A little about me - part I

My birth name is Sharon Lee Fausnaugh born February 1, 1938. I was born at home, a farm house, in Pickaway County, Ohio. My Dad farmed with my Grandpa Fausnaugh on one of three farms which Grandpa owned.

When I was about 3 years old we left the farm life and moved to Columbus. We lived in a two-story double on the corner of Fourth Street and Hinman Avenue. My Dad worked for a meat packing company for a few years and then got a job as a mechanic with the transit company in Columbus. Back then the public transportation was streetcars which had tall poles hooked to electric lines and ran on tracks down the middle of the streets. There was a peddle that the engineer pushed down to give power to the streetcar. The streetcars couldn't turn around so there was a steering mechanism at each end of the car - the conductor simply went to the other end to go back in the direction he came from. Of course the streetcars gave way to buses which were also electrically powered; eventually gas buses replaced the electric powered ones.

My sister, Linda Sue, was born November 27, 1943 and my Dad was drafted into the Navy that same year. He left 6 months later, May 1944, for California where he was stationed for the rest of his tour. He was able to come home a couple of times during the war and we used to ride the streetcar to the Union Train Station on the north side of Columbus. It was a huge building and very exciting to see all the trains coming and going. It was wonderful to see my Dad come up from the tracks in his Navy Blue uniform carrying his duffel bag. He used to sing "Bell Bottom Trousers" to me; other songs from that time were "Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile", another one was "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. . . . "

Due to gasoline being rationed and the expense of keeping a car my parents had to sell it. There wasn't a streetcar access to the grocery store, so my mother would put my sister into the buggy (we didn't have such things as strollers back then) and I would walk with her to the A&P Grocery Store, which was one of the grocery store chains then, about a mile from our house. Mother would put some of the groceries into the buggy with Linda and carry what she could in one arm; the buggy was too big for me to push. We did this year round so many times in the winter it was very cold and even icy sometimes when we made the trek; one time the store manager was kind enough to drive us home. My grandparents or my aunts and uncles couldn't help us out very much.

Many food items like flour, sugar and meat were rationed so a family had to apply at a designated place to receive a book of stamps to use toward purchasing rationed food. If an item required 1 1/2 stamps you were given a little red token as change. We were allotted a number of stamps according to the size and ages of the family members. When you ran out of stamps you had to reapply for more.

To help with the cost of living we had a couple of different ladies live with us at different times. One lady, Mrs. Wilson, who happened to be a cousin to Judy Garland. and she had a baby daughter and was a very nice Christian lady; she and her husband didn't believe in fighting but he fulfilled his duty to his country as a seebee, a construction unit for the military. Since they were "conscientious objectors" she didn't think I should sing the Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition song. :o) Another lady was Bertha McKay. She and her husband were friends of my parents before the war. She had a son, Mac the same age as my sister. Mother received $125.00 per month from the military which was her only income so this had to cover rent , which was $27.50 a month, food, electric and coal for heat in the winter, clothes and transportation on the streetcars. No telephones then!! Postage Stamps were 3 cents and then we had airmail stamps which were 6 cents. We would mail letters to Daddy on special paper and envelopes which were very very thin and send it airmail.

I don't remember this but my mother tells me that one year at Thanksgiving, my maternal grandparents, Grandma and Grandpa Kirby, wrote to mother and said if she could get to Circleville, Ohio on the bus they would meet us there and take us home with them. We had to walk 4 or 5 blocks to get the streetcar and ride to downtown Columbus then we had to get off and walk about 6 or more blocks to the Greyhound Bus Station. Mother had to carry Linda and a suitcase and I walked beside her. (You couldn't fold up the buggy to take on the bus.)

Then there were the air raids. Every so often we would have an air raid drill at night. A VERY LOUD siren would be blown and all the lights were turned off. The black out wouldn't last too long, but it was a little frightening. Also every family who had a family member in the service would hang a little blue flag in a living room window. The flag would have a star for each family member on it, so we had one star on our flag.

During this time I started to school, the first grade - didn't have kindergarten or preschools then. The School year started after Labor Day and was dismissed for the summer before Memorial Day. They had a different system then; you had to be 6 by September 1st or you couldn't start in the fall, however if your birthday was after that you could start in January. Since my birthday was in February I had to start school in January of 1944. I had to walk 3 blocks down my street to Southwood Elementary School. Mother walked with me the first few days but then I walked it by myself along with other children, a little boy named Johnny walked me to school. Since I started school in January I had to go through the second half of the first grade from September to January; starting the first part of the second grade in January, 1945.

My Dad was discharged from the Navy in January 1946. He was able to go back to work for the transit company and retired 25 years later. Since we didn't have a car he bought a bicycle to ride back and forth to work which was several miles away.

There was a bill called the GI Bill established so men and women who had served during WWII could get assistance to either buy a house or go to college. Daddy and Mother bought a house in Obetz, Ohio in 1947.