33) A Letter From Betty- July 22, 1944

This is the first letter I have from Betty to Jack. As you know from reading his letters, in which he mentions the dates of letters he has received from her, she was writing to him several times a week. It would be great if I had more of her letters. As you know from my previous post it is likely that most of her early letters were destroyed when some of the 9th squadron's personal gear was hit by Japanese aircraft on Hollandia. It is clear from reading Jack's letters that I don't have all the letters she wrote even after the Hollandia incident. Perhaps they were lost or purposely thrown away. It is also possible that they exist and may turn up some day. Unfortunately when my parents died my siblings and I each took some of the letters, splitting up the collection.  I believe that I retrieved most of the letters for this project but I am in hopes that more will be found some day.

You might be confused that Betty's letters are out of date order from the sequence of Jack's letters, but I've tried to fit her letters in when I thought he must have received them. I partially based this on his own listings of the dates of the letters he had received from her.


July 22, 1944
Saturday

Dearest Jack,

I’ve mailed you two miniature copies of the Courier. Stewarts have them published and give them away every Friday.   It will probably be quite a while before you get them cause it says to send them regular mail so I did. I was afraid it wouldn’t go air mail.

I’m playing records and writing. Right now I’m playing records from Sigmund Romberg’s Album. They’re wonderful.

Last night I went to a hen party and had loads of fun. A lady here in Crescent Hill had five of us in to meet a girl who’s visiting her from Idaho. She’s an awfully cute girl.

Monday night I went out to the hospital at Ft. Knox. The fellows really appreciated our coming out.

It’s really nice not having to work on Saturday. I have been working. It’s something to do any way. I’ve been trying to get into first, overseas Red Cross work, and then Red Cross work in the States, but the age is 23-35. That gripes me.

Now, I’m playing “One Alone”. It’s so wonderful. I love it.
Can’t think of any more. Bye for now.

Yours, as always,
Betty

Notes:

1. Stewarts---Stewart Dry Goods Co. was a large Louisville department store
2. Sigmund Romberg--- 1887–1951, Hungarian-American composer, educated in Vienna. He came to the United States in 1909, played in restaurant and café orchestras, and soon had his own orchestra. He wrote the score for the musical The Whirl of the World (1914), and followed it with more than 70 operettas. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05.
3. "One Alone"---From the Broadway Musical "Desert Song" (1926)

(Sigmund Romberg / Oscar Hammerstein II / Otto Harbach)

I have heard all you've been saying
Yet I will love in my own way

Lonely as a desert breeze
I may wonder where I please
Yet I keep on longing
Just to rest a while

Where a sweetheart's tender eyes
Take the place of sand and skies
All the World forgotten
In one Woman's smile

One alone, to be my own
I alone, to know her caresses
One to be, eternally
The one my worshipping soul possesses

At her call, I'd give my all
All my life and all my love enduring
This would be a magic World to me
If she were mine alone

One alone, to be my own
I alone, to know her caresses
One to be, eternally
The one my worshipping soul possesses