Mom, 1948 and Her Tax Return

Tax Day! Mom was something of a pack rat – a neat one, but a pack rat nonetheless. My sister Roberta and I recently went through a box of old photos and papers and came across her 1948 Tax Return. She was a junior in high school at the time, and it turns out at a juncture in her life.

When Mom passed away in 2017, Roberta, Tanya and I cleaned up her house and went through everything. We found all kinds of items, including old photos, cards from her high school graduation, a letter from a soldier during WWII (who called her “Toots”!), stuff from her and dad’s life together, and much, much more. We put some things, particularly photos and old papers in a few boxes to go through later, but of course we never made it through all of them. Since then, the few boxes left have lived with my sister Roberta. 

 Recently, when Cath and I were back in Illinois for Christmas, Roberta and I went through one of the boxes. Buried among all the photos was a yellowed envelope with her Tax Return from 1948, along with two W2 forms. 

There are a couple of interesting things about this return that highlight crossroads in Mom’s life.

 One of the places she worked in 1948 was “Prince Ice Cream Castles” (known locally at the time as “Prince Castle”), a burger/Ice Cream joint. You can also see she filed her taxes the year before in 1947, when she was a sophomore in high school. From stories mom told, I know she worked for Prince Castle in 1947 as well. That is where she met dad, who drove for Bradford’s Laundry. He stopped in every day at Prince Castle to pick up their laundry and met mom on one of those visits. The rest, as they say, is history*.

 You can also see she worked for JC Penney the greater part of that year and on her form 1040A, described herself as a “clerk”. This is where/how she started her professional career as an adult. Her boss was a man named Gene Breipohl, whom she always spoke of fondly. Gene saw something in Mom, and I know from her stories he promoted her from clerk to bookkeeper and that was her job when she and Dad married in 1950. Eventually, she left Penney’s and became a bookkeeper at Ottawa National Bank sometime in the ‘50s. From there, she migrated to the front office at Ottawa High School (OHS) in the ‘60s, where she later became known as “The Voice of OHS”. 

This week, Tax Day is on the 15th, and Mom’s birthday is on the 16th. These are only a few old pieces of paper, and yet I find myself looking at them repeatedly, searching for clues I suppose. I think about Mom at that time in her life. She would have filed her 1948 tax return in early 1949. She turned 18 on April 16th of that year and graduated from OHS in June. A year later, she married Dad in May of 1950. When filing the tax return in 1949, I wonder what she saw when she looked into the future. Life with Dad? Three kids? Six grandkids? The home on Cherokee Lane? A full life in Ottawa? What do any of us see at the age of 17?

So many questions I want to go back and ask her. So many questions.

Addendum:

• * Here is the story of Mom and Dad meeting at the Prince Castle: It was in June of 1947 mom and dad first met. Mom had just finished her sophomore year in high school and turned 16 in April. She had started a regular job at Prince Castle, a local hamburger/ice cream joint. Dad was 23. He had been out of the army since August of 1945, and settled into a job as a driver for Bradford’s Laundry […] Continue here: https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2017/05/18/youre-how-old%EF%BB%BF/