Both Sides of the Canvas

We went to formal dinners at Malacañang, a palace built by the Spaniards about three hundred years earlier. It became the residence of American governors when the United States acquired the Islands after the Spanish-American War. That is where Imelda Marcos later kept her hundreds of pairs of shoes.

Daddy explained that champagne and wine would be offered at the table, and admonished me just to turn my glasses upside down. However, he was at one end of the oval table for forty guests and I was at the other. With a smile I raised my glass to him as I sipped both champagne and wine.

***

On December 7, the day Pearl Harbor was bombed, Troop E of the 115th Cavalry was on the high seas headed for the Philippines, with Hank aboard.

I had a one o’clock class with Barbara, the knitter of Hank’s gloves. We were both concerned for the dashing cowboy from Wyoming. I found a letter waiting for me one noon. Couldn’t wait to get to class to tell Barbara the good news—that the convoy had immediately returned to Los Angeles. Barbara hurried in and said, “Guess what! I just got this letter from him and he is all right!” I just let my letter burn in my pocket.

By the summer of 1942, the cavalry had been disbanded. Hank was with the Army at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and spent weekends with his brother’s family in Bethesda, Maryland. It was the perfect place for another, or should I say continuing, summer romance.

Frank Murphy was a member of the U.S. Supreme Court by then, and we visited him. We sat in the visitors’ gallery and observed Frank call a page and give him a card. The page came right to us in the gallery. This note on Supreme Court stationery said, “I think you two should marry.” I don’t recall the Supreme Court making any other decision that day!

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From November 1944 through April 1945, Francie and I were stationed at a Precombat Exhaustion Center. Soldiers came right off the front lines from this battle and other skirmishes, for forty-eight hours of rest and recreation, exhausted and dismayed by the war.

Sometimes soldiers found their way up to our room. When I answered a knock one evening, a young GI came in. The only place to sit was on the bed, so we sat side by side. I tried to talk, but he said, “No. I just want to sit here with you.” We sat in silence, not even touching, for about an hour. Then he said, “Thank you,” and left.

Waltzing with a lieutenant one evening, I saw tears streaming down his face. “I never thought that I would be dancing with an American girl again.”

Because of dancing so much, Francie and I had holes in the soles of our shoes. We stuffed them with cardboard and newspaper and kept on dancing. Francie’s were red, mine brown. When we parted company in April, she gave me a red shoe and I gave her a brown one.