Wenham local Bob Hicks began his collection of remembrances as part of the 375th Town of Wenham Anniversary Celebration (1645 – 2018.) Under these auspices they appeared on the Wenham Town Hall web site and in the Hamilton-Wenham Chronicle. He continued his work through 2019 in the pages of The Wenhamite until he had reached a conclusion to his coverage of WWII, with an epilogue discussing some of the changes that followed.

“From 1937 through 1947, the period in which I grew up in Wenham, the town went from the burdensome poverty of the Great Depression through the trauma of World War II to come face to face with the totally unexpected impact of a postwar boom, a decade of transition that forever changed the way of life in town.  This is a chronicle of how it was to grow up here during those years.”

We thank Mr. Hicks for his contribution of original PDF chapters, linked below, and his donation of a physical copy of Growing Up in Wenham in WWII: Recollections of a Bygone Era, now being processed as part of our library’s Local History collection.

Contents

Cover

01 Introduction
02 Coming to Wenham in 1937 Looking for a Small Farm
03 What Manner of Town is this Wenham? – Part 1
04 What Manner of Town is this Wenham? – Part 2
05 What Manner of Town is this Wenham? – Part 3
06 School Days Part 1 – The Center School
07 School Days Part 2 – Let’s Hear It for Our Teachers!
08 School Days Part 3 – Let’s Hear It for Our Teachers! (continued)
09 School Days Part 4 – Miss Bessie Buker
10 School Days Part 5 – Wrap Up
11 War Comes to Wenham
12 Knowing Our Roots: Reflections On Our Town
13 My Father the Air Raid Warden
14 Rationing
15 Chief Eddie Hall: Law & Order in 1943
16 The US Navy Lands in Wenham
17 Time Out
18 The Farm Kid Emerges
19 Cows & Vegetables
20 Entering the Wage Earner World
21 Moving Up in the Working World
22 VJ Day & Our Towering Inferno
23 After the War Was Over
24 Epilogue