When asked 'Where are you from?'...

... I usually reply 'Reno, Nevada'. And that's true to the extent the listener/reader doesn't presume that's where I was born. 

When I was about 4 years old my father, Wilbur (Bill) Vernon Bowman (b. 1911, d. 1995), was offered a job as business & office manager at Johnson Chevrolet in Reno. He was hired by then-owner, Marsh Johnson. It was 1942, the US was at war and it was only a matter of time before my father got his draft notice. 

One of my memories of how the war affected me at the time was a train ride from Reno to Stockton. I traveled with my mother, Doris Agnes Ross (b. 1910, d. 1980) on a steam-powered passenger+freight train. There was standing room only; soldiers in uniform had exclusive priority for seating. One such soldier stood and offered his seat to my mother (the one with the whiny brat who was making a scene). I guess I sat on her lap and probably slept the remainder of the ride as I remember nothing else. WW-II in a child's nut shell.

The US had an alliance with England, France and others. We supported their war effort but without sending troops to fight in Europe. Then Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 and 3 days later Italy and Germany declared war with the US. Suddenly the US had a front row seat on the front lines in Europe while we figured out how we were going to deal with attack on Pearl Harbor. Even though we called it collectively World War II, the US was suddenly and simultaneously fighting two separate wars. 

That war effort was enormous. Among other things it put demands on all manufacturers and resources in the US from food and clothing to fuel, construction material and pretty much anything you can think of that requires the exchange of dollars for goods. And yes, I remember gas rationing which was a frequent topic of discussion since the Bowman family loved their multi-hundred mile Sunday drives. But especially important to our new life in Reno, the supply of new Chevrolet (or any other brand) cars and trucks ended abruptly as all production was redirected to the war effort. Time for Marsh Johnson to re-think his staffing needs.

We lived for a time on Gordon St (Ave?) where I recall a flooded basement with all the family paper records floating in a sea of black. That and an especially long tirade of swearing from my father. It was what he did to buy a little time to objectively think about how he would deal with the situation (yeah... I'm makin' up crap!). 

As I recall the series of events we next moved from Gordon St to 440 St Lawrence- a duplex. Our duplex had a basement which (unlike Gordon St) didn't flood. It also had a fireplace insert made by a company called Heatilator- an amazing contraption that allowed a fireplace to actually heat a room instead of just looking like it would heat the room.

440 St Lawrence. I guess it's higher end now- St Lawrence Ave used to be St Lawrence St. This is pretty much what I recall. I remember playing near an earlier tree on the right when my mother told me 'President Roosevelt just died. You'll want to remember that some day when you're older.' It appears I have just done exactly that.

Sometime after the move I recall a late night drive past a place called The Day Home. It was a Catholic daycare center run by the Sisters of Mercy. I later learned it was operating at full capacity as families in Reno (as in the rest of the country) were scrambling to find places for their kids so that mom could get a job and be working all day when dad was drafted and sent off to fight in the war. And that's what happened to us. 

My father received his draft notice and was inducted into the Army. But he wasn't gone long. The truth is he was as blind as a bat without his glasses (as a child he tried to read in a darkened room while he was at home with measles) and he was sent home after 6 weeks. His vision must have been really bad because while the Army needed soldiers who could shoot without killing the guy beside them, they also needed soldiers in non-combat rolls. Mmmm... like maybe a bookkeeper?

When he returned after being discharged, his old job -  the one that had brought us to Reno - was gone. Since Chevrolet couldn't build cars for delivery to dealers, they didn't need a business/office manager anymore. When the draft notice had arrived my mom had gotten a job with Bell Telephone of Nevada as a secretary. She asked her boss, Jim Dodson, if there were any jobs available for my dad and he said "You bet there are!" 

So my father went to work for the telephone company {Bell of Nevada) and learned to climb poles and repair telephone lines. He stayed with the telephone company for over 20 years migrating to a job in plant engineering- that job had to do with numbers and if there was something he was good at it was numbers! 

Both mom & dad worked for Bell Telephone of Nevada in Reno, then in 1953 they both transferred to Pacific Telephone in Stockton, California. They both retired from the telephone company- mom in 1962 and dad in 1964. 

So while WW-II tore up everyone's life during the early- to mid-1940s, it also created a long term employment opportunity for our family that was better than what we would otherwise have had. Oh yeah- and then 6 years after the Armistice was signed in 1945 we got into it with Korea... but that's another story. Or two.