Smooth, romantic tones swirled through the atmosphere, arming the cool of the evening. The young had come to dance and swing, but most had gathered at the Square to deposit their scraps of aluminum: pieces that had been crushed, cleaned and saved for the war effort. After all, salvaged aluminum was another way folks could make a personal contribution toward bringing victory nearer. Scrap metal could be used for grenades, binoculars and machine guns.

Mary clasped her Daddy’s hand tightly. Frustrated that she could not see what was going on in the center of the circle, she began to twist and turn to the music. When she was much younger and smaller, often her dad would hoist her over his shoulders in such situations. Although her dad had reluctantly brought his youngest to the street dance, he had firmly instructed that—if she insisted on coming—she’d better not get in the way. Being a policeman, he had to watch for crowd control. She could barely see the movement through the tightly gathered crowd. The compelling rhythmic sounds so energized the atmosphere that no longer could Mary resist asking, “Daddy, please, lift me up on your shoulders. I really want to see what’s going on.”

Mary’s family was one of the many of Rutherford County who remained on the “home front” providing citizen contributions during World War II. Her mother had purchased rationing books for food supplies, and her father had bought war bonds. Conservatively, Mom had saved ration stamps for weeks in order to get enough sugar to make her daughter’s birthday cake. They even had grown a “victory garden,” because Mary’s family wanted to do their part to “make food fight for freedom,” as a popular slogan of the day recommended. From far away across the ocean, a letter from Mary’s brother had been written with his impressions about the war...