World War II Woman

Karen’s Memories

Karen was born in 1943. Even a baby was issued a ration book and Karen can prove it. She has hers framed.

Her family had a grocery store in Kingston, New York. In going through some of her parents’ possessions after their death, she found numerous shoe boxes full of receipts from customer orders that had never been paid. Many of these unpaid receipts were from the war years. The people simply could not afford to pay their bills and the store offered credit. She recalls that her father was one of the few grocers in the area that delivered groceries, and many of the deliveries were to shut-ins.

During the war, employees were hard to come by. Most young men were in the service and many women had taken the men’s jobs in industry. So it was at her father’s store, causing her mother to go to work in the store. She continued at the store for fifty years. At that point in her life, Karen went to live with her grandmother.

The family was of German descent, and following the war, Karen remembers sending clothes to distant relatives in Germany. She also remembers being afraid when an airplane would go overhead.

Karen’s three uncles went off to war – two in the Pacific and one in Europe. All came home safely but it was rumored that one had been gassed. About the same time, her grandfather went to work for the railroad to help make ends meet, and her grandmother managed the small truck farm they had, although it was hard to find young farmhands to help.

Karen remembers hearing her grandmother saying how fortunate she was that her “boys” came home.

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