The “firsts” have been rough since Mom passed away last year.
Having survived the first Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and her birthday with the help of faith, family and friends gives me hope that I might be able to handle the first Mother’s Day, too.
Unexpectedly, Dad is helping, 38 years after his death.
Going through Mom’s things, I found a small trunk full of letters he wrote her daily in 1946-47 while they were engaged to be married. I read them, one a night, like an old-time radio serial, learning about my parents when they were young and almost unrecognizable to me, before they were ever thinking about becoming Mom and Dad.
I remember Mom telling me many years ago that I could read them “when I was older,” so it seemed OK, kind of.
A career secretary, Mom efficiently filed the scented red, white and blue-trimmed envelopes with air mail stamps on them in reverse chronological order by postmark, then threw standard operating procedures to the wind and tied them up in flowery ribbons.
The fragile, yellowed letters have plunged me into a wonderland of big band ballroom dancing at the Trianon and Aragon in Chicago, a realization of how much extended families relied on each other for transportation and entertainment in the days when the nearest TV was in the corner tavern, and the unexpected surprise at post-World War II hardships like long-distance telephone charges that made calls short, expensive, infrequent — and tied to the wall with a cord.
“Put in a call to you this afternoon but had a nine-hour delay, so cancelled it when we went to Aunt Rose’s.” – Christmas Day, 1947.
Dad wrote Mom every single day for the six months before they married, although based on the postmarks, he sometimes forgot to mail them until the next day. She apparently did the same, although her letters must have burned in the long-ago garage fire with her wedding gown and Dad’s B-17 bomber jacket, or else she would have filed each of her letters in between his.
Reading between the lines, I can guess about what she wrote. But even without her letters, so many things have come into focus that have somehow helped bring her closer at this difficult holiday.
After flying 25 missions over Nazi-occupied Germany, Dad wound up at Langley Field, Va. (now Langley Air Force Base), where Mom, a secretary for the U.S. Army Air Corps, had recently transferred from Sarasota Air Field (now Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport).
The chances of them meeting were astronomical, but their stars were aligned.
“It frightens me when I think how easily we might have missed meeting. Whew. It must have been meant to be. God knew what He was doing.”
Dad met Mom’s not-so-surprising criteria of being finished with overseas active duty — B-17 crews had a tendency to not come back. He was also a reliable, dependable bomber pilot, not like those risk-taking, flyboy jet fighter pilots. Mom met Dad’s criteria of being a wonderful ballroom dancer, beautiful, smart and sweet.
When she moved back to Tampa to help support her parents and two little sisters by working at Drew Field (now Tampa International Airport), he managed a transfer to MacDill Field (now MacDill Air Force Base) and was placed in charge of the officer’s club bar, a real perk, close to Mom’s Ybor City home.
They were engaged, and planned to live in Chicago, Dad’s hometown.
But not just yet. When he was discharged from the service, Dad moved back to “Chi” with his mother and two little brothers. He wore his uniform to the downtown Sears store where he had worked before the war, got a job and started saving. He wanted to save $1,000 (about $15,000 in 2026) before the wedding to give them a good start, secure a decent apartment and get his car fixed up for the honeymoon to Niagara Falls.
He bemoaned that decision in nearly all the letters.
“I get so lonesome for you at times, I feel we should just junk our plans — get married first and then work out the rest. But we know it’s best this way. Nothing comes easy that’s really genuine and worthwhile.”
Every night, they had a long-distance date listening to the radio program Waltz Time, produced by the Armed Forces Radio Service, which could be heard in both Tampa and Chicago. They enjoyed songs like “Anniversary Song,” “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” “Girl of My Dreams,” and their favorite, “I’ll Be Loving You, Always.”
“Funny how we particularly notice the same songs, isn’t it? I just can’t wait until we’re dancing to those songs again.”
There were detailed updates about the Bears, the Black Hawks and the White Sox (no talk of the C*bs); Dad hoped she’d be right there next to him in the stands after they got married. Turns out Mom preferred ice dancing to ice hockey, but she did take him up on bowling, golf and gin rummy, which she could still beat me at in her 90s.
Wedding plans — invitations, attire, flowers, all of it — that was Mom’s department; Dad only supplied some addresses for invitations to his family. That explains why the early letters were carefully opened with a sharp letter opener, and as the wedding got closer, she ripped them open hastily from the end.
When he offered to buy her wedding dress, Mom wanted to make it a suit, to save money.
“I’ll be very disappointed if you don’t get that satin gown. I really think you should have it. It may be a little extravagant but our wedding will be just once and for keeps. I’ll always want it to be the happiest day of your life.”
She did. And it was.
The letters are full of beautiful, sweet nothings, but even more important than those were Dad’s declarations that he would spend the rest of his life trying to make her happy, to make each day better than the one before and to never be apart again “until my heart stops beating.”
He signed most letters, “Yours, for always.”
And it was.
On Mother’s Day, I’m grateful to Dad for his letters, which made me see Mom the way he saw her — young, adventurous and full of promise — and gave me new memories of her that I never expected to have.
And even though I have months more sorting to do, thanks, Mommy, for saving them.
Cindy Lane is a staff writer for the Tampa Bay Beacons. She can be reached at clane@tbnweekly.com.