Skeeter's Family: A Day That Will Live In Infamy

I use this title for one reason. My parents told my siblings and me that their wedding anniversary was 7 December 1945. And for those of us old enough to know that phrase, we can connect it with the date. I will admit that none of us four siblings were alive on 7 December 1941 when the attack on Pearl Harbor happened (although one of my mother's brothers was stationed at Schofield Barracks at the time), but we know our history. The part that lives on in infamy in regards to this post is that my parents misled us. They were actually married on 7 February 1946. Why the cover-up? Most likely because mom was pregnant with the eldest. I can understand the reasoning. Things were a bit different in the 40s. And for mom and dad's sake, I didn't do the research on this until they both passed.

Their marriage certificate showing 7 February 1946

I don't know the story of how they met, maybe one of my siblings knows and can enlighten me. But I do know they met in Washington D.C. Dad was working for Fairchild Airmotive and mom the GAO (Government Accounting Office). Mom told me she went to a "secretarial school", somewhat against her wishes. She wanted to be a "hairdresser", but her dad would have no part of that. She was an amazing typist, well over 100 words per minute. One of her jobs at the GAO was typing (on manual typewriters) the tax forms. This was well before Xerox, so there was no way to mass-produce these forms. She sat in a room with many other women typing up to 20 copies at once (carbon paper was the big thing). And no errors were allowed.

Dad did many different jobs with Fairchild. He was a mechanic, a test pilot, the plant's official photographer, and played on the tennis team. We were not that close when I was growing up, so I don't have that many stories of him when was younger.

I'm not sure of the date of this photo, but I have another of Neva in the same coat and headscarf dated January 1951.

Mom told me she had to be coaxed out the evening that picture was taken. She had just washed and set her hair, so it was still in curlers. She put the scarf on and out she went. Somehow I still have two pictures of her in this scarf. Guess it didn't take much to get her out that night.