About Bill & Dorothy

Through their exchange of letters from 1942-1945, Bill and Dorothy grew in their love for each other. Rarely were they able to be together, Bill received only four furloughs, one of which Dorothy missed as she was working in Washington, DC at the time, as a secretary for the FBI. In the fall of 1944, before Dorothy entered college, Bill was home briefly on furlough. The couple filled their days with activities: visiting Dorothy's elder sister Mary; going to the Daily Brothers Circus in Sioux City, Iowa; shopping for Dorothy's school essentials. Dorothy recalls, “Bill bought me a lovely cultured pearl necklace and said it was my first engagement present.”

The furloughs were always too short. Dorothy gave Bill a remembrance of their time together at the end of each. Once Dorothy baked him a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, cut to fit a rectangular cheese box common at the time. Back on base in Miami, Bill wrote, “I ate one piece of your cake and shared the rest with the boys. They all said I should have married you before I left!”

When finally Bill did return from combat, his goal of a college education came closer to reality, and he wanted the same for Dorothy: “I am really glad you are going to school. I don't know if you will believe me or not, but I really do want you to go. Have fun there. Get all you can out of it and keep busy. I am going to be mighty proud to say my girlfriend is going to college. Meanwhile, I'll save all the money I can for the day I can join you there. I can't think of a more perfect future than that.”

Finally the war was over, peace set in, Bill was able to start college because of the new GI bill. Life, it would seem, could not have been better.. But of course life is never entirely perfect, only memorable, and as Dorothy remembers so well even today, “Bill and I had such a perfect courtship during the war. Then came our first year of marriage, and when my birthday rolled around, Bill forgot it. As hard as our separation had been, and how dangerous Bill's service, the War never got so bad that Bill forgot my birthday!”

And so the danger and romance of war gave way to family life and the fleeting four-and-a-little decades of marriage, itself a rich memory for Dorothy of her life with Bill.