MARCELLO, Alfred J. (b. 1932) | Oral History

MARCELLO, Alfred J. (b. 1932)

Profession: Educator

Oral Histories

Educator. His experiences as a young teenager on the home front in Wrightsville, Pennsylvania, during World War II. His family’s economic situation during the Great Depression; teenage recreational activities before World War II; the town’s reaction to the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor; the establishment of an armed guard at the entrances to the Wrightsville-Columbia bridge, which spanned the Susquehanna River; Council of National Defense; establishment of air raid wardens and the imposition of blackouts; sources of war news; economic improvements as a result of the war; attitudes toward “4-F’ers” and “draft dodgers”; wartime rationing; the sale of the local baseball diamond and its conversion to agricultural land; scrap metal drives; Boy Scout activities; collection of milkweed for the making of life preservers; patriotic themes in local schools and churches; war-related boyhood games; troop convoys; his wartime jobs; wartime leisure activities for adults; town’s reaction to the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12, 1945; V-J Day celebrations; returning veterans; transition of the town from war to peace.
Date of Interview: August 7, 2000

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