Almost every baby boomer has parents who were part of the war efforts during WWII. Here is my family’s story.
My mother, Charlotte Lewis Patten, and Aunt Jeanne Lewis Egger were two Iowa Girls who traveled to San Diego, California and worked at Rohr Aircraft to build bombers in 1943-1945. They became Rosie the Riveters. My mother, a country schoolteacher, worked with a local electrician to wire up the schoolhouse and her parents’ farm when electricity came to rural Tama county in 1942. She was fearless, loved flying, and inspired the character of Grandma Grace.
Mother’s younger sister, Aunt Jeanne, became my second mama when Charlotte died suddenly in 1996. At 98, Aunt Jeanne is eager to see my book published and told me all about her California adventures. She joked they flipped a coin to decide whether to go to California. Her young husband Wendell, a skilled mechanic, became the inspiration for cousin Ed. Aunt Jeanne inspired Aunt Violet’s character. When she read the first draft, Aunt Jeanne said she liked how Aunt Violet’s character developed.
Her older sister, Aunt Reva Lewis Brenneman, married a soldier (Uncle Lester, who deployed to Europe with the signal corps), while she worked on an Army base in Atlanta. When both brothers-in-law wrote to Charlotte that her sisters were pregnant, she took the train east and stayed with Reva for a few months. She worked in a bakery where she got the nickname of ‘teacher,’ with the owner telling others to watch Charlotte fill a donut. She got to travel to New York and Washington before Lester’s sister could come out and take her place. Then she took the train home to Iowa, repacked, and headed for California.
Mom was a writer who kept journals and diaries. She wrote up her experiences in retirement and left behind a large notebook with a chapter about each year from the late 1930s through the late 1940s. She corresponded with a childhood friend from their small town of Garwin. I used her notebook as a primary source.
My father, Harry J. Patten, was close friends with a young Japanese American student in high school–also named Harry. They ate lunch together every day until the authorities sent Harry to an internment camp with his family. My father grieved for his friend until his dying day and wished he could have found him after the war. A skilled carpenter, my father built houses with his father before the war. Then Dad worked in an aircraft factory, building planes to train pilots, and later built houses for returning soldiers after the war’s end.
Harry sang in a gospel quartet over the radio in Hollywood, California. My mother’s college roommate from Iowa State Teachers College married a member of the quartet and invited Charlotte to stay with them for a few days, so she stopped there first. Because their car was in the shop, they got a ride to practice with another member of the quartet, and sparks flew between the petite country schoolteacher and the tall, handsome carpenter musician.
Harry and Charlotte married and eventually moved back to Iowa with their beautiful baby girl, my big sister Cathi. I came along a few years later and listened to their stories, imagining the glamor of living in Hollywood, California, especially after dad told me that one of the other men in the gospel quartet was Frank Sinatra’s gardener. I’m still impressed!
