More about my Gram

I accidentally hit publish, before I was finished with my first post.

My Grandma grew up in a big family, during the Depression. She was thrifty and frugal her entire life, most likely because of her childhood. I had a huge book collection when I was a kid, because she would take me to every rummage sale we could find when she visited.

She graduated from high school in 1940, and in 1943, when she was 21, she enlisted. She was a woman with a welding job during the war - but then she went to war as a WAC - a member of the Women's Army Corp.

Her parents were unhappy with her choice to join the Army, but she went ahead with it. Her father thought that women in the military were only there for "men's pleasure" and she shouldn't go. But, she was lonely - engaged to my grandpa who was off overseas, and determined to help her country during the war. Earning fifty dollars a month, she traveled around the world, in the middle of a war - working in far away places like New Guinea and Manila.

I can not imagine what it was like for her to be so young, so far from home in the middle of a war - no Internet for news, no cell phones for contact back home.

In August, 1945 my Grandparents married. My grandma was discharged in October (after nearly two years of service) when a blood test showed that she was expecting her first child - and a whole new chapter of her life began.

My Grandma never told me stories about what it was like during the war, when I was a little girl. I never had a grasp of what a big deal that must have been for her - how life-altering and adventurous. A few years ago she told her story to my uncle, who put binders together for us, with Grandma's story all typed up. It's fascinating to read, and realize that this is the same woman who bought me my Trixie Belden collection, one battered paperback at a time.


We named Ruby after Brian's grandma, but the twins middle names are for my Gram - Ruby Lyn and Lydia Eve, in honor of Evelyn (Riopell) Gorman.