My Family & Me: The entrepreneuers
World War II served as the backdrop for my earliest years. We were patriotic, proud (Dad reminded us every day we were Yanks, and the song assured us, “The Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming and it will all be over when the Yanks are over there.” Who wouldn’t be?
As kids, we did our part to help the war effort. Every week, we took turns dragging burlap bags of crushed tin cans to the school’s recycling sites: We scoured sidewalks for the tiniest bit of tinfoil to be re-utilized. The coveted goldfish from the milkweed plants were sacrificed to make life vests for the Navy.
Shortages abounded, and the entrepreneur spirit sprouted in the older kids. Although we all hoped to become rich, I like to believe we were more motivated by patriotism than greed.
In most of their endeavors, the older kids barely tolerated my cousin, Barbara, and me participating. With this new undertaking, we were encouraged to help. Barb and I were ecstatic.
They needed gofers, guinea pigs and spies. At five and six, Barb and I did whatever we were told without questions, proud to be included.
Rubber, coffee, paint and gasoline. All were needed but in short supply. Discovering new sources for these materials was our objective. How we set about it was pitiful.
We roamed the neighborhood yards, vacant lots, the nearby woods seeking plants. Any brown seed could be the next coffee bean. Red berries and green leaves offered endless potential, the redder and greener the better! Boiled down to a paint-like substance, couldn’t it be a cheap substitute for paint?
Barb and I helped in the gathering process, but our main assignment was to spy. This time the hapless Hepler couple was not our target subject. Instead it was my mother.
We needed access to a stove and could only get it when Mom was upstairs or out of the house. The older kids loitering in her area might have aroused suspicion, but Barb and me? We were always underfoot.
Once we reported the all-clear, a stove burner
was lit and something set atop it. “Who’s tiptoeing around out there?” my blind grandmother would demand from the sitting room. “I know you’re up to something.” Nobody answered.
Why did they send me, time after time, to check if the pot had boiled? Was it survival of the fittest, and their being willing to sacrifice the weakest link, that I was commandeered? Whatever, I was elated.
Barb and I shared equally as the tasters. “Taste good?” the older kids demanded, even while we were still spitting something out. Sadly, nothing did.
If we couldn’t drink it, maybe, boiled down, it would serve as paint. Our rabbit’s wooden coop provided the testing site with long daubs of color decorating its exterior. Everything washed off when it rained.
Inspiration hit. The long dandelion stems had a remarkable rubbery consistency. This was bigger than our group could handle on its own. Old grudges were forgotten as recruitments were sought to help with the harvesting efforts. The Boyles’ clan, the Wolfes’ hierarchy, we were all committed to gathering dandelion stems.
Stems were measured against each other and praise heaped on the kid who brought in the longest stem. Competition was fierce, and fame only lasted until the next long stem was found.
The depository for the stems was our family’s cellarway. Its double doors were flung back and dandelion after dandelion stem piled up there. This was as far as our plan carried us, and eventually decay claimed the stems.
When my mother opened the inside cellar door to carry clothes out to the line to hang, she was met with an avalanche of rotting dandelion stems.
“You kids have to clean that mess out,” she told us in no uncertain terms. She had to lug the laundry up the inside cellar steps and was not pleased.
When we opened the outside double doors, we understood why. The suffocating stench drove us back gagging and holding our noses. Who actually did remove the mess remains a mystery. Uncle Bill may have come to our rescue, or my dad. We asked no questions.
A year or so ago, I heard a newscaster announcing rubber trees were dying, and extensive research being performed to find alternate sources for rubber. One of the sources was dandelion stems.
If we had only known about patents!
Kathy Young Wonderling is a former Spirit reporter who wrote a weekly column, My Family & Me, starting in the early 2000s. An octogenarian, Kathy is a widow, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, sister and aunt. With such a large family, she has too many memories not to share.