This week in class we read love letters from World War Two. These letters are between soldiers fighting in foreign countries and women back on the home front. We read many different letters, yet one series of letters really stuck out to me. This series of letters was between Captain Harry Kipp and Norma Clinton. These two individuals had not met before the war. They met through Norma sending Harry a letter and a picture of her as requested by her Aunt Jean, who used to date Harry, as she wanted to boost his morale. Throughout the war Harry and Norma routinely wrote to each other, and during this time Harry fell in love with Norma. In fact in just his eighth letter to Norma he practically proposed to her, asking to marry once he returned home. This is not only crazy due to the fact that they have only been writing to each other for a short amount of time, but Norma did not even know what Harry looked like. However, none of this mattered to Norma who was thrilled to write back yes. Eventually the war ended and Harry had survived the horrible conditions in the Pacific Theatre of Operations (PTO). He returned home and immediately called Norma. A week later, they got married.
This heartwarming, touching story reminded me of a similar story close to my heart. A story between my great grandparents Charles and Shirley. Just like Harry and Norma, my Pop-Pop Charlie and Mom-Mom Shirl had never met before the war. Charlie was shipped off to the PTO to act as a quartermaster, first in Hawaii, and then in Iwo Jima once the USA began conquering territory. Shirley worked as a secretary in Philadelphia. Her co-worker’s husband, who was Charlie’s “army buddy”, arranged for Charlie and Shirley to become pen-pals. They began corresponding between Hawaii and Philadelphia for the duration of the war. Finally when the soldiers in the PTO returned home, Charles returned to his hometown of Youngstown, Ohio. From there he drove all the way over to Philadelphia where he met Shirley in person. They were married less than a year later on July 7, 1946.
Although both of these situations might be rare in today’s world with technology, they were not too uncommon 80 years ago. Perhaps through the power of the written letter, people could truly get to know each other on a much deeper level than today’s society.
