Carl’s bookshelves were the complete short stories of O. Henry and the works of L. Frank Baum. The former dealt with ironies and fatalism in the lives of everyday people, written by that well-known alumnus of the Ohio State Penitentiary. The latter dealt with the most amazing adventures possible. Get this—the hero was not a knight or a detective, but just a kid from the Midwest. This Dorothy appeared to be every bit as plucky as Carl’s mother, and from the same era as well. That kid from the Midwest faced a series of improbable dangers and it was not completely clear if she would ever make it back home.
Also on the shelf was his collection of postage stamps from around the world, a typical Depression-era hobby, allowing a boy to dream about far-off lands when he wasn’t able to go anywhere. Even at a young age, Carl started to develop a sense of the world just by looking at stamps from China, Argentina, Great Britain, and even that interesting stamp commemorating the 1936 Olympics, the one with the odd symbol on it; a swastika, they called it.
In December 1941, Carl Lavin was seventeen years old, standing six foot two and attending Lehman High School in Canton, a Midwest industrial town of about 110,000. Carl was a senior, and, even though it was the time of the Great Depression, he was fortunate to have a fairly worry-free life. He had a loving family, a dog named Spitzy, and the entire world in front of him.
Carl’s brother Fred was two years older and attending college at Miami of Ohio. Carl’s father, Leo, and Leo’s two brothers, Bill and Arthur, ran the Sugardale Provision Company, the family-owned business started by Carl’s grandfather, Harry.2 Sugardale processed and sold meat products and other foods, everything from ham and bacon to cheese and Birdseye Frozen Foods.
Harry had a fourth child, Elizabeth. She had married Lou Kaven and, while the couple was not involved in the family business, they lived in the same half-mile radius as the rest of the family. With Harry and his wife, Mary, their four children and their spouses, there were five households in a small area on the north side of Canton.3
Carl had it pretty good, considering. Lehman was a fine high school; Canton, a nice town. Life was pleasant. True, business was slow all around, and the Great Depression had gone on so long people began spelling it with capital letters, but the Lavins and the Canton community were persevering. The misery of the 1930s was receding, slowly.4
In fact, a few of the local family businesses had gone on to bigger things. The Diebolds’ safe company sold their products around the world. The Hoovers also built their cleaner company into a famous brand. The same with Mr. Timken and his ball bearings.
Sugardale wasn’t a national name, but it did its best to endure during those difficult days. The Lavins cut business hours and reduced expenses. By reducing the workweek from five days to three, Sugardale was able to survive without layoffs. Because the company endured, Carl’s family was in a better situation than most. Besides, Leo made good use of the days that were closed for business by taking the train to Cleveland to watch the Indians play.
Dorothy and Leo owned a house on 25th Street. It was small, but it was paid for. It had indoor plumbing and a telephone.5
The house was a little more than a mile away from the home at 7th and Market where Governor William McKinley had run his front-porch campaign for president, twenty-eight years before Carl’s birth. It was also about a mile away from the Hupmobile dealer at 2nd and Cleveland, where the National Football League had been established four years before Carl was born. And it was about two miles north of Nimisilla Park, where Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs gave the 1918 anti-war speech that got him arrested.6
The United States was a different world in 1940. Journalist Cabell Phillips offered an overview:
The population was 131.6 million in 1940, up a scant seven percent over 1930. . . . The GNP was 97.1 billion, with federal government expenses running at just under 10% of that amount at 9.1 billion. About 7.5 million people paid federal taxes, with the tax rate at 4.09%. Only 48,000 taxpayers were in the upper bracket of incomes between $25–$100,000. And there were 52 people who declared an income over $1 million. The average factory wage was 66 cents an hour and take home pay was 25.20 a week. Urban families had an annual income of $1,463 and only 2.3% of these families had an income over $5,000 a year.7
Along with a house, Leo also owned a LaSalle automobile, which he allowed Carl to drive—a pretty good deal for any seventeen-year-old boy.
One Sunday Carl took the LaSalle downtown. It was around 3 p.m., and he was headed home after having a bite at a lunch counter. As he braked for a traffic light, his uncle Bill happened to pull up alongside him, then started waving, trying to get his attention.
Uncle Bill rolled down his window, motioning for Carl to do the same.
Uncle Bill was almost shouting: “Is your radio on? Turn to the news. Pearl Harbor’s been bombed.”
Carl did not fully understand.
“The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor,” Uncle Bill said. “That’s ours.”
On 25th Street, Dorothy and Leo also heard the news.
Dorothy, classical pianist that she was, always had Leo tune into the weekly 3 p.m. broadcast of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra on the CBS network. There was one large RCA radio set downstairs, and it wasn’t a bad way to pass a Sunday afternoon while reading the paper and catching up on small talk. That day Arthur Rubinstein was to perform Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto. But as Rubinstein was about to begin, CBS announcer John Charles Daly broke the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Said Daly: “The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, by air, President Roosevelt has just announced. The attack also was made on all military and naval activities on the principal island of Oahu.”
After Daly reported for thirty-three minutes, Rubinstein conducted a spontaneous rendition of the “Star-Spangled Banner.”8
Leo and Dorothy knew America was at war. Carl knew that somehow he would be part of it. He just did not know how downright dark and deadly it would be.
At Lehman High School on Monday morning, the mood was electric. Students were assembled in the auditorium to hear President Roosevelt’s address to Congress. America was going to war, and all the boys wanted to be part of the action.1
Carl was a little bit chagrined because he wouldn’t be turning eighteen until April, over four months away, and everyone believed the war would be over by then. Carl was disappointed he would not get a chance to fight.
Time seemed to slow down after the initial rush of excitement. Carl still had high school to finish. For the moment, Carl’s contribution to the war effort was limited to a small poem in the school paper.
“Answer to Goebbels”
Then have
You seen our men
As they walk home from work
Each clean and dirty, weak and strong?
You will.
The immediate optimism after Pearl Harbor faded with a string of Allied defeats and setbacks. With the fall of Hong Kong in December 1941, the fall of Singapore in February 1942, and the Japanese sweep across the Philippines, historian Paul Fussell noted that early 1942 was “close to the nadir
