Rationing was a way of life in WW II

World war II-era ration books included coupns for goods in short supply, including sugar, coffee, gasoline, tires and shoes.

However, during World War II, the Moline confectionery joined the rest of the country in observing government-imposed rations on sugar and other items.

Lagomarcino's wasn't the only local business to feel the pinch while trying to serve their country and customers. Many local business people recall WWII, and more than 50 years later still haven't forgotten the difficulties that came with rationing.

Tom Lagomarcino remembers well the trouble rationing, especially that of sugar, caused the family business. ``Of course it affected our candy production quite a bit,'' he said.

It also affected the soda fountain offerings, because the syrups use a lot of sugar. However, the family made do with what sugar it had, Mr. Lagomarcino said. ``We tried to stretch it as much as we could in order to survive.''

Lagomarcino's also had to be ``very efficient in our routing,'' of the delivery truck because gas and tires also were rationed, Mr. Lagomarcino said.

``It was a scary time.''

However, there was ``never any doubt that the store would survive. We've weathered a lot of storms in our 90 years,'' Mr. Lagomarcino said.

Bill Mosenfelder was 15 when he began to see the effects of war rationing on his family's clothing store and its customers. He remembers that ``white shirts were about the hardest things to get.''

While other materials were hard to get, white shirts were the ``official uniform of the day,'' so most in demand, he said.

Today, a shortage of denim would be most widely noticed, Mr. Mosenfelder said. ``Denim wasn't nearly as popular as it is now, but it was in short supply too.''

When they were out of an item like a white shirt, they would take the customer's name and telephone number and call him when the item became available.

When the store received a shipment of shirts ``all the salesmen would make a mad dash to get their customer's sizes and put them in layaway or `will call,' and they called,'' Mr. Mosenfelder said.

He also remembers the shortage of gasoline in the Quad-Cities area. Gasoline was divided into three grades and everyone had a certain number of stamps for each grade. Car pooling was common, he said. ``We'd get two or three people together to pool their gas stamps.''

He remembers his father ``would take the bus a lot to save on gas stamps, because I probably used them all.''

Like Lagomarcino's, Temple's Sporting Goods in Moline also survived WWII and still is in business. Owner Bill Gustafson started working at the store in 1945 as a high school senior in 1945.

He remembers stories then-owner Guy E. Temple told of rationing-related problems and shortages during the war.

Although there were several shortages at the store, ``Mr. Temple had a friend at Rawlings that used to bootleg stuff up to him. He'd mark it `reject' so the government would pass over it and the schools here would have basketballs,'' Mr. Gustafson said.

Store officials ``couldn't travel and call on the schools because you couldn't buy gas,'' Mr. Mosenfelder said. ``There was no point to calling on the schools because there was nothing to sell.''