During the 1990s, a few years before my father, Dave, passed away in December of 2000, he wrote a 35-page autobiography. Excerpts from it will be published here, as companions to the diaries my mother, Dorothy, kept in 1945 and 1946—the year she met Dave. My dad was born in 1927, in Hamilton, Ohio. The family eventually moved to the south side of Chicago.
Part 19
Love and Marriage
Our first date was a moonlight cruise. Dinner and dancing on Lake Michigan, on a warm seventh of July, 1946. **
Just that morning, my best friend Chuck had arranged for me to meet Dorothy, and go on this double date with him and Dorothy's sister, Louise. Dorothy was 17, a senior at Englewood High School, and lived with her parents, Louis and Pauline, at 61st and Normal Boulevard, no more than a mile from where I worked. Besides her sister, she had a younger brother, Louis Jr.
The SS Theodore Roosevelt
Dave and Dorothy danced during their moonlight cruise to Gypsy, by The Ink Spots.
Dorothy and I began seeing each other every night, right from the start. I had no vehicle, and so our means of transportation was either a streetcar, the “L” (Chicago's elevated railway), or on foot. Our usual date was a movie–a double feature, for a quarter each. Afterwards, we'd stop at Karson's restaurant for pie and coffee, or along the street to the hot dog stand, which we'd bring back to her apartment building, where we'd sit on the front steps and eat.
Louise was also dating Vertus, who was the brother of one of Dot and Louise's friends, Lil. Vertus was an ex-Merchant Marine, who'd actually gone on a date with Dorothy, too, while he was on leave in 1945. We'd seldom go out on dates with the two of them, but Vert was one of the few guys around who had a car—a big, 12-cylinder Packard that would hold about ten people.
Vert and I quickly discovered that Louie—Dot & Louise's dad—loved to play cards. Specifically, pinochle. For money. We both got in fairly solid with him, once we'd played a few games. We had a lot of parties, too. Usually at a house of one of Dot's friends, like Sunny, or Bob, who Sunny had been going out with.
Dot and I became inseparable, and, on the night of my brother Charlie's wedding to Teresa, I did the old-fashioned thing, and asked Dot's parents, Louie and Pauline, for her hand in marriage.
We found a small, two-room apartment at 61st & Harper, cleaned it up, did some painting, brought in some second-hand furniture, bought dishes, and were ready to move in.
We were married at St. Martin's Catholic Church, at 59th St. near Wentworth, on a beautiful, warm fall day in September of the following year, 1947. Everyone turned out for our reception, in a tavern hall at 81st & Emerald. The whole crowd from Englewood Electric, most of my family, all the Poles and Lithuanians from Dot's side, and a bunch of people neither one of us knew. It was great fun; people said it was the best wedding reception they'd ever attended.
Louis and Pauline with their daughter, Dorothy, and their new son-in-law.
Dot did a traditional Polish dance with her dad, where the guests put money in the bride's handbag. The envelopes and gifts overflowed onto the table that had been set up to hold them.
We were supposed to vacate the hall at 2 am, but the tavern owner allowed all of us to stay two more hours, until four in the morning. My sister Ruth and her husband Bill drove Dot and I to our new apartment, then left to stay at my mother's.
Dot and I stayed up past 5 am, opening envelopes and counting the cash. In those days, hardly anyone ever wrote checks; a checking account was very uncommon. After a while, our entire floor was covered with money, cards and gifts. However, early the next morning (actually, it was the same morning), our great big pile of loot was considerably depleted when my mom and brother Charlie came by to borrow money. We never did get repaid.
Ruth and Bill still lived near Winemac, Indiana, and so, in the afternoon, they drove Dot and I to nearby Lake Bruce for our honeymoon. Since it was mid-September—late in the season—us newlyweds had almost the whole place to ourselves. We had a wonderful time.
Dot sent this postcard from Lake Bruce to her friend Sunny:
“Hi. Dave and I are really having a nice time here.
We've got a boat and a cute, 3-room house. Love, Dot.”
In those days, it was quite a journey from Lake Bruce back to Chicago. But we'd eventually make the trip many times, to visit my sister and Bill in Winemac. Dot and I would sit in the back of the bus and neck until we got near the city. Then we'd take the South Shore Line train (and sit and neck) to 87th St., where we'd catch the first of three streetcars, until we finally reached our little apartment.
Only a scant two years earlier, I'd been hacking my way thru a jungle, or jumping out of airplanes. I'd come a long way, and not only geographically.
* * *
[**In her diary, Dorothy writes, “In the afternoon, Chuck called Sis and asked her if she'd like to go on a moonlight cruise, and if I'd like to go with his boyfriend Dave. … We went on the S.S. Theodore Roosevelt. It was wonderful. I felt like people in the movies who go to Europe or Hawaii on a steamer. It was very cool and damp, and everything was simply beautiful. We danced to ‘The Gypsy’ and also ate. Got home at 2 am. Dave is a former paratropper, and is now a lab technician, 22, very quiet, tall and nice.”]
