Wedding Bells

...wartime romance

On a sunny Saturday in Fort Gaines, Georgia – May 20, 1944 – my parents were married in her Uncle Henry’s parlor. World War II was raging. She was 21 and he was 30. Less than three weeks later would be D-Day, the Normandy invasions. Bur their wedding had been three years in the making.

Sara met Rex at a basketball game in Smithville, GA when her boyfriend, Claude, parked her with his best friend, Rex, while Claude referreed the game. She was 18 – Rex was 27. Rex worked at the phone company, climbing poles and installing telephone lines all over the region She was still grieving the tragic death of her mother in childbirth and the unfortunate marriage of her father to his brother’s widow. The new wife was truly a wicked stepmother.

Sara had found a job at Warner Robins Army Air Depot 16 miles outside Macon where she worked in the quartermaster’s office, outfitting the troops to go overseas. She rode the bus to and from the Army Depot every day from a house she is reported to have owned though I am still looking for evidence of this feat for young woman of 18! Rex had enlisted in the summer of 1941 in the Army at age 27 but had been mustered out because of a childhood broken ankle making it impossible for him to march miles at a time. There is no photo of him in his Army uniform but he waas very proud of his service in WWII - his tombstone says so. After his stint at Fort Sill, Oklahoma he came home to work as a telephone lineman and go to basketball games in his time off. Sara had come to Smithville for the weekend from her job near Macon when they met.

My mother said she fell in love instantly and so did he but the age gap was large and he said she was too young to get serious, much less get married. She knew her mind though she reluctantly agreed to wait until she was 21. There are numerous photos of her with young soldier boys getting ready to go overseas to fight and they wanted a photo to take with them to remember the pretty young girl back home. But she only had eyes for Rex.

Finally in the spring of 1944 they planned their wedding and after a ceremony in Fort Gaines they drove to Americus for a honeymoon at the Windsor Hotel, the showpiece of Americus tourism. The hotel is still there, am imposing Victorian structure built in the 1890’s. She remembered the two nights as glorious and the weekend ended all too soon.

She had left her job at Warner Robins Army Air Depot before the wedding and they traveled north to Toccoa, Georgia and set up house in an upstairs garage apartment where Rex had already been living as he worked for Standard Telephone Company.

In 1944, Toccoa, Georgia, was a pivotal WWII hub, serving as the training ground for over 17,000 U.S. Army paratroopers at Camp Toccoa near Currahee Mountain. Famous units like Easy Company (506th Parachute Infantry Regiment) trained there before departing in 1944 to spearhead the D-Day invasion, with many elite troops leaving the area by May 1944, just about the time that Rex and Sara arrived.

Sara quickly found a job at Wright Manufacturing as a bookkeper. Her wartime experience paid off. There was no kitchen in their little apartment so they ate out every day. They also went to the movies every time the film changed, 2 or 3 times a week. He would pick her up from work for the evening’s entertainment. They were wild about each other and he saw no need to add to their family - but that’s another story.

After the war ended they bought a refrigerator to replace the ice box that got them through the early days of their marriage. Mama said he loved lying in bed and listening to the refrigerator hum and knowing he would not have to keep buying blocks of ice from the icehouse downtown and changing the blocks out frequently . He also loved to trade cars and Mama said they waited for the war to end before they could get the new car they had ordered and it wasn’t six months before he traded it for something else!

They were very happy and thrived in their little town. He joined the Lions Club and she joined the Woman’s Club and a circle at church. After church shopping they chose the Presbyterian one though neither one of them had any experience with the Presbyterian Church. Perhaps it was the fact that their apartment was two blocks from the church and one block from the telephone company. .

They lived in Toccoa for twenty years and raised two children there. My brother and I feel incredibly lucky to have had parents who loved us and each other unconditionally and supported us through thick and thin. It was a wonderful place to be a child and when we said goodbye to Toccoa and headed west to Dalton, GA it was sad but it was also an adventure, just like Mama and Daddy’s leaving south Georgia for the mountains in the northern part of Georgia. They never looked back. Both overcame family trauma but they created something new for us. On this day, May 20, they would have been married 82 years. They were perfect examples of the Greatest Generation They are both gone now – he in 1993 and she in 2009 but they are together again, I am sure tooling around heaven in his pickup truck and meeting with friends for card games and chat.