Thanks for your interest in my book now available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Read a description and some first reviews!
Narrating in the voice of my youth, I am among the last who can speak accurately from personal experience about the scarcity of the depression, the fear and patriotism during World War II and the exuberance in that brief, post-war period when we felt safe and when the middle class was born. By the 1950s, with the GI Bill, VA loans, and fully stocked store shelves, the country was all about getting back to normal.
But for us, normal was gone. This memoir chronicles my New England farm family and how normal evaded our reach.
THE REVIEWS ARE IN!
HOME FRONT – A MEMOIR FROM WWII
Home Front is touching, gracefully written and very well told. “We saved our balls of tinfoil for the war effort, we learned to recognize the silhouettes of German and Japanese planes, we got V-letters from fathers and older brothers in the service, and we saw the newsreels. But we knew we didn’t really understand. So, we watched the adults very closely, realizing that they were trying to keep frightening news from us.”
The addendum, Voices from the Home Front, is a bonus which will further trigger readers’ own memories of those years. They were times all of us of a certain age remember vividly, and Home Front with its touching personal detail recreates them poignantly and appealingly.
Edward L. Burlingame
Retired Editor-in-Chief, Harper & Row and HarperCollins
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“A touching, accurate and well written portrayal of a special, turbulent era in American life.”
Hoagy B. Carmichael, Historian and Author
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“Home Front beautifully captures the feeling of patriotism and shared experience that we hunger for today.”
Steve Sullivan, Best Selling Author Remember This Titan. (WSJ Best Pick)
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I was immediately charmed by Mr. Peterson’s boyhood voice. Thank you for this wonderful account of family life here during the war years.
Annie Murphy, Executive Director, Framingham History Center
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“…. an engaging revisitation of midcentury America. A gentle, personal, and informative remembrance.”
Kirkus Reviews
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If you grew up during WWII, read Home Front to remember. If you didn’t, read it to learn about a time of real patriotism and solidarity in America.”
Edward Vebell, Legendary illustrator for Stars and Stripes and WWII veteran
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“Home Front is a fascinating blend of stories. On one hand it is a coming of age account of growing up in a tight knit family on a small farm in a small New England town, with flavors of Tom Sawyer, and on the other hand it is a narrative of how World War II and the post war years impacted the family. It brings home to the reader how life in small rural towns was irrevocably changed by the “progress” of the post war period.
Frederic A. Wallace
Town Historian, Framingham Massachusetts
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Introduction
December 7th, 1941, is the earliest memory I can swear to. To me, it seemed as though a second world had been layered on us. Everything we did now on had an added meaning; we didn’t just farm, we farmed for the war effort. We sang extra songs in school for our boys overseas. “Make do!” was the slogan, and rationing was the reality. Save tin. Save fat. Save paper.
Separation and longing swelled into the center of our lives. In movies and magazines, I saw visions of the war. I learned the names Roosevelt and Hitler and places like Iwo Jima and Monte Casino.
I felt, as we all did on the home front, the bonding and camaraderie of the shared threat with my schoolmates, neighbor farmers, and even strangers brushing by on the street. Patriotism showed itself in signs and slogans.
Children fared variously, with some sending fathers into the war and some also sending mothers into factories. Some had great fear, feeling we would always be at war. We had no agency. We watched; dependent, impotent, and obliged to be silent. We started growing our lives and waited for things to get better.
I fared well and felt I did my part.
© C. D. Peterson