Margaret Travis: “When World War II began, [folks] watched the newspaper and their radios for broadcasts about the happenings in the war. In the vestry of the church there was a large poster with every serviceman’s name and address. Church members would write to them. Green Level’s world grew worldwide with their sons overseas.

Marie Seeger: Evalina was the person who delivered the telegrams whenever people were being notified of casualties from the war. [Everyone] that had children in service lived in fear of her coming to their house. When they saw her with a telegram, they knew it was terrible news. I remember the war bond drives and how patriotic the town was. I was saving my dimes to buy stamps to go in the saving stamps books. You could turn in a filled book to get a war bond. That was the way that I could help. We took our rationing books with us when we went to the grocery store. You had to tear out those stamps for meat and sugar. A lot of people did black market, but we would have never dreamed of doing that because we knew what we were doing was for the good of our relatives that were in service.”

Billy Rogers: “[They put] a star on the flag for each former Cary High School student who was in the military. When one of them was killed in action, they would change that star from blue to gold. I remember three or four gold stars on the flag. The families that had children in service had a candle in the window that would burn twenty-four hours a day, as long as that person was in the military.”

Mary Crowder: “We had two pair of shoes a year. You had a summer pair and a winter pair. They were rationed. We still had pigs, chickens, cows and a garden. We’d can in the summertime, and you’d save your sugar to make jellies. Then you started saving your sugar to make your cakes at Christmastime. [Extended families] all cooked and ate together, so we had as much as we needed. We saved tin cans and the aluminum foil wrappers off of our chewing gum for the war.”

Robert Heater: “We built the cannery [at the school] so people could can food, since your food was rationed. You could grow it in your garden, and go to the cannery and can it to preserve it. Mr. Dunham was in charge of it, and Mr. Dunham worked you.”

Mildred Sanderford: “The Red Cross came out and we sewed at the school one day a week. We made flannel pajamas and rolled bandages. They found out I could get one more pair of pajamas out of a bolt than anybody else, so I cut them. And [we] knit scarves and gloves.

“Twice a year, in the fall and spring, the Woman’s Club would have 30 or 40 soldiers come up from [Ft.] Bragg by bus. Everybody would take one or two of them home to stay. We gave them lunch on Saturday, and then we’d have a big party that night. We played games and had a musical program. We didn’t dance. Then Sunday everybody would take their two or three to church. In the afternoon, the bus would come back for them. Two of our “old maids” found husbands. The club was real proud of that.”

Cary’s Heritage is taken from the book, Just a Horse-Stopping Place, an Oral History of Cary, North Carolina, which is on sale at the Page-Walker Hotel in downtown Cary. The book is a collection of oral history interviews conducted between local citizens and Friends of the Page-Walker Hotel. Proceeds from the sale of this book support the preservation of Cary’s history through the Cary Heritage Museum.