Interview with Mrs. Pauline Woolson

Born: 1930, Worcester, Mass.

Address during War: South Stowell St., (off Granite Street), Worcester.

Date of Interview: March 22, 2002

Place of Interview: Worcester Senior Center, 148 Providence St., Worcester, Mass.

Now what I remember, like I say, I was only a kid, but what comes first to me, in my school, we had ration books, and we were in charge of delivering the ration books to the neighborhood, and, uh, do you want me to tell you about those ration books?

At that time it was very hard to get butter, eggs, coffee, and so, and meat, it was very difficult to get, so what they would do is give out rations, you had to pay these ration stamps for what you bought, no matter how much money you had, it didn’t matter, if you didn’t have the ration stamps. The other thing that comes to me is the blackout, we used to have blackout rehearsals, and we had the shades on our windows that were very strong, and we’d hear the siren, and we’d have to pull those down, and some of our fathers, grandfathers, were wardens, and they had to go on the street and see that there weren’t any lights shining, that was in case we were attached.

Was anyone you knew an air raid warden?

I don’t remember anyone that I was really knew personally, no. I didn’t have any brothers, and the closest to me were two or three cousins that went into the war, and they were all 18, 19 years old young fellows, one was injured, shrapnel went into his chest, and, uh, he lived a long life, in fact I still have him, but he always had trouble with that.

Now, I can tell you an interesting story about my husband who at that time was 7 years older than I. So, he went into the war, and he got on a train to go to the destination--he was in the army--where he was going to be, but they had it all black-- the curtains were down, so they didn’t know the destination--and, now, these are fellows that were never out of Worcester, very unworldly, and they’re all excited because they’re going to go someplace for adventure, and when they get to the place, they open up the curtains, and they were down the Cape. They traveled and traveled and they were at Cape Edwards! That was one story. Eventually, he went overseas on the Queen Mary. There were 35,000 fellows on that, they had gutted out the things they had on the Queen Mary, and there were 35,000 on that. And he was in the Battle of the Bulge, he was in Normandy, he was in the thick of it. And he really had a…..

….and uh, he has a lot of stories that happened to him. Thank God no one was killed in his, uh, fellows that he was with.

Now, a little side note that’s interesting. Fifty years after this, he’s gotten together with the fellows he was in the War with, there’s about 20 of them in this area, all Connecticut, New England area, they have formed such an alliance, that they’re like brothers. Because for 50 years they were busy with their families, and earning a living, and now they’re all retired and they have time to meet, to call, to reminisce, they get together, they have pictures of when they were 18 years old, and it’s a wonderful, wonderful things that’s happened, after 50 years, later.

No, no, my parents were…their life wasn’t….The only thing I remember my poor mother trying to get the meat for our family, and she would beg, she would beg the butcher, and uh…

Just me. And uh, she got very angry with him, that was, looking back, that was about the only hardship that we had. The other hardship was after the war, when the war ended, the landlady’s daughter came back, and the apartments were very hard to get, and after 18 years, she had to evict us. And we friendly, very friendly, I mean, and she felt terrible doing it, but it was her daughter, and that was something that the war had influenced. We had to move, we moved, right here, if you look out you can see the house (laughs, gestures down Providence Street) we lived there for a couple of years, and I was married from there, but that South Stowell Street, my mother loved it there, and oh, she almost had a nervous breakdown when we had to move, you know! But with her daughter….

I went to Granite St. School, which is a little farther up, and then I went to Providence Street School, which you can see, it’s now Vernon, it’s a grammar school, but in that day it was Providence Street Junior High. I was born on this site! This used to be St. Vincent’s Hospital, which actually really would be the doctors offices right here, they were more here, but before this big building was built, that’s where the hospital was, and that’s where I was born! I’m back to my roots!

Did you notice anything in school? Like, did you have school lunches in those days or….

No, no, in those days we all lived right around the school, we came home from school, and like I say, the Ration Books were the only thing that I remember affecting us with regards to the war.

Not that I remember. Now, I was 11, so I was still in grammar school.

Yes, see, that’s how I can remember how old I was, Pearl Harbor was ’41, and was born in ’30, so I always have the last number. So that, I can’t think of anything else that was connected with the war. I remember, VJ, no, VE Day, no, I think it was VE Day, or VJ Day, wait, now wait a minute, I was 15, so that would be 1945, so that was VJ Day, ok, I went down to the City, and Oh, it was like one big party! Everybody was dancing in the streets, and the soldiers were kissing us, and we were loving it!

No, never a parade, there might of, but all I remember is everybody dancing and hugging, and oh, we were so happy, VJ Day, yeah….

See, now VE Day, I don’t remember. I remember the movies, of course you people have seen the movies, the World War II movies, those were the movies that we were watching. I’ll tell you an interesting story, Have you heard of the Sullivan Brothers, the 5 brothers?

There was a movie. Now, when that movie first came out, I would say it was, oh, ’43, around there, I was a young girl, I went to the movies with a girl friend, and we watched The Sullivan Brothers. My father had gone to the movies, and he didn’t know I was in the movie. Well, my girl friend and I were crying so, because we knew what was going to happen, and everything that they did, we sobbed! And my father, who was sitting in the row, or 2 rows, behind us, thought, "Oh my goodness! Those women must have people in the service, sons, in the service," and when the lights went on, it was his teenage daughter! Haha. So that was a little surprise!

Oh, I remember, oh, that was such a blow to us, because we weren’t familiar with death, as we are when we get older, and we see these things happen, and that was like the first really tragic thing that was true, and that had to do with the war.

Oh yeah, the War really thank goodness, didn’t affect me, uh, I was aware of it, and knew about it, and felt badly about it, but it wasn’t affecting me personally, like it was my mother-in-law, who worried so much about her son, and if she didn’t get a letter. And what’s interesting is her husband, went through the same thing in World War I, he was in the same area as my husband was in World War II, so that was, yeah…

Well, my husband, like I said was 7 years older than me. I had been good friends with his younger sister, but he was 13, so I didn’t have much to do with him, because I was always much younger. And he went into the war, and he came back. And he weighed 118 lbs. when he went to the war, and came back he weighed 135, so he really did, mature. Well, I’ve always said, that war, like any war, really they went as boys and came back as men, emotionally and physically. But anyway, I was with my girl friend and we were walking past a store window downtown, Harry Office Supplies, and my husband had got a job there, and he was in the window, decorating the window, and I said to my girl friend, "Oh my God, who’s that?" And she said, "Dick Woolson," and I thought, "Nah, I remember Dick Woolson, tall, skinny kid," you know, and, Oh my God, so every noontime he would go for his lunch hour, and I was in high school, and my high school was downtown, so I would manage to see him, you know, I had a crush on him. Well, I was a senior, and when we graduated, they placed us in jobs, and where did they place me? Harry Office Supply! Oh my God! I would have taken the job for nothing! For a year, we were like friends, we ate lunch together, I’d tell him about my boyfriends, he’d tell me about his girlfriends, we were like brother and sister, and I, I had such a crush on him but in those days a girl never took the initiative. You see probably in today’s world I would have said something to him, or called him, but no I had to wait, and it took him a whole year! Finally, New Year’s Eve came and the fellow I was going with was going to Florida, he was a college guy, and he was going to Florida for Spring Break, oh no, this was New Years, so he was going for the Christmas Holiday, and uh, Dick didn’t have a date, and he said, "You know, maybe I should take you," that’s just the way he said, it! "Maybe I should take you out." I said "Ok!" Oh, my God! So then that started it, and two years later we were married on New Year’s Eve, and it’s 51 years!

Congratulations!

Yes, we have 2 sons, they live around the corner, and 2 wonderful grandchildren, my granddaughter just went to college this year…..And, so that’s what happened with me!