Speaker 1: You're tuning into service, Johnny, the strict private first class
Speaker 1: that are in stories of hunger and war. They joined
Speaker 1: the service. Remember Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor, a production from
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. We used to just give these people
Speaker 1: the food from my miss Kits. You ain't what you
Speaker 1: could get, and be thankful well what you will get
Speaker 1: In I'm your host, Jacqueline Raposo, before peeling potatoes, he
Speaker 1: told me that he spent the war peeling potatoes in
Speaker 1: the bottom of the chew peel potatos in BA. I
Speaker 1: think she was talking about the guy she's been dating
Speaker 1: you and you can't go out And Georgia, that's me
Speaker 1: at the kitchen table with my grandparents, Pat and Fancy
Speaker 1: d Ambrosio from our first episode. They were married for
Speaker 1: seventy years before my Nana passed away last April. And
Speaker 1: as I've and spending a lot of time with our
Speaker 1: World War Two veterans since, I've noticed something every single
Speaker 1: one of them shared with me. A love story, A
Speaker 1: big love story, one that outlasted the Great Depression and
Speaker 1: the draft and trains and ships and machine gun bullets
Speaker 1: and the divorce rates that spiked immediately after the War
Speaker 1: one that lasted and outlasted, and is so ingrained in
Speaker 1: their hearts and minds that their love stories spilled out
Speaker 1: even when other memories of combat or cuisine failed them.
Speaker 1: As we spoke, if you've listened through a good number
Speaker 1: of our service stories, you might have been wondering where
Speaker 1: are the women. It's a good question, and love and
Speaker 1: service are related. Here. We'll hear about women's direct contributions
Speaker 1: to the Allied cause in an episode with an army
Speaker 1: nurse we have coming up. But by fewer than twenty
Speaker 1: four percent of married women were working outside of the home.
Speaker 1: Because let's remember that this was a time before packaged
Speaker 1: foods and microwaves and washing machines and ready made clothes.
Speaker 1: Families made much of what they consumed, and that work
Speaker 1: fell to the women, and so when it comes to service,
Speaker 1: that is largely where we find them, canning vegetables, sending
Speaker 1: v mail packages, rolling bandages, sewing in factories, nursing in hospitals,
Speaker 1: and waiting to be wives until their boys came home.
Speaker 1: We're going to hear about a few of these women
Speaker 1: by revisiting some of their veterans love stories, sharing them
Speaker 1: simply and unadorned. We start with Dorothy and Frank Da Vita.
Speaker 1: In her husband's episode Why Am I Alive? Frank shared
Speaker 1: how he spent almost three years aboard a Coast Guard
Speaker 1: ship transporting Army troops to the Normandy beaches on D Day,
Speaker 1: supplying the Allies with food in Scotland, and stealing steaks
Speaker 1: from the officers to grow up in his gunnery shack.
Speaker 1: I met Frank and his youngest son, Richard, at Frank's
Speaker 1: home in New Jersey. Dot was present everywhere, in the
Speaker 1: cornucopia of photos on their mantle and in the cookbook
Speaker 1: that Richard placed in my lap. Here a little of
Speaker 1: their story. Yeah, I love my mom, I love my family,
Speaker 1: very family. Ore. You know Italians are I said that
Speaker 1: you gotta have the veal covers Sudday. You have to
Speaker 1: have the post right otherwise you're not a day. I
Speaker 1: gotta admit my mom was not the greatest cook. How
Speaker 1: did that fish on Friday? And she didn't know how
Speaker 1: to cook fish? Really, so I never liked fish. Then
Speaker 1: when I got married to my wife, she knew how
Speaker 1: to cook fish, and for the first time in my
Speaker 1: life I liked fish. And when did you get married?
Speaker 1: I got married my wife was the best cook. I
Speaker 1: was never born, tell me about it. She was to
Speaker 1: see and Nodan Sicily was conquered by everybody. So they
Speaker 1: have a conglamorration of different ethnic foods, and she knew
Speaker 1: all about those. My mother was no ladan. So she
Speaker 1: used to make homemade pasta, the long pasta. She put
Speaker 1: a stick on one chip to the other year, and
Speaker 1: on the sticks she would wrap the pasta. So some guy,
Speaker 1: I don't want to swer any names, he came in
Speaker 1: the door, like thunderbolt, you knocked the old the pasta?
Speaker 1: Who was that? How old? That's twelve years old? That?
Speaker 1: How much cooking did you do while you were married?
Speaker 1: I never cooked. I didn't have to boil water. She
Speaker 1: used to have a lot of recipes, and this because
Speaker 1: when they said, uh, why don't you write them down?
Speaker 1: So she wrote them all down. And my grandson and
Speaker 1: a lot of couple of people put in the book
Speaker 1: for him some great recipes in it. Through this book,
Speaker 1: now I became a cook. What are you cooking that?
Speaker 1: You're like, Oh, yeah, I got that. I make a
Speaker 1: great pizza, make the dough to make the model. Others
Speaker 1: put the soldiers on. So I became a cook only
Speaker 1: through this book? What does food mean to you? Everything?
Speaker 1: I'm Talian? You know the times the only people are
Speaker 1: they reading, they're talking about food. Right. You go to
Speaker 1: somebody's house, the first thing you say, are you angry?
Speaker 1: What's something? And my wife used to say, you've got
Speaker 1: to taste everything? What she used to say? Thank you? No,
Speaker 1: thank you? Hoping. She's a great woman, a great, great,
Speaker 1: great woman. Is there anything you haven't talked about or
Speaker 1: told anybody about the war that you want to make sure?
Speaker 1: I know? Remember I told you I didn't talk about
Speaker 1: seventy years my wife went to her grave never know.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about that? I should have told her?
Speaker 1: What do you think would have been different had you
Speaker 1: told her? I should have told her. I really should
Speaker 1: have Why because she was my partner and everything that
Speaker 1: we did, she wasn't only my wife, she was my friend.
Speaker 1: We went to kindergarten the other that's how long I know?
Speaker 1: And you were married for how long? Fifty seven years? Lifetime?
Speaker 1: It's got six years MS every day. Thanks to Richard
Speaker 1: Davida for sharing some family photos with us, which you
Speaker 1: can see at Service podcast dot org. Next, we have
Speaker 1: Ray about well and Navy cook stationed in New Jersey
Speaker 1: towards the end of the war. His episode Navy Cooking
Speaker 1: at finished with us sharing that at Ray just opened
Speaker 1: a new bakery, raised Boozy cupcakes in Vorches, New Jersey.
Speaker 1: For his interview, engineer Steve Lubetkin sat with him in
Speaker 1: the bakery kitchen while we spoke via video. I got
Speaker 1: married quite young. I was only I was going with
Speaker 1: a girl in Connecticut. I went with her for two years.
Speaker 1: But when I met my wife, I knew that she
Speaker 1: was really the one. She had the same background. She
Speaker 1: had done a farm, she had a large family, she
Speaker 1: had gone to the same sort of hardships that I
Speaker 1: had gone through in the Depression, and I just knew
Speaker 1: that this person would go along with what I've planned
Speaker 1: in life, so I married her. My wife was born
Speaker 1: with a congenial deformity. Her left hip and her left
Speaker 1: leg was two and a half inches shorter. Her whole
Speaker 1: hip in Pelvis was small on one side, and she
Speaker 1: wore her lift on her shoe, which she didn't get
Speaker 1: until she got old enough to buy her own shoes.
Speaker 1: I don't know why, because her father made good money,
Speaker 1: but for some reason they did not get her corrective shoes,
Speaker 1: and she didn't get them until she was twenty one,
Speaker 1: so she had problems with her back when she got older.
Speaker 1: But I never considered her handicap because she was deter
Speaker 1: him in person. She did everything she wanted to do.
Speaker 1: She rollerskated. She was a great roller skater. That's where
Speaker 1: I met her on the roller skates in then his
Speaker 1: landing during the war on Lead. In fact, she had
Speaker 1: five sisters. All of her sisters but one that's where
Speaker 1: they met their husband was on a roller skating rank.
Speaker 1: We decided we wouldn't get married until the war ended.
Speaker 1: She worked in a cold factor. She made woolen army coach.
Speaker 1: She's so delining in the overcoats. We got married on
Speaker 1: twenty four February in n and we opened up a
Speaker 1: bakery in nineteen seventy two on our anniversary. It was
Speaker 1: quite exciting. I bought a business that was already established.
Speaker 1: I just walked into a business that was operating. I
Speaker 1: knew I was going to do better, and I did.
Speaker 1: We did a lot of minutes of French space trees.
Speaker 1: Petty Four's cook was a big thing and who I
Speaker 1: specialized in cakes. We had that bakery for eighteen years.
Speaker 1: We opened the doors on anniversary. We were married for
Speaker 1: sixty six years. Because of Rosanna's disability, they were only
Speaker 1: able to have one child, a daughter they named Rosanna.
Speaker 1: She shared some photos of her parents, and there's one
Speaker 1: I particularly love. Ray's looking into the camera with a
Speaker 1: big smile on his face while flattening dough with a
Speaker 1: massive rolling pin. A toddling Rosanna sits on the counter
Speaker 1: looking back at mom Rosanna, who seems caught mid laugh.
Speaker 1: You can see the plan Ray head in life lived
Speaker 1: out in that flower covered moment. Check it out on
Speaker 1: our Instagram and Facebook. We're at Service podcast. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back with more. M oh ah boy, see I
Speaker 1: forget one. Oh boy, he's telling me Welcome back to service.
Speaker 1: Veteran stories of hunger and war from My Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: I spoke on the phone with John Bastrica in Youngstown, Ohio,
Speaker 1: while engineer Junie Ramikins sat in the room with John
Speaker 1: and his son Joe. John was in the Army's first Division,
Speaker 1: the troops that stormed the Normandy Beaches on D Day
Speaker 1: and the men we think of when we picture that
Speaker 1: gigantic battle. In his episode, I came off in waste
Speaker 1: deep water. We heard how hard it was for him
Speaker 1: to make it past that beach, and why he had
Speaker 1: no food or a blanket his first night off of it.
Speaker 1: John seemed particularly frustrated at memories. He couldn't smoothly pull
Speaker 1: together like the battle that gave him his war wounds.
Speaker 1: But when it came to his wife, and he remembered
Speaker 1: her with perfection. So as we were waiting there, sitting
Speaker 1: on and the tank, what was her name? And Marie mystic?
Speaker 1: Do you remember when you first met her? At my
Speaker 1: birthday party? Webb four or five years old. Her mother
Speaker 1: and my mother and my grandfather and grandmother, they all
Speaker 1: got together and all knew of each other and what
Speaker 1: was going on, and they made sure that she got
Speaker 1: invited to a birthday party. They used the center by
Speaker 1: a bringer. Other sister up the bringer up, and that's
Speaker 1: how I met her. So the families were more or
Speaker 1: less tied together. I stayed with her when I went
Speaker 1: to school, and every time we come home from school,
Speaker 1: when you got down the field and play ball, because
Speaker 1: that's where the recreation area was, we played tennis and baseball,
Speaker 1: paddle tennis, and the whole neighborhood and gang used to
Speaker 1: be and we helped clean up the ball field. She
Speaker 1: became a registered nurse. She was the registered nurse at
Speaker 1: the hospital. She was strictly business when you talked to
Speaker 1: her at the hospital. When I had time, I used
Speaker 1: to pick her up and take her down to the hospital,
Speaker 1: or pick her up at nighttime when she worked three
Speaker 1: eleven turn. Yes, I got buried in forty seven after
Speaker 1: the war. If I come home. How long were you married? For?
Speaker 1: Sixty seven years? Wow? She died seven years ago and
Speaker 1: I got the last letter I wrote her before I
Speaker 1: went overseas. It's somewhere in the roar. After our interview,
Speaker 1: Joe sent us that letter, dated November nine. Dearest Anne, Well,
Speaker 1: the time is probably near when we leave. I have
Speaker 1: no idea or where we go. I don't know, and
Speaker 1: I am not worried over it. I have so much
Speaker 1: to say, yet can find no words by which to
Speaker 1: explain myself, So I'll just say a few lines. A
Speaker 1: fellow never thinks of what's before him until it gets near.
Speaker 1: Then his mind goes back to those at home, the
Speaker 1: way they are enjoying life, and how they entertain themselves.
Speaker 1: His mind drifts back to the people that waived him
Speaker 1: goodbye and wished him the best of luck. The more
Speaker 1: he thinks, the more he sees what went on when
Speaker 1: he had left. But he can't go back to all
Speaker 1: that happened. So he starts to realize what he left
Speaker 1: home for, but his mind goes to a complete blank.
Speaker 1: Then it lightens back to the past. There he sees
Speaker 1: the times he with his girlfriend. He sees them together,
Speaker 1: their pleasures and fun, their quarrels and misunderstanding, and everything
Speaker 1: else that he now can't put two words as he writes.
Speaker 1: He sees her working the night turn and the nursery ward.
Speaker 1: While she works, she is also thinking of other things.
Speaker 1: He sees those parts and more and realizes that they
Speaker 1: are all past memories which never return again. So he
Speaker 1: thinks of the future things to come when he comes back.
Speaker 1: So all that he can say until that time comes,
Speaker 1: whenever it comes, is that he loves the girl he
Speaker 1: left that Sunday night when he was home on furlough.
Speaker 1: He knows he won't be home again until it is over.
Speaker 1: Over there, he hopes to come back safe and sound.
Speaker 1: He praised that the time is soon, which he thinks
Speaker 1: will be in June. That is about the time you
Speaker 1: will become a graduate nurse and will be capable of
Speaker 1: performing as a true angel of mercy. So until that time,
Speaker 1: I won't say a goodbye, though since that Sunday night
Speaker 1: we left each other, many have been goodbye. I'll just
Speaker 1: say so long and dear, I love you and always
Speaker 1: will until we meet again in the near future. I'm
Speaker 1: saying so long. Welcome back to service from my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Our last lasting love story comes from Norm Reuben, one
Speaker 1: hundred year old career marine from Spokane, Washington. Norm's episode
Speaker 1: is upcoming and we spoke via video with engineer Steve
Speaker 1: Jackson in the room. Norm enlisted at seventeen years old
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty seven. Becoming a marine was a way
Speaker 1: to get paid and clothed and take one hungry mouth
Speaker 1: away from his mother's table during the Great Depression. He
Speaker 1: didn't know that he was going to have to fight
Speaker 1: in a war. His love story started pouring out when
Speaker 1: I asked him what he was doing eight years later,
Speaker 1: the day of the Japanese finally surrendered in August of
Speaker 1: nineteen after he traveled the world and stormed islands in
Speaker 1: the Pacific, I was sitting on Guam getting ready to
Speaker 1: go into Japan. When it happened, all I could think of,
Speaker 1: could I get a phone call to my wife, Marjorie
Speaker 1: and talked to her. She had put up with me
Speaker 1: through the war. She was a beautiful, a wonderful, full
Speaker 1: blooded nurse from the Women's Hospital Philadelphia. I went to
Speaker 1: the phone and I said, I'd like to just call
Speaker 1: one number and see if I can get hold of Marjorie.
Speaker 1: And I did. It was just ecstatic for me to
Speaker 1: be able to talk to her, and they had to
Speaker 1: pull a phone away from my ear. She was the
Speaker 1: most wonderful person I've ever known, and I married her family.
Speaker 1: Marjorie was raised with four girls. Her father died when
Speaker 1: she was young, and her mother went to work and
Speaker 1: raised those four girls and they all went to school.
Speaker 1: Her mother was the greatest mother. I just absolutely loved her,
Speaker 1: just like a mother. I didn't know until after we
Speaker 1: were married that Marjorie had been selected to go to
Speaker 1: Hanneman General Hospital. They had a three year program for
Speaker 1: registered nurses to become doctors, but she never told me
Speaker 1: about it until we were stationed a Guantaco, Virginia together
Speaker 1: when I was teaching school. That hurt me bad. She
Speaker 1: could have been a great doctor for the Navy. Oh
Speaker 1: my yes. I came back from Iceland in forty one
Speaker 1: and asked her to marry me, and she did, and
Speaker 1: she gave up her scholarship to study medicine as a
Speaker 1: doctor to marry me. She was the greatest I've ever known.
Speaker 1: I missed her when she wasn't close, and there was
Speaker 1: a lot of times when I was out on an
Speaker 1: island or all maneuvers, or even just being a camp
Speaker 1: pendleton for two weeks out in the field. I was
Speaker 1: so happy to get home to watch her smile and
Speaker 1: just say welcome home norm when I could. We always
Speaker 1: celebrated holidays together, especially Christmas. She loved Christmas. Christmas dinner
Speaker 1: was always Thanksgiving dinner with a ham and we would
Speaker 1: have Marind's in and she would serve them just like.
Speaker 1: I was still in the Marine Corps corps for twenty
Speaker 1: four years. How long were you married for? I was
Speaker 1: going to say seventy two years. That's about right. She
Speaker 1: was never going to get away from me. After I
Speaker 1: got out of the Marine Court. We lived together very well.
Speaker 1: She made a beaut a full home for me, and
Speaker 1: she was a beautiful mother that raised a really fine
Speaker 1: young man. It was just the most wonderful, wonderful life
Speaker 1: I had with a wonderful, wonderful bride that I loved
Speaker 1: very deeply. And as for my grandparents, a few years
Speaker 1: ago I interviewed them separately about what sixty nine years
Speaker 1: of marriage then had taught them about lasting love. Here's
Speaker 1: a little of what they said. I don't know if
Speaker 1: any of us are going to get to sixty nine
Speaker 1: years of marriage. Some of us are already out. So
Speaker 1: what is your number one bit of advice? Love? The
Speaker 1: family is going to get back together. This is what
Speaker 1: is binding this country. It's made it so great. The
Speaker 1: family is being destroyed at a discipline of families, and
Speaker 1: the kids are not learning. All you got now is pushbuttons.
Speaker 1: You see, everybody's walking nothings to their playing with these
Speaker 1: damned things. Conversation, when do you get a person to
Speaker 1: talk to? I don't think they exist anymore. Well, how
Speaker 1: about advice for people who are married? What about your marriage?
Speaker 1: Would you say has helped you last for sixty nine years?
Speaker 1: And my marriage lasting for that long? Because I think
Speaker 1: I was damned stomached, That's what it is. No, I
Speaker 1: made up my mind when I got married, and was
Speaker 1: it we were brought up. If it don't work, you
Speaker 1: get out. There's no second marriage like today, there's no deep,
Speaker 1: deep feelings for another person's feelings. All they think of
Speaker 1: is their own little self selfishness. I guess you would
Speaker 1: call it. What has sixty nine years of marriage taught
Speaker 1: you about love? Caring? Deep caring? And that's what I
Speaker 1: stought sharing. And if you care for someone you don't
Speaker 1: want to hurt them, you want to hurt something, then
Speaker 1: I don't think it's really love. But love is caring
Speaker 1: for someone else and not wanting to hurt them. Thell
Speaker 1: me that's love. What advice about marriage do you want
Speaker 1: to pass on? We have only God and whoever helps
Speaker 1: us when we get old. Have patience with each other.
Speaker 1: Hope you out with your weaknesses, because you're both weak
Speaker 1: and you're both strong. So when you're weak, discuss it,
Speaker 1: help each other. Should have to yell each other, but
Speaker 1: once in a while and then and I yell each
Speaker 1: other mostly because the poor girl is getting different. She's
Speaker 1: too proud to admit it. And sometimes she says, I
Speaker 1: can't hear you. I speak a little out of She says,
Speaker 1: don't yell. So I'm in between the hot rock and
Speaker 1: a place where you know. I wouldn't have it any
Speaker 1: other way. I couldn't live without, and I try the future.
Speaker 1: I really dread the future when one of us is gone.
Speaker 1: M You can see photos from these veteran couples, John's letter,
Speaker 1: a link to the Love Bites radio episode featuring those
Speaker 1: interviews with my grandparents and more at Service podcast dot
Speaker 1: org and on Instagram and Facebook. We are at Service
Speaker 1: podcast Service as a production of I Heart Radio, where
Speaker 1: Gabrielle Collins is our supervising producer and Christopher hasiotis our
Speaker 1: executive producer. I produced and engineered this episode with help
Speaker 1: from all of those engineers and Misty Boddiker. Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: subscribing to, and dropping a review of Service on your
Speaker 1: favorite platform, and thank you to those serving, those who
Speaker 1: have served, and those who love them. Um m m
Speaker 1: m