August came and went in a blur of emotions when Fred walked in the door. He and Dorothy moved everywhere in tandem, shoulders touching, hands linked, not daring to let more than an inch or two grow between them, until after weeks the anxiety began to dissipate and they could smile at one another across the room and experience anew that union which had always been their precious, private, very personal bliss.
By Christmas 1945, she and Fred had comfortably established their new home in Boulder, Colorado. When she and Fred attended a student banquet at church, they brought home the red bows, some spruce, four wreaths, red candles and pine cones that had decorated the banquet tables. They were going to be thrown out. To Dorothy the abandoned treasure would fulfill her secret determination to make this the perfect Christmas.
“I need this reef, Mom!” Bobby pulled an evergreen wreath off the front door and held it to his chest. “Please, Mom! We just need this reef at school!”
With three more in reserve it was not at all hard to relent, and Bobby took the wreath to school. He was thrilled, because their classroom was the very first to have any Christmas decorations up. It seemed Bobby had his own plans for a perfect Christmas.
Dorothy was more than happy to share their Christmas bounty with his classroom, and loved her small son even more for his need to share with his new friends. And if anyone ushered in Christmas it was Carol whose hours at her dearly loved borrowed piano kept Christmas in the ear of the entire household.
Now there was the matter of finding a tree. The Boulder hardware store was the only place in town that had trees anywhere near a price range she could afford. So she ordered a four-foot tree.
“But please do make it a lovely, full four feet, if you can?”
The fellow on the other end of the line assured her he would select it for her personally. Then he asked for her name and immediately realized that he’d heard a bit about her family’s war experience.
“It just has to be a nice tree, you know,” she said, trying to hide her fear that he would send his most unworthy candidate. “It’s the children’s first Christmas since, since the—”
The prison camp? he’d asked.
“They’re just seven and five years old, you see. And Bobby has never known Christmas outside the...outside—”
The prison camp, he said again.
“Yes.”
You leave it to me, ma’am, he said. And after he’d scribbled down the address he hung up.
In Her Own Words
Dorothy’s Postwar memoir
Saturday evening the tree was delivered. I had ordered a four foot one, and because I had to order by phone, and have had some bad luck with getting second rate goods palmed off at times, I capitalized on Santo Tomás and mentioned that it was the first tree the kiddies had had in five years, and that I did want a nice one.
Well, they sent a lovely one, but it is six feet tall or more, and very well shaped. Charged what they had quoted for a four foot one. The kiddies were thrilled with it, and decorated it twice with the things we had before going to bed.
That evening they ate supper picnic-style beneath their beautiful tree that had been delivered by the store owner himself. Together they made plans for Christmas Eve, put the finishing touches on the decorations, and then washed up the dishes.
The very air was electric with anticipation of this first Christmas. The children had absorbed every bit of newness so easily that it nearly defied belief. How resilient they were. How preciously exuberant.
Fred stepped behind Dorothy and tugged off her apron as the last plate was dried.
“A most satisfactory meal, darling wife.”
She leaned back into his familiar strength. The weight they’d already recovered made them once again a perfect fit.
“So good of you to say so, dearest husband,” she smiled.
Life was far from settled, with Fred still discovering a path to get him back into the academic environment in which he thrived. But the threat was over. This new unknown was one they could easily face. Even happily face. They were safe in the arms of one another again. They had survived. There would be no limits to their rejoicing in the opportunity to face this new unknown together.
They turned to watch their beautiful children who were busy in the living room arranging the ornaments on the tree for the third time. Carol carried the red candles from the dining table to the mantel and Bobby straightened the tree skirt around the little crèche he’d moved from the window sill.
And then they stepped back, those children who had fulfilled her life’s dream. Bobby sighed and shook his head slowly. He truly had never seen anything quite as glorious as their very first Christmas tree.
“Sweet Jesus, amen,” he breathed.
Dorothy slipped her apron from Fred’s hands and hung it on the inside hook of the pantry door. The lower hook. Her hand lingered on it for a moment as her eyes swept upward, across the pristine white coat she’d laundered, pressed, and hung out of the way. Behind the door. Where it would wait in case—just in case.
Fred switched off the living room lamp and paused a dramatic moment before plugging in the tree lights. Reds and golds and Christmas greens danced in the children’s eyes, reflections of the lights on a tree that would forever define for them what Christmas was meant to be. They cast away three years of starvation and deprivation, three years of confinement by barbed wire and gunpoint. Three years of bombs and weevils and air raid shelters and dysentery and tropical ulcers.
Tucked away. Vanquished in the glow of that magnificent lighted spruce.
Dorothy handed Fred the angel to set atop the tree. And when it was seated, the children gasped. Its transparent wings and golden halo shimmered in the reflected light. Its open arms seemed to stretch and beckon.
Here. You’re here. With nothing that can stand between you and tomorrow.
You’re safe, the angel seemed to say. You’re home.
“Oh, Carol,” Bobby whispered. “It just gets gooder and gooder.”
AFTERWORD
While Dorothy did not formally return to the practice of medicine, she came to the aid of countless patients over the remainder of her lifetime. She fulfilled her vision of providing daily care for the elderly by establishing the first eldercare program in Colorado called Elderhaus. She lost her dear Fred in 1985, and never abandoned their commitment to serving their fellow man, which she continued to exercise until her death in 2001 at the age of 100. Her legacy lives after her, reminding all who discover her story that in every aspect of her life, she was a valiant woman.
Carol Joy Chambers Park, Dorothy’s little songstress, grew into a wonderfully talented church organist. As a volunteer Chaplain for the Detroit Police Department and as Community Relations Director for the Northville Regional Psychiatric Hospital she exercised her unique insights into the human psyche. Her son Stephen and daughter Amy continue to reside in the Detroit area.
Robert Bruce “Bob” Chambers has rarely known a day in his life without a brush in his hand. His artistic gift has been exercised in countless ways including three decades as a professor of set design at the University of Texas and Southern Methodist University. For over thirty years his cartoons have been a much-anticipated feature in the monthly issues of KITPLANES magazine. A collection of his KITPLANES work has been published in Out of the Basement.
Bob’s first experience at cartooning for the public took place in third grade. In his youth, Bob wrote a letter to General MacArthur and was honored to receive a note in return signed by the General. Bob served in the United States Air Force in 1962-67 honoring the family’s debt to General MacArthur and the U.S. military forces who liberated the Philippines. Following in this line, his son Rick also served four years in the USAF. Rick’s two children have each made their way through, and into, the United States Military Academy at West Point where MacArthur stands sentry over the Plain.
Bob’s early career work appeared in Air Force Base newspapers around
the world while he served in Vietnam and also could be seen in publications of the Air Force News Service in 1966. His cartoons appeared in Saturday Evening Post, Private Pilot, Air and Space, Pacific Stars and Stripes, Aero, Wings West, and Sport Flying (England).
Bob has been married for over fifty years to his wife Mame, who he calls wondrous. Their son Rick and daughter Bobbi have gifted them with four grandchildren.
At the time of this publication, little “Wahboots Boos” was 78 years old. Bob was the catalyst for getting his family’s story told. He and Mame live in Colorado. And yes, you will still find him most days with a brush in his hand.
Bobbi Joy Chambers Hawk, inspired by Dorothy’s tales of healing, attended medical school at Washington University in St. Louis followed by residency and fellowship to specialize in Perinatal-Neonatal Medicine, caring for high-risk newborns. Following her father and brother into the U.S. Air Force, she was stationed in Okinawa, Japan for three years serving the infants and families of those active duty men and women stationed in the Pacific. Upon their return to the U.S., her family settled in Lincoln, Nebraska. She currently lives and practices in Colorado.
September 5, 1991
Dear Grandma,
I apologize for not writing sooner, but school has enveloped me like a storm. I’m now most of the way through the third week of class, and I feel as if I’m in heaven! After waiting four years taking prerequisites, I am finally taking the classes I’m most interested in. I’ve come to feel that medical school is definitely the place for me. On several occasions I’ve had the feeling that I was in the right place at the right time.
The school is very research oriented…We have a few activities outside of classwork that are optional for those interested. One of these is the Perinatal Project which sends groups of first year and second year students out into the neighborhood clinics to educate young pregnant women about proper prenatal care.
I’m playing in the student/faculty jazz band called the Hot Docs…
I love you lots!
Bobbi
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Granddaughter of a concert violinist, Mary Potter Schwaner began her musical career in elementary school with the family string quartet, but gave up the violin to study opera at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She devoted much time in her early career to performing, directing and promoting musical endeavors throughout Alabama, California and Nebraska. She was Founder/Artistic Director of the Young People’s Pocket Opera in Alabama. A move to California resulted in four years as Founder/Artistic Director of the Lake Forest Showboaters, a community music theatre company.
In Mary’s “other life” she was a computer tech support and graphic arts specialist and worked as Web Developer for the Nebraska Legislature, HDR Architecture and Engineering, for The National Arbor Day Foundation, and as Director of Web and Media Arts for St. Mark’s United Methodist Church.
In her retirement she is a published author, writing novels of historical suspense under the name Bailey Bristol. Courage in a White Coat is her first biographical novel.
She lives in Nebraska with her husband of nearly five decades and joins him in doting on her grandchildren who, along with their parents—Ryan and Melissa and their spouses—are her dearest treasure.
Mary’s enduring motto remains:
“May you have the vision and the voice to find new songs to sing.”
Visit the book’s web page
for photos and addendum articles
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It’s the most humbling thing to immerse oneself in the life of so accomplished a woman with any hope of doing her justice. So I must thank Dorothy Kinney Chambers’ son Bob and her granddaughter Bobbi Chambers Hawk, m.d. for walking that tricky line between telling Dorothy’s emotional journey and dramatically fictionalizing her story. Dorothy’s own accounts sent weekly from India to her family were a vast and nearly overwhelming resource. Those voluminous pages kept me walking the straight and narrow course as I sought to reveal her remarkable work.
Those who dared to tread the many paths of Dorothy’s experience with me and helped preserve the integrity and love that spills from these pages have forever earned my gratitude. Mame Chambers was a charming lamp illuminating many of Dorothy’s personal traits. Linda Hoegemeyer managed insightful edits in the kindest way possible, and my brilliant Latin teacher, Joan Yentes, nudged me back on course more times than I can count. To my great delight, Marty Magee managed to research questions that might have otherwise gone unanswered. These women will never truly know what it meant that I could place my complete trust in their suggestions and yes, their cautionary words.
Not one of my stellar street team let me down, always providing me with the most necessary notes to complete this work. Vicki Woodburn, Susan Macy, Lovell Moser, Roberta Kroeger, Shirley Tachenko-Accord, Brenda Kranz, Steph Wirth, Pastor Wayne Alloway, and Sharre Jahde suggested edits that could only make this book better. And in the final hours before publication, Dr. Dorey Schmidt was a truly unexpected gift.
And last, I could not hope to have accomplished this task without the help of my husband Bill, whose encouragement and willingness to keep our household running gave me great peace.
—Mary Schwaner
SOURCES
BOOKS
Cogan, Frances B. Captured: The Japanese Internment of American Civilians in the Philippines 1941-1945. The University of Georgia Press. 2000.
Colquhoun, Robert. A Free Frenchman Under the Japanese: The War Diary of Paul Esmérian, Manila, Philippines 1941-1945. Robert Colquhoun translator and editor. Matador, Leicestershire, UK, 2015.
Hartendorp, A.V.H. The Santo Tomás Story: With a foreword by Carlos P. Romulo. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York.
Holland, Robert B. 100 Miles to Freedom: the Epic Story of the Rescue of Santo Tomás and the Liberation of Manila, 1943-1945. Turner Pub. Co., 2011.
Holland, Robert B. The Rescue of Santo Tomás: Manila, WWII The Flying Column: 100 Miles to Freedom. Turner Publishing Company, Paducah, Kentucky, 2003.
Lascher, Bill. Eve of a Hundred Midnights: The Star-Crossed Love Story of Two WWII Correspondents and Their Epic Escape Across the Pacific, William Morrow; Reprint edition (June 21, 2016), Harper Collins, 2016
Nash, Grace C. That We Might Live: A Story of Human Triumph During World War II. Shano Publishers, Scottsdale, Arizona, 1984.
Norman, Elizabeth M. We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of the American Women Trapped on Bataan, Random House, Reprint edition (June 29, 2011)
Prising, Robin. Manila Goodbye: A Childhood Eden Destroyed by War…A Memoir Filled with Courage, Humour and Zest for Life. Corgi Books, A Division of Transworld Publishers LTD, London, 1975.
Sams, Margaret. Forbidden Family: A Wartime Memoir of the Philippines 1941-1945. The University of Wisconsin Press, 1989.
Stevens, Frederic H. Santo Tomás Internment Camp: With a foreword by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, 1942-1945. Stratford House, Inc., 1946.
Utinsky, Margaret. Miss U: Angel of the Underground, Uncommon Valor Press, 2014.
Van Sickle, Emily. The Iron Gates of Santo Tomás: The Firsthand Account of an American Couple Interned by the Japanese in Manila, 1942-1945. Academy Chicago Publishers, Chicago, 1992.
Warne, Terry Wadsworth. Terry: The Inspiring Story of a Little Girl’s Survival as a POW During WWII, Outskirts Press, 2012.
Wilkinson, Rupert. Surviving a Japanese Internment Camp: Life and Liberation at Santo Tomás, Manila, in World War II. McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson, North Carolina.
Wygle, Peter R. Surviving a Japanese P.O.W. Camp: Father and son endure internment in Manila during World -War II. Pathfinder Publishing of California, Ventura, 1991.
VIDEO
Victims of Circumstance. A Kawayan Production. Lou Gopal and Michelle Bunn, producers. Edited by Lou Gopal. 2006
INTERNET
Radio Station KGEI Presents John Schneider’s Voices Out of the Fog. International Bro
adcast Station KGEI: 1939-1994. History courtesy of FEBC International
http://bayarearadio.org/schneider/kgei/kgei.shtml
Reports of General MacArthur - The Campaigns of MacArthur in the Pacific, Volume 1. Prepared by his general staff. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 66-60005
https://history.army.mil/books/wwii/MacArthur%20Reports/MacArthur%20V1/index.htm
World War II Online Database, C. Peter Chen, founder and editor of the database, The United States Library of Congress recognizes WW2DB as a valuable online resource for its researchers.
WW2DB is filed under the control number 2011214255
http://ww2db.com World War II Database
LETTERS
Chambers, m.d., Dorothy Kinney. Five volumes of letters written by Dorothy between 1928 and 1946 chronicling her work in India and The Philippines.
Chambers, Fred. 80-page typewritten memoir and letters written to his family.
Visit the book’s web page
for photos and addendum articles
This is a work of both fact and of fiction. Anything set apart as a letter or report is factual, taken from the archives of the persons who wrote them. The portions of each chapter that portray scenes and dialogue are fictitious representations of incidents similar to those Dorothy Kinney did have or may have experienced. Names, characters, places, and incidents are for the most part factual, although some are used fictitiously.
COURAGE IN A WHITE COAT
Copyright © 2018 by Mary Anne Potter Schwaner
and Robert Bruce Chambers
First ebook edition
ISBN 978-1-937216-90-0
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used in the context of another work of fiction without written permission of the author or Prairie Muse Publishing.
Contact [email protected]
Cover design by Prairie Muse utilizing selected photos from the archives
Courage in a White Coat Page 43