Back in 1943 while the big war (WWII) raged around our world, me and my big brother Gerald were in the ice business. Gerald is pictured here standing in front of one of our icehouses on a beautiful Sunday morning when we were all on our way to the First Baptist Church which was just across State Highway 3. We were all dressed up and barefoot.

There was a guy parked in a black 1941 Ford and he asked us to sell him a nickel’s worth of ice for his jug. “The Daily Oklahoman” was written on each door of this Ford. Gerald sold him the ice, collected the nickel and we went on to church. I guess the newspaper guy felt a little bad, buying just 5 cents worth of ice and going on. But he did snap this picture which he put in the Oklahoman. He also sent us copies of the picture. But he may have missed out on the big Centrahoma story.

Peddling ice was big business for me and Gerald. Gerald, being quite the entrepreneur had already decided to sell and deliver ice in Centrahoma’s Metro. I don’t know exactly why as we were totally uncompensated. My dad was pretty careful with his money. Gerald and I helped dad build an ice wagon, patterned after the horse drawn rigs that still frequented our area. The heavy duty wagon we built had dual wheels on the rear, a coupling pole on its underside and a tongue salvaged from another toy wagon.

We had these “ice cards” which a potential customer would put in their window indicating whether they wanted ice and how much they needed. Gerald enlisted Letha Mae Moore and me to walk this part of the route and discover how much ice our 6 or 8 customers wanted. We would note who wanted ice if they placed their card in the window and how much. Like Gerald, we were not compensated.

When we delivered the ice, we just loaded up what we could pull. Using a thick, dirty, sterile quilt to slow down the melting process we might have to make 3 or 4 trips then go back to the store and ring in our hard-earned receipts. My dad may have thought of his grocery store as a non-profit organization since he kept his overhead under control by keeping wages paid to his serfs at zero.

I never knew what Bill Moore (Letha’s Dad) thought of her aiding and abetting the nextdoor competition. He operated Moore’s grocery next door to us, but we were the only ones with an icehouse. We needed all the help we could get to push our heavy loads of ice down the deep sandy ruts in the back streets of Centrahoma. Even so, we were caught up in the politics of wartime America. The next year we had to suspend our delivery service after the Ice Company in Ada informed us that we would get no more ice until further notice.

The ice problem shortage stemmed from our war successes. It seems that several hundred more prisoners of war had been brought in to the Stringtown POW facility. This, plus the electricity shortage of that period had caused the government to limit ice production in Ada. Used too much power they said. Plus, our government had ordered so much ice to be delivered to Stringtown that there was little ice left over for their regular customers, such as us. So it was, for two weeks or so there was little or no ice for sale and we had the only two icehouses in own.

The natives were mad. Why put the Nazi prisoners first? Most of our people had these old-fashioned iceboxes, requiring ice purchases each week to keep their food products cool. Very few had real refrigerators. Consequently, during that time some of dad’s grocery customers would just put their milk and meat purchases back in our big meat market case and pick it up Sunday after church. Ah, the sacrifices we civilians made to kill Japs and Germans back in those days. But I figured it was just another bit of our efforts to win WWII. Which we did.

Have a good week and if you decide to employ kids in some war effort, be sure and pay them a little. And don’t forget to go to church on Sunday.

Wayne Bullard, DPh cwaynebullard@gmail. com