War-time Wedding -- Part 2

After reading what Dad had written about their wedding, Mom filled in with a lot more details. Her memories add another perspective and give us "the rest of the story."

The way Lou used to tell this story [of our decision to get married] was that he didn’t have anything else to write about [in his letters] so he said, “If you could get up here – we’d get married!” Hell and high water couldn’t have kept me from getting “up there.” Lou’s parents wanted us to wait until after the war to get married, and his mother said, “You can’t marry my son.” That did it – I went home and started packing. I didn’t even shop; I just took what I had. Even my wedding dress, although special, was not new.

It must have been very hard for my mother to put me on that train. It was a few days before my 18th birthday. She would have been more concerned if she’d known I didn’t even have a seat on the train. It was full of mostly military men, and I sat on my suitcase. After we got out of the station an Army Lieutenant gave me his seat. I don’t know where he went for the rest of the trip, but I was truly grateful for that seat.

In Seattle there were two train stations – one on either side of the street, across from each other. My train went in one station, and Lou was waiting across the street in the other station! He finally came across the street and found me. I was beginning to wonder if he had stood me up!

We thought we would be getting married in the Bishop’s office, but Sylvia Koons found out we were getting married and had the wedding in her home. They invited several couples, made us a cake, and gave us a present. It was a lovely wedding. The tall sailor in the wedding picture is Chet Fields. He was Lou’s best man. He was Lou’s closest friend when they were serving on Bainbridge Island. I guess Sylvia was the matron of honor.

We found a room in the Enyert’s home after about a month in the hotel. Mrs. Enyert was firm and a little bit bossy, but very kind to us. I was just a young kid, barely 18, and I think she felt like she had to teach me a few things. On one occasion I dropped and broke three of her plates, and I had to wander around Seattle to find replacements. Looking for the right plates was a lot easier than telling her I had broken them!

The Enyert’s house was a great big old house. The basement was a huge cavernous cellar that was the size of the entire house. I remember it being a very scary place to me, with a lot of stuff sticking out from the walls. Unfortunately, the washing machine was down there, and I hated to have to go down to do the wash. Everybody else would be in the kitchen, just at the top of the basement stairs, but at 18 years old I was so afraid to go down into that cave that I literally shook! I couldn’t stand to stay down there for any amount of time, so I ran up and down those stairs a lot while doing the wash.

Jobs with the telephone company were considered “essential” during World War II, and as a result I was able to transfer from Pueblo to Seattle without difficulty. I was a switchboard operator at home, but when I transferred I was a file clerk in the office. The office I worked in was close to the pier where Lou came in from Bainbridge Island every evening. The window in my office had a great view of the hill he walked up, and I could watch for him. When he got off the ferry he would come by my office, and we’d ride the bus home together.

We had about four months together. They were good months, a little hard at times, but we were together. He was given a leave to take me home, and then he was sent to Adak for the duration of the war.

Leona - Lou
March 1944

And it was a lot harder to put him on the train that time!