A sophomore at Indiana Central College in Indianapolis in 1941-42, Carl had just recently begun dating a freshman there named Martha McKain. Their first date was on November 15, 1941, but it was just a campus date. Like almost everyone else, they had little or no pocket money, and one's date didn't expect more than a coke at the corner drugstore, often with mutual friends. After a couple of weeks of seeing each other between classes on campus they decided to go window-shopping in uptown Indianapolis the next Sunday after noon lunch. 'The Club' began serving at noon and they would catch the Madison Avenue bus downtown. It ran ten minutes after the half-hour and they'd catch it at 12:40. It was a sunny Sunday and all was bright and beautiful in the world. They caught the bus and headed for the Circle, with the driver adding passengers along the way. A few blocks from campus a fellow student saw them, and shouted,"Have you heard? Japan is attacking Pearl Harbor!" Some passengers laughed; crazy college kids can think of more dumb stuff.
Carl and Martha arrived at the Circle before 1 o'clock and one of the first places they went to window-shop was Radio Station WIRE, located on the floors above the Claypool Hotel. There in the display windows were banks of teletype machines that people liked to watch, and a couple of them in front were chattering intermittently. Then suddenly they began clattering out triple headlines, and the entire bank of machines began running non-stop. The first reports from Pearl Harbor were coming in, and before the couple returned to campus, newsboys on the street corners were peddling the first of several extras printed that day. The next day the student body assembled in Chapel and heard the Declaration of War on Japan. Many of the girls cried and it was a gloomy day on campus.
Carl was 20 and Martha 18 at the time. They both knew things would never be the same again, and so did their classmates. This seemed much more threatening to them than 9/11 did sixty years later. Hitler was running wild in Europe and they knew the U.S. was not prepared to take on the combined Axis Powers, all of them armed to the teeth. They finished the school year, but Carl enlisted in the Navy in July 1942 before getting a draft card. Martha returned to Central for her sophomore year, but school was not the same for anyone. There were Army training cadets on campus, taking over the classrooms and dorms. Martha carried her full class-load and worked as a lab assistant in most of her spare time. She and Carl became engaged on January 18, 1943. They agreed to put off marrying until after the war, so it didn't seem like such a big decision at the time.
After finishing her sophomore year, Martha took a job in a war plant in Fort Wayne. She and Carl wrote each other every day while separated, but as time passed with no end to the war in sight, they decided to marry. Like many war-time weddings, it was most informal. The wedding was set for Wednesday, August 25th, 1943, and the ceremony was performed in the parsonage of her church in Huntington, Indiana, where her father was minister. No guests were invited. The ceremony was scheduled to begin whenever Carl arrived after finishing duty at noon that day. Carl hitchhiked. Few sailors had cars and their thumbs could get them to destinations quicker than buses. He and Martha had time to get their license at the courthouse a couple blocks away. ~~ Martha had made plans with some precision. She ordered flowers, and had crossed out the promise to obey in the ritual, a promise she has kept well. Her mother fixed a snack for six people: the preacher, herself, the newly-weds, and two of Martha's three sisters, who were their witnesses. By 4 p.m. they were married. Martha was 19 and Carl was 21. (His shipmates called them "a couple of kids." )
They had seven days on top of a two-day Liberty Pass for a honeymoon. Martha had made reservations at a couple of places within the state that could be reached by bus and train. At the time, their wedding was more elaborate than many war-time ones, when time was short and one's time was not one's own. They have never had regrets about their small wedding.
After a few months together, Carl was transferred to the East Coast, then to the West Coast, and finally, the South Pacific. When the war ended he was in the Philippine Islands. He mustered out of the Navy at Great Lakes on December 3, 1945, after "the duration": '"three years and three months of our lives, as difficult for her as for me."
They had a head start on their family, which came to consist of two sons and a daughter, and Carl had a purpose in life once the war was over. Finishing school on the G.I. Bill, he acquired a teacher's license, and as soon as their youngest son was in school, Martha completed her college degree and obtained her teacher's license, too. From that time until they retired in 1984 she taught in the same school system as Carl, and they feel that made a world of difference in their family's quality of life.
Carl and Martha have always felt they were blessed by marrying young and having their family early. Times were not easy but all three of their children appear to have benefited without affluence at home. Each of them became self-supporting upon graduation, and each has married and had children that their grandparents adore: three boys, three girls. Grandpa and Grandma keep in touch with all of them by phone and E-Mail.
"We have pictures, but most of all, we have each other. It's been fifty-eight years and I wouldn't change anything if I could," says Carl. "[Martha] is still 18 and fair to me, and how blessed I am that we are growing old together."
<< Back To List
