About

Letters crinkled in the heat of forty San Antonio summers.  Wrestlers at the Chase and glass eyed dolls shared the decades with them.  They waited in a cedar chest collecting dust and memories.  The letters remained hidden for forty years.  They were unearthed when my Great-Aunt's coffin snapped shut.  They were created when a woman answered the call to war.

Yeoman First Class Elizabeth "Betty" Jean Shannon enlisted as a WAVE (Women Accepted As Volunteer Emergency Service) in the Navy in 1942. She wrote 112 letters to her folks and her sister during her time in the war.  She tells of her training, her daily life, and her movements across the country.  She tells the story of how she met Walter "Bud" Robinson on a train to Miami and their eventual marriage.  Bud even writes a few letters home. 

Betty was the best teeth whistler known to man and knew every phrase uttered during the 1940s.  Home again, home again, jiggity jig.  You could find the right buttons to push in about five seconds.  Pushing the right one would send her into a dither.  She loved to laugh and have fun.  She was stubborn until the very end and was at peace when her fight ended.  I am her only granddaughter.  I have never read her letters and I feel I wasted my time with her on this 
earth as only an adolescent can. 

So, in an effort to understand this enigmatic woman, I am reading all 112 letters. Earlier on I said I was trying to read these in a year.  But as we all know life will do as it wants.  I am committed to these letters, and I will not put unnecessary pressure on this project.  It means too much.  Check back every Wednesday and please enjoy these letters as much as I have.

Cheers.

Grandma in her Navy Whites 

Grandma and Me