Here’s a rather graphic description of Dart’s most recent days in his recovery from the surgery. The details he shares attest to a different level of intimacy he feels toward Dot than just the average romantic kind.

He also talks about his former social life – lots of first dates and plenty of hanging out with the boys. He reveals himself to be quite a straight arrow (a result of being named “Dart?”) when it comes to drinking, smoking and “raising h—.” That fits the Dart I knew in later years, but there was nothing straight arrow about his sense of humor. He loved limericks – the bawdier, the better.

He signs off after six pages because of a tall stack of “fan mail” awaiting his attention. His P. S. is a line of shorthand symbols for “I love you” which he claims to practice on everything-except letters to other people.

Dot’s hurried letter begins on Friday, and finishes on Sunday morning. In between, she was working her feet off as a sales clerk in a retail store as temporary Christmas help.

After a crack Dart had made about how nice it must be to have a “charge account” at the Andrew store, she sets the record straight. She charges things she needs and then pays them off herself as she earns money. She’s not one of the girls who makes Mommy and Daddy cover her bills.

She refuses Dart’s plea to translate the long initial code from a few letters back. Again, she promises to tell him what they mean in six year, saying “Jeepers – I hope I still know you in six years!” No worries there, Dottie!

In Dart’s letter today, he reminds Dot that she has not sent him her Greenwich address where he can write to her over the Christmas break. It has become a more pressing issue now because he received a lovely note from her mother and he would like to answer it as soon as possible. I guess this was decades before those little self-stick address labels became ubiquitous – mailed to every American home by all those charities seeking money.

It was another red letter day in Dart’s recovery. He asked for and received permission to put on his regular clothes long enough to go out into the hallway and call his parents. This strikes me as quaint in two ways: one, that he had to put on clothes in an all-male military hospital, rather than just his skivvies or a robe – how formal! The other is that the only available phone was out in the corridor, not in his pocket!

Anyway, he was so happy to hear his parents’ voices after four weeks away from home. (It seems like so much longer!) They told him they were hoping to come see him on Dec. 18. He expressed concern that there would be a hotel available for them in Chicago at that time of year. Although he’d rather be in Willoughby, escorting Dot to her formal on that day, since that was not possible, he would be thrilled to see his folks.

He asks Dot if she had been able to read the tiny writing at the bottom of his previous letter (the charming declaration of love), and suggested she might consider the diminutive words to be whispering. Awww!

Finally, he posed the question any reasonable person would: Why wait six  years to tell him the meaning of her earlier coded message? Signing off with love, he added a teeny pencil drawing, which I’ll let the reader enjoy without comment from me.

Dot’s letter begins by describing a magnificent dinner the girls had in the dining hall that evening. I’ve noticed when either of them talks about food, they are especially excited by having butter. It’s hard to imagine what it was about butter than made it so scarce during the war years, but it was obviously missed.

She tells that her friend Nancy has fallen prey to the cold that’s been burning through the house. Then she tells about an impromptu trip to Cleveland with the aunt of one of the other girls. While there, Dot gathered her courage and called Dart’s parents, Dart, Sr. and Helen Peterson. She was astounded how similar father and son sound. She rejoiced in the news that Dart had just called his parents and had been dressed for the first time in weeks. Dot said that she had been nervous to call, but Dart’s mother was so sweet that it felt like she was talking to an old friend.

At a house meeting that night, it was announced that all 36 girls in the class were expected to attend the formal on Dec. 18, even though only six of them had dates. Apparently, men were as scarce as butter these days. Dot dreaded the thought of going without Dart, and predicted she would be very sick when that night came!

Dot confesses to Dart that she thinks of him, and only him, constantly.

Dart was very chipper in this letter – undoubtedly because he had two letters and a card from Dot.

His real news is that whoever sewed him up after his surgery made a total botch of the job and he now must have at least one more operation to try to fix the damage. Yuck! I guess there’s no such thing as a malpractice suit against a military surgeon.

He drew a thermometer in the margin of his letter to illustrate how hot and bothered he is by that long string of initials that Dot will not decode for six years.  Said Dart, “I hope you don’t think I need that much incentive to keep track of you for six years. I hope we’ll know each other very well by then.”

He was so happy to hear that Dot had called his parents. He was sure they must have liked her, although their letter from that day was postmarked before she called them, so there was no mention of her call.

He was over the moon with pride and excitement when he heard a recording of his high school choir’s over a Chicago radio station. (His was one of the voices being aired.) He says they sounded very good over the radio. I confess to being a little surprised that he was part of a quality chorus. The singing voice I recall emanating from Dad was quite good…at the one note he could carry!

He urged Dot to have a great time at her dance on the 18th and reiterated that he would be thinking of her. Indeed, he tells her every move he makes is done for her. What a sweet thing to say!

Dot is pleased that Dart likes reading her letters. She says it gives her the incentive she needs to keep writing. She mentions a card she sent him that could never say what she really feels. “As a matter of fact, I can’t even say what I feel. I’ll have to get used to the idea and then maybe I can tell you.

She chats about her pending trip home, the most recent snapshot she received from Dart (which, of course doesn’t do him justice) and her portrait proofs she expects to receive soon (which, of course will be too horrible to look at).

Referring to Dart’s theory that he grew an inch or more while in bed, Dot says she’ll be hibernating soon, because she’s only 5′ 6.5″ and would like to be taller.

She vows no more shorthand. From now on, anything she has to say she’ll say in plain English (once she gets used to the idea.) Here, she also makes a reference to the final paragraph of his latest letter – the one where he says straight out for the very first time that her loves her. “The last crowded paragraph was the best I’ve ever read. Boy! That’s just what a girl needs to pep her up.”

She is very happy that his parents are planning to go to Chicago and is confident they will find a room because their mission is so important that the city will find space for them.

She ends with a silly little joke about a gremlin in the “icebox.” Now, that’s a word you don’t hear every day anymore.

A short, jaunty letter from Dart starts with his enthusiastic critique of Spike Jones’ “Volga Boatman.” He then draws Dot’s attention to the new stationery he bought in the hospital canteen while he was dressed in his uniform and allowed to walk around. He explains that he is writing small because this paper “costs like a black market steak.”

His mother was most enthusiastic about the “sweet young voice” who called yesterday, and he is most enthusiastic that the two women in his life seem to like each other.

In sympathy with Dot over her play-writing assignment, Dart tells an embarrassing tale on himself about his one and only attempt to do the same.

He asks Dot what the meaning of the additional symbol she has added to her usual shorthand closing. He’s too embarrassed to keep asking the nurse. To show that two can play at the “coded message” game, he signs off in Spanish.

This is an uncharacteristically gloomy letter from young Dot. She’s snappish and surly and, admittedly in need of a vacation.

Near the end of page 1, she quips “I haven’t the vaguest idea what I’m going to write about, but I’ll make an attempt at something. For further information, see page 2.”

Page 2 is not a huge improvement. She writes that she has always wanted to be in the Christmas play at Andrews. Even though she claims to have no talent whatsoever, she thought that being in the play would be fun. Housemother Mrs. Wall, who is no fan of Dot’s, has decided once again that Dot will not have fun on her watch!

Dot mentions that nearly half the dorm left tonight to attend a 40-hour devotion at the Catholic Church. She wishes she could have gone because it would have probably improved her spirits.

Her next complaint is about the spring-like weather of this state called Ohio.  “When it comes to winter, I’ll take one of the good ol’ New England states. At least you can tell the seasons there.”

Having resorted to talking about the weather, she decides to end this “sour-puss” letter, assuring Dart that her mood in no way changes how she feels about him.

This is another brief one from Dart, who doesn’t seem to have too much to say. Still, it’s nice he keeps his streak alive.

He has a new pen from his aunt but prefers his old pen. He guesses which train Dot will take to NYC (Pacemaker or the Southwestern Limited).  He hopes her pictures do her justice and he thinks 5′ 6.5″ is just fine for a girl. He asks that she “go easy” on any new shorthand lest he get strange looks for the  nurses who translate for him.

Big news flash: He dreams of the day they can be together and he can say all the things he is thinking about. Hint: They’re all about her.

Dot’s letter starts by saying that she was still feeling low until she saw his familiar handwriting on a letter. That’s all she needs to cure whatever ails her.

She is distressed that he must undergo another operation to correct the butcher job his surgeon made of the first. She theorizes that the mistake was made intentionally because everyone at the hospital likes him so much they wanted to be sure to keep him around awhile.

She goes into great detail in answer to his question about where she was on Saturday. She works at Wright’s department store in Willoughby, where from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. she makes $3.50. That’s not per hour, that’s per day!

She hopes the mail will work smoothly enough when she gets her portrait proofs that he’ll get his copy by Christmas or a little bit after.

She wishes she had heard the Shaw choir singing on the radio. Her classmates tell her that choir is quite good, and she thinks she could use a little more culture.

She’s still not looking forward to attending her school dance, but she’ll try to be happy. With school going along as normal, she doesn’t have any more news. The page ends with Dot mentioning that she thinks Dart is a nice guy. Because it ends rather abruptly and with no signature, I suspect there may have been another page to this letter, but it is lost to the ages, I fear.

It’s a brief note from Dart, with the good news that he no longer needs to wear a pressure bandage on his incision. Instead, the docs have substituted a thick pad. Dart quips, “It feels like I’m driving with 6 people in the back seat.”

Some more trivia follows; Chicago is gearing up for a big snowstorm, Dart went to church this morning which cost him a visit from the newspaper boy, so he had nothing to read all day, he wanted to call Dot but was ordered to a work detail and missed his chance.

Dot settles in to write a long letter, full of news. She likes Dart’s new stationary, but would prefer to get longer letters on cheaper paper. (His fault for writing such good letters.)

She is delighted that Dart wrote to her mother so the two of them can get better acquainted. (How I wish those letters had survived the decades, but I’ll try not to be greedy.) She goes on for about a page about songs that are “big on the Andrews Hit Parade,” such as “Choo-choo Baby,” “This Will be My Shining Hour,” “I’ll be Home for Christmas,” and “My Ideal.” These titles make me want to do a little research and see if I can dig up the ones that have survived into our current age.

She’s still struggling with her play-writing assignment and is extremely excited about going home. She only wishes Dart had the same thing to look forward to. She muses that if she decides to do her co-op work assignment in the Cleveland area, she’ll be away from home for almost a year!

Dot’s mother had written that Dot’s big brother Gordon would be getting home that night for a five day leave before reporting for active duty. Dot is distressed because that means she won’t have a chance to see him before he goes. If she could just get home, it would be the first time in two years that the whole family was together (And, in wartime, who knows when – or if – that might happen again.)

She got the proofs of her class portraits on Friday, and true to form, she is a harsh critic. “The trouble is, they look too much like me. Boy, they certainly didn’t go out of their way to add a little glamour. Guess they thought it didn’t fit my ‘poisonality.'”

At the time she was writing, many of the girls were parading around the dorm in their formals, making the place look like prom night. Some of the girls are required to wear their fancy dresses to a violin concert the next night, and the rest of them didn’t want to be out done, so everyone was modeling their finery.

Dot had plotted an idea to escape the formal dance next Saturday. She asked the school leadership “If some unfortunate soul does not have a formal to wear, wouldn’t that poor girl just have to sit out the dance upstairs?” The answer was that the “unfortunate soul” would have to attend wearing “civilian” clothing (street attire). “So I guess the only thing left for me to do is to drag the rag up from the cellar and wear it, regardless of self pride,” wrote Dot. “All this was to let you know that even though I’ll be here physically on the 18th, mentally I’ll be at Great Lakes.”

She wraps up with a humorous account of some hi-jinx in her room, which I invite the reader to check out for yourself. She promises much more new in tomorrow’s letter and signs “Love you, (really!!) Dot.