In March of 2020, a global pandemic created an image in the local grocery stores that the nation as a whole has not seen since the Great Depression and World War II – empty shelves and shortages. For most Americans, this is something we had never seen in our lifetimes. Suddenly, we all realized that the stories our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents told us about standing in line to receive their family’s ration of sugar and bread were all too real, and they were now happening to us in a different set of circumstances.
Sadly, food shortages have existed many times throughout history and are still prevalent in many third-world countries, which is why the annual World Food Day (October 16) was created in 1992. Many businesses and individuals have started incorporating food and supply drives for such organizations as Salvation Army, Red Cross, and local charities/pantries into a holiday tradition as Thanksgiving and Christmas approaches.
The Salvation Army has been collecting and distributing food and other basic items to the poor in Seneca County since at least the early 1900s. Founded in 1865 in the East End of London, it was brought to America by Eliza Shirley and has had a presence in Ohio since 1879. The local Salvation Army began after a Captain Wilkinson raised $1500 to incorporate Tiffin’s branch. The Moore’s Standard Directory of Tiffin, 1908-1909, lists its Salvation Army Barracks on the corner of East Market and Monroe, overseen by Captain John Kissel. Likewise, Fostoria’s Salvation Army shows up in the Broekhoven’s Tiffin City and Seneca County Directory, 1902-1903.
The Red Cross is another major charitable entity with historic roots in Seneca County. While Red Cross was founded only 2 years after the Salvation Army arrived in the United States, it didn’t become a “staple” in the minds of Americans until World War I. According to its website, the number of local Red Cross chapters jumped from 107 to almost 4,000 from 1914-1918. Then the 1918 influenza epidemic happened, followed by the Great Depression about a decade later.
Once the United States entered World War I, drives were held in Tiffin for Red Cross, Knights of Columbus, and the YMCA to gather war chest funds for soldiers serving overseas in the Great War. These could have included corned beef, biscuits, cheese, “tinned butter” and jam or marmalade. For a soldier in the trenches, tea and stew were extra special treats.
During the early 1930s, local Red Cross chapters received “government cotton,” “chambray” shirting, and gingham prints to turn into basic garments for the needy, particularly underclothes. “It was not uncommon to see long lines of people waiting for rations of both food and clothing,” says a recap of Tiffin history in the Yearbook Columbian Blue and Gold 1964. For a few years, hundreds of families in Tiffin received relief packages at Christmas with luxuries like potatoes and other vegetables, cornmeal, apples, beef roasts, canned goods, sugar, and coffee.
The Junior Home even pitched in to help. Since its premises had a large canning facility, it took in crops from area farms in September 1931 and turned them into over 2000 canned items which were given to the mayor to distribute.
When the “shelter-in-place” government order was announced by the federal and state governments in March and April 2020, we still have the peace of mind that if we got bored in our homes we could safely venture out for a car ride to get out of the house. But during World War II, Americans didn’t even have that luxury as rubber, fuel, fabric, and other supplies, including stamps, were rationed in addition to food. People carpooled whenever possible to avoid unnecessarily wasting precious fuel.
Even civilian automobile and bicycle production slowed almost to a halt. Switching gears, much like during the COVID-19 crisis when there was a high demand for personal protection equipment and cleaning supplies, factories scrambled to make Jeeps, ambulances and tanks. “Doctors nurses and fire and police personnel could purchase new tires, as could the owner of buses, certain delivery trucks, and some farm tractors, but they had to apply at their local rationing board for approval,” states an article on the National World War II Museum’s website. Since Seneca County is in close proximity to Detroit, one would often witness this “defense material” being shipped out of Motor City to its destinations for transport to troops.
To get one’s rations, special rations books were distributed – and each family had multiples, ones for food and ones for transportation (gas & tires). In Old Fort, Harry Hade was one of the thousands of citizen volunteers appointed by the Office of Price Administration to grant tire certificates and gas ration books in his hometown.
Food ration books were known as “Sugar Books,” because sugar was the first consumable item to be rationed at the start of World War II. Other foods widely rationed were meat, dairy, coffee, dried fruit, jams/jellies, and lard/shortening.
While the United States has fortunately not experienced a rationing system of this scale since (the coronavirus was but a hiccup in comparison), statistics show that one in seven Americans suffer from hunger, due to both small and large events. If anything, the empty bread shelves that we briefly experienced for a few weeks made us realize throughout time the ones who came before us can teach us a thing or two about resiliency and gratitude. I’ll certainly try to remember that when I hear those bells ringing in front of the stores this holiday season.
Works cited:
Barnes, Myron. Between the Eighties, Tiffin, Ohio 1880-1980. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/65253/rec/10
Broekhoven's Tiffin City and Seneca County Directory 1902-1903. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/33178
Fort Ball Gazette April 1991. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/41003/rec/1
Moore's Standard Directory Tiffin 1908-1909. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/38285/rec/1
Ohio Memory Project.
Risingsun, Ohio. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/30016/rec/6
Red Cross. https://www.redcross.org/content/dam/redcross/National/history-full-history.pdf
“Rationing.” National World War 2 Museum. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/rationing
Salvation Army USA. https://www.salvationarmyusa.org/usn/about/
Seneca County, Ohio History & Families. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/28319/rec/5
Seneca County Digital Library.
“Sacrificing for the Common Good: Rationing in WWII.”
National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/articles/rationing-in-wwii.htm#:~:text=During%20the%20Second%20World%20War,contributed%20to%20the%20war%20effort.&text=Supplies%20such%20as%20gasoline%2C%20butter,diverted%20to%20the%20war%20effort.
Tiffinian 1918-01. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/24944/rec/1
“Today in history: National Food Bank Week and World Food Day.” October 14, 2015. https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/today-in-history-national-food-bank-week-and-world-food-day/
Yearbook Columbian Blue and Gold 1964. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/8967/rec/