Dec. 25, 2009
BOOK REVIEW: 'Children of the Great Depression' Gives Voice to Two Members of the 'Greatest Generation' Who Survived the Great Depression, World War II
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
Under ordinary circumstances, a boy from Looneyville, Roane County, West Virginia and a girl from the northern London borough of Enfield and later from Hastings, England would never have met.
But the years of the Great Depression and World War II were not ordinary times, as Jake and Daphne Miller show in their jointly authored "Children of the Great Depression: 1930s, 1940s and WWII" (Xlibris, 135 pages, $19.95), told in alternating chapters by Jake and his wife of more than 60 years, Daphne Cowell Miller.
Now residents of White Sulphur Springs, WV, the Millers give us first-hand accounts of life in the 20th Century, from the hollers of West Virginia -- complete with stereotypical moonshiners and mostly self-sufficient country life -- to the bombardment by German aircraft in southeast England, where Daphne moved with her family after the death of her father in the mid-1930s.
Here's Daphne Cowell, born in the London borough of Enfield, home of the armaments factory that produced the legendary Lee-Enfield rifle and the Sten and Bren guns (the "en" signifies "Enfield") in 1928, speaking of the horrors of warfare, which were experienced by almost everybody in England:
When we were staying in the Hampton Roe area of London my cousin Joan and I were in the kitchen doing some chores. We suddenly heard one of those buzz bombs coming in our direction. We heard the engine suddenly cut out. This meant it was starting its drop earthward. We heard the the V1 bomb coming down as we stood there in the kitchen, both facing each other. We were scared so bad both of us looked as if our eyes were going to pop out of our heads. In our panic we forgot the stair case shelter, dived to the floor of the kitchen and pulled a small throw-rug over our heads! After the V1 bomb came down we had a good laugh at our stupidity.
Jake Miller, born in 1926 in Roane County, WV (biggest town: Spencer) reminds me of the randy sailors in the musical "South Pacific" as he describes an incident during his wartime service, an attempt by the Naval forces commander to instill some modesty in bare-breasted island women:
The Island Commander who we dubbed a spoil sport, thought us Allied Military people did not need such a viewing. The Island Commander called the local Papuab Chief and his wife to a council meeting. Much to our regret he got the Chief and his wife to understand his directions. He would issue two white Navy T-shirts (U.S. Navy underwear tops) to them for each female. He ordered the Chief to see that they wore one of those T-shirts at all times. So far so good...in no time from our viewing point we could see white clad females along the forest and on the beaches. In a couple of days we had to make a run for another load of supplies and the personnel of a U. S. Navy Construction Battalion. As we were entering the port on our return the forward main deck of our ship suddenly became occupied by more than the normal number of people who should be there. Those men on the forwarded deck were the first ones to view a great scene. The natives had cut holes in the chest of the T-shirt and those boobs were hanging down on the outside of the T-shirts.
The book didn't have a description of how Jake met Daphne, so I e-mailed Jake and he sent me this narrative, which I would have included in the book had I been the editor (I'm thinking of marketing my editing skills to authors of self-published books...they really need them!):
How I met my wife is a long often told tale amongst my friends. After serving in the South Pacific I was rewarded with one of those choice assignments to a tour of duty in London. I was a typical happy go lucky, beer drinking, woman chasing young sailor. On evening I was coming back from playing for the Navy basketball team against Oxford University. When the bus came back into the Naval Headquarters I headed for Park West Apartments where there was a party going on. When I went into the apartment the first thing I saw was one beautiful lady setting off from the crowd ... what luck there was a seat beside her.
I spoke to her and she just sort of grunted back. I found out she was feeling real bad. I felt sorry for her and got her out of there and went to a pharmacy and got some medicine. Then from there I was suckered in. After she got to feeling better I took her to a restaurant and bought her a meal. We started enjoying each other's company - we had a lot of common life experiences.
I noticed it was getting toward mid night when the buses stopped running in those days. I warned her it was time for her to make one of two choices ... I could put her on the bus that would get her home, or she would have to bed down with a sailor in his apartment. She took the bus ride!
She contacted me a few days later to thank me for taking care of her. That led to her "sweeping me off my". I changed my style of living. We had so much in common ... it has held us together over 60 years.
I am one of those nuts who was a career sailor, now a retired Chief Petty Officer. I am a veteran of WWII. Korean War, Vietnam War, and of all things that stupid Cuban Missile Crisis and The Bay of Pigs. But my wife still has more combat experience than I she sweated out just over six years of the bombings living in London.
Jake Miller shoots down myths about hunger when he was growing up in West Virginia in the Depression years by telling the readers that country boys and their families were very resourceful, growing their own vegetables and adept with firearms to put meat on the table.
I already knew this from my conversations with HNN contributor and good friend Perry Mann, also a WW II veteran, who was born a few years before Jake Miller and spent much of his childhood on his grandparents' farm in Summers County, WV.
"Children of the Great Depression" is a wonderful account of oral history that I thoroughly enjoyed. I couldn't find it on Amazon.com, but you can order the book from www.xlibris.com by clicking on "bookstore," scrolling to "book search" and typing in "Authors Jake and Daphne Miller."
Author (Jake Miller) contact: ztc207atf@suddenlink.net
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BOOK REVIEW: 'Children of the Great Depression' Gives Voice to Two Members of the 'Greatest Generation' Who Survived the Great Depression, World War II
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
Under ordinary circumstances, a boy from Looneyville, Roane County, West Virginia and a girl from the northern London borough of Enfield and later from Hastings, England would never have met.
But the years of the Great Depression and World War II were not ordinary times, as Jake and Daphne Miller show in their jointly authored "Children of the Great Depression: 1930s, 1940s and WWII" (Xlibris, 135 pages, $19.95), told in alternating chapters by Jake and his wife of more than 60 years, Daphne Cowell Miller.
Now residents of White Sulphur Springs, WV, the Millers give us first-hand accounts of life in the 20th Century, from the hollers of West Virginia -- complete with stereotypical moonshiners and mostly self-sufficient country life -- to the bombardment by German aircraft in southeast England, where Daphne moved with her family after the death of her father in the mid-1930s.
Here's Daphne Cowell, born in the London borough of Enfield, home of the armaments factory that produced the legendary Lee-Enfield rifle and the Sten and Bren guns (the "en" signifies "Enfield") in 1928, speaking of the horrors of warfare, which were experienced by almost everybody in England:
When we were staying in the Hampton Roe area of London my cousin Joan and I were in the kitchen doing some chores. We suddenly heard one of those buzz bombs coming in our direction. We heard the engine suddenly cut out. This meant it was starting its drop earthward. We heard the the V1 bomb coming down as we stood there in the kitchen, both facing each other. We were scared so bad both of us looked as if our eyes were going to pop out of our heads. In our panic we forgot the stair case shelter, dived to the floor of the kitchen and pulled a small throw-rug over our heads! After the V1 bomb came down we had a good laugh at our stupidity.
Jake Miller, born in 1926 in Roane County, WV (biggest town: Spencer) reminds me of the randy sailors in the musical "South Pacific" as he describes an incident during his wartime service, an attempt by the Naval forces commander to instill some modesty in bare-breasted island women:
The Island Commander who we dubbed a spoil sport, thought us Allied Military people did not need such a viewing. The Island Commander called the local Papuab Chief and his wife to a council meeting. Much to our regret he got the Chief and his wife to understand his directions. He would issue two white Navy T-shirts (U.S. Navy underwear tops) to them for each female. He ordered the Chief to see that they wore one of those T-shirts at all times. So far so good...in no time from our viewing point we could see white clad females along the forest and on the beaches. In a couple of days we had to make a run for another load of supplies and the personnel of a U. S. Navy Construction Battalion. As we were entering the port on our return the forward main deck of our ship suddenly became occupied by more than the normal number of people who should be there. Those men on the forwarded deck were the first ones to view a great scene. The natives had cut holes in the chest of the T-shirt and those boobs were hanging down on the outside of the T-shirts.
The book didn't have a description of how Jake met Daphne, so I e-mailed Jake and he sent me this narrative, which I would have included in the book had I been the editor (I'm thinking of marketing my editing skills to authors of self-published books...they really need them!):
How I met my wife is a long often told tale amongst my friends. After serving in the South Pacific I was rewarded with one of those choice assignments to a tour of duty in London. I was a typical happy go lucky, beer drinking, woman chasing young sailor. On evening I was coming back from playing for the Navy basketball team against Oxford University. When the bus came back into the Naval Headquarters I headed for Park West Apartments where there was a party going on. When I went into the apartment the first thing I saw was one beautiful lady setting off from the crowd ... what luck there was a seat beside her.
I spoke to her and she just sort of grunted back. I found out she was feeling real bad. I felt sorry for her and got her out of there and went to a pharmacy and got some medicine. Then from there I was suckered in. After she got to feeling better I took her to a restaurant and bought her a meal. We started enjoying each other's company - we had a lot of common life experiences.
I noticed it was getting toward mid night when the buses stopped running in those days. I warned her it was time for her to make one of two choices ... I could put her on the bus that would get her home, or she would have to bed down with a sailor in his apartment. She took the bus ride!
She contacted me a few days later to thank me for taking care of her. That led to her "sweeping me off my". I changed my style of living. We had so much in common ... it has held us together over 60 years.
I am one of those nuts who was a career sailor, now a retired Chief Petty Officer. I am a veteran of WWII. Korean War, Vietnam War, and of all things that stupid Cuban Missile Crisis and The Bay of Pigs. But my wife still has more combat experience than I she sweated out just over six years of the bombings living in London.
Jake Miller shoots down myths about hunger when he was growing up in West Virginia in the Depression years by telling the readers that country boys and their families were very resourceful, growing their own vegetables and adept with firearms to put meat on the table.
I already knew this from my conversations with HNN contributor and good friend Perry Mann, also a WW II veteran, who was born a few years before Jake Miller and spent much of his childhood on his grandparents' farm in Summers County, WV.
"Children of the Great Depression" is a wonderful account of oral history that I thoroughly enjoyed. I couldn't find it on Amazon.com, but you can order the book from www.xlibris.com by clicking on "bookstore," scrolling to "book search" and typing in "Authors Jake and Daphne Miller."
Author (Jake Miller) contact: ztc207atf@suddenlink.net
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