What my grandmother told me about life in the 1940s.

[Shangas]

My grandmother was born in May, 1914. She used to tell me about the 1940s when I was a child. For her, the 1940s meant ONE thing.

World War Two.

Living in what was then British Malaya, gran was one of thousands of Chinese-Malaysians whose lives were destroyed when the Japanese invaded the Malay peninsula and Singapore in 1942. Eventually she was able to return to her home town (under Japanese occupation) and operate her tailor's shop, but she hated it because there would be soldiers everywhere and prostitutes and she never felt safe. It was in this time that she became OBSESSED with locking her doors. Even today, she will not sleep unless her bedroom door is locked.

 

[AmateisGal]

What an AWESOME thread!

My grandmother and I have had several talks about the 1940s. She was a hard-working farm girl then, the daughter of Germans-from-Russia immigrants. She was a huge movie buff and went to the movies every chance she got. Whenever I stay with her when I go home, I bring an old classic movie with me and we watch it together. I'm really excited for her Christmas present this year -she said her favorite radio program was My Friend Irma - and I found a CD with 50 episodes on it that she can play on her computer (she's on Facebook even!). We write letters to each other (the old-fashioned kind, with paper and pen) and we often talk about how dreamy certain movie stars were from the 40s - we both love Dana Andrews!

 

[Shangas]

The War was incredibly traumatic for my grandmother. Apart from the Japanese soldiers and the shooting and the raping and the burning of Singapore, she used to tell me all the heartbreak that she saw during the Invasion. She told me of one story when I was about 10 years old about what happened when the Japs invaded her town. In the local hospital, a husband and father was on his deathbed and Allied (probably British) soldiers stormed the hospital and was forcing everyone out. They were evacuating the town of civilians before the Japanese arrived. The man was too far gone to go with his family, who were all crowded around his bed and they couldn't bear to leave him alone in an empty hospital to die unattended and without his loved ones to comfort him, but such was the reality of the War.

 

[BoPeep]

Amy Jeanne - I suspect once your conversation gets going, topics to discuss won't be an issue! Etiquette is always interesting. And, of course, those who chose not to follow it. Though us Loungers love the Era, it's always a sheepish pleasure to erase a bit of that rosy hue!

 

[bellabella327]

I should try and tape some recordings with my grandmother. I know that she always loved hats, and she often speaks of dances she went to when she was a youngster.

Amy, what about asking her (for the girly questions):
How/when she learned to apply makeup and the brands she used.
How she learned to fix her hair and the techniques she used. How the young ladies got their inspiration?
Did she try and pass any of these techniques along to her daughters?
When (or was) a lady ever considered too "dressed up?"
Were bare moons something she tried as a youngster, or did the older generations do it and how?
Does she see any retro gals getting it wrong with their styling?
How did she (or other ladies) go about hiding their wet sets in the evenings from their husbands, or did they?

 

[GoddessMama]

My grandma told me some stories about the war. One was about my grandfather. He was stationed in Florida somewhere and his job was something to do with communication and radars. She said that there were German subs routinely spotted off the to coast but nothing was ever said because they didn't want to frighten people.

She also told me that the gerneal or someone high up would sell the food meant for the soldiers and many of them were undernourished because of this. My grandfather ended up with jaundice andmy grandmother tells of how she had to fatten him up when he got home.

 

[Tomasso]

More to the point, what are you doing in the Powder Room?

Well aren't you sweet......

 

[Trumpetina]

I'd like to know about gender relations in the 1940's... Did girls ever approach men? How did dating work?

 

[wahine]

My grandmother was born in May, 1914. She used to tell me about the 1940s when I was a child. For her, the 1940s meant ONE thing.
World War Two. ...

It's the same with my grandma who was born in 1918. Stories about her youth are very often stories about the (pre-)war, which was the time for her to get off age, to marry and to get her first children. My grandparents' (and their whole generation's) traumatic experience of war is the main reason why I'm not so wild about the fourties, but prefer the fifties - when things got better in Germany and it was the time of the "Wirtschaftswunder" ("economic miracle")
The stories she told which had nothing to do with war, were of her early childhood. Besides one..

I'd like to know about gender relations in the 1940's... Did girls ever approach men? How did dating work?

One story my grandma told me is how she got hooked up with my grandpa. She went to dance class back then in 1934, it was obligatory for every girl or boy to learn how to dance. They were also told about how to behave properly, like table manners and such. In dance school - and nowhere else since she went to a girls' school - she met several boys and liked one especially.
Then the Middle Party was coming up (don't know if there is an English word for "Mittelkraenzchen" - a party held after half of the lessons are done) and he asked her to go with him. But on the very morning of the big day, she got an appendicitis and had to go to the hospital! It almost killed her and she had to stay in the hospital for weeks. The boy went with some other girl to the Middle Party (what an idiot). So she met a new boy at some other dance - which was special because she was allowed to go there with some school friends only, no shaperone! This new boy asked her to dance. Afterwards he told her he had tickets for a theater show and she agreed to go with him. Later, she learned that he had some effort to get tickets at all (he had made it up to ask her out). At the theater, he walked behind her on the stairs and fell and pushed her accidently into a bay tree.
"And what do you think - did he pity me? No, Mister Nice Guy had to take care of his ties and straighten his pants. But wasn't that a 'stroke of luck' for our later life!?"
(a word play that's kinda hard to translate - "War das nicht ein 'Glücksfall'?!")
I know this literally because I wrote down some of her stories to make into a little book for our family

Nothing about beauty tricks or rebellion, but I still like the story!

 

[GoddessMama]

Grandma told me it was unheard of a girl to ask out a man. It was the boys job to do all the asking, girls didn't even call boys on the phone. I actually instigated this policy when I was having bad luck with finding a decent man. With my husband I told him when he asked for my number, "Here is my number. Don't loose it because I won"t give i to you again and I never call men so I don't need yours." Eventually I got his number after we had been dating awhile, but I rarely called him until we got engaged. I let him hold open doors for me, pay for dinner, etc. We've been married almost 11 years and he still opens doors for me.

 

[Puzzicato]

She was a child of the teens and twenties, and was never a flapper or anything rebellious -- or so she'd always told us. But one day when I was about twelve, I was looking thru the family photos and I noticed something that didn't add up. I knew her first child -- my uncle -- was born in June of 1934, but when I found a newspaper clipping among the pictures announcing her wedding to my grandfather it was dated December 1933. Hmmm. December to June -- that's not even seven months.

My niece and nephew (who are both in their 20s now) STILL think their parents have been married for a year longer than they have, because of that sort of inconvenient mathematics!

 

[Shangas]

Hahaha! They either really loved each other, or shotgun weddings were still all the rage.

 

[Jools]

Even back in my teens, a girl would NEVER ask a boy out, except for a "Tolo" dance, where it was the custom for the girls to ask the boys, OR "Ladies' choice" at a dance or roller skating.

My mom also said it was considered trampy to check your makeup/powder your nose/reapply lipstick at the table/in public. Also to chew gum, or smoke, at least smoke in the street. (as opposed to in a restaurant, bar, home.)

 

[Lillemor]

My grandmothers were allready in their 30s in the 1940s but one kept talking about the year she spent in Baltimore in 1931 as if nothing happened in her life before or after. The other one said that if you remember the 1930s then you weren't there. She wasn't mixing up decades!

 

[BoPeep]

The other one said that if you remember the 1930s then you weren't there.

This is intriguing. Did she mean that the times were so horrible that folks who lived through it, chose to forget it?

 

[Kitty_Sheridan]

I always remember my mother telling me that her mother had tea made for the Gypsies when they travelled through, but made them drink out of Jam Jars as she 'didn't trust them with the china'

:-S

 

[Wire9Vintage]

While we don't have Gypsies, I do remember my grandmother saying that HER mother never turned anyone away who knocked on the door asking for a handout and couldn't imagine that anyone would... said you never knew if it was an angel or not, so you had to treat everyone well and with respect. Boy... are those days long gone... My grandma, to the day she died (10 years ago) always let anyone in the house who knocked on the door (and this was way out in the middle of no where...). Jehovah's Witnesses were always treated to a meal (because, she figured, they were working very hard and very few people gave them any respect).

 

[Lillemor]

This is intriguing. Did she mean that the times were so horrible that folks who lived through it, chose to forget it?

Erh...no, she was high. She experimented a bit like they did in the 1960s and usually people say that if you remember the 1960s then you weren't there so the association to the 60s cliche´ made me laugh. This was my now late maternal grandmother who'd moved from rural Jylland to a rough part of Copenhagen.

My now late paternal grandmother in California once said in a disappointed tone: "Grandpa couldn't really dance, he could only jitterbug.

 

[BoPeep]

Hahahaha! Okay, I miss read some age old wisdom into that one!

 

[sheeplady]

You are very lucky to have a grandmother who can still talk (and is willing to) about these times.

This is what I would want to know:
-What did she think about pierced ears? When did she get her ears pierced (if they are?)
-Did she have a curfew? At what age was she allowed to date?
-Did she date in groups or go steady? Was there any markers of "going steady"?
-Who was her first kiss?
-Did she ever work outside the home? What did she do?
-How did she meet your grandfather? Did they go to school together?
-What was her favorite class in school? What did she do outside of school?
-Was there any scandals in her town when she was young?
-What was her favorite outfit? What brand of makeup did she wear? What age did she start wearing makeup?
-When was wearing pants appropriate? Can she remember her first pair of jeans?
-What did her parents think about her teenaged behavior and the trends of the time?
-Who did she like as movie stars?
-Who was important in her life (such as a teacher, neighbor, etc.) that she really remembers?
-When did she learn to drive (if she did) and who taught her?

Ask her to show you old pictures too when talking about these things.

When my grandmother was alive, she NEVER wanted to talk about the 30s and 40s, if you asked her she would walk out of the room. The only things I know is from what she said to my mother when my grandmother got mad at her mother (my great-grandmother): My grandmother was sent away to be a maid at age 12 for several years in the 30s. She left the family she worked for around age 15 and in doing so left school (she never even attended high school, nor did her husband) to get married. I know during the 40s she worked in two factories and my grandfather was stationed in England. My grandmother hated her mother for "sending her away." My grandfather was kicked out of his home at age 12 and lived on the streets, so their histories were similar.