Pat Pierpont met her husband-to-be, Dick Graves, while serving in the Navy. She was a WAVE and he was a sailor. They were both stationed in Jacksonville, Florida.
My sister was very much into boyfriends and things but I didn’t have any. So I went down there (to Jacksonville) and just knew a lot of guys but didn’t go out hardly at all. And then I met someone one day. He was in the hangar. And I just happened to meet him and he asked me once to go out. The first time we ever went out was New Year’s Eve. We went to a movie. That was it. Had dinner and went back to the base and then saw each other off and on, but we didn’t get married until we were both out of the Navy because that was the way it was. We hadn’t known each other that long, you see, He was from California and I was from Connecticut.
Their marriage was in February 1946. In Connecticut. Pat told them to prepare for the worst.
I said, “Send for your skates, your ice skates” because we always had ice everywhere. And virgin ice, clear beautiful. On the lakes, everywhere. Well, of course, this was the year when they wasn’t any ice when they were there. Except the night we left from church. Then it was raining and freezing. Dick learned to put on chains right away.
This photograph comes from the collection of Pat Pierpont Graves.
Hinges of History 