War Ration Wallet-WWII (part 4) Essential Activities

The "C STICKER" was to be place on the automobile and represented those who were defined to have "essential activities".  The follow page of the War Ration book list these activities.

Of course, official government or Red Cross business was first on the list.  School teachers and school attendance were next. [4 or more in same vehicle.]  Then came the mail delivery, newspaper, and "newsreel" all before the physician, surgeon, and veterinarian.   The Public Health nurse was listed just before "Embalmer".  The minister, priest or rabbi followed the embalmer! [seems like it should have been the other way around...:-)]

Are you on the list?  No gas for you if not! 

War Ration Wallet-WWII (part 3) Distilled Spirits

One unit of wines in excess of 14% alcohol by volume it reads.  Void if detached follows.  That was stamp 28 as shown below.   You could also get one pair of shoes, and a 5 pound bag of "pure cane sugar". ["Every Kind For Every Use"!]

Thus continues the rations during WWII on the home front.  Don't waste paper...it is needed for defense.

War Ration Wallet - WWII (part 2) The Stamps

Ration stamps were the next section of this wallet.  They were numbered in order starting with "Ration Stamp No. 1".  On the front side of the stamps were military symbols such as a tank, airplane, ship, etc...

On the back of the stamp was the name "sugar", "coffee", "spare", "flour", etc., etc.

A gasoline and mileage ration sticker was required to be placed "...only in that location which conforms with the state law."  A "Gasoline Ration" and "Mileage Ration" sticker was included on the 4th page of the wallet.  There is no information given as to where the correct location on the "vehicle". 

Let's see now; sugar, coffee, and flour to be rationed.  I wonder how many cups of coffee it was good for on a typical day?

War Ration Wallet - WWII (part I)

Rationing was part of the daily life during the war years of World War II.  A family was given a "War Ration Wallet" which gave the admonition: " When you think of  RATIONING ... Remember what our boys are doing WITH those things we are doing WITHOUT! "

The following few posts will give a copy of each page of such a wallet.  It is given to help remind us in this day of easy access... that it was not always so.

Official looking, yes.  The front cover page is shown above.  It also listed a suggestion to buy war bonds which became part of the American thought process of the day.

The second page gives a warning.

 

A "Ration Board" existed which followed "Rationing Orders and Regulations".  You could received up to 10 year imprisonment or a $10,000 fine, or both, according to the warning page shown above.  It is not given as to what consisted of a violation or how one would go about making such an infraction.  The books were numbered and a record of their issue must have been kept.  The "Office of Price Administration" seem to control the access, control and removal of these books.

Collecting

For some, collecting things begins in childhood.   Stamp collecting and coin collecting usually start things off for boys.  The stamps and coins started things out for me, but there was soon, bottle cap collecting, insect collecting, leaf collecting, rock collecting, arrowhead collecting, book collecting... you get the picture.   The following picture is some of my Boy Scout patch collecting.

There were all sorts of patches.   Camporee, "Scout-O-Rama", "GO" Roundup, fall encampments, from all sorts of activities they were collected.  Many colors, many shapes, many sizes, and many memories.
Just a few are shown above.

Now this thing called "genealogy" came to be important for me...you know...ancestor collecting.

Corridor In Time

A continuum which lacks spatial dimensions and in which events succeed one another from past through present to future is one definition of time.  It is considered the measured or measurable period during which an action, process or condition exists or continues.  As a genealogist, we often deal with measurable periods of time during which our ancestors existed.  Mostly, it is time spent going from present to past.  Here is a picture of my grandson and I sharing some time in one of those passageways which leads to other places.

Hand in hand, moving on down this hallway...we walked, and talked...and shared.  Past, to present, and hopefully to the future...this corridor in time.

Those Thousand Words

The Henderson side of the family comes through my great grandmother Ellen Dorcas Henderson.  Family records show that  "Richard Henderson had a son named Samuel Henderson who had a son named William Henderson who had a son named: Abraham B. Henderson (nickname Sonny)...".  He was born October 22, 1843 and died April 12, 1908.   He married Armilda Berryman (nicknamed Millie) who was born January 12, 1844 and died November 14, 1914.

The picture above is Sonny and Millie.  Their faces appear stern... foreheads wrinkled... and a determined look that seems to say life is rough, but we are determined to press onward.  Sonny's beard is full, hair kept, and a penetrating look that passes through the picture that seems to say...I've seen a lot...done a lot...and know a lot about life's difficulties.  Millie shares the same facial expression, but her eyes are a little softer.  Her hair is parted carefully down the middle, and must have been pulled tightly into a bun at the back of the head. What stories they could tell.  Their faces already speak those thousand words.