Why Did my Mother Hate the 40s So Much?

[Paisley]

Wearing shoes "repaired" with cardboard in the winter in Wyoming
Living with her in-laws
Not being able to attend school with her best friend, an Arapahoe
Fear of the Nazis
Her brother being away at war
Housework was hard work
Living on a shoestring

My mother said she wouldn't relive the 40s for a million dollars. We all complain about the times we live or lived in, but I think that today, by comparison in many ways, isn't so bad, and neither does my mother.

 

[Dixon Cannon]

Some time ago, a friend's mother recalled the '40's and came to tears. So many of her male classmates died in the war that it was just too painful for her to think about.

As she got older, had children, a home and all the luxuries that we take for granted as our right, she recalled her boyfriends and pals who never had the chance to grow old.

That, unfortunately, is the reality of the '40's for so many from that generation. What seems glamourous to us now, was a painful and sad period for many the world round.

-dixon cannon

 

[Marc Chevalier]

My father wasn't so impressed with the '40s, either ... although he was just a kid at the time.


-- Lots of kids' dads were away from home: getting killed or coming back wounded.

-- Food rationing made for bland, repetitive meals.

-- Catholic boys (or at least my dad) had to wear a fedora on Sundays. (He hated that!)

-- Lawrence, my dad's best friend, was from a German-American family. He was not treated well in school, and his parents were snubbed (and even -.-feared) by the neighbors.


Tough decade!


.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The thing my mother remembers most was nearly dying of an ear infection because her parents couldn't afford to pay a doctor who insisted on cash up front before he'd look at her. To this day she's deaf in one ear because of it -- a reminder that "small town compassion" was as much a myth back then as it is now.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

... a reminder that "small town compassion" was as much a myth back then as it is now.

There's a Chilean expression: "Pueblo chico, infierno grande." Translation: "Small town, big hell."

.

 

[TommySalieri]

Many terrible things happened during the 40's. The Holocaust. WW2. Recovery from the Depression.

We often tend to look back and focus in on the good things. But you know what? Sometimes that isn't such a bad thing.

 

[Trixie]

I wish I could find the letter my grandfather wrote to me after I'd written telling him how excited I was to be moving into a house that was built in the 40s and how beautiful I found everything back then to be.

But in summary he basically told me, You romanticize that period because you didnt live through it. If you'd lived through it you'd never look back. You dont know how lucky you are. Only he wrote it in a more no-nonsense way.

My eighteen year old self thought Silly man! My grown up self looks at his patches and medals from the war and gets it.

 

[Paisley]

The thing my mother remembers most was nearly dying of an ear infection because her parents couldn't afford to pay a doctor who insisted on cash up front before he'd look at her. To this day she's deaf in one ear because of it -- a reminder that "small town compassion" was as much a myth back then as it is now.

My mother lost her second child c. 1949 due to, she says, negligence of the doctor.

Then there was the time that she had an operation and the doctors put her intestines back in wrong. My dad took her out of the hospital bed and carried her out, and took her to a Catholic hospital. One of the nuns broke her nose trying to get a tube down.

My mom's third child, b. December 1951, was a little bit premature and the doctor sent him and my mom home, saying there was nothing that could be done for the baby and he'd die regardless of what they did. It was a terrible winter in northern Idaho and she had two other little kids to look after. Nevertheless, my mom fed the baby with an eye dropper every hour, day and night. Well, that baby is my big brother, and he's still around. If you want something done right...

 

[Viola]

Couple of my relatives got to the U.S. out of Germany just in time, and lost most of their families to the Nazis. My German-Jewish uncle lost everyone, basically, got to the US and basically went right back to fight. The military wanted him to STAY there after the war for reconstruction, and he basically said "are you crazy? There's nothing here left for me."

On the other side, my great-uncle was shot repeatedly, and was reported falsely as KIA.

He'd gotten permission from his parents to go at seventeen only because he said "if you sign this, you'll know where I am. If you don't, I'll lie and go anyway and you won't."

His little brother, my zayde (granddad) was livid he was too young to fight, but the war really damaged his older brother.

-Viola

 

[Brian Sheridan]

I think we all romanticize time periods we did not live through. Younger people today pine for the 1970's - they don't have to live through Vietnam or Watergate or (gads) disco and polyester.

People dress up and re-enact the Medievel Period or the Civil War, neither time being a ball of fun.

I think we here try to recall the best of the period and apply it to today - it is not an attempt to wipe away the hardships or trouble of back then.

"The good old days weren't always good and tomorrow is never as bad as it seems" - William Joel

 

[Mike in Seattle]

I think, in any era, you can find good things and bad things. I guess it's just what things you chose to remember in what light or what you found most memorable or sticks the most in your mind. 20/20 hindsight and all that.

In another twenty or so years, when there's a website called The Disco Lounge that dedicated to the 70's, that Golden Age of polyester and Quiana, with everyone's salivating over the deadstock Angels Flight suits & platform shoes they found on Ebay or it's equivalent, wishing they had a Yugo instead of these new rocketcars or the like, and everyone's talking about how great the 70's are, some of us are going to think the world's gone mad and how dismal it really was.

 

[52Styleline]

Folks who lived through the depression were already pretty beaten up when the 40's arrived and almost immediately they were thrown into WWII.

Lack of antibiotics as we know them. Penicillin came along but wasn't widely available. As a 40's baby, I got a blood infection from a rat bite (yeah, living in a farmhouse had its risks too). My doctor begged some penicillin from the Army at Ft. Lewis which is the only reason I am still here.

Dentistry. Big slow drills and crude techniques. Even in the 50's going to the dentist was much worse than it is today.

Still, listening to many stories from those who were adults in the 40's, they seem to feel their lives were making a difference during the war. The country was united as never before. There was pride in making do and going without because it was for the war effort.

Entertainment actually was entertainment in those years...not some potty mouth spouting off as much of it is today.

 

[jamespowers]

In another twenty or so years, when there's a website called The Disco Lounge that dedicated to the 70's, that Golden Age of polyester and Quiana, with everyone's salivating over the deadstock Angels Flight suits & platform shoes they found on Ebay or it's equivalent, wishing they had a Yugo instead of these new rocketcars or the like, and everyone's talking about how great the 70's are, some of us are going to think the world's gone mad and how dismal it really was.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! That is just too gruesome to imagine. :eusa_doh:
I'll take the 40s over the 70s any second of any day. We might have been at war but at least we knew what we were fighting for and most of allllll---no hippies.

Regards,

J

 

[Pilgrim]

This is an interesting thread. In our (boomer) lifetimes, we have not seen the level of sacrifice that was required to win that war.

I have heard stories of metal drives in which people built piles of old bikes and other metal materials to be collected and turned into war materials. The stories of rationing gas, tires, food and just about everything else lead me to think that most of us would be aghast to consider making the changes and sacrifices required of our parents.

The closest comparison I can make is the Vietnam War. I had a number of friends who didn't come back from it, and others who came back with various wounds or physical disabilities. But rationing and the more extreme societal sacrifices common in WWII weren't required during that war - nor during the current one.

 

[Mike in Seattle]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! That is just too gruesome to imagine. :eusa_doh:
I'll take the 40s over the 70s any second of any day. We might have been at war but at least we knew what we were fighting for and most of allllll---no hippies.

Regards,

J

But...most of us actually lived through the 70's, just as those that actually lived through the 40's have a completely different take on it than those of us only viewing it from old movies & magazines of the era.

But rather scary thinking that those "Keep on Truckin'" T-shirts & belt buckles we had in the 70's are probably going to be going for the equivalent of several hundred bucks in not too many years. If we only knew what "trash" of ours to hold onto until it becomes someone else's much-sought-after "treasure."

Or as I put it during the run of the Frank Sinatra tribute show here recently, "Just think...in about 30-40 years, the little old ladies & elderly men hobbling up with canes and walkers are going to be coming to see a Brittney Spears tribute show..."

Criswell predicts....

 

[Marc Chevalier]

I've been holding on to my stacks of early series Topps "Wacky Packages" stickers since 1974. Really.


If eBay is any guide, they're worth nothing ... yet.


.

 

[jamespowers]

I've been holding on to my stacks of early series Topps "Wacky Packages" stickers since 1974. Really.


If eBay is any guide, they're worth nothing ... yet.


.

They're still worth nothing now and into the foreseeable future. Chew the gum dude.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

We'll see, Jimmy boy ... we'll see. lol


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[jamespowers]

But rather scary thinking that those "Keep on Truckin'" T-shirts & belt buckles we had in the 70's are probably going to be going for the equivalent of several hundred bucks in not too many years. If we only knew what "trash" of ours to hold onto until it becomes someone else's much-sought-after "treasure."
Criswell predicts....

I probably have lots of that stuff in my mother's garage. When I find it I"ll burn it. :eusa_booh :fedora: Keep on truckin' into the garbage can.

Regards,

J

 

[jamespowers]

We'll see, Jimmy boy ... we'll see. lol


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The gum is probably worth more. :eusa_doh: