March 6, 1945

18. March 1945, Dart's Letters, Dot's Letters

Old Faithful writes again! This letter from Dart begins with the announcement that another day has flown by quickly because he had a job to do. There’s no mention of what that job was, but he believes that keeping busy makes time pass faster, and that’s fine with him.

As he writes, some of the guys are lounging around looking at each other’s photo albums and talking about the future. They all have similar plans – marriage, a house, education and a job. Marriage seems to be of the most immediate interest to the men, but then they worry about how they’ll support a family. The worst part is they can’t discuss the priorities with their fiancees or would-be fiancees, nor with experienced older folks who might help them sort it all out. “We’ll have to wait and see what conditions are if and when we all return to our complacent life ashore, far from the Navy blue and white.”

Speaking of Navy, he remarks that in a long-ago letter, Dot said she didn’t care what he wore in his civilian life, as long as it wasn’t Navy blue. I think she meant that she didn’t want to see him in uniform after the war, but he took a different meaning. He thinks she has some aversion to the color and warns her that the only suit he owns is actually a navy blue shade. He assures her that by the time he gets released and can wear civvies, that suit won’t be good for much except the Salvation Army for a homeless veteran hero, or for shining shoes or waxing a car. I think it’s interesting that they had homeless veterans in 1945 and that Dart actually crossed out “veteran” and re-wrote “hero.” Sounds like modern times.

He comments that she seems a trifle obsessed about him meeting an Australian girl. He goes to some lengths to assure her that even if such an unlikely thing should happen, he’d be a darned fool to mess up the best thing in his life with the best girl in the world. He’s totally in love with the girl from Greenwich.

The plans for the house are nearly ready for her perusal, but he has a few questions about a bath upstairs. Do they need one? Could it be built out at a later date, if needed?

He bemoans another Easter coming when they won’t be together, but he expresses great hope that someday, they’ll celebrate all the holidays of their lives together.  He ends with “I love you only, always.”

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Dot’s full of news about her new business. She and El have received about 15 calls as a result of their newspaper ad. Tonight she’s sitting for a new customer and Sunday, she and El will be serving a dinner party at the home of Stanford White, a famous architect. When they said in the ad “assist at dinner parties,” they intended it to mean serve and clean up. Instead they’re getting lots of calls to actually cater the events. With typical “can-do” verve, they’ve dived head-first into catering.

She confesses to missing him “like sixty.” It’s been 16 days since she’s heard from him. Of course, she doesn’t blame him. She only wants him to know how much she misses him. Next to him being there, his letters are the best boost to her disposition.

Although she hasn’t written to him very often due to a lack of things to write about, she did write to his family right after her trip to Ohio. She still hasn’t heard from them. She asks that when he writes to them he remind his parents that they owe her a letter. She jokes that she’ll not stand for this kind of abuse much longer.

Having finished reading “The Razor’s Edge,” she’s moved on to “Jane Eyre,” which she says she should have read ages ago when she thought she had it rough at Andrews School.

She recalls that 17 weeks ago tonight, they were enjoying a delicious spaghetti dinner together in Cleveland during Dart’s whirlwind leave. Now, as she wraps up the letter in preparation for her client to come home, she wishes that he were with her now and that they could hold hands as he walked her up the stairs.

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March 7, 1945

18. March 1945, Dart's Letters

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.

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March 8, 1945

18. March 1945, Dart's Letters, Dot's Letters

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.

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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.'”

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March 9, 1945

18. March 1945

No letters were written on this day, but as promised, I’ve posted some of the clippings that Dot enclosed with a recent letter to Dart.

My favorite one shows a sailor dangling from a harness over the side of a ship while an officer glares at him from the rail. The sailor, like Dart himself, is engaged in painting the ship. In large black letters, he has scrawled the words “Is this trip necessary?” Just as a major media campaign in the States was asking civilians to preserve gas by posing the same question to themselves, this young sailor has every right to ask it!

There’s another that shows a man in his trousers and undershirt eagerly peering into the bathroom mirror as he’s about to take a razor to his curly, burly lumberjack beard. Nearby, his Army uniform hang on a hook while  his weeping mother is being consoled by her husband. Says the husband,”Now, now, mamma…Junior has to start shaving sometime.” Dot says this one reminds her of the sketches Dart used to draw of himself when he was growing a “goat” at Great Lakes Naval Hospital.

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March 10, 1945

18. March 1945, Dart's Letters

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.

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March 11, 1945

18. March 1945, Dot's Letters

Here’s a short but charming note from Dot. It’s Sunday night and she’s had another busy weekend. Now she’s coming down with another cold, less than a month after her last one. She suspects it’s a lack of vitamins, but I’d say it’s sleep deprivation!

She babysat for Gale all weekend. The little girl was fascinated by Dot’s locket and kept opening it to look at the pictures. “That one’s Dart,” she’d say, “and this one’s you and Dart.”

When Dot saw a letter from Dart on the hall table Saturday, she burst into tears out of sheer joy and relief. Gale patted her on the shoulder and said. “Don’t cry, Dottie. Dart and Gordon will be home soon ’cause I prayed it to God.” That snapped Dot back under control. She, too, has been praying for Dart ever since she met him and all her prayers have been answered in the affirmative. She has a powerful feeling that God won’t let her down now.

This morning she had the urge to drag out her old fiddle and practice a little. She has no idea what she’s practicing for, but thought the only harm that could come of it was to the ears of those forced to listen to her.

Last night she says she went to bed around 1:00 but began to read some of Dart’s old letters. Before she knew it. the clock said 3:30! “Keep that in mind if you ever doubt my love!”

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March 12, 1945

18. March 1945, Dot's Letters

Dot is jubilant to have received six letters from Dart today. Actually, she got five and her mother got one. “Hope you don’t mind if I read Mom’s too. After careful consideration I’ve decided I like the ones I get from you better than the ones Mom gets.”

She reports that while it’s cold and blustery outside, his cheery letters make it warm and cozy in her bedroom, where she’s spending the day trying to fight off her cold.

Today she wrote a letter to his family, reminding them that Greenwich still gets mail deliveries. She hopes that’ll shake a letter out of them. Now that they’ve heard from Dart, she suspects they’ll write to her.

She begs him not to apologize for the “blue” letter he wrote her. She thinks every boy who serves writes a letter like that not long after he leaves the country. She knows him well enough to believe that’s not the real Dart G. Peterson, Jr. reflected in that letter. But she also loves him enough to accept anything he might write or feel. “You don’t suppose that a little thing like a discouraging letter will ever change my feelings for you, do you?”

She knew he’d make friends wherever he went because that’s his nature. She hadn’t thought about him having friends who were Indians, but who has anything against Indians? She half expects a future letter to her to begin with “Dear Heapum Big Squaw.”

When she read about his need to sometimes wear damp clothing, she feels like she can appreciate his discomfort just a teeny bit. Sometimes at Lake Sunapee, her bathing suit doesn’t dry completely and she’s forced to squeeze into a cold and clammy suit. It’s a disagreeable feeling, so he has her sympathy.

As she finishes her response to the first of his letters she writes, “So, he closes that letter by telling me he loves me. That makes it mighty nice cuz’ I love him too and two people in love get on so much better than one person in love.” So true, Dot.

It makes her feel good to know that he hears some of the same radio broadcasts she hears. Somehow, that’ll make her feel closer to him as she listens to the programs.

A few nights ago, she had a wonderful, terrible dream about him. She saw him walking up the street in Greenwich, looking so handsome and tan (that should have been her first clue that she was dreaming). She ran to him and squeezed  him as tight as possible. It felt so real to her. Then the terrible part hit her, as she awoke and found herself crushing her pillow. “The feathers were screaming for mercy.”

She’s glad he likes her photo. She hopes he continues to like it because maybe, if she’s lucky, he’ll be looking at that face for the rest of his life. Then she adds, “Subtle, huh? Like an avalanche!”

How nice that his mail calls are becoming more frequent! She will do her best to make sure that at every mail call from now on there will be a few letters from her. Does he think it would do any good to try to send him some stationery? Maybe she’ll try sending a few sheets and if they get through, she’ll send more.

She feels compelled to make a correction to his recent letter. She and her football team were not the Alley Rats. They were the Alley Cats! And of course she knows how to jump rope – everything from double-Dutch to cross hand. She may be a little rusty, but she’ll practice this spring.

She’s “mad” that his mother told him about her wearing curlers. She insists that there’s nothing cute about her when she has her hair up in them and she’s vowed that he’ll never see her that way. That’s a promise that’s hard to keep if she a) wants him to surprise her next time he visits and, b) she’s thinking they’ll get married someday. A lifetime is a long time to hide such things.

“Would anyone object if he staked a claim to the little island he described? It sounds like a perfect place for a honeymoon. But then, so would the city dump if you described it. You add color to any drab place and make me positively jealous of your surroundings when you write your graphic word pictures.”

As delighted as she is to hear that there’s not a woman within a million miles of where he is, that doesn’t give much clue to where that actually is. They think Gordon’s near Leyte. Is that close to his locale? Can he manage to fit a hint into one of his letters?

She closes by telling him that knowing him is the best thing to ever happen to her. She prays that they’ll be able to continue a life together as soon as this war is over. I think it’s lovely how easily these two talk about being together forever. A life together is an accepted fact between the two of them, even though there’s no official engagement. This commitment they have to each other will make the an engagement and even the wedding to follow simply look like a formality. They’re already joined in spirit.

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March 13, 1945

18. March 1945, Dart's Letters, Dot's Letters

“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.

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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.

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March 14, 1945

18. March 1945, Dart's Letters

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”

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March 15, 1945

18. March 1945, Dot's Letters

In the early minutes of the day, Dot jots off a brief note to Dart before falling into bed. From the scant sentences, we learn that it’s Income Tax Day (I never knew it used to be a month earlier than it is now!), there is no news to relate, and Greenwich is so dead that by 9:00 pm, it looks as though it had been uninhabited for a century. As Dot says, there’s little chance for her to get into any mischief.

Much later in the day, she writes a second letter while she’s babysitting for a new customer. Although the two little boys she’s watching have been asleep since before she got there, she’s seen their pictures and can attest to their cuteness.

Tomorrow evening, on a rare night off, Dot intends to paint and fix up her new bike. Today she spent $8.00 on parts and accessories to jazz up her new wheels, including a bell, light, reflector, basket and a rear view mirror. After she paints it, she hopes to build a little seat for the back fender so she can take Gale for rides. Dot is gleefully looking forward to riding with Janie this summer. If the project looks as good when she’s finished as it looks in her head, she’ll send Dart photos. I’ll have to ask Mom if she used spray paint to fix her bike. Was it available in 1945?

A letter from Helen Peterson today revealed that Dart’s aunt is staying at their house so that Helen can care for her. That explains why she hasn’t been writing as often as Dot would like. Dot was happy to read that Dart’s father is up and about again because he was getting antsy just sitting around.

She’s crossing her fingers that she’ll get a letter from Dart today, even though she got five on Monday. She’d welcome one (or 50) every day, if she could get them.

She’s listening to Fred Waring on the radio and enjoying his arrangements of “Columbia, Gem of the Ocean” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” She’s also liked hearing all the Irish tunes airing this week in anticipation of St. Patrick’s Day.

Her sitting gig is over, so she wraps up the letter and heads home, affirming on her way out of the letter that she loves him with all her heart.

She encloses some cute greeting cards, which I’ll save for a day coming up soon that she doesn’t write a letter.

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