Page 37 - Anthology

I wrote Robert every day, even though there was not much to tell. Living for the mail was a daily thing.
When he was listed as missing in action, the letters stopped coming and the postman said something
trite. When I told him, Robert was missing in action, he just about croaked. He was just kidding because
he thought we had broken up. I knew it was just that he didn’t know. He did not intend to be mean, but
he was insensitive. He appeared to be embarrassed. Robert was never a practical joker. He said, “You
never know how your words could hurt someone.” Robert was such a humble man.

Words do hurt and we need to think before we speak them.

The time during the war was as though a dark curtain had been thrown over my world. That is the way it
felt. To put it in perspective: If Pearl Harbor, WWII and Robert’s missing in action were a dark curtain;
then 9/11 and the World Trade Center bombings were a veil. The world will never be the same after 9/11
in my opinion. But that dark cloud lifted when the guys came home. There will always be a before and
after the World Trade Center bombings.

5
Everything was rationed during the war. But we did not have any gas operated equipment on the farm.
We were a one-horse farm. We had horses and mules. We raised all our own food and canned quite a
bit. We raised our own corn and wheat and had a neighborhood mill that ground our own flour and meal.
For their pay, they took a portion of the flour and meal; it was a barter system. But coffee and sugar were
rationed and that affected us. For the most part, we were living off the farm.

I taught school for thirty-five years. I have a B.S. in Elementary Education and a M.A. in English and
Psychology from Western Kentucky University. I taught in a one room school; then I taught third grade
for 14 years. I taught second grade for the rest of the time. Robert had a B.S. from the University of
Kentucky in Agronomy and worked for the U.S.D.A. Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service.
We had a good life.

We married in July 1945 and the war ended in August 1945. We have one daughter and two grandsons;
one great granddaughter and three great grandsons. However, I live alone. I don’t have any relatives
living here in the same city with me.

Summer 1947