Relevant History welcomes M. Ruth Myers, who received a Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America for Don’t Dare a Dame, the third book in her Maggie Sullivan mystery series. The series follows a woman private investigator in Dayton, Ohio, from the end of the Great Depression through the end of WW2. Other novels by the author, in various genres, have been translated, optioned for film, and condensed for magazine publication. She earned a Bachelor of Journalism degree from the University of Missouri J-School and worked on daily papers in Wyoming, Michigan and Ohio. To learn more about Ruth and her books, visit her
web site and blog, and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, and Pinterest.
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Time constraints cause most survey history classes to focus on generals and royalty; statesmen; luminaries in the arts and sciences. Small wonder ordinary folks like most of us feel no connection to such distant people and see no link between their world and ours today.
That’s why I’m currently writing the fifth book in a mystery series about a woman private eye in 1930s and 1940s Dayton, Ohio. Yes, she carries a .38 and keeps a bottle of gin in her office desk like her male counterparts. But she lives in an all-woman rooming house, as was typical for America’s first-wave career women. She’s slighted because of her gender. When her bank account runs low, she eats sardines and crackers to stretch her money. In other words, she’s an ordinary person with worries much like our own, but living in times much different than ours. We can identify with her, yet the world she inhabits is just a bit exotic.
Her name is Maggie Sullivan, and I created her for two reasons.
First, I wanted to bring to life the American women of what’s widely known as the Greatest Generation, the generation that on the battlefield and at home was the lifeblood of World War II. Most movies and novels depict them as sweethearts left behind or as Rosie the Riveter, or dancing with GI’s at USO dances. In recent years, belatedly, and usually pegged to an occasion like Veterans Day, an article here and there recognizes the women who flew military planes from one base to another or performed similar auxiliary functions.
The women overlooked
Overlooked are the countless women who stepped into jobs on newspapers, in shops and offices, as cartoonists or university instructors to keep the country moving. During World War II, the number of American women working outside the home increased from 25% to 36%.
Unmentioned is the shortage of housing women faced as they flocked to cities to enable American factories to produce vital supplies. In San Diego, with its booming aircraft industry, many single women were forced to sleep in shifts in a single room. In Washington, D.C., both genders searched the obituaries in order to pounce on apartments that became available.
In Dayton, Ohio, young women who had trained as teletype operators arrived to work at what is now Wright-Patterson A.F.B. Shortage of barracks meant many had to live miles away in the city’s YWCA or in boarding houses where they shared a laundry tub and a kitchen in the basement, riding to their around-the-clock shifts in an unheated bus with hand straps and a few bench seats.
Housing was just one of the hardships faced by women whose husbands flooded into the military. If they wanted to live with their husband while he was in training, they’d find themselves sharing an apartment with another couple, or living in a lean-to, possibly with no bathtub. Nor were they always welcomed by locals. Two teachers from Missouri recall being called “low-down soldiers’ wives” and “damn Yankees” when they went to see their husbands at Ft. Knox, KY. The “rooms” they managed to find consisted of cots in the hall of rooming houses. When their husbands shipped out, women knew they wouldn’t see them again until the war ended—or they came home too badly wounded for further service. Because the military censored letters from men in uniform, the women at home didn’t even know the country where they were stationed.
Relatable history
My second goal in writing the Maggie Sullivan mysteries was to make history relevant by helping some of my readers recognize that people are still alive in their own families who, if not part of the Greatest Generation itself, have childhood memories of the 1940s or remember a parent or grandparent talking about that era. Readers can compare history with things in their own experience: rotary phones to cell phones; snail mail to real-time Skype conversation with loved ones in distant places; World War II rationing of food, clothes and other essentials to current day flag bumper stickers. If you have a female relative who did something interesting on the World War II home front, I invite you to contribute photos and share her story.
Through Maggie Sullivan and her friends on the home front, I attempt to show ordinary Americans, a typical Midwestern community, and American society itself, as they move from a sort of innocence in the waning years of the Great Depression into and through the reality of World War II. If I’ve done my job right, readers will be able to hear the click of heels on the wooden floor at McCrory’s five and dime and see people from all walks of life pulling together to support their fighting men. If I’ve done my job right, they’ll be able to touch history.
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A big thanks to M. Ruth Myers. No Game for a Dame (Maggie Sullivan #1) is available free for Kindle, Nook, Apple, and Kobo. (Note: No Game for a Dame is an excellent read. I posted a five-star review for it on Amazon.) In addition, Ruth will give away a paperback copy of Don’t Dare a Dame (Maggie Sullivan #3) to someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available in the U.S. only.
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Wow! Another great blog entry. Women in this time of history are finally getting their recognition. My mother was a single woman, a nurse, who came home to help her mother run the family farm after my grandfather died. Her brothers were fighting in the War, one in the Pacific and the other in Europe. Neither of the women had done the farm work before, but they endured and saved the farm. I know how miserable my mother must have been since she also had terrible allergies. I have no photos of her working the farm.
Thanks, Jody. I’d love to use your brief account of your mother’s role, along with her name if you’re willing, on my blog’s Share Stories page. Please let me know.
A good reminder that we soon will have no chance to learn about that period from those who lived through it.
Yes!
I’ve read the first two of Ruth’s books and loved them. I’m a historical fiction buff, and especially like historical mysteries, which are a nice change of pace from the typical historical romance genre. I’m very glad to know there will be another in this series – I’d actually been checking Amazon periodically for new titles!
My parents were both born in 1924 and my grandmother in 1905, so I well remember their stories of how it was during that time, including their experiences of sex discrimination. I remember my mother telling me that one didn’t use the word “pregnant” in mixed company, as it was considered vulgar, but said “expecting” or “in a family way” instead. But even in the 1940s, this made my mother’s eyes roll at how silly that was.
One smallquibble, though. i’m very sensitive to anachronism in historical fiction, and the use of the word “gender” as if it were interchangeable with “sex” would not have been used in the 1930s or 40s. Up until the 1960s, “gender” meant only grammatical gender, and even then, it began being used by academics to distinguish between one’s sex, male or female, from stereotypical ideas of masculinity and femininity. It slowly became used as a synonym for masculinity and femininity by the mainstream in the late 70s or so. It’s only been in the last 25 years or so that people have begun using it as if it were interchangeable with one’s sex, male or female.
So, any use of this word before the1960s to mean anything other than grammatical gender would be anachronistic. IT would be “battle of the sexes”, “the fairer sex”, and so on, before this time.
Sorry to nitpick, but this is one of my literary pet peeves. And, even though it is commonly used these days, it’s not really grammatical correct to use “gender” interchangeably with sex, with it being best reserved for grammar and to refer to masculinity and femininity, as in “Gender roles”.
Thanks, Tracy, for the kind words and for the correction on “gender” usage. I try very hard to keep language and vocab authentic to the era, but this one never would have occurred to me. Always nice to learn something.
Since I was born in 1929, I remember some of those years myself. One thing unique to where I lived in northwest Washington state was a hand-delivered set of mimeographed papers at our grade school early during WW II. One paper was given to the oldest child in a family, to be taken home, read by the adults, and returned the next day. It was the warning of incendiaries sent aloft by balloons by the Japanese to start fires. Information was given on how to handle them if we spotted any, and who to inform. This information was given this way so the Japanese would not know some of them had reached the mainland. Actually, very few did, none in my area.
Norma, this is a wonderful account. Would you be willing to add any extra details you recall about taking that paper home and letting me put it up as a guest post that would thereafter take up residence on the Share Stories page?
It might prove a nice nudge for others to come forward with stories from their families. A needlepoint picture is made of many small stitches, yes?
About the only other thing I remember about that was that the next morning they were very careful to make sure every paper was returned.
I do have other memories about practicing hiding under the desk if in school, or in a ditch if outside should strafing airplanes should arrive. (You can imagine the nightmares.) There was the time I went with my mother (on bikes) to spot planes. (Didn’t see a one.) Books with stickers for canned foods, others for meat and butter, still others for sugar, shoes, gasoline.
Yes, I’d be willing to guest post. (I have one on this subject on this blog.)
In the last twenty years, I’ve talked with older relatives about their experiences during wartime. Lawrence, who served with Blackjack Pershing to fight Pancho Villa, Bill who was captured in the Battle of the Bulge and saw many other POWs shrivel and die in the camp, and even Kenneth, whose wartime duties were to haul old ammunition 20 miles into the Pacific, all gave me stories that were far more fascinating than the best war movies – and Hollywood makes some great war movies.
They are all gone, now, and I can’t ask the questions I forgot to ask. Hop to it, and talk to your neighbors, relatives. etc. It isn’t just death we must outwit. I’ve noticed as I get older, my vision and my memory gets weaker, and everybody else seems to get stupider. I suggest filming these interviews, because someday your great grandchildren will discover them and pronounce them to be gems.
(I also highly recommend Ruth’s stories of Maggie as she detects in prewar Dayton. She’s smart, courageous, compassionate, a hard worker. Those are the things I loved most about my late first wife.)
Thanks, Steve. It was lovely to hear about your relatives and their experiences. Since one served with Blackjack Pershing, you’ll be interested to know that as a teenager I lived in “his” house in Cheyenne, WY. I believe only his wife ever lived there as he was posted elsewhere at the time. I should have paid more attention on occasions when my mother trilled on about it to someone, but you know… I was a teenager.
I second your encouragement to talk to & film — or at least record — older relatives.
I’m so pleased to know about your series! My daughter and I love this sort of book and I’ll start with book one and keep going. Thanks to Suzanne for hosting you.
I hope you enjoy the books, Caroline! Stop by my blog and Facebook page to read more about the era and see period photos of the city where the series is set.
I’m so thrilled you’re taking the time to write about a few of the exciting things that have happened during this period in history. My history teachers (with only one exception) felt that memorizing dates was sufficient.As a result, history class was a chore to me. I taught college for several years and understand that survey courses require instructors to teach massive amounts of material in a short amount of time, but that does NOT excuse laziness on the part of instructors who prefer to take the easy way out by teaching only dates – which can always be looked up by a person later in life. It’s far more important to learn the details of the era, as well as about the people and lifestyles of the time. One of my friends, who was a college history instructor (and taught at the same college as I did), told me history should never be boring. History, he said, is passion, love, battling over land, struggling over identity or religious ideals, poverty, differences of belief, and everything wonderful and sorrowful wrapped up in a tremendous package. It should be moving, heartbreaking, joyful, and everything in between, but never, ever boring. Thank you for showing people what my friend meant.
Wow, your history teacher friend could have written absorbing novels, I’ll bet. I had a fine history teacher in high school, but always found ancient history far more interesting than U.S. It was first-hand accounts from lively, interesting 1940s women I’ve met through the years that prompted me to dig deeper and eventually start this series.
This was a great post! I’m new to Maggie Sullivan and to the woman who gave her her character. I’m glad I stopped by, though, because this era in our history is one that appeals to me in every way. I wasn’t around during WWII, but proud to be called a “Baby Boomer.” Unfortunately, I heard few stories of my relatives’ experiences. So I’m drinking in everyone’s comments here to learn. Thank you, Ruth, for writing stories that have historical significance.
Thanks, Alice. It makes me very happy to know I can play a small role in introducing people to this era, which I think was quite pivotal not only to this country, but to the lives of women. Most of those who hadn’t sought careers before the war quickly returned to lives as homemakers when it ended. Nonetheless, they’d made it less “outlandish” for their daughters and granddaughters to stretch their boundaries.
My teachers always made History interesting for me. It was my favorite subject in school.
Really enjoyed your article. Your book sounds like one I would enjoy reading.
Thanks, Joye. I, too, was fortunate to have a fine history teacher for two years running (world history and US history). It still focused too much on people at the top of the pyramid for my taste, though. Some fine biographies are what made it start to come alive for me.
Women flew aircraft across the Atlantic to them to where they were needed.
Indeed they did, Warren. It’s nice they’re finally getting some recognition, even if it is mostly at patriotic holidays. The WASPS have their own museum in Sweetwater, TX.
I knew a WASP personally when I lived in the DFW area in the early 80s. she was still flying small planes.