A short story about a young couple falling in love during WWII. It's written based on some truth and a lot of imagination! I hope you enjoy it and have a wonderful Valentine's Day!
The first time she saw him; he was counting money. It was 1942 and war raged across Europe. Until then, President Roosevelt managed to keep the U.S. out of the war but was left with no choice after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The negative effects of the Great Depression begun in 1929 left people with a sense of frugality for years to come and lasted in various degrees around the world until the start of World War II in 1939. As men were drafted and enlisted in the armed forces in the early 1940s, women were offered entry into the workforce.
Joe was a farm boy from southern Virginia. His family owned a tobacco farm a few miles north of the North Carolina border. Joe was third in the line of sons and had a younger sister, Mary. As the oldest son, Thomas was given the benefit of attending Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VA Tech) in Blacksburg where he studied agriculture to prepare him to eventually take over the farm, which was fine with Joe. He wasn’t much for farm work and didn’t like the smell of tobacco, especially after harvest when the leaves were hung and left to dry in small, heated sheds throughout the farm.
Following high school graduation, Joe’s plan had not included staying on the farm but his mother dying while he was a senior and his father following his mother to the grave a few months later, left only Joe to tend to Mary, who was five years younger. Thomas arrived back from VA Tech, equipped and eager to be a prominent landowner and was busy running the farm. Edwin, the second son, was already married and living on a nearby farm with his wife who was expecting their first child. Joe was up before daylight each day to deliver the local newspaper to farms within a 25-mile radius. Afternoons found him at the general store where he politicked on local concerns and sold everything from sacks of flour to hoes. Staying on the farm to oversee Mary’s teen years was not a burden, he adored his younger sister. Joe understood the limitations of not being the first born and accepted his third-son status, but once Mary finished high school, he would move on.
As with the rest of the world, the Great Depression affected life on the farm. Crop prices and interest rates on investments declined. The stock market crashed. Unemployment zoomed up. Unlike the cities and urban areas dependent on heavy industry, farming communities were grateful to breathe fresh air and had plenty of food to eat. Staying put on the farm in the 1930s turned out to be a blessing. Options for leaving the farm would have to wait. Until then, Joe saved every penny of his small inheritance, along with earnings from delivering the news and working at the general store. In 1940, Mary graduated high school with honors and was engaged to be married the following spring.
Pearl Harbor changed everything. Joe was in his late twenties and eager to serve his country. He enlisted in the army and was sent to Fort Belvoir in Northern Virginia for infantry training. He was disappointed when he wasn’t able to be deployed because of arthritis in his legs and hands. Although Joe was denied college, he excelled in high school and those extra years working at the general store paid off. The Army recognized his abilities and moved him from combat training to a six-week management course and gave him the rank of Private Second Class. Joe remained at Fort Belvoir to manage the commissary. Originally established during World War I as the U.S. Army Engineers training school, Fort Belvoir was a finishing school for engineering troops headed to war. Joe was delighted. He would be in his home state of Virginia, off the farm, and serving his country.
Millie was the fourth child of the 12 who lived. They were poor. Piss poor. When growing up, getting to her parents’ homestead required driving down a one-way gutted dirt and rocky path and across a small stream. They lived in a four-room house down in the “holler.” The kitchen dominated the house, and a large glassed-in porch ran around two sides where laundry and shaving were done, and the boys slept. This homestead was not a farm, per se, but chickens and a loud rooster would greet visitors, pigs sloshed in a pen a few yards from the house, a large garden in the side yard by the kitchen kept them in vegetables and jam through the winter, and “white lightening” – also known as moonshine – bottled in canning jars lined the walls of the shed where her Papa parked the truck. Up behind the house ran a narrow path for 100 yards or so to hide the still from the government revenuers. Millie and her siblings understood early that turning 16 meant leaving to make room for younger siblings. High school graduation was not a requirement or a justification for remaining in the house.
Although the depression affected Millie’s family, they had the advantage of being used to being poor. It didn’t matter if interest on investments plummeted, the stock market crashed, or crop prices went down. They didn’t have money to invest or crops to sell. They ate out of the garden in the summer and what her mama canned in the winter. Pigs were slaughtered and chickens plucked for meat. It didn’t matter that her Papa couldn’t find employment, the moonshine business flourished. Mabel was the first-born in Millie’s family and the first to leave. She was already married and living in Northern Virginia just outside of Washington, D.C. when Millie turned 16. The war brought jobs to the area and though Millie didn’t have the advantage of graduating high school, she learned her numbers and was raised to be independent and resourceful. Millie happily left the bed she shared with two sisters to move into Mabel’s tiny apartment above Chauncey’s Grocery in Groveton just a few miles ride on the AB&W to Fort Belvoir.
In the 1940s, young unmarried women looking for work were hot commodities. Millie was anxious to earn her own money instead of getting a nickel here or a quarter there for babysitting or running errands. She had dreams of real money to buy dresses and high-heeled shoes worn with silk stockings, to eat in restaurants, and to go to the picture shows. She passed up the help wanted signs posted in local stores that paid low wages and were still struggling to recover from the depression. No, Millie went straight to nearby Fort Belvoir to find a job and, maybe, a husband. Millie was immediately hired to work as a cashier in the commissary. Her limited education served her well as she filled out the application and completed the two-page test to prove her knowledge of word meanings and simple math. It didn’t hurt that the soldier giving the interview couldn’t keep his eyes off her curly blond hair, hazel eyes, and neatly pressed form-fitting dress covered with red roses. Yes, Millie was a looker, and she used it well.
It was Millie’s first day when she spotted Joe sitting at a small desk in the back office counting and redistributing dollar bills into the slots of a cash drawer. Joe was so intent on his task, he didn’t see Millie as she passed by the open door. She took a quick step back for a closer look at the man who sat perfectly upright wearing the army’s olive uniform, a garrison cap, and the toes of black boots poked out from under the desk. Millie leaped forward as Joe glanced up to see a flash of roses brush past the open doorway.
Fort Belvoir was alive with new people coming and going from all directions. Millie quickly got caught up in the swirl of socials, dances, and endless parties to greet newcomers and to say good-bye to the many soldiers who would never make it home. Within a few months, she and two of her co-workers moved into a small apartment close to the base that became party central known as “second base” for low-level civilians working on the base and soldiers as they passed through on their way to war.
As the commissary manager and newly promoted to Private First Class, Joe rarely attended the parties off-base. Everyone knew Joe would be a good catch. He was single, financially established, and ready to settle down as his thirtieth birthday fast approached. Married lower-ranked enlisted officers and noncommissioned officers’ frequently invited Joe to their homes for dinner and he was often set up with blind dates. But Joe was looking for the spark. Most of the women he dated couldn’t hide their giddy ambition for marriage, security, and children, which Joe wanted too, but first he wanted to feel the excitement of the “spark of love.”
Joe’s friend, Tom, was stationed at Fort Belvoir while he completed the engineering program. A few years younger, Tom was single and had a similar background as Joe, which made it easy for them to become pals. Tom was also spirited and liked to party. He had no problem attending the off-base parties where pretty young single women mingled and flirted with the soldiers. The second base parties were particularly fun where enlisted soldiers and lower-level officers would let loose and swing to Cab Calloway’s jitterbug tunes, eat newly popular pizza, smoke Chesterfields, and drink whiskey without worry of the base commander. Tom had completed the engineering course and was due to leave Fort Belvoir for Europe in a week. He had no interest in attending boring dinner parties with married couples. He wanted to flirt and to mingle, and he wanted his friend Joe to come with him.
Tom was a popular guy. Invitations to lunches, dinners, and going away parties on- and off-base flowed in throughout the week, but he saved and looked forward to the second base party on his last night. Joe would miss his friend and couldn’t say no to going with him. It was a warm and clear late summer evening with just enough chill to know fall was on the way. Dusk came early as the sun set into the horizon. As they parked the car, music and laughter could be heard coming from the yard. The party was well underway and too perfect to take inside just yet. Men and women spilled over into the parking lot yelling greetings to Tom as he and Joe approached. Tom stopped to shake hands, give hugs, and reassure everyone he would see them again. As Joe watched and waited for his friend, he realized how amazing these people were. He had known neighbors and friends at the farm for years and never felt the intensity of friendship he felt that evening. Joe felt emotions he didn’t know he had. Finally, Tom was released and they made their way to the apartment door.
Joe swore until his dying day that when Millie opened the door, he felt the spark. THE spark. Millie, on the other hand, was intimidated that the commissary manager was at her door. She knew Tom from other parties and that he was expected to spend his last party at second base, but Joe … was she allowed to call him Joe? Tom, still whirling from his cheery greeting, grabbed Millie with his hands encircling her waist and spun her and him into the living room. Millie giggled, gave Tom a hug and made him promise to never forget her. Joe stood speechless in the doorway as people from the yard shoved past and filled the small living room and kitchen. When the coast was clear, Joe stumbled back through the door and waited for Tom in the car. This would be second base’s best and last party. Times were changing. Soldiers were being rotated in and out of Belvoir faster as the war in Europe heightened. Too many soldiers weren’t coming back. Their names appearing on lists of the dead and missing was depressing. The glamor of war faded as war’s reality set in.
Millie sadly accepted that she had to give up the apartment and the parties. Both of her roommates had fallen in love with soldiers who wanted a hasty marriage before being shipped out. Marriage gave the wives the benefit of on-base housing and was less expensive than the off-base apartment. One of the husbands was only gone three months before he appeared on the list. Millie wasn’t going to let that happen to her. She returned to her sister’s apartment above Chauncey’s.
It was easy for Joe and Millie to avoid meeting at the commissary since most of Joe’s work was in the back office. All of the cashiers were women and supervised by women. A month after the party, Millie’s supervisor recommended her for one of the monthly Awards of Achievement. Millie was a party girl, but also a dependable hard worker. The awards ceremony was scheduled to take place in the base dining hall following lunch. Joe, as the commissary’s manager, would present the awards. When he reviewed the list of awardees, he felt fear when he saw Millie’s name on the list. He hadn’t spoken to her at the party or since the party. His only hope was that in the chaos, Millie would not remember him arriving with Tom.
Millie certainly did remember seeing Joe at the party and looked for him later in the evening after the music quieted down and people started drifting home. She had seen and heard enough to know Joe was older, handsome, and had money in the bank. Also, that his two-year service commitment would soon expire. Joe represented the security every woman was looking for. Everyone knew when the war ended, men would take back their jobs and the pay. Maybe it was time to find a husband.
On awards day, Millie wanted to look her best. She starched and pressed the red rose dress and slipped on red pumps over white cotton socks. To her disappointment, silk stockings would have to wait until after the war. Joe was always careful about proper dress. He was especially careful on awards day to ensure his uniform was pressed perfectly and his shoes shined. Everyone gathered in the dining hall at noon. Joe sat with the supervisors at the head table and avoided chance eye contact with Millie who sat at the end of a long table with 10 of her co-workers facing the head table. Considering the somber events of recent days, the mood was jovial, which was the real purpose of the awards. The troops and the civilians supporting the troops needed a boost. Last to receive her award, Millie stood up and approached Joe as he turned to retrieve her award from table. When Joe turned back and saw Millie standing there, he felt dizzy and almost stumbled. Millie stood erect and waited for Joe to find his balance. The room went quiet as Joe lifted his eyes from the award to a flash of roses. Millie smiled.
Six months later, Joe and Millie were married in a small wedding ceremony at Mabel’s apartment. They honeymooned in Richmond, Virginia and returned to begin married life in their Craftsman home on Oak Street in Groveton. Joe invested his savings and became the owner/operator of an Amoco service station located adjacent to Beacon Airfield less than a quarter mile from their house. A few days before their first anniversary, Millie gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Their five-room house was rarely without a border or a visitor. It wasn’t unusual for old friends and family members to appear for a visit. Tom survived the war and was a long-term border when he was brought back to teach basic engineering at Fort Belvoir. Joe and Millie counted their blessings.
It was late summer. The windows were open letting in just enough breeze to push the curtains from the sill. Millie walked from room to room stopping in their bedroom to look at the row of dresses hung in the closet and boxes of shoes covered the floor. Back in the hall leading to the kitchen, she had a side view of Joe sitting at their kitchen table. His back erect, black shoes firmly planted on the linoleum floor, and a Stetson fedora on his head; he was counting money.
Comments