Here’s a short and slightly disgruntled letter from Dart in answer to the month old letter he received from Dot today. It was the one she wrote on V-E Day, and shared many on the sentiments they both experienced that day.

He wrote a letter last night that will never be mailed. He says there was nothing about it that made it worth sending. The lull in the mail is a big strain for both of them. When no mail leaves the ship, there is also no mail coming aboard, so both of them experience the same lull.  “Oh well, Dot. Never fear. Someday it will end and mail will become regular again and then, I hope, there’ll be no need of the mailman’s aid in our lovemaking.”

Nothing left to say except that he loves her.

Well, Dot finally got the letter in which Dart spelled out so beautifully why they are a perfect match, and in a surprise move, asked if they might announce their engagement on his next leave. Says Dot, “I shant attempt to discuss further my feelings toward me and yours toward you. Thank you for the nice things you said and for your faith in me. I shall say nothing more that might discombobulate this perfect match. But if you ever regret meeting me, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

She goes on to say that the last page of his masterpiece letter totally surprised her. “I haven’t dared hope you’d want to become engaged for a long time. Of course, I’ve had my dreams on the subject.”

“Unfortunately, Mother is spending the day in Pittsfield, so I won’t have the chance to discuss it with her until tomorrow. I know she will approve, but there are many things I’d like to talk over with her before I give the final ‘yes.'”

She talks about wanting him to be sure. She believes too many people take engagements far too lightly, like buying a dress, bringing it home, and then finding one they like better and returning the first one. She plans to be engaged just once and follow it up in due course with a single marriage.

She very much wants to have that little house with him, and the family to put in it. She’ll write more tomorrow.

Her Aunt Num just stuck her head into Dot’s room and said to send her love to Dart. Although they’ve never met, Num has heard all the reviews of Dart from the rest of the family and knows he’s a fine man. Dot tells him that with the love and respect he already has from her entire clan, they should do quite well.

Another one-page letter from Dart begins, “When I get letters like the one from you I got today, I really don’t know what to say. No, I’ll modify that statement. I know what to say, but I can’t find the right combination of words to express all that’s in me. It’s all on the simple three-word theme which we’ve been elaborating so much on recently, but so help me, you’ve said it all. The delicious letter I’m talking about is the one you wrote on 27 May, after you’d seen ‘The Enchanted Cottage.’ Sounds like a movie I’d like to see — with you.”

He tells her his family’s news that Burke received a full one-year scholarship to the University of Chicago. Everyone is waiting to learn whether or not they’ll hold it until he’s out of the Navy after the war.

Dart is wrapping up his brief note by flashlight after the lights have “been secured.”  He says that’s one good thing about “real love-making; it can go on without any lights at all.” Why Dart, how risque of you! “I’m always looking forward to a certain letter from you. Barring delays and so forth, it should be here in about five or six days. Oh, Dot, I love you so much, it will seem like ages.”

Here’s another letter from Dot, written over two days. I’ll quote the real meat of the first section – the one written on the 11th.

“Taking first things first, (and in this case, a very important subject) I will tell you I had the talk with Mother. She agrees with me 100% that you’re a mighty swell guy and such opportunities should not be passed up. As a matter of fact, she didn’t seem too surprised when I told her your plan.

Yes, Dart. I will be pleased and proud to become officially engaged to you on your next leave. You didn’t doubt that I would, did you? Anyway, now you have it in black and white, or rather blue and white.”

She continues the letter the next day.

Apologizing for not writing more the night before, she explains that Nancy came over for a visit and kept her up talking.

She tells him that he is fully forgiven for writing to her so much about not joining the Waves. “You did it for my own good, and I really wasn’t angry.

She’s happy he started getting Readers’ Digest. They mixed up some of the information about her father’s business, but they got the gist of it. The magazine is planning to publish a book with the stories of all the winners, as soon as they can get their hands on enough paper.

Congratulations are in order for having some of his letter published in his high school newspaper. Obviously his former teacher knows a good thing when she sees it. Her cousin Waddy just got his first check for writing his newsletter for the local paper – $29.00, which Dot deems “not bad for a hobby!”

Do his parents know about Dart’s latest plan? She’s sure they will feel, just as her parents do, that Dot is awfully young to be taking such an important step, but she’s older than her mother was when her parents got engaged. She admits, though that her mother had been much more mature than Dot. (I seriously doubt that!)

Dot is delighted that Dart’s back is doing so well. She hopes he goes the rest of his life without any physical mishaps.  She’s also happy to know that her Easter package finally arrived. In response to his query about Fifi, her sister’s cat who was expecting kittens, she has sad news. The cat required a rare C-section delivery of her two kittens, but they did not survive long. It was quite upsetting to the Meyerinks, and a financial set-back as well. Not only must they pay for the surgery and two weeks in the pet hospital, but they had hoped to sell her kittens for about $30 each. Apparently, Fifi is a high quality Siamese.

She interjects the following brief statement: “Leave us not carry the “ice-cube incident” too far. In fact, let’s drop it, but not down my back.”

The proof that she had a grand vacation is in the fact that she’s not happy to be home. The weather has gotten quite hot and she’s not looking forward to going back to work. She had such a great time in Massachusetts, where she “delivered oil, learned to run the dishwashing machine, helped plant 23 rows of potatoes, mowed lawns and delivered hay and coal. You’d be surprised how efficient I am on an oil truck.”

She can’t end the letter without bragging about another accomplishment; beating her cousin David at five games of ping-pong. That was foreshadowing her future as the women’s ping-pong champion of the retirement village where she and Dart moved when they retired.

She closes by telling Dart he’s made her the happiest person in the world and she insists that he come home soon!

Dart didn’t write on the 12, and Dot’s letter spanned two days, so I’ll see you back her on the 13th.

It’s another short letter from Dart, written by the stolen light of a nearby flashlight after the ship has gone dark for the night.

There’s no news except that he got a letter from Fred today telling him that he’d received two fine letters from Dot. Fred says he has a very high opinion of Dart’s chosen lady because she writes a fine letter. Dart says he didn’t need to be told that because he’s been the lucky recipient of hundreds of her letters.

He has been hoping for an answer to a certain letter he wrote in late May, but none has come, and they’ve just heard that there will be another mail embargo coming. The poor boy is growing anxious.

That’s all for now, but he’ll try to do a little better in the future.

Dot, as usual, packs a lot of news into her four-page letter. First she has a little fun with Dart as she tells about two of her friends who are about to leave town; one for the WAVES and one for the Nurse Cadet Corps. Doesn’t she have awful friends, she asks. Tsk, tsk. Too bad they don’t have any faithful friends in the service to warn them against their folly. Why, they may end up being the only nice WAVE and nurse in the whole USA!

If, as he says, people are attracted to others because their taste in things is the same, then Dot is quite flattered. “If I am to you one-half as wonderful as you seem to me, maybe I haven’t wasted as much of my life as I thought.”

She wants to talk about that piggy bank Dart mentioned. She was going to keep this a surprise, but she needs to let him know why she doesn’t have as much in hers as she might, in light of all the work she’s been doing. Her big surprise is that she plans to go to Kent State University in September. It’s been in the works since before she returned for her Andrews graduation last February, and it’s not all settled yet, but she’s determined. Her reasons are 1) she doesn’t feel her education is complete, and 2) if they are to be married before Dart finishes his education, she should be ale to get a better job with a little college under her belt. She begs to hear his opinion of the plan, good, bad, or indifferent. “But please, if you’re against it, ony write one letter telling me so. The first one will be emphatic enough, I’m sure.”

She’s still wondering where she’ll get the money for college. This year’s earnings have gone mostly to the dentist, wardrobe, optometrist and the US government. Gee, that sounds familiar in these times!

She’s written to her Andrews roommate Nancy, who attends Kent and lives in the same town. Nancy has invited Dot to live with her and has encouraged her to get a Saturday job in the town. Dot also plans to start her baby sitting business in the new location. She plans to major in physical education and child care, with a minor in American history. When she told Fred of her plans, he was in full and enthusiastic support.

Dart asked her about the necessary steps to take so that they may announce their engagement. She reminds him that she’s as new at this as he is, but says that in her family, they’ve always hosted a huge supper party and then done a clever announcement during or after dinner. For El’s engagement announcement, they had fake telegrams delivered to the guests during dinner. For Harriet’s engagement to George, they had a big pot of beans in the center of the table. During dinner, someone tipped over the pot and out came a note saying “Opps, looks like someone spilled the beans that Harriet and George will soon be Mr. and Mrs.” Dot tells Dart that he’s the clever one, so he should come up with something.

Her driving lessons have been neglected of late. There’s been no gas on which to practice, so her dreams of getting her license for her birthday are fading.

Betty got a letter from Gordon today, begun on June 3. Then it picks up again on June 5, in his buddy’s handwriting. He said he’d hurt his hand in an accident and that he couldn’t write for several days. He didn’t mention how the accident happened, but said he’s fine. As it happened, the boy who was writing for him is from nearby Stamford, so they called his mother to see if she knew anything about Gordon’s accident. She said she didn’t, but she’d let them know if she heard anything. Dot hopes he’s really alright.

Dart’s leter begins with a gripe about how Navy life allows no privacy for a fellow. He also explains that they’re going into another mail black-out.

He had two letters from Dot today, written in early June when Nancy was her house guest. Now he knows the reason for her lack of letters recently. “The idea — a girl keeping her best friend (and hostess) from writing letters!” He says he’ll have to write that girl a scolding letter.

Today is his parents’ 25th wedding anniversary. He claims a happier couple cannot be found and he prays that he and Dot will have a marriage every bit as happy. From the surface when I was young, it always looked like Helen and Dart, Sr. had a hard life. Dart’s health was delicate after serving in France in WW I, he was never able to get very good jobs. They never owned their own home, sometimes even having to move in with relatives for years at a time. They lost their first child – a daughter – just hours after she was born. Still, I remember as a child watching the joy they found in each other. They laughed together, bragged about each other, and looked at each other with tenderness and love. They were always so proud of the life Dot and Dart built together – of my Dad’s career, Mom’s domestic skills, their three delightful children. I always knew my grandparents loved me and loved each other deeply. In short, I’d say that Dart, Jr. got his wish, to have a marriage as happy as his folks’.

From reading Dot’s letters of this timeframe, he judges that it may be a while before he hears her answer to the one he wrote in late May.

While it sounds like Dot is enjoying plenty of movies these days, he is not. Most of the ones they get on the ship are years old and not especially good. He rarely attends them. “We all hope that eventually we’ll drop the hook in a harbor where ‘security’ will again permit the movies to be shown topside instead of in a hot, stuffy mess hall.”

He addresses “the Jamey incident,” in which Dot told him of the smarmy friend of her sister’s who came on to her at a dinner party in a very inappropriate way. “I’m fully aware that a girl as attractive as you could not possibly go through life without having a few incidents like that. It must have been terribly embarrassing to you, and you acted most admirably in it. Another of the ‘reasons’ you asked for in that letter; my faith that you know and do the right thing, and that you’ll not disappoint me or let me down.”

She’s doing quite well on the war bond sale and he’s proud of her. He also envies the cooler temperatures she’s experiencing in Greenwich. (Don’t we always like the sound of somebody else’s weather better than our own?)

Dot’s dreams intrigue him. The outfit she saw him wearing in a recent dream was nearly identical to his regular “date night” outfit that he wore in his civilian days. “How’d you manage to dream a dream like that?”

The letter has a strong finish: “Dot, you continue to amaze me. Sometime I’ll tell you all the reasons, or at least a good part of them. Let it suffice now for me to say I love you always, and will miss your letters terribly for a while.”

Dot’s scant two-page letter is mostly about how there’s nothing to write about, but she slips a few tidbits in, nonetheless. She congratulates Dart on being the son who has parents celebrating their 25th anniversary. She never did hear from Burke about her offer to help with their gift, but she hopes he managed on his own and was still home to help them celebrate.

She wonders if it’s cruel to gloat about the first watermelon of the season that she ate today — delicious! It may be mean to taunt a sailor that way, but what else does a girl have to write about?

How about the weather? Last week, they were wearing winter suits and hugging themselves to keep warm. Today, Greenwich hit a sweltering 90 degrees! She’s so hot that her glasses keep fogging over. She has to wear them down on the tip of her nose, but her nose is so square that they pinch. “Every once in a while I have to come up for air.”

Her only real news is that she drove the car all by herself tonight, up and down the long driveway. She was doing fine until she dug up the flower bed with the rear bumper and deposited it elsewhere.

“If I promise to think about you lots before I go to sleep may I stop now? I’m so hot and tired it’s pathetic.”

Dart admits there’s not much to write about, but he manages to fill four pages anyway. He’s reading some of her old letters, looking for inspiration.

There has been a minor shake-up in his mess duties. He was assigned a new assistant on the “spud table,” to replace the world’s slowest man. The new guy wasn’t slow – he was stopped. So Dart asked for his former helper back. Things are back to “normal” on that front. “Very much irrelevant in a love letter, but it helps like mad to fill some space.”

It’s nice to know that way back in April he won top honors for the most consistant writer on Dot’s mailman’s route. He had a discussion today with five other guys who can’t understand how he can write to his sweetheart so often. Dart can’t explain it either, but he’s happy it comes naturally to him. His crewmates think he’s nuts – and Dart doesn’t deny it.

He assures her that he indeed likes her whistle. His mother whistles, and she has not come to a “bad end,” as Dot’s adage in her April 24 letter suggests. He relates a cute story about the one time he tried using that wolf whistle technique that Dot uses so well. He and John Angel were delivering Dart’s Sunday papers when they saw a girl approaching from a distance. They dared each other to whistle at her, and Dart did. She actually turned toward them. “What she saw was two very embarrassed urchins pulling a coaster wagon full of Sunday ‘Plain Dealers.’ Then she actually embarrassed us further by laughing out loud; and with a vicious swish of a bright skirt, she went on.” The only other time he’s tried that trick was on a date, and the girl nearly slugged him. Still, he likes to hear Dot whistle like that.

He writes again about the “IF” he used to refer to in his letters. He had a feeling it would be a big if. “But now that big if has dwindled to a very small and insignificant if. It took only a day or so for the if to decrease in stature. The if is so small now that I feel perfectly, or almost perfectly safe in doing what I’d frowned on before. Guess I explained that more or less in the letter I wrote around May 26 or 27. Further explanation is necessary, but it’s not wise or necessary to explain further now.” How cryptic he must be with thse censors reading every word!

He wonders how he and Dot will react when they see each other again after so long a separation. Dot once told him that El asked her how she would react on her wedding night if she was so excited the night before she met him at Grand Central Station. “Well — what will you do when you get married? There’ll be another very excited and extremely happy party there, too. Namely, the bridegroom, which I hope is me!” Considering the shyness and inexperience of these two, that statement must have caused Dot to blush like mad when she read it!

“That’s all for now, my Darling. When can it, when will it end so we can be together?”

Phew! Dot is warm. She’d like to spend the rest of the summer sitting in Long Island Sound, but as of today, she has yet to even get near water. It’s the latest she has ever had to wait to take a swim. She knows it’s probably twice as hot where Dart is so she shouldn’t complain. It’s just that Greenwich had frost two weeks ago, so there’s been little chance to get adjusted to the new extreme.

Her mother got a letter from one of Gordon’s buddies today with an explanation of Gordon’s injuries. He apparently got his arm/hand stuck in one of the pieces of machinery they use on ship. He required over 100 stitches and can’t use his hand at all for 6 to 8 weeks. As far as the family knows, he didn’t lose any fingers, for which they’re very grateful. They plan to flood him with letters to distract him during recovery. Now, I remember Uncle Gordon talking about taking shrapnel in his arm during the war. I don’t know if that’s what happened here, and he’s trying to keep his wife and parents from worrying (or avoiding the censor’s scissors), or if the shrapnel incident was a different time and place. I’ll ask Mom and see what she remembers.

Dot is currently babysitty with Elizabeth Henry, who lives next door to a church. She just heard the “tender stains of a very familiar march from Wagner’s opera ‘Lohengrin.'” She supposes there’s a wedding going on. “My heart skips a beat every time I hear that march, regardless of who it’s being played for.”

No news, except that she loves him, which isn’t really news at all.

She closes with “All my love, all my life,” and signs it with the rare “Dorothy,” because she knows Dart likes to see that name every so often.

The entry from Dart today is an undated postcard with a hand drawn cartoon. In the upper left corner is an island labeled “Okinawa,” on the upper right is the Golden Gate Bridge. Between these two points sits the Haggard, with 555 clearly showing on her stern. There is a tiny row boat pulling the ship via the bow line. The sailor in the row boat is labeled “Me.”

Underneath, is the caption: “Dearest Dot: Does this remind you of a dream you told me about? Almost came true, didn’t it? Only I’m pulling the ship instead of vice versa. I love you.   Dart”

It doesn’t look like this postcard was ever mailed, but Mom found it in her scrapbook and included it in the collection of letters.

Dot’s letter begins by exclaiming about the extreme heat again. “My kingdom for a pool! Yeah, my kingdom for even a miserable little puddle! Guess we humans are never satisfied.”

She describes the source of her good mood as a “big fat, juicy letter from ‘the love of my life.'” She’s overjoyed that Frank Steinbrugge is alive and kicking after being declared dead, and hopes there are lots of cases like his that surface after the war is over.

She’s most enthusiastic about the prospect of Dart returning to the V-12 unit in the Navy. “I’d be so happy I’d burst. (Oh, what a gruesome mess that would make!) You can be sure I’ll be mighty religious about stepping on all the Luckies I see. ”

Nice to know that Burke follows in his brother’s footsteps in the brains department. She claims she finished 59th in a class of 60 at Andrews. “Yep, there is someone dumber ‘en me.” Nobody’s going to believe that this sharp cookie finished near the bottom of her class; least of all Dart!

Since he likes her snapshots so much, she’s tempted to snap a photo of how she looks tonight. She’s wearing her hair in two short pigtails tied up with white bows. “It may be the farthest thing from a glamourous hairdo, but at this point I’ve cast away all the glamour in preference to keeping cool.”

Once again she turns to reminiscing about their time together. “You weren’t the only one I surprised when I raced up the stairs into your arms. If I remember correctly, you kissed me four times after I said you needn’t ask my permission. That is, four times that night. How many times did you kiss me at the station the next day? That’s when I lost count.”

She sincerely hopes he doesn’t mind when she reminisces about their few dates together. She feels that those times are of mutual interest to both of them and it gives her chills to re-live them in her memory.

“You may have had a chance  to tell me a few things when the car stopped, but you didn’t. You jumped right out to see what was wrong. I remember watching you put the hood up, push back your sailor hat, and shake your head with disgust. Those policemen were awfully nice to give us a push.”

Gee, with all these memories they’ve been sharing through their letters lately, I feel almost as though I’d been on that date with them!

How she wishes she’d quit her job when she first had the idea. It is getting her nowhere. She thinks maybe she could start a beach school for children, taking different kids to the beach every day. There was some good news at work today. The store will close at 1:00 on Saturdays throughout the remainder of the summer, giving employees a little “sun time.”

Tonight she plans to write to his parents and beg them to take a trip to Greenwich this summer. She’d like them to meet her family and see Greenwich. That way they’ll see that Greenwich has nothing to offer but beautiful scenery.

“Speaking of dreams, (I wasn’t but you were in the letter I got today) what did you mean when you wrote in the letter of a few days ago that that dream of Nancy’s was no dream? I’m very curious. Wish I dared believe it meant you were on your way home. No such luck? Pretty soon? Maybe? Huh?” Wow, if only she knew that he was, at this very minute indeed heading “home” to the USA!

Tonight she is sitting for a “brood” of four children. This family, who has a great deal of money lives in a very fine, big house that “looks as though they lost everything they had in the Depression and haven’t gained it back yet. The house looks and smells as if nothing has been done to it in the way of cleaning for months. What a hole! Remind me of this place if our house ever looks ‘run down at the heels.’ I should think it would be loads of fun seeing how nice you could make a house look. Maybe I’ll toot a different tune after I’ve been keeping house for a while.” She assesses that the couple likes to spend their ample money where it will show the most; a grand house on the outside and ritzy private schools for their children.

It’s time to call it quits on the letter. She’s being bugged by too many bugs and would like to try and reduce their number by a few.

Dart’s happy to hear how well Dot’s doing with her driving. He’s also glad she’ll be sharing the driving in the family. Since a car is a necessity, he thinks they’ll have to get one after they’re married and have inherited their fortune. “But let’s not count on a rich uncle. Be on the lookout for a Model T.”

What’s this? He offers a broad hint in the paragraph about his parents visiting Greenwich. He says he’ll work on them to make the trip over Labor Day, and he thinks he’d have better luck if he could offer himself as bait. “And maybe I can offer myself as bait!”

“I’ve been wondering if there was anyone older than three or four who could tear around and exhaust your supply of exuberant energy. Now I know:  those cousins of yours are the ones.

Changing the subject, he says he’s glad her parents feel she’s lucky to have found a man like him. He’s hoping to have a letter from them soon, and he hopes it says what he wants about them announcing their engagement.

He’d offer to help her write her life story – the one she needs for her application to Kent – but of course it would be best if her life story were written in her words.

He tells her it’s getting too dark for love-making by letter, and it’s not dark enough for the real thing. My, my! He’s getting mighty randy as he anticipates an official engagement!

Dot spends much of this short letter imploring Dart to write a quick note to Gordon as part of the Chamberlain campaign to keep his spirits up during his recovery. They’ve received a couple of cards and letters from Gordon (written by buddies) that explain the extent of his injuries. Now that the danger has passed, he tells them that the doctor feared he would permanently lose the use of his arm. As it is, he must lie flat on his back for several weeks. Dart knows from personal experience how tedious that can be.

She tells Dart that the family plans to celebrate her birthday tomorrow at Playland, if the weather is good. “We’re going to take a picnic supper and then get sick on the dare-devil rollercoaster.”

She feels terribly old when she thinks about being 19, but she also recalls how young she felt when she had to tell the then 19-year old Dart that she was just 17 at the time. “I guess we’re never satisfied, ‘cept I was very satisfied with you, and I still am, and the prophecy is that it’s going to continue ad infinitum.”