EDITH CURTIS

By Kate McElwain, Emily Moers, and Anna Wagoner

Upon walking into English class on the day we were to interview survivors of World War II, we three felt as much of our class did – apprehensive at conversing with a stranger, wondering how to fill an hour and a half with questions, and bewildered as to what we should ask.  Relieved to discover that the three of us would share an interviewee, we dutifully trooped down to the cafeteria, a more peaceful environment.  Edith Curtis, a sweet lady with an infectious chuckle, soon laid our fears to rest.  She came equipped with an outline of what she felt might interest us.  She explained that her daughter had encouraged her to create a written document of her memories, and this interview had prompted her to begin to do so.  Hardly a peep was heard from us throughout the period, so well had she organized her thoughts.  We sat back and absorbed her story, taking as many notes as we could while learning that our lives are not so different from those of two generations previous, at least before the war interrupted everyone's lives.

Edith grew up in Orono, Maine and was a seventh grader when World War II began.  She attended a small school that housed six grades in one building; her graduating class had forty-one students.  Edith’s family of six learned to make do with what they had.  Due to the many young men enlisting in the military, Edith had no trouble finding work.  Her father was not allowed to fight in World War II, as he was too old and had a family.  Instead, he became an airplane spotter and head of the Victory Farm Volunteers.  He recruited high school students and college girls to work on farms to aid the war effort.  He received a ration card for gas, but was not allowed to use that gas for personal reasons, although he treated his family by taking them along on war business.  Once they traveled “way down east” to Washington County on the Canadian border.  After spending all day picking blueberries, the family waited in the car while Edith’s father attended a meeting.

There were many ways families were limited during the war.  Each citizen was allowed two pairs of shoes per year.  Edith wanted “tenny runners,” but got Buster Browns instead.  At the year's end, the shoes were run through with holes, a constant reminder of the war.  Tires were also rationed as was meat, though not chicken or fish.  Lamb chops were “such a big treat, and so expensive,” that Edith was allowed to chew the meat right off the bones.  Coffee and sugar were also rationed.  Edith's  parents were grateful when Edith turned fourteen so they could drink her ration of coffee.  Extra sugar rations were awarded for canning and “Victory Gardens” were encouraged.  She and her family canned hundreds of quarts of vegetables and blueberries.   Local girls cut up vegetables to ready them for canning in a large canner at the town hall.  "We used powdered milk that was just the same as it is now, only even harder to get the lumps out,” explained Edith. 

Girls began to wear shorter skirts.  Material was scarce.  When the chicken feed was delivered, Edith begged the driver to select sacks of matching color and pattern.  Three sacks made a dress, two made a broomstick skirt.  Children at that time received no allowance but worked for their spending money.  A major source of income was baby-sitting, or “keeping house” as it was called then.  Younger children did not generally accompany their parents to weddings, funerals, movies, or other such outings, so sitting jobs were readily available. 

At school each morning, Edith and her classmates saluted the flag, or at least they did until the war started.  When the war began, it was decided that saluting the flag was too much like Hitler’s salute, so instead the students put their hands over their hearts.  Next they had the Lord’s Prayer, and then the principal read some passages from the Bible and told of any job openings that might be available. 

Even though younger teenagers weren’t able to fight in the war, they all contributed in their own ways.  One boy in a nearby town made a big difference.  He was down by the water one day and saw two men getting out of a boat anchored in a nearby cove.  He overheard them speaking in German and reported it to the authorities.  The two men were arrested and later found to be Nazi spies.  Laughing, Edith related how when the boys team from that town came to play in Orono, all the girls flocked around the boy asking for his autograph.  He was a local hero.

Kids across America, as well as in Edith's town, saved their money to buy Savings Stamps on a regular basis to help the war effort. On one occasion some American pilots had been captured in Japan and were questioned about which air craft carrier they had flown off of.  They had agreed they would all say it was the Shangri La, a made-up name at the time.  When the United States decided to build a ship named the Shangri La in honor of those pilots, the kids in Edith's school elected to dedicate all their savings stamp purchases to the building of that ship.

Classes in her school competed against each other in scrap metal and War Bond drives. The winning class got an ice cream party or was dismissed early.  For fun, churches got together and put on different activities for the kids in their youth groups such as sleigh rides and dances.  On Christmas Eve, they all caroled and visited the sick and the poor, bringing them baskets of food and toys.  Movies were a special treat costing only ten cents for kids twelve and under.  Newsreels of the war were very popular.  Saturday matinees were either a western or a kids’ movie, Shirley Temple being a favorite. 

Edith was a Girl Scout and she saved her money every year so she could go to camp In the summer.  At one of those camps, they found out the war had ended.  “We all started cheering, shouting, singing songs, and everything,” Edith remembers.  She canoed across the lake to where her parents were to tell them the good news.

 Later in Edith’s life, she married and had four daughters. Her youngest daughter was killed in a tragic motorcycle accident a few years out of high school.  Yet Edith has a happy outlook on life and is a woman fun to be with, one to whom you could listen for hours.

We learned of a woman’s life that ran parallel to ours – similar but on another plane.  We could relate to her adolescent feelings of awe at the cute trumpet player in the school band.  But we became aware of our distinctly different realities when Edith continued that the boy was later killed in action, his empty chair left as a reminder of him.  After learning for so many years the historical points, the dates of battles, and the number of people killed, it was a wonderful feeling to be able to picture the personal aspects of World War II.