Well it took several hours but was fun transcribing the old family vinyl records from 1943 that I just got digitized. (See photo of my aunt Esther and her husband Les who made the records.) My aunts, uncles and parents all talked of many World War II issues: blackouts in California on the coast, Pearl Harbor's aftermath, gas rationing, etc. My uncle was working in an aircraft factory making planes "to shoot down Hitler." My dad was a dispatcher on the Union Pacific railroad in Utah helping move the trains to the coasts loaded with troops and supplies.
It was quite a world then. Don't think I would have liked to live then, well actually I was there but only three years old. My uncle tried to get me to sing a song on the record: called "Johnny shot a zero." Don't think I've ever heard it, but it was about shooting down Japanese planes as they had joined the conflict and bombed Hawaii. California was worried they were next to be bombed. Can't help but think that times were tougher then with such a huge war in many different locations. But people didn't loose their hope for a better future and we can learn from that.
That was the message of many of the conference talks I heard today...having hope in the future and faith in God. A message that applies to all times. Life was difficult then economically as the government was trying to get everyone to buy war bonds to support the war, and food and gas were rationed. There were shortages everywhere but people adjusted and survived. They just made the best of it.