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Then May 8, 1942, he entrained to Columbia, South Carolina. Dad
remembers that it was Jim Mauel’s birthday. (This is a character you will
meet again). Jim’s birthday cake arrived that day squashed flat, all
crumbs. They ate and enjoyed every bit of it. There in South Carolina, Dad
was assigned to the 11th Bomb Squadron and promoted to Private
First Class. At the same time this was happening, his parents, my Grandma
and Grandpa Wipp, his sister Margaret and his fiancée
They spent a couple of days in Columbia, touring the
town, just being together. Dad could get a pass from 10AM till 6PM. They
would pick him up at the gate and then they would go sight seeing. They
weren’t there very long when Dad’s parents and sister had to say good-bye
and return home. Mom, who stayed behind to be with Dad a few extra days,
tried to find a room in a town where there were no rooms to be had. While
walking down the street, in a light rain, the cardboard suitcase she was
carrying fell apart and spilled. The lady of the house took pity on her
and gave her a curtained off room at the end of a hallway. Dad and Mom
wanted to get married even though Grandma and Grandpa weren’t in favor of
it, especially since Dad was heading overseas. And yet, Grandma and
Grandpa had allowed Mom to stay with Dad the night before he had to board
the train for Fort Sheridan. No one knew what the future might hold. But
they were headstrong.
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Eleanor
Wermuth (my Mom) were on their way from Madison, Wisconsin in Grandpa’s
brand new $700, 1941 Chevrolet to say good-bye. Dad had gotten word to
them that he had his travelling orders, most likely overseas and they
wanted to see him before he left. But they were on their way to Savannah,
Georgia, not Columbia, South Carolina. They didn’t know he had been moved
to South Carolina. A soldier was not allowed to put his orders in writing
or to mention his destination over the phone wires. So before Dad left
Georgia, he went around to all the guardhouses and told the guards where
he had been transferred to, described who would be coming and what they
looked like and asked them to give his family that information when they
arrived at the gate. Then when he arrived in South Carolina, he again went
around to all the Columbia guardhouses and asked them to be on the lookout
for his family. He told the guards he would come check at the gate at 10,
12, and 2, every two hours, hoping to meet his family. Dad came at 10 the
day they were expected and they were not there. He came again at 12 and
still no one. He came early at 1:30 and there they were waiting for him at
the gate, by the side of the road.
It
happened. They got married that week on the 16th of May, in a
church, at 4:30 P.M. with confessions going on all around them. Mrs.
Bellissima, a roomer from the house Mom was staying at and that cake
eating buddy of Dad's, Jim Mauel, were their witnesses and Best Man. After
the ceremony and paper signing, they went back to the room where Jim Mauel
said he was staying the night. Dad said they couldn’t get rid of him! He
just sat on the bed and kept joking and talking. He finally left and they
had one night together. The next morning Dad shipped out for Port of
Embarkation, Charleston, South Carolina.