WITH LOVE–IN WARTIME MARSEILLES

This is one of my favorite pictures of my mom and dad, Lt. Nurse Helen Eberhart Daley, and Captain Dr. Frank R. Daley. If you’ve read WITH LOVE WHEREVER YOU ARE, maybe you remember their rare and romantic getaway in Marseilles, underneath the barn of a French Resistance farmer. Some days young Frank and Helen believed the war would end that very week, and other days they wrote that it felt like the war would never end.

I’m so thankful for the emails and letters I’ve received from sons and daughters of WW2 parents. We all honor our heroes in different ways and still feel a connection.

This month, the e-book of WITH LOVE is on sale everywhere for $2.99. I’m using the sale as an excuse to reminisce.

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FRANK’S PATIENTS

Captain Frank R. Daley was sent from a wartime makeshift hospital in Alsace-Lorraine to a battlefield battalion aid station inside wartime Germany . . . probably because he refused to cut his hair (Helen loved those thick curls.) and, to add insult to injury, then said to his bald commanding officer, “So it’s true then.” “What?” demanded the officer. Frank shook his head and replied, “Misery really does love company.” Frank didn’t get the haircut, but he did get a freight train to the battlefield. He joined a British unit and performed surgeries in tents with mud floors. Toward the end of the war, he was able to doctor civilians, as well as soldiers. This is a photo of just a few of those patients.

SALE: WITH LOVE, WHEREVER YOU ARE– $2.99 for 2 weeks, the e-book everywhere

This is the day I’ve been building up to in these posts. Thanks for sticking with me this far. For the 2 weeks of the sale, I’ll be posting more war photos and hoping you’re not tired of me. . . or of my parents’ story.

WITH LOVE, FRANK’S PHOTOS

My last post showed a picture Helen sent to Frank. On the back of that photo, Helen wrote: “Don’t miss the background–someone always close.” The background showed her pictures of Frank. I wish this photo were clearer, but it’s evident that Frank had the same idea. On the back of this photo, he wrote: “my writing table.” The last years of Mom’s life, first in Missouri, then in Ohio with us, on her dresser she had pictures of Frank. And on the window ledge beside her bed sat their wedding picture, the framed photo above, on the right, the couple in their Army uniforms on their wedding day. It was the last thing she saw every night. I’m looking at it now, as it’s on the wall just to the right of my computer screen.  What special pictures do you keep close?

WITH LOVE…LETTERS & PHOTOS

Young Helen and Frank met in basic Army training during WW2. They only knew each other for a few weeks before getting married and then being shipped overseas to the front lines–to different fronts, different countries. For months at a time, all they had to keep their marriage together were 3 things: Love letters (They wrote 2-3 times a day, every day.); prayers; and photos, like the ones you see in the background beside Helen’s bunk. Helen’s bracelet was a gift from Frank. In one of his letters, he mentions that one of the German prisoners was making bracelets out of foreign coins for men to send home to their wives. Frank collected coins from every city where he and his wife pulled off a rendezvous. And now, I have that bracelet.

WITH LOVE…WHEREVER YOU’RE GOING

Lt. Frank on a German Freight Train

My last post was of Mom (Helen) in her helmet, so I needed to post this one of Dad (Frank) in his. He hated to cover his curly black hair, but he definitely needed to wear his helmet. Here, he’s on a “captured” German train that had carried prisoners to concentration camps. He and a few other doctors are heading to Alsace-Lorraine, and then he’ll move into German battlefields. In case you’re wondering what’s with that odd expression, the only words on back of the photo are: “I’m sucking on a piece of hard candy.”

WITH LOVE…WHATEVER YOUR BAGGAGE

I love the smile on Lt. Helen Eberhart’s face here. This photo doesn’t give her location, but I’m guessing someone snapped the picture early in her WW2 service as an Army nurse in England and France. Look at those un-Army shoes, which soldiers weren’t to wear, and this must have been one of the few times she wore her helmet (She hated all Army “hats.”). And yet . . . look at that smile.

WITH LOVE, WHEREVER YOU ARE continued

Guess what! I thought I’d have to rely on photos I posted last year, but I discovered some new ones–if you call pictures from 1944 new. They weren’t in the Army trunk, but in a very small photo album I discovered while searching for something in the attic. The photos are a bit faded and blurry; but if you’ve read the book, you’ll recognize Lt. Helen Eberhart Daley and Lt. (later, Capt.) Frank R. Daley, Army nurse and doctor in WW2, my parents.

MERRY CHRISTMAS#3

Merry Christmas, once again! True, this is a pretty funny card, pasted together by my dad. But it makes me think about the way my multitude of Christmas memories bounce around in my mind. At the time, this was my family (minus Santa): Mom and Dad looking much as I picture them in their WW2 days, young and handsome; my sister, Maureen, urging me to be quiet; Sugar, our first and beloved horse; Susie, our Dalmatian dog (I think that’s Susie at Santa’s feet.); a hint of house and fireplace; and a book. I’m not sure how much I understood about the true meaning of Christ’s birth, but that would come. Merry Christmas!

I would love to hear about your favorite Christmas memories!

MERRY CHRISTMAS #1

It’s never too early to send Merry Christmas wishes, is it? My friends tease me because my card is usually the first they receive. Little do they know that I write my cards around Halloween and wait to mail them as long as I can stand it. And so, I’ll be posting a Christmas card every now and then throughout December. This is one Dad enclosed in Christmas cards about 5 years after WW2. As you can see, my sister, Maureen, and I are engaged in a serious discussion about reindeer. Sometimes, instead of sending a picture of us at Christmas, Dad would send people pictures of themselves, photos he’d secretly snapped of them during the year. People did seem to like those photos better than the ones of Maureen and me.