In spite of being sick in bed with some intestinal bug, Dart manages to write a newsy six-page letter to Dot. He begins with an apology for neglecting her so badly this past week.

Friday night was his Skyline meeting, and he was the last of a large bunch of guys to be dropped off at home. He got in around 1:00 AM and felt so poorly that he couldn’t write any letters. He woke up feeling even worse, but he had important errands to run, so he forced himself out of bed.

After making deposits into both the regular savings account and the penny account, the balances are now $207.89 and $56.50, respectively. He also paid all his bills downtown and had the typewriter cleaned and adjusted before going back home to bed.

In spite of feeling so sick, he went to work Saturday night and did the jobs of three men. This, after Dr. Singer told him to stay in bed! (I guess his father’s stubbornness may have made its way into the next generation.)

After communion at church yesterday, Dart helped with the Deacon’s offering before heading home. In the afternoon, Uncle Tom drove him and his mother out to Crile Hospital to visit Pop. “He still looks very sick, especially in the eyes. In fact, he is very sick. They’re still making all sorts of tests and examinations, and he wishes they’d begin to do something for him that makes him feel better.”

The doctors have told Pop that they may have to “go in there” to see what’s causing his pleurisy , and rupture of his lung. Dart, Sr. is very nervous about surgery which is causing him to lose lots of sleep. Guy Sharp went out to see Pop today and had some positive news for Helen and Dart. (Guy Sharp is the son of Dart, Senior’s brother Guy. I believe Sharp is his middle name, and it’s used to distinguish him from his father. He is, I believe, either a doctor or a medical student in 1947.) Both he and Dr. Singer agree that the two specialists that are set to examine Pop next week and the best “chest and lung men” in Cleveland. Dart and his mother are relieved that Pop’s getting the best care possible at Crile.

Helen was glad to hear a lighter note in her husband’s voice when he called tonight from the hospital. Dart had hoped to go back out there tomorrow for a visit, but Dr. Singer has nixed that plan.

His mother says to thank Dot for the sweet telegram she sent. Her thoughtfulness is one of the things he loves most about his bride-to-be. He was sorry to learn in her letter today that Cynthia will be unable to attend their wedding or be a bridesmaid. She is graduating from Oberlin in June and her folks are taking her on a big cross-country trip. Dot’s very disappointed that one of her favorite friends is unable to be her attendant and she wonders why she and Dart didn’t just go to the Justice of the Peace to tie the knot. He tells her that he has wondered the same thing on occasion, but he knows neither of them would have felt married if the ceremony were not conducted by a minister. His question is why didn’t they just ask Mr. Kershner to do the honors last summer when Dot was in Cleveland.

He comments that the new coat she describes sounds quite nice and he hopes she won’t be embarrassed by his shabby clothes if he’s unable to purchase new ones before the wedding. Because she hasn’t mentioned anything about it, he assumes that her operation didn’t do anything to set her “clock” right. (Referring, I believe to her irregular periods.) I’m not sure why anyone would have assumed that an appendectomy would in any way alter the functioning of the reproductive system, but maybe medicine has come a long way in understanding the basics of human anatomy since 1947!

He wishes her good night and apologizes for his neglect of late.

Dart opens his 16-page  letter with a statement that he loves Dot. He writes it because she told him she loves to read that as an opening line, and he writes it because it’s true.

He wonders why they tend to miss each other even more when they aren’t feeling too well. Every time he moves in his bed, he thinks how much better he’d feel if he had her to cuddle with right now. “Just think – if things go as we plan, just six or seven days after I see you next, we can lie down together, cuddle up, and go to sleep, without anyone even lifting an eyebrow.”

Dot mentioned an article she’d found called “An Open Letter to Husbands.” Dart asks her to send him a copy so he can learn whatever it has to teach him. “I’d feel as though I were doing you an injustice if I didn’t know more than I know now about making our sexual life more satisfactory for both of us. I know I won’t get any instruction from my parents. That leaves doctors, ministers, and reading as sources of the necessary information.”

This line of thought has naturally led him to wondering about the honeymoon. Where will they spend their first night? Maybe a hotel in Stamford or New Haven? He knows Dot would like to make it to the cottage at Lake Sunapee, but with an evening wedding, it will be hard to get that far on their first night.  “I would hate to waste  the first night together just so we could sleep at Sunapee.”

Deciding that’s enough of that kind of conversation, he recalls an incident when Dot showed such loyalty that he was incredulous. He’s pleased she would do such a thing, proud of her for trying, and sad it didn’t work out as she’d hoped. He’s talking about her attempt to learn more about his hobby. He blames the miserable book she decided to read on the subject, which could have spoiled it for anyone. He’s discovered a new book that he thinks – if she ever has the courage to try again – would provide her with an interesting and humorous story about the love of trains. Maybe she could see her way to reading just the first chapter sometime…and maybe select pages of subsequent chapters, if she wanted…maybe even the whole book…but only if she really, truly wanted to.

He finally wrote to Hal Martin to let him know the date of their wedding and ask him to be an usher.

He writes a short dissertation about their different tastes in household pets. He confesses that he far prefers cats to dogs, but he’s not really that interested in cats. There have been a few dogs that have captured his interest over the years, but for the most part, he finds the critters rather distasteful. In short, he likes pets best when they are somebody else’s and he feels no need to have pets in their own home.

He’s tickled that Dot cares enough to tell him about her new clothes and even sketch them for him. From her descriptions, he reiterates that the new wardrobe underscores her impeccable taste in clothes and how to wear them. It adds a great deal to her charm and attractiveness in his estimation. This is just one time when I’ve been impressed by Dart’s interest in various things. He cares about the sterling pattern that they choose, he’s thought about the colors for their apartment, he’s interested in Dot’s trousseau. How many men take an active interest in such things? I do remember, though that Dad had an interest in nearly everything – even more so if it involved Mom!

Dot must have asked how he felt about receiving money as a wedding present from folks. He tells her that he’d be fine with that, as long as they got some actual gifts, too. Money would certainly come in handy in setting up their household. Maybe they could buy a radio or an icebox.

He thinks it’s a swell idea if her mother would come out to visit them next summer. He’d look forward to her visit and he hopes they’d have their little apartment all fixed up by the time she visits.

Agreeing with Dot’s letter, he writes, “I, too, like the use of ‘us.’ I’ve been thinking in terms of ‘us’ for quite a while, but the closer we get to being ‘us’ for always, the more thrilled I am to be thinking and speaking of ‘us’ together.”

He had to miss his appointment to register for classes this morning because he’s still sick. He’ll have to call to reschedule when he’s back on his feet. Dr. Singer wants him to be on soft foods for another few days.

The city is covered in a thick layer of snow, underpinned by a layer of ice. He doesn’t envy his mother’s drive home from work tonight. The snow is blowing and drifting in the high winds, and temperatures are plummeting. Welcome to winter in Cleveland!

He writes a little about their married-life budget. He knows he can provide an income of about $90 per month. He’d like to offer his folks $10 a week for the rentals of the third floor rooms, but his mother said they didn’t need that much. Naturally, there will be food and car fare, plus a few months of the typewriter payments. Life insurance will be about $6.50 a month, and he can get a hospitalization policy for the two of them for about $3.25 per quarter. He’d like to maintain his membership in the City Club, if he gets in, at $1.75 a month. He has no idea how much to budget for furniture, church, recreation, or anything else he’s forgotten, so he’d welcome her suggestions. The real question will be how much Dot can earn.

He’s been thinking of buying a raffle ticket sometime, in hopes of winning a a new car. The family hasn’t made any firm decisions about selling their car. He wishes they didn’t feel that they had to, and he wishes they could afford to make the repairs it needs.

His father was morose during their last visit, extremely bothered by the patients that are so much worse off than he is. Rather than gratitude that he’s in better shape than they, he sees their conditions as a view of what’s to come for him.

Soon, he’ll send her plans for a sweet little house he found in the newspaper. She can add them to their scrapbook along with the plans he sent her from the Haggard all those months ago. When they make up their budget, they need to remember to add a healthy savings plan so they can someday build that little house.

When he read Dot’s comments about the last couple of nights they were together on her recent trip to Cleveland, he discovered that they share the same feeling for those nights. “You made me feel so good when you fell asleep in my arms and didn’t even wake up when I left to go to bed.It seemed that Sunday night, all the novelty of being together had worn off and was now simply love, and trust, and a beautiful, faithful harmony  – a mutual set of thoughts and emotions. I guess that makes us as nearly one as we can be until the ultimate of being one in body and motion. My Darling, I love you with all the longing and tenderness and desire for everything good that it’s possible for me to have. Yours, forever and ever.”

I’m not sure how Dart can write 22 pages over the past two  nights and still have four pages worth of something to write, but I’m awfully glad he does!

He begins by wishing he could take a long walk with Dot on this snowy night. The full moon and strong wind have combined to make the landscape silvery and inviting.

His vacation from school is nearly over and he hasn’t begun to accomplish what he’d intended to. Another day of staying indoors due to illness has put him even farther behind.

Today, he made a fairly exact drawing of their rooms upstairs. He put the permanent walls, windows, outlets, etc. in ink and penciled in their proposed built-ins. In honor of her preference for closed bookshelves, he plans to start searching for glass doors for their shelves and corner cupboard soon. Whatever carpentry work he does will have to be done in the basement because they’re hoping to keep Katherine as a tenant for as long as possible to help with the rent. He’ll build downstairs in preparation for installing the pieces just before leaving for Greenwich for the wedding. He hopes for Dot’s input on paint and wallpaper.

A letter from Burke announced that he’ll be home for a visit this weekend before spending a couple of weeks on the road, running the technical equipment for a scientific “road show” (lecture series) that his boss/professor will be doing in February.

His New Yorker subscription has started to arrive now and he enjoys it very much. He also got a short letter from Dot which must have mentioned something about an afghan. He says that his classmate Molly McGee says “afghan” is a corrupt form of the term “half again,” because you always use half again as much yarn as you think you’ll need.

It seems that Dot has been doing a bit of reading on their favorite subject (sex). He asks if she thinks “The Torch of Life” would be something a young man could request at the public library without blushing. He also comments that it seems like a rather eye-catching title for a book on the topic. Will she tell him some of the good parts?

That’s all the time he has, and he bids her good night.

Just a quick letter tonight, since he and Burke stayed up talking until almost dawn.

His class schedule is a tough one this semester; he exchanged his dreaded industry class for one in social psychology, but other than that, his classes are the same as last term. Unfortunately, he has night classes three times a week, leaving little time for homework.

No mail from Dot today. He’ll send her a couple of Ralston box tops tomorrow. That’s it for now.

Today, Uncle Tom drove Dart and Burke out to see their father. Pop is liking the place more each day and has even gained three pounds. He has plenty of time to read and lots of reading material. He was very pleased to get a nice letter from Dot, which made Dart proud. As always, he appreciates her thoughtfulness.

As soon as they passed through the hospital gates on the way home, they got a flat tire. It was a mighty cold job getting it changed.

He made a deposit in his mother’s bank account and then promptly lost the bank book. It’s not as bad as if he’d lost the savings book, but he’s sure his mother is not going to be pleased. Maybe he’ll get lucky and find it before she discovers it’s missing.

Since he hadn’t seen Homer in a while, he called him today to see if he’d like to go out. Homer had been out nearly every night of vacation so he wasn’t eager to go out again. In the end, it worked out well because it gave Dart some time to work on his little engine. He made great progress and is highly pleased with the results. It’s almost done now and it looks very impressive.

He’s feeling very guilty about owing Ruth Chamberlain a letter for so long. He has no real excuse, which seems to amplify the guilt. He’d like to be able to tell Dot to tell her mother that a letter is coming soon, but he doesn’t know if he could keep that promise.Dot’s letter with the requested article arrived today. He’d like to keep the article a few more days so that he can read it through a few more times.

Dot has asked if he’d mind if they moved their wedding to one day later, to June 20th so that the family can have a big high school graduation party for Doug. That would put it the day after her 21st birthday. He responds that he wouldn’t object too much to waiting an extra day, in spite of hoping he could marry her before she turned 21, but he surely wouldn’t want to wait any longer than that. Still, he agrees that Doug deserves a celebration.

He hopes he’ll be inspired by Dot’s cleaning out of her room at home. He has way too much junk in his room and it gets discouraging. He wouldn’t call himself sentimental about all that “crap”, but he doesn’t know why he holds on to it.

He has more to write but he’s too tired. He wants her to know that he misses her though. “There are little things about you that I miss, Dot. A quick change of expression; the way you look when you’re teasing me; the way you respond so quickly and warmly when I put my arms around you; the way you react to my flattery,  your touch when I don’t expect it. Gee, ‘little things’ sure are important in love, aren’t they? I could name some others and some big ones, too.”

“You write a beautiful letter, Dot. Thank you ever so much. I love you, and I want to make a home with you, I love planning and doing and being with you. I love the way you return my love. I want you to be my wife.”

It won’t be long now, Dart.

Dart misses his Dottie. “You can tell the world, or you can keep it quiet, but I think it’s love.”

He cannot recall the last time he saw a movie, unless it was with Dot back in September. He may break his dry spell this week, though, to see “Henry V.” He’s heard it’s very good, but it’ll be leaving town soon and he’d hate to miss it.

At work tonight, Dart was talking to Mr. Bacon about the job he offered Dart back in November. The boss still wants him to take it, but Dart’s not sure if he can swing it. He’ll have to make out a very strict schedule and then see if he can stick to it.

The weather is blustery. Deep snow drifts in the streets make it difficult for cars to make it through, especially with the ice underneath. The temperature dropped to minus 2 today. To make things worse, it’s windy as heck.

He mysteriously mentions that he wishes he could go around punching girls in the gut and getting paid $175 to do so. Might this have some reference to a letter Dot wrote? Maybe it was about her check-up with her doctor; perhaps he was poking her incision, and maybe gave her a bill for $175? I doubt Mom will remember all these years later, but I’ll ask her anyway.

He ends the letter much as he began – telling Dot how much he loves and misses her.

A P.S. mentions that he’s returning the article she sent and he asks her to mail him any others she comes across on the topic. He wants to learn all he can because he wants them to be very happily married.

This blog that began on October 20, 2013 has reached it’s 1000th entry with 4 months left to go. In that time, we’ve covered 4751 pages of letters (3356 from Dart and 1395 from Dot.) You may recall that we’re missing 3 months of Dot’s letters in that time frame, or the count would be higher still.

In these three years and nearly four months, a lot has happened to this young couple. Dart has washed out of the elite V-12 engineering unit at Case and gone off to Navy boot camp. Once there, he spent over seven months in the hospital, endured a serious operation on his bask, six weeks of complete bed rest on his stomach, a couple of bouts with phlebitis and the mumps – and through it all, he wrote. He was sent to California for further training, sent to sea, saw lots of action in the Pacific and nearly met his fate when his ship was struck by a kamikaze. And still he wrote. He returned to the states, still in the Navy, waited impatiently to be discharged, struggled to find a placement in college, signed on for a very heavy academic load, found a part-time job, carried the burden of a sick father and a family living in very reduced circumstances. And still he wrote.

Dot completed a retail internship at a posh department store in Greenwich, returned to Ohio for her graduation from high school, came home to find a job as a playground supervisor, babysat nearly every day and helped paint, clean, and decorate the large family home. She returned to Ohio for a year of college, went through a series of trials and joys with a wide variety of housemates, missed her family back in Connecticut, and faithfully, wrote to Dart. She returned to Greenwich, learned to drive, became a telephone operator, had an emergency appendectomy, studied shorthand, and saved money for her married life in the future. She never let up on her correspondence to her beloved Dart.

During this time, they have spent most of their time apart, but they have made the most of their precious moments together. And  on their mutual attraction and shared values, they built a loving, supportive relationship with each other, even while they finished the final stages of growing up themselves.

It’s been a great ride so far. Let’s see where else they lead us on this romantic adventure.

Dot dearest,

I’ve been losing sleep for the past few nights, so do you mind very much if I don’t write much tonight? I’m awfully tired and so very much in love with you that I can hardly stand it.

I drove Uncle Tom’s car out to Crile today, taking Burke and Mom with me. It’s a long drive, clear across the city to the southwest side and out into the country. There was plenty of snow and ice to complicate driving.

When I left for work, Burke’s train to Chicago was already four hours late in arriving. He’ll probably be six or eight hours late by morning.

Good night, Dot darling. I missed you in church today.  I love you very much, Dot.

Yours forever, Dart

P.S. I’m sorry the letter I mailed you tonight got so crumpled in my pockets today.

P. P. S. I love you.

Dart types most of this letter as a test of his typewriter. He had it cleaned and repaired, but he suspects they forgot to take the typing mistakes out of it.

He has enclosed the final drawings of the third floor that he’d mentioned a few days ago. He decided not to draw  in the shelves they’ve planned for behind the sofa because he thinks that’s a project they can postpone for another time. He noticed when making his meticulous measurements that there is a slight problem. Either a gnome has created a small room behind one of the walls, or the old house has some non-square angles. Either way, it shouldn’t cause too much of a problem because he can compensate for the lopsidedness with his carpentry work. He asks Dot for comments and suggestions.

He saw Tom Riley for a few minutes tonight and they took a short drive to the library and to class. Tom says he’s looking forward to the Event in June.

His two classes today were Spanish and psychology. The psych class is very large, which doesn’t seem to suit his professor’s teaching style as well as the small class Dart had with him before. In Spanish, they jumped right in to some very difficult stuff and Dart learned he received an A for his last term in that class.

He writes the final paragraph by hand because it seems more personal. He’s going to forgo answering two of her “nifty” letters that arrived today so he can write to her mother. He closes with “Gee, I love you, Dot. You make me very happy, just by being.”

It’s a sweet opening passage for today’s letter, which I’ll copy here.

It seems from the tone of your letter the last couple of days that you miss me every bit as much as I miss you. It’s too bad we have to miss each other like that, but I’m glad we do. If we didn’t we wouldn’t be in love, and if we weren’t in love, that would  be awful! Just the same, I’m looking forward to a time when we won’t miss each other. The time I’m looking for won’t be one when we aren’t in love, either. It’ll  be a time when we can be as much in love as we darn well please, and if anyone says ‘BOO!’, we can ‘boo’ right back at ’em.

Mr. Carter launched back into a rough course load again this term. It’ll  be much tougher than last time and Dart will have to work very hard, and mind his schedule carefully in order to succeed this time. He explains for the better part of two pages about all the work that’ll be required in American Lit and Journalism this term. Lots of outside reading, many papers, more tests. Even his psych class has three reports due based on outside reading, not to mention the continuous output required from his prose workshop class. What a semester he has!

Yes, he too is looking forward to a change in Dot’s last name. He agrees that Chamberlain is a fine name, but on her, he thinks Peterson will look better.

He’d gladly share his secret for saving so much money, but it’s really no secret. He simply has no time to spend any of it. He even had to  miss out on seeing Henry V because he simply couldn’t spare the time. When his savings account reaches $300, he’ll open a checking account. Now he’ll await the check she sent for the penny fund and get that deposited.

There’s a chance Pop won’t have to have the serious operation the doctors were discussing last week.

Never failing to notice every detail when it comes to his Dot, Dart remarks that he’s noticed that her “clock” seems to be set for five weeks instead of the usual four. “If it keeps up at five weeks, it’ll work out for a visit just about the middle of June. Don’t worry, though, Honey. I’ll be content – very happily content – to take you any way you choose (or don’t choose) to be on that wedding day. After all, we’ve waited this long, and what’s four or five more days, even if we can say good night after we go to bed? All the same, I hope you won’t be having such a painful time of it, Darling.” Okay, does this not provide conclusive evidence that Dart G. Peterson, Jr. was one of the world’s most thoughtful and considerate men?

He wonders what he said in the final paragraphs of his 16-page letter that brought tears to her eyes.

Dot must have written to him about an idea for where they could stay on their wedding night. He tells her the “Old Hundred” sounded like a good spot and he wondered if she could find out if they needed a reservation. I had to smile at the multiple bold lines under the word “a” indicating his glee that two reservations would not be necessary. His razor sharp mind did not miss the fact that if the place was about an hour outside of Greenwich it would be about an hour closer to Sunapee.

He explained his health insurance policy, at her request. For $2.85 per quarter (!), he would get a semi-private room in a hospital, plus all tests, doctors, and other services within the hospital would be included. He can add a spouse (and full maternity coverage) for just a few pennies more. If her job will pay between $35 to $40 per week, they’ll have more income than many couples just starting out.

If the budget allows, he’d like to get their own phone, or at least an extension of their own. New phone lines are very hard to come by in Cleveland these days.

He’s happy they have a date for a walk in the snow someday. He’s also happy they enjoy the same things, and especially enjoy each other.

He warns her that building drawers is a tall order for an amateur carpenter like himself.  He thinks they’ll have to make due with shelves for a while.

Oh, how he likes that question! The one she asked in her recent letter “I’m going to bed. Wanna come along?” He replies emphatically that he’d like nothing more, and adds, “I took a little nap today on the couch where you slept. I felt awfully empty not to hear you in the kitchen; not to have you come and sit on the edge of the couch. I miss you, Dot.”

Dart doesn’t write on the 12th but he’ll return with a nice letter on the 13th. I’ll see you back here then.

Dart begins by warning Dot that there may be many days in the coming weeks when she doesn’t get a letter from him because his schedule is so tight. He has come down with another cold and feels bad enough that all he wants to do is read. At least that gave him a little jump on his psychology assignments.

Enclosed with this letter are the plans he found in the Shopping News for a sweet little house. He wants her to see them, but then return the clipping to him.

Her cute Valentine arrived today, along with two letters. One of those was dated yesterday, so he doesn’t expect to hear from her tomorrow. He thanks her for all her correspondence and love. How he wishes he could have answered her request to help her warm up her bedding.

Having dispensed with the niceties, he gets to the crux of his letter, once again donning the hat of a sage elder. Dot must have mentioned her disappointment with a recent visit from her friend Nancy. In Dot’s eyes, Nancy has changed for the worse since being away at school, taking up smoking, drinking, and maybe even rough language.

Dart understands her disillusionment because he’s experienced the same thing on a number of occasions. But he cites two friends of his – Jack and Homer – who smoke, drink and womanize, yet have never encouraged him to do the same. Because of their lack of pressure on him, he’s been able to continue to enjoy their friendship. He can also name some of his old pals from Shaw who have changed for the worse, and insist on dogging Dart when he declines to follow their example. Those friendships have gone by the wayside.

He goes on a bit more about how stymied he felt in social interactions as a child. He blames that on his upbringing (by his fussy aunts as well as his parents) and the fact that they “sissyfied” him.  He was always told that he was too weak to “play with those rough Irish (or Italian) kids.” He feels he grew up to be somewhat antisocial, even among kids of similar upbringing. He claims that when he started to date, he was three years behind his peers in social graces. He doubts he’ll ever catch up, but now he doesn’t even think he wants to.

“No, Dottie, we can’t become too upset (even though we both do) when our friends change. It’s often a great blow to us and we feel left out.” In my opinion, when young people live by their own high standards, they often can’t understand why others don’t hold themselves to the same standards. It takes a lot of maturity to accept people for who they are and still be true to their own values. He encourages her to give Nancy another chance.

How pleased he is that she took the initiative to find the train book he recommended! She has apparently started reading “Slow Train to Yesterday,” and says she likes it. He claims he doesn’t know her well enough to know if she is an antiquarian who might appreciate “the shabby remnants of ornate past days,” but he hopes the book will give her a greater appreciation of the little trains of yesteryear. (Both the real ones and the tiny models that he loves.)

He got chills when he read her line “Roll over, Honey. It’s your turn for a back rub.” It reminded him of the night he rubbed her back in January. “I don’t like very much to remember what happened between the back rub and when we finally x’d and o’d and *’d and went to bed, but I think we understand each other better for it.”

“I wish you were here to help me study Spanish. See, I love you for lots of things.”