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8 Gold Stars † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † Will my daddy be killed? —“‘Tell Children the Truth on War,’ advises Dr. Andre Royon,” Washington Post (March 25, 1942) Ask the man who’s coming home after the war to the youngster he’s never seen. Does anything count except home? —Better Homes and Gardens (June 11, 1945) † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † “I know you can’t read this letter now,” Captain Gerald Marnell began writing to his two-year-old daughter Geraldine, “but your mother will read it to you and she will save it for you until you are old enough to read it yourself.” Marnell described his immense pride in a baby girl he barely knew: “Your daddy held you in his arms when you were only a few minutes old. Your daddy saw you grow. Then came a day when your daddy had to say good-bye. You cried so hard when daddy was driving away and daddy shed a tear himself. Your daddy didn’t want to leave you, but he had to go to help make your country a safe and free place to live in.” A devoted father, Marnell ended his letter with a promise that “he would be back someday to play together.” This letter from Captain Marnell , age twenty-seven, would reach his wife two days before the telegram announcing his death.1 Marnell was not alone in his loneliness and his weariness. Near the end of 1944, another serviceman who was tired, miserable, hungry, and completely worn out told a war correspondent that “it’s the kids who sharpen so many soldiers’ thinking about Christmas.” This “dirty doughfoot in 116 117 Gold Stars Paris” added, “I’ve got a wife and two kids back home sitting near a Christmas tree waiting for Santa Claus. They’ve been waiting three years.”2 A year earlier on Christmas Eve, a little boy named Charlie de Turene from Seattle, Washington, decided to write to President Roosevelt after listening to his fireside chat. Charlie praised the president and commented about his own young life: I’m not so good at making speeches, but I want to say this—I am partly Russian and French and Belgium [sic], but I am most “American ” and I’m proud of it. My uncle is in the Navy, and my cousin is a “Navy Pilot.” I have got a $25.00 bond and 70 cents in stamps and I’m buying more. I mostly write to movie stars, but I think you as good as one. I go to a Catholic school and church. I am also Catholic. My Father is dead, but I do not wish to disscuss it. I have about a dime a day and from now on, instead of buying candy I am going to buy more stamps than ever. I hope you get time enough to read this small letter. I know how busy you are but I hope you get to read this. A Steinway advertisement also captured this collective midwar sentiment, “Christmas . . . and the world at war. What do the uncertain years hold for your child?”3 The days and years of World War II deeply frightened most girls and boys in America—affecting them in profound and often silent ways. Adults expected children to remain “good little boys and girls” and to weather the storm of war and grief, but children had lots of imagination and many questions during the course of this war. Far too many questions remained unasked and therefore unanswered. Children possessed a number of fears as well, often unacknowledged or dismissed, and children shouldered their grief, sometimes by acting out but more often within a lingering silence. Carrying on as little soldiers appeared to be the only accepted response . Wartime was never an optimal environment for raising healthy children ; it complicated nearly everything: time, tension, tempers. The wish for peaceful times would be expressed in lines from Margaret Widdemeir’s poem “For a Child in Wartime”: “Let the world stay bright for her / She is little, she is young.” The reality was much different. Even though American children were never in the midst of combat and occupation, the world at war seemed dark and frightening to young souls. Radio reports and newsreels continually brought home messages of danger and enemies, yet somehow hope usually remained for America’s children. As ten-year-old Barbara June Caverlee of Virginia wrote to the president the day after Pearl Harbor, “I am hoping and praying for every boy in...

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