We celebrated our 69th wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago and one of the cards we received was “Pages of Time, 1943.” It’s hard to believe all the changes in 69 years.
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In 1943, the average income was $2,043. A new car cost $900 and a gallon of gas was 15 cents. The other day I noticed gas was $3.79 a gallon. I bought a new five-passenger coupe in 1941 for $842, I believe. We recently bought a loaf of bread, the cheapest kind, for $1.89 compared to 10 cents that it cost in 1943. We got a pound of coffee, the store brand, for $2.99 and in 1943 it was 46 cents. An ounce of gold sold for $35. I haven’t bought or sold any lately so don’t know what it would be now. A new house cost $ 3,600 and I’d hate to tell you what our kids paid for the oldest house in San Marcos, that is still occupied, but I’ll guarantee it was a lot more than that.
Did you remember that Franklin D. Roosevelt was president in 1943 and Henry Wallace was vice president? In 1943 minimum wage was 30 cents an hour. Today it is $7.25. World War II was in full force and on Japan withdrew from Guadalcanal. The German Army surrendered at Stalingrad. The War Department said no hard liquor for army personnel. General Dwight D. Eisenhower is named supreme commander of the European forces. The Pentagon, the world’s largest office building, was completed at a cost of 64 million dollars.
Canned food and shoes were rationed in the United States. I remember people told Kathy when we got married and moved to Fort Smith, Ark., in 1943, that people went barefooted in Arkansas so we wouldn’t need to worry about wearing shoes there.
Academy Award winners in 1943 were Casablanca as the best picture of the year. Paul Lucas was chosen as the best actor in the movie, Watch on the Rhine. Jennifer Jones was named best actress in the picture, The Song of Bernadette.
Rated the best music in 1943 was “Oklahoma”; “Oh What a Beautiful Morning,” “Surrey with the Fringe on Top,” and “Shoo Shoo, Baby.”
Sports Champions in 1943 were: in college basketball, Wyoming was the winner, and in college football it was Notre Dame. The Kentucky Derby winner was Count Fleet, with J. Longden. Stanley Cup hockey winner was Detroit Red Wings and the Baseball World Series winner was the New York Yankees. Gerald Cote was winner of the Boston Marathon with 2 hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds. The Heisman Trophy winner was Angelo Bertelli. The Chicago Bears won the professional football award. U.S. Open Golf and the Indianapolis 500 Auto Race were not held in 1943.
These were facts that I found in Pages of Time for 1943, so if you have a disagreement with any of them, don’t blame me. It also had a calendar with it and one fact that I know for sure was that April 4, was on Sunday and I rode the train all night from Fort Smith, Ark., to Kansas City where Kathy met me at the station and we went to the judge’s home to pick up our marriage license which had been pre-arranged. We were married in her church that afternoon. We left that evening for Fort Smith, driving that 1941 Chevy, arriving at our new home the next day where I was public information officer of the 14th armored division at Camp Chaffee.