Community Minded “WE” Generation (1930 – 1946) Saved the United States & Its Mature Leadership Saved Our Democracy.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

BB’s sister sent this. Her sister is a member of this group, as am I, while she is not.My children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren have little sense of the “WE” Generation’s significance much less American and world history failing to recognize that genealogy and mortality are inextricably related.

I told my daughter that my da (and her grandfather) was working-class poor and an Irish Roman Catholic brakeman on the railroad. She scoffed at that saying, "I am the daughter of an executive, author, and consultant with a Ph.D."

Alas, she never knew my da as he died at the age of 49 from leukemia before she was born, unaware that my da’s mother died in delivery with his father taking off never to be seen again. My da completed the seventh grade at St. Patrick’s grammar school while my mother graduated from high school at St. Mary’s. It was The Great Depression.

It was not my daughter's fault that she has grown up in a culture that scorns history, doesn’t believe in God, and blames all the foibles of society on the abstract idea of religion and not on a suspension of conscience. Her two brothers and sister have grown up in that same self-indulgent culture as has Western society in general.

It was my good fortune by the accident of my birth to be born in this generation where my father had a conscience and was the most honest man I have ever known.

When I was five years old and he had no job, he took me aside and said, “Jimmy, we have little money. We bought your sister a doll for Christmas but we had no money for a gift for you.”

At the time, I had no sense this would stay with me all my life. Materialism as an expression of caring has never seemed relevant. Conscience and honesty have. Later in high school when everything was going my way academically and athletically, and I was quite full of myself, I boasted to my parents that I was significantly exceptional.

My da looked up from his Clinton Herald, and said, “Jimmy, the day you deny being the son of an Irish Roman Catholic brakeman on the railroad you won’t know who the hell you are and everyone will own you.” This I have found true.

When I mention such things to my daughter, you would think I was speaking a foreign tongue.

Truth be known, it wasn’t hard to excel in my generation as there were so few of us, nothing like the competition young people since the collective fixation on progress following World War Two. Nor were there the temptations, distractions, and stressors that now fill the very air we breathe. It was a simpler time. I must remind myself that I have no idea what my daughter and her generation and succeeding generations have had to endure as happiness has come to be measured in terms of wealth, status, and the accumulation of things.

As difficult as THE GREAT DEPRESSION was here in the United States, my heart goes out to Europeans of my generation who not only endured The Great Depression but experienced the daily hell of a WORLD WAR on their turf.

I have worked with many Europeans and cherish their friendship. Their triumph over tragedy and devastation is overwhelmingly monumental and I salute them one and all.

Community Minded “WE” Generation (1930 – 1946) Saved the United States & Its Mature Leadership Saved Our Democracy.

This is a great read ... especially if you fall within the stated age group. Those of us who yearn for a simpler time of life will surely enjoy this piece. If you are too young to fully appreciate the content, please feel free to pass it along to anyone you know "who fits the bill". And, if you are a member of this elite group ... by all means, stand up and take a bow!

You are part of the 1% “WE” Group! The complacent sleeping tiger that was America was aroused from a deep slumber with the attack on the US Seventh Fleet at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaii Islands on December 7, 1941, by the Empire of Japan.

This “WE” generation of Great Depression men and women put on military uniforms or manned the critical positions in Defense Plants across the country to create the most powerful war machine ever known to man, not in a matter of years, but a matter of months.

In 2021, the age range of this group is between 75 & 91.

Are you, or do you know, someone who's still living who is a member of this group?

Interesting Facts for you ...

You are a member of the smallest group of children born since the early 1900s.

You are the last generation, climbing out of the depression, who can remember the winds of war and the impact of a world at war that rattled the structure of our daily lives for years.

You are the last to remember ration books for everything from gas to sugar to shoes to stoves. You saved tin foil and poured fried meat fat into tin cans. You saw cars up on blocks because tires weren't available.

You can remember milk being delivered to your house early in the morning and placed in the "milk box" on the porch.

You are the last to see the gold stars in the front windows of grieving neighbors whose sons died in the War.

You saw the 'boys' home from the war, build their little houses.

You are the last generation who spent childhood without television; instead, you "imagined" what you heard on the radio.

With no TV until the 1950s, you spent your childhood "playing outside". There was no Little League. There was no city playground for kids. The lack of television in your early years meant that you had little real understanding of what the world was like. On Saturday mornings and afternoons, the movies gave you newsreels sandwiched in between westerns and cartoons.

Telephones were one to a house, often shared (party lines), and hung on the wall in the kitchen (no one could care about privacy).

Computers were called calculators; they were hand-cranked.

Typewriters were driven by pounding fingers, throwing the carriage, and changing the ribbon.

INTERNET' and 'GOOGLE' were words that did not exist.

Newspapers and magazines were written for adults and the news was broadcast on your radio in the evening. As you grew up, the country was exploding with growth.

The Government gave returning Veterans the means to get an education (called “The G.I” Bill) and spurred colleges and state-supported universities to grow with G.I. veterans from the war anxious for an education. The G.I. Bill loans also fanned a housing boom.

Pent-up demand coupled with new installment payment plans opened many factories for work. New highways would bring jobs and mobility.

The veterans joined civic clubs and became active in politics.

The radio network expanded from 3 stations to thousands.

Your parents were suddenly free from the confines of the depression and the war, and they threw themselves into exploring opportunities they had never imagined. You weren't neglected, but you weren't today's all-consuming family focus. Parents were glad you played by yourselves without their involvement until the street lights came on.

Parents were busy discovering the post-war world that formerly only belonged to rich people.

You entered a world of overflowing plenty and opportunity; a world where you were welcomed, enjoyed yourselves and felt secure in your future although in your bones the poverty of the Great Depression was deeply remembered.

Polio was still a crippler.

You came of age in the 50s and 60s. You are the last generation to experience an interlude when there were no threats to our homeland.

The Second World War was over and the cold war, terrorism, global warming, and perpetual economic insecurity had yet to haunt life with unease.

Only your generation can remember both a time of Great War and a time when our world was secure and full of bright promise and plenty.

You grew up at the best possible time, a time when the world was getting better... You are "The Last Ones."

More than 99 % of this group are either retired or deceased, and you feel privileged to have "lived in the best of times!"