Monthly Archives: August 2016

Saturday, August 24, 1946

Dart missed Dot today with a nagging, gnawing agony. Even his mother stated that it just seemed as though Dottie should be there. “I looked in the living room, but you weren’t there. We set the table for four, so I guess that settled it.”

He writes a comical description of the surgery he performed on the washing machine this morning. He diagnosed the problem, found a new part, and … the operation was a success. The old machine is humming along, rejuvenated.

Pleased with his luck on the washer, he decided to tinker with the car. The windshield wipers have been behaving badly of late, so he decided it was time to make them right. It involved removing upholstery, following the individual wires in a mass of tangled ones, and replacing an air tube. After countless trips to the basement to collects tools and parts, he was able to repair the wipers. “Now, when the car falls apart (next week), we’ll be able to rent out the wipers (as a pair) for people to use as baby spankers, for twins.

He had no luck with the car radio, however.

His Navy dress shoes have come back from the cleaners. Actually, from the shoemaker, but the cost of repairs has cleaned Dart out. As much as he wants a pair of slippers, they will have to wait a while longer. But, he’s ready with appropriate footwear for hiking at Sunapee.

He reports that the weather has gotten quite cold in Cleveland. Last night, the temperature dropped to 48.

He bids his lady love good-night and sweet dreams.

Sunday, August 25, 1946

Dart begins, “Did you miss me in church this morning? How could you? You were right beside me.”

Their pennies now total $35.59, which he will get into a the bank soon, if he’s able to open another savings account in his name.

The family drove out to the lake today, but Uncle Guy is still in the hospital. Dart thinks the whole trip was a blasted waste of time, and a huge strain on the car. How he wishes they could put the car up on blocks until they can afford to fix it, because driving it without the repairs is very bad for the car. But they’re forced to use it because a streetcar ride is too much of a strain on Pop and tires him out for days.

“It’s midnight now and I want to get 8 hours of sleep between now and 7 a.m. I better get started. … I wish I were bringing you home with me in September, instead of just for a visit. We need each other. I love you with every fiber of my body and every idea of my mind. Remember the night we stood in the vestibule here and watched the storm through the front door, and just couldn’t break up our passionate embraces? I feel that way tonight.”

#          #          #

After getting two beautiful letters from Dart, Dot had a burning need to place a call to him and hear his voice. She’s so happy she did, for she’s feeling much better now.

She tells him she’s glad he went to see Dr. Singer – not because she has the least concern about his habit, but because she wants him to have peace of mind. “I wasn’t concerned about a maladjusted sexual relationship between us. Perhaps it is something I should think about, but we have always been in such perfect harmony with everything we do together that the idea we may have some adjusting to do never entered my mind.”

She gently teases him, saying she’s always had a soft spot in her heart for “pampered” children. “It’s so pathetic to hear them being razzed and called ‘sissies.’ Being brought up in a large family has its advantages. One has to learn self-defense, and I speak from painful experience. I like your ‘We’ll show ’em’ attitude!”

Yes, she may miss the Bendix when she’s married, but not nearly as much as she misses him now. She thinks she’s getting the better deal of having him for a husband over a Bendix washer. Also, she’ll consider it a privilege to iron his shirts by hand, if he’ll let her.

There won’t be much fancy cooking up at Sunapee, but he should lay aside his fears because El will be doing most of it. The only cooking Dot will do is the fish she plans to catch for breakfast one morning while he’s still asleep.

His Sunapee wardrobe sounds sensible, but he can leave the long-johns at home. She assures him that they will certainly have plenty of time to sit by the fire, toasting marshmallows and popping corn.

She explains that her mother always talks about people being “journey proud,” a phrase that came to her from her own mother. It means thinking about nothing but an upcoming trip, staying awake at night imagining the journey, possibly losing your appetite, although that never happens to Dot.

Was he able to fix the washing machine, or has he simply added to his collection of spare parts? She’ll be happy to go on a double date with Tom Reilly and some “frail,” but she wonders who will keep the poor, fragile thing company?

She shares Dart’s low opinion of Danny Kaye and other similar “funnymen.” They have both discussed their mutual admiration of the “Men, Women, and God” book. See what she means about them always being in harmony?

Yes, she remembers when he prayed aloud one night. She thought he was so saintly then, and now. “The things you do are so sincere and good and right. You have already far surpassed my fondest hopes of the kind of man I would have for a husband. You’re everything to me, Darling, and I depend on you far more than you realize.”

She tells him that the time she waited between placing the call and actually hearing his voice was like an eternity, but when she heard him, it was as though the blackest cloud split open and the shimmering sun shone through.

Monday, August 26, 1946

Dart was overjoyed at receiving both an 8-page letter and a phone call from Dot. He’s in a mood to write a long letter, but he has much class reading to do, so he must beg forgiveness for the brevity of this little note.

He wanted to kiss her and tell her how much he loves her over the phone, but Pop wouldn’t leave the room. But he was able to hear her words to him.

He found her last paragraph to be cryptic. Can she describe in more detail what she meant about the time in September when he had to look away from her? He doesn’t remember, but he does remember how much he loves and misses her.

Tuesday, August 27, 1946

Another very short note from Dart. He’s still glowing from the phone call – it was good to hear Dot so talkative and so happy.

He’s boned up for hours on psychology tonight, but he still feels far out to sea on most of it. He has is usual dire predictions about the test tomorrow.

It’s nearly 2 a.m. but he took a 3-hour nap today after mowing the lawn. Still, the test awaits and he must sleep.

#          #          #

Dot’s letter is also very short, and also written at 2 a.m. An old roommate of El’s is visiting, so the older girls, plus Dot and her father stayed up very late playing rummy. They did take a break around 1:00 for roast beef sandwiches and coffee. Since then they’ve been sitting around chatting.

El’s friend Vonnie has just lived through a terrible ordeal. Her husband was back from the war for two weeks before he got in touch with his wife. When he did, he told her that he didn’t love her, had never loved her, and he was leaving immediately. El says that before he left for the Army, she’d never seen two happier people than Vonnie and Craig. The story reminds Dot that the casualties of war extend far beyond those killed in action.

Just a note here on the fate of Vonnie: She went on to meet a wonderful man named Jim and had a long and happy marriage with him. She and Eleanor remained fast friends until the end of their lives when they were both in their mid 80’s. I wonder if part of the bond they shared was the experience of having once loved and lost.

At  Dart’s request, she’s sending the mailing address for Sunapee. It’s a post office box, and the post office closes on September 15. It’s a good thing they’ll be leaving there on the 16th, or there’d be no way for anyone to reach them until spring!

Her father has been looking so tired and run down lately that she’s thankful he’ll be leaving soon to spend a few days at his beloved lake. Both Gordon and George are pitching in to run the business while he’s away, and now he’s so eager that he’s talking about driving up Tuesday night after he gets off work. “You’d have to live with this family to understand how very much we all love Sunapee. Everything else is forgotten when Sunapee plans are in the making. There isn’t a closer family unit than ours when we’re all at the lake together. Forgive me for going on so much about it. Guess it’s in my blood. I sure hope it lives up to your expectations of it.”

There’s something that Dot has been turning over in her mind for quite some time. She’s concerned that his folks won’t make the trip out to their wedding next June. Having them miss the ceremony would be as sad for her as if her own parents did. She feels that somehow, she and Dart must make sure they do all that’s required to get them to come. Although they’ve made enough plans for that penny collection to spend it ten times over, she can think of no higher purpose for it than paying for his parents’ trip to Connecticut next summer.

She’d like to write all night, but it’s very late. Does he realize they will see each other in less than 226  hours?

Wednesday, August 28, 1946

Dart begins with the bad news that his psych test was a killer. He had studied too much of the wrong stuff and he knows he did badly. (Does that sound like a familiar refrain? The last time we heard it, he got an A.)

He has decided on train as his mode of transport to Greenwich. It costs only $3.00 more, but saves hours of time. He expects to be arriving on the Ohio State Limited at 8:50 a.m. on Saturday morning. Burke will be riding with him from Cleveland because he’s been invited to spend a few days with his best buddy who now lives in NYC.

Their pennies are safely stored now in a joint bank account with him and his mother. $35.59 and growing. He can’t wait for the day when the account can have both his and Dot’s first names and their last name. He also hopes this marks the beginning of an era when they will never be without some sort of savings. I know Dot shares that goal.

On Tuesday, Dart was making the rounds of streetcar stations downtown. He managed to talk one of the stations our of a complete set of original blue prints for one of the oldest cars they’re still running. It’s a swell print for model makers. They told him he could have any prints he wants, as long as he brings the finished cars he makes from them to the station to show the workers there. Now he feels he’ll feel some pressure to do a really good job on those little models.

Did Dot see the recent issue of Life? There was a feature about Frank Lloyd Wright, including photos of some homes he’s designed. Dart was intrigued by the simplicity and beauty of his designs, and he thinks that article would be a good one for them to include in their scrapbook.

He had a pretty light homework load last night, so he was able to join his family in a very long concert of records that Burke played on the record player. Dart says he keeps that thing busy most of the time.

Dot’s 8-page letter arrived today as a consolation for the psychology test. He’s sorry to hear she was so sick last Thursday and Friday. The only good thing he can figure came out of that is that she won’t be “troubled” while she’s at Sunapee.

Did he tell her about the new streetcars that Cleveland is adding? They’re clean and quiet. They’re the smoothest riding form of r=transit ever created. They’re ventilated by four concealed fans. They have safety glass and good lighting and roomy, comfy seats and marvelous safety devices. The look nice and take up less room on the street than their outmoded older sisters. They make almost no noise inside, and outside, you can “almost hear them at 100 feet.”

He’s still waiting to hear how her nursing home job went. I’ll be interested to see if she tells him the same story I heard about that job when I was a girl. If she doesn’t write it to Dart, I’ll tell it here in a day or so.

Why does she call him the “perfect gentleman?” He’s doubted that about himself on more than one occasion, but if she really thinks of him that way, he’s happy.

“That’s all for now Dot. I’m awfully tired. Let’s go to bed.”

#          #           #

Dot surmises that her family got a very early start for the lake this morning because by the time she an El awoke at 9:00, the dried eggs on the breakfast plates looked like they’d been there for hours.

She and her sister will be busy beavers for the next week. They have many projects they’d like to complete before her family gets home. This morning, Dot did a load of laundry and ironed for two hours, but the basket seems just as full as it was before she started.

She does plan to take a rare evening off tomorrow when she and Nancy Clapp go to see “Cluny Brown.” She hates to spare the time, but she’s not seen much of Nancy this summer and doesn’t know when she’ll see her again. Besides, El is having a steak dinner for friends tomorrow night and Dot doesn’t want to “be in the way.”

Dart’s letter today was short, but very sweet. She doesn’t have time to answer it tonight because it’s late and she’s very tired.

Thursday, August 29, 1946

Dart begins with an ominous question: “Did you ever gargle with aspirin?” He finds the activity highly distasteful, but he must fight this bug that has descended on him. Oh, dear! Will he be ill during his final exams? After all his waiting, planning, hoping, will he be too sick to go to New Hampshire?

He had big plans for his three-day weekend; he was going to read two books from the psychology book list and write the required reports. But, alas! “Every time I’d look at a page of print, my right temple would start for my left ear, and the back of my neck would shake hands with my eyeballs.” (The bug doesn’t seem to have affected his sense of humor!)

He tried to make a schedule of all he must accomplish this week, and it’s too much. He tried to call Mrs. Carle to say he couldn’t make it for dinner on Saturday, but she wasn’t home. He did, however, manage to fill out his application for “terminal leave pay,” so Uncle Sam should be sending him $40 soon.

Today he ran into John Rousch at the downtown library. If my memory is in tact, he was involved somehow in that big group blind date in 1943 when Dart met Dot at Andrews School for Girls. Anyway, Dart reports that John hasn’t changed, but now Dart is able to give the wise cracks right back to John’s rude insinuations. The boy seems always able to rub Dart’s fur the wrong way.

Cleveland has been taken over by fly-boys, here for the National Air Races. The sky is laced with all sorts of planes, and Dart hopes he gets to see one of those “jet-propelled” jobs before the whole thing is over.

He talks a little politics, mostly regarding the situation with Russia. “I’m afraid that we’re going to have real trouble with them, and within a year. I can only hope that the regular Army and Navy can take care of them; that we, and not they, have enough atomic bombs; and that they, not we, strike the first blow. I think that maybe the newspapers started something they’ll regret when they became a party to the whispering campaign against Russia. Also that Russia is barking up a pretty tall tree this time. Of course, their armies are not demobilized to the extent ours have been, and their equipment is almost as good as ours, because it is ours. But I think that we can handle the situation. If we should fight Russia and win, we’d be in for plenty of trouble, for all the little nations who are even slightly aligned with Russian principles would be picking at us, even as they are now. I must be on the wrong track tonight, for all I can see is gloom in the future of world affairs. I hope I’m on the wrong track.”

He dreams a bit about how much fun it would be to go to a high school football game. Maybe they could go double, which would make it almost like old times, “only better, ’cause this time, I’m in love with my date.”

Uncle Guy is finally back home, still with a fever of unknown origin.

In response to Dot’s recent letter, Dart quips, “Next time you’re down in the dumps, will you bring me a couple of tires?”

“I get a big lump in my throat every time I read your sentence about how you like to lie awake awhile and think about me. Gee, I wish this were next June and I were preparing to go there and bring you back here permanently.”

#          #          #

It’s very late because Dot and Nancy went for a walk in the rain after seeing “Cluny Brown.” The movie wasn’t as good as Dot was hoping, but it was light and humorous.

“Well, tomorrow is my last day at the playground. I’ll miss the kids, but I feel as if I’ve been running all summer and I’ll be glad to stop. I wish I knew what I were going to do when I come back from Ohio. I won’t go unless I have a definite job lined up. Everyone has discouraged me from becoming a telephone operator but no one seems to have any better suggestions. I’d like to get a job that wouldn’t be too unbearable, pays pretty well, and one I’d be able to use in getting a job in Cleveland next year. I think I missed my calling somewhere along the line, ‘cuz at present I seem to be good for little more than nothing.”

She writes that there’s not much sense in starting another page, except that she needs more room to tell Dart how much she loves him. Even with more space, she can’t do much of a job with that, but in 168 hours, she’ll be able to give him a preview of things to come down the road.

She wishes him good night, and good luck on his exams.

Friday, August 30, 1946

Dot was so excited to read that Burke is coming out on the train with Dart that she cleared it with El and now issues an eager invitation for Burke to join them at the lake. Her cousin Janie has decided not to go back to college, so she may also be coming. She admits that it sounds as though they are inviting everybody and his brother, but she insists that at Sunapee, “the more, the merrier.” She says the family likes to invite outsiders because that leaves more people to boast about the place.

Not content with a possible entourage of El, her friend, Dart, Burke and Janie, she also pleads with Dart to convince his folks that a week at Sunapee is just what they need. She swears the cottage has “rubber walls” and can expand to accommodate a vast number of folks. She’s so committed to the idea of getting his folks out this year that she suggests a radical idea; If Dart, Sr. and Helen could come to the lake this year, she will agree to get married in Ohio, relieving them of the need to travel again next year. That’s quite an offer from a young woman whose large, close extended family tend to live in close proximity to Greenwich.

She actually resumes this letter a few days later, on September 3. Her cousin Janie has spent the last three nights at her house, and they’ve spent most of their time talking about how wonderful Dart is. Of course, our Dot rarely sits around idly shooting the breeze. While chatting with Jane, she also scrubbed and scoured the entire large kitchen, replaced the gaskets of the refrigerator, made a new case for the kitchen clock, painted a design on the bread box and mowed and raked the front yard.

It may interest Dart to know that the temperatures in Sunapee have dropped into the 30s! She confesses that they may not find much incentive to linger in the lake. There’s much more news, but she’s already taken so long to write this that she mustn’t delay any further. In 93 hours, she should be seeing him and Burke! She’s over the moon with excitement.

Saturday, August 31, 1946

In this letter, Dart encloses a copy of the report he did on “Men. Women, and God” for his psychology class. With the other books he’s hoping to report on, his desk looks like a branch pf the Cleveland Public Library.

He sets about trying to answer some of Dot’s letters. She wrote that her mother reported that milk at Sunapee is 28 cents per quart, if you can find it. He thinks that sounds like huge inflation, but he still thinks he’ll develop a fondness for the place, once he’s been there.  (I can attest to the fact that Dart fell head over heels in love with this little New England paradise and, like his love for Dot and trains, it never wavered throughout his life.)

He likes the idea of using their penny collection to pay for his parents’ trip to the wedding. He knows they have a lot of pride, so it would have to be handled diplomatically, which means he’ll have to brush up on his diplomacy skills before next summer.

Then he begins a rather forceful discussion about whether or not he and Dot will have much adjusting to do after they’re married. “In spite of some of my warnings that we may have to do some adjusting, hadn’t you ever thought of that? Golly, Dot! Even though we are expecting so little in the way of necessary adjustments, we should always, both of us, be prepared to make adjustments and settlements of our problems as soon as we recognize them. For the longer they remain, the more firmly they are driven and the harder they will be to remove. That includes all things from who uses the bathroom first, to who sleeps on which side of the bed, to the more delicate points of approach and methods in our sexual relations. We must be alert to see where we may be treading on each other’s toes, and our desire to help each other in our adjustments.” He points out that their lives and habits can’t all be perfectly integrated from the start.

Here, he digresses into a somewhat clumsy analogy of a fine machine. When it is properly broken in with gentle, slow use, it will give years of faithful service. But if the break-in period is rough – too fast, too soon – it will create serious problems down the road.

His mother says that if she’s trying to fool anyone about her eagerness to iron his shirts, the only person she’s fooling is herself.

Well, the psych test results are in and he scored an A. Unfortunately, it was by a smaller margin than the last time, so he’s disappointed with himself.

He must really hate Danny Kaye! Again, he writes about how much he dislikes his movies, calling him a “strychnine sandwich” with the kind of humor Dart is allergic to. Wow! I’m so glad my folks never voiced their disdain for this performer while I was growing up, because I actually found him quite charming.

Now he opens another little can of worms by wondering to Dot whether her love for him might not be just a little maternal, in addition to dependent and desiring. He asserts that all of those together make for a balanced relationship. He, too, feels a love for her that is “a desire for your body, soul, and companionship, paternal feelings, and dependency.” I’m starting to think this guy’s had just about enough psychology classes for now.

In a perfectly charming paragraph, he enumerates what he misses about her: her kisses and caresses, her voice, her hands, her happy whistling, her fresh sweetness. He also begs her not to let anyone else but her wake him up the morning they leave for Sunapee. “I’m looking forward to that all out of proportion to things.”

“They warn us that marriage changes no one. However, I persist in looking at our marriage as the time when my energies will be directed toward a useful and sociable outlet. That’s no change, I guess, for I’m completely dedicated to you, and have been since I first knew I loved you and you loved me, both of us enough to exclude all others.”

“Good night, my Darling. If I wrote all that I’m thinking this paper would burn. I love you, I love you, I love you. I’m yours forever, with a vast reserve of inexpressible emotion.”

Sunday, September 1, 1946

Because it was an uneventful day, there’s not much for Dart to write – so he says he’ll print instead.

He spent the entire day shrouded in his p.j.s, bathrobe, woolen socks, and a flannel collar in an attempt to ward off the chest cold that’s been plaguing him.

He engaged in a couple of sedentary pursuits throughout the day; reading and music appreciation. The former consisted of his psychology chapters, plus skimming most of “Beloved Friend,” the story of Tchaikovsky’s troubled life.  He wrote and typed the required report for his psychology class. The only other activity of the day was listening to lots of good music. “I found your little radio to be a most pleasant companion today. It has brought a continuous stream of good music, interrupted only by Winchell.”

After a hot bath, it’s off to bed for this boy. He wishes his Darling good night.