To The Editor:
Re: A Wartime Christmas in Red Bank by Sharon Hazard
Oh, for Heaven’s sake! Please hire one or two OLD people to do fact checking for you.
I really enjoyed the idea of FDR climbing out of his grave to preach optimism (now THAT would have been a real front page headline!) Do tell poor Ms Hazard that Harry Truman was our President by April of 1945, and the War was OVER on August 14, 1945! Oooh, and how we celebrated!
For Christmas of 1946, we had thousands of trees, lots of lights, millions of GI’s back in school (High Schools and Colleges thanks to the GI Bill,) and factories churning out civilian products instead of military goods. What a year!
Still giggling,
Mud De Winter Trigg
Middletown
Freelance writer Sharon Hazard responds: I apologize for the mistake. My research came from books and articles about Christmas during the war years and from the ***ITALSRed Bank Register**ENDTALS, December 1946. That 1946 newspaper did include a proclamation from acting Governor Haydn Proctor asking for conservation of electricity. My article failed to make clear that I was writing about the war years and the immediate aftermath. As the daughter of a World War II veteran, I should have been more clear when using dates.
Sincerely,
Sharon Hazard
