EVER THE LETTERS

The 850 letters we wrote during World War II, now almost 60 years ago will tell of Clair’s experiences from his induction into the Navy in 1944 to his discharge in 1946. It also relates com:office:smarttags" />Pearl’s experience as a telephone operator for Northwestern Bell at the telephone office in St. Peter, Minnesota, and of caring for their small son Gary, with the help of her parents in Kasota, Minnesota.

Pearl’s letters tell of wartime shortages, of rationing, the price of items during the war. She wrote of service men and women home on leave and of the many going into the military. There was word of many from our home area wounded in war actions and of some we knew killed in action.

After reading our letters these many years later, we decided to include our letters as we had written them when we were 23 and 24 years old in a story of the part of the war we experienced— a story especially for our son and his wife, granddaughters, great grand children, and our family and friends. Many letters are personal and reveal our thoughts, dreams, and expression of love for each other. “Mail Call” was the life line between a sailor at war in the Pacific and his wife, son, mother, and brothers at home in St. Peter. War was a strange business. It gave a sailor much time to think and a heart is not governed by the rules of war. He found release through the thoughts of home and loved ones. Memories were food for the heart and they lived again as they marched past his mind.

This is not just a story but the actual words of a lonely sailor, and the letters his wife Pearl wrote while waiting back home with their son Gary. You will feel the lonely times and the expressions of love for each other in many of the letters, written most every day, and even two some days, as writing seemed to relieve the monotony, the feeling of missing each other so very much, and helped pass the time as they wrote of the time they would be back together again. Letters helped to relive their first date in the rumble seat of a 1929 Model A Ford, of dating, marriage, and honeymoon, and to relive the first leave from boot camp and of their first years of marriage.

Pearl’s letters told of son Gary’s daily activities, how he was growing, and what he was saying. Clair’s concern was, “Does he remember me and miss me.” Clair wrote of his worry about Pearl working alone all night at times, and going home late at night. He wrote of missing her home cooked meals, real milk, fresh fruit, and even of the cream puffs his mother used to make for him.

We wrote often of our love for each other as we needed this assurance. We wrote of our family members—now most no longer with us. At times we wrote of our deep most thoughts of living at twenty-four years old and now separated for the first time. We searched for answers of how we felt about “God” and what our life would be when the war was over. We also wrote about the happy times and some of the sad times.

We found it a very moving experience to again read the letters so many years later when we are past eighty years young.

These are a few lines of the day I reported for induction.

Pearl’s dad, August Heglund, drove Pearl, Gary and I from their home in Kasota, Minnesota, to the courthouse in St. Peter where I was to report. I met a small group of inductees, including a friend Ole P. Johnson and a neighbor Sylvester Wintheiser.

We were to board a Greyhound bus at Cook’s Cafe on Minnesota Avenue next door to the JC Penney Co. store where I started my long career with Penneys in 1938. As we waited for the bus and tried to say our “good-byes” someone dropped a nickel in the juke box and it played, “I’ll Be Seeing You In All The Old Familiar Places.” It became a “memory” for both of us through the war.

And now the more than 850 letters, which include notes from my diary kept on the back of photos in my album, and items I “somehow” kept while working on ship, and the pictures Pearl sent me for my album throughout the war will tell our story in the book we have called . . . . EVER THE LETTERS.

So “Come Back Now” with us to experience the story of a young couple and their son, separated for the first time by the war. This is what we wrote in our letters in 1944 and 1945. —Clair Bernhard and Esther Pearl Olson

I decided to start our story with a part of my letter w