In this photo Dick is wearing his ROTC uniform. According to the note on the back of the photo, Dick participated in ROTC during his freshman and sophomore years of high school.
Travel Photos
Mildred and Dick pose in front of Mt. Rushmore in S. Dakota. Note that at the date of this photo (1937) it is still a work in progress.
Is this the Golden Gate bridge? There’s no caption on this photo, but it looks like it might be the Golden Gate.
Dick started high school in the fall of 1942, a few months after the United States entered World War II. He attended Shortridge High School in Indianapolis. After his first two years of high school, he moved with his parents to Whittier, California.
This page focuses on his Indianapolis high school years, and the artifacts of the war. The last portion of the first chapter his autobiography is also included. Since that section also discusses travel with his family, some travel photos have been included here as well. The second chapter starts with a description of Dick’s time in high school in Indianapolis, so the first part of that chapter is included below as well.
This permit allowed Dick to begin learning to drive a car at the age of 16. Note that it cost him 50¢!
This is Dick’s War Ration Book One. The ration book – at the beginning – was a single sheet of paper folded to become a small booklet. The above photo shows the inside, with Dick’s information and a few stamps that he didn’t use. Photos to the right show the front and back of the booklet.
The move to California meant that Mildred and Dick were leaving a part of the country that their ancestors had occupied for generations. Here Dick visits the gravestones of Mildred’s parents and grandparents before the family heads to the west coast.
This photo of Shortridge High School was taken during a 1981 visit to Indianapolis.
We have six war ration books that belonged to Harold, Mildred, and Dick while they were in Indiana. The above stamps were in Dick’s Book Three. (Note the change from Book One.) The fact that none of the stamps were used may be due to the family’s move to California. (click to enlarge this photo)
A rare informal photo – everybody is obviously having a good time! The caption on the back says “the ‘gang’ just after a dip in the ocean.”
The Beginning Years, part 5 (by Dick Votaw)
(part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4)
Vacation time with Mom and Dad were special times. Due to my hay fever allergies we usually had to get out of Indiana in late August and early September as this was the time Ragweed and Golden Rod were blooming. After the first frost I was usually free from any pollen allergies. Vacations were spent in California, upper Michigan, New York City, Atlantic City or in the state of Maine. We made driving trips to California when I was three, nine, and twelve. When I was fifteen I made a train trip alone and stayed with my Aunts & Uncles. I recall more about the trip in 1937 than any other. This was the first time to see Mt. Rushmore while the President’s faces were being carved; only Washington and Lincoln were finished then. We also went through Yellowstone Park and we fed a bear right from the car. Dad was out of work that summer as a pharmacist so we stayed almost the whole time with relatives. We lived most of the summer with the Boyces in Fullerton and Dad was given a part time job by Pomona Box Co. making wooden pallets by hand at a job sight in Fullerton. I recall spending part of my time with him on the job. That summer we got to go to Hollywood and see all the wonderful sights, radio studios, movie houses, and stars’ homes. Mother couldn’t wait to get a map to all the movie star’s homes. This was the summer Fantasia first was released and I remember being frightened in parts of it. We spent much time looking at the imprints of star’s hands and feet in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater.
Two other vacation spots that I enjoyed were the Maine coast and visiting the New York City’s world fair of 1939 and 1940, as it ran for two years. The marvels of these New York trips included eating at the ‘Automat,’ seeing Yankee Stadium, and riding the moving sidewalks at the Worlds Fair. I had never heard of a moving sidewalk. The telephone exhibit also fascinated me as each visitor was allowed to make a free coast-to-coast long distance call of three minutes. Long distance calling of this magnitude was just getting started in 1939.
For an eleven or twelve year old, eating at the Automat was like being in heaven. You put in these nickels and food and drink would come out the little glass doors. I was so enthralled with this process I wouldn’t let my parents eat anywhere else. I remember putting money in for a soda and getting a glass that all ready had ice in it and forgetting to empty the melted ice. I didn’t get all my drink and the glass ran over and I couldn’t stop it. We stayed in a tourist ‘home’ in Flushing Meadows, New York, which was very close to the fair. People used to rent out spare bedrooms to tourists who preferred this type of accommodation to motels, and they were usually cheaper and nicer.
As for our Maine vacations we found cabin-like accommodations that were near the ocean, but located in wooded areas. We had fun exploring and playing Rummy to see who would wash and dry the dishes after each meal. The loser had to wash, the second place finisher dried, and the winner got to watch the others work. I thought this was more fun, but my parents must have really been bored with it after a while.
The years 1928 to 1942 were wonderful times for me, not being burdened with the difficult decisions of the world around me, but just enjoying almost everything with which I was involved. Having two sets of parents looking after my every need was not a burden at all. Many times I wished for a brother or sister, but most of the time I remember being very content with my surroundings. Of course I shall never forget December 7, 1941. The bombing of American soil is something that the people of our country thought could never happen. Hawaii was not officially a state at that time, but there were many Americans living there besides the military. As for me, I don’t remember for sure if I even knew where Hawaii was located, let alone know any thing about the islands except hearing some of their music on radio occasionally. When we got home from church that Sunday we just couldn’t believe what had happened as we had the radio on and heard the news. Then the next day, December 8, congress declared war and our whole world changed. World War 1 was supposed to have been the war to end all wars. I remember all of us thinking, would this thing be over before I was old enough to get involved. As it turned out it was, with the final surrender of Japan in 1945 while I was still in high school.
Rationing became a big part of our lives during the war. The last automobiles were made in early 1942 and not manufactured again until the 1946 models, so it was up to everyone to keep their old cars running. We had coupons dated to buy commodities like sugar, coffee, shoes, and tires. Sometimes it was necessary to save coupons and give up an item one week to buy something else. Women’s silk hose were impossible to buy; I remember Mother telling me some women painted their legs to look the color of hose.
Each automobile had a sticker on the windshield that represented the amount of gasoline you could buy for that particular car in a week’s time. The stickers were labeled A, B, C, and D. If you had an A sticker your limit was 4 gallons per week and quantities were then graduated upwards to the point if you had a D sticker you were able to buy the most gas per week. The sticker each car owner received depended on his occupation and need. My Dad had a C sticker as he was a pharmacist.
The Learning Years, part 1 (by Dick Votaw)
By the time I had finished eighth grade I was already 14, and having a March birthday I was always one of the oldest in my class. I entered Shortridge High School in September, 1942. Shortridge was located at 34th & Meridian Sts. in Indianapolis and was some distance from our house as we lived on Illinois above 46th Street. There were five or six high schools in Indianapolis in 1942 and the Catholics and the Blacks had their own schools. As a kid of 14 I didn’t give the thought of segregation a minute’s time; it was just a matter of fact. Oscar Robertson, the great star of the NBA came out of the black high school. All high schools, regardless of segregation, did participate in the annual state basketball tournament that I wrote about previously. The year Oscar was a senior, their school won the tournament.
I attended Shortridge for my first two years of high school, taking the usual required subjects, but electing to take Latin instead of some of the more familiar languages being offered. My Dad thought this would be a good base language for me no matter what I wanted to do in later schooling. One other elective I took was Printing, as in type setting. I am not sure what led me to choose this subject, but I found it fascinating and fun to learn. The freshmen all had their type boxes and had to learn which letter went in what section of the box without looking at the letter, much the same way you learn to type. The letters, figures, and symbols were made of lead, with the printable part carved out on one end. These pieces were arranged in trays to make your script. As you set type in your holder, you held it with one hand very tightly so as not to get the pieces out of order. Transferring this to a frame for printing was the tricky part. More than once a whole hour’s work would land on the floor. The upperclassmen were allowed to use the linotype machines that they used for the school newspaper. I took printing only one year so I never got to use one of those machines. Even though I enjoyed playing football and baseball in seventh & eighth grades, I did not go out for any sport as a freshman or sophomore. I think this was due to being a basically shy person. The only times I went to mixed parties involving girls, the girl I was escorting was prearranged by parents and of course driven by parents. Shortridge was a large school, taking in the major portion of the North part of the city. Our big rival was Tech located on the East side; I don’t remember the full name of the school. The floor plan of the school was much like my elementary school as we had two floors and a full basement. The main floor contained a large cafeteria where most of us had our lunch.
Sometime during my freshman year I got my first paying job that didn’t involve working for family. After school I would catch a bus and go downtown to work at the Indianapolis Public Library. My principal job there was to restock and keep in order the fiction section of the library. As books were returned each day, the librarians would stack them on carts and they accumulated just waiting for me to arrive. I had a long table in the back I shared with the non-fiction person to sort out the books and alphabetize by author. After this process was complete, I stacked the books on a cart and took them to the fiction section to be shelved. I marveled at the size of Tolstoy’s War and Peace and wondered how anyone could get through that book. This job took all the rest of the afternoon hours and lasted sometimes into the evening. I usually went on downtown to meet Dad and Mom for supper on the nights that he worked and the nights that he got off at 5:30 they would pick me up to go home. We only had one car at a time all the time we lived in Indiana. I would go back to the library after supper; hopefully we had eaten at the White Castle hamburger shop. These were the greatest hamburgers and they only cost five cents, but they were small. I remember them being just saturated with fried onions. After supper at the library, after I had finished the fiction section, I was taught to operate the telephone switch board, which I thought was the greatest invention yet. I had a head set and the board was the old fashioned type of plugging the connecting cords into holes and then ringing the extension phone with the ringing keys. This worked fine for incoming calls, but when I was asked to connect one extension phone with another, sometimes I would run into trouble. I worked at the library most of my spare time during my first two years of high school for the fantastic sum of 35 cents per hour. I don’t remember what I was making at the time I quit the job, but it could not have been more than 50 cents. I did not spend very much time at the farm during these first two years of high school.
There were no school buses to ride to get to high school, therefore I had to make my own way there as Dad had most likely taken the car. I really had three choices of transportation: one, I could catch the ‘feeder’ bus (a short bus line that connected to longer lines at some point). However, this cost seven cents and I didn’t make this choice too often. Secondly, I could hitch hike a ride, which I did most of the time as it was perfectly safe to do that. Many times the same people would pick me up each morning. Third, I could walk, but that would have taken way too long. In the winter with snow on the ground and freezing cold I usually rode the bus.
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