Family Traditions

Today is my dad's birthday. He would have been 89. He died the year my youngest son was born. I didn't realize I was expecting until we'd returned home from the funeral, and then I figured out why I was so exhausted. (I didn't get sick usually, just tired and hungry.) My dad was a Navy veteran. He joined when WWII started, as did many of his peers. He spent the entire war as a sailor. He had a number of remembrances of his service. His boot camp was in Camp Farragut in northern Idaho. Then he recalled being in San Francisco which ignited his life-long taste for seafood. He told me once about traveling on the troop transport ship to the Philippines. When they first boarded the ship in SF, he said it seemed so large. Then when they were in a huge storm while crossing the Pacific Ocean, the ship was tossing back and forth with waves crashing over the decks, and they all feared they'd sink and drown. It didn't seem nearly big enough then. He said he'd "listened" to the war. He was a radioman whose job was to relay messages through Morse Code. He spent a long time on Mindanao, one of the islands of the Philippines. I have friends now who were born there, and have lived in the US for most of their lives. Small world. 

My dad met my mother while he was in high school. I think she was in the eighth grade. He knew her sister and loved to tease her, so when he saw them together in a car, he went over to bug Aunt Lila and was quite taken with the younger sister, Carol. I failed to nail down these time-lines, so I don't know how this relationship was started, but I do know he joined the Navy in response to the attack on Pearl Harbor. My mom was a freshman in high school at that time. She rushed through high school, graduating in December of her senior year, and then moved to Salt Lake City to attend LDS Business College. I know they were corresponding, because she had his photo on her desk where she worked at the Sunday School offices. And when he walked on in there after he returned to the states, dressed in the "cracker-jack" suit--ooh, la, la--her friends at work all wanted to know if he had a brother. They were married Sept. 5, 1946. She was three months shy of her 19th birthday; he was 23.

The war ended in August, 1945. I'm not sure the date he returned to the US. I got the impression there was a drawn-out schedule in order to accomodate all the sailors and soldiers who were no longer necessary in the South Pacific. But they also needed to maintain an adequate force. He told me once that the military had offered all sorts of incentives to people to re-enlist: money, job security, duty station choices. But, he, like many others, felt only the desire to go home to the girl and the life they'd been missing back home.

So, maybe something in my family history figured into my choosing a Navy man...the cute uniforms?  Who knows? But now we have another sailor in the family tree--the one I was expecting when we attended Grandpa's funeral--and it makes me proud.

 Here are some pictures of Navy men to whom I'm related:

 This was my dad in the Philippines, with a chicken on his shoulder. He said that there wasn't much fun there outside of playing pool or poker. Those beautiful women you might have seen in the movies weren't living on his South Pacific island.

 This was the photo that sat on my mom's desk when she worked at the Sunday School office. He was a handsome devil.

This is me trying on his uniform that my mom kept in her cedar chest. I'd have been a really cute sailor, huh?

This is the really cute sailor I married. He wore this uniform to my dad's funeral because he didn't own a dark suit that would have been more appropriate for the winter in Wyoming. But I'm glad I urged him to wear the uniform. My mom said it was an excellent choice to honor my dad's service. She was pleased.

This is at the cemetery.

This is the latest sailor following the family tradition.  Peter selected the submarine fleet, where he will be a sonar technician. He just got notice of his assignment for sonar school and so that means that after he completes submarine training, he'll remain in Groton, CT, for almost a year learning to put his remarkable skills with sound technology to use in an entirely different way. He'll listen to whales singing instead of being the singer.

I know you've seen these photos before, but I'll put them in anyway.

Go Navy!

Happy Birthday, Lynn Ray Welch!