GOLD STAR HOMES SAY RATIONING NO HARDSHIP AT ALL
“When I Hear People Kicking I Think, ‘These Folks Don’t Know.’”
Waterloo families whose boys have been killed or reported missing in action are considering food rationing only a small gesture of patriotism. Gold Stars are numerous now and their number is steadily mounting. And these gold star families are feeling far greater emptiness in their homes than the partial emptiness in their cupboards or their refrigerators.
“We’ve give up two wonderful sons,” Frank Ray, 217 East Fifth street, said yesterday, “and we’re willing to sacrifice meat or food or anything without a word, in order to retain the freedom we have now.”
Mr. and Mrs. Ray lost one son, Harry, Aug. 28 1942. He was killed in action on the Astoria, in the Solomons. A chief machinist’s mate, Harry had been serving in the Navy for 20 years.
Second Son Killed.
Another, Clarence Wendall, was killed Nov. 13, 1942, in a battle in the Solomons. He was a member of the crew on the USS San Francisco.
“When I hear people kicking about food rationing, I think to myself that those folks don’t know what real losses mean,” Ray said.
“I’ve got a busy job right now, but I’d surely like to be making shells—more than anything I’d like to be out there shooting them.”
The Rays have another son, Charley Russell, who has enlisted in the Navy and will be called about May 15.
The mother of the boys said: “We’re glad to do anything to win this war.”
Source: Waterloo Sunday Courier, March 28, 1943
Harry F. Ray was born July 15, 1904 to Frank L. and Mabel Shadbolt Ray. He died Aug. 8, 1942 and has a cenotaph in Lynwood Cemetery, Clarksville, IA and is memorialized at the Walls of the Missing, Manila American Cemetery, Taguig City, Philippines.
Chief Petty Officer Ray served in World War II with the U.S. Navy and was awarded the Purple Heart.
Sources: ancestry.com; abmc.gov
