Bandages

My father’s mother was a lady of refinement, a widow with many friends and a busy social life. When the U.S. entered World War II, after Pearl Harbor in 1941, my grandmother set aside her small pleasures … tea with friends, visits to the art museum, a drive in the country … and considered what she might do to aid American soldiers overseas … something practical … something real. She had never met a wounded man, nor heard the guns of war, but every day until the war’s end, on September 2, 1945, she sewed bandages that the Red Cross shipped to Europe.

Photo by Roger Brown