GARVER, Mervin (b. 1923) | Oral History

GARVER, Mervin (b. 1923)

Oral Histories

His experiences as a defense worker at Riverside Foundry, Wrightsville, Pennsylvania, 1941-45. His education and childhood during the Great Depression; employment in the core room at Riverside Foundry; his draft classification as 4-F due to psychoneurosis; his personal feelings about being classified 4-F; local reaction to his 4-F status; production of hand grenade and radar cores at Riverside Foundry; financial and patriotic incentives to increase war production; purchase of war bonds and stamps; employment of women and wartime shortages; rationing of food and gasoline; the “Victory Bus”; blackouts and air raid wardens; President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s visits to Wrightsville by train; personal impressions of FDR; effects of WW II on his personal finances; Reuben Strickler as a member of the York County Draft Board; Donald Smith’s managerial style as proprietor of Riverside Foundry; effects of World War II on the postwar lives of Wrightsville’s citizens; the transition from wartime to peacetime production at Riverside Foundry; memories of post-World War II Memorial Day celebrations.
Date of Interview: August 6, 1999

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