World War II Woman

Fat, scrap metal, and foil

Yes, we were collectors. Everyone living during the World War II period remembers collecting scrap metal, foil, bacon fat and an assortment of other things.

Residents of my community who were high students during the war remember the huge pile of scrap metal that grew daily in front of the high school. Students brought everything from bicycles, tire rims, tin cans, and old tools to automobile parts and bed frames. Students were known to search the nearby creek for discarded metal of any kind. And in our homes, we took the lids off each end of a can, squashed the can and then put it outside for collection. Of course, sometimes we could squash the cans just right and walk around with our new “shoes.”

We all remember the balls made out of foil from our fathers’ cigarette packages and our own chewing gum wrappers. We would separate the foil from the white paper in both cases and add the foil to a small ball, hoping to have enough to eventually make a decent-sized ball for the war effort. I never made a ball any larger than a baseball.

Not long ago I attempted to separate the foil from the paper on a chewing gum wrapper, but today, it is fused together and cannot be separated. No more foil balls.

And finally, we all remember our mothers collecting bacon fat and pouring it into a can to be placed in the refrigerator where it hardened. When the can was full, we took it to the butcher. I assume he turned it over to the appropriate authorities for use in making ammunition. Some people say it was also used to make soap.

Irene, one of the women in We Knew We Were at War: Women Remember World War II, remembers the sign in her butcher’s window, “DON’T BRING YOUR FAT CANS IN HERE ON SATURDAYS.”

Join us on Monday to learn how girdles played a part in the war effort.

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