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.

Dart is in a state of near euphoria as he starts this letter. He has talked to Dot today! Long distance phone calls have become so commonplace in our lives today that I often forget the power they held back then. To hear a loved one’s voice! To know they spared no expense in reaching out to you! What sheer joy those calls must have brought!

After the fact, Dart was disappointed that he hadn’t been able to say more to her over the phone. Too many guys around with their noses in Dart’s business caused him to remark that the old saying “Everybody loves a lover” was proved wrong by the guys who tried to ruin the call from a sweetheart.

Dart seems a little glum that his parents won’t be coming to see him during the holiday rush, even though he suggested that they wait.

Today he had the chance to listen to some good programs on the radio; Fred Waring and Sherlock Holmes. Now he’s had two wishes fulfilled – hearing those shows and hearing Dot’s voice. If only he’d been able to see her and hold her in his arms and whisper in her ear, he’d be content.

Earlier in the day, he’d been to see a variety show in the hospital’s auditorium. The acts included a magician, a singer, and a novelty orchestra made up of sailors. With cleaning the ward every day, running errands for the bed patients, having his dressings changed twice daily, writing letters, attending shows and “waiting with breathless suspense and a cold sweat for mail call,” the days are passing quickly. He writes, “I’m afraid that after I get out into the great, cold world again, the pace will be too fast and I’ll retire into my moss-covered shell and sleep fitfully the rest of my days.” It seems like no one ever really mentions going off into combat, but that eventuality must be on nearly every American’s mind in those times.

He closes with his love – even more than before, now that he has heard her dear, sweet voice again.

Dot had apparently promised to write a 10-page letter and this was the day.  She begins by talking about the weather which has taken a wonderful turn. Our little New Englander is delighted to see all the snow of late, and says the campus looks like a Christmas card. She told Dart that she had also taken note of the beautiful full moon a few nights earlier and thought what a horrible waste such a lovely moon was at a girls’ school. Still, it shone into her bedroom window and directly on Dart’s picture.

Responding to his letter of Dec. 11, she said she was glad that what she wrote on the letter made him happy, but she almost didn’t want him to see it. She’s still a little shy about her feelings for him, and she’s afraid he’ll think she’s too “fast.” (Slim chance of that!)

Page four begins with an enthusiastic “ZOWIE!” She has just returned to her room after getting a phone call from a certain sailor at Great Lakes hospital. “I’m afraid I didn’t give you much chance to say anything, but when I get excited like that, there’s no stopping me,” she wrote. She’s still shaking as she writes these pages and deems the phone call the most wonderful thing that has happened to her this year.

She explained again her lack of enthusiasm for the upcoming formal dance and expressed hopes that his folks would be able to get to Chicago soon for a visit. She also asked him what he meant by that line about birthdays and hexes on relationships. I’m so glad she posed that question, because I’ve been wondering that myself. Maybe we’ll both get an answer in a day or so.

I neglected to mention in a previous post that Dart had told Dot about receiving a letter from a girl he didn’t know who was seeking sailors she could write to and had received his address from a friend. Dart commented that he had no intention of writing her back because he had no interest in girls who threw themselves at sailors. Well, I love Dot’s response to that little anecdote. She said, “Why aren’t you going to write to that girl? If I wrote to a sailor or anyone, I’d feel awful if they didn’t answer. After all, it’s just common courtesy. I appreciate your seeming loyalty, but I think you should answer the letter anyway. But do what you think you should.” How sensitive and mature for such a young woman!

She wrote about a concert they had attended at school – violin and piano – which she enjoyed tremendously.

Having run out of news of her own, she told a tale of her roommate Nancy. Nancy had decided to slip out after hours to spend more time with her boyfriend who was in town from Detroit. She asked Dot and another friend to help her pull it off. Even as they tried to talk her out of it, they knew Nancy would do what she wanted anyway, so they decided to help her by leaving the 2nd story door on the fire escape ajar. Dot fell asleep worrying about Nancy at about 1:00 and awoke to find her just getting in at 4:00. Dot was relieved Nancy had pulled it off, but still thought her friend was a damned fool to have tried it.

She finally got to page 10 and thanked Dart again for the phone call, saying the whole cottage heard her scream when she found out it was Dart calling.

Dart answers one of Dot’s long  letters with a long one of his own. He talks about the packages he received from all of his aunts in Cleveland – sweets and treats, and large, brown, furry slippers.

He had a big day at the hospital. First, he practiced going up and down stairs. That painful and awkward exercise was necessitated by the butchering of certain muscles during his surgery. Then, he was allowed to take his meals in the chow hall and attend two movies! (The first was a short about various Naval ships – whoopie!)

My favorite part of this letter was Dart’s remarks about the songs Dot had mentioned in one of hers. He likes “This Will be My Shining Hour” as much as she does, but I was especially moved my his comments on “I’ll be Home for Christmas.”  “We all like it, but few are brave enough to listen to it all the way through. Usually somebody chokes up and says, ‘Turn that damn thing off!'” Can’t you just see a ward full of sailors – many of them just teenagers away from home for the first time and scared about the future – being drawn to that song, yet not able to handle the emotions it elicits?

He writes a humorous little assessment of his first attempt at being a playwright. It was about a little boy who wanted to ride a train. (Of course!) It was such a painful and pitiful excuse of a play that he turned to writing poetry instead. Actually, after Dad died, we discovered a notebook full of poetry he had written as a young man, and it was stunningly good. I promise to post some of it here someday.

He mentions that Dot said Gordon would be home for Christmas during their phone call. I hope that means she’ll have a chance to see her brother after all. He encourages her to keep her chin up about the upcoming formal, guessing that she looks really “nifty” in her gown. He also raises a teensy hope that he’ll be able to escort her to the February formal dance.

After a little more chitchat, he regretfully closes, bringing their “visit” to an end.

Dot’s letter is a study in exuberant gratitude, best left to be read in it’s entirety. Treat yourself to the pleasure of a young girl’s joy in her life. (And, yes, she’ll get to see Gordon over Christmas!)

Today brings a short message from Dart. He was examined again by several doctors and they seem to know what’s wrong with him. They also know what should have been done in his first surgery. They just don’t know what to do about fixing the problem.

He wrote that he hoped no one had pinched her to awaken her from her perfect dream week. “An angel like you, even though she’s slightly frolicsome at times, deserves the best, always,” he said.

He’s glad she gets to go home 24 hours earlier and wishes her a lovely visit. He says he’ll write his next letters to her Connecticut address so they’ll be waiting for her when she gets there. He closes by saying he hopes she surprises herself tomorrow night and has more fun at the formal than she anticipates.

A momentous letter from Dot that stretches over several days. The first day is a direct response to his two letters. She’s happy his days fly by while he’s in the hospital. She thinks his Marine friend must be quite a character to have made such an impression on Dart. She still has not answered the letter from a Marine who wrote to her because Dart creates such a delightful distraction. She leaves for home in a few days and still has a play to write. Her Christmas package to him may be a little late because she’ll make the fudge at home and mail it from there. Finally, she hopes the class picture she sends him is not so awful that it causes him to have a relapse.

On the 18th, she writes an awe-filled letter, thanking him for the beautiful corsage he sent her to wear at the formal that night. She was the envy of all the girls and even the house mother was impressed. She kept telling people all night, “Dorothy’s date is here in spirit – just look at that beautiful corsage he sent her!” Dot says she cried like a baby when she first saw them and that she had never realized there were boys on this earth as thoughtful as he is. She confesses that it might be true what the girls have been telling her for weeks – that she loves him. Phew!

She dashes off a couple more paragraphs over the next couple of days, mostly apologizing for the long delay in getting the letter mailed and a hurried explanation of how busy she has been.