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Writer's pictureFlea Market Love Letters

June 6, 1943.




Dearest,

I guess the guy was right when he said “What is so rare as a day in June?”. Today certainly is one of those days. It’s sunny and warm, but there’s a wonderful breeze that makes it very cool and comfortable.

It’s so swell out here in the country. If you could only be here. Days like this I have no desire to go to a show with any of my friends or do anything like that. It’s too nice right here at home. I feel sorry for all the kids that live in the city and have to go out to have fun. I enjoy just being lazy or working around. This morning I slept rather late, and when i finally got up the sun was nice and bright on the back porch, so I put on a playsuit with shorts and took a snooze out on the lawn chair. It’s one of those lazy things where you can lie back and go to sleep. Then I brought my breakfast out there and ate it. But after that I went to work. I mowed the back yard and went all around the porch and the walk with the shears and snipped the ones you can’t get with the lawn mower. By the time it was 11:00 and time for the Marines on the radio. I didn’t go to church, needless to say. This week they dramatized the story of Corporal Dimick, who landed with the wave of Marines on Guadalcanal. He received the Silver Star for bravery in action when his outfit was stopped by a Jap gun nest. He ran out in the the face of gun-fire and by throwing grenade and using his rifle managed to capture the 37 millimeter gun.

He spoke on the program, and like all the fellows who have “come back” after doing some act of bravery like that he had the mildest voice you can imagine. He didn’t sound cocky or boastful, but just glad he had the chance to do something any Marine would have done in his place. All those fellows sound so sort of quiet. I guess after the things they’ve seen they lose some of that “Talking Big” and become more mature. After I hear this program I don’t feel sorry for myself because we can’t be together, but I feel sorry for all the girls who haven’t got a Marine. It’s wonderful to be a part of the U.S. Marine Corps with its traditions of courage and loyalty and honor, even if my part is only waiting for the best Marine in the outfit to come home.

It’s a good thing we don’t have any too near neighbours or I would be arrested for indecent exposure. My playsuit is a yellow print with little blue and white and red flowers. The cloth is very old fashioned looking, but boy, the way it’s made certainly isn’t! It’s a two piece thing, the top part is a little affair, with sleeves that button down the front and covers all the essential parts of me but is short enough to show quite a bit around the midriff. The bottom part is shorts. But of course its very healthy because there’s nothing like the sun to keep a girl in good condition. When we get married I’ll pack it away someday because I’m sure you would be very shocked and would never approve. But it’s kinda cute just the same.

Bruce mowed the front lawn yesterday. He comes down Saturday and I give him a half dollar. He’s always interested so I showed him the snaps I have of you and he though they were all right. He was disappointed to hear that you wouldn’t be home. If you see any little thing that you could send him in a letter to me, like something you fellow have used, something authentic and really Marine, I know he’d be crazy about it. I don’t know what you could send, but there must be something like labels off things you use, or something like that. As long as it has U.S.M.C. on it. He’s going to a military academy as soon as he’s through eighth (wow) grade. If he were a few years older it wouldn’t be a military academy, I know that.

Tomorrow my dad is going to deposit $25 for me. This brings it up to $383.43, plus a little interest. If you don’t want a wife who will make you save your money, you’d better get out while you still have a chance. I’ll be the kind of a wife who will say “no dice” to things like buying a race car to fool with on the side. I believe in putting it away so that when things get tough, you’re all set. That’s the yankee in me, I guess.

Together we can do so much with our lives, and have so much fun.

I love you.

Betty

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