When we talk about the “greatest generation,” those individuals who lived through the Second World War, Americans have a tendency to think about the men and women who served in the armed forces and those who worked in war-related industries as personified by the iconic character “Rosie the Riveter.” But I was reminded in the past two weeks that there were millions of American women who also must be included in the “greatest generation” not because they served in the armed forces or in war-related industries, but because they kept America going during the long years of the war by taking sole charge of their families’ welfare and well-being, by serving as both mothers and fathers to their children, to maintaining all of the civic, entertainment, educational and other vital social functions that had been performed by men who were then far away in the theaters of war.

I was reminded of this for two reasons. Unfortunately, the first reminder came at the funeral of Jerry Smith; I wrote about the death of her husband, Glee, several weeks ago. Jerry and Glee were married in the middle of the war, in 1943, and I remember their stories of how Jerry coped while Glee served in the Army Air Force.

Hearing about a lifetime of her accomplishments at her funeral made me very aware that she had lived an extraordinary life without ever holding political office or running a major company. She held a family together and served her community in multiple ways. She was just as much a member of the “greatest generation” as was her husband, Glee, even though she never served in the military. The efforts of women like Jerry and all those who lived through the war were as critical to our victory as were those of their husbands.

The second reminder of how difficult life was on the home front for these women trying to keep their families together and well came with an unusual find I made at a second-hand store. It is a copy of “The Reporter of the Air Victory Cookbook” published by the Great Bend Daily Tribune for Christmas 1942. It is a collection of what the editor calls “war tested recipes” — i.e. recipes that can be made from ingredients available at a time when so many foods and materials were being diverted to the military from the home front. Just looking at some of the recipes for rabbit stew and vegetable meatloaf bring home just how hard it must have been to feed a family at this time.

So I think that we should never forget that the “greatest generation” was not limited to those in the military and war industries but always remember that the women who kept American families going during that war were also equally part of that group.?

— Mike Hoeflich, a distinguished professor in the Kansas University School of Law, writes a regular column for the Journal-World.