Nadine Harnden – before
Some stories about my mother before motherhood
One of my mom’s first memories is seeing a barnstorming airplane landing in the field just across the road from their home in Hugoton, Kansas. She thinks she was about 3 or 4.
When she was about 4, the family moved back to Liberal, and she remembers her dad coming home and saying to her mother that he’d run into Mr. Jarret in town, and he wanted to meet the next day. Mom says there was such a hopeful tone to his voice! Sure enough, Jarret was interested in leasing the farm to Francis Harnden. Truth be told, Mom did not love the farm where there were chickens that pecked your toes instead of their feed, and life was kind of boring until she old enough for school. She just loved school, but she was awfully shy.
Of course, Mom remembers Pearl Harbor. She was in her last year of high school in December of 1941. As she was about to graduate, the head of the newly-constituted Ration Board, asked the High School business teacher to recommend a graduate who could run their office for them. (The members of the Board were mostly businessmen who volunteered.) She recommended Nadine Harnden, who at 18 was running an office that included three or four older women.
For those of you who didn’t know, during World War II, many things were rationed either for lack of supply or because they were needed for the war effort. Among other things, butter, sugar, gasoline, oil, and rubber were all rationed. You got a ration book, like that below, with stamps that you turned into the merchant when you bought your quota for the month.
And because my mom was working at the Ration Board, my dad met her. He was working at Liberal Air Force Base, and in his spare time (not much), he and a buddy were buying cars that were parked by their G.I. owners when they went to war. Since there was no telling when those cars would be of use to said owners, Dad would knock on the door and ask the woman who answered if the car might be for sale. If it was, they paid $50 for it and gave it a scrub-up and an oil change, etc. and re-sold it to an officer at the base who had finished his training and had embarkation leave. He could drive it home, visit the folks, and leave it there when he shipped out. There was a price limit on what they could charge for the car, and the Ration Board had a copy of the Ceiling price booklet, so Dad would go in to consult it. Many years after the War, he told me that he had a copy of that booklet in his quarters! Meanwhile, Mom had mentioned Dad’s name to her friend who worked in Personnel on base. That friend just happened to see his file, and told Mom that he was single and had had all the childhood diseases!
So, when the War ended in August 1945, Dad called Mom long-distance(!) from Sherman Air Field in Texas to arrange for their marriage. Mom maintains that he never actually *asked* her! At any rate, he could not get leave, so Mom’s Uncle Granvel Crawford went over to the bus station and bought her a ticket, which was his wedding present. Mom’s bus ride lasted almost 20 hours because the agent routed her through every wide spot in the road. It was the first time she ever left Liberal. (When Hazel got that letter from Mom, Granvel went down to the bus station and made his displeasure known.)
Meanwhile, Mom & Dad got married on a Thursday afternoon during Dad’s lunch hour. Then Dad went back to work, and Mom went back to town! They did it that way so that Dad could get a three-day pass. That weekend, they honeymooned in Fort Worth, where there was a fair. Which is why they look a little wind-blown in this picture – one of my favorites.
