War Stories: Reva Blom

I was born July 6, 1944, in St. Louis, Mo., so am a true "war baby." I had an older brother, 6, and an older sister, 2, so Dad was exempt from enlisting at that time. However, that did not stop him from helping the war effort in any way he could.

He started working for Small Arms, making ammunition and small arms. He was in charge of a team of men who produced the most small arms in a certain amount of time and even received a letter of praise and congratulations from President Harry Truman.

Mom was a stay-at-home mom, taking care of us three kids. We had another addition, a girl, to our family in December of 1946.

Dad always told the story of him making his way home one night from work when he passed a soldier who asked him for a dime so he could make a phone call. Little did that soldier know that the dime Dad gave him was his last bit of change that day. Dad would have given him the shirt off his back, I'm sure, if he had asked.

We have pictures of my older brother and our two cousins playing together, all dressed in little Navy uniforms. When my older brother grew up, he enlisted in the Navy.

When Dad's younger brother returned from the war, he warned us that we should get away from the metropolitan area of St. Louis for fear of being bombed, so we headed west. One of Mother's sisters already lived in Washington state with her husband who had been in the Navy. That was in 1949. We've been here ever since.

-- Reva Blomé-Bunnell

Yakima