This article by Ray Spitzenberger first appeared in IMAGES for September 23, 2021, East Bernard Express, East Bernard, Texas.
Working in some form of mass media, — which today includes television, print media, such as magazines and newspapers, radio, and internet, — was one of my aspirations as a youngster. However, back in my days (1930’s, 1940’s, and even the 1950’s), mass media was limited to print and radio, with television just beginning to rear its head in the 1950’s.
Perhaps this yen for public communications grew out of my childhood experiences during World War II, at home, in Dime Box, passionately wanting to keep up with this terrible war going on, with loyal sons, fathers, uncles, and brothers fighting the Axis on foreign soil. In this small , rural town, the m edia we could access most readily were the radio and Life Magazine (which could be purchased at Vlasta’s Five and Dime Store).
Electricity came to my grandparents’ farm before the War ended, and they bought a Crosley table top radio, the cheapest radio available, costing around $8 at that time. My parents, though we were far from rich, had a floor-standing Zenith console radio in our living room. These devices, in spite of their obnoxious static, brought the news from the front lines into our homes. I remember my father jumping up from his chair in the middle of a crucial battlefront report to fiddle with some wires in the back of the radio, hoping to get rid of some of the noisy static. Those of us living in town got electricity before the outlying homesteads did.
A quick “google” showed that in 1940, nationwide, 82.8 percent of families in the United States had radios (that translates into 28 million households). I don’t remember anybody having battery radios in those days, so, rural areas without electricity were also without radios.
Like other folks living in rural areas in America, my mother was determined to follow closely the progress of this War, with its devastating loss of loved ones and with potentially catastrophic outcome if America lost. To keep up daily, she would buy the latest copy of Life Magazine, with its War photographs and maps, and keep it near the radio.
On Sunday evenings, my parents, my twin brother, and I would gather around the radio and listen to Gabriel Heatter, my parents’ favorite broadcaster. We couldn’t wait to hear his opening words at the beginning of each newscast, “Good evening, everyone, there’s good news tonight.” And even if the War didn’t seem to be going too well that day for the Allies, he would have some good news to report. As Heatter described the latest battlefront news, Mama would show us on the maps from Life Magazine where the action was taking place.
Journalists, including those from Mutual Broadcasting Company and Life Magazine were sent overseas to the War Zones, wore noncombatant uniforms, and sent the news home for the Media to report. A number of these journalists were killed, wounded, and captured by the enemy, the captured ones usually executed by the Axis. Their bravery enabled us to get the latest War news.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt encouraged the Media to provide War coverage for those of us on the home front by establishing the OWI (Office of War Information). This government office helped the journalists cover the War news, knowing how desperately important it was for worried and grieving folks at home to know what was happening each week. A lot of dangerous work was being done by brave War Correspondents so that Gabriel Heatter could say, “Good evening, everyone, there’s good news tonight.”
The years, 1930-1940, were known as the “Golden Age of Radio,” but the Golden Age actually lingered on beyond that. Nationally, the Mutual Broadcasting Company was founded the year I was born, 1934, and it remained in existence until 1999, thus a Godsend for the War Years. Locally, KULP, El Campo, was founded in 1948, KWHI, Brenham, in 1947, and KANI, Wharton, in 1978 (according to Wikipedia, though I thought much earlier than that). All began broadcasting after World War II, but, even if they had existed during the War years, they could not have covered the War news the way the Mutual Broadcasting Company did, and I’m not sure the locals had affiliations with the nationals in those years. It’s kind of interesting how you remember things, — my memories of those years tell me that KWHI, Brenham, was always there, playing Mama’s favorite program, the Polka Party, every Saturday, yet they didn’t hit the air waves until I was in the ninth grade, lol.
As long as I live, I will always be able to “hear” Gabriel Heatter saying, just above the static, “Good evening, everyone, there’s good news tonight.”
-o-
Ray Spitzenberger is a retired WCJC teacher, a retired LCMS Pastor, and the author of three books, It Must Be the Noodles, Open Prairies, and Tanka Schoen.