My freshman year at Swarthmore I roomed on North Wing, where Phyllis Lohr also roomed. We became friends, and she invited me to come up to their home in East Orange, At which time I met all the family, Free's Dad, Mom and two kid brothers (Harper and Stuart. 9 and 13 years younger than Free). At that time Isabelle picked me out for her oldest son. She said, "It’s really too bad Freeman isn't here; I'm sure he'd really go for Cindy." , But I well remember how I was mooning over Dave Riley at that time. I was quite madly in love with him.
This was in the spring of 1941, and I didn't meet Free until that September. That was when another North Wing friend, Kala Rosenthal invited me to go to the Strath Haven Inn for dinner with her family and some other friends . Her Dad had also invited Freeman to come along to keep him company so he wouldn’t be the only man. So that evening was our first meeting and the Rosenthals always claimed credit for getting us together!
After dinner we sat on the porch in rocking chairs and rocked and talked for a long time, and began to get acquainted.
Free was starting to date the gals on his sisters hall, going down the hall in order. He had a date with her roommate, Brenda, then Dorrie and her roommate, and that night he asked me for a date, for about a week later. I think we went to a T.P (stands for table party; we would have dinner in the dining room, and then go to the fraternity house to dance to records.) We stopped at the "math bench" on the way back to the dorm and he tried to kiss me; tsk tsk, on the very first date. I resisted, and he kept saying, "It must be the moon." It was full and beautiful that night. Also, I still thought I was in love with Dave, who had transferred to Tufts that year.
It was a crazy fall, and Free was falling in love with me.
I would date him one weekend, and think he was pretty neat; then go up to Tufts for a dance with Dave and decide he was the one. I had both Free and myself quite shaken up by my vacillating back and forth. After all, Dave was a boy scout type, and Free had such a fast reputation. And all this time, studying was kind of a necessary afterthought.
Dave came down for part of Christmas vacation at the hotel, but by this time, I'd pretty much made up my mind that Free was the one, and it amazes me to this day, my reasoning. I'd seem both of their attitudes and reactions to their families; Dave didn’t seem to show or have much respect for his parents; I knew that Free would make a much better father, just because of the way he was around his kid brothers, and the way he talked about his family. How did I have that much sense at age 18?! Anyhow, I managed to break off with Dave during that visit; we took the train together to Newark, and I said goodbye to Dave, and kissed Free hello at the station, and that was the end of Dave; he went on north to Boston,( and married someone else, had 3 bratty kids, and ended up with a divorce.)
Soon after that weekend in East Orange, we went back to college, and became "pinned" - (Jan. 11) that is, I
started wearing Free's fraternity pin. I was a D. U. "Sister" and thrilled about it.
That spring semester of "41 was crazy; the war was on, and college was adjusting to it - speeding up exams, no review period. Deciding to have a summer semester. The draft was on and to stay in college, Free had to get deferred. He made one rush trip home to see the draft board when ;he found out he was only deferred until April 10th. Dean Hunt had written a letter to his father saying the college couldn’t ask for him to be deferred again because his marks weren't good enough, but Freeman went around to all of his professors and they said that on the basis of this semester's marks, they would advise the board to defer him again. He also had to file his income tax (because of spending last year out working in Gary, Indiana)
Both of us spent several weekends up in East Orange, and always a family bridge game going on, as well as trips to NY to Natural History Museum, or to shows. Pretty exciting stuff for me, and Gram was very good at arranging things for us. A lot of ice skating that winter, too, both at Estling Lake and on the Crum at college. Freeman was the #one diver at Swarthmore, so I attended the swimming meets to watch him, and even got to go with the team, to one away meet at Lehigh.
In June, as soon as spring semester was over, Free had his appendix out, and came down to the hotel for a few days’ recuperation; we had a lovely lazy time at the beach, and resting up for the summer semester. (It wasn't long after that when the army took over the hotel as a place for basic training.)
I had decided to attend college during the summer, too, because I couldn't stand to be away from Free. and of course he had to go right thru, in order to keep his army deferment.
The summer of 42 was a crazy hot summer. We got up to Estling Lake once or twice; Kirby went with us once, and we had some great sailing in the snipe. Roger had graduated in June, and Phyl wasn't attending in the summer, but she and Roger came down for a weekend at college.
For a time during fall semester, Free was considering whether to enlist in the ground school of the air corps as an engineer - the only way he figured he could get a commission.
At Thanksgiving we had classes and labs, but Free and I did get invited to Prexy Nason's for Thanksgiving dinner. And then we went to East Orange to Lohrs’ for the weekend, and to talk about plans for announcing our engagement. Free got a job for Christmas Vacation with American Express, or whoever it was that delivered packages in those days, and with that plus what he'd saved, he earned enough to buy the engagement ring. My family was living with Pappy's parents, (Tata and Pede) at 137 N. Harrisburg Ave., Atlantic City) so that's where we announced the engagement; Free's parents came down, Dec. 26 and we had a family party, and went out for dinner. Then we went up to East Orange and had another party there with our college friends, on New Year’s Eve.
That was quite a night. We must have had 5 or 6 girls sleeping in Mom and Pop Lohr’s bed; the fellows were all up on the 3rd floor. Things were different in those days (but we had our chances on the couch, and in the car of course).
Free got thru exams, and graduated in Feb., 1943.
He was able to get a waiver down to 8-20 for his eyesight (He'd worn glasses since first grade.) When he had the eye test, they kept telling him to squint, and to try again. They were desperate for enlistees in the C. B.,"s (Navy Construction Battalion). So he went in with a commission as an Ensign, and to basic training in Camp Perry, near Williamsburg, VA. On Easter weekend, we met in Washington and stayed at Aunt Midges in Chevy Chase. We went to the Washington Zoo, and there in front of the monkey cage, we decided to get married in June. Free knew it would be a struggle to convince my parents to give their blessing, but he did it. One reason he thought it was a good idea - the last paycheck he'd received wasn't as big as the Ensign in front of him in line. “How come?” he asks. “Because I'm married,” the Ensign replies. So Free decides right then and there that will never do. He's got to get married ASAP.
So that spring semester for me was really hectic. We had talked to our good friends, and Free's fraternity brother - Chuck Martin, and his wife She'd grown up next door to me in Atlantic City; they'd been married Christmas Vacation (they'd graduated the previous June) so we just followed in their footsteps; made arrangements for the wedding at the same church - Swarthmore Presbyterian, with reception at Strath Haven Inn, where we'd first met. We had to go for a "Dutch uncle talk" with the minister before he would agree to marry us. Mother and I went shopping for dresses mine and bridesmaids - ordered invitations with the date left blank...Made arrangements for the reception. Free wanted to be married on June 1st (so he'd be able to remember the date on our anniversaries) - It happened to be on a Tuesday - crazy day of the week for a wedding. I had addressed the envelopes; everything was ready, and he'd put in a request for a leave at that time, but every letter he wrote, he had not received official permission to get a few days off.
It's getting closer and closer to the date, and I'm getting more and more frantic. (All this going on while I'm trying to get thru my courses too - 1st semester of Senior Year.)
On Thursday, May 27 I finally got a call from Free saying that the commander had lost the request for leave – that’s why we hadn't heard, but he was sure that the request would be granted.(Still not issued in black and white, though) but for me to go ahead and send out the invitations. So that night I filled the date June 1st in the blanks, and put them in the mailbox that Thursday night. 100 of them; we didn’t expect more than 75 people, and there was a weekend and a holiday before the day of the wedding... would anyone get there?
Free arrived at Swarthmore real early on the morning of June 1st, 1943, our wedding day, and we went to the druggie for breakfast (in the rain, with my hair up in pin-curls). Seems to me we also had to go to Media to pick up the license that morning. I had applied for it the week before, and had to take my mother with me because I was under 21.
No one had gas - the rationing was very intense; so everyone had to come by train. The wedding was scheduled for 2:30 - Phyllis and Betsy were my attendants, and Free had Bruce McConnell as best man, but the other attendants were Fraternity brothers, (just whoever was left on campus. All of his other friends were off in the war.) They were actually classmates of Kirby's. and hadn't been drafted yet.
No second thoughts when it came time to take the vows, but I did shed tears when the organist played
“Liebestraum” while I was waiting to come down the aisle. Grandpop gave me away, (even though he didn't approve) because Pappy was away in basic training. Grandpop thought we should wait until after the war.
The reception was at the nearby Strath Haven Inn. Before this the weather had cleared and it was quite hot and muggy; I remember sweat running down my legs while we were in the receiving line and also out on the lawn for picture taking. Toward the end, I changed into my trousseau travelling outfit, and we ran thru a shower of rice to Bruce and Dorrie McConnell's car, and they drove us off - all the way to 30th Street station in Philadelphia.
There we boarded a train for Newark, and ran into almost all the wedding guests who had come from the north. Free's Mother - thinking we would like to be alone said, "Free, don't you want to take Cindy to the dining car?" Free's reply was "Sure! Come on, Harper, come on Stuart, )they were ages 14 and 10,. or thereabouts, so we 4 went to the dining car, and me with confetti still sticking to me. l was embarrassed. When we got to Newark station, about ten of us piled into Pop Lohr's car, and drove to 64 Ely Place. There we got Gram's old maroon Pontiac, and finally were alone at last, to drive out to Estling Lake for our 3 day honeymoon. Then Free had to go back to Camp Peary, and I was able to join him there for about two weeks. He had found housing for just 5 days, so pretty soon after I arrived, I started the search for another room somewhere, really just walking the streets and looking and asking. Conditions were pretty awful; and the locals were crowding just as many service people in as they possibly could. I was very lucky to find a house where we actually had a bedroom with a door that closed. But downstairs in this same house, they rented the living room and dining room out to 3 or 4 couples; just beds with curtains separating them. Wartime conditions were rough. And it was hot as hades in Williamsburg, and no air conditioning at all, and we didn’t even have fans. We just oozed. We made good friends with another Navy couple, who had the other upstairs bedroom, and we went out to dinner with them at the Williamsburg Lodge.
Free was trained as a deep sea diver at Camp Peary, and then taught diving school - but he couldn't qualify his men as 2nd class divers because there wasn’t 90 feet of water nearby, where they could do a dive.
We had a few other weekends together that summer; travel on the RF& P railroad from Richmond to
Washington was terrible crowded, never enough seats, and an awful roadbed. We were always sitting on suitcases. Somehow it wasn’t quite so bad from Washington to Philadelphia. In late August, Freeman had his embarkation leave, ten days so we were able to go back to Estling Lake for a few days, and also had one big night out in New York; went to hear Duke Ellington at the Hurricane Club. Of course we had no idea where he would be sent, but he was assigned to the 117th Naval Construction Battalion.
It turned out to be Gulfport, Mississippi. I went back to Swarthmore to face Comps (comprehensive exams, and I really had to study around the clock almost, because of taking time off.
Managed to get thru that grind, and oral exams too, and didn't hand around for Graduation, but hopped the first train south to New Orleans. took two nights sitting up to get there, and when I arrived, Free was out on maneuvers for the next three or four days.
Pappy and Gramagin were stationed in New Orleans, (what an amazing coincidence, out of all the places in the US they could have been sent) So I was able to wait there till Free got back. When I first saw him, I wasn’t sure who he was. He had a moustache, uuugh. But it didn’t last long. I didn't like kissing a toothbrush, and after just a couple of hours, he got rid of it.
We were in Gulfport until February, when Free was shipped out, to who knows where. He was very lucky (they were stationed at Red Hill in Pearl Harbor) and were there for his first year overseas. He loved being there, and clear water, and beautiful fish. Used to dream of someday opening an underwater night club, where the fish could entertain the patrons.
