There was always a conflict in Wilma’s mind between being free and doing only what she wanted to do and being of some service to others. That conflict was never resolved during her entire lifetime. She was mostly self centered. Her universe tended to be more of a solar system with her as the sun around which all other things revolved.
But certain things could interrupt that narcissism now and then and one of those things was being both proud of our servicemen and feeling sorry when they were killed or wounded. This feeling was not because of some innate patriotism. Wilma did not think in broad idealistic terms. Rather this feeling was generated by her admiration of three older brothers who were serving in the military at that time.
She hungered for their letters which were sent to her Mom; and she would read them when she visited her family and her boy in Burlingame every week or two. She worried for their safety and prayed that they would not be killed or wounded. Some of that worry manifested itself in feeling badly about the wounded veterans she met in the lounge where she sang.
She and two of her girlfriends decided that they should do something to help, so they decided to volunteer as “Candy Stripers” at the Stormont-Vail Veteran’s Hospital. Hospital volunteers were called candy stripers because of the red-and-white striped jumpers that the female volunteers wore to distinguish them from the paid nurses and attendants. The jumpers resembled red and white mint stick candy and the name stuck.
The candy stripers that were assigned to the wards did simple tasks like handing out books and magazines, assisting the nurses with the medication dispensing, and generally just being around to talk to the boys who were eager to see young women again.
Wilma was assigned to one of the surgical recovery wards and volunteered about 3 hours a day in the afternoons. At first she was devastated by the severity of the wounds and the amount of pain and suffering that the boys had to endure. But she toughed it out and began to understand how much of an emotional lift it was to the wounded boys just to have a young pretty girl around to talk to.
Most of the boys were eager to talk to her and tell her their stories. But there was one boy in particular that she was drawn to, for no reason that she could have explained had she tried. He was a very quiet and shy boy, never complaining about his condition, never telling her about what he had done in the war, or how he was wounded. He was polite and would answer her questions with as few words as possible. He always said “thank you” and called her “Ma'am” even though they were essentially the same age.
Largely because of his reticence and his seeming lack of understanding of how beautiful and attractive she was, Wilma decided that she would get behind that polite mask and discover the boy beneath. Wilma was stubborn and she would not be ignored by any young man, wounded veteran or not. So she started spending every unoccupied minute sitting by his bedside and telling him about herself.
Little by little Al began to look forward to Wilma’s visits to the ward and a bond between them began to grow. He began to tell her a bit about himself, avoiding all discussion about the war, but focusing on his childhood and his family.
Unlike Wilma who was far from rich but whose Dad owned three coal mines and who made it through the Depression and War in far better shape than most because people had to have coal to heat their houses, Al’s family was dirt poor. Al was born near the small southeast Kansas town of Humbolt. One of the youngest of four children, he quit school after the eighth grade to work and help feed the family.
Most of the family worked at the Humbolt Brick Company which specialized in a hard, dark, heavy paving brick that was used throughout the country. The Brick Company was the only thing that Humbolt was famous for, and after the brick company went bust in the 50s, Humbolt was not famous at all.
Al worked feeding brick into the kilns starting at 14 years of age and by the time he turned 16 the Army looked pretty good to him in comparison. He was not a large boy weighing in at about 140 pounds on a 5’ 9” frame.
Knowing that he could not pass the age requirements in Humbolt because everybody there knew him, he drove down to Chanute and signed up with the recruiter there. At that time in the war what he did not know was that the Army was desperate for bodies to feed into the military grinder and were not checking age closely if the recruit looked fit and passed the physical. He left Chanute that day as a 16 year old Private in the U.S. Army, Third Division.
Wilma listened to all of this with a strange admiration for the young man who had come from nowhere and had thrust his own life into the war without being drafted. She saw in that a kind of courage and willingness to try to better his condition that she admired.
After a couple of months of this it began to dawn on her that she was falling in love with this thin, wounded and handsome young man with the pale blue eyes and shy smile who was short on words but who increasingly looked at her with something that she saw as more than friendship.
Al had endured so much that he was not sure of his emotions or how he felt about much of anything. The only thing he knew for sure was that he was starting to look forward to her visits as the only thing that he really cared about at all.
The weekends when she did not come to the ward seemed to him endless; and he looked forward to Monday afternoon when she would walk the ward distributing magazines and books to the boys. But when she was done she would come and sit by his bed and they would talk. Al couldn’t remember a single other time in his life where he would just sit and talk with a beautiful young girl.
One day in late Spring Wilma sat down next to his bed and laid her hand on his. He reached with his other hand and gave her a letter that he had just received from the Army. She opened the envelope, took out the letter and read. “This is to inform you that you are to be transferred to the Veteran’s Hospital at Tacoma, Washington to begin rehabilitation.”
She began to shake as she read the letter again and again, and she began she sob silently. She looked up at his face, and though he said not a word, a tear rolled down his cheek.
To be continued……….
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