It continues to amaze me how the past never dies but continues to live on in different shades, colors, and levels of meaning. My sister called last week and told me she had found an old folder of my mothers. Inside were my father’s Army discharge papers, an old will, and some letters that my grandmother had written . There were also two old love letters from my father. I went over and looked at all of it. The amazing thing about it was that I began to see both my mother and father in a new way. The letters were from 1936 and 1938. He begins one letter with “Darling” and another with “Beloved”. There is nothing overly salacious in either letter. It is just the way they are written. He was born in 1917 and she was born in 1919. I think they began dating in 1935 or 1936. He was 18 and she was 16. He agrees to go to a dance with her and asks her not to share the letter with her friends (which I’m sure she did). In another letter he is obviously on vacation with his family and wishes he was with her. Both letters are very innocent but the very fact of their youth comes thru. My parents were teen-agers once with all of the stress and strain that goes with that. Dating during that time was somewhat ritualized because of lack of resources. Most dating was done in groups because no one had any money. Thinking of my parents trying to find time alone really does make me think.
They continued to date and, due to the circumstances of the time, he joined the Army before being drafted. He went to Officer Training School and became a lieutenant. He knew he would be going overseas to the war and she agreed to marry him before he left. They were married in 1942 in Seattle and he was sent overseas to the Pacific shortly after. He came back in late 1944 after being wounded and was discharged in late 1945.
There are some pictures of that time of both of them. One of my favorites is where they were caught making out:
I think the war made everyone more open to risks. My mother had probably never been more than 15 miles from the south side of Chicago in her whole life, but she agreed to go thousands of miles away to marry my father before he left. They had been dating 6-7 years. She was 23 and he was 25. They wanted some time together because of the uncertainty of the war. They were so happy to be married that they sent everyone a telegram:
There is another picture shortly after they were married:
It is difficult to think of your parents being intimate and having the same needs and drives as everyone else. I’ve had adolescents make gagging sounds in my office if their parents made any suggestive comments to each other. Young adults can’t picture their parents like that despite the obvious fact of their own conception. I think we all think our romantic sexual life is amazingly individual and no one can really understand or appreciate how we feel. The reality is that the wheel of life continues to turn.
There are some pictures of both of my parents during the time he was overseas. My mother literally began to waste away. She wouldn’t eat and had trouble sleeping. She lost a great deal of weight and everyone was worried about her. My father was in the South Pacific in a very hazardous area. He also looks terrible. When he came back they couldn’t wait to be together again. I was born a little over 9 months after his return.
I think we all think of our parents as old. They are the most powerful people in the world when we are small. As we get older our perceptions change. They become old fashioned, overly concerned. Their beliefs and ideas are ancient and out of touch. I think this whole thing has made me reconsider this. I’m reminded of Mark Twain’s famous quote “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” What astonishes me is that my Dad was 14 once,and 18, and 25. He survived the Depression and the War and tried to make a life. He died young, 48 , and it broke my mother’s heart. She never got over it until her own death 13 years later.
I know there are lots of stories like this, but this is mine and I need to keep remembering it.