Peggy's Wartime Memories

Readers of all ages will be fascinated by the untold historical account of war on our shores as experienced in Peggy’s Wartime Memories. The book recreates life during the 1930’s through the end of the war with Japan in 1945. Peggy contrasts for the reader just what it was like for a family living in a small Montana mining town during the “great depression,” until her father was called to active duty with the Army immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack. Since her parents decide that the family would stay together as long as possible, Peggy’s narrative describes the life of an Army officer’s daughter traveling from post to post during the very early years of the war. Through Peggy’s eyes, readers get a glimpse of early 1942 Ft. Ord at war; a Christmas 1942 attack by the Japanese off the West Coast; early government rationing of goods; a visit to a Japanese internment camp and life in an Arizona town, the site of an Italian POW camp. Peggy describes prejudice she and her brother encountered as Army children in various communities. She traces her struggles to learn to read; later she’s diagnosed as dyslexic. While Peggy’s father serves overseas, she vividly describes life on an Idaho farm with her grandparents and uncle. This unique book is humorous and amusing as well as very readable. An intriguing narrative, first told in these pages, includes vivid descriptions throughout to help the reader visualize life during this period of great change in our nation.