Lucia’s uncle entered the War late, being drafted in 1944. He wore glasses, so his eyesight was compromised. The United States was scraping the bottom of the barrel for warm bodies that could fight. Casualties in both the European and Pacific theatre of war was chewing up American soldiers to the point that corners were being cut to put men into the field. Generally, a recruit like Mike would not see combat, more than likely put in a support role because of his vision…a desk job. He was sent to the Pacific to fight…and he had his glasses, and face, blown off by a Japanese grenade. Mike was sent home for facial reconstruction surgery, with a stop in San Francisco on the way to New York. Lucia and her mother headed up to the Golden Gate to visit, and image of the way her uncle looked, his face torn apart, will stay with her for the rest of her days…and the Purple Heart Uncle Mike got was small consolation, but his sacrifice for little Lucia and all Americans, was priceless.
Halloween and Christmas were special times for Lucia. As a child, surrounded by the world-wide catastrophe she barely understood, the simplicities of two distinctly Americanized holidays provided her and many Southern California children with the much needed relief of candy and gifts. Living in Banning Homes meant a huge pool of families to trick or treat from…literally hundreds of treat filled options. Lucia said if she got only one or two pieces from each house…she’d still have a sackful…enough to make her tummy ache into the New Year…and that’s not counting the Christmas goodies. Although Lucia was Jewish, she still went to the Shrine Auditorium’s Christmas extravaganza, where kids got treats, eats, and a present…courtesy of the generosity of the Shriners. Many recognize the auditorium as the future home of the Academy Awards ceremony, and of course, the Shriners for their work in opening and funding a Children's Hospital that is World renowned.
What really amazed me in Lucia’s story was something small, almost insignificant…the icebox. There was no such thing as a freezer or refrigerator in her wartime, and post-war, world. Electric refrigerators did exist, but Lucia’s family didn’t have that. I really shouldn’t be surprised, not all American families had cars at that time…some still used horse and carriage, 19th century technology, into the 1950s. It makes complete sense that Lucia still saw the iceman every week, delivering the ice blocks to put in…the icebox…which really didn’t keep the food as cold as needed…spoilage setting in before too long. Because wartime production took some time to switch back into a peacetime manufacturing stance, new fangled appliances like refrigerators, with a handy dandy freezer, washing machines and dryers, ovens didn’t really make an overwhelming appearance until the late 1940s and into the 50s in some cases. Lucia remembers finally getting a fridge towards the end of the decade…with a integral freezer the size of a postage stamp…
The next few years saw life in the Banning community fade away as folks and families moving on to new opportunities. Wartime work dwindled, and Lucia’s mother started working in a sardine cannery on Terminal Island, taking the ferry over across the bay every morning (incidentally, the Streamline Moderne ferry building still exists in San Pedro…it’s now the Los Angeles Maritime Museum). She and her family eventually moved, finding new roots in the suburbs. La Puente was Lucia’s new home, and would be through high school. Changes brought new life experience both good and bad, as well as happiness and sadness. Robert, Lucia’s brother joined the Navy and left home, leaving her a little lost, but a little relieved, as Robert could be physically and emotionally abusive towards her. She went through Junior High, then into high school in the mid-1950s, at an iconic and nostalgic moment in American history that saw the emergence of Rock and Roll, Duck tail hairstyles, the appearance of “greaser” fashion, and the rebellious spirit of teenage youth…”egged on” by films such as Rebel Without a Cause and Blackboard Jungle. As the 1950s came to a close, Lucia moved on to college, marriage, kids, and life as a fine artist, painting canvases of many unusual and overlooked subjects in and around Southern California.
One last interesting thing caught my attention when I asked Lucia about the Holocaust. I was curious about what she could remember about the Jewish community here in America during the War, and what they might have know about the horrors of that tragic episode in World History, in the moment. Lucia looked at me, pain in her eyes, and told me that they really didn’t know the full extent…not until much later…
She was in college, along with her future husband, Dave, when they went to check out special book in the college library. Lucia said you actually had to have a professors permission to even look through this book. It was a book of photos…concentration camp photos, taken by the Americans after liberation. Burned bodies, emaciated human beings, starved…worked to death by the Nazis. She was shocked beyond belief when she looked upon the book…
Lucia, Dave, and many, many, many Jewish Americans really did not know. There were never told or shown the full extent…until years later, a decade or more, when it could not be hidden anymore…