Volume 10 , Issue 45

1944 - MORE Oklahoma Heroes

The Oklahoman, dated Oct. 1, 1944, page 55, headlines read: "Oklahoma Heroes" -- "Editor's Note -- Much has been said about the men who go to war, how they feel, their emotions in battle, their heroism. But what of the wives who stay home, whose children will know their fathers only as a picture of a man in khaki? Here is a different war story, told in the simple words of a widow who has only a few hours of happiness to remember. Sorrow, yes - but no regrets.

by Laura Bess Hall -- "Frank took my arm, and we walked across the street from the Northwestern State Teachers' college at Alva to a favorite student jam center. We got a hamburger. We turned on the radio and danced, then sat in a booth and sipped a coke. We talked. Not much; we did not need to. I am not at all sure we knew it, but although we had just met for the first time at a crosswalk on the campus, we were already in love. We had little need of conversation. I did get his name, however, and he mine. We made a date for that evening. he went on to his class and I to mine.

It was not long until we were the center of campus gossip, all good natured and packed with fun. Almost daily we would run onto our names linked together on a tree, or interlocked hearts on a lawn set with our initials written in. For class mischief our friends constructed rhymes about us, some of them grotesquely illustrated. They started a scrap book with these rhyming turnouts. it was marked "For Your children's Children." One chapel morning they tied a red ribbon around one chair and marked it, "Reserved for Frank and Laura Bess."

Of course we had long decided we were going to get married. How we could wait until we were through college we could not see.

One sunday it was boys' night in our dormitory. We were crowded in the living rooms. Pianos, violins, stringed and wind instruments, radios. Some of it was music. All of it together could be called only noise. Some groups were singing, some dancing, some couples were here and there out of the glare of ceiling lights. Then over the radio came the announcement of Pearl Harbor.

Frank turned a quick ear like he could not believe what he was hearing. He ran tot he middle of the room and frantically waved his arms for quiet.

"Listen fellas!" he shouted. "We're being bombed! The Japs are bombing us. That means just one thing. We are in."

Next morning the president called a special chapel to go over the matter with the students and to urge the boys to stay in college until they were called. "I know every man's head of you is willing to go. Uncle Sam knows it too, and he will call you when he's ready for you." he said.

Some of our boys left at once. Daily, there were new vacant seats in all our classes. At last commencement was on.

In less than an hour after the last commencement program Frank was on his way to the induction center at Oklahoma City.

We had decided several weeks before he started that we would not be married until the war was over. Every day we would re-establish ourselves in exchange of promises that this was right and we would stay with it.

I stood in a high wind holding on a perky hat that Frank liked and watched him until the bus on which he left rounded the corner. Several others of our student boys were with him and their girl friends were with me.

Suddenly I broke from them and ran back tot he campus, and tomy room piled with packing clutter for going home. I flung myself at my desk chair, grabbed paper and pen, and began furiously, joyously, to write. To Frank of course. And only one thing was I to tell..... We must get married. I knew we had decided wrong. I would hurry home and be ready ust as soon as he could get a day off to come for me. At the postoffice, I opened my letter and added a postscript. "If you cannot come for me. I will come to camp to you."

I had to tell the wonderful news half a dozen times on my way back to the dormitory. To the postman, a professor or two, and every student I met. "Frank and I are going to get married right away," I gushed.

When I got back to my room my phone was ringing. Long distance. It was Frank. The bus was at Cherokee, 18 miles away. He was letting on that he had left his billfold and asked the driver to hold the bus until he could phone back about it. So he called me. "I'm just calling to tell you we are getting married. I'm coming for you the first day I can get off, and if I can't, you are coming to me. Get it?" he said.

He was placed in the air corps and sent to Sheppard field. Three weeks later I went to him. He met me. For him to have changed as much as he had in three weks was unbelievable. My handsome well-dressed college fiance looked like a cross between a wild boar and a hyena. All along his ears and around the edges of his hair were stubbed-up skin patches that had baked and were still peeling. His hair stood straight ffrom his scalp and was stiff and burned until it looked like it might break like sticks. But the smile that cracked over his hardened cheeks from his prched lips was the same, and the love tenderness deep in his eyes was what I had always known. He laughed aloud when my face registered shock. I laughed back as I threw my arms over his shoulders. He lifted me and swung me around in his embrace.

"Tell me quick, Frank," I said, "when are we getting married. Right now?" he thrust me from him at arms length, holding me by the shoulders.

"You?" he said, "My old college friend; chasing soldiers?"

Several buddies, including a married couple, Beth and Ken, had come with him.

We had planned a military wedding in one of the camp chapels but decided there was too much delay. We all piled in a taxi, went to a minister's home, and had it done in short order."

To make a long story short.... Frank & Laura Bess Hall had a son Richard Frank.
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