Lucky Star

Alex has just learned that Sylvia is moving into their new home in the Brooklyn Navy Yard projects. He is so happy he can barely contain himself. However, he says, “here I am big and strong and can’t be there to help” with the move. Unfortunately, it looks like a couple of pages are missing from this letter and the subject matter involves Alex worrying about the faithfulness of his and other wives at home. He apologizes for mentioning the topic and explains, at length, how gullible and insane the men aboard the ship become after being so suddenly removed from their normal lives.

Once again, even the happiest of letters is tinged with a sense of longing, regret and guilt about any weakness Alex might feel while he is separated from his wife and daughter. What I find most fascinating about this letter is how on one page Alex can be so sad that he is not with his wife and in the same letter can talk about how impressed he is with how the Navy looks after it’s sailors. This is the contradiction of a man at war for “his” country. When Alex mentions how gullible the men have become I can’t help but think that this would be a useful mindset for the Navy and the United States to exploit with propaganda. What Alex chooses to accept and ignore in these letters gives us a little insight into how a sailor tries to keep control of his own sanity and emotional stability during such a turbulent time.

After the letter I share a few more thoughts on the meaning of this housing for Alex and Sylvia.

Sept 15^th, 1944

Dearest woman in the world,

I just received you “V” mail, in which you tell me those wonderful news. Good luck to us in our new home! I know we will be very happy in those new surroundings! I wish only to have been there with you, to share the work and the thrill of moving into our home again.

            It’s today that you are moving, and here I am big and strong and can’t be there to help. I hope you won’t overwork yourself but take it easy and you get help from someone. We will have plenty of time to do all the things we have to when I come home.

            When I received this letter, I read it to my friends aboard the ship and I was so happy that I hardly could be stopped from jumping out of my own skin.

            To think that Cookie will have her own room where she can have her toys and bed and clothes, and you and I be able to enjoy each others presence without every moment someone prying into our business!

            Darling, you won’t have to[sic] much money this month to carry you through with all the expenses that I know they come when one moves. When you are short go to mom or one of my sisters and I know they’ll do all they can to help you.

            I shant spend more than what is absolutely necessary on this trip, and I expect that when I come home I’ll have 70 or 80 dollars pay coming or a little less, I shall use it for whatever is necessary. I am sure we will need additional furniture,  and perhaps I can use that sum for a deposit and out of my pay we will be able to complete the payments.

I thought that just to go away from your present surrounding was worth anything, but to think also that you are happy there, and you think the apartment is adorable is more than one can expect.

            Dearest, I think you ought to have a phone installed in the new home. I doubt that they permit them in the projects, but that is easily said than done, but if you give them the reason probably the phone company will give it to you. To pay for the phone bill we will manage some how, and if you have it installed ask for a buzzer that is not too noisy.

            Now, I am impatient to get back, I am very much at peace with the world.  It seems that somehow we have a lucky star which guides us and gets us out of any mess that we may get into. I am really pleased to see how much interest the Navy takes in the welfare of its men and they’re families, and I am glad that I found out this just by chance in time.

            I am happy that you have spent two days by my mother and I know it must have made pop very happy.

            By the time I come home you will have clearly in mind what you need and want for our home and we shall go out together and do some shopping. I won’t even make a sudjestion[sic] and everything you will want, will be —-

MISSING PAGES

[hers] to get rid of them somehow.

            This restricted life doesn’t help it either, the subject is continuously discussed, the war plant workers, the 4F’s ten shooters are continuously brought up, and held responsible for the married man’s woes to the ___ with sweethearts. The whole subject has percented so our minds, that it affects me too. There are no good and loving wifes [sic] or women, and somebody else is just waiting for the weak moment. Even the saints are conscripted, so why not our wifes. Dearest, day in and day out perhaps just in fun, but still it is continuously griping away. Having some notions about the biological urges and simple every day psychology, it works against one no matter how one may try to confront it. That is why I just had to write on the subject, as it may affect us.

Don’t feel uneasy about this, it is more like letting off steam than anything else. Then no doubts about you. Our life together has been too perfect to even dream that you may wanted it changed. Now I feel better.

It may sound to you that aboard this ship there are a bunch of maniacs. I assure you it is not true, this must be happening in every camp or ship that there is. When people have been taken away from they’re normal ways of life so suddenly, and herded together without seeing a strange face for stretches at the time, they can’t help themselves but to imagine that everyone is against them, and want to hurt them.

            The least occurrence aboard is known by all in no time.  If a launch pulls up along side the ship, everyone jumps and is there and discussing the feel and the wildest stories begin to go around. We are the most gullible people on earth, it is enough for one to come to the ____ and say, “the maid is here and was dropped by a sea gull” and there will be someone who will believe it, and I am not excluded. If the anchor chain just rasps the side of our own ship, they’ll run in and with bright eyes will tell you that we are on our way.

            So dearest love, don’t mind my mild form of insanity on the previous pages it will be disappeared the moment I see you.

Good night and sweet dreams to you and baby.

Your loving

Husband

***

It is striking how excited Alex is in this letter about the new apartment. This makes sense, since a young married couple would want a little privacy after living with their families. But it also strikes me as a sentiment that reflects the time period in America. The post-war era would be one of enormous middle class growth and a time when having a home was the symbol of achieving the American Dream. A home for the nuclear family (as opposed to a multi-generational living space) was the ultimate sign that had made it to the middle class. In addition to Alex and Sylvia finding a place for their new life together, this apartment symbolizes them finding a place among a community, and a larger society.  Sylvia and Alex have their own home, but may still have to ask the family for the money to cover moving expenses. Alex also wants to have a phone installed in the home. A few decades later, Nixon himself would point to consumer appliances as the most important display of an advanced society.

I am always surprised when I choose a letter and then find that it speaks directly to something happening in my own life. Just as I dig up a letter about Alex and Sylvia moving into their apartment I myself have moved into a house that was built for married G.I.s in 1947. This two bedroom home is a bungalow style unit attached to two other identical unites, sitting among 300 other identical units. Wandering the little cluster of houses it would be easy to mix your house up for someone else’s. The streets are named after Harrison, Eisenhower, and Marshall to name a few. For me, the boundaries of private and public feel much more confusing than during any time that I have lived in an apartment. Each home has it’s own small plot of grass and yet shares everything from laundry facilities to house numbers. On the other hand, there is no “public” walking around other than the other people who live in the community. I have moved to the postwar era. But unlike Sylvia who has to plan the best subway route to get to the family, I am now learning to drive.