THROUGH
MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of
Their
Descendants...Their Stories...Their Achievements
Lifting the
Mists of History on Their Way of Life
By: Ethelene Dyer Jones
Christmastime and World War II Recollections
December 7, 1941 was, as
then-president
Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated in addressing the nation, “a day of
infamy.” Those still living who remember
that day when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, resulting in the United
States
declaring war on December 8, indeed remember the times. Our nation was
plunged
into the war that had already been raging in Europe since 1939. The years from 1941 through 1945 changed our
rather peaceful, taken-for-granted way of life in the mountainous
region of
North Georgia. Even Christmastimes
during these years became different.
Upon President Roosevelt’s declaration
of war on December 8, 1941, eligible young men began to volunteer
and/or were
drafted. This meant that the farm
workers were cut drastically while at the same time maximum production
was
needed for the war effort. My brother,
Eugene, volunteered for the Army Air Force, as well as did my cousins
William
Clyde Collins, Sr., and Robert Neal Collins, and many other able-bodied
young
men we knew. At Choestoe Church, we had
an “Honor Roll” of those in service from our congregation, and we
earnestly
prayed for their safety each time we met to worship.
In the meantime, those of us—much
younger though we were—had to grow up and become responsible in
assisting with
farm labor, like hoeing (which we were taught anyway from a very early
age),
learning to walk behind a corn planter and guide the mule along the
rows, or
operate a “cultivator” plow to plow between the rows to keep the weeds
down. Maximum crop production was needed
for the “war effort,” and it took all hands-aboard, young though we
were.
Only ten days after the bombing of
Pearl Harbor, my Grandpa Collins died on December 17, 1941. He had been a stay in the community, out
ahead in more modern methods of farming.
He had the first “threshing machine” in the area, going from
farm to
farm to thresh the harvests of grain. He
had the first electricity on his farm, from his own Delco system, long before Tennessee Valley Authority got
permission to run
their power lines into the community. He also had owned the first
tractor and
tractor-drawn farm implements. Grandpa Francis Jasper “Bud” Collins had
a Delco
Plant that produced electricity for his house and some of his farm
buildings. Because of the passing of
this staid citizen of Choestoe so shortly after Pearl Harbor, those of
us who
loved and respected him so highly thought we had lost our foremost
citizen. I, for one, grieved during that
time near to Christmas. Never again was
his country store as fascinating to me as it had been before his death,
even
though his son and two of his daughters continued to operate it, and
his large
farm.
To complicate matters in the Dyer
household, my brother Eugene joined the US Army Air Force and as soon
as his
training was finished shipped out to the European theater of war where
he
served admirably as a bombardier on many missions over enemy territory. My brother-in-law, Ray Dyer, husband to my
older sister Louise Dyer, also entered service.
He was sent to the Pacific theater of war. We
had two members of our family far away in
war. We had two less adult workers for
all the farm work. We eagerly awaited any word from them in daily mail,
but
letters were sometimes infrequent. And
then my mother became quite ill with heart complications in the days
before
miracle drugs and surgery could promise relief from her suffering. She died on Valentine’s Day, December 14,
1945. At the time of her death, my
brother Eugene was severely wounded and lying in an Army Field Hospital
somewhere in Italy. At age fourteen I transitioned from teenager to
adult
because I became the main housekeeper, cook, and manager of our
household. It was a sad time for the Dyer
family, but
somehow we kept going, because of our strong spirit of patriotism and
derring-do.
What were Christmases like during
these years from 1941 through 1945?
Recall that rationing became necessary to the war effort. We could only have a “rationed” amount of
sugar, other scarce items of “store-bought” supplies, and gasoline and
tires
were hard to come by. Say that we
adjusted. Maybe these scarcities and
restrictions were not as hard on farm families as they were on those
living in
the cities of our country. We still
mainly farmed through “mule” power and human effort and had not yet
become mechanized
on our farm. Our first tractor came
after World War II was over. It was
amazing the tasty sweets we made using our own home-created product,
sorghum
syrup. My father, J. Marion Dyer, made hundreds of gallons of sorghum
syrup
each fall, from his own and other farmers’ crops of cane.
We sweetened cookies and gingerbread, dried
fruit stack cakes and peanut brittle candy with our country-produced
sorghum.
These made good sweets for Christmas during the war years.
At school we had all sorts of drives
for the war effort: selling savings
stamps and bonds; collecting scrap metal for the war effort; rolling
bandages
in home economics classes. We knew our
nation was in a crisis situation and we as patriotic teenagers did what
we
could to support our troops and to hasten victory.
We kept abreast of progress on all
fronts. It is a wonder we did not become
traumatized for life, having the realities of war and its effects on
our
families thrust upon us at such an impressionable age.
But at least no battles were fought on US
home soil. We were spared those
atrocities and first-hand observations and fears of war.
But we did, on occasions, attend solemn
memorials for a few of our young military men who met their deaths in
service. Four Christmases came and
went. We became older and wiser, more
thoughtful and less presumptive because of how the war touched our
individual
lives and communities.
At the churches in our communities, we
had our Christmas programs much as we had done before the war. There were still manger tableaus with
shepherds and wise men gathered around.
We sang the beloved Christmas carols, trying to sound notes of
hope and
majesty despite our concerns for the war and beloved from our churches
who had
gone as servicemen.
Maybe the little paper bags with
our
goodies—an orange, an apple, some peppermint stick candy and chocolate
drops—had less of the goodies than in pre-war years.
But those treats were there…and ever, hope
was paramount.
And so we weathered the war years,
1941 through 1945. Maybe it is good for
us to remember, to think of the sacrifices and triumphs, the
determination to
make-do. Have we lost some of our spirit
of persistence and pride, of patriotism and faith?
Christmas is a good time to reflect and
recollect…and to set new directions that will lead to victory. We had this spirit in World War II
years. Oh, that we could recapture the
wonder, the marvel of working together for common purposes! In retrospect, I’m grateful that I “grew up”
to adulthood at a young age because of circumstances.
The words of poet John Greenleaf
Whittier express well the intention of having the Christmas spirit all
the year
through:
“Somehow,
not only for
Christmas
But
all the year through,
The
joy that you give to others
Is
the joy that comes back to you;
And
the more you spend in blessing
The
poor and lonely and sad,
The
more of your heart’s possessing
Returns
to make you glad.”
[Ethelene Dyer
Jones is a retired educator,
freelance writer, poet, and historian. She may be reached at
e-mail edj0513@windstream.net;
phone 478-453-8751; or mail 1708 Cedarwood Road, Milledgeville, GA
31061-2411.]