1942 Dad worked morning tour I walked to town got groceries & thread to start a luncheon set.

1943 Dad & Bud worked Days Had chicken Dinner. Today order come out to freeze shoes Tomorrow & Ration starts Tues with No 17 stamp in Book.

1944 No entry

1945 Slept late Worked Marie came. Bud called & he is getting married Sat. or Sunday. He is still at Lemoore.

1946 No entry

Here is a copy of the ration stamps mentioned in the 1943 entry. You can clearly see stamp No. 17 in row 5 on the left. The rationing of shoes would have been of concern to most people. Sears sold shoes in their catalogs and to assure their customers that they could still buy shoes from them by mail, they came out with this information in the 1943 Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog. “Simply detach War Ration Stamp No. 17 from your War Ration Book No. 1 (sugar and coffee book) and pin it to your order.”

Lemoore Army Air Field, mentioned in the 1945 entry, was located nine miles southwest of Lemoore, California. It was built during World War 2 as an Army Air Forces training field. According to a World War II-era diagram, the field consisted of a roughly triangular shaped dirt landing mat, which measured 3,470′ along its longest side. A 3,700′ long north/south apron sat to the southwest of the landing mat, and west of the apron was the building area. Lemoore AAF was described by the 1944 US Army/Navy Directory of Airfields as having a 6,500′ hard-surface runway, although the remarks included, “Entire field available only when dry.”