VJ Day

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 08/18/2020 at 11:32 • Filed to: wingspan

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I had meant to post this three days ago, but I lost track of the calendar. That seems to be happening a lot these days.

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My mother was born in 1940, and lived the first few years of her life with her family in Boston. They moved out to Winthrop when she was four to find some better air in hopes of improving her and her older sister’s health. It worked. My grandfather ran the Good Will Neighborhood House in East Boston, a place for immigrants to get help with government documents, find a job, and for babysitting while they were at work. It also served as a social center for the mostly-Italian immigrants who settled in the neighborhood.

Along with his work at the Good Will House, my grandfather served in the Coast Guard during the war, and patrolled the Boston Harbor and offshore to protect the fishermen from German U-boats. My mother said the fishermen would often give my grandfather a large codfish wrapped in paper, a welcome addition of protein to their wartime rations.

When I was cleaning off a bookshelf last month, I found this letter folded carefully in an old book titled The St. Nicholas Anthologies. The book was published in 1948 and had belonged to my grandfather. The letter describes the scene in Boston when the end of the war was announced. It is addressed to his mother, my great-grandmother. I think it is a remarkable time capsule, especially as it is dated August 15, 1945, which became known as Victory over Japan Day, the day on which the Japanese government formerly surrendered (VE Day, Victory in Europe, was May 8, 1945).

The Second World War was over.

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The St. Nicholas Anthology was a collection of short stories that were first published in St. Nicholas Magazine , a monthly children’s magazine that was first published in 1873. The oldest story in the collection dates back to 1891. A second anthology, with a green cover, was published in 1950's. My mother remembers the book fondly, and often read it as a child.

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > ttyymmnn 08/18/2020 at 11:42

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What an amazing thing to have found. 

phenotyp > ttyymmnn 08/18/2020 at 11:48

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Thanks for sharing-- what a great find.

VincentMalamute-Kim > ttyymmnn 08/18/2020 at 11:51

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Very cool. But I’m finding it difficult to fold up my hard drive of emails to fit in my book for future generations to find.

jminer > ttyymmnn 08/18/2020 at 11:51

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Thanks for sharing the story and the letter.

TheRealBicycleBuck > ttyymmnn 08/18/2020 at 11:55

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Things like this are why it took so long to sort through my mom’s possessions when she passed. My wife and I both love books and have lots of potential hiding places. I guess I’ll have to start printing my emails....

ttyymmnn > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 08/18/2020 at 11:55

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Agreed.

ttyymmnn > phenotyp 08/18/2020 at 11:56

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My pleasure.

ttyymmnn > VincentMalamute-Kim 08/18/2020 at 11:56

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I’m not sure if more will be lost or saved  with electronic records.

ttyymmnn > jminer 08/18/2020 at 11:57

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My pleasure.

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > ttyymmnn 08/18/2020 at 11:59

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Amazing find, thanks for sharing it with us! That woul d’ve been quite the scene to witness in person...

ttyymmnn > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars 08/18/2020 at 12:02

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I can’t even imagine the sense of relief and jubilation f or having survived the war, even stateside.

TheRealBicycleBuck > VincentMalamute-Kim 08/18/2020 at 12:04

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Time to fire up the printer. I suggest investing in a laser printer. The cost per page will be significantly lower.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > ttyymmnn 08/18/2020 at 12:04

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Melissa will tell you, lost.

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > ttyymmnn 08/18/2020 at 12:07

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My grandfather left so many thing I wish I had today.  A bison coat, a lever action henry.  Stuff like that.

ttyymmnn > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 08/18/2020 at 12:13

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My grandparents (and mother) ended up in Burlington, VT, where my older brother (Oppo’s own RustyVandura) was born. I was born two years later in Ann Arbor, MI where our dad was attending grad school. I don’t remember very many visits with my grandparents on my mom’s side, and visits  were fewer after my parents divorced. So I wasn’t as close to them as I would have liked, but I do have many of my grandparent’s old books, as they were both rather scholarly. The oldest thing in my house is a book dated 1870 that belonged to my grandfather. 

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > ttyymmnn 08/18/2020 at 12:17

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You guys are legit brothers?  Mind blown

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn 08/18/2020 at 12:31

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What a wonderful writing style... I, for one, worry that the current generation can’t communicate in anything other than 140 characters of LOLs, so it’s nice to see a glimpse of a more thoughtful age.

Thanks for sharing.

ttyymmnn > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 08/18/2020 at 12:36

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Yup. He’s my big brother. 

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > ttyymmnn 08/18/2020 at 12:38

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holy crap!  That’s awesome

ttyymmnn > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 08/18/2020 at 12:41

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I think that he was a Latin scholar, which would explain a lot. I do know that my brother wrote him a letter once and he sent it back with corrections, so there’s that. I try very hard to write well, even when it comes to replies in an Internet forum. I wrote this post and reread it about 15 times. I think that comes from my parents, and I think my mother’s constant correcting of my grammar came from her father. But yes, it’s a dying art. Grammar aside, people just don’t seem to be able to write clearly, or without ambiguity. People also think that writing long sentences makes them sound intelligent. It doesn’t. There is a lot of power in a short sentence.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn 08/18/2020 at 12:45

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“The secret of my success...”
— E. Hemingway

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn 08/18/2020 at 12:48

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I once ran across a piece of correspondence in my great-grandfather’s hand. Zero college, although he did attend high school in the midwest— a notable achievement of the time.

It was stunning to see his thoughts in writing— concise prose, perfect punctuation, in a florid handwriting style. I never thought of him in quite the same way ever again. He was much, much more than a “simple farmer”.

fintail > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 08/18/2020 at 12:53

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The handwriting quality alone is lost forever, and no doubt some of the writing style is direct ly linked to it.

Even some of the shit I see posted by luckyboomers I know is no better than a modern day 14 year old. The devolution has been there for a long time.

ttyymmnn > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 08/18/2020 at 12:55

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They don’t even teach cursive any more. For my own part, my handwriting sucks simply because I don’t use it any more. My 9th graders’ handwriting is atrocious. 

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > fintail 08/18/2020 at 12:57

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Yeah, I know for awhile it was a debate on whether elementary schools should bother teaching “cursive” anymore. I assume that battle was lost, too.

But, man, he had a wonderful handwriting style for a guy born out of the rubble of the Civil War.

fintail > ttyymmnn 08/18/2020 at 12:57

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What an artifact, also nicely modern italic font at the bottom.

There’s a local AM oldies station that plays a show Friday nights focusing on a particular year, always between the mid 30s and 50s, playing the top songs from this date along with old news and ads. They covered 1945 last Friday night, and played V-J announcements along with the music. I listened to it on a radio from 1940, and it had a real time warp feeling. “Sentimental Journey” variants were popular.

Somewhere in my mom’s hoard there’s a telegraph my grandpa sent to my great-grandparents around that time, announcing he is being allowed to go home. I can’t imagine the jubilation had by everyone during the last few months of that year.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn 08/18/2020 at 13:00

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Oh, and “Mayor Kerrigan”...  doesn’t get any more Boston authentic than that, eh?

ttyymmnn > fintail 08/18/2020 at 13:02

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What an artifact, also nicely modern italic font at the bottom.

I’m a little bit of a font nerd, especially when it comes to the text fonts I use when typesetting music. My current favorite is Iowa Old Style. It’s got a lovely rounded look, but not as loopy as Palatino. I think Times and TNR are ugly.

It would be awesome to find that telegram.

fintail > ttyymmnn 08/18/2020 at 13:09

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I can be a bit of a font nerd too, although the names often escape me. A lot of modern popular material isn’t pleasing of course, altho ugh it is nice the Comic fad died off. Looking at it, that italic font on your letter looks similar to Iowan Old Style.

fintail > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 08/18/2020 at 13:12

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Yes, I believe cursive is going the way of the dodo. I still remember learning it, and being proud of my relatively neat penmanship. I seldom use it now, and have to concentrate to be neat - but on those occasions when I have to endorse a check, I do it intentionally nice.

Some of the 19th century penmanship is amazing, I’ve looked at old letters and book inscriptions.  Even into this century, it was something taught well - my 93 year old grandmother doesn’t have the steady hand of a 20 year old, but her script is still uniform and clean. 

ttyymmnn > fintail 08/18/2020 at 13:13

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I like the letterhead font too. 

VajazzleMcDildertits - read carefully, respond politely > ttyymmnn 08/18/2020 at 13:53

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This is really cool. As an aside, while I am very aware of the war and its significant dates, I was slightly hoping that VJ day would involve me somehow.

But this, this is a very cool find. 

DipodomysDeserti > ttyymmnn 08/18/2020 at 15:47

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I remember the same sense of joy that rang out on VI Day.

Still waiting for VA Day.

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > ttyymmnn 08/18/2020 at 16:17

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Same....the celebrations in somewhere like Paris would’ve been phenomenal....

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > DipodomysDeserti 08/18/2020 at 17:34

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I was born to late for VV day, but what a show that must have been.

DipodomysDeserti > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 08/18/2020 at 18:36

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My company’s old IT guy was a refugee from Vietnam who was able to get on a Navy ship Saigon was being  evacuated. He was just a kid at the time and had some pretty wild stories.

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > DipodomysDeserti 08/18/2020 at 18:51

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That’s crazy.  What a wild time that must have been.  One of the few (ok, many) examples of a complete collapse of a country/government.

DipodomysDeserti > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 08/18/2020 at 19:04

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Yeah, my cousin saw a lot of combat in Vietnam. Crazy shit. Lots of drugs and death.