John Crowe (Prompt 2)
U.S. History to Reconstruction
Professor Sarah Adelman
29 April 2013
Eleanor Crowe
On April 23, 2013 I interviewed my grandmother asking questions regarding life before
and leading up to the Korean War (1953). Eleanor Crowe (My Grandmother) was born May
22nd, 1931 in New Haven Connecticut. Until she was married, at the age of 28, New Haven was
where she spent her entire childhood. Her family was large, as were most families back then,
counting at four brothers and 5ve sisters. Due to the fact that their house was very simple and
there was so many of them in the family, all of the siblings were forced to share beds until they
moved out of the house. Eleanor was the youngest of the girls, and only had two younger
brothers. Because of the age di8erence between her, her two younger brothers, and the rest of
the siblings, Eleanor and her two younger brothers formed what was like a “second family” to
her. Her older siblings were parental figure to the younger three. Everyone in the household
had chores, male or female. As a young child Eleanor had easier jobs such as weeding the
garden, doing the dishes or se<ng the table. As she grew her jobs got more difficult. 1
World War II began in 1939; U.S. involvement in the war began in 1941 when Eleanor
was just ten years of age. Her memory of the events that took place is very clear due to the fact
that her home was a few blocks away from an Air Force base; also her family was completely
1 Eleanor Crowe, interviewed by John Crowe, via Phone, Framingham state/New Branford CT, April 23,2013
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German. When Hitler 5rst came into power Eleanor remembers that her grandfather was very
impressed with the way he ran Germany and the changes he initially made. Until the U.S.
became involved in the war, Eleanor didn’t know anything about what Hitler began doing, or the
reasons why the war began. The U.S. was not ready to jump right into World War II. Our armed
forces were small in number and not ready for action. Our economy was very fragile at the time
as well, the New York Times spoke about how just the thought of war a8ected the U.S. economy
in saying ““On Sept. 26th, when European war seemed inevitable, New York stock averages had
fallen 11 points below Sept. 7th. Wheat had risen 9 cents, CoGon had declined 5 cents. British
consols were 11 ½ points below August; the pound sterling had declined 23 cents in a week. All
markets promptly reversed themselves aIer Munich. But suppose war had come, what then?”2
Due to thoughts like these, the government was ignoring what Germany was doing for as long
