11 November 2009

Veterans Day with a little Romance :)

For some reason, Veterans Day always has me reminiscing about this amazing story in my family.

During WWII, my granduncle, Bill Butler, was serving in the Pacific theatre on a boat. At the time, the soliders were not allowed to disclose to their loved ones where they were located. My grandaunt Beth (possibly his girlfriend back then, not sure if they were married yet, but I'm thinking not)had no clue where he was. Every time there was reports of action, women across the country had no way of knowing if those fights were touching the life of their solider.

Anyways, my ingenious granduncle came up with a way to let Beth know where he was. During WWII, Hawaii had their own money. He took one of these colorful notes and cut a heart out of the middle of it where it said "Hawaii" and mailed it to her with his next letter. She received the heart and knew where her guy was.

Me, being the incredulous cynical child that I was, had zero belief in that silly tale and of course said so to my granduncle (affectionately known as "Grumps") and he said "Oh yeah??" and, standing in his kitchen with a big ol' grin on his face opened his wallet and showed me the remaining portion of that 40+ year old Hawaiian dollar with the heart missing from the middle. While I was sitting there with my chin hitting the ground, he turned to his wife and said "Show her the rest of it, dear" and she opened her purse and showed me the heart he had sent her all those years ago.

Is that not the most beautiful story of wartime love EVER?? I think so :)

1 comment:

~liz said...

lovely, you ought to post it on the journal.