As I have worked on the last several blog posts, one thing has really struck me about the Meixner family and that is the number of difficulties they had to overcome. After Harmon and Alice's marriage in 1905, they had to endure World War I, a severe drought, a flu pandemic, and the Great Depression, and that is only the first three decades! Now comes the decade of the 1940s and another World War.
War officially started in Europe in 1939, by most accounts, when Germany invaded Poland. Many countries were involved in two opposing military Alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II as it became known would evolve into the most widespread war in history with the vast majority of the worlds nations involved. The Allies major countries would eventually end up as Great Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union. The Axis powers consisted of Germany, Italy and Japan. Entering into 1940 the Unites States was supplying material aid to Great Britain but had resisted entering the war. Early on the morning of Dec 7, 1941 everything changed for the United States. (1)
Description: Aerial view of the U.S. Naval Operating Base, Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii (USA), looking southwest on 30 October 1941. Ford Island Naval Air Station is in the center, with the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard just beyond it, across the channel. The airfield in the upper left-center is the U.S. Army's Hickam Field.
Date: 30 October 1941
Source: Official U.S. Navy photograph 80-G-182874, now in the collections of the U.S. National Archives. Also U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 1996.488.029.051
Author: USN
Permission: This file is a work of a sailor or employee of the U.S. Navy, taken or made as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pearl_Harbor_looking_southwest-Oct41.jpg
In early December Japan moved a huge contingent of air craft carriers and war ships 3000 miles across the Pacific Ocean completely undetected. They maneuvered into a position 230 miles from the Hawaiian Island of Oahu. At 7:55 a.m. on Sunday, Dec 7, 1941 Japanese war planes completely surprised Pearl Harbor with a devastating attack. For almost two hours 350 Japanese planes pounded Pearl Harbor. When the destruction ended the United States had lost more than 2,400 American lives, 21 ships were either sunk or damaged, and more than 188 US aircraft were destroyed. Reaction in the United States was swift and determined. War was declared by the United States against Japan the next day. Little did Japan know what horrible devastation would be unleashed on two of it's cities just four years later. An end result that was set in motion by this attack in 1941. (2)
A Berlin street on July 3, 1945.
Description: Scene of destruction in a Berlin street just off the Unter den Linden
Date: 3 July 1945
Source: This is photograph BU 8604 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums (collection no. 4700-30)
Author: No 5 Army Film & Photographic Unit, Wilkes A (Sergeant)
Permission: This artistic work created by the United Kingdom Government is in the public domain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Destruction_in_a_Berlin_street.jpg
World War II continued into 1945 and would claim 40-50 million lives. (3) The year of 1945 would turn out to be one of the most momentous years in history. President Franklin Roosevelt, who had just been reelected to an unprecedented fourth term in office, died suddenly on April 12, 1945. Vice President Harry S. Truman was sworn in as the 33rd president.
Harry S. Truman (1884–1972)
Description: Harry S. Truman (1884 – 1972), 1945 – 1953 the thirty-third President of the United States
Date: circa 1945
Source: http://www.trumanlibrary.org/photographs/view.php?id=2267
Author: Frank Gatteri, United States Army Signal Corps
Permission: This image is a work of a U.S. Army soldier or employee, taken or made as part of that person's official duties. As a work of theU.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Harry-truman.jpg
Upon taking office, President Truman was given details of a project he had not been briefed on while Vice President. This project had been authorized years earlier by President Roosevelt to try to develop an atomic bomb. It would become known as the Manhattan Project. Germany was finally forced to surrender on May 8, 1945. A short time later President Truman would be informed that members of the Manhattan Project had finally been successful in coming up with the means for making the atomic bomb. President Truman authorized a test of the new technology that project members thought would create a tremendous explosion. As it turned out, the test proved it to be even more powerful than most had expected.
Photograph of the first nuclear test explosion known as the "Trinity" shot.
Description: Famous color photograph of the "Trinity" shot, the first nuclear test explosion.
Date: 16 July 1945
Source: This image comes from the Google-hosted LIFE Photo Archive where it is available under the filename 96ad5a9a5c94664e
Author: Jack W. Aeby, July 16, 1945, as a member of the Special Engineering Detachment at Los Alamos laboratory, working under the aegis of the Manhattan Project.
Permission: This image is a work of a United States Department of Energy (or predecessor organization) employee, taken or made as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Trinity_shot_color.jpg
After the surrender of Germany, Japan continued to wage war and continued to show their willingness to fight to the death. They refused to surrender. With the thought of having to invade Japan, and understanding the potential for the loss of thousand and thousands of US solders' lives, President Truman had a terrible choice to make. He could continue with the conventional war with the resulting loss of US soldiers or he could choose to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, with the expected loss of many thousands of civilian lives. President Truman decided to go forward with dropping the atomic bomb. On Aug 6, 1945 the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and on Aug 9, 1945 a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered on Aug 14, 1945, and finally, World War II was over. (4)
Of course that is far from the end of the story. Instead of leaving those areas they occupied after the war the Soviet Union stayed, and by dropping what Winston Churchill described as "An Iron Curtain" across huge parts of Europe, they were able to impose their communist government on the people of those countries. Then in 1949 it was learned that the Soviet Union had their own Atomic Bomb and the "Cold War" started in full force.
Although the war dominated the 1940s I want to point out several important things that were invented during this decade that are in use today. Also, a couple of events that had an impact on our present lives.
1941 - The JEEP was invented.
1942 - The T-Shirt was first introduced.
1944 - Ballpoint pens went on sale.
1945 - First fully functional digital computer was built.
1945 - The microwave oven was invented.
1946 - The Bikini swim suit is introduced.
1947 - The Polaroid Camera was invented.
1948 - The "Big Bang Theory" was formulated.
1949 - The first non-stop flight around the world was completed. (5)
In 1940 granddad was 61 years old and grandmother was 59. The age of 61 is only a couple years younger than I am now. I don't think I could go out and work a large farm like they did at their age and in fact they would continue to work it for many years to come. (Of course I couldn't have done it in my prime either but that's another story.)
I would think granddad had a tractor by sometime in the forties and a vehicle to drive but I don't know for sure. (My cousin, Dale, said his dad, Frank Meixner, bought his first tractor in 1948.) Also, at some point I would guess they got running water and electricity but, again, I don't know when that took place. I'm sure some of you reading this might know more about that. If you do you can add a comment at the bottom or e-mail me. My email is at the top of the page.
1940 US Census for Concho County listing Harmon, Alice, Robert Harmon, Alberta, Emma, and Victor.
Source Citation: Year: 1940; Census Place: , Concho, Texas; Roll: T627_4012; Page: 9A; Enumeration District: 48-1.
Source Information: Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.
Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1940. T627, 4,643 rolls.
At the end of 1940 some of the married children were still fairly close by. Frank and Naomi were farming just to the north of the home place and Mary and Joe were living in Paint Rock. Others were farther away. Harmon and Avis were in Haskell where Harmon was teaching school. Alynn and Ross were living in Dallas.
In May of 1941 Emma Meixner married Jim Bob Cox and moved to a farm in Concho County. In 1946 Alberta (Peaches) Meixner married Vernon Neve and moved to a farm near Melvin in McCulloch County.
In 1945 the youngest son, Victor, enlisted in the military. He would return home safely from service but I am sure that was a great worry for Harmon and Alice while he was away. Once back from the service, Victor stayed at home and helped granddad farm.
By the end of the decade Alice and Harmon had seen six of their seven children leave home and marry. Also by the end of the 1940s they had 11 grandchildren. So, as the decade was coming to an end, I wonder if granddad was looking forward to the new decade and hoping it would be better, with not so many challenges. Every decade of granddads life had been filled with difficulties. As it turns out, the decade of the 1950s would present the most difficult challenge he had ever had to face.
Next time the 1950s and 1960s.
References:
(1) http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/648813/World-War-II
(2) http://history1900s.about.com/od/worldwarii/a/Attack-Pearl-Harbor.htm
(3) http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/648813/World-War-II
(4) McCullough, David, Truman, Simon & Schuster, New York, New York, 1992.
(5) http://history1900s.about.com/od/timelines/tp/1940timeline.htm
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