The Coley House Room 3 of 6 · Front parlor and kitchen
The Parlor Radio & the Home Front
Gas rationing kept families at home in the evenings, and the radio brought the war into the parlor. World War II was the first war people heard live, from the front.
Tune the Coleys' radio
Turn the radio on, then turn the dial from 1940 to 1945. The red marks are broadcasts you can hear here. The rest are on the radio in the house: comedy, music, baseball and news from the front, waiting for you on a tour.
Turn the dial: drag it, or use the arrow keys.
Just static. Turn the dial to find a station.
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Little Orphan Annie
Children all over the country raced home for the adventures of Annie and her dog Sandy.
Hear it on the Coleys' own radio, on a tour.
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London under the bombs
CBS reporting the Battle of Britain. America was not yet at war, but in October 130 Weston men registered for the first peacetime draft.
Hear it on the Coleys' own radio, on a tour.
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“A date which will live in infamy”
President Roosevelt asks Congress to declare war, the day after Pearl Harbor. Jimmy Coley was ten months old. Three months later his mother was appointed to Weston's Sugar Rationing Board.
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The World Series, Game 3
The St. Louis Cardinals against the New York Yankees, play by play.
Hear it on the Coleys' own radio, on a tour.
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The Jack Benny Program
Even the comedians went to war: between the jokes, Jack Benny and Bob Hope urged listeners to buy war bonds, and broadcast from military bases.
Hear it on the Coleys' own radio, on a tour.
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President Roosevelt's Christmas Eve message
The first full year of the war ends. That winter Weston families ran short of heating oil, and in February the thermometer fell to 28 below.
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Burns and Allen, with Frank Sinatra
George Burns and Gracie Allen's comedy hour, with the young singer every teenager wanted to hear.
Hear it on the Coleys' own radio, on a tour.
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Your Hit Parade
The week's top songs, sung by Frank Sinatra.
Hear it on the Coleys' own radio, on a tour.
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D-Day
CBS reports the invasion of Normandy. James Coley was not called up: farming was essential war work, and he stayed home.
Hear it on the Coleys' own radio, on a tour.
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President Roosevelt's last Christmas message
155 Weston men and women served in the war. Four of them did not come home. Roosevelt died the next April, and Weston's schoolchildren held a memorial service for him.
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President Truman: victory in Europe
Germany has surrendered. Jimmy Coley was four.
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V-J Day in Times Square
NBC in the crowd as Japan surrenders and the war is over.
Hear it on the Coleys' own radio, on a tour.
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Duke Ellington and his Orchestra
Live from the Zanzibar club in New York, in the first peacetime fall in four years.
Hear it on the Coleys' own radio, on a tour.
Weston at war
The Coleys read the Norwalk Hour and the Bridgeport Telegram. Here is the war as the Hour's Weston column told it.
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“130 In Weston Register for Draft.”
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Weston's air raid wardens and their deputies are fingerprinted by the state police at the Town Hall.
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The Defense Council votes for a blackout drill. “Each Warden will have a white handkerchief tied on his arm for identification, and will carry a whistle for signaling.”
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Weston's Sugar Rationing Board is appointed. One of its five members is Mrs. James S. Coley.
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Twelve to 28 below zero. “The oil and kerosene situation in Weston is serious.” One family ran out of range oil, their only heat, and a neighbor lent them enough for a day or two.
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War Ration Book 2 is handed out from the Ration Board's office in the basement of the Hurlbutt School. Bring your sugar book.
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The Folks Back Home Committee packs fifty boxes for Weston men in camps across the country. Nothing for those overseas: parcels over eight ounces weren't allowed.
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“Weston Pupils Hold FDR Memorial Service.”
“Dobbin has at last come into his own”
With gasoline and tires rationed, Weston went back to the horse. James Coley and a neighbor caught a runaway sleigh at the top of Gifford's Hill, and a few days later the Coleys bought a driving horse of their own.
Norwalk Hour, 3 February 1943 · Horse runs away with a sleigh
“Weston is fast returning to the horse and buggy days. Automobile accidents used to be the news of the day but now Old Dobbin has returned and runaway horses make the news … the horse was stopped in its wild flight at the top of Gifford's Hill, Charles Broch and James Coley making the capture. Mr. Broch and Mr. Coley had just finished sawing wood when they heard what they thought was a car with broken chains, but on looking up the road they saw a horse with sleigh attached coming at breakneck speed.”
Norwalk Hour, 8 February 1943
“Mr. and Mrs. James S. Coley of Norfield road have purchased a driving horse. This is the second driving horse purchased by Weston residents in the past week. Dobbin has at last come into his own.”
A kitchen in transition
Just before the war, kitchens were changing fast. Iceboxes were giving way to electric refrigerators and coal stoves to gas, and during the war no new appliances were made at all. The Coleys made do: the range in the kitchen today burns both coal and gas, and the icebox is still in the pantry.
The deep blue on the walls is the color the family chose; photographs from the 1960s show it, with the same red and white café curtains. Milk came from local dairyman Leon Lachat, left at the little milk door by the back door. Hams and bacon hung in the smokehouse over a fire of corncobs and hickory bark, put out every night, because James Coley never forgot the barn fire of his boyhood.
Famous appliances
The kitchen's 1940s range, refrigerator and wringer washer came from the Wethersfield Historical Society for $2,500. The Center agreed to buy them in January 2020, and then COVID held up the pickup. While they waited, the History Channel borrowed the appliances to film The Food That Built America. “I guess it's a good thing we were behind schedule on taking the appliances,” the Center's director wrote. “We will now be installing famous appliances!” They arrived in Weston on 3 March 2021.
A puzzle: what did Cleora cook on?
Piped gas didn't reach this part of Weston Road until 2000. The gas company thinks the stove ran on propane, and when the architects studied this photograph from about 1945 they spotted what look like two tanks against the kitchen wall.
Shopping with a ration book
Sugar was rationed first, in 1942, then coffee, canned goods, meat, cheese, butter and fats. Each food had a price in points as well as in cents.
- Sugar: half a pound a week for each person.
- Coffee: a pound every six weeks.
- Blue stamps bought canned and processed foods: 48 points a person each month, so 192 for a family of four like the Coleys.
- Red stamps bought meat, cheese and fats: 64 points a person a month. Every cut of meat had its own value, and liver and kidneys were sold as “variety meats”.
- Not rationed: fresh fruit and vegetables, fresh milk, eggs and chickens. A farm family with hens, pigs and cattle, as the Coleys had, could make its points go further.
- Gasoline: an “A” sticker on the windshield meant three gallons a week.
Tomorrow's menu: eat the Basic Seven every day
A wartime day's menu, from the tour guides' notes
- Breakfast:
- grapefruit juice, hot cereal, enriched toast with apple butter, coffee, milk.
- Luncheon:
- potato and vegetable pie, enriched hard rolls, butter or fortified margarine, sliced melon, tea, milk.
- Dinner:
- potato soup, beef and vegetable stew with biscuit top, buttered whole carrots, cabbage and celery salad, enriched bread, fresh fruit gelatin, coffee, milk.
Waiting for you in the house
- The parlor radio, playing the house's own wartime playlist: comedy, music, baseball and news
- The blue kitchen, the 1940s range and refrigerator, and the icebox and Hoosier cabinet in the pantry
- Open the refrigerator, and find the jars of peas a local artist sculpted from clay
- A 1942 ration recipe book in the kitchen, and the Westport Woman's Club's 1943 cookbook in the back parlor
- In December, a World War II home-front Christmas
Guided tours Thursdays and the first and last Sundays of the month, at 1, 2 and 3 pm, and by appointment. $5 adults, $3 ages 5–17; under 5 and members free.
Plan your visit →Help the house
Keep the tours going
Guided tours, third-grade visits and the wartime Christmas all depend on volunteers and on gifts like yours.