Edwin J. Johnson, Springville, Utah: an interview by Benjamin Bahlmann, February 8, 2002: Saving the Legacy tape nos. 489 & 490

Page 12

EDWIN J. JOHNSON 2002 oils and fat , meat, lard, cheese butter, proces ed food , etc, began in the Ll within a month of Pearl Harbor. Most families could only buy three to four gallon of ga per week for their car. People with priority jobs, like doctors and war indu try worker could get more, depending on their priority rating. Access to other form of transportation, like trains, was limited. Production of consumer appliances and automobiles ceased entirely for the duration of the war. Tires and rubber products were the first items rationed because the Japanese had overrun the Southeast Asian rubber plantations.] BB: Did that start before you left? I should know that. EJJ: Oh, yes. See, I didn't leave until '43. It was in the first part of '42 that they started the rationing. It cramped us, but there were always places we could get gasoline stamps, but tires were hard to get. BB: How did your tire business operate under that system? People would give you the ration stamps for tires, wouldn't they? EJJ: The thing that happened would be, we'd have few tires actually at the business. Customers would come in to buy a tire. They'd bring a ration stamp to buy the tire. We'd have to send that stamp to Salt Lake and they'd ship a tire down, if they were lucky enough to be where they could get that. It was the same way with gas. There were A, B and C stamps on cars. People would get a couple of gallons a month if they had an A stamp. C's would get more. T stamps were for truckers. T stamps got five gallons per stamp. BB: How would your father get other supplies for the business? EJJ: Other supplies weren't that hard to get. For him it was mainly the tires and inner tubes. My father went into vulcanizing tires, fixing breaks in them and doing repairs. 12