"Lonely Girl" [Romancing in the ‘40s]

Lonely Girl
[Romancing in the ‘40s]

By Dennis L. Siluk



Part One

The Gem [1941]


Forces beyond our control sometimes determine human behavior, for example a passive kiss turns out to be an ongoing affair, and then turns into a longing affair. You know, things stick to their natural world, kind of like that - I mean, oh let me give you another example; for instance, nudity captivates [a poor example I know], and it is characteristically natural (or impulsively by nature, seemingly normal) to do so. In a like manner, gravity pulls; God plants—and Satan sows. Some folks call it naturalism; I call it forces beyond our control. It's just the way it is, the way it's always been.

I read the books: "Gone With the Wind," and "The Great Gatsby," and "The Old Man and the Sea," also, "The Scarlet Letter," possibly all the so called, Great American Novels: to me they were all great tragedies; even "Moby Dick," another great tragedy. What made them great was tragedy I suppose, a love gone, victory un-won. And so I shall tell you a story, it is one of many in a world of so many. A tragedy and romance mixed together, that had it not taken place, I'd not be writing this story. So tragedy has its attributes, let no one tell you different: and it has its memories. Sometimes just the memories allow us to live on in a world that would be hard to bear, too hard to bear alone.
She was born in 1920; her name was Teresa (Anton was her father's first name he had come over from Russia to America, in 1916, and fought in WWI), her boyfriend's name was Murray Young. The location of the story is in St. Paul, Minnesota, at a bar called, "Gem," 1941, November 1. The snow was coming down, big flakes, settling on the her smooth youthful, milky white skin, as she, Teresa open the door to the Gem bar, with her girlfriend Dorothy alongside of her, from Long Prairie, Minnesota, down to visit her folks for the Winter Carnival, and through Christmas. She was a high school friend of Teresa's and they would remain friends for fifty years, oh she didn't know it at the time, how could she, she was only 21-years old, but six of the fifty years were already used up. Dorothy would die before her; die some twelve years before Teresa. But I'm really ahead of my story. She opened the door, and they both walked in. Neither drank that much, but Dorothy, tall, nice looking, slim at the waist, a flirt, was checking out all the guys the moment allowed to catch, with little glimpses, as they got through the door finally. She wasn't a bad flirt, just a fun flirt you could say. There were men in military uniform all about, and there was Murray.
"Let's sit down over there," she pointedly said to Teresa, Dorothy with an eagle eye still scrutinizing the scene thereabouts.
"Sure," was Teresa's answer, it didn't matter one way or another to her where she sat; she could see this particular man, she did not know his name yet, called Murray, at an open table with another man. The booth they chose was cozy, private and mellow. It looked like mahogany wood with its auburn color, yet the bar was not the richly designed to have mahogany she thought. Their position in the bar was snug, concealed and calm so they both squeezed into opposite sides of it, even a mirror on the wall besides them, there they could check out the men inconspicuously.
You could see out the door the snow coming down; November in St. Paul was always winter wonderland. The city usually built a toboggan slide that reached from the Capitol, down a few blocks, ending up on 10th and Cedar streets, almost in front of St. Louis Church, and its Catholic school next to it, built in l886.
As one slid down the slide with their toboggan, they'd slide right into several stacks of hay. It looked dangerously fun, and it was exactly that, and it was all fun back in those days. And back up the long steep hill, three blocks long, one would go, once reached, you’d climb the big toboggan slide steps—up twenty feet or so, and down again you’d go, slide. It was how winters were in this Midwestern conservative city, as some have named it: the Twin Cities; but I shall leave out the rival city, Minneapolis, for they get their share of stories, and this one really does not belong across the river, the Mississippi, that separates the two cities.
Here, in the frozen north, where perhaps we all lived in a new mounting ice age, you had to make your own fun, or you’d have to hibernate the winter away like a bear. To add to this winter fun, or celebration, was the Ice Castles, the local city merchants build periodically in St. Paul, along with the Winter Carnival, the Pioneer Press sponsored, and was known throughout the world.
"Let's see your Id's," said the waitress - as they had sat down into the booth now. Teresa pulled hers out right away.
"September, just twenty-one by a week, ok, and you miss," she put out her hand for Dorothy's:
"Twenty-one by a few months; so what can I get for you young ladies?" Said the streetwise waitress, or seemingly so, for she talked in such a manner; she was in her late thirties.
"I'll take a vodka-sour," said Dorothy with an excited smile, adding, “I heard they were good, although I’ve never had one, but let's try."
The waitress nodded her head as if it was a good selection.
Said Teresa with a little more reserve, "How about just Coke on ice and put an olive, cherry or something in it so it looks like a drink," the waitress commented, "Coke is the same price as rum and coke would be, sure you don't want a little rum in it?" Teresa hesitated, "Well, just, just a pinch, no more."
Teresa kept looking at the young man with his friend - the clean shaving man, he looked a bit like F. Scott Fitzgerald she thought, over by a table next to the bar, it was Murray and Stan, Murray was about five foot eight, robust, light blondish hair, but not too blond to make him a real blond; he had a fresh—healthy creamy white completion, bright blue eyes, a good looker. Teresa was five foot-four inches tall, slim, with a nice full and round face, clear bluish green eyes, and a fresh look also, with a touch of reserve, and a lion in her, she kept the lion part hidden, but you knew it was there after a moment or two. But it all melted when Murray caught her glance, and her heart dropped to the floor, her mouth went dry, she quickly turned to Dorothy - as one might turn and say: ‘…what now! ~?’ But she did not say that, "I think I stared too long at...him, see, the one drinking the beer, the blond with the, the farmer, he looks like a farmer."
Dorothy looked, the farmer was taller than Murray, and had slimmer and longer hands, and tick fingers.
”He doesn't look like a dancer," said Dorothy, "and I want to dance, dance and dance the night away."
"You can teach him," said Teresa.
"Yaw, sure, why not."
Then they both started shifting their heads towards the two strangers, Murray and Stan. Although, Stan's back was facing the girl's booth, so the best look you could get of Stan was a view or full picture of his neck and head, and lounging limps, as they moved back and forth drinking his beer; when he leaned a bit forward to talk to his friend Murray, is when you got the profile view, his nose mouth and cheek came into the picture.
Then a Nat King Cole Trio song came on the jukebox, and Murray got up, started walking toward Teresa, it was like he was transfixed on her and only her, he was captivated. Teresa's smile started emerging, her heart started pumping - pounding, she never forget this moment, this magical moment, as he neared her (step by step), oh it was but a few feet I know, but to her it took an hours breath away, and it was hard to digest, swallow, and this moment would not go away for sixty years.
"Could I have this dance with you, miss...?" the words echoed for her, she glanced her eyes down, thought a moment - full of emotion, looked up into his youthful face, not sure why, it was as if she had a premonition, one that said, grab the moment, the whole moment, absorb it, take it all in, and when she turned her eyes back up they caught his, they were drawn into his like some magnetic force that only God could create, it was heaven on earth. You don't create these moments; she'd say to herself in times to come, they just happen, something human beings have little control over, it is beyond our senses.
She stood up, smiled as soft a smile as anyone could, and fragility appeared in her glowing eyes as her hand met his, for she was a hard working woman, hard to melt, but she was melting - even her voice quivered a ting, had been born to a Russian Family, and raised the past several years at St. Joseph’s Orphanage, and when she had turned sixteen, she lived with a family that she did housework for until she was eighteen when she moved back to her father’s house. Her mother had died when she was thirteen, and with nine kids, her father could not take care of them, or her. She had learned it was part of life though and held not grudges, no ones fault, no ill will detained. She was young and lovely to look at, and it was her time, whatever happened in the past, it was as it was, times were hard, and it was her time. She stood up, "My name is Teresa," she said with an excited voice, and a second big smile.
"I-" he was lost for words as he put out his hand, forgot his name for a second - even, "I'm Murray." And he put his hand around her thin waist, moved in a bit, and they danced slowly, and he hummed with the song, and she liked his humming, as she looked up from his shoulders to his face meeting his eyes. He swallowed a ton of air trying to calm down - almost hyperventilating, and started to feel a little cramped, excited, and took in a another deep breath, so he'd calm down. He wasn't sure if she had noticed, but he did, and so he stopped and suggested they join them in the booth.
"Sure," was her answer?
He looked into her eyes like a young kid would look at a bowl full of ice cream, his heart beating faster than the drums in the Nat King Cole's Trio band.
There they sat the night away, Teresa nursing her drink, and Dorothy with her farmer, who was as gentile and calm as the day is long. They got up several times, and danced: ending up, dancing the night away. He was clumsy, but for some reason she liked it, he could be taught she thought, and he was adorable in his own way: amiable. She still had that roaming eye though, and he noticed it, but she didn't notice him noticing, he just was enjoying the moment.
"Do you work around here," asked Murray in his slow spoken soft voice.
"Been working at White Castle, making hamburgers, but I'm going to go I think to Portland, Oregon with Dorothy, they got this community down there, with houses and all, and they pay you to work in the munitions plant. It is like a military base I heard, kind of."
Murray had heard about it and his smile disappeared for a moment and now his serious side developed. "Yaw, I heard about it, good money they say, I, I am going into the Army I think, not sure yet, possibly."
"Oh," she said nervously.
“Maybe not, who knows; I really like you, and that could put a stopper on it; you're very lovely." She had not heard a full-grown man say that before, it took a little courage for a man to be so gracious. He was three years older than she.
"I'd like to date you some more if possible?" He said with a serious tone to his voice, and boyish look. She didn't say a word, just nodded her head ‘yes,’ it was as if she was tongue tied, and not sure of what to say: happily tongue-tied.


Part Two

Decisions

December 7, l941. Teresa, and Murray, Stan and Dorothy, all dated for a month. Taking walks down by the Mississippi River which was but a few blocks from the Gem Bar, and would go shopping at the Emporium, and the Golden Rule, big department stores, getting ready for Christmas. It was a wonderful time for them, a breathtaking time to be alive. They talked about marriage, but only on the side, kind of testing the water one might say. Dropping a few words (a hint) here and there; Dorothy and Stan were getting it on even better than they, he was dropping over at her uncles house on Dayton Avenue daily, where Murray and Teresa would meet after her shift at White Castle, and she'd go listen to the radio at his apartment, and they'd talk. Teresa lived on Arch Street with her sisters and father. On the weekends they'd dance at the Gem, it was as life had dropped a stunning rainbow over them, a youthful, striking rainbow, and one that would never lift. But like all rainbows, God never promised they'd remain, only that He'd not destroy earth with one.
And so came December 7, 1941, the Japanese hit Peal Harbor, and the news went around the world like the eruption that covered Pompeii. It was a sad day for America, for Murray’s world; yet it woke up a sleeping giant, and now WWII would mold into the hearts of every American.
"I'm going in Teresa, I've got to," said Murray at the Gem Bar one evening, as they danced, it was December 17, ten days after the attack.
"I've got to join the Army; it's the thing to do."
"Well, how about Stan, is he going in?"
"No, he got what you call flat feet, couldn't make it, 4-f they say, can't run or something; but he'd like to. He's going to marry Dorothy he told me, if she'll marry him."
She, Teresa kind of remained silent lying in his arms as they danced, thinking she was, and thinking of how her life would be without him.
"Portland, is looking better, maybe Chicago," she murmured.
"Did you say something Teresa?" asked Murray.
“ Oh, nothing really, just thinking aloud."
"I hope you're not mad, but I got to go..." before he could finish the sentence she said:
"I know, you got to go to war, it's the way it is, isn’t it…." And she smiled.
Teresa, she knew he had to go, do his duty (as would her two brothers, Frank and Wally a few months down the line), because her father who came from Russia, had not been in America longer than a year before he had to go back to Europe and fight in WWI, she knew a man’s world involved war and soldiering (as it would me, her son, in twenty some years down the road, when I’d have to go to war in Vietnam, she’d say the same thing: ‘You got to do what you feel and think is right’) it was the way it was. And in years to come, she'd also have to accept her youngest brother’s death, in Italy, a few months before the war ended: WWII; and Wally would be a POW in Germany, who was one year younger than she. It was the way it was – ‘why,’ (who knows, ‘why’s’ never make sense anyways, when it comes to war); why—was not in the equation. Sometimes things determine our outcome, things beyond our imagination, our control; that was how it was looked at.
She snuggled into his arms, held in a tear never looked back up at him, it was too painful; it was shortly after that he had left. She would walk him down to the train depot, and wave him off, like so many other young boys back then, men I guess, they looked like boys with men’s bodies, she told herself.



Part Three

Omaha Beach


Omaha Beach-

[June 6, 1945—POW]


Private First Class Murray Young kept a picture of Teresa in his wallet and wrote to her as often as he could; in the picture she wore a sailor’s blue and white top, as a blouse, she looked as pretty as a spring sparrow he thought.

It seemed everyone in the Army spelled his name differently [Young, Yang, Younger, Yean and so on]. He sent a letter to Teresa that he was on one of the five thousand ships, twelve miles out, off the beaches of Omaha, the date: June 6, 1945. That he was looking at the coast of Normandy (Europe's France); he and 200,000 other troops that is, American and British troops - hopefully the letter would get back to her he pondered and gave it to the mailroom clerk on board.
The pathfinders had already left, the men who were to lighten the way for the drop zones of paratroopers, gliders, and infantry. This would be remembered as D-Day. Back home his sister was with her new child she was without a husband, and working at the munitions plant. As he expected Teresa might be, for she said she was going to Portland to work with her girlfriend in the little city-plant built for that very purpose, which was built in kind of a dugout, quarry type, looking area. Teresa's father was taking care of his restaurant, Tony's restaurant, and they, like the rest of the world was holding their breath to see the outcome of this Second World War [WWII].
H-hour, the assault troops were crunched in Coast Guard boats [LCA's] racing for shore, racing by the U.S.S. Augusta on the sidelines. Mountains of waves hit his boat on all sides, as they received direct hits from the Germans ashore, consequently blasting their boats in flames, mounds of flames, and many boats before they even got to shore were blasted apart.
You could see the soldiers holding weapons over their heads trying to make it to shore; gear on their backs, many drowning - many being crushed and sucked under the boats, with the boats, sucked to the bottom of the ocean, all struggling just to get ashore, whereupon, Germans were waiting for them. Many would die this day, Murray knew this: like so many knew, many would be wounded, and many were wounded before the day was over.
Men from the 4th Division at Utah Beach were also hit, lightly hit at first, but then came the artillery - one could hear the German made shells "88" explode among the troops, as they rushed out of the waters onto the beaches - checking to see if they were all together, adjusting their helmets, checking their rifles once they hit the beach.
General Norman Coat, walked aimlessly up and own Omaha Beach, wits, who knows; Murray fell to a shell, it blew shrapnel to the lower section of his leg, not off just full of shrapnel. He would be a POW for the rest of the war, which would not last long, and Teresa would get word of his detention; it was a rough day. Utah Beach was the biggest success of the day by far. And by dusk, Utah was in allied control, as Murray was pulled off Omaha by the enemy and put into a concentration camp.
The only thing Murray would remember of that day for a long time was Father Edward Waters' words, servicing the 1st Division. It was months after his arrival home that he got his full memory back.
And during his recovery, after the Germans gave up, he had received a letter that was three month old, a letter Teresa had written a few days prior to his Omaha Beach, flotilla adventure, it was a ‘Dear John Letter.’
It read: "Dear Murray, I have been dating another man, and I feel we need to call off our future plans. I'm sorry for giving you such news, especially while serving our country. As Always, Teresa"


Part Four

Chicago to Portland
And Back home


Teresa and Dorothy had ventured to Chicago, both working for Montgomery Ward's in the packaging department. It only lasted three months, and then they took a train to Portland and worked outside the city limits a bit, in the ammunitions plant.
There they stayed six months. And upon her return in 1944, back to St. Paul, Minnesota, she [she meaning: Teresa] started dating a man by the name of Ere Erwin Wright, and his friend, Adolph Gunderson. She then heard Murray had come back home and broke it off with both men. She liked Mr. Gunderson a bit more than Erwin, but she still had that spark for Murray. She had went to visit him at his parents home, there he looked at her as if she was a disloyal companion, and yet they both knew it was love, or so it seemed to be; possibly it was a trust issue for him, and she was young also, wanting to grab some adventures in life. Call it fascination, or call it lust, whatever captures two people, that is what it was, but his anger and hurt was too far imbedded into his bones: his marrow (whatever could have been, would not be), it dominated his character, his soul, he told her he couldn't see her ever again. She left that day, a little sadder than when she arrived. Maybe it was good, for his love wasn't strong enough to endure such hardships.
She started dating Mr. Gunderson again, and on the side, his friend Erwin. She never did marry, but dated a man thereafter by the name of Ernie Brandt, for forty years they dated, never marrying, and when she came to accepting Christ into her heart, she had to ask him to leave [he had then, after 40-years asked her to marry him, but he died; another story and tragedy]: he died thirteen years before her, and was ten-years older than her.
And when it was quiet in her home, at the ripe old age of 83, she took out his picture [Murray’s picture], and said to me: "There are probably not too many days that go by I don't think of Murray, he was a handsome man - wasn't he?" forever young he was; she died six months after she told me that. He was one of those men - those unbreakable men, and so was she.




Afterward to:

“Lonely Girl”

Rocking in Her Chair

She dreamt so high
that she never lost her dream
In the seeking of it,
And until the day she died—
she kept rocking in her chair
The memory of those far off days
That mattered…!

Note: #1395 7/23/006


[In Uniform] She had seen Murray once in his uniform, and kept a picture of him in it, at the time, he appeared as usual: a lean handsome figure of a young man: uniform pressed, comfortable, with an air of smoldering abrupt violence, and a ting of arrogance. She presupposed the Army put that in him it wasn’t noticeable before. He still had that warm nicety about him though.

[Overseas] It was not in her nature to differentiate between motives, whose results would be the same; he was who he was and perhaps he just was geared up for the war (is why he seemed different, after boot camp, and returning home before he went overseas to war)) WWII)); they had met, just once before he want overseas, his conduct was the same as when they first met, civilized, and polite. She found herself watching him with indifference, one with curiosity attached, as she might have looked upon her brothers going off to war. Perhaps spiritually unreasoned of his return, he’d not be the same. But when he was removed from her life, she saw it as for always; war does such things to folks you know.

[Cold Irony] Was it a judgment on her—? I don’t know, I suppose any one young woman is liable to write a foolish letter, as many did, in World War Two, what they would called a “Dear John Letter.” I got one in Vietnam, I wanted to forget it, the relationship I had in Germany that is, I suppose as Murray may have thought, wipe it off your mind, clear the mind so you can fight. And then when he returned, she found her flame was still burning, she was dying to know if it could be rekindled as it was before. Perhaps she had to ask him, lest she see everyone on the street with his likeness, a never-ending task to bear. So she asked. Men hide the hurt, and play with the anger, and I suppose he was angry. Oh well, all these guesses, she was dying to know anyhow, and there was an ounce of probability the candle could be relit. But it wasn’t. And perhaps better for it, she may have put him in the stove, and I’d not be writing this letter. And so life goes on. Being 21-years old, pretty, slim, and knowing your window to life is wide open is quite a fabulous thing, we don’t think it will ever close, but slowly it does, we get old. Thus, she would look back, I do not think in regret, but in the fact she had a road of life to look back on.

[The Room] And so now, at 83-years old, she sat in the sofa chair I gave her, in a large room, containing a wide long table aligned, a built-in cabinet with memorabilia in front of her, several feet away. Here she napped occasionally in the hot or brisk afternoons, among the many objects she purchased. All her rooms bore many objects. She spent most of the day sitting in this chair. It was to this room she’d retire, and spend her last days in.


Notes: ------------Dedicated to Elsie T. Siluk [Originally named: Almost Everyday] Sept. 18, 2004 [Reedited 7/22/2006] Afterward written at El Parquetito’s Café, and the La Favorita, in Miraflores, Lima, Peru 7/23/2006.