TBT - Oma & Opa's Story

In honor of Valentine's Day coming up, I'll be sharing some family love stories.  The first is that of my grandparents, known in the family as Oma and Opa.  I've always loved this story and we all laugh when we talk about it.

I've taken this account from Opa's personal history.  As the story begins, Opa is in training as a bombadier in the Army Air Corps in 1945.  He'd been awaiting an overseas assignment when Japan surrendered.

After a couple of weeks we were told to begin processing.  I in my naive way thought we were still going overseas, but I soon found out that we were being sent to Biggs Air Base in El Paso to train in a group called Project Wonderful which would be included in the occupation forces for Japan.  The so-called project never got off the ground and gradually the crews were broken up.

Opa at Bombadier School

Because we had no duties to perform, [my roommate] Woody and I would go into El Paso.  I was also friendly with two of the enlisted men I knew.  John "Cornsilk" Blair was the tail gunner on our crew.  The ther man, Herb Adams, was a gunner on Woody's crew.  They often invited me to go to town with them, but I was not in the mood.  They came back one day and told me they had met three student nurses from the Hotel Drive School of Nursing.  They had asked two of the girls for dates, and had arranged for me to be a blind date for the third.  I was not happy about the situation, but finally agreed to go.  This turned out to be one of the most important decisions of my life.

Herb's date was Doris, Cornsilk dated Lu, and my date was named Hazel.  She was the oldest of the three and was a divorcee.  Our date was to go bowling.  During the course of our bowling, two other student nurses came into the bowling alley.  Doris introduced them as Edith and Ricki.  She told us that Edith was married but Ricki was single.  I thought nothing more about the incident at that time, but the next date I had with Hazel I was to pick her up at the nurses home of Manresa.  When I got there, however, she was not there but the acting hostess for the evening was Ricki, who was reading a book [the cover of which was wrapped in brown paper].  I struck up a conversation with her and teased her that she was reading that book like it was Forever Amber.  This book was not on the approved list for reading by young Catholic girls.  Ricki blushed, but did not admit that she was indeed reading that book.

It soon became evident that I had been stood up on my date, but it really didn't matter because I had already decided I would not be going out with Hazel again.  I relayed this to Herb and Cornsilk, but stated that if Ricki was unattached I would like to go out with her.  Herb passed this on to Doris who asked Ricki if she would be willing to go out with me.  She said she would on condition that I break off with Hazel.  The following Friday the original six of us were scheduled to go to a high school football game.  Doris and Lu asked Ricki to come along so that she might get to know me better.  She agreed and so at the football game I sat between Ricki and Hazel.  After the game I told Hazel I no longer wanted to date her but preferred to date Ricki.  That ended that relationship in a hurry.  Ricki and I dated a few times before I went home on leave for the month of November.

Oma in Nurses' Training

Since Ricki was going to class and working as a nurse as well, we had to catch what time we could when it was available.  She often worked a split shift so we went to the movies a lot, bowled, and I introduced her to the "sport" of professional wrestling.  At first she was quite appalled at the "viciousness" of the sport, but soon learned that it was all a show and we enjoyed ourselves.

Shortly after my leave, I was transferred to Roswell, NM, and for the next seven weeks all we had to do was sign in every morning at 7:00 and we were then free for the day.  I would leave Roswell about 8:00 a.m. on Friday and drive to El Paso 210 miles away.  I soon found a little hotel not too far from Manresa and had a standing reservation for every weekend.  I would leave El Paso about 10:00 p.m, arriving in Roswell about 5 hours later.  One night the roads were completely iced over and after sitting in my car for about two hours, a road crew came and pulled me up the hill to where I could get the necessary traction to go on.  I barely made it back to the base at Roswell in time to sign in.  I continued to go to El Paso as often as possible to see Ricki, and in a few weeks we decided to get engaged.

Courtship

Near the end of February 1946, I received order to report to a base in Denver for separation from the Army.  Twenty-four hours later I was a civilian again.  I had told Ricki that I would return to El Paso to spend a few days with her following my discharge.  [Then I returned to Wyoming to begin see my family, get a job, and get on with my life.]  I started to drive the delivery truck for Pepsi.

I took a week off in May to go to El Paso to bring Ricki back when she had a vacation from school.  When we left El Paso, we weren't sure just what would happen but were willing to let nature take its course.  Ricki and I soon found that we were deeply in love and talked of marriage.  At the same time, she wanted to finish her nurses training and become a registered nurse.  I did not object to this, but still wanted to marry her.  The wedding proceeded [in early June 1946].

Wedding Day

We had a short honeymoon because Ricki had to start back to El Paso [to continue with her nurses training].  How I hated to see her go, but I had made her a promise that I would not interfere and I kept that promise.  Ricki was to return to Wyoming at Christmastime, but that seemed like a long way off.  With Ricki gone, the time dragged, but I was attempting to make the best of it.  We wrote each other every day, and then there was the occasional telephone call to help pass the time.

The early part of December I had a telephone call from Ricki advising me the nuns at the nursing school had been advised that she was married [which was against the rules].  She had less than six months to go before getting her RN certificate, but we decided that she should resign and come to Wyoming immediately so that we could begin our married life.  She had completed all of her educational requirements for her nurses degree and so she was able to get a job at the local hospital.

O&O, Shortly after their 68th wedding anniversary.

I love the part of the story where Oma was covertly reading a racy novel and Opa calls her on it.  So funny!  When we were together in California over Halloween last year, I gave Oma a late birthday present: an old edition of Forever Amber, which I'd found for a few dollars online.

She thought it was funny, too, and we all had a good laugh about it.

PS> Perhaps Oma's conversion story will be the subject of another TBT, but for now I'll just say that after spending the first 7 years of their marriage worshiping in both the LDS and the Catholic churches, Oma was baptized into the LDS Church.  About a year and a half later, Oma and Opa were sealed in the Manti Temple, the same temple where Opa's parents had been sealed.