Thelma and Lowell's Diary: March 27, 1943

She eats supper with Mrs. Wiener; Captain Eddie Rickenbacker speaks in New Orleans

It was a Saturday. Thelma and Lowell went to the grocery store in the morning and after he left for work she did her housecleaning. At 6 p.m., she went over to Mrs. Wiener’s, bring her sandwich toaster with her, and they made a supper of grilled sandwiches, coffee, and potato chips. “Mrs. Wiener didn’t feel good so we lay on the bed and played pinochole until the boys came home,” she wrote. (Isn’t it interesting that she refers to Lowell and Mrs. Wiener’s husband as “the boys,” yet doesn’t use her friend’s first name?) The two couples stayed up until 1:30 a.m. talking, and then she and Lowell went home and read the funny papers.

Eddie Rickenbacker, who surved twenty-four days in a rubber raft after an airplane crash in the Pacific Ocean, made a surprise visit to New Orleans. To read more, you will have to be a paid subscriber. You can become one of my “Booties” for just 16 cents a day. Think of it as tuition for a crash course on the homefront during World War II — no pun intended!