My dad was a small-town storekeeper in the years before and after WWII. Born in 1898 he found himself too young to serve in the first War and too old for the second. In rural communities back in those times the small town mercantile was the hub of information for a small village like ours. It was the one place where people congregated. No daily newspaper, internet, or television brought you the news back then; much was spread by word of mouth as people gathered to conduct their simple business, as small as it might be. As the War got under way and the shock of Pearl Harbor turned into anger enlistments from towns like ours were immediate. The farmers and their wives that came into my dad’s store now told stories of this one that went to basic in Arkansas or Louisiana, and that one that went to aviation school, or the one that went to infantry school in Georgia, and so on. People that had never left our little “burg” were now travelling all over the World. As time moved forward the stories weren’t about training any longer, they were about theaters of operation. This one was now in France, that one was now in the South Pacific, the other was hurt but will be ok, and another just got a few days leave to see his family and fiancé. Sometimes it was a son, sometimes a brother, sometimes an uncle; but it was always someone cherished, worried about, prayed for and longed for to have back as quick and as safely as possible. As the war progressed, there were losses. The Western Union driver would drive up to my dad’s store and ask “where does so-and-so live?” Villages like ours didn’t have named streets and roads, much less numbered houses. My dad, knowing the importance of the dreaded telegram they carried, would stop everything, quickly drive to the church rectory to pick up the parish priest and lead the way to the intended recipient’s farmhouse; there to hold the hand and pat the shoulder of parents that had just lost an invaluable treasure forever. This tension-filled existence eked along for years, and in between the worry, people gathered salvageable metal, rationed gas, worked their farms and businesses shorthanded without sons and brothers, protected their friends and neighbors, wrote newsy letters to ‘their boys” and prayed that it would, just please, end. And one day it did.
Those boys that went away came back men that saw and did things they mostly didn’t care to talk about or felt anyone would understand if they did. There were some adjustments of course but remarkably most seemed to recover pretty well. They just wanted to get on with living. As I was just a small boy now working in my dad’s store in the 50s, I came to know these men and never knew these men as the heroes they probably were; they were just my friends and neighbors that wanted to get on with raising a family of their own, building a future, things we all seek, and not much else.
So, to the purpose of this paper. What can this generation teach us? They can teach us many things, but in my opinion, an appreciation for the beauty of meaningful sacrifice and the significance of a simpler life are two of the gifts I appreciate the most from my parent’s generation. People sacrificed so much without ever voicing a complaint; literally putting their lives on hold as they went off to War or delayed a wedding or a family – for years. Check any family tree or set of court house records and make note the number of marriages between 1945 and 1948; marriages delayed till the future was surer, brighter, less risky. With a singularity of purpose both combatants and their left behind families got the job done and ended these awful menaces in Europe and the Far East that threatened our country and were bent on negatively changing our world. The sacrifices this generation made brought about the peace and the understanding that one gets when you see that the simple things in life are the best. Wealth is fine, but it doesn’t buy happiness. A family blessed with health, supported by a decent, meaningful, appreciated job was all that most of these former warriors needed to make them see their life was blessed.
And blessed we are to have had this generation that left the World in such a better place than they found it. This wasn’t even their goal but it should be one that later generations should make for ourselves – to make the world a better place than we found it.
Dan Schnieders
Jefferson City
