Remember Rationing

My name is Betty Jones, and I was about 7 years old when war broke out. It was June 3^rd 1938, when I first joined girl scouts in Canada. Of course, the Second World War hasn’t occurred yet, so being a part of Girl Scouts was a fun way for me to make new friends. We would meet up once or twice a week and talk for countless hours. On certain occasions, we would sell cookies to earn money for the club. However, when the war broke out, everything changed. I remember mama telling me “everything will be alright”, until my papa, Uncle Benny and my brother, John left for war. I still remember John’s last words to me “take care of mama, and everything will be alright”. Surely, he was wrong. I really had no idea why everything has suddenly changed, until mama told me that the government wanted to save objects, food, etc for the soldiers who were fighting. This was called rationing. We had to limit use of imported food and to free up supplies for military and their allies. It was 1942 when mama first received a ration book and suddenly, our food supplies decreased! I could only imagine how painful it was for mama to tell me we had to live on a box of butter for the next 2 weeks! I was starving, and it was heart-breaking for mama to see her little girl become skinnier and skinnier. We only had oranges and bananas once or twice a year, and candy was definitely not an option. Even the girl scouts could no longer sell cookies. Instead, we sold calendars to our neighbors. Rationing slowly caused everyone to worry and be depressed about Canadian supplies. Everyone was hungry, angry, and most importantly, worried.