After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Americans began a very stressful, uncertain week on Monday, Dec. 8. It wasn’t a dream – the truth was that the nation was involved in World War II. Many new sacrifices and struggles in the year that followed changed the way kids would have spent their early years in peace time. Teachers in the two-room Echo Lake School and those in other villages throughout West Milford tried to conduct a normal school day with the usual lessons in math, reading and social studies. Students found it hard to concentrate because they were afraid, apprehensive and uncertain about what was going to happen to them. Teachers, too, must have had distracting thoughts. With the difficult task of distributing ration books to all residents on Saturdays, they were under scrutiny by the government for assurance that every ration book was accounted for.
Eventually, air raid drills took place in all classrooms. Kids had to dive under their desks when air raid alarm signals sounded when they were in school. Throughout West Milford, one designated house in each neighborhood was the location of a siren. A phone call from a New York base was made to homes where the sirens were installed on roofs. There were different messages by the siren to warn that “enemy planes are approaching” or that there was still an alert, or that the threat was over. Children who went with their parents to sit at Air Raid Watch Towers were taught to identify enemy aircraft types and they watched as their parents called on rotary telephones installed in the towers to send information to headquarters in New York. In West Milford, there were air raid towers staffed 24 hours seven days a week at Clinton Reservoir, Camp Hope and Mariontown Hill. Among other towers nearby there was one on Bartholdi Ave. in Butler next to the cemetery,
Children soon had new responsibilities that included collecting metals, such as tin cans, aluminum foil and other things needed to be used in some way to fight the war. Kids spent weekends collecting milkweed pods that grew along country roads. The fiber in the pods was inserted into Navy fliers’ life jackets to help keep survivors afloat if they were shot down over water bodies. Children were given more chores when many of the mothers left home every day to work in factories making needed weapons and other things for the war effort. Social rules included less freedom with strong church influence for youth gatherings with lake picnics and square dances popular. Kids had new responsibilities that took priority.
There was a strong sense of community energy with neighbors pooling resources for garden food produce and shared shelters. Vehicle headlights had to be partially covered to avoid visibility at night, homes had blackout curtains on windows.
People saved cooking grease to turn in at a distribution center. Instead of butter they used oleomargarine, a distasteful substitute for butter. A package of orange coloring came with it to be stirred in to make color. People were learning to be resourceful, making do with hand me downs and often just doing without.
Homes and people had no television or cell phones in 1941. Radio was the primary means to receive information. Kids listened to the radio with their parents with most of the news they heard being war related. Daily newspapers were delivered to local homes for subscribers. Gas was among the things rationed so people only drove their cars to go to work, church or nearby towns weekly for groceries. Some managed to include attendance to the nearby Butler or Pompton Lakes movie houses, depending on which section of the township they lived in.
Kids had little time to play but when they did, they often played in a softball or baseball game at a neighborhood vacant field. Everything they were involved in had an underlying sense of national duty. They saw family, friends and neighbors drafted into the Army to fight for the nation – and were aware of those who were injured or killed and remained in the ocean or somewhere on foreign soil far from home. Many things were scarce but children, along with their parents learned to survive in the hard times, and when the war was over, they were appreciative to once again live in a nation at peace with many benefits available.
