DOWN THE ROAD A PIECE
By Jane D. Brown
Columnist
My mother and father met from a personal ad my mother posted in the Saturday Review of Literature in 1947. She was a journalist on Long Island. My father was a farmer in Maryland. They had very little in common except they both liked words. My mother asked to meet “a literary correspondent.” My father replied to the Box # provided in the tiny ad with a pompous letter hoping to sound erudite and well-read. My mother responded in verse.
The other thing both had in common was the desire to be married. Both were in their early 30s, late for marriage in those days. World War II had interrupted the traditional relationship trajectory. My father, eager to join his college friends in the Air Force, was grounded by his local draft board to stay on the farm and meet high quotas for soybeans and corn for the war effort. My mother, a sophomore in college, was called back to the family’s weekly newspaper to fill in for the men who were off to the front.
My father was frustrated that he used up all his gas rations for the farm machinery, so had no gas (or time) to drive the seven miles to town to socialize. He even wrote a letter to an advice columnist asking what he could do, complaining that he was also competing with the young men in uniform stationed at the naval training base a few miles on the other side of town.
During the war, my mother became the editor for letters home from the town’s sons and a few daughters who were stationed in Europe and the South Pacific. She edited a weekly column of the letters and wrote back to some. She also volunteered at the local U.S.O. and sold war bonds.
As the story goes, her heart was set on one of the young men with whom she corresponded. She thought he would return to marry her when the war ended. But he had met other women on his furloughs and chose one who lived in Chicago rather than my Mom. Some of her correspondents didn’t return at all.
My father, in the meantime, had hired a matchmaker in New York City who supplied him with a number of names. On his few weekends off, he took the train to the City and began to go through the list. Barbara Ballou, a photographer for Life magazine, struck his fancy. But so did Mom. For at least a few of those visits, Pop spent one day with Barbara in the city and the next day took the train out to Amityville to see Mom.
Apparently, Mom issued the ultimatum that a decision must be made. I, of course, am glad that Pop made the right choice. Florence Delano and Clarence Brown were married in October 1948. Mom moved to the farm, learning fast how to be a farmer’s wife and mother. My brother Carl was born the following June and my twin sister and I were born the next year.
Mom and Pop loved each other and being our parents most of the time. Mom wrote poems, a weekly column about us growing up on the farm, and made puns to which we groaned in unison. Pop cut out articles from the many magazines he subscribed to, including the Saturday Review of Literature, for us to read and discuss at the dinner table.
I retell this story as we are about to celebrate love on Valentine’s Day in another disruptive time in the world. I have to believe that love will prevail. That we will continue to find others to love even across distances and cultures. That we will work hard to ensure a future in which we all can thrive, just as my parents did.
Jane D. Brown taught in the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media for 35 years and has lived in Chapel Hill since 1977. This reporter can be reached at: Information@TheLocal Reporter.press.
Thank you for this lovely story, Jane. We have similar stories, in that our parents came to know each through letter writing — and you and I have both enjoyed careers as writers.
Mine is a Texas story. My mom was on her high school graduation trip on the way to New Orleans. The girls on the bus wrote their names and addresses on pieces of paper and whenever they passed soldiers along the way, threw the papers out the window. My father, in the Army, picked up Mama’s and wrote her — as did an airman at an air force base. She eventually met both of them, but two years later, chose Daddy. Maybe not the best choice, but they stuck it out ’til death they did part 63 years later!