The Bomb Shelter

Here it is Hump day again and time for a lil story. 

My Aunt Eula Morris was an enigma. She hadn't married, that I know of,  or had any children. That was unusual for being born in 1896. She was the older and only sibling of my Grandpa Admiral Dewey Morris.  She lived in a little house in Jay, and she had a secret. 

It was a fully equipped bomb shelter near her home. I think we girls stumbled over the hatch door one day and immediately ran to tell Aunt Eula that there was a door in the ground. 

She didn't look happy that we had found it, but she was a polite woman and said, " That's the bomb cellar."

" A bomb, Cellar?". We were intrigued as 7 and 9 yr old girls, and we really wanted to see what was beneath that door. Of course, I had heard about bombs because it was 1962,  and I was 9.  I had already had the "duck and cover" drills carried out during the day in school, but my little sister didn't know anything about it as she wasn't in school yet. 

Aunt Eula was reluctant to have a couple of little kids traipsing about her shelter. but we could be pretty persuasive looking, with puppy dog eyes when we really wanted something, and we really wanted this. 

We both looked at her and said,"ma'am can we see the shelter?". I still don't know why she said yes, but she did. 

We all walked across the road, and she opened this magical door shaped like a submarine with an iron handle on top. The door was heavy and locked, so we couldn't have gotten into it, even if we had tried. 

She went down the stairs first, turned on a lantern, and then motioned us down into the darkness below. 

The steps were so steep but had hand rails, and our eyes were as big as saucers as we surveyed the room. 

Shelves filled,  with every kind of grocery you could imagine were in there. I saw all my favorites.

 Peanut butter and dried cereal in those lil boxes that were such a treat at our house. Flour, sugar in bins, and coffee. I had never had coffee, but this experience would come a year later from another wonderful aunt. There were canned goods, stringbeans and potatoes, yummy fig and watermelon rind preserves. Many other canned items that us folk used to love to make. 

There was a bed, lanterns,  a table and chairs for two. The floor was concrete, and the sides looked like that, too. It was roomy. It was as big as my room back home, and it was underground. 

It had a water system of some sort in one corner, and it was the best playhouse I could ever imagine.  But this wasn't a playhouse. Back then, I didn't know that this shelter came to fruition from fear of a nuclear attack on the American soil. 

How daunting to think about today, and it was really fearful then. 

I remember the first time they showed the film in school. The one where the bomb blast hit and it showed the cloud enveloping towns, homes, and people. It made for a PTSD moment to see the faces melting. 

I still remember thinking when I was about 9 and yet another time seeing the film and being told to duck and cover. I was grown enough to know that ducking and cover wasn't going to help,  if a bomb dropped. 

I wish so much that I would have spent more time with her. She didn't pass until 1981, and I could have learned so much from her about our family. When we're young, we're rarely concerned with the old, and we miss so much. 

There were many more adventures at her house. My great-grandmother, Elizabeth McCurdy Morris, lived there with her until her death in 1961. I would have loved to talk with her, but I was grieving the loss of my world, Grandma Peacock.

I hope that everyone will have a blessed day today. I love you all so much. Always, Kimmee. 

Addendum: I have found a record that says a Eula Morris married Jim Cartwright, but I'm unable to substantiate that it's my aunt. Will keep working on it as it seems unlikely that there were two Eula Morris ladies born the same year in such a small town.