73 years ago today, Beatrice and Lloyd got married.
In the courthouse in San Antonio, Texas, a little before noon, with a few witnesses. They went to lunch afterwards. He returned to Duncan Field at Kelly Air Force Base that afternoon for his orders. It was 1942.
The next day, the Army Air Corp sent him and hundreds of other GIs on a true adventure: by train to South Carolina, then on a boat for 62 days bound for South Africa, and eventually, on to India.
He would be there, ultimately in Agra, India, serving with the 3rd Air Depot Group, for the next 3 years. Bee, as she was called, had not talked to him since the afternoon of their wedding day. Did not know where he was. Or how long he would be gone.
Then after a few months, she got a telegram from him marked “Karachi, India”. Usually the War Department removed any trace of location from messages sent back home, but someone forgot. Bee got out her atlas and looked it up.
Now she at least knew where he was.
(Western Union quickly sent a dispatcher to her house—took the telegram she had received, and gave her a new one—and this one had a hole where the word “Karachi” had been.)
In Agra, the 3rd Air Depot’s mission was to act as a repair and supply headquarters for the Army Air Corp squadrons in that area. Lloyd became a staff sergeant. He endured the heat, malaria, and being away from home for 3 three years. Meanwhile, Bee did what so many women then, and now, do when war comes. She stayed behind, worked, and waited.
They had met in junior high when he moved across the street from her. They went to high school together, and both later worked in San Antonio as well as Austin. He sold Old Gold cigarettes, she worked in payroll at Kelly Field air base.
After Lloyd left the army, they started a life together that would include homes in North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas again, and Tennessee again. Three daughters, 3 grandchildren, and to date, 6 great-grandchildren. (They left this earth before all of this happened, but I have no doubt they know the count.)
He was a district sales manager for Rexall Drug Company, and later ran a successful cleaning business. She was a hard-working stay-at-home mother who could cook anything and handled any problem that came along. They were sharks at dominoes. He loved to fish on the Texas coast. She loved to read, sew, and tackle any crossword puzzle. They both loved the Lone Star State.
They raked a million leaves. Barbecued a thousand steaks (many in the rain). Wrote a zillion checks for braces, tuition, car insurance, weddings, and surgeries for unfortunate pet cats. They weren’t Ozzie and Harriet, and we weren’t the Waltons. But we were a family.
On earth, their marriage lasted 59 years, due to her passing. He joined her almost 5 years later.
But they are still together, at least in some form, I am sure. Nagging each other, helping each other, watching us—their family—live our lives.
Today is March 9, their day. They are why I am here. They were children of the Great Depression. They are great examples of a generation that had to put their dreams and plans aside to fight a war and start over. They made it through upheaval, rationing, fear, reunions, loss, transfers, and more. Their lives were not easy, but they endured. They had no choice.
I tell you this story because I think it’s good to remember how lucky so many of us are these days. How many opportunities we have and how we sometimes lose sight of what is most important in our lives. How fast life goes by. I know I need to remember that.
Happy Anniversary, you 2.
“The stars at night, are big and bright…deep in the heart of Texas.”
Don Swander and June Hershey
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