Young girls send letters overseas, one finds love

It was 1942, World War II was raging on many fronts. My family was living in Fort Scott, which you old timers will remember was a booming railroad town at that time. As I remember there were three railroads; the Frisco, The Katy and Missouri Pacific.

Back in '42 there were forty "troop" trains going through Fort Scott every day. These trains were full of soldiers and sailors, and they were either on their way to a base or on their way overseas. My mama was an "Army mother" and she and many other Army and Navy mothers took turns making sandwiches and cookies or cake and steaming pots of coffee to serve to the soldiers and sailors. No more would one train pull out and another one would pull in. The young men, some hardly more than boys, would come running off the train, they were hungry and thirsty.

This is where my sister Darlene and I came in. Most of the Army and Navy mothers had daughters who would help serve the sandwiches and coffee. This was our way of helping in the war effort. First they were greeted by women that looked like their "mom" who gave them a hug and a kiss and wished them well. Then they were greeted by all of us young ladies, some hardly more than girls, me, just 11, then there were older girls, like my sister Darlene who was sixteen, going on seventeen. The soldiers and sailors treated me like their kid sister, but pretty young ladies like Darlene, well...they would throw their name and address out of the windows as the train pulled out, also throwing kisses. The gals would run and pick them up, before long they all were writing to dozens of service men. They said it was their patriotic duty. Our mail box was always full of letters from over seas. Must have kept the mailman busy delivering those letters all over town. I think it must have been a contest to see who got the most letters.

This seemed to go on for a long time, and then one day Darlene said to me "I'm not writing any more letters to service men." I was flabbergasted. you could have knocked me over with a feather. I was wishing I was old enough to take them all off of her hands. She said "I met this sailor, he's tall, dark haired and very handsome and he's from Arcadia, Kansas, and his name is Ray Dobbins." Thus began a beautiful courtship by mail. He was her knight in shinning armor; he was a radioman on a ship. And he stole her heart. As soon as the war in Germany was over, she went to San Diego, Calif., where they were married on July 9, 1945. This love story has lasted 63 years and counting. I was fourteen by that time and thought it was the most romantic love story of all time. How time marches on.