The next weekend Doug’s parents had a formal dinner party at the Schroeder Hotel in downtown Milwaukee and Warren asked me to go. We danced and held hands under the table. I was falling in love and he was too. As I said he was stationed at Great Lakes so I didn’t get to see him very often. Word got back to me that Patty had asked him to attend something with her, but we did go out several more times before he shipped out to Lake Herst in New Jersey. I had a picture of him that I kept on my desk and he had one of me.

Before Warren was stationed at Great Lakes he was in training at Chapel Hill, South Carolina. Within weeks of being commissioned at Pensacola when they discovered he was color blind and was washed out of the program to become a meteorologist. He always told me he couldn’t find the target (the ship) in the ocean (couldn’t see it).

The next destination for Warren after Lake Herst (1944) was Alameda, California. He would have a few hours in Chicago and wanted me to meet him. I had never gone anywhere alone – did I know him that well? Would he try and get me into a hotel room or something? I went! I saw him but he didn’t see me. I watched him, studied him and knew I was really glad to see him, so I went up to him. I don’t remember exactly how many hours we had together, but we spent them all in a hotel coffee shop and lobby, then back to the station. It was very sad to say goodbye. This was wartime, and we had no idea what was in the future for us – a crazy, sad way to try and get to know each other. Our letters continued. I had his picture in uniform on my desk at work and he consumed much of my life.