Judy put me in touch with Lawrence Rambo Jr., Lawrence’s son from his second marriage, who lived seventy miles down the coast. Like his father, he was far from conventional—a former heavy-metal musician, who now designed sound systems for some of the top names in show business. The stories he told me about his visits with his father after his parents divorced were all too familiar from my grandmother’s experience: he too had often found Lawrence passed out drunk on the floor in his own vomit. But Lawrence Jr. also told me how much he had loved his father, and what an exciting dad he could be—how he would tell gruesome stories about a character called Rawhead and Bloody-Bones, and let Lawrence Jr. and his sister cook up their own homemade gunpowder. I was struck by how similar he sounded to my aunt Maeve, who had always let my sister and me get away with murder and told us terrifying tales around the campfire.
Lawrence Jr. also showed me the first picture I had ever seen of my biological grandfather. When I looked into his dark eyes, I felt as if I recognized him somehow.
From Florida I travelled to Arlington, Georgia to find Lawrence’s older sister Ellen’s house, where he and my grandmother had stayed. We arrived in town late at night and were driving around looking for a motel, when I spotted a derelict house on a corner. Its white paint was peeling off and its roof had collapsed, but somehow I just knew it was Ellen’s house. The door was off its hinges and we went inside by torchlight. Ellen had died years ago, but on the floor were scattered letters addressed to her, and I realized my intuition had been right.
The next day I met Jeanneen Cowart, the widow of one of Lawrence’s nephews, who lived next door. She took me to the local cemetery, where I was surprised to see row upon row of graves marked Rambo—as well as Hattaway, my great-grandmother’s family. Suddenly, I was surrounded by ancestors I never knew existed.
In the University of Georgia library I found articles Lawrence had written for the Atlanta Constitution as a “Georgia Boy Abroad” during the war, perhaps styling himself after Ernest Hemingway. They gave a sense of his wit and adventurous personality, and to my surprise I felt quite proud of him. Where once I’d simply seen him as the villain of my grandmother’s story, now my feelings about him were more ambivalent.
But at the National Archives in St. Louis were some documents that I found much more troubling—the papers from my grandfather’s court martial. They included a memo from General Eisenhower himself, questioning whether being discharged from the army was a severe-enough sentence for a man who had ripped off Red Cross clubs all around London. And most disturbing of all was the psychiatric report on Lawrence, which my grandmother had never seen. The medical diagnosis was: “Constitutional psychopathic state, inadequate personality manifested by emotional immaturity, excessive indulgence in alcohol, and defective judgment.”
The words sent a shiver down my spine, and I couldn’t help wondering—if my grandmother had read them, would she have decided against going to America, and saved herself all that suffering?
If she had, of course, I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale.
About the book
A Conversation with Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi
Q: You interviewed more than sixty women for GI Brides. How did you decide which people to focus on?
A: Interviewing so many women gave us a great insight into the experience of being a GI bride, but for the four main characters we needed stories that really stood out—where the women had faced adversity and grown as a result. Margaret, Rae, Lyn, and Sylvia all faced difficulties in their own ways, but they were all incredibly strong women who found a way to cope with the obstacles life threw at them.
Q: What struck you the most about their shared experience?
A: One of the things that really stood out was how final the women’s decision to go to America was. In those days a ticket home was beyond the reach of many people and divorce was unthinkable. There was also a sense of shame about admitting to those back home that things weren’t working out. Thousands of miles from home, unable to pick up a phone and call friends and family, these women really were on their own. So many people told us the same thing that Sylvia’s mother said: “We’d made our bed, and now we had to lie in it.” They had to find a way to make life in America work.
Q: Was it easier or more difficult telling Margaret’s story? Are there challenges of recounting something so close to home?
A: We left writing Nuala’s grandmother’s story till last, because we knew it would be difficult for Nuala, especially since Margaret had died only a year earlier. Describing that period of Margaret’s life was very difficult, because it felt like going through it all with her. But ultimately it reaffirmed what a strong, amazing woman we both knew her to be.
Q: The idea of crossing an ocean for love is romantic, and yet the reality was often less rose-tinted. What were the most common difficulties that came up in your interviews? What brought the most joy?
A: Nearly all the women experienced homesickness, even if their husbands and in-laws were kind. Usually this kicked in after about three months. One woman said it hit her when she was getting the bus back from going shopping one day. “It was like a big vacation to me,” she told us, “and then it suddenly dawned on me: I was here for the rest of my life.” It was generally once the women started having their children that they began to feel more part of the community, and they found happiness in having a family of their own. They also found joining war bride groups a great source of comfort.
Q: Tell us more about your road trip across America. Where did you go, how many places did you visit? Did you have a most memorable stop? How did this journey affect the shape of GI Brides?
A: We covered most of the country over three months—and made the most of the travelling. On the way we saw the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks. We were struck by what a stunningly beautiful country the United States is, but also by how much empty space there is, which is so different to England. In the desert you could drive for hours between towns, or even between service stations—it made us realize how isolating it could feel if you didn’t know anyone here.
Q: As the Greatest Generation ages, it seems more important than ever to record their stories. Did you feel an urgency or a responsibility to bring this narrative to life?
A: Definitely, and we were lucky that most people were willing to cooperate. There seems to be more reverence for that generation in America than there is in Britain. It’s been wonderful to witness the celebrations planned through the Spirit of ’45 campaign, and the way the war brides were treated at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans when we went there with them for their reunion in 2013. In America they are really seen as special.
Q: How have Sylvia, Lyn, and Rae reacted to the book? Have they said what is like having their stories shared with the world?
A: Sylvia said she couldn’t believe she had gotten herself into a book in her eighties—something she never dreamed would happen. She’s looking forward to seeing it in shops in America. Rae still gives talks to schoolchildren about her experiences in the war, and feels it’s a part of history that is important to record and share. Lyn was initially nervous about showing the book to her family—she warned her son, “It’s not all a bed of roses,” but he said the important thing was that she had told the truth. Lyn’s granddaughter was astonished to read it. “Grandma, I couldn’t believe you went through all that!” she said. “You didn’t tell me.” Lyn replied, “Well, it didn’t come up!”
Read on
Further Reading
THERE ARE SOME wonderful memoirs written by war brides themselves, among them Joy Beebe’s Snapshots of a War Bride’s Life, Vera Long’s From Britain With Love, and Irene Hope Hedrick’s Memories of a Big Sky British War Bride.
Two fascinating oral histories of war brides, drawing on many thousands of interviews, are Pamela Winfield’s Sentimental Journey and Elfrieda Berthiaume Shukert and Barbara Smith Scibetta’s The War Brides of World War II.
Juliet Gardiner’s brilliant social histories Wartime: Britain 1939–1945 and Over Here: The GIs in Wartime Britain were a great help to us. Online, check out Michele Thomas’s brilliant website the American War Bride Experience (uswarbrides.com), which is packed with brides’ stories, book reviews, photos, and more.
Credits
Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
Cover photographs: © by Alfred Eisenstaedt/Getty Images (couple); © by George Marks/Getty Images (background)
Copyright
This book was originally published in Great Britain in 2013 by HarperCollins Publishers.
P.S.™ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.
GI BRIDES. Copyright © 2014 by Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST U.S. EDITION
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data.
Barrett, Duncan.
GI brides : the wartime girls who crossed the Atlantic for love / Duncan Barrett & Nuala Calvi.
pages cm
Summary: “Worn down by years of war and hardship, girls like Sylvia, Margaret, and Gwendolyn were thrilled when American GIs arrived in Britain with their exotic accents, handsome uniforms, and aura of Hollywood glamor. Others, like Rae, who distrusted the Yanks, were eventually won over by their easy charm. So when VE Day finally came, for the 70,000 women who’d become GI brides, it was tinged with sadness—it meant leaving their homeland behind to follow their husbands across the Atlantic. And the long voyage was just the beginning of an even bigger journey. Adapting to a new culture thousands of miles from home, often with a man they barely knew, was difficult—but these women survived the Blitz and could cope with anything. GI Brides shares the sweeping, compelling, and moving true stories of four women who gave up everything and crossed an ocean for love.”—Provided by publisher.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-06-232805-2 (paperback)
1. World War, 1939–1945—Women—Great Britain. 2. War brides—Great Britain—Biography. 3. Women immigrants—United States—Biography. 4. British Americans—Biography. I. Calvi, Nuala. II. Title.
D810.W7B347 2014
940.53092'6550973—dc23
2014010526
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EPub Edition AUGUST 2014 ISBN: 9780062328069
14 15 16 17 18 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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