It was morning, and I was in bed. I thought about the prayer Kappy and I said every night before we went to bed . . .
Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.
I was not sure exactly what it meant, but I heard prayers about the souls of our soldiers. I imagined that the “take my soul” part meant going to heaven but wasn’t sure. Grandmama talked about going to heaven. I hoped not many of the soldiers’ souls went to heaven while Kappy and I were sleeping. Daddy often said, “The war will be over soon. I’m sure of it.” I always believed what Daddy said. The Lord didn’t take my soul that night. I wasn’t in heaven.
My eyes were closed, but I was awake. I heard my precious twin Kappy wheezing. Kappy had asthma. We had a sandstorm yesterday afternoon so the air still smelled kind of dusty. Mama would have to wipe out all the windowsills where the sand got in. Our room had been a sleeping porch. It had windows all around the outside walls. The shades were down; Mama pulled them last night. The walls were painted white. They were wooden instead of plaster like the rest of the house. Our floor was painted gray the same as the screen porch next to our room.
The army surplus beds, painted light blue, were placed head to head along an outside wall of the room. I loved being so close to Kappy. I rolled over a little and peeked at my sleeping sister. This time of day was really nice for me. I could hear Mama and Daddy talking in the kitchen every once in a while. I smelled coffee and thought, “We were lucky and had enough ration stamps, and Mama could find it at the store! They are drinking coffee.” Daddy was probably reading the paper. Mama would be “getting her day started,” as she said. I wasn’t sure what all she did to do that.
Kappy and I loved to talk about Mama and Daddy when they were young. They looked like movie stars in the photographs that Mama showed us. They had their arms around each other and had big smiles on their faces. She told us that she wanted to be “one inch thick” so that when Daddy put his hands around her waist, his fingers would touch. She said she was a “flapper” and that Daddy was “dapper.” We weren’t sure what those words meant, but we knew she liked them, and we did too. They rhymed. We loved to say them over and over and over, but that drove Mama crazy so we would stop. We didn’t want her to stop telling us her stories. We knew our parents still really loved each other, and they loved us and Toni and Grandmama. Remembering Mama’s stories made me feel just wonderful.
I liked to have this little time for remembering before getting up on Saturdays and for thinking about how much I loved my whole family. On weekdays I had to get up quickly and get ready for school. I learned all about the parts of the calendar at school. We were in the First Grade. We practiced the calendar everyday. I concentrated for a minute. Yesterday our teacher wrote Friday, November 17, 1944, on the board. Today’s day was Saturday, the month was November, the date was 18, and the year was 1944.
I enjoyed thinking, “I love all my family! This day and every day. I love Kappy the most! Next most is Mama. She is so beautiful and so nice. She takes Kappy and me with her places even though she tells people sometimes that we are ‘wild as snakes.’” We knew we really weren’t; we just got so excited about things that happened and the people we met. Doing things with Mama and with each other were my favorite things to do! Mama’s first name was Kathryn. Kappy was named after both Mama and Daddy. Her nickname was Kappy because Daddy said that she was the Captain of the ship when she was having a bad spell being sick. Daddy was in the Navy, and he knew all about ships. “Cappy” was the nickname for the Captain of the ship, but I bet the sailors were afraid to call him that. Kappy’s nickname started with a K instead of a C because her name was Kathryn; its first letter is K. Her middle name was Lewis. Daddy’s name was Lewis Ledford Waugh. “I love him next best to Mama.” As I lay in bed, I thought about how his name sounded. It was kind of like him, serious and careful sounding. Thinking about names got me started on initials. I loved to think about initials. “Daddy’s initials have two L’s. His father’s name was Walter William Waugh. Three W’s. His family liked names that have nice initials. My initials are K. E.W.”
My middle name is Elizabeth. When my sister and I were born, both together, the doctor wasn’t so sure if we were twins or just one baby. We felt so lucky that we were twins! Mama said that the two of us together didn’t weigh more than one baby. “Mama’s middle name is Elizabeth, too. Her initials are K. E. W. just like mine! I love that.” She named me after her best friend Karin since she and Daddy had just picked one name, and then they had twins. Karin was from Sweden. I kept thinking about initials! Toni’s—that wasn’t her real name either— middle name was Jane. Jane was one of Daddy’s cousins. Toni’s first name was Carolyn after another one of Daddy’s cousins, but Toni was called Toni because she was born with lots of black hair, and the nurses at the hospital called her “Toni the Italian.” That’s what Mama said. “Toni’s initials were C. J. W.” She was going to get an award at a big ceremony this very day! I considered just how happy that made me, “I feel happy for Toni and for me and Kappy!
Kappy and I loved Toni, and I think she loved us. She had a hard time loving us, and I knew why. Chicken pox. Toni had it—and couldn’t see us or be with Mama because everybody was afraid she would get chicken pox and give it to us. Hearing all this made me feel sorry for Toni. “I love Toni best after Mama and Daddy.”
Our family was happy, but worried because, our nation was fighting World War II. It was the worst war ever. Our town had lots of soldiers in it at Fort Bliss. They learned to fly planes: bombers and fighters. We heard about bombs and bombers because everybody talked about the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor. I wasn’t sure how the Japanese were connected to Hitler, but he started the war first in Europe. It was all really awful and complicated, but we knew we had to help. I thought about how Toni helped.
Toni was born in 1932 when things were really bad and a lot of people were poor. Daddy never lost his job. He had an important job. He worked for The Texas Company as an accountant. They made gasoline, and the Army used it to win the war. Every day, all the family did lots of things to help win the war. I made a little list in my head, “Mama has a Victory Garden so we could have vegetables, and she makes all our clothes and saves bacon grease. Toni collects stuff needed for the ‘war effort.’ All of us, along with everybody else in the United States, have ration stamp books since the soldiers need most of the food. Kappy and I help with everything. We all do our part fighting the war on the home front. I feel so proud!”
Kappy and I were born in 1938. We were six years old. The best thing about being six years old was being in First Grade and going to Alta Vista Elementary School. Toni was in the Seventh. We lived at 3732 La Luz Street, and Alta Vista was two blocks away. Our teacher was Mrs. Rice. She was changing me from left-handed to right-handed. We had lots and lots of friends in the First Grade. Some of them were Carlos, Danny, Robin, Celeste, and Evelyn.
Toni’s hair was not black any more, but beautiful blonde. She had blue eyes. I didn’t hear her in the kitchen. She was really pretty. I thought that part of the reason Toni had a hard time liking us was because not being with Mama after we were born made her really sad. She looked sad a lot of the time, but she liked Grandmama. She and Grandmama talked pretty often, and Toni smiled some. I heard Grandmama’s voice in the kitchen just a little while ago. Grandmama was making a “visit” with us. I thought for a minute, “I know Mama’s last name used to be Hagendoorn so Grandmama’s last name must be that. I think her first name is Ida since that’s what Daddy calls her. Mama told a friend once that her name was ‘Ida Claire,’ and her friend laughed out loud. Her initials must be I. C. H. That sounds pretty funny, too.” Grandmama was strict. But I thought, “I like Grandmama best next to Toni.” I heard more talking in the kitchen.
I thought about another person. I loved her, too. She lived next door. Sometimes I would hear her start her car in the morning. It was parked in a garage that opened onto our alley. She was Grace Rose, and she was a school teacher. She was one of Kappy and my very best friends. “I love Grace next best to Grandmama, even though she is really not in our family.” I knew we would see her today at the awards ceremony.
I opened my eyes. It was getting light. I could hardly wait for the day to get started. I loved my family and my life! Being a twin was the part of my life I liked the most, having Kappy with me all the time. I turned over in my bed and saw Kappy waking up. She turned over. Her eyes were blink-y, but she smiled at me. I heard Mama on the screen porch, opening the door to our room; she said something she said to us every single day! “Good morning, Sunshine.” I thought, “I am glad that the Lord did not take my soul! Or Kappy’s soul! We can get up now. Today is going to be so wonderful!”
Toni’s Award
“Don’t forget, we have to go down to the school today. Toni will receive her award,” Mama reminded us as she opened the front door to let us in. Toni had gotten a tin shed donated to the Scrap Drive. “We better go get ready; go change your clothes.” Mama had taken our photograph in the identical new dresses that she made for us. We felt like princesses!
For Kappy and me, this day was nearly perfect. We helped with chores that we just loved. I went with Daddy to the Texaco station that smelled like gasoline and tires, both precious things in wartime. Kappy and I helped Grandmama with the chickens she kept out in the backyard. And now, Toni would get the prize at a ceremony for collecting more scrap metal than anyone else in the contest being sponsored by Alta Vista School, our school. Toni was such a mystery to us.
We had not figured out how the Army was going to use the other scrap or Toni’s tin shed, but we were very proud of her extra special efforts to end the war. We yelled out to Toni, “We’re going with you to get your prize!” I’m not sure that pleased her. Kappy and I ran through the house to our room. We put our Saturday clothes back on and carefully hung up our new clothes.
We always wondered about what Toni was doing. She never did anything much with just Kappy and me. We loved her and hoped she loved us. She painted water color pictures of flowers at times and gave them to us. She had a little kit of paints with more than one brush. We put her paintings in a big picture book that a friend of our mother gave us when we were little. Toni didn’t talk to us much, but she must have talked to other people.
She had her own relationships going on in the neighborhood. It was Daddy’s friend, Mr. Henry, who gave her the tin shed. Daddy and Bill Harris had gone down to the Henry house to “knock down” the shed. This concept was almost unimaginable to us. Daddy took some of his tools with them, but we could not figure out what the process was. Toni must also have talked Mr. Henry into dragging the shed down to the playground with his pickup truck, a vehicle we were very interested in because not many people had pickups. This one made a lot of noise, and Daddy said it was not “kept up” properly. We already heard the shed being pulled down our street for everyone to see. Banging and clanging on its way to the school—Toni’s prize winning contribution to our fighting men.
Mama, Toni, and Grandmama came out on the porch to wait with us. Pretty soon we saw it! Kappy and I jumped up and down, “Toni, Toni! Look! Your shed!” She nodded but didn’t smile.
When the truck got to our house, Mr. Henry shouted out, “Toni, hey girl, do you want to ride on the running board of the truck.” That was a step-like piece on the outside of the truck under its two doors. Oh, how lucky Toni was!
“May I?” Toni asked our parents.
Daddy walked up on the lawn from behind the truck. He looked at Mama for her consent. Her hand went to her forehead, but she nodded her head. Daddy answered Toni, “For a little way. We’ll walk along with you.”
Grace came around the corner of the house with a big smile on her face. Grandmama didn’t come with us, but the rest of the family and Grace slowly made our way toward the playground walking along with the collapsed metal shed screeching loudly as it scraped the black pavement leaving long, gray marks. The noise was terrible and wonderful, announcing our coming and our sister who was the champion scrap metal collector. Kappy and I ran ahead but were called back.
“You’ll get in the way. Heavenly days, girls, be careful. You don’t want to be run over, do you?” Mama warned.
“We won’t. We’ll be careful. This is so much fun. I hope all our friends see us!” What a great day. I imagined the war made noise like this. Could there be happy times in the war?
When we got to the school, the big gates on the Copia Street side of the playground were open, and the truck drove though them honking its horn. Everyone cheered and clapped. This was divine. Look what Toni had done to win the war. I don’t think I had been this excited in all my life. Kappy and I, and I am sure our parents, were thrilled. Toni walked along, now smiling, and said “thank you” to people who congratulated her. I hope she was as happy as we were.
When we got to the playground, Daddy shook hands with The Principal, Miss Pearl Crockett, and with several men we did not know. The men we didn’t know had on suits and looked important. Later, Kappy and I discussed if one of them could have been the Mayor of El Paso. We’d heard about him. Or, maybe Mr. Hooten, the editor of the El Paso Times, who Grace said was there. He lived somewhere in our neighborhood, and his son was a couple of grades ahead of us at school. A lot of people we recognized as the parents of some of our friends and classmates were there, too. Grace was talking to some of the teachers.
We ran up to talk to Celeste Gallegos, who died of cancer when we were in the third grade, Carlos Navarro, whose dad had a plumbing company and a garage full of tools, and pipes that smelled good, and Evelyn Bradley whose father “drank too much” according to Mama. Danny Wever, who became my first boyfriend, was there with his big sister. She was in the Seventh Grade with Toni and had beautiful, long curly hair. Robin, another classmate, was there too, but would be leaving Alta Vista soon. We stopped talking so loud and jumping around when we talked to Robin. He had a regular arm on one side and two-thirds of an arm on the other. He was the only actual evidence we had of the war and the terrible event that increased our efforts on the home front. He lived in Pearl Harbor when the Japs dropped the bombs. He made us nervous, and we didn’t know what to talk to him about.
There were piles and piles of gunnysacks filled with flattened tin cans on the playground. Most of the donations were flattened-out tin cans. Ours were in there somewhere; Daddy brought them down earlier. All kinds of metal were in piles around the schoolyard. Surprising to me were the car parts because no one could buy a car. There were no new cars being made. What would the families do without a car? Another amazing thing was the bathtub that Carlos’s father had donated. But nothing beat Toni’s shed!
Here we were at our beloved Alta Vista School on such a great occasion. We looked around for Mrs. Rice but didn’t see her, our teacher who was changing me from left to right handed. She said it would help me all through school and as an adult. I didn’t like it; she made me sit on my left hand and would hit my hand with her ruler when I forgot and wrote or colored with the wrong hand. Finally we saw her. Mrs. Rice was talking to Mrs. Eckhard whom we hoped to have for High First. She let her class decide on what they would be while she taught them. Our class would be a farm when she taught us. Miss Patrick, a nice teacher, who taught Second, and Mrs. Parker, a mean one, had walked over to talk to Mama. She later told the whole class that Kappy could read better than I did. About that time one of the men in a suit called the crowd to order. Toni was about to receive her award.
We didn’t know who he was but were sure he was important. We all said the Pledge of Allegiance. The flag from the school auditorium was placed on its stand next to the chairs where the distinguished strangers sat. Along with introductions of other men in suits, announcements of numbers I didn’t understand, and praise for Victory Gardens, the man talked about the Bond Drive. “Winning the war has rewards for us as well as the soldiers and the nation,” he said. Finally, the meeting leader got to Toni’s award. “Will Miss Carolyn Waugh please come to the front to be recognized?” said the man. He turned around and asked Miss Crockett for something. Toni looked kind of glum as she stood there, but pretty with her blonde hair. Maybe she was a little scared because nothing like this had ever happened to her before. She was wearing a dress that Mama made for her. I’m not sure if Mama took pictures of Toni in her new clothes. We were all so proud of her that day at the Scrap Drive! Miss Crockett handed the man Toni’s tinfoil ball! She had been collecting it for as long as we could remember. We were surprised to see it up there. It was about five inches across and was made up of the tin—later we found out it was really aluminum—that was part of the wrapper on every piece of gum. Gum came in packages of five pieces. Toni asked everybody who chewed gum to save the wrappers for her. She painstakingly peeled off the shiny outer coating of each wrapper and put it onto her tinfoil ball. We asked her how she got it started, but all she ever told us was that she did it with tinfoil. It must have been a teeny-weeny little ball when she started it. The ball was held up for everyone to see. People said “Ah” and “Oh,” and applause broke out in the audience. Golly! Our sister was amazing to people. Kappy and I jumped up and down and clapped and shouted, “Hurray, Toni!” Mama and Daddy looked “proud as punch,” as our grandmother would say.
The man said, “Please accept this Certificate of Appreciation from your community and from the nation,” as he handed Toni a piece of paper. This was a disappointment to Kappy and me because we thought she would get a medal of some sort. Toni smiled and said, “Thank you,” and walked back to stand with us, and the crowd clapped and clapped. We sang the Star Spangled Banner and started home.
People congratulated Toni and our parents as we walked off the playground. Some of our friends told us we were lucky to have Toni for a sister. It was getting dark and things quieted down quickly. A kind of solemn feeling settled over our family. The sun had almost set as we walked quietly home.
When we got home, we had a wonderful supper, and Grace ate with us. When Kappy and I finished devouring our pieces of the delicious cake she’d baked and brought over, we made our Victory Plates—turning our empty glasses upside down on our empty plates. We asked Daddy, “May we please be excused?”
“You may.”
Bed Time
Kappy and I brushed our teeth, unbraided and brushed out each others’ long hair, and put on our gowns. We said our “Now I lay me down to sleep” prayer kneeling by Kappy’s bed. We took turns with whose bed we would pray by.
We got in bed, snuggled down, and talked quietly. Kappy asked, “When do you think the war will be over?”
“I don’t know. Maybe pretty soon. Daddy says so; I hope so. I don’t want many more soldiers to die.”
“Me neither,” Kappy responded. “Let’s say another prayer for them.” We didn’t get out of bed, but each one of us prayed, “Father, help and sustain our troops. Keep them safe.” That was the prayer we had learned to say so long ago that I couldn’t remember who taught it to us. “Sustain” was an odd word, but I heard it in church so I knew it was a perfect kind of word to use when praying for the soldiers
“I hope the Japs don’t come,” Kappy quietly said in a kind of scared voice.
“I don’t think they will.” I was a little scared, too. I wasn’t sure what was really going to happen. “Toni won the prize for the Scrap Drive. That will help us win the war. We will be okay.”
But still, Kappy reached up through the slats at the head of her bed and whispered, “Hold my hand.”
I did and then whispered to my precious sister, “Don’t worry.” We drifted off to sleep holding each other’s hands.
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