Journey of a Woman

((1941 to 1945) (A Short Novelette out of Minnesota, of: Love, Promise, Romance, War and Tragedy))

Based mostly on actual events



Part One
The Gem Bar [1941]
Forces beyond our control sometimes determine human behavior, for example a passive kiss turns out to be an ongoing affair, and a much more serious affair than it would have ever been imagined at the onset. You know, things stick to their natural world, kind of like that—for example, nudity and beauty captivates and it is done impulsively by nature—our human nature as it has been called, and it is seemingly normal to be so; and in a like manner man becomes a force of gravity, which pulls on the imagination—because of this captivation. Some folks call it naturalism; I call it forces beyond our control, the ‘beastful’ nature of man, or in man. It's just the way it is, the way it's always been. And from where I stand, there is not a whole lot of difference between man and woman in this area—or train of thought.

I’ve read the books: "Gone With the Wind," "The Great Gatsby," "The Old Man and the Sea," also, "The Scarlet Letter," to mention a few of the classics, possibly I’ve read all the so called, Great American Novels, to include the “Great Gatsby” to me they were all great tragedies; even "Moby Dick," another great tragedy, to include the “Enormous Room,” or Jack London’s “Call of the Wild.” We can even add the “Aeneid,” by Vergil and the fictionalized “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket,” the only novel by Edgar Allan Poe. Again full of life’s tragedies, perhaps that is what makes a good story good.
Yes indeed, what made them great stories was tragedy I suppose, a love gone, victory un-won, or through hardships victory won. And so I shall tell you a story, it is one of many in a world of so much tragedy. A misfortune, heartbreak, a romance that started out joyfully and ended in … (let’s leave that part out for now) a hard luck story mixed together with that so called captivation I was talking about in the first paragraph of this story, that had it not taken place, had this story not been writing, it simply would have been one less in the annuals of misfortune faded into the oblivion. So tragedy has its attributes you see, let no one tell you different, and it has its memories that we all can attest to. Sometimes just the memories allow us to live on in a world that would be hard to bear, too hard to bear alone, or without those memories, victory won or un-won, it really doesn’t matter.

She was born in 1920; her name was Teresa S. (Anton was her father's first name he had come over from Russia to America in 1916, and fought in WWI), her boyfriend's name is Murray Young. The location of this story is in St. Paul, Minnesota, at a bar called, the “Gem,” the year is 1941, the first day of the month of November. The snow is falling, drifting with the winds across the city’s streets, the snow is coming down in big flakes, settling on Teresa’s mohair coat, on her shoulders in particular, also on her smooth and youthful milky white skin, as she, Teresa opens the door to the Gem Bar, with her girlfriend Dorothy alongside of her, from Long Prairie, Minnesota, down to visit her relative for the Winter Carnival (a school mate from her 6th, 7th, and 8th grades, she, Teresa like Dorothy never made it past the 8th grade—it wasn’t necessary for a working girl back in those far-off days. Dorothy is down for the Christmas holidays. She and Dorothy they will remain friends for the next fifty-years, oh she didn't know it at the time of course, how could she, she was only twenty-one years old, but six of the fifty-years were already used up. Dorothy would die before Teresa; die some twelve-years before Teresa. But I'm really getting ahead of my story.
As I was saying, or about to say, she, Teresa S., opened the door, and they both walked into the Gem Bar. Neither her nor Dorothy (a tall, thin, nice looking girl, but a little flirtatious)—didn’t drink that much, but Dorothy was checking out all the guys the moment she pushed the door shut behind her, and with a few glimpses she caught the eye of everyman in the bar. She wasn't a bad flirt, just a fun flirt you could say, that loved men in military uniforms and men in general, and there was Murray.
“Let’s sit down over there,” she pointedly said to Teresa, Dorothy with an eagle eye still scrutinizing the scene thereabouts.
“Sure,” was Teresa’s answer, it didn’t matter one way or another to her where she sat; but it did to Dorothy, she wanted a clear view of this particular man, she did not know his name yet. Two men sat at an open table. The booth Dorothy chose was cozy, private and mellow. It looked like mahogany wood with its auburn color, yet the bar was not so richly designed to have mahogany, she thought. Their position in the bar was snug, concealed for the most part, and comfortable and calm so they both squeezed into opposite sides of the booth, there was even a mirror on the wall besides them, there they could check out the men inconspicuously, and themselves.
You could see outside the window by the door, snow was coming down (November in St. Paul is usually a winter wonderland). The city usually built a toboggan slide that reached from the Capitol—on Capital Hill, down a few blocks, ending up on 10th and Cedar streets, almost in front of old St. Louis School and its Catholic church next to it, built in 1886.
As one slid down the slide with their toboggan, they’d slide right into several stacks of hay. It looked dangerously fun, and it was exactly that, and it was all excitement back in those days on the toboggan slide. And back up that long steep hill you’d have to climb, three blocks long, to stand in line in the cold to get a second ride, once reached, you’d climb the twenty or so steps up onto the top of the big toboggan slide—and down again you’d go.
Here, in the frozen north, people lived in what might be considered a new mounting ice age, you had to make your own fun, or you’d have to hibernate the winter away like a bear. To add to this winter fun, or celebration, there was every five to ten years, an Ice Castle built, the local city merchants built it periodically in some location in St. Paul, ice bricks, solid ice bricks cut out from the Mississippi River that runs straight through the city, were brought to the spot selected by the Carnaval Committee. Along with the Winter Carnival, was a hidden treasure, a medallion, the St. Paul Pioneer Press (local city newspaper) sponsored, a $10,000-gift, to whomever found the medallion hidden somewhere throughout the city, most often in a park or public domain. The Carnival in itself was known throughout the world.

“Let’s see your IDs,” said the waitress as they had sat down into the booth now. Teresa pulled hers out right away.
“September 28, just twenty-one by a few days, okay, and you miss?” she put out her hand for Dorothy’s:
“Twenty-one by a few months; so what can I get for you two young ladies?” Said the streetwise waitress, or seemingly so, for she talked in such a manner; she was in her late thirties.
“I’ll take a vodka-sour,” said Dorothy with an excited smile, adding, “I heard they were good, although I’ve never had one, but let’s try.”
The waitress nodded her head as if it was a good selection.
Said Teresa with a little more reserve, “How about just Coke on ice and put an olive, cherry or something in it so it looks like a drink,” the waitress commented, “Straight Coke is the same price as rum and coke would be, sure you don’t want a little rum in it?” Teresa hesitated, “Well, just… ju-st a pinch, no more.” (She was by no means a drinker.)
Teresa kept looking at the young man with his friend—the clean shaving man, he looked a bit like: F. Scott Fitzgerald she thought, in his younger day that is (the flamboyant Irish writer from Minnesota, that lived up on Summit Avenue, who wrote “This Side of Paradise,” and “The Great Gatsby,” he had died most recently at the age of forty-five years old of alcoholism); and there he sat over by a table next to the bar, it was Murray and Stan, Murray was about five-foot eight inches tall, robust, light blondish hair, but not too blond to make him a real blond; he had a fresh—healthy creamy white completion, bright blue eyes, a good looker. Teresa was five foot-four inches tall, slim, with a nice full and round face, clear bluish green eyes, brown hair, and a fresh look also, with a touch of reserve, and a lion’s heart, unforeseen, she kept the lion part hidden, but you knew it was there after a moment or two. But it all melted when Murray caught her glance, and her heart dropped to the floor, her mouth went dry, she quickly turned to Dorothy, as one might turn and say: ‘…what now! ~?’ But she didn’t say that, “I think I stared too long at...him, see, the one drinking the beer, the blond with the farmer, or at least he looks like a farmer."
Dorothy looked hard and long at the farmer, he was taller than Murray, and had slimmer and longer hands, and thick fingers, “He doesn’t look like a dancer,” said Dorothy, “and I want to dance, dance and dance the night away.”
“You can teach him,” said Teresa (she didn’t want competition).
“Yaw, sure, why not.”
Then they both started shifting their heads towards the two strangers, Murray and Stan. Although, Stan’s back was facing the girls’ booth, so the best look you could get of Stan was a view or full picture of his neck and head, and lounging limps, as they moved back and forth as he drank his beer; when he leaned a bit forward to talk to his friend Murray, is when you got the profile view of him, his nose, mouth and cheek came into the picture.
Then a Nat King Cole Trio song came on the jukebox, and Murray got up, started walking towards Teresa, it was like he was transfixed on her and only her, he was captivated. Teresa’s smile started emerging, her heart started pumping - pounding, she never forget this moment (never would), this was a magical moment—as if all the snow flakes in Minnesota were falling all around her like musical notes playing Strauss’ “The Blue Danube,” “…the Vienna Woods” and the “Voices of Spring,” all at once. It was as if—the closer he got to her, as if each step he made was made in concert of her breathing, oh it was but a few feet I know, but to her it took her breath away, and it was hard to digest, swallow, and this moment would not go away for sixty-years.
“Could I have this dance with you, miss...?” the words seemed to echo of him to her, emotionally her eyes glanced downward trying to recapture her composure, thought a moment, a full emotional moment, looked up into his youthful face, not sure why, it was as if she had a premonition, one that said, grab the moment, the whole moment, absorb it, take it all in (it won’t last), and when she turned her eyes back up they caught his, they were drawn into his like some magnetic force that only God could create—as if the earth and moon were being pulled together, it was heaven on earth. You don’t create these moments, she’d say to herself in times to come, they just happen, something human and out of control takes place, something beyond our senses.
She stood up, smiled as soft a smile as anyone could, and fragility appeared in her glowing eyes as her hand met his, for she was a hard working woman, hard to melt, but she was melting - even her voice quivered a tinge, had been born to a Russian Family, and raised the past several years at St. Joseph’s Orphanage, and when she had turned sixteen, she lived with a family that she did housework for until she was eighteen when she moved back to her father’s house. Her mother had died when she was thirteen, and left her father with nine kids, her father could not take care of them, or her—she understood it wasn’t his fault, it was life, it was a hard life, and it was as it was. She had learned it was part of life and she was not the only one in such situations, and held no grudges, no one’s fault, no ill will detained. She was young and lovely to look at, and it was her time, whatever happened in the past, it was as it was, times were rigid, and it was her time. She stood up, “My name is Teresa,” she said with an excited voice, and a second big smile.
“I— (he stuttered a bit)” he was lost for words as he put out his hand, forgot his name for a second “I’m Murray.” And he put his hand around her thin waist—and rested his hand on her shoulder, moved in a bit, and they danced slowly, and he hummed with the song, and she liked his humming, as she looked up from his shoulders to his face meeting his eyes, she liked his looks. He swallowed a ton of air trying to calm down - almost hyperventilating, and started to feel a little cramped, excited, and took in another deep breath, so he’d calm down. He wasn’t sure if she had noticed, but he did, and so he stopped and suggested they join them in the booth.
“Sure?” was her answer.
He looked into her eyes like a young kid would look at a bowl full of ice cream, his heart beating faster than the drums in the movie “Drums Along the Mohawk” or the drums in the Nat King Cole’s Trio band that was playing from the jukebox.
There they sat the night away, Teresa nursing her drink, and Dorothy with her farmer, who was as gentile and calm as the day is long. They got up several times, and danced: ending up, dancing the night away. He was clumsy, but for some reason she liked it, he could be taught she thought, and he was adorable in his own way: amiable. She still had that roaming eye though, and he noticed it, but she didn’t notice him noticing, he just was enjoying the moment.
“Do you work around here,” asked Murray in his slow spoken soft voice.
“Been working at White Castle, making hamburgers, but I’m going to go I think to Portland, Oregon with Dorothy, they got this community down there, with houses and all, and they pay you to work in the munitions plant. It is like a military base I hear, kind of.”
Murray had heard about it and his smile disappeared for a moment and now his serious side developed. “Yaw, I heard about it, good money they say, I, I am going into the Army I think, not sure yet, possibly though.”
“Oh,” she said nervously.
“Maybe not, who knows; I really like you, and that could put a damper on it; you’re very lovely.” She had not heard a full-grown man say that before, those were the things you heard in the movies, it took a little courage for a man to be so gracious she silently pondered. He was three years older than she.
“I’d like to date you some more if possible?” He said with a serious tone to his voice, and boyish look. She didn’t say a word, just nodded her head ‘yes,’ it was as if she was tongue tied, and not sure of what to say: happily tongue-tied that is.


Part Two
The War and Decisions
December 7, 1941. Teresa and Murray, Stan and Dorothy, all had dated for a month. Taking walks down by the Mississippi River which was but a few blocks from the Gem Bar, and would go shopping at the Emporium, and the Golden Rule, big department stores, getting ready for Christmas. It was a wonderful time for them, a breathtaking time to be alive. They talked about marriage, but only on the side, kind of testing the water one might say. Dropping a few words (a hint) here and there; Dorothy and Stan were getting it on even better than Teresa and Murray, he was dropping over at her uncle’s house on Dayton Avenue daily, where Murray and Teresa would meet after her shift at White Castle, and she’d go listen to the radio at his apartment, and they’d talk. Teresa lived on Arch Street with her sisters and father. On the weekends they’d dance at the Gem, it was as if life had dropped a stunning rainbow over them, a youthful, striking rainbow, and one that would never lift. But like all rainbows, God never promised they’d remain; only that He’d not destroy earth with one (and seldom to have we remained tranquil in the valley).
And so came December 7, 1941, the Japanese hit Peal Harbor, and the news went around the world like the eruption that shook and covered Pompeii. It was a sad day for America, for Murray’s world; yet it woke up a sleeping giant, and now WWII would mold into the hearts of every American.
“I’m going in the Army Teresa, I’ve got to,” said Murray at the Gem Bar one evening, as they danced, it was December 17, ten-days after the attack.
“I’ve got to join the Army; it’s the thing to do.”
“Well, how about Stan, is he going in?”
“No, he got what you call flat feet, couldn’t make it, 4-f they say, can’t run or something; but he’d like to. He’s going to marry Dorothy he told me, if she’ll marry him, going to live in the country, because she likes the night life too much in the city here, and it’s just trouble, can’t raise a family under such circumstances.” (Dorothy had come to the city to visit, and liked it so much, remained in the city, although as a growing youngster, she had lived in the city before, attended a public school.)
She, Teresa kind of remained silent lying in his arms as they danced, thinking she was, and thinking of how her life would be without him.
“Portland, is looking better, maybe Chicago,” she murmured.
“Did you say something Teresa?” asked Murray.
“Oh nothing really just thinking aloud…”
“I hope you’re not mad, but I got to go...” before he could finish the sentence she said:
“I know, you got to go to war, it’s the way it is, isn’t it….” And she smiled.

Teresa knew he had to go, do his duty (as would her two brothers, Frank and Wally a few months down the line), because her father who came from Russia, had not been in America no longer than a year before he had to go back to Europe and fight in WWI, she knew a man’s world involved war and soldiering, as it would her son, in twenty some years down the road, when he’d have to go to the War in Vietnam (1971), she’d say the same thing, ‘You got to do what you got to do, what you feel and think is right to do, I can’t make up your mind for you.’ It was the way it was. And in years to come, she’d also have to accept her youngest brother’s death, in Italy, a few months before WWII ended. And Wally would become a POW (Prisoner of War) in Germany, who was one year younger than she. It was the way it was – ‘why,’ who’s to know, the ‘why’s’ never make sense anyways, when it comes to war; why—was not in the equation. Sometimes things determine our outcomes, things beyond our imagination, our control; that was how it was looked at, at least up in Minnesota.
She snuggled into his arms, held in a tear never looked back up at him; it was too painful; it was shortly after that he had left. She would walk him down to the train depot, and wave him off, like so many other young boys back then, men I guess, they looked like boys with men’s bodies, she told herself.

Part Three
Omaha Beach
(June 6, 1945—POW) Private First Class Murray Young kept a picture of Teresa in his wallet and wrote to her as often as he could; in the picture she wore a sailor’s blue and white top, as a blouse, she looked as pretty as a spring sparrow he thought.
It seemed everyone in the Army spelled his name differently [Young, Yang, Younger, Yean and so on]. He sent a letter to Teresa that he was on one of the five thousand ships, twelve miles out, off the beaches of Omaha, the date: June 6, 1945. That he was looking at the coast of Normandy (Europe’s France); he and 200,000 other troops that is, American and British troops, hopefully the letter would get back to her he pondered and gave it to the mailroom clerk onboard.
The pathfinders had already left the ship, the men who were to lighten the way for the drop zones of paratroopers, gliders, and infantry. This would be remembered as D-Day. Back home his sister was with her new child she was without a husband, and working at the munitions plant. As he expected Teresa might be, for she said she was going to Portland to work with her girlfriend in the little city-plant built for that very purpose, which was built in kind of a dugout, quarry type area, outside of the city limits, peopled by folks from all over the country. Teresa’s father was taking care of his restaurant, Tony’s restaurant down on Wabasha Street in St. Paul, and they, like the rest of the world was holding their breath to see the outcome of this Second World War.
H-hour, the assault troops were crunched in Coast Guard boats [LCA’s] racing for shore, racing by the U.S.S. Augusta on the sidelines. Mountains of waves hit his boat on all sides, as they received direct hits from the German artillery ashore, consequently blasting their boats in flames, mounds of flames, and many boats were destroyed before they even got to shores of Normandy, blasted and sunk to the bottom of the ocean—to the watery abyss.
You could see the soldiers holding weapons over their heads trying to make it to shore; gear on their backs, many drowning - many being crushed and sucked under the boats, with the boats, sucked to the bottom of the ocean, all struggling just to get ashore, whereupon, Germans were waiting for them. Many would die this day, Murray knew this, like so many knew, many would be wounded, and many were wounded before the day was over.
Men from the 4th Division at Utah Beach were also hit, lightly hit at first, but then came the artillery—one could hear the German made shells “88s” explode among the troops, as they rushed out of the waters onto the beaches, checking to see if they were all together, adjusting their helmets, checking their rifles once they hit the beach.
General Norman Coat, walked aimlessly up and own Omaha Beach, out of wits, who knows; Murray fell to a shell, it blew shrapnel to the lower section of his leg, not off just full of shrapnel. He would be a POW for the rest of the war, which would not last long, and Teresa would get word of his detention; it was a rough day. Utah Beach was the biggest success of the day by far. And by dusk, Utah was in allied control, as Murray was pulled off Omaha by the enemy and put into a concentration camp.
The only thing Murray would remember of that day for a long time was Father Edward Waters’ words, servicing the 1st Division. It was months after his arrival home that he got his full memory back.
And during his recovery, after the Germans gave up, he had received a letter that was three month old, a letter Teresa had written a few days prior to his Omaha Beach, flotilla adventure, it was a ‘Dear John Letter.’ It read: “Dear Murray, I have been dating another man, and I feel we need to call off our future plans. I’m sorry for giving you such bad news, especially while serving our country, as Always, Teresa.”

Part Four
Chicago to Portland

Teresa and Dorothy had ventured to Chicago, both working for Montgomery Ward’s in the packaging department. It only lasted three months, and then they took a train to Portland and worked outside the city limits a bit, in the ammunitions plant.
There they stayed six-months. And upon her return in 1944, back to St. Paul, Minnesota, she [meaning: Teresa] started dating a man by the name of Ere Erwin Wright, and his friend, Adolph Gunderson. She then heard Murray had come back home and broke it off with both men (it was 1945, the war had ended). She liked Mr. Gunderson a bit more than Erwin, but she still had that spark for Murray. She had went to visit him at his parents’ home, there he looked at her as if she was a disloyal companion—a betrayer, he was still hurt, and yet they both knew it was love, or had been, possibly it was a trust issue for him along with pride, and she was young also, wanting to grab some adventures in life, but she did suck-in her pride trying to mend fences. Call it fascination, or call it lust, whatever captures two people, that is what it was—with all that it was it was more than that, more than attraction, it was love, but his anger and hurt was too far imbedded into his bones: his marrow (whatever could have been, would not be), it dominated his character, his soul, he told her he couldn’t see her ever again. She left that day, a little sadder than when she arrived. Maybe it was good, for his love wasn’t strong enough to endure such hardships, and she was upfront about it all.
She started dating Mr. Gunderson again, and on the side, his friend Erwin. She never did marry, but dated a man thereafter by the name of Ernie Brandt, for forty-years they dated, never marrying, and when she came to accepting Christ into her heart, she had to ask him to leave [he had then, after forty-years asked her to marry him, but he died; another story and tragedy, he died thirteen years before her, and was ten-years older than her.
And when it was quiet in her home, at the ripe old age of 83, she took out his picture [Murray’s picture], and said to me: “There are probably not too many days that go by I don’t think of Murray, he was a handsome man wasn’t he?” she said, showing me his picture. And he was. And forever young he was to her; she died six-months after she told me that, had showed me the picture (although I had seen it throughout my younger years and wondered just who was the soldier, in her picture book). He was one of those men, unforgettable and unbreakable men you seldom find in a life time, and so was she.
Unfading Love

She dreamt so high
that she never lost her dream
in peace with it,
until the day she died—;
thus, she kept rocking in her chair
even in old age and all…
with memories of those far-off days
that once she met a man named
Murray, a romance and love
that never faded…!

Note: #1395 7/23/006


Afterthought:

Was Murray placing a judgment on her—who’s to say, I don’t rightly know, I suppose anyone, any young woman that is, is liable to write a foolish letter, as many did, in World War Two (and regret it later on), in every war that ever was, what they would called a “Dear John Letter.” I got one in Vietnam, I wanted to forget it, related to the relationship I had in Germany that is, I suppose as Murray may have thought, wipe it off your mind, clear the slate, start all over. And then when he returned, she found her flame was still burning, she was dying to know if it could be rekindled as it was before. Perhaps she had to ask him, lest she see everyone on the street with his likeness, a never-ending task to bear. So she asked. Men hide their hurt, and play with the anger, and I suppose he was angry, and not dealing with the hurt. Oh well, all these guesses, she was dying to know anyhow, and there was an ounce of probability the candle could be relit—and the glow that once was rekindled. But it wasn’t. And perhaps better for it, she may have put him in the stove, and I’d not be writing this letter. And so life goes on. Being twenty-one years old, pretty, slim, and knowing your window to life is wide open is quite a fabulous thing, we don’t think it will ever close, but slowly it does, we get old. As a result, she would look back, I do not think in regret, but in the fact she had a road of life to look back on—don’t we all.

And so now, at eighty-three years old, she sat in the sofa chair I gave her, in a large room, containing a wide long table aligned, a built-in cabinet with memorabilia in front of her, several feet away from her. Here she napped occasionally in the hot or brisk afternoons, among the many objects she purchased. All her rooms bore many objects. She spent most of the days sitting in that chair. It was to this room she’d retire, and spend her last days in—always having that picture nearby, in case she wanted to glace at it. He was forever handsome, he really was.

Notes: Dedicated to Elise Teresa Siluk. and Dorothy [Originally names for this story were: “Almost Everyday” “Lonely Girl” and “Up in Minnesota” final name “Journey of a Woman”) written September 18, 2004 [reedited 7/22/2006]; Revised and reedited at the “El Parquetito’s Café,” and the “La Favorita,” café in Miraflores, Lima, Peru, 7/23/2006; reedited again in 11-2009, at the author’s apartment in El Tambo, Huancayo, Peru (in the Andes).In writing this story, I tried to put together the best I could of a romance my mother told me about, the only one she’d ever tell me about. Along with trying to put the pieces together, which she never did; I did meet Dorothy once, I went to Long Prairie, with my mother to meet her long time friend, when I had returned from Vietnam, back around 1972, and I went to the bar mentioned in this story to see how it was arranged.