“An Amherst teen reportedly attempted to end his life last Sunday. The teen is now being…” the reporter’s voice droned on and on, reviewing the week’s events- a series of shootings, drugs and violence. Known as Janie to her friends, Jane Marie to her mother and just simply Jane to everyone else, Jane Marie Walker was sick and tired of hearing about people hurting other people. Back in her time, kids referred to adults as “mam” and “sir” and no innocent life got harmed without reason. During her childhood, if you misbehaved you got a ruler to the knuckles; if you complained about being bored, you were given a job. It didn’t take expensive electronics to provide entertainment- you entertained yourself. A smile slowly stretched its way across Jane’s face as she remembered a time where playing backyard baseball with your family was the highlight of a week. Soon enough she was lost in happy thoughts of 1941, along with the dark events that followed.
~~~~~~~
    Crack! The sound of a tough leather baseball slamming against a homemade wooden bat jarred me from my daydreams. Surrounded by numerous cousins and siblings, I easily found myself enveloped in blissful dreams of summer. With the light seeping through the leaves of the large oak tree above me, and the aroma of freshly baked bread in the air, focusing on the intense family baseball game taking place, seemed like an impossible task.  Swormsville was, in my opinion, at its most breathtaking towards the end of August.
As I looked around at the many blonde heads around me, a product of my German heritage, I dreamed of someday going to my mother’s homeland. Named Jessica, she left Germany at the age of 16, and made the voyage to America knowing without knowing a lick of English. As I was inevitably became lost in my fantasies again, a shout pulled me back.
“Dinner’s ready! Come on in!” exclaimed my mother.
Her shout began the stampede to the house. All nine of my siblings, along with the children of thirty aunts and uncles, joined in on the mad scramble to be the first in line for dinner. Amidst all the pushing and shoving, a layer of excitement could be detected. Fresh bread, butter, and fried potatoes would compose tonight’s meal - things that all of us craved. Once all ensuing fights over who got the last roll first were settled, the whole lot of us settled down for a prayer.
My grandfather, as usual, led the prayer. “Lord we thank you for allowing all of us to be here, safe and sound, this beautiful Sunday afternoon, and we thank you for this food and the great weather we have been having. Finally, we pray that all of the children starting school again this week will have a great year. Let’s eat!”
“Amen.” We all echoed before digging into our food.
After every plate had been scraped clean, and the dinner small talk died down, people began to peel off and head home. With school starting tomorrow, my mother decided to send us to bed early too - despite our objections.
With seven girls in my family, and only 3 bedrooms, nighttimes could get quite crowded. However, my sisters and I all crawled into bed, and finally settled down for the night, not looking forward to the first day of fourth grade tomorrow. Just as my eyes began to drift shut, a whisper woke me once again.
“Jane,” my 6 year old sister, Rosemary, inquired in a quiet voice, “Do kids at school really make the first graders clean the outhouses?”
“Of course not. Who told you that?” I responded sleepily.
“Well James said that I’ll have to clean the outhouses and that the teacher will yell at me and make me sit in the corner if I don’t.” She spit the words out quickly, on the verge of tears.
“Rosemary, no one is going to make you sit in the corner. Now go to bed.” Though I could barely keep my eyes open, I silently vowed to yell at James tomorrow for scaring Rosemary- she worried too much as it was.
“Aufwachen! Aufwachen!” I woke up to my mother’s German wake up call. “Come on Jane, you are going to be late!”
Groggily, I cracked my eyes open, squinting through the sunlight pouring through the window. Half asleep, I noticed that the bed was empty. My eyes shot open finally processing the silence in the house- everyone had already left for school.
    I leapt out of bed and began a mad dash around the house to gather my clothes and school supplies, then grabbed an apple and sprinted out the door. I caught sight of my siblings farther down the road, and slowed to a jog to catch up to them. From our house on Transit Road, it was a two mile walk to school. Today, the walk wasn’t too bad, but already I began to dread the cold, windy walks in the winter.
    It took us about half an hour, but we eventually made it to school. The Lockport District #7 school was located along Tonawanda Creek. It was a one room schoolhouse, with eight different grades packed into the one small building. Mrs. Koenig was the teacher, and despite having a large number of kids, no one dared misbehave. She had always been a bitter old lady, who considered education the only force standing between the younger generation and barbarians.  She ran her classroom with an iron fist: even the older kids fearing her ruler on their knuckles. There was to be no horsing around, no arguing, no talking back, and, without a doubt, absolutely no chewing gum. Being caught with gum in your mouth meant cleaning the blackboards for a month; no amount of begging would get you out of this punishment.   
Before class began, everyone socialized with friends, some of whom they hadn’t seen since the last school year ended. Stories of summer were exchanged, extravagant tales of adventures were told, and the annual contest of who had the best summer began.
    “Kids, settle down and take your seats. Immediately.” Mrs. Koenig entered the room and already began to enforce her no nonsense policies. Once everyone settled, she began again, “As most of you know, we will start off the year with reviewing our reading skills or, in the case of our incoming first graders,” at this Rosemary looked up, “You will be learning to read.”
    Collectively, the class groaned, dreading the upcoming days of reciting sections of McGuffey’s Eclectic Reader.
    “Immersion is the best teacher. So those of you that can’t read yet, just follow along, as for the rest of you; you will all be required to recite a page before the end of the week; so I suggest you get practicing. Now, if you would all open up to page 15…”
    After four long hours of Mrs. Koenig’s tedious lectures on reading, the time for recess and lunch finally approached. The minute we were released, all kids hurried outside into the sunlight and fresh air. Though some kids took the chance to return home for lunch, the majority stayed at school, including my siblings and I. Once all the snack trading had occurred; the most sought after item being the C. Howard Mints that Josh Balkh had brought in; it was time for a game of Annie, Annie Over the Roof.
    The object of the game was to tag out all members of the opposite team - before you got tagged. A ball got thrown over the roof of the school, if the team on the opposite side caught it; they could sneak around the building and attempt to tag you. The competition continued until there was one team left standing. Whoever won the game got the biggest prize of all; bragging rights until the next game commenced.
    Like all good things, recess eventually came to an end. We were once again crowded into the schoolhouse, and subjected to more endless hours of reading, writing, and arithmetic. When the end of the day finally arrived, every student was itching to be released, and practically trampled Mrs. Koenig to get out as fast as possible.
    Following the stampede out of the school, my family began the two mile trek back home. Upon our return to the house, my mother supplied us all with jobs, and we were kept busy for the remainder of the afternoon. At 6:15 sharp, my dad arrived home from his job at Bell Aircraft, and we sat down to a dinner of bread, dried beans, and applesauce. Though my parents spent every spare moment doing odd jobs around the community; we still struggled, which is why once a month we received a welfare package with peanut butter, lard, apple butter, dried beans, sugar and flour.
    In our family, everything got used until it fell apart; then it was repaired and used even more. All clothes were hand-me-downs, so my youngest siblings often got the old out-of-date clothes that no one else wanted. Shoes were also handed down, and by the time they had gone through a few siblings, the soles often had to be replaced with homemade cardboard ones.
    Following the long first day of school, I practically fell into bed; knowing that I would have to do it all over the next day, and the next, and the next.
The next two months passed in a similar fashion: every morning I would wake up and hurry to school on time, listen to Mrs. Koenig all day long, then come home and do jobs. After dinner I would do any homework I had been given, then go to bed and do it all over again the next day.
~~~~~~~

“Jane! Jane! Wake up!” Called Rosemary’s voice.
“Shhhhhh… I'm trying to sleep Rosemary, go back to sleep.” I sleepily replied.
“But Jane, it’s snowing!” she exclaimed.
Knowing that I wouldn’t return to sleep until I looked, I gave in to her demands and rolled over to look out the window. However, before my eyes could reach the window, I felt the thin blanket of crystals covering my blanket – a result of the large hole in the ceiling that didn’t do much to stop the elements from coming into the house. Sure enough though, outside was a thick blanket of white, powdery snow. For it only being the fifth day of December, snow had come early.
Excitedly, I ran down the stairs where my siblings were already pleading with my mom to let us stay home from school.
“But Mooo-oom,” complained Jonathon, “It’s the first day with snow!”
“I don’t care Jon, you are going to school. And that’s the end of this conversation.” She replied, not willing to negotiate.
Just as Jon was preparing his next argument, my dad came down the stairs.
“Jessica,” he said softly, “What would be the harm in missing one day of school? After all by the time they walk through the snow to school- they will be late anyway.”
Knowing she had lost this fight, my mom gave in, on the condition that we had to help her around the house for the entire day. The house took on a festive quality as we all sat down for breakfast together. My parents were discussing the war in Europe, a common topic these days. I didn’t pay too close attention, after all it was all the way across an ocean – why should I worry about it?
At the conclusion of breakfast, my mother allowed us to have some free time in the snow, so an all out snow ball fight ensued soon after. With snowballs being flung randomly, it was only a matter of time before someone started crying. My bet was that Finn would be the first to complain; now that he was seven he was beginning to understand that crying usually made things go his way.
My prediction proved true when a stray snowball landed smack-dab on the center of his face. His wailing brought the attention on my mom; effectively ending the snowball fight for the day. We were all separated and given jobs, which occupied us until my dad got home.
That night we all crawled into bed, snuggling together in order to keep warm, and in the morning I woke up to having an extra blanket of snow on top of the bed. We passed the day the same as the previous. However, the snowball fight was ended by Rosemary this time, when Jon accidently stepped on her snowman.
Amidst all the fun, none of could have ever imagined what would happen the next day, and how it would change our lives forever.
~~~~~~~
     The day of December 7, 1941 started out the same as any other. My mother came in and dragged us all to church, and then we came home and spent the day with our extended family. My grandmother had 15 children - which left me with an over abundance of cousins. We had a snowman building contest and spent the entire afternoon outdoors. Then after dinner we sat down to listen to the radio.
    “I am sorry for this interruption,” came a crackly voice over the radio, “But we interrupt you normal program to bring important news about Pearl Harbor Naval Base in Hawaii.  At 7:55 a.m. Hawaii time, on this day December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japanese torpedo’s and bomber planes. Over 2,000 Americans have been killed, and even more injured. Stay tuned for more information.” The voice cut out, and Bing Crosby’s singing returned.
    “White Christmas” was the only sound in the room. Everyone was completely silent; shocked by what we had just heard, and positive that they must have heard wrong. For over a minute we sat there processing what had just been said. Then the talking resumed with everyone panicking and trying to figure out what it all meant. No one knew how to react- Panic? Fear? Ignore it? It was decided that ignoring it was the best option, after all it probably wasn’t even true… right?
    By the next morning, it became obvious that ignoring it wouldn’t work. I woke to the sound of a military caravan, parading down Transit Road. There were no thoughts of going to school, and we sat around waiting for my dad to return with news.
    As soon as he returned, he calmly explained that things would be changing for a while. We would not go to school until things settled down, and there would be certain drills we would need to perform. There would be sirens, black outs, and air raid drills, and everyone would be required to participate. Wartime rations would be enforced and it was expected that we would contribute to the war effort however possible.
    As a few weeks passed with no incidents, the initial fear turned to annoyance at the drills we now had to follow, then to bitterness towards the Japanese - after all this was all their fault.
Two houses down the road from us lived the Changs. A generally well respected family they were liked by almost everyone. Their heritage on the other hand, was not quite as respected. The family had immigrated here from Japan ten years ago, and many people were beginning to take their anger out on them.
    With few exceptions, there would be nasty notes written on the sides of their house almost every morning. Someone even went so far as to throw a brick through their window. Eventually, the family was taken away and put into an internment camp, after an entire year of being hated by the civilians.
    In a way, the war brought our community closer together. With many of our older brothers, cousins, or even fathers being drafted for the war, we had to pull together and help each other out. During harvest season, we gathered to help one another out, since the lack of men made the work take even longer.
    As the community drew together, my mother seemed to draw away from us. She had family back in Germany and constantly worried about them. With the war in full force, she had no way of contacting them, and could do nothing but pray.
    For all the years of the war, there was an underlying current of fear. People were constantly thinking about the things that no one dared to say out loud; What if it gets bigger? What if the war comes to America? And the biggest question of all: What if we don’t win, what happens then?
        ~~~~~~~
    As Jane sat back in her chair she recalled the fear she felt in those times. When an army convoy would come rumbling down the road, she would hold her younger sisters and tell them that everything would be okay, but she would never admit to them how scared she was. She thought back on all the friends she had made in those times where all the women would gather in someone’s house, and pray for their relatives overseas. But most of all, she remembered the joy, and all the celebrations after the war ended. For as her father always said, “Without the rain, there is no rainbow.”