Another way to earn money was to babysit. I hated babysitting, especially for the Hilleslands who lived across the street. Their house was a mess, the children were dirty, (as were their diapers), and I didn’t know how to make order out of chaos. Nor did I want to. My mother kept our house very clean and orderly, and I wasn’t required to help much, so I didn’t have much experience. However, my dad frowned on turning down an opportunity to earn money, and I thrived on approval and wilted under disapproval, so I usually felt compelled to take the job when asked. The Hilleslands often stayed out way past midnight, and we had no way to reach them if we had trouble because we didn’t have telephones. And for all this my pay averaged a nickel an hour. Besides the money I earned from the Hilleslands, we also managed to get a few coins from gathering recycled materials. Our country was at war and that meant certain commodities were rationed. It also meant that there was a new emphasis on recycling. Even the aluminum foil around individual sticks of gum and the foil lining of cigarette packages were items that could be collected and recycled. We rarely bought gum and no one that we knew smoked cigarettes, but
It all helped towards the war effort and getting the cash register bank to register the magic number of $10.
we would look for discarded gum wrappers and cigarette packages on the street and formed the foil into a ball of aluminum. When it reached the required size, we could turn it in for a few pennies. It all helped towards the war effort and getting the cash register bank to register the magic number of $10. I had one more unusual way to earn some money, and it was all because I was friends with Patsy Mattix, the best friend ever. Patsy was a brown-eyed girl with freckles and rosy cheeks, a year younger than I, whose father was manager of the grain elevator. The Mattix family was especially
nice to me. I was in their kitchen with Patsy on December 7, 1941, when the news came over the radio that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. Mrs. Mattix, who was a little older than my mother, a full-bosomed, well-corseted lady with quick movements, a stream of chatter, and a kind heart, was very upset. I couldn’t figure out how that could impact us because the Hawaiian 44
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