Here’s a short, jubilant note from Dart, in spite of the fact that he received no mail from Dot today. He has been cleared for active duty! While his incision is still partially open and he must return to sick bay twice daily for the wound to be cleaned and dressed, he returns to boot camp on Tuesday!

Dot’s long letter spans five days as she tries to answer his many letters and keep up with school work.

She starts of with a good-matured rant about going to church. She reminds me of a typical 17-year old kid with her disinterest in church. Ironically, the woman who was my mother made church a regular pillar of her life, and to this day rarely misses a Sunday in the pew.

She answers his many letters and then apologizes for her pitiful response to his upcoming birthday. She had several ideas about what she wanted to buy for him, but a measles epidemic has all but locked down the campus and she was forbidden to go shopping in public. How grateful I am to live in a world where that nasty bug virtually has been eliminated!

She’s worried about exams next week, and made a prediction that she’d be sent home shortly thereafter. Not likely, if history  tells us anything.

Ah! She has received his beautiful love letter written January 7, and is nearly overwhelmed by it. She vows it will not be her who breaks up this relationship because she knows a good thing when she sees it, and he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to her.

She enjoyed his little limerick about Hirohito and has asked him to write more. I particularly liked this part, because Dad always enjoyed limericks. In fact, for his 80th birthday, our family wrote a “This is Your Life, Dart Peterson” sketch entirely in limerick form. He enjoyed it so much that he told Mom he wanted them read at his memorial service. And so, they were. Perhaps some day I’ll post a few on this site.

At long last, she closed the letter. I fear the postage on this volume must have equaled a week’s wages!

Here’s a rather disjointed letter from Dart, causing me to wonder if one or more of Dot’s letters have been lost. He refers to some things I don’t recall them discussing before.

He repeats some of his previous complements; the fudge was the best he ever tasted, he’s sure she’s being overly modest when she disparages her bowling form and scores, he likes her new stationery (because it carries letters from her), etc.

He agrees that it would probably be better for her to get her required practicum in Greenwich rather than Cleveland because then she wouldn’t be alone in a big city. He sincerely hopes he’ll have a chance to see her before her days in Willoughby come to an end.

He nearly missed his chance to leave the hospital and return to duty when he awoke with a fever of 100 and a very sore throat. After being confined to bed for the remainder of the day, his temperature dropped. If it stays down until the morning, he’ll be discharged to boot camp.

He tells a story of being examined by another doctor and uses an  ethnic term to describe him. This part of the letter really bothers me, not only because it is offensive to my 21st-century ear, but because it paints a picture so contrary to the man I knew as my father. He always enjoyed the company of a diverse group of friends and co-workers. He valued the flavor that people from different races, religions and backgrounds brought to everyday life. He appreciated humor that was steeped in cultural differences. I never once heard him use a racial or ethnic slur. Furthermore, had he learned that any of his children had, we would have had a meal of Ivory soap. Can I chalk up his use of such language to the changing times, or is this simply a case of never completely knowing a person, no matter how much you love them? I sure hope it’s the former.

Again, a solo letter from Dot – as usual, it’s charming and full of life.

First, check out the weird little illustration on her stationery! The caption says “I’m all prepared if you don’t write!” and that is under a drawing of a woman surrounded by all methods of destruction; a noose, rifle, poison, gas canister and what seems to be a land mine. How very strange!

Her opening paragraph tells the small-world story of Dot’s mother getting a letter from an acquaintance, Mary Forte. Mary was a Wave/nurse on Dart’s ward at the hospital. She has written that Dart seems to be “mighty fond” of Dot. To quote Dot, “Bet Mom was surprised to hear that cuz from what I told her she thought we were more or less ‘pen pals.’ ” Apparently Dot wasn’t completely forthcoming with her family over the holidays because she was scared of the teasing that would follow. As she explains to Dart, up until quite recently, she was one of the biggest “man-haters” on the planet and her family always told her they would tease her mercilessly when the “real thing” came along.  I guess the cat is out of the bag now!

She tells one of her amusing stories about her retail teacher, Miss Hutton. Dot has quite a talent for describing interesting characters. I could just hear a classroom of teenage girls fighting to keep the giggles from overtaking them as they sit in class with this unusual teacher!

She wraps up with the latest news of her roommate, Andy and the formerly ex-beau. Since receiving an air mail special delivery letter from her Lt. this morning, all the way from England, Andy has been grinning dreamily all through class. I guess the couple has patched things up.

Dot’s birthday package, forwarded to camp from the hospital, was the only mail Dart received on his birthday. He was grateful for all the little treats she’d been able to buy him while on restricted shopping. Still, most of them have to be shipped home to Cleveland because he’s not allowed to have books, gum or non-regulation handkerchiefs while at boot camp.

He’s getting all his required shots again, and his duties include late night sentry and early morning drilling of the new companies. He describes a sunny, balmy, breezy day – nice for parade duty. Then he launches into a mock conversation between two recruits in his new company. These guys, like most of the outfit, are from Brooklyn, and Dart does not hold them in very high regard. Still, the imagined dialogue between them is comical.

He enclosed a poem he wrote while on sentry duty. He calls it his attempt at versification. It’s a sweet, romantic job that will no doubt thrill Dot to the core.

He’s writing the letter while the rest of his company is either passing a swim test or taking boxing lessons. His restricted duty prohibits either of those activities, so he’s taking advantage of the time to catch up on his correspondence.

Finally, he thanks her for the photo she sent in response to his request for more pictures of her. It was taken in the summer of 1935 when Dot was only 9 years old. Not sure that’s the kind of photo he had in mind, but the little prankster thought she’d have some fun with him.

On this day, which would have been his 90th birthday, I still miss Dad every day. Somehow, reading his letters and working on this blog nake me miss him a little less. I am grateful.

Dart’s brief note is in response to a letter he got from Dot on “garish yellow paper,” which she had warned him was coming some time ago. He confessed that the Catholic girl who corresponds with him has used the exact same paper.

He teased Dot gently about  witholding the truth about her feelings for Dart from her parents and wonders if she has yet told them the “gruesome truth.”  He adds that Dot is not the first girl he’s known who was a self-described “man-hater.” He says that all but two of them are now either married or engaged. The two “holdouts” are a Marine and a nun! He says, “I’m glad you changed you mind, and hope that as long as I know you, you’ll never change it back again!”

He includes some funny schtick about how he gets when he has a case of “heart burn” (caused by playing with fire, romantically).

He asks her to forgive his dribble and explains that he has no news. He simple wrote so that he could send her his love.

Dart warns in the first sentence that this will be a disconsolate letter. It bears the bitter news that he has been confined to the US Naval Hospital with the measles! To aggravate things further, he left his barracks without Dot’s picture, his stationery or his fountain pen.

From botched surgery to “cat” fever, to measles. This sailor can’t catch a break. As I see it from the perspective of the intervening years, knowing he eventually made it through and regained his health, I can be grateful that these persistent  medical setbacks kept him out of combat for months. Perhaps they even saved his life. But all this 20-year old can do is despair over his confinement, especially since it delays once again, the long-awaited reunion with Dot.

In what is perhaps his attempt to end the letter on a more positive note, Dart tells Dot about his lively correspondence with his buddy, Fred Dixon. Actually, his youthful smugness comes though a little in this part, but I suppose he can be forgiven because he is so young. I’m a little sad when I read the part about undying friendship between these two young men. While their war-time correspondence was a mutual source of comfort and intellectual stimulation, the friendship did not survive much past the war. The way I understand it, after a few post-war visits in their beloved Cleveland, Dart and Fred found they had grown too different in their outlooks to remain friends.