Nostalgic memoir

My Own Two Feet
by Beverly Cleary

Amusing and inspiring tale of her college years and first jobs with the army as post librarian, her marriage and finally escaping the controlling clutches of her mother, and at last, the thing we'd all been waiting for--the writing of her first book!  I wish she'd gone on to the second and third and fourth....

The first volume of her memoir occurred during the depression and this one transitioned into the war years, so you see firsthand things you often only read about. Here's one:

I found six dollars in the style of the times. Hems twelve inches from the floor were no longer fashionable, so I opened a skirt-shortening business: fifty cents a skirt if it was straight and didn't have pleats.

And another,

From our kitchen window I watched the Japanese family, laden with bundles and suitcases, quietly leave their home and climb into a taxi on their way to the Relocation Center. It was a sad scene; they were such gentle, courteous people.