By Doris
After Don took me home and returned to the Navy and Bermuda, our letter writing began. Don wrote letters then as well as he has written stories and recounted memories for this project! Unlike email, letters from Bermuda took some time. He vividly described his daily life with the Navy, living in the Bachelor’s Officers quarters and the many other colorful characters who lived there. My letters depicting life at the bank were not nearly as exciting. Letter writing is a lost art and it enabled us to slowly get to know each other.
Following my recovery from a dislocated hip and fractured pelvis, I went back to work. With some vacation remaining it seemed like a good idea to make a second trip to Bermuda and learn about life at the Naval base. And to meet some of the characters Don was writing about. I stayed at a picture perfect cottage colony and we had a wonderful few days exploring the island and eating delicious food at unique restaurants. In August, Don returned to NJ and I showed him our summer cottage in Bay Head. Later on I spent another week with Ceci and Kennedy and their many cats at their cottage.
One evening they hosted an outdoor party, complete with a beautiful view. Guests were in dresses and the men wore Bermuda shorts with knee socks, coats, and ties, very Bermudian. Rum was one of the drinks served, rum in Bermuda was cheaper than coke and so was very popular with our young early twenties group. In retrospect it seems like we were playing at being grown ups, but it sure was a lot of fun! It was a special group and the friendships made there have endured. To be young in the Navy in Bermuda in the 1950s was a truly unique experience. When Don asked me to marry him it was the start of many adventures in other places, but nothing could ever compare to Bermuda.
Wedding planning went smoothly. I had been a bridesmaid four times, living out the saying then of “always a bridesmaid, never a bride!” My stepmother Joyce and I shopped for a wedding gown and years later Jennifer wore it at her wedding. Bridesmaids wore dresses in my favorite color, cornflower blue. Wedding pictures are black and white, as color photography was in its infancy.
Our wedding rehearsal dinner was at Grandpa Rudy and Grandma Mae’s House, and was a great success, until the kitchen sink backed up, no garbage disposals then. Don saved the evening using humor to deflect from “the soup” in the sink!
Festivities leading up to our wedding included wedding showers given by my friends. The most popular gift was an egg poacher, three of them to be exact, as Don had let everyone know how much he loved poached eggs. I didn’t know how to cook and I hated poached eggs!
Our wedding and reception at a restaurant was perfect, with a mixture of relatives, friends and even Andy, who had painted houses with Don. Andy and his wife were Italian, and in the Italian tradition gave us money in an envelope as a wedding gift. This, and other cash gifts, came in handy when we were delayed in Puerto Rico enroute to Bermuda!
There was one special person missing from our wedding and we went back to my house to say goodbye to my Grandma. Weakened by a bout with the flu, she couldn’t attend and stayed with her sister, my great aunt Kate. It was a bittersweet moment; she was always the quiet presence in our home who had promised my mother she would look after us and I knew I would miss her.
Don had rented a Corvair and when we went outside the car was missing! Our house was on a hill and some of my playful friends had released the brake and rolled it down the hill. We climbed into the car and away we went, me in my “going away” outfit complete with corsage, and Don in a coat and tie, on our way to Caneel Bay!