Dutchie Darling . . . Love, Bob
A Love Story
© 2021 Patricia Jean Patten Evans
All rights reserved
The ASTP program was abruptly closed down as of Feb 18, 1944. The last letter we have from Bob to Jean is written sometime during that day and then we don’t have another letter until after they are married. Based on the stories that I grew up with from my mother and grandmother, I can piece together what happened. My guess is that as soon as Bob learned that the program was to be closed and that he was to be sent to an active unit headed overseas, they put into place Plan B—getting married right away. My grandmother was out of town in New Hampshire, helping my mother’s college roommate, Jean, who had just had a baby and whose own mother was deceased. I expect that the minute my mother heard from Bob, she called her mother. Then William would have headed to New Hampshire to get Gram,( Gram never learned to drive and there was only one car in that household). Gram, Jean, ( Mom’s friend) and the baby, Ann, came back to Brookline to begin wedding preparations. Gertrude Lavalle, MD, family friend and physician, did their required blood tests. At that time, before one could get a license to marry, one had to have a blood test for syphilis, a very debilitating sexually transmitted disease, in this period before antibiotics. Bob must have come up on the train quickly to get the blood tests and then headed back to NYC. Gram and Mom worked all week to prepare for the wedding. They had five days to prepare. But Gram was always proud that she had been able to pull it off. She asked friends for ration stamps for sugar, so that they could make a cake. There were no invitations for the wedding, there wasn’t enough time. Charlotte and Jean called everyone they wanted to invite. Bob and Jean were married in the living room of 93 Perry Street, where the Smiths lived. The invitation shown in this collection was actually a 25th Wedding Anniversary present from Gram and me. Gram was into decoupage at that time and was making plaques of her wedding invitation and mine. We realized that Mom didn’t have one, so I arranged to have a small number printed as an anniversary gift for them and then Gram used one to make a plaque. The biggest family joke about Mom and Dad’s wedding always was that Dad only got a 24 hour pass for the wedding and Cliff Duer, his best man, had a full week off!! My parents were married on Saturday, February 26, 1944, spent the night at the Copley Hotel and then he took the train back to NYC.
02/26/1944