Coupons and Coffee Stretcher

World War II rationing changed how Americans lived and ate 

My grandmother never threw away anything. Not that she was a hoarder. She kept a simple, clean home without trails meandering through mountains of newspapers, mystery boxes, and other paraphernalia typically associated with a hoarder. No, she never discarded anything because she had so little and what she had might be needed again. Bacon grease was saved for frying. Potted plants received coffee grounds as fertilizer. She made her own quilts from scraps of cloth, cooked everything from scratch, and maintained her own milk cow and chickens until she could no longer care for them. 

If I held the refrigerator door open too long, she reminded me the escaping cool air cost her money. I didn’t dare leave on a light as I left a room. She bought cattle feed in colorful cloth sacks that served as material to make dresses. 

Grandmother was the most frugal person I’ve ever known. 

So I was not surprised while cleaning out her house after her death in 1982, we discovered her World War II ration book. I don't know if Grandmother assumed rationing would return and she would need ration coupons again or if she kept the book as a memento of those hard times.

As I examined the ration book, I could not help but think about her difficult life through the Great Depression and World War II. When America entered the war in 1941, Grandmother was raising my mother and my two uncles, the three ranging in age from four to eight. Rationing only exacerbated a trying family situation. Frugality was a product of necessity through much of her life. 

WWII caused shortages of manufactured materials, including metal, rubber, and clothing. But food shortages affected everyone. With markets around the world inaccessible, imported foods like coffee and sugar were unavailable in quantity. Much of the processed and canned food was reserved for shipping overseas to the military and our allies. Food transportation across America was limited by gasoline and tire rationing and the priority of transporting soldiers and war supplies. 

Because of these shortages, the federal Office of Price Administration established a rationing system to manage the distribution of foods in short supply. The OPA established 8,000 ration boards across the country to administer the program. Every American received a series of ration books containing coupons necessary for buying rationed items like sugar, meat, canned goods, and cooking oil. When new ration books were available, Claiborne Parish residents picked them up at distribution points set up in Homer, Haynesville, and other communities. 

A rationed item could not be obtained without giving the retailer the appropriate ration stamp. Once a person depleted the ration stamps for a specific item for the month, no more could be purchased. Meals were planned with care, utilizing creative menus, and avoiding waste. 

Citizens found innovative ways to compensate for the shortages. When a car owner could not obtain a new tire, one might be fabricated from wood. People were encouraged to grow “Victory Gardens” in their backyards to supplement the food supply and contribute to the war effort. Some items like nylon hose were difficult to come by. In January 1943, Gibson’s Quality Merchandise of Homer, Louisiana advertised it would have 42 pair of nylon hose for sale in February. Customers were advised to sign up quickly to reserve a pair. 

Coffee rationing began in November 1942 with every person over 15 allowed one pound every five weeks. One news report revealed, “One pound every five weeks will be allowed for every person…This works out to slightly more than one cup a day, and in households where children 15 or older do not drink coffee, the grownups can have the children’s share as well as their own.” 

“Coffee stretchers,” concoctions added to coffee to make it go further, ranged from pure chicory to a cereal blend containing chick peas, barley and malt. While some were homemade using acorns or grains, commercially-prepared substitutes like Postum—a wheat, bran, and molasses blend—and Happy Jack were available. 

Americans supported the war effort and endured the shortages but coffee rationing was very unpopular. On July 28, 1943, President Roosevelt announced it was ending, the first of the rationed items to come off the rationing list. Most wartime food rationing ended in November 1945. 

Holidays like Thanksgiving were quite different on the home front during wartime. The traditional turkey centerpiece was but impossible to acquire. Even Thanksgiving football was suspended. The Detroit Lions, who have hosted an annual Thanksgiving game since 1934, put the tradition on hold between 1939 and 1944. 

The privations and inconveniences endured by those back home hardly compared to those in the service overseas or the suffering and starvation experienced in war-torn countries. Those years, however, influenced how the people who struggled through them would live the rest of their lives.

"Dead" Son Comes Home Alive

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   Teenagers aggravate their parents in many ways, but a 16-year-old Haynesville, Louisiana youth went above and beyond in driving his to hysterics, and later, apoplexy.

   One evening in early 1922, Marlin Mathis failed to return home. The news accounts do not explain if he ran away, lost himself in the wilds of Corney Bayou, or simply hid himself away to avoid punishment for some misdeed. At any rate, after a few days his parents concluded tragedy had struck the teenager. His father, a Haynesville contractor, and his mother agonized over their missing son.

   A few days after Marlin’s disappearance, his parents saw news reports from Amarillo, Texas about a youth about the same age who had been killed in a railroad accident. Details are vague, but the young man was probably “trainhopping,” jumping on or off of a moving freight train, a common practice of transients and runaways moving across the country.

   Fearing the worst, they telegraphed for details. A description of the body matched the missing son. The parents were told one of the last statements the boy made was that his father was a contractor.

   Mr. and Mrs. Mathis left at once on the train, sure they were going to bring the body of their son home.

   The hours creeped by as the train rumbled across the wide Texas expanse, adding to their anguish. Once in Amarillo, they viewed the body and identified it as their son by “a slight twist to the left in the nose and a mole on the left breast.”

   The body was prepared for shipment to Haynesville and just before the parents were to leave for the train, they received a message that Marlin was at home, “very much alive and in his usual good health.”

   Certainly the Mathis family was relieved, but grief likely turned to anger at the distress and embarrassment young Marlin had created. The ignominy of the matter was furthered when the Associated Press picked up the story, distributing it to hundreds of newspapers across America. The story of the “dead” boy returning home appeared in papers in scores of small towns and large cities.

   We can only speculate on Marlin’s fate when Daddy Mathis returned home from Texas.