How my Mom Met my Dad

[Ruth, Gun's Mom]

Molly has a story to share, but I'll share mine to begin. 

My mom grew up on the Hudson River not far from NYC and West Point.  During WWII she got a job working as a secretary at Camp Shanks, the last stop in the USA before soldiers left for Europe.  Before Christmas one year (I have to find out when), someone brought in boxes of index cards with soldiers' names and addresses.  My mom picked out one--Miles Brownlie Clayton, a strange name to her.  She grew up in a Polish-Italian neighborhood.  She decided she'd send a card and a fruit cake anyway. 

 

He wrote back!  He sent a picture.  She says he was so handsome that she didn't think it was really a picture of who she was writing to!  Lots of girls sent pictures of Betty Grable or Rita Hayworth and told soldiers that the pictures were of them, so she figured he'd stolen someone's picture to send.

He didn't come back until winter of 1945 as he was in the signal corps and helped with the communications systems for getting the troops home.  When he did, he had to go through Camp Shanks, so he wrote and told my mom that he was going to find her. 

First, my grandmother was totally against him meeting my mom, but somehow he found their house and knocked on the door.  Grandma opened the door to look up at this 6'2" handsome soldier.  All she said was, "Margaret will be right down."  The two of them went to a little local bar in Haverstraw and walked around chewing Juicy Fruit gum.  It wasn't that they were kids at 23years old, but my mom didn't want her parents to think they'd gone out drinking! 

So a letter writing romance continued when he went home--to Iowa to start farming.  He visited NY again, she visited Iowa. On that visit, my dad's mother and sister took her to meet the girl that Miles was going to marry!  My dad always said that wasn't what he had in mind!  

She said she had a car, clothes, money--she was a career woman!  But her mother told her that she should consider marrying him while her father was vehemently against her going to Iowa!  Then there was the religion thing--she was Catholic, he from a strict Scottish Campbellite based church.  He agreed to marry and raise the children Catholic, so they were finally married in the rectory of St. Mary's in Haverstraw. 

Grandpop told everyone that "Margaret had gone to live with the Indians in I-O-WAY."   They moved to a farm without running water--a long ways from the luxury of NYC and her career life!  She refused to be a "housewife" and became a "farmwife."  She learned how to drive a tractor.  She learned how to cook to feed a dozen farmers when they all went from farm to farm to plant or harvest. They raised hogs, cattle, hay, corn, oats, soybeans.  She became a partner to my dad.  The only things she refused to do was raise chickens and cook Rocky Mountain oysters when he'd bring them to the house from the hog house.  He'd leave, and she'd take the pan outside and begin, "Here, kitty, kitty!" 

They raised us to be patriotic and involved.  Mom always regrets that she doesn't get the recognition of working in an Army camp and not being a veteran.  She wanted to join the woman's corps, but her parents wouldn't let her at the start of the war.  She's all about the flag and feeding the crew!  So when my dad died in January, she wanted the flag folded to be presented to her and everyone fed well after the services.  She couldn't have been prouder when our sailor folded the flag and presented it to her.  And then we ate, boy, did we eat! 

So that's the story of how they met.  Dad was two months from being 90; she will be 90 in July and going strong!  I just asked her to come with me to the Iowa American Legion Auxiliary convention in July and she's going, of course.

So someone else tell a story.