My Parents’ Courtship

My parents had an interesting courtship as it was done entirely via letters during my father’s time in the Navy in WWII. He was initially exempt from having to serve as he was serving in a critical defense industry (Scovill was a major manufacturer of brass shell casings). But as things were heating up – both in Europe and in the Pacific – he was finally drafted into the Navy and reported for duty on 21 July 1944. For the next eight months he was in training – first in boot camp at Sampson NY (July 1944-October 1944), then basic engineering school at Gulfport MS (October 1944-December 1944), and finally at diesel school in San Diego CA (December 1944-February 1945). It was during this period of training in the US that his primary correspondence with my [eventual] mother was taking place, as letters back and forth to the South Pacific where he was often on the move took quite a bit longer. (You can see his overall schedule of service here.)

My mother had recorded the story of their courtship in a series of stories that she wrote (you can read this one here).

“Our YTC kept going during the war and we used to write group letters to some of the boys. One night one of the boys wrote to Vernon, who, by then, was in the Navy, that I was knitting ‘little things’. I was; they were for friends. When Vernon got the letter, he questioned me about that. To have some fun, I told him, “You should know, you’re the father” We kept up this repartee via letters. I told him I had quadruplets, named Abigail, Buster, Carmen and Dudley. Then I complained that I needed money to take care of them, so he made a $1,000,000 bill and sent it to me. Then I told him we really should get married for the sake of the children, so he sent me a marriage certificate. I would come home from work and the rest of the family was already at the table. My mail would be at my place, and when there was a letter from Vernon, I would read it aloud. Everyone got a kick out of it. He said his buddies used to wonder what he was laughing about when he read mine. In the meantime, I had broken up with Art, although Vernon didn’t know it, but he began to get interested in me and I was in him, but I didn’t let him know it. But 10 days after he came home, he proposed, and I accepted. That was in April. We were married in Sept.”

I’ve got this story basically memorized, so I had not looked at the details for several years. But recently I came across a note that my great-aunt Edna had written where she mentioned the last name of “Art”, my mother’s former boyfriend before she was courted by my father. I’ve done some further research there – but that’s another story for another day. However, it got me thinking about the timeline of my parents’ relationship.

My mother’s letters to my father have mostly been lost to history – there is very little space to store things on a small boat so I presume that he must have discarded them. But my mother did keep all the letters he sent to her, so I’ve gone back to read them to see what other hints they contain to support the story she wrote above.

 

An Innocuous Beginning

My dad travelled from CT to NY to report for induction. It appears that the YTC at Mill Plain gave him a going away party on Thursday, 20 Jul 1944. That party was coordinated by my mother and her parents. My father took the train on Friday afternoon, had his physical, etc. on Saturday. On Sunday, 23 Jul, he wrote a quick one-page letter of thanks to my mother. The letter began simply, “Hi Syl,” and said, “Thank your Ma & Pa again for everything,” and was signed simply, “Vern.” He added a “P.S. Don’t forget to write yourself.”

It appears that for the next few months all the letters he wrote were addressed to the entire YTC and not personally to my mother, so she would not have saved them in her personal archives. Then came the letter referred to above where she was “knitting little things”. This happened around the end of October – about 3 months after my father’s service began and about the time he was transferred from NY to MS for further training.

 

The Repartee

Thus it was that in October the playful repartee about my mother knitting little things kicked things to a new level. On 29 October, my father sent her a postcard. It began simply with the same “Hi Syl”. But then there are the fateful sentences, “What’s this I hear about you & the baby shop? Have you been holding out on me?! My, My!! – and to think you wouldn’t tell me, one of your best friends!!”

Her response the following week would have included her humorous response, “you should know, you’re the father.” On 9 November, in the next letter that my mother saved, he begins the letter as follows: “Dear Mom, Well I’m just about the happiest man in 3 states. … I just finished handing out cigars to all the fellows, - now I only hope it’s a boy! Just when is this blessed event going to take place, Mom?”

The next part of the letter is something that I had forgotten. I knew about the suggested names for the quadruplets, but here in November that was not yet part of the story. My father had some suggestions for baby names. He wrote, “If it’s a boy – I like Wilmer as a name – yes – Wilmer Fauntleroy sounds swell. But if it’s a girl … how’s about Sarah Margaret – that’s just about the prettiest name I know of – or maybe Isabella-Barbara?”

Personally, I’m glad that these suggestions got relegated to the wastebin and forgotten by the time I was born 4 years later. I can’t imagine going through life with the name “Wilmer Fauntleroy”! And I have no idea where those names came from. My wife and I used to tease our children (while they were growing up) that we should have named them after our paternal grandparents – meaning that Chris would be “Archibald Erskine” and Kim would be “Vera Gertrude.” But at least those names were rooted in our family history and were meant to be a joke. But Wilmer Fauntleroy!

The final page of this letter addresses another aspect of their rapidly growing relationship as my father states, “Say – if we don’t want a scandal we had better hurry up & get hitched or else people will talk!! … You just set the date & I’ll get an emergency leave & we’ll get hitched up together proper.” He then signs the letter “Your loving, tho’ anxious, ‘hubby’”

From “To Syl … from Vern” to “Dear Mom … your loving hubby”. Quite a change!

 

Taking it to the next level

The prior letter exchange marked a change in their relationship. Just 10 days later, on 19 November, the opening of my father’s next letter begins, “Dearest wife.” He’s also gotten a letter from my mother’s sister, Vi, as he notes that he received it ok. The last paragraph of his letter includes the following: “I couldn’t have a finer wife – and mother. Sweet, thoughtful, generous, kind, a wonderful companion. … I’m getting sentimental, I guess – but then I always do – when I think of you. I have your picture in my wallet – and your image in my heart.” He concludes, “As always, your loving husband, Vern”

In the next letter, just 5 days later on 24 November, he opens “I’m getting rather confused – first your sister says we are married & then you say we aren’t! Now is we is or is we ain’t?” She’s also evidently told him that she had quadruplets, but he responds, “I am especially sorry that you won’t let me see the quadruplets! They are my pride & joy. Have you named them almost yet?”

 

The “Marriage”

[Marriage Certificate]

 

I’m not entirely sure when my father used his drafting/writing skills to prepare the above “Marriage Certificate”. It had to be sometime after his writing the letter of 9 November. But you will notice that it is dated 16 October 1944. It appears that he pre-dated it so that it was before the playful “announcement” from my mother that she was knitting “little things” and that he was the father. This “Marriage Certificate” was not sent to my mother until he enclosed it in a letter on 20 December 1945 – over a year later. In that letter he says, “Oh yeah – I finally found our marriage certificate!! Am sending it to you so you can save it.” But whether he actually drew it up at the end of 1944, or not until later, it was about this time in 1944 that every letter was sent to “Mom” from “Pop”.

 

Settling Down

There was only one more letter sent by my father that year – on 11 December. The names for the factitious quads of Abigail, Buster, Carmen, and Dudley had been chosen. He remarks about them in most letters from that point on and managed to find a picture of some quadruplets that he labeled with their names (although poor Dudley’s picture was of a girl!)

[Picture of the quadruplets]

 

At the end of 1944, my father went to diesel school in San Diego and from there to the South Pacific in March 1945. That environment was a lot more hectic and the logistics of sending and receiving letters from the US did not lend itself to frequent communication. Letters tended to be longer and with a minimum of a month in between them during 1945. He usually began with “Dear Mom” and ended with “Pop”. The funny repartee was replaced with information about where he was and what he was doing, although there were references to the “kids” in nearly every letter. Finally, in December 1945 came the announcement that they would be returning back to the US where the ship would be decommissioned. Since my father’s term of service had begun quite late, he had to remain with the ship through that process and would not be back in CT until April. But without the pressure of war and his naval duties, he had more time to write.

His focus began to shift from military duties back to what his life would be once he was out of the service. A letter from 2 April 1946 begins, “My dearest, darling, adorable, sweet, precious wife.” Her response (which he did save), begins “My darling husband,” but then goes back to their humorous style when she says, “When your letter came yesterday saying you would be (might be) home by Easter, my heart jumped. Why, I’m sure I don’t know. I’m not even interested in you much.”

But the quadruplets have not been forgotten. She also writes, “The children are getting very anxious to see their Daddy. Do you realize that they are a year and four months old and you’ve never seen them.” [This means that they assigned their birth as early November 1944 as this is now 6 April 1946.]

Finally, a few days later in April, he returned home for a short leave before having to go to the US Navy Yard in Brooklyn to complete his term of service. The courtship – which began with a note from someone else that she was “knitting little things”, then to the humorous response of “you should know, you’re the father”, then to fictional quadruplets and a pre-dated “marriage certificate” – turned into something real and concrete. My father proposed to my mother just 10 days after he finally got to see her in person. They were married less than four months later – using the intervening time to complete his Navy service in Brooklyn, using his separation pay to buy the house and land they would live on for the rest of their lives, and making all the necessary arrangements for their marriage. It’s a great love story!