yes, Lauraine, there was a lot of rationing. I'm too young to remember, but being a late child, I spent more time with the old folks than kids my age, and heard many stories, as well as helping a man transcribe his memories. people gathered rubber, iron, and other needed goods and handed them over to the government. they carried food and gas (petrol) ration cards and could only buy food and gas on certain days. victory gardens and trade was common to add to the family larder, the larger farmer's food all went to the service men. many things were rationed, a lot were luxuries but some were staples. butter was replaced by olio, then by margerine. nylons were difficult to come by. there's much more than this, but it's all I can bring to mind at the moment. there's sure to be better details somewhere online, try Googling for it. BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px; } Cornelia On Sat 1:00 AM , can-usa-migration-request@rootsweb.com sent: Message: 3 Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 18:48:56 -0500 From: Subject: Re: [CAN-USA-MIG] old letters To: Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Paulette: Obviously you were very lucky to have such a loving and caring father. My Dad was the same and died in 2007. Still miss him very much, but he left such great memories. Am sure there was a site that was gathering letters from the "men at war" but not sure if it was U.S. or Canadian. I do have a photo of my Dad's youngest brother in uniform - he is before a military truck and he wrote some comments on the back. He was in the Europe theatre and married a girl from Aberdeen. She came to Canada as a war bride and they had a small child born in Scotland. He tells me how shocked his Mom was when they got off the boat in Halifax - the greeters played "Here Comes the Bride" as they landed and many of them had married in Europe and had children. Back then being a bride with a small child was not quite proper and she considered herself an "old married woman". Recall my family sending parcels overseas. They were boxed and then sewn in flour sacking. Mom told me if the ship carrying them sunk, the packages would float and the sacking made it easier to nab with a grappling hook. No idea if that is true? Cigarettes (in flat tins, chocolate, fruit cake, cookies and socks were the main items sent. Food and luxury goods were highly rationed in the U.K. and my Aunt told me how the whole family gave up their weekly egg (yes l egg) so my cousin could have one 4 or 5 times a week. Did the U.S. have rationing during WW2 like we did in Canada? Lauraine Links: ------ [1] mailto:syrnick@mts.net [2] mailto:can-usa-migration@rootsweb.com [3] mailto:20090703234856.BBEV1736.mx-01queue01.mts.net@wnpgmb013qw-sp03.mts.net

I was very small, but remember hearing about the lack of sugar and gas and definitely remember OLEO!! My sisters and I took turns breaking the red capsule and mixing the color in to make the white oleo yellow in the bag. Also remember buying US War Bond Stamps at the post office and filling up a card with them. Some if these things were after we won the war. Paulette E.