LIFE1936-1948

Barely three months after Pearl Harbor America was looking for some good news and they found it among this group of newly minted war heroes. As we read the exploits of the men cited in the above Roll of Honor it is clear that their bravery was achieved while American forces were often overwhelmed early in the war. And no hero electrified America more than Lt. Butch O’Hare who shot down five Japanese heavy bombers with his Grumman Wildcat fighter. As the lone available fighter in the air to protect the aircraft carrier Lexington, O’Hare was suddenly faced with a V formation of nine Japanese heavy bombers heading straight for the Lexington. He charged his fighter into their midst, shot down five, and badly damaged a sixth. The Lexington was saved and O’Hare landed his plane safely back on it, although he had to dodge a wild burst from one of the Lexington’s own anti aircraft guns as he landed. O’Hare was awarded the Medal of Honor for his daring. He was shot down and killed in November, 1943, near the Gilbert Islands. In 1949 Orchard Airport in Chicago was renamed O’Hare Airport and hundreds of thousands of Chicagoans turned out for the ceremony.

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Lustron Homes were decades ahead of their time. Imagine a combination dish washer/clothes washer and all outside surfaces, including the roof, made of steel and covered with baked enamel! The inside walls were made the same way, and the inside doors were pocket doors. The radiant heat came in at the top of the walls, but the warmth never made it down to the floor which was on a concrete slab.  To escape our apartment on the south side of Chicago not far from the steel mills, my parents purchased a Lustron in 1950 and we had it erected on 2 1/2 treeless acres in Crown Point, IN. It arrived on a truck that looked like a car carrier and was put up in a few days in December, 1950. The company fell into bankruptcy soon after we moved in and the truck remained in front of our house for six months. Every time the wind blew…a common occurrence on the Indiana prairie…chains hanging from the truck rattled. Lightening storms were especially frightening since out all steel house was the highest point in the area, but we were never struck. My mother did witness a tornado plow up the field across the street. We escaped the Lustron 3 1/2 years later when we moved to Lake Bluff, IL.