Category Archives: Dart’s Letters

March 7, 1945

March 6, 201518. March 1945, Dart's LettersSusan

Here’s a quick note from Dart on another day that passed quickly and brought no new mail. The whole crew is busy painting the entire ship “while they have the chance.” He explains that it’s a huge job. First, they must scrape off all the rust – and there’s rust wherever there has been salt water. He says the salt water even finds its way into “water-tight” spaces and can’t get out, so it does major destruction. After the rust has been removed, the undercoat goes on. When that’s dry, the final coat is applied. This process is repeated on every metal surface of the ship!

He remembers that Dot wrote in one of her recent letters that she had bought him a Parker pen for his birthday and decided not to send it. He thanks her for the pen and for being so thoughtful. “It was a good idea not to send it, for things like that have remarkable ‘ambulatory’ habits here. They walk out on the owner without the slightest provocation.”

After he tells her how much he misses her and how thoughtful, cheerful and sweet she is, he warns her that the day is coming soon when his letters will become quite irregular again. But even though they may not be leaving the ship, he’ll still try to write them almost every day. “I won’t promise to write, but I’ll promise to try to write.” Sounds like some big offensive is afoot in his neck of the ocean.

He’s run out of time and must end their little talk for the night. He’s done more dreaming than writing, but the dreams make her seem closer.

March 8, 1945

March 8, 201518. March 1945, Dart's Letters, Dot's LettersSusan

Dart’s letter is a single page, four short paragraphs with almost no news. He asked her if she’d ever seen those cartoons when a guy was painting a floor and painted himself into a corner. She would have laughed if she’d seen him and his buddies almost do that exact same thing today. For awhile they thought they really were trapped, but then someone pointed out there was a hatch above them through which they could exit. See the advantages of living on a ship instead of in a traditional house?

The other ships around them have been getting mail every day, but the Haggard hasn’t had a delivery in four days. The injustice seems to bother Dart almost as much as not getting the mail.

He can think of nothing else to say, except that he loves her very much, and he can’t even think of a new way to say that.

With Mr. Goldstein in New York City learning what the other Franklin Simon’s has going on that they need in Greenwich, Dot is running the Young Men’s department by herself. It’s not too challenging because there have been almost no customers.

She announces that Spring is on its way and it’s much too nice a day to spend it all indoors. From her third floor window at work, she has a nice view of the countryside. In a paragraph that rivals Dart’s for its descriptive power, she tells of the trees that seem to be stretching toward the sky, ready to burst into bloom. The sky is an intense, brilliant blue strewn with light clouds that resemble careless brush strokes.

Now and then a plane flies overhead and Dot says she can’t help but pity the poor wretched souls who are terrorized by the sight and sound of airplanes. In equal measure, she’s grateful that those who live in America don’t have to be fearful of such things.

A sudden influx of customers arrives and she hastily promises to finish the letter later.

When she continues, it’s already March 10. She received her first letter from Dart today in over three weeks. It was that heart-wrenching masterpiece he wrote on Valentine’s Day. She’s happy he thought of her on this special day and tells him she re-read the poem he wrote her a year ago. She liked it even more this year. She says that being loved by him is all the Valentine she needs. “Your letter did get here and so will all the others you write, so forget to worry about that. I hope there won’t have to be too many more letters before I see you again.” She says that each letter seems to bring a little bit of him with it, so she prays he’ll continue to write whenever he has the chance.

She’s sorry to hear about his seasickness and worries there’ll be nothing left of him if that’s still happening. She says that although she’s never been seasick, she has some idea of what he’s going through and she has huge sympathy for him. Although she’s too modest or discreet to say so, I suspect she’s alluding to her monthy cramps which just about knock her off her feet. In those days, I doubt there were many young women who would mention anything to do with menstrual issues to a male who was not her husband. How different from today when so many young people share every detail of their bodily functions through very public modes of communication!

She begs him not to apologize when he doesn’t write. She knows he has a very good reason not to. But she feels guilty. With no brass to polish, salt water spray to dodge, or battles to fight, she still doesn’t write as much as she should or would like to. She tells him that last night was the first in many that she was actually able to sit down for dinner. Usually, she races home from FS, grabs a bowl of cereal, and rushes off to her evening gig. Last night, she had a feast when she babysat at the Miller’s and tonight, she’s serving and cleaning at a huge estate 10 miles outside Greenwich. She’s ” just a lowly maid,” but ever since the money machine in their basement broke down, she’s had to resort to all sorts of indignities like work to obtain “the filthy green stuff.”

Last night Mrs. Miller gave Dot her bicycle as a graduation gift. Dot says it’s a real honey, with balloon tires and everything. Dot plans to fix it up and paint it so she can get plenty of use out of it this Spring. Mr. Miller has offered Dart the use of his bike if he gets to Greenwich during bike-riding season.

She was thrilled to get another letter from Dart today, written on March 1. It reminded her of the times when she’d hear from him nearly every day. She was so happy to see that his spirits seemed much improved since the Valentine’s letter. I know he wrote several times between February 14 and March 1. I wonder when those other letters will find their way to her.

She tells him that she, too, has often had the sensation that he is standing right beside her. It’s a hard realization that he’s not there, but it somehow makes them seem closer than the thousands of miles that separate them.

She’s eager to see his new plans for their house. Everyone she tells about them – which is everyone she knows – thinks they sound perfect. The other night, Nancy Lou asked if she’d received any new sketches.

Although it’s often nearly 1:00 before she gets ready for bed, she vows that she is not going to sleep this next week until she has written Dart at least a short note. It’s a challenge, but it also makes her feel better when she “chats” with him regularly.

“You’re in my thoughts every minute I’m awake and in my dreams when I sleep. Please finish this war in a hurry and come home. I’ll let you put a whole tray of ice cubes down my back. Oh, what am I saying?!”

She ends with a simple “Thank you for ‘being.'”

March 10, 1945

March 10, 201518. March 1945, Dart's LettersSusan

Wow! This letter begins with two stories about justice (and injustice) in the Navy, and ends with a fine discussion on what Dart believes he’s fighting for.

First, the tale of injustice – a wrong which was righted through the efforts of our young hero, the valiant Dart. Since coming aboard the Haggard, Dart and his fellow new arrivals had been told there were no lockers available in which they could stow their belongings. As a consequence, they had all been forced to lug the things from place to place and store them in public areas. Recently, rumors began to circulate that this ship had been built with ample storage for all hands to access. Further investigation revealed that several guys had actually appropriated multiple lockers while the newbies remained “lockerless.” Dart and a buddy took it upon themselves to approach the Master-at-arms, a “redheaded New Jerseyite” and tell him that they knew several of his boys were occupying lockers that rightfully belonged to the newest sailors on the ship. They even threatened to go to the executive officer and spill all their grievances. By the end of the day, they all had lockers to call their own!

The tale of justice also features our man Dart. He was sentenced to 10 hours of extra duty for neglecting to wear a life jacket for a general quarters drill. As he explains it, when he heard the alarm, he dashed to the large storage area where he and all the other lockerless men sometimes threw their gear. When he saw the mountain of stuff piled on top of his belongings, he knew that taking the time to dig through it all to get to his life jacket would delay his whole battle station from being manned and ready. He opted instead to report to duty without the required life jacket. Unfortunately, he got caught by the executive officer and sentenced to the extra hours of duty. “I was in the wrong, my reason is not strong, and I must take the consequences.”

Still, with some residual bitterness, he talks about the disillusion he feels after two and a half years in the Navy. He feels that although he has always tried to follow the rules and play fair, his toes have been stepped on quite a lot. He hopes he doesn’t become sour, or lose his sense of right and wrong by spending so much time under the Navy’s influence. Even though some of his thoughts and actions are changing by being in the Navy’s environment, there are some things which he knows will remain steadfast.

“You and I know what they are. We want a home. We want to be happily married and successful in life. We want to live our lives in freedom – freedom from debt; freedom from the bonds of a conqueror; freedom from the seamy side of existence, or at least as much of it as possible; and, above all, freedom from the thought that our successful existence has been due to the fact that somebody else was wronged in our struggle; that is, freedom derived from our own minds and senses of decency and honesty. Speaking of honesty, I love you — honest!”

And I love that a value he holds most dear is to not achieve his hoped-for success by abusing or mistreating someone else. That kind and conscientious perspective was a driving force for Dart throughout his life.

March 13, 1945

March 12, 201518. March 1945, Dart's Letters, Dot's LettersSusan

“Right now I see red,” begins Dart’s letter. He then goes on to tell about working off his extra duty hours by painting the chief petty officers’ quarters. It wasn’t hard work but it took up all his letter-writing time. The reason he’s seeing red? He’s writing this under the red night light that shines on the corner of the deck where he spreads his mattress out every night.

Today, he worked his poor body to the brink. Whenever they have a few short days in port the whole crew must hustle to accomplish tasks that can’t be easily done at sea. Loading stores of all types of things is the most exhausting work – work you don’t really feel until you’ve had a few moments to rest. Then, when you must move again, every cell creaks and balks.

They had another mail call today at which he received six letters from Dot and two from his folks. He knows that she has some idea how much her letters will mean during the time, soon to come, when no mail will be able to get to him. He cherishes every word she writes. What does he know about what’s coming for his ship that he’s not allowed to tell her? It sounds vaguely ominous.

He says it’s okay for her to be glad he’s not on an aircraft carrier, but it’s plain to see that she has not much of an idea about the duties of a destroyer. “After it’s all over and we can talk about things instead of guarding against even the slightest hint in letters, there’ll be a few tales to tell. Let’s hope they’re told and forgotten quickly.”

He’s trying to use every available moment to write his thoughts to her about how much he loves her. Actually, he has no time now, but he’s stealing a few moments anyway, gambling that no one would begrudge a poor, tired sailor the few minutes it takes to write his sweetheart a letter. He wishes he could tell her in person, but explaining his love will take a lifetime of chatter.

Dot has been working on her income tax return today so she hasn’t been having much fun. Still, the government owes her $58.20 so she guesses she’ll keep on working if she can get that kind of cash from the government. She’s thinking about claiming Tonsillectomy as a dependent next year to get an even bigger refund. She jokes that maybe Tonsillectomy will have a little brother or sister by then and the government will be her sole support. That’s weird, but I guess she’s running out of new things to say.

Wanting to include something to make him laugh, she encloses some snapshots of herself as a young child. The photos are missing from this collection of letters, but she refers to herself as a real “glamour girl,” but I suspect she says that with tongue planted firmly in her cheek.

She hopes his mother never sent the photo they had taken together while in Cleveland. He’d never want to come home if he saw a glimpse of it. Shes very tired, so it’s off to bed for her.

March 14, 1945

March 13, 201518. March 1945, Dart's LettersSusan

Dart begins by saying he feels like spilling forth a blue-sounding letter with phrases like “if” I get back instead of the more cheery “when” I get back. But he’s found it’s best not to think too much about getting back, regardless of whether it’s “if” or “when.”

All hands on the ship have been put to heavy labor recently. He put in a full 21 hours yesterday and the guy in charge of his work party is still at it, 60 hours after getting out of his bunk for the last time. They’re not worked that hard often, but sometimes it becomes necessary. One thing is certain; he’s learned far more about the workings of the ship than he’d learned in the previous month on board.

Several of the seamen with a Fire Control man second class rating are hoping for a promotion to third class while serving aboard the Haggard. Yesterday they all received their course of study to qualify them for advancement. Unfortunately, all the petty officer positions allowed on this ship have already been filled, so there’ll have to be lots of transfers or promotions to make room for all the guys who want to move up. If the war lasts a very, very long time, he may get it, but he’d rather achieve the third class rate now, as a seaman than years from now as a petty officer.

I’s hard for him to believe that it’s been four months since he looked over his shoulder at the Cleveland train station one last time for a final glimpse of Dot and his parents. How glad he is that all three of them were smiling in that last look. Her visit to Cleveland to see him was the best thing he could have hoped for, and made the long train trip and short visit worth the effort.

At this point in the letter, Dart goes off on a little rant about the drunken bums who’ve just returned from shore recreation. These guys whom Dart dubs “loud, profane, cocky, ignorant sailors” give all sailors a bad name on shore. They ruin things for everyone by their crude and offensive behavior. Sometimes when Dart goes off on these moral high ground tangents, he certainly sounds far older than his 21 years. Some might even say he sounds stodgy.

All this bad temper has left him very little room on the page to say the tender things he wanted to tell his girl. He suggests that maybe they could whisper them to each other like they did that time in the front seat of the car. Squeezed into the tiniest spot at the bottom of the page, he writes “But remember, Darling, whether you hear from me or not, I love you always.”

But wait! There’s a bonus letter, written later that night. What a beautiful bonus it is!

“My Darling, I can’t sleep. I keep thinking of you and of what our plans are for the future. If I ever see you again, Dot, I hope we’ll never have to be separated again. Every time I think of you, a strange sort of anxiety excites me, and I lose all ability to sleep, tired as I am. Oh, if this war could only end NOW and we could all return safely to our homes and the girls we love! Instead, all over the world, boys are going out to battle, most of them probably thinking the same as I do now.

Dorothy, I love you, I love you, I love you. Only you, from now until the end of our days. Goodnight, dear. I feel as though you’re thinking of me now. Yours forever, Dart”

March 19, 1945

March 19, 201518. March 1945, Dart's LettersSusan

Dart begins by saying that for the last couple of days he’s been in a happy and carefree mood for no apparent reason. In fact, he says there are plenty of reasons not to feel happy or carefree, yet still, he does.

He reveals the biggest worry the guys on his ship have, aside from worrying about the enemy, is worrying that their loved ones at home will worry about them. When their letters can’t get off the ship they know that there’ll be long, anxious days at home, waiting for some word from them. The sailors aren’t bothered much by not hearing from home, because they can assume their families and friends are safe and that the letters from home will eventually reach the ship. I wonder if sailors from England, Germany, and all the other fighting nations had the peace of mind that US fighters did. It seems doubtful, as the cities in their home countries were being bombed ferociously throughout the war. How very easy the US civilians had it, in spite of all the shortages they faced.

He waxes poetic about Spring arriving in the Pacific. “As we watched the rich golden sun come up and start scattering fluffy white clouds all over the sky the other day, each of us seemed to be reminded of clear, early-Spring mornings at home. The beautiful things of the world don’t seem to change much, no matter where they are transplanted. A Spring sunrise in clear, cool air awakens the same dreams, whether we’re on a plunging speeding destroyer at some unknown spot in the Pacific, or are the only one on the streets as we deliver the Cleveland Plain Dealer and watch the world awaken. I’ve never seen a sunrise in Greenwich, but I suppose they’re just the same there as in Ohio or in the Pacific.”

The recent sunrise reminded him of his paper route days – up at 4:30 a.m. each day, seeing the same people with the same cheery wave at the same place. “There’s a peculiar bond between people who get up before dawn, whether they be heavy-laden newsboys or heavily careworn men.”

Although the men on board the Haggard curse the dawn alerts that shake them from their beds to watch for enemy attack planes, he tells Dot that such alerts may sometime not only save their lives, but can also yield some beautiful sights in the bargain.

Deciding to end the letter here, he writes “My heart is full of love for you and happiness at loving you so much and knowing you feel the same.”

March 22, 1945

March 21, 201518. March 1945, Dart's LettersSusan

The past few days have passed quickly for Dart, but with no real news to tell. Instead he decides to describe a little more about his daily life aboard the ship.

He hopes to finish this letter before the deadline for censors. When they get word that there will be a mail pick-up that day, they never have much time to wrap up their letters in order for the censors to approve them before the mail goes out. It takes quite a long time for all the letters to get processed through the censorship board.

His “condition watch” has been changed to an inside post, although his battle station watches are still outdoors. The latter he does every dawn and dusk, but the inside watch is much nicer, especially when the weather is rough.

When he first came to the Haggard, he feared he would not get assigned to fire control. In fact, one of the three FC guys in his newbie group was actually assigned to the mess hall – cooking and serving meals, stocking the galley and cleaning the mess hall. Now, Dart and the other FC striker are having their turn at the same duty. He isn’t sure when it’ll start, but it can’t last longer than three months and he’s been told it won’t hurt his chances for advancement, if such chances occur. He doesn’t seem too upset about being taken off the duty he trained so hard for and working in the mess.

The men are allowed to work on standard Navy courses while on condition watch, so he’s about two thirds of the way through the course work he’s doing to try to get a promotion.

The sea has been unbelievably calm for the last couple of days. It reminds him of Lake Erie in the summer, when the water is so smooth that the only motion is when the wind ruffles the surface slightly. He loves to see the Cleveland skyline reflected in the lake when it gets like that. The Pacific has been just that smooth. His ship can go through the glass-like water at top speed without a drop of water or a breath of spray coming on deck. He says it’s a shame to run a ship through such perfectly smooth water.

As he writes now, however, the old girl is having some fun. She’s pitching and swaying all over the place. He’s gotten used to the wildly irregular roll of the ship on rough seas and it doesn’t phase him much, except when the bow rides off the top of a swell and then plunges into a deep trough with a giant smack! There are times when they hit the wave so hard that a solid sheet of water envelopes the ship and soaks everything in its path.

He guesses even war and rough seas can’t keep a guy from thinking about his girl, his family and his hobbies. He’s been doing a lot of all three lately. I’m sure Dot will be thrilled to learn he’s designed a wiring plan for his two model trains so he can get them running when he’s able to get little motors for them. He’s also been working out some details on their house. “You mentioned going upstairs hand-in-hand in one of your letters. What fond memories that brought back! I wish now that we’d stayed awake and talked all night. The sleep we’d have missed wouldn’t have mattered now. I’m doing all I can to make our little house with the big fireplace come true, and when that happens, all our present dreams will have come true, too. The only ones left will be the ones we can cook up together, between now and then.”

March 23, 1945

March 23, 201518. March 1945, Dart's Letters, Dot's LettersSusan

Dart writes that he is gradually getting accustomed to his new life out here. Life on a tin can is teaching him all sorts of things every day. For example, he has learned a valuable lesson of how to stow clothing in his locker. Because regular duckings by fierce or playful waves make for frequent changes of clothing, he’s learned to fold an entire outfit, from underwear and socks to dungarees and shirt, into one neat package. Then when he has to change on the double, he just grabs a bundle and has everything he needs in one hand.

He tells her she needn’t worry that this life would ever take first place in his heart over Cleveland. “The way we like it here is to try to forget about home, to think of all the worse places we could be, to forget where we are and why, and then it sorta comes on us that maybe this place would be alright as a last choice.”

It doesn’t sound to Dart like Dot really wants to hear much “about that ‘perfect size 12’ girl I mentioned once. She may have been size 12 – I wouldn’t know about that – but as far as perfection goes, she wasn’t it. ‘Nuff said. I think size 14 would be alright for you. Don’t let all the effort of getting there mar your charming personality and sweet looks, though.”

Referring to her long-ago comment about Washington’s birthday falling on a work day and her hopes that by the time it’s on a Sunday, she’ll have the type of job where she won’t have to work weekends, he commented that the holiday falls on a Sunday in just three years. He says that doesn’t leave much time for the war to end and for the two of them to “get started.” How he hopes he’ll be able to provide for her when they can get married. He hopes the first year or two after the war aren’t too difficult. He wants to finish college and get a big job in a big hurry.

He ends with “By the way, the only way we know it’s Sunday around here is when some guy says “Jeezuss, we’re having chicken noodle soup for chow!”

Having broken her promise to write last night, Dot explains that she was struggling with her mother’s birthday cake. The devil’s food came out okay, but the frosting was a disaster. She ran out of powdered sugar and had to use granulated. Chewing the frosting felt like eating sand.

Next Thursday, she’s taking the day off work to go into NYC with Nancy Clapp. Her dad has a list of supplies he’d like her to get and she needs new shoes. If there’s time, they hope to take in a show.

The weather today was spring-like, but earlier this week, it was cold, wet and snowy. She says last night was a perfect night for “indoor sports,” and says she means just what he’s thinking!

Last night she dreamed that Dart’s brother had joined the Navy and was already an Ensign. Dot says she’d take a lowly bell-bottom wearing sailor if the one wearing them was Dart.

While trying to fall asleep last night, she thought back to every detail of their time together in November. She can’t figure out why they didn’t change their awkward seating arrangement with him in the straight back chair and her on that low couch. She also doesn’t know why she couldn’t open up and say what was in her heart when he was saying all those pretty things to her. He must have thought her an awful twerp.

Now she takes comfort in knowing that each day brings her one day closer to seeing him again.

March 24, 1945

March 24, 2015Dart's Letters, Dot's LettersSusan

Dart says that in spite of her claims of being a “poor, mistreated baby-sitter,” Dot must enjoy the work or she wouldn’t have put that clever ad in the newspaper. He’s eagerly awaiting word on how that first dinner party turned out. He asks if she decided to go into business with El rather than look for a job at a defense plant as she had mentioned once. From his limited observation, defense plants “are not such hot places for young girls to work.”

He sees in the news that Mayor LaGuardia is running New York City in defiance of the curfew laws. “And the New Yorkers call the boys from the South ‘rebels’! Looks like we’ll have to sail the fleet into New York harbor and lambast the city with our pea-shooters.” He wonders if, after putting her little charges to bed, she’s ever had to help some of their parents get to bed, too. “Then, maybe your clients don’t come home stewed.”

He wishes he’d seen “I Love a Soldier,” because of the San Francisco scenes in it. “Did they show any scenes of the bridges or of the city from a cocktail lounge high above it? If not, they missed the two most impressive sights of the city.” He’s surprised that his descriptions of the places he’s seen make her homesick for those places, even though she’s never been to them. “The biggest and most important memories I have which make me homesick are those dealing with eight days separated by a couple of eternities and a millennium.”

Let that sink in for a minute. The eight days he refers to are the ones he’s spent in Dot’s company. Eight days. Think of how far these two have come in their relationship, how much they know about each other, how deep their love has grown – with only eight days together. Such is the power of letters in the hands of two mature, self-aware, honest, and compatible young people.

Now comes a gentle lecture. He asserts that she must never refer to her lovely paragraphs as “corny.” He writes, “Darling, every single word you send me thrills and enthralls me. They’re the nearest thing to your being with me that there could be…Yours are the sweetest and most endearing love letters I’ve ever seen. Lots of fellows sit around and read each other’s mail, laughing at the gentler phrases and thoughts of the writers, but no one except me ever sees your letters. They are Sacred Writings.”

It’s nearly lunch time and not only the Army but also the Navy fights on it’s stomach. As for Dart, he finds it hard to make love on an empty stomach, so he must end this letter, sending all his love.

Dot begins her letter by saying that writing it at work might earn her 10 hours of extra duty, or cost her a job, but spending a few minutes chatting with him is worth the risk.

She was thrilled to get three good letters from him when she went home for lunch today. She was so eager to read them that she forgot to blow on her soup and has suffered a burned tongue.

She’s decided there’s no excuse for her not writing to him every single day, so she begs him not to forgive her anymore. There are women she works with who, according to Dot, have more to do than she does (I find that hard to believe) and they manage to write to their husbands and sweethearts daily. Some of them have been at it for more than three years! Dot prays that the war won’t last anywhere near that long, but if it does, she’ll still be writing. I wonder if she realizes that she’s been writing to Dart on a nearly daily basis for half that long already?

It’s supposed to be a very busy day at the store, with Easter so close, and in most of the departments, that’s true. However, the Young Men’s Shop is deserted.

She continues the letter from home later that day. How nice it is that the Navy is giving him so much practice at painting. By the end of the war he should be an expert at wielding the paint brush. She asks if he’d rather paint a house than a ship. “Good – so would I,” she says, agreeing with his presumed response.

Today she decided to send Dart’s family a little something for Easter to remind them of Dart, so she wired them a plant with a card that said “With love from Dart, via Dot.” She wanted him to know what she’d done in case they mention something to him. I can imagine how much that plant, and Dot’s thoughtfulness will please them. Another thought she had was that his folk’s 25th wedding anniversary is coming up in June. Since she doesn’t trust the timing of the mail, she’s mentioning this now. She’d like him to tell her what he’d like to give them for the occasion and she’ll handle the shopping and shipping. She knows it’ll be more fun for her than for him, but since he’s not exactly in the “Shopping Mart of the World,” she hopes he’ll let her help him out this way. What a thoughtful girl!

Dot gets philosophical as she tells Dart about a discussion she, El and their cousin Betty had after dinner tonight. It seems that economists predict that for at least 10 years after the war ends, prices for nearly everything will climb significantly. Dot claims she has no head for figures, but one thing she has figured out is that money doesn’t mean that much. Granted, one must have the stuff in order to eat, but there’re so many things that are more meaningful. She cites nature as an example and says Spring is the perfect reminder that some of the greatest beauty in the world can be had for free if one simply sits and drinks in all the splendor. “So – I’ve got it all boiled down to one thing. If you love someone as much as I love you, material wealth matters very little.” As it turned out, Dot and Dart always had “enough,” but there were lots of periods when they didn’t have a penny more than that. Yet they were richly blessed in their long and loving marriage.

It’s 1:30 AM and she is bleary eyed. Good night.

March 25, 1945

March 24, 201518. March 1945, Dart's Letters, Dot's LettersSusan

For a brief time today, Dart thought he might be able to meet Dot’s brother. While he was in port, he saw a ship he thought was Gordon’s and he asked the signalman to send a message over to it. A response came back that they were talking to the wrong ship. Oh well, maybe next time…

As he’s mentioned before, huge waves break over the deck of the Haggard fairly frequently, soaking everyone it their paths. It seems that Dart has developed a reputation of being in the wave’s path more often than anyone else. At times, he thinks there’s a trained shark following the ship, ready to squirt a big spray of salt water whenever Peterson sets foot on deck. A couple of days ago, it reached slapstick comedy levels when first his feet got soaked as a wave washed over the deck on his early morning watch at the bow. Later, as he walked aft, nearly dry from the earlier ducking, another wave came aboard and , Voila! He was wearing wet pants. Everybody laughed, including Dart, I think. He concludes with “It shouldn’t happen to any dog.”

But wait! There’s more. In the late afternoon while he walked the deck, he saw the wave coming. He grabbed the handiest thing which would support his weight and hoisted his feet up. The wave rolled under his feet, up the side of the deck house, bounced off and soaked him from hat to brogans. “It could only happen in the movies, or to me.”

A week from today will be Easter. It was about a year ago that Dot and his parents met for the first time while he was in the hospital, hundreds of miles away. “Maybe some of these years we may all be home together for the holidays. All the holidays. From New Year’s Day through New Year’s Eve, for many years in succession.” Nice dream.

He writes that he is sitting here with Donn Byron recalling how he met Dot, where he met her, how much he liked her from the very first moment. “Golly Dot, you’re swell. Every once in a while the very thought of you overwhelms me. To think that I should know and love a person like you, and then have you love me too, is almost too much to believe.”

I love how each of them feels like they won the lottery when they met each other. Both of them thinks s/he is the lucky one to have the other person love them. Isn’t that the very definition of romantic love?

Dot’s short letter is hard for her to write because she’s sitting in the Miller’s living room and they’re talking and the radio is playing. She’s spending the night because Mr. and Mrs. Miller are leaving at the crack of dawn for a three-day anniversary celebration in NYC. Dot will stay with the boys until a sitter arrives later in the morning.

As happens so often, Dot’s mind is running in the same channel as Dart’s today. She’s thinking how much she’ll miss him again at Easter. Last year she was hoping that by this year they could celebrate the holiday together and now she’s hoping the same thing about next year. These busy kids, surrounded by people and activity are so very lonely for each other. Let’s hope next Easter brings a reunion.

Spot and Arrow

A great love story