GI Brides: The Wartime Girls Who Crossed the Atlantic for Love (46 page)

Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite
HarperCollins authors.

 

 

by Nuala Calvi

G
ROWING UP
, I always saw my grandparents as picture-perfect. Although my grandfather, Patrick, had retired from his high-flying job in Geneva, they both retained an air of success and glamour when I visited them at their home in the Buckinghamshire countryside. My grandmother was still beautiful, even in her old age, and she prided herself on being the last lady in England to starch her napkins.

My grandmother didn't want to spoil this perfect image by letting people know about her disastrous first marriage, so she was happy to give the impression that Patrick was the father of her children. When my mother was a child and the family dentist told her, “Your teeth are just like your father's,” she knew instinctively to nod and smile.

As we grew older, my sister and I gradually became aware that Patrick wasn't our biological grandfather, but we too got the sense that the subject was best left alone, and we didn't ask too many questions. Even when Patrick died, my grandmother begged my father not to mention in his eulogy the amazing thing he had done in bringing up three girls who weren't his own.

But after Patrick's death, my grandmother began opening up more about Lawrence. When I was researching my first book,
The Sugar Girls
, and interviewing lots of other old ladies, I began to wonder why I wasn't recording her story too. I started interviewing her about her experience as a GI bride—but it wasn't easy. She could be prickly, and telling me about the awful things that had happened to her was difficult. The things I learned about my real grandfather shocked me, and I felt furious with him for how he had treated her. But the time for secrecy had passed. “I'm an old woman now,” she declared. “I don't care what anyone thinks!”

The interviews were curtailed in late 2011, when my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, and hours before she died I made my promise to write a book about her one day. Months later, when my editor started asking me and my partner, Duncan, what our next book was going to be about, I knew exactly what to tell him. Soon we were on a plane to America.

As well as finding other war brides to write about, I wanted to retrace my grandmother's journey. In New York I found the pier where the
Mauritania
had docked. I stood there, trying to imagine myself in my grandmother's shoes—a very young woman with a baby, arriving in such a huge city, only to find that her husband hadn't turned up to meet her. The story I had heard was starting to feel more real to me.

Next we travelled to Akron, Ohio, where Lawrence had worked for Goodyear. There, I was sad to see that the grand department stores my grandmother had described to me were all gone. It was impossible to find the summer house she had lived in, because it had no street address. All I had was the number of the rural delivery route it had been on, but the archivists at the local library found a 1940s postal map and we drove to the area, which was still quite remote. No wonder my grandmother had told me: “It's hard for you to realize how totally and completely isolated I was. I was completely alone.”

A nurse at the local hospital pointed out the wing that had been the maternity ward in the 1940s, where my aunt Maeve had been born and where my grandmother had endured that agonizing labor, alone in her hospital bed. I found myself wishing that I could go back in time and hold her hand.

Although Lawrence had long since died, I felt curious about my long-lost American family and decided I wanted to track them down. But I felt nervous—how would they feel about my turning up, almost seventy years after my grandmother had taken the children and run away? I found a number online for Lawrence's only surviving sister, Judy, by now in her nineties, and dialed it nervously. Judy's daughter Betsy answered, and to my relief was pleased to hear from me and urged me to visit them in Florida. A few days later I was standing on Judy's doorstep in Atlantic Beach, being hugged like one of the family. “Your grandmother was such a lovely lady,” Judy told me. “I am so sorry for what happened to her.”

Talking to the family, I realized they were under no illusions about Lawrence's alcoholism. Betsy showed me the space in the basement that was known as “Uncle Lawrence's Room,” because he would come to live there when he was on a downward spiral. But I also discovered that Lawrence could be a generous person when he wasn't in the grip of addiction. His nephew Spike took me out on a speedboat to see the amazing house my grandfather had built on the Intracoastal Waterway during the time when he was a successful boat magazine publisher, and I heard how Lawrence had spent hours bringing food and water to all the neighbors when the area had flooded.

Judy put me in touch with Lawrence Rambo Jr., Lawrence's son from his second marriage, who lived seventy miles down the coast. Like his father, he was far from conventional—a former heavy-metal musician, who now designed sound systems for some of the top names in show business. The stories he told me about his visits with his father after his parents divorced were all too familiar from my grandmother's experience: he too had often found Lawrence passed out drunk on the floor in his own vomit. But Lawrence Jr. also told me how much he had loved his father, and what an exciting dad he could be—how he would tell gruesome stories about a character called Rawhead and Bloody-Bones, and let Lawrence Jr. and his sister cook up their own homemade gunpowder. I was struck by how similar he sounded to my aunt Maeve, who had always let my sister and me get away with murder and told us terrifying tales around the campfire.

Lawrence Jr. also showed me the first picture I had ever seen of my biological grandfather. When I looked into his dark eyes, I felt as if I recognized him somehow.

From Florida I travelled to Arlington, Georgia to find Lawrence's older sister Ellen's house, where he and my grandmother had stayed. We arrived in town late at night and were driving around looking for a motel, when I spotted a derelict house on a corner. Its white paint was peeling off and its roof had collapsed, but somehow I just knew it was Ellen's house. The door was off its hinges and we went inside by torchlight. Ellen had died years ago, but on the floor were scattered letters addressed to her, and I realized my intuition had been right.

The next day I met Jeanneen Cowart, the widow of one of Lawrence's nephews, who lived next door. She took me to the local cemetery, where I was surprised to see row upon row of graves marked Rambo—as well as Hattaway, my great-grandmother's family. Suddenly, I was surrounded by ancestors I never knew existed.

In the University of Georgia library I found articles Lawrence had written for the
Atlanta Constitution
as a “Georgia Boy Abroad” during the war, perhaps styling himself after Ernest Hemingway. They gave a sense of his wit and adventurous personality, and to my surprise I felt quite proud of him. Where once I'd simply seen him as the villain of my grandmother's story, now my feelings about him were more ambivalent.

But at the National Archives in St. Louis were some documents that I found much more troubling—the papers from my grandfather's court martial. They included a memo from General Eisenhower himself, questioning whether being discharged from the army was a severe-enough sentence for a man who had ripped off Red Cross clubs all around London. And most disturbing of all was the psychiatric report on Lawrence, which my grandmother had never seen. The medical diagnosis was: “Constitutional psychopathic state, inadequate personality manifested by emotional immaturity, excessive indulgence in alcohol, and defective judgment.”

The words sent a shiver down my spine, and I couldn't help wondering—if my grandmother had read them, would she have decided against going to America, and saved herself all that suffering?

If she had, of course, I wouldn't be here to tell the tale.

About the book

A Conversation with Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi

Q:
You interviewed more than sixty women for
GI Brides.
How did you decide which people to focus on?

A:
Interviewing so many women gave us a great insight into the experience of being a GI bride, but for the four main characters we needed stories that really stood out—where the women had faced adversity and grown as a result. Margaret, Rae, Lyn, and Sylvia all faced difficulties in their own ways, but they were all incredibly strong women who found a way to cope with the obstacles life threw at them.

Q:
What struck you the most about their shared experience?

A:
One of the things that really stood out was how final the women's decision to go to America was. In those days a ticket home was beyond the reach of many people and divorce was unthinkable. There was also a sense of shame about admitting to those back home that things weren't working out. Thousands of miles from home, unable to pick up a phone and call friends and family, these women really were on their own. So many people told us the same thing that Sylvia's mother said: “We'd made our bed, and now we had to lie in it.” They had to find a way to make life in America work.

Q:
Was it easier or more difficult telling Margaret's story? Are there challenges of recounting something so close to home?

A:
We left writing Nuala's grandmother's story till last, because we knew it would be difficult for Nuala, especially since Margaret had died only a year earlier. Describing that period of Margaret's life was very difficult, because it felt like going through it all with her. But ultimately it reaffirmed what a strong, amazing woman we both knew her to be.

Q:
The idea of crossing an ocean for love is romantic, and yet the reality was often less rose-tinted. What were the most common difficulties that came up in your interviews? What brought the most joy?

A:
Nearly all the women experienced homesickness, even if their husbands and in-laws were kind. Usually this kicked in after about three months. One woman said it hit her when she was getting the bus back from going shopping one day. “It was like a big vacation to me,” she told us, “and then it suddenly dawned on me: I was here for the rest of my life.” It was generally once the women started having their children that they began to feel more part of the community, and they found happiness in having a family of their own. They also found joining war bride groups a great source of comfort.

Q:
Tell us more about your road trip across America. Where did you go, how many places did you visit? Did you have a most memorable stop? How did this journey affect the shape of
GI Brides
?

A:
We covered most of the country over three months—and made the most of the travelling. On the way we saw the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks. We were struck by what a stunningly beautiful country the United States is, but also by how much empty space there is, which is so different to England. In the desert you could drive for hours between towns, or even between service stations—it made us realize how isolating it could feel if you didn't know anyone here.

Q:
As the Greatest Generation ages, it seems more important than ever to record their stories. Did you feel an urgency or a responsibility to bring this narrative to life?

A:
Definitely, and we were lucky that most people were willing to cooperate. There seems to be more reverence for that generation in America than there is in Britain. It's been wonderful to witness the celebrations planned through the Spirit of '45 campaign, and the way the war brides were treated at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans when we went there with them for their reunion in 2013. In America they are really seen as special.

Q:
How have Sylvia, Lyn, and Rae reacted to the book? Have they said what is like having their stories shared with the world?

A:
Sylvia said she couldn't believe she had gotten herself into a book in her eighties—something she never dreamed would happen. She's looking forward to seeing it in shops in America. Rae still gives talks to schoolchildren about her experiences in the war, and feels it's a part of history that is important to record and share. Lyn was initially nervous about showing the book to her family—she warned her son, “It's not all a bed of roses,” but he said the important thing was that she had told the truth. Lyn's granddaughter was astonished to read it. “Grandma, I couldn't believe you went through all that!” she said. “You didn't tell me.” Lyn replied, “Well, it didn't come up!”