Download or read book A 1940s Childhood written by James Marsh and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2014-05-01 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you remember collecting shrapnel and listening to Children's Hour? Carrying gas masks or sharing your school with evacuees from the city? The 1940s was a decade of great challenge for everyone who lived through it. The hardships and fear created by a world war were immense. Britain's towns and cities were being bombed on an almost nightly basis, and many children faced the trauma of being parted from their parents and sent away to the country to live with complete strangers. For just over half of this decade the war continued, meaning food and clothing shortages became a way of life. But through it all, and afterwards, the simplicity of kids shone. From collecting bits of shot-down German aircraft to playing in bomb-strewn streets, kids made their own fun. Then there was the joy of the second half of the 1940s, when fathers came home and the magic of 'normal life' returned. This trip down memory lane will take you through the most memorable and evocative experiences of growing up in the 1940s.
Download or read book Growing Up in Rural Ireland in the 1940s written by Tim O'Sullivan and published by . This book was released on 2011-09 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of stories depicts the life of a young boy growing up in an Irish countryside in the nineteen forties. It conveys a glimpse of some of the daily and seasonal chores and events that comprised a dairying community in County Cork, in full view of the beautiful mountain range which stretches from Mushara to the Kerry Reeks. These stories are drawn from personal experiences and recalled fifty years later.
Download or read book Simpler Times Better Times written by Jack Atchison and published by . This book was released on 2013-10-07 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many of us who are sixty-years-of-age or older believe that we grew up in an era (the 1940s and 1950s) when life for a child was simpler and better than it is today. Younger people might find this hard to believe because we were certainly less affluent then, as the middle-class really didn't take hold until in the early 1950s; we suffered illnesses that children do not suffer today; and we lacked many of the devices and products that are commonplace now.Most of our homes did not have air-conditioning, or even gas or electric furnaces for that matter. We did not have refrigerators, freezers, microwaves, dishwashers, washers or dryers, televisions, CD or DVD players, touch-tone or cell phones, electronic games, vacuum cleaners, coffee makers, portable radios or computers.More than one car in a family was a rarity. There were no school buses; we walked to and from school. We walked to the store and lugged grocery bags home. We walked to the movies or wherever else we wanted to go. At around the age of ten, we started to stand on the curb, stuck our thumb out, and hitch-hiked longer distances or, if we owned one, we rode a bike. Most yards didn't have fences. Most people did not lock their car doors or the doors to their homes.At school, home, or even at a neighbor's house, if you misbehaved you likely got spanked on the seat of your pants. If you acted up in school, you got spanked. If you continued to act up, you were suspended from school. And if that didn't get your attention, you were expelled.When younger people hear about life in the 1940s and 1950s, they tend to focus on what we did not have and the seemingly harsh discipline to which we, as kids, were subjected. But what they don't focus on, as we older folks do, is how very rich and uncomplicated our lives were in those days.Our playgrounds were vast and varied: fields, swamps, woods, backyards, parking lots and streets; all safe to play in, day or night. Our games were simple, challenging, and fun, and the only equipment required was a tin can; two sticks and two rags; a flashlight; a ball, any kind of a ball; our feet; or a little snow-no money required; just imagination.We didn't have television, but we did have drive-in theaters. We didn't have fast-food places; but we did have soda fountains, candy stores, ice cream parlors, and ice chests full of cold soda pop at every gas station. We didn't have big-box stores, but we had five-and-dimes and dairy stores that sold gallon jugs of fruit punch and lemonade.When we played, we, not adults, determined the game to be played; picked the playing venue; established the rules; chose the teams; refereed the game; and, if we decided to, kept the score. We played not to win or lose; but to have fun. And we played almost every day-snow, rain or shine; sweltering hot or freezing cold-from the time school let out until it was time for bed, breaking only when we had to do homework or eat dinner.We had incredible freedom to choose how we would spend our days. We had the latitude to try new things, to take chances, to make mistakes and, sometimes, bad choices, and to learn from these experiences, good and bad. The brief stories in this book describe how two boys lived and matured during those wonderful days and tell about the people who accompanied them during their journey through childhood. The stories were written to show my children and grandchildren how their father's and grandfather's childhood differed from theirs.As with any trip down memory lane, our recollections may vary slightly from the actual events and, while I'm not aware that is the case, some of the stories in this book might be affected by this same affliction. In any event, this was life as I remember it to have been. Hopefully, the stories will entertain and bring back fond memories to those of my age who elect to read them.
Download or read book Chicken Shack Growing Up Black and Poor in Alabama During the 1940 s 50 s and 60 s written by Joe Nathan Hill and published by Fulton Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2016-09-16 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes what life was like for my family and me living in rural, rurban, and urban Alabama during the 1940’s, 50’s, and 60’s. Life for a poor black family living in Alabama during these decades was quite challenging. Even more challenging was being a poor black male growing up in Alabama during the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s. This is my story.
Download or read book Yorkville Twins written by Joseph G. Gindele and published by YorkvilleTwinsBook.com. This book was released on 2015-06-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you want to take a trip down memory lane, this book is for you. Full of humor, wisdom and frank talk, award-winning Yorkville Twins [required reading by college freshmen] is an endearing collection of stories involving immigrants, survival, growing up, coming of age, and learning what it is to be an American. More than a memoir of a 1950s working class neighborhood, it's an experience, a love story of family, friends, neighbors, and the Yorkville of yore, recounting daily life from a historical, social and cultural perspective. "In the 1940s and 1950s, . . . most [urban] people lived in a four- or five-story, walk-up tenement building. Often their apartments had no toilet. Families would share a common toilet in the hallway. There were no showers. The only bathtub in many cases was a washtub located in the kitchen, a tub so small the best a full-grown person could do was sit on the edge and put his or her feet in the water. . . . There was little or no privacy in the railroad style rooms. The time Joe and John Gindele reminisce about is post-war America in a large city. It was a time when news reports, politicians and leaders were believable in the public's mind. It was a time when teachers, priests, and the police were never challenged. It was a time before TV. Some people had telephones. Most didn't. Radio programs which sparked the imagination of children and adults alike were the daily fare." --Anthony Lofaso, author.With 100+ vintage photographs, richly annotated resources, and a multilingual glossary, the book is nostalgic, inspiring, and "laugh-out-loud" entertaining. The twins describe what the city was like then, how it changed, and how they and their family succeeded in living the American dream! It's an American tale full of adventures and misadventures, laughs, sweet memories and sad moments. How did their family ever survive living with these guys who share special bonds and predictive abilities? Readers will (1) Renew childhood memories, (2) Live the immigrant experience, and (3) Have fun doing so.
Download or read book Growing up in 1940S War Torn England written by Joyce Holgate DeMille and published by LifeRich Publishing. This book was released on 2013-10-25 with total page 91 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Not yet eighteen years of age, I was allowed to leave the office early before the nightly bombing began in earnest. Walking down the street on my way to the railway station, suddenly I found myself high up on a spiked metal fence outside an office building. An angry air-raid warden yelled at me, What are you doing climbing up there when an air raid is in progress? Why arent you in that shelter on the other side of the street under that eh, eh Building, he was about to say, when he saw that it was no longer there, just a huge cavity where the large office building with the shelter in the basement had been. Many workers were killed there. Then he turned his attention back to me as I was clamoring to be helped down. Why are you up there? he exclaimed in irritation. Mad as hell, I asked him how did he think I got up there by myself, hurting as I was and afraid I would soon be undressed, the iron spike of the fence having pierced the collar of my coat, and it was a long fall to the pavement. Needless to say I was as surprised as he was. How did I get there then?
Download or read book Growing Up in the Forties written by Rebecca Hunter and published by Hodder & Stoughton. This book was released on 2002 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title is part of a series which decribes what it was like to grow up in Britain, told by people who were children at the time. It features interviews with people from different walks of life - rich, poor, urban and country dwellers - who grew up in the 1940s. Their memories and reflections combined with historical information give a real picture of what life was like as a child during the era of World War II: evacuation; rationing; air raids; what their homes were like; what games they played; where they went to school; and how they travelled around. This guide is illustrated by the contributors themselves as well as general photos, posters and artefacts from the time.
Download or read book Red Dirt written by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2006-02-13 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A classic in contemporary Oklahoma literature, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s Red Dirt unearths the joys and ordeals of growing up poor during the 1940s and 1950s. In this exquisite rendering of her childhood in rural Oklahoma, from the Dust Bowl days to the end of the Eisenhower era, the author bears witness to a family and community that still cling to the dream of America as a republic of landowners.
Download or read book Growing Up written by Harold L. Schoen and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-01-27 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FROM A FAMILY OF 15 ON A FARM WITH NO ELECTRICITY, INDOOR PLUMBING, OR CENTRAL HEAT TO 1962 NIT CHAMP UNDER LEGENDARY DAYTON COACH TOM BLACKBURN A story of a long-gone world of working with neighbors, radio entertainment, few telephones, unsupervised play, and sports just for fun; of attending college via a basketball scholarship; of struggles to adjust to college life, to make the team and then to win the NIT. Hal was born in 1941, the family's fifth child and oldest boy. From age seven or eight, he milked several cows by hand every morning and evening. He helped his parents and others in their neighborhood group to thresh wheat and oats and to butcher hogs among many other farm chores. For entertainment, the family enjoyed listening on their large battery-powered radio to westerns, dramas, and comedies like The Lone Ranger, The Shadow, and Father Knows Best. The barn, woods, and creek were good settings for imaginative, unsupervised play for the Schoen children when they had leisure time. Hal and many of his siblings developed a love of reading in spite of an environment in which reading and education were not always encouraged by the adults. They also enjoyed playing softball, baseball, and basketball just for fun. Hal became interested in attending college even though no one in the family before him had done so and neither parent graduated from high school. A basketball scholarship to the University of Dayton provided the financial means. UD was college basketball at a very high level. The Flyers, coached by Tom Blackburn and then Don Donoher, won more games than any other Division I college basketball team in the combined decades of the fifties and sixties, edging out UCLA and the University of Kentucky. After a challenging freshman adjustment and warming the bench as a sophomore, Hal was a starting forward on the 1962 National Invitation Tournament championship team. The NIT was then a prestigious national tournament played entirely in New York's Madison Square Garden. As chronicled in the book's "Afterward," Hal went on to a 34-year career as a Professor of Mathematics Education mainly at the University of Iowa, and two of his younger brothers earned doctorates in Mathematics. Rick Schoen is internationally renowned for his ground-breaking research work in Differential Geometry. In 2017, he was awarded the prestigious Wolf Prize in Mathematics. Hal's other siblings also did well in both their professional and personal lives. The Schoen family's story is one of rising economically and educationally from humble beginnings, the American Dream. It is a story of the importance of family, hard work, tenacity, patience, education, and a college basketball scholarship. Timing, too, is a crucial factor as the equalizing effects of the Great Depression and World War Two made upward social mobility more common than ever in the two or three decades after the War.
Download or read book Lockhart Memories written by Jim Stedman and published by . This book was released on 2016-03-04 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you ever watched one of those old 1950s TV shows, like Leave It to Beaver, and wondered what growing up then would have been like? This was a time when most kids lived with two parents, often mom stayed home, before drugs, before quick and easy divorce, literally the last generation raised under those conditions. Well, this book will tell you what it was like, at least what it was like in small town Texas.This collection of memories and stories started as a project dreamed up by Wayne Scott and Jim Stedman with the aim of collecting the recollections of our peers about growing up during the 1940s and 50s. We sent out the call via email lists of classmates, asking for stories and memories about various themes: grade school, high school, sports, life in the country, places, entertainment, the songs, and so on. Very shortly, we had over 1,500 pages of email sent in by the "authors" you will get to know as you read our book.These "authors" were born between 1935 and 1944 when the country was still in the Great Depression and, then, entering WWII. Many of us still have memories of WWII events and the ensuing peacetime of the 1940s. Many of us were raised on farms and attended country schools with several grades in one or two rooms; some rode horses to school. Some experienced discrimination, both in where they attended school and where they could watch a movie. We grew up with few medications and few vaccinations, when the threat of polio was real, and family doctors still made house calls, even out in the country.Some of our stories will make you cringe a little; others will make you laugh. If you are old enough, some will seem similar to your own growing-up experiences. So, we invite you partake of our stories. They have been edited, but only with a light touch, so do not expect smooth prose. They are what they are: memories put down as our "authors" were moved by recall.Jim Stedman, Editor
Download or read book The Bay Rat Kid written by Jim Jeffries and published by . This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Journey back to the wonder and hope of your own childhood―wherever it may have been―with this collection of recollections and reflections that blend memoir, history, nostalgia, and photos from back in the day.
Download or read book Coming of Age in Mississippi written by Anne Moody and published by Dell. This book was released on 2011-09-07 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The unforgettable memoir of a woman at the front lines of the civil rights movement—a harrowing account of black life in the rural South and a powerful affirmation of one person’s ability to affect change. “Anne Moody’s autobiography is an eloquent, moving testimonial to her courage.”—Chicago Tribune Born to a poor couple who were tenant farmers on a plantation in Mississippi, Anne Moody lived through some of the most dangerous days of the pre-civil rights era in the South. The week before she began high school came the news of Emmet Till’s lynching. Before then, she had “known the fear of hunger, hell, and the Devil. But now there was . . . the fear of being killed just because I was black.” In that moment was born the passion for freedom and justice that would change her life. A straight-A student who realized her dream of going to college when she won a basketball scholarship, she finally dared to join the NAACP in her junior year. Through the NAACP and later through CORE and SNCC, she experienced firsthand the demonstrations and sit-ins that were the mainstay of the civil rights movement—and the arrests and jailings, the shotguns, fire hoses, police dogs, billy clubs, and deadly force that were used to destroy it. A deeply personal story but also a portrait of a turning point in our nation’s destiny, this autobiography lets us see history in the making, through the eyes of one of the footsoldiers in the civil rights movement. Praise for Coming of Age in Mississippi “A history of our time, seen from the bottom up, through the eyes of someone who decided for herself that things had to be changed . . . a timely reminder that we cannot now relax.”—Senator Edward Kennedy, The New York Times Book Review “Something is new here . . . rural southern black life begins to speak. It hits the page like a natural force, crude and undeniable and, against all principles of beauty, beautiful.”—The Nation “Engrossing, sensitive, beautiful . . . so candid, so honest, and so touching, as to make it virtually impossible to put down.”—San Francisco Sun-Reporter
Download or read book A Bronx Memoir written by Lester Fritz and published by . This book was released on 2020-12-15 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Rocky Kids written by Athol Chase and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two Rockhampton families record their memories about growing up and starting work in Rockhampton during World War 2, and in the decade after that. Kiddy Bolger and Athol Chase both went to Leichhardt Ward State School, and the centenary reunion for LWSS got them started on recollections which led to this book. Their wives Delroi and Lesley were very happy to contribute the all-important female dimension too. The collection emerges from the efforts of two families, the Bolgers and the Chases, to provide some history for their grandchildren and hopefully it will add some perspectives on Rockhampton's past.
Download or read book Growing Up in the 40s written by Jerry L. Twedt and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 1996 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This memoir is a light-hearted social history of life in Story County during the 1940s. The decade of the 40s witnessed the death of small, family farms and the birth of agribusiness, the end of the Industrial Age and the beginning of the Computer Age, and the first faltering steps of television. It was a time of great trauma, yet for a boy growing up on farms near Roland, Iowa, the decade was filled with tranquillity and fun. Growing Up in the 40s reveals a decade with one foot firmly planted in rural small-town America and the other poised to step into the urban atomic age. It was a time when family values seemed as permanent as the great Iowa barns - a time that is now as remote as Scarlet O'Hara's antebellum South.
Download or read book A 1940s Childhood written by James Marsh and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2014-05-01 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you remember collecting shrapnel and listening to Children’s Hour? Carrying gas masks or sharing your school with evacuees from the city? The 1940s was a time of great challenge for everyone who lived through it. From the hardships and fear of a World War, with Britain’s towns and cities were being bombed on an almost nightly basis, to the trauma of being parted from ones parents and sent away to the country to live with complete strangers. For just over half of this decade the war continued, meaning food and clothing shortages became a way of life. But through it all, and afterwards, the simplicity of kids shone through. From collecting bits of shot down German aircraft to playing in bomb-strewn streets, kids made their own fun. Then there was the joy of the second half of this decade when fathers came home and fun things started up again. This trip down memory lane will take you through the most memorable and evocative experiences of growing up in the 1940s.
Download or read book Growing Up Catholic in the Twentieth Century written by S. P. PERONE and published by . This book was released on 2021-09-20 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Parochial school in the 1940s and '50s. Strict discipline and rigid rules. Everything was verboten--from eating meat on Friday to patent leather shoes. The catechism told us we were sinners; Bible stories told us we would be punished. Teen-agers would struggle with "sinful" emotions and humiliating confessions. Finding ways to circumvent the rules--without the guilt and fear--became this teen-ager's obsession.It was mid-century America, when one didn't question authority; when millions proudly joined the army to fight World War II; when those at home gladly sacrificed; and when everything seemed black and white. Coming of age during those times, headed for that ultimate jarring collision with reality, was a humorous-in-retrospect adventure that needed to be told--a nostalgic romp for those who were there and a poignant revelation for those who were not.
