In April of 1942, I would turn eight years old, and our mother was expecting a fourth child in March. She frequently talked about the baby brother we might soon be having, hinting that it wasn’t certain and it might be a little sister instead. But she seemed to believe the baby would be a boy. I had a vague memory of my sister Betty’s birth at home when I was only a few months past age two. We had both grandmothers and a baby nurse present at that time, but this time there were no signs of a home birth and only our maternal grandmother came to help out as the expected birth date came closer.

I wasn’t at all sure I really wanted a little brother. I had one boy cousin who happened to be very near my age and there were times when I didn’t like him very much. An only child growing up on our grandparents’ farm with his mother, teenage aunt and three bachelor uncles, he was spoiled, used swear words, and believed girls were inferior to and less intelligent than boys. I had several playmates in our neighborhood who were boys, but I didn’t always understand their behavior. The only boy I really liked was Charles, my best friend since kindergarten. And he had two older sisters, which I thought accounted for his more acceptable behavior. At any rate, I was greatly relieved when I came home from school on Monday, the 9th of March to be greeted by my grandma, rather than Mother, serving our after school cookies and milk, and informed that Mother was in the hospital and I had a new baby sister!

I have, since that time, learned that most children, at around age eight, are fascinated by babies and enjoy close relationships with siblings born around that time. It was certainly true for me and our “Baby Ruth” who later became “Ruthie” as she outgrew the designation “Baby.” I willingly became her baby-sitter, teacher, protector, best friend and admirer and, I admit, encouraged her rather unusual and delightful imagination.

Ruthie wasn’t the only dramatic change in my life at that age. For most of my life, I had worn my hair in pigtails in summer and in long, “stove-pipe” curls during the school year. That hair style required a lot of attention beginning with a weekly shampoo followed by a beer rinse and many strands of hair wrapped around strips of cloth that were then wound around the tight curls and tied to dry overnight. This made for a restless night on the lumpy “curlers” and a tedious session of unwrapping and brushing each curl around Mother’s finger in the morning. None of my sisters were ever required to undergo that same torture, but for some reason, Dad particularly liked me with my long, shiny curls and actually shed a few tears when Mother finally consented to my pleas and cut off the long curls as being “too little-girlish” for my age.

For the record, hairspray wasn’t invented until 1948 (too late for me) and didn’t come into common use until the late 1950’s. Before that time, women often kept their hair in place by simply wiping their styled hair with a little soapy water on their hands. My mother and both her sisters had attended cosmetology schools and learned to use stale beer rinses to help hair hold its curl and stay in place, as it stiffened the hair without dulling the shine. When home permanents became available, my sisters benefited from Mother’s training, but one trial proved my hair to be too fine for the harsh chemicals, resulting in unacceptable breakage and kinky snarls.

The biggest change of all that year was when my dad enlisted in the Army Air Corps. In 1942, the draft age was raised to 18-37. Even though Dad was then 39, as a first generation American, he was very patriotic and when the military called for qualified mechanics, he didn’t hesitate to enlist. After basic training he was sent to Ft. Bliss in Texas where it was discovered that he was colorblind and, as all the manuals and parts were color- coded, he was reassigned to an office job. After a few more months, including Christmas, he was granted an honorable discharge. Dad brought one military habit home with him – for several months, all the shoes in the house were regularly polished to a high gloss.