4th of July. Each Easter we had a family picnic in the park, our Mothers worked very hard each year creating Easter Bonnets to wear and model.
One of the things I greatly appreciate and admire about my parents, they had a great desire to see their children develop talents and succeed at those things we undertook to do. They offered us music lessons, dance lessons, Mother even saw to it that I took “elocution” lessons. Learning to speak correctly…give “readings” and feel comfortable before people at a fairly early age. I feel much gratitude for those sacrifices that they made.
In 1945 Aunt Sidna and Uncle Roy made a trip to Arkansas and Texas. They invited me to go along and it was a wonderful adventure. Both Aunt Sidna and Uncle Roy had such different personalities from my folks. They were constantly “fussing”. Not arguing necessarily, but Aunt Sidna was a squealer and a “fusser”. We just loved to tease her and get her “going”. She was great fun, a much different personality than my Mother. Mother didn’t laugh easily. If she really thought something was funny, she would make a little “psssss” sound, which was the extent of her laughter.
One experience we had while on that trip to Arkansas was especially frightening. We were driving along the continental divide area in Colorado when the lights on the car went out. It was pitch black…no other cars on the road! Uncle Roy stopped the car as soon as he could, hoping he would not run off into the canyon.
We were on a steep mountain incline, not knowing how close to the edge we were. Aunt Sidna opened the car door and stuck her foot out trying to feel how far from the bank of the road we were. We girls got out of the car hugging close to the car so as not to fall into the canyon. Uncle Roy had us get ou onto the highway and watch for oncoming cars. When we saw cars coming we would start striking matches as fast as we could so they could see us and not run into us. We didn’t even have a flashlight! A fuse had burned and fortunately he had an extra in the glove box! He got things working and we were on our way, but it was a really scary experience.
While we were in Arkansas we visited many of the family members we had never met. Our Grandparents were known as Mama and Papa Loe. Grandma was cutting up chicken for dinner. I was watching Mama Loe and asked her what she was going to do with the guts. Mama Loe said “Why I’m going to feed them to the dogs. What does you mother usually do with them?” With a very wide eyed look I said “my mother usually makes Chicken Gut gravy!!”. Mama Loe soon learned I was the family joker, but she loved telling and retelling that story to everyone …especially when she asked someone to “pass the chicken gut gravy”!
We went on to visit Grandpa Lee’s mother in Gilmer’ Texas. She wasn’t as old as she seemed, I’m sure, but she kept every one on their toes. We girls wore shorts most of the time because it was so hot and humid….but they certainly weren’t “short shorts”. Every time we would get close to her she would whack us with her hickory cane and say “ go get you some clothes on”. We learned to stay out of the cane’s reach. What a fun memories !
