Generations: Mom and Dad

By JIM PURCELL

My parents were from the World War II Generation, which they characterized as the Depression Era Generation. They were an uncommon people, and thank God for them, which is not to say that there were not a lot of problems with those folks. They just seemed to to make things work out, though, for the most part.

My father was born in 1919 and my mom was born in 1925. They were products of their environment, which is to say they were from Newark, New Jersey and were both from Irish-American families whose feet were still wet from walking off the boat. They were part of a community of people like them: Irish people. A portion of those people had some kind of life in Ireland before, some didn't. Those who didn't were being raised by parents who still bought into a lot of the traditions from the Old Country.

I remark on this because the same things was true of Italian-American communities, German-American communities, Polish communities....you get the idea. There were communities where people were essentially homogeneous and maintained what they thought of as 'pure racial lines' among White people. Of course, if White people were so hung up on whatever country their parents were from and someone from another Caucasian experience was considered different or 'other,' then how Whites looked at Blacks or Latinos must have been liked they were from the moon. In fact, that was how they looked at Blacks and Latinos. Mom and Dad thought there was a place for Blacks and Latinos in their community -- on the other side of it in their own part of town where they lived their lives among one another.

With that said, how people who were so self-segregated and who believed so much in tradition could cooperate together to do something so phenomenal as winning the kind of World War they fought, and establish the industrial-manufacturing/pre-technological society they did astounds me. My parents did not like the fact that I rebelled against their traditions or notions of right or wrong. Maybe every generation does that, though, to make their own mark. Still, I recognize what my parents did, and their generation.And, my parents were very ordinary in the ranks of their peers.

Dad was a street kid when he was very young, who easily could have fit in to the mold of one of the "Dead End Kids" of the 1930s. He loved his parents and went to school when he could, earned whatever money he might find for his family and played sports when there was a chance to do it. He was a working man, not an intellectual or academically inclined. During the war, he was already in the New Jersey Army National Guard, where he was a combat engineer. So, he knew what he was going to do during the war. He was one of those brave souls who fought in Normandy and came to liberate Europe on June 6, 1944. I cannot imagine the rare variety of hell that was. After the war, he came home and owned a taxi company briefly before he settled down and became an oil truck driver for Liberty Fuel Company, in Linden, which was his last job in life. He worked it for 30 years. He married a pretty girl from the neighborhood, had two sons, bought a house in the suburbs and did everything his generation expected from him.

Mom had a common story. She was from a big family. Mom loved her parents and did not like school. She was very social and well liked. During the Depression, she did without, helped her family make things stretch for the good of the household. She was a 'good girl' who went to church and went to dances at church and school. Then the war came and she became a factory worker very much in the picture of "Rosie the Riveter." She worked on an assembly line in Edison, helping to create component parts for tanks being used to fight the Axis.

These people were part of a team -- they did their best in teams. Their generation was able to come together like no other generation has in the history of this country -- including that of the Founding Fathers -- and fight back a darkness from the face of the world that would have consumed light as efficiently as a black hole from space. And, they made it look as easy as it could have looked. They bore terrible sacrifices and hardships, and did it all with a grit and determination that informed the world 'they got this.' No matter what it was.

My mom and dad were uncommon for the achievements they had in their life. But, they were part of a larger class of people, Americans from every walk of life and color who, as a group of contemporaries, were so dynamic and industrious.

A friend of mine, who was from my parent's generation, died about a week ago. John was affable, good-natured and cut the perfect image of a kindly and benevolent grandfather. Even as he was dying, he had a serenity and hard-earned peace about him that gave a lesson to everyone who met him: Live life well, do things right and fight the good fight. During the war, John was an infantryman in the 45th Infantry Division during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. His unit, nicknamed the "Golden Lions," were savaged by the last gasp of Hitler's army. John's experiences are not easy to identify with, but they are easy to appreciate. He was a hero at a time when there were so many everyday heroes.

The Depression Era Generation cannot be put into a neat, spare box and quantify them in a few words. They were forward-reaching, if not forward-thinking. They were dynamic and a force to be reckoned with. They could accomplish anything from building marvels of engineering to fighting Adolf Hitler or, if they had showed up wanting to fight, Martians or enormous sea creatures. Still, that generation struggled with diversity and civil rights. They struggled with the role of the individual in society and what place society has in the lives of individuals. No, this generation was not good at sorting out everything. They left a lot to do for the rest of us who came afterward. But, we should all feel very lucky for them because they allow us the opportunity to have those conversations, those arguments, in a relatively free world where individual expression still has meaning. Because if the Depression Era generation had not made their contribution to this world, it would be a place of far less opportunity for the rest of us.

I say God bless to my mom and dad, to John and to all of those wonderful people we were lucky to have as parents or grandparents. They carried the water.