The Beginning

Part Two: You Can't Make This Stuff Up

She had just finished feeding the chickens. “Mom was in the kitchen cooking supper and Dad was still out in the barn.” Muriel turned on the radio to catch the latest war news. "The radio sat on top of a dark wood cabinet that had two doors. It sat in a room just off the upstairs steps. There was a small door under the steps and I was scared to walk by it. The war was on everybody’s mind. It was a scary time.” The date was December 31, 1941. "Well Scott, I can’t remember what I did on that New Years Eve. Isn't that odd?'’ The Country was gripped in fear and anger after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. “There was a lot of static on the radio. It was hard to hear the broadcaster over the static. I sat so close to it. He sounded solemn. . . and bewildered, I think, as to how any of the sailors aboard a ship in the middle of the Pacific could survive such a long battle. I remember the name of the ship because it started with an 'h' just like my last name, Huber. It was the way I remembered things.” The broadcaster was announcing how the USS Heron was outgunned and under constant attack, causing major damage with many casualties. “I can’t remember many of the details, but to this day, I remember praying for just one sailor to survive and come back home. I don't know why. It was all just too big. To pray for the whole crew. So, I just said a prayer for one sailor to get home safely.”

During the attack on Pearl Harbor, the USS Heron was stationed at Port Ciego Philippines. It was part of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet referred to in Naval jargon as PatWIng—10. Onboard was a 2nd Class Radioman out of Oakwood Oklahoma. He was also trained in Semaphore (flag signing) and as a gunner. A handsome sailor, lean with black wavy hair and a ruddy complexion from spending years in the sun working his pop's farm during the peak of the Dust Bowl years. He had celebrated his 21st birthday on October 6, 1941, on the Pacific Ocean over 9, 000 miles from the dry and dusty fields back home. The USS Heron was supporting General Douglas MacArthur's defense of the Philippines from Japanese aggression. The ship was launched on May 18, 1918, as a minesweeper seeing limited action in WWI. It was reclassified as a plane tender for seaplanes in January 1936 and deployed to the Asiatic Fleet. It was armed with 2 3-inch anti-aircraft guns and 4 50-caliber machine guns. Onboard was a crew of 52 sailors. It was to be part of a fleet supported by Destroyers and one or two Battleship Cruisers. Those larger better gunned ships were to wage war against the enemy. The USS Heron was to support and give aid to any damaged planes and ships. The USS Heron was 187 feet long and had a wood hull. The average torpedo plane was 32 feet Long. On December 31, 1941, there were 15 Torpedo plans dropping their bombs, attacking the USS Heron.

On Dec. 31, 1941, the USS Heron was sent out with no other support ships on a non-critical job to assist another ship reported disabled. They were 100 miles from their base at Ambon in the Dutch East Indies. They never found the other ship. It had sailed into a different harbor for repairs. A Japanese Torpedo Seaplane found the USS Heron. It began its attack dropping its torpedoes that the USS Heron literally dodged. A quote found in a newspaper article after the battle reported that ‘the USS Heron's two 3-inch anti-aircraft guns and her four .50 caliber machine guns spewed forth a hail of metal. They drove the enemy plane away. The sailors cheered.’ It was the first hour of battle. The USS Heron sought refuge in a bank of storm clouds. When they emerged, they were sighted by three Japanese bombers. Over the next seven hours the Heron would be fighting a total of 15 enemy bombers and torpedo seaplanes, They would battle them for eight hours. The resulting rain of shrapnel peppered her decks, holing her wood hull in 27 places and wounding or killing 30 of her 52 crew. The radio, and all but one, of the 3-inch guns were disabled. As the Japanese planes continued to attack the crippled ship "even the wounded turned-to and fought.

One of those wounded who "turned-to and fought" was the sailor from Oklahoma. Despite wounds to his chest and arms, he, and the USS Heron, survived the longest air to ship battle in Naval History.

"You wouldn't have known. He lived his whole life with bits of shrapnel from that battle in his body. He wouldn't talk about it. Don and I knew.”

Part Two: A Yellow Prom Dress and a beach in New Zealand

In the Spring of 1942 plans were made for SVHS JR-SR Prom. "We held it at the Seminary Picnic grounds in the pavilion where quilts are displayed now. It was rustic, but we had our banquet and dance there and it didn’t look the same after it was decorated. There was a raised wood dance floor. The rafters of the big building were decorated, it didn't seem like the same place.” At this same time the USS Heron at a New Zealand port for repairs and to allow the wounded sailors to recuperate. While Muriel was putting on a yellow dress for her Senior Prom, the sailor from Oklahoma was recuperating in New Zealand.

"Yes. Well, Scott. You know I had the prettiest yellow dress. It came below my knee showing a bit of leg. While Muriel was considering dance partners for her Prom, "I was third tallest In my class, made it hard to find a partner!" Don and another sailor would be frolicking on a beach with two nurses in one-piece swimsuits, laughing and splashing.  I knew this, because there was a black and white photo of the four of them, maybe playing in the surf. I found it while looking in one of the drawers of Dad's old wood desk in the back bedroom.  Mom came in the room and I shoved the photo back into the drawer. I supposed I looked suspicious, because Mom asked me to show her what I shoved in the drawer.  I showed her. She said with a bit of sharpness, “I knew it was there and it was before he met me. I don’t know why kept it.” It would be many years later when I would learn what dad was in for when he got home from work that day.

Part Three: Room 43 and the Tea Dance

Mom graduated in May 1942 at the age of 17. “I spent summers working on the farm doing work just like the men. Dad would make sure I worked like anyone else and told me that there was no reason I couldn’t.” After her summer break she entered Southeast Missouri College in Cape Girardeau.

“I was a scared little country girl, but I made friends easily.” Her new home away from home would be room number 43 Leming Hall. "My roommate was Helen Fisher from Altenburg. Helen's Dad was a doctor. She read the Bible every night.” As Freshmen they would be approached by different Societies . "Back then they were called Societies not Sororities. CLIO was made up of the high class, snotty, snooty girls. SOROS was the fun one and that’s the one I wanted to join. I believe that is the one that Helen got into."

“Louise White an upperclassman, who became a goof friend of mine, was a member of an old house, The Hesperian Society. She was confident and knew her way around. I liked that so that is the one I joined.”

 Muriel went to college to be a teacher. "Oh, I don’t know why. I just wanted to teach.” Years later, she would teach at Rock Valley School in Perry County.  It was one of the last one room schoolhouses in the County. “I taught first through eighth grade. Some of the older classes would use the same books.”  When I accompanied Mom to one of her physical therapy sessions at Perry County Memorial Hospital, Velda S. stopped her to say hello. After being introduced as one of her students at Rock Valley, Velda proceeded to tell me that when she was at Rock Valley Mom invited them out to her farmhouse to have homemade ice cream. "We sat on your mom’s front porch while your grandmother made the ice cream, and thought, “what a fun teacher”. We learned a lot from her.”

Going into her sophomore year, she soon discovered that her dorm Leming Hall would house sailors of the Officer’s V-12 Program. A program for promising enlisted sailors to become Naval Officers. "We were all moved across the street into a big white house which became a women’s dorm. From the window of my room, I could see into the window of my old room number 43."

The Hesperian Society agreed to host a Tea Dance to welcome the sailors and have them meet other students. “I was one of the hostesses. We held an open house with dancing and refreshments on one floor and games downstairs. After I finished dancing, I went to sit down. The chairs were placed on the perimeter of the dance floor against the walls. As I watched others dance, a sailor sat down next to me. There were other empty chairs but he sat right down next to me. I thought, "oh well". He was cute! He never said anything to me. So finally, I asked him if he liked to dance? He said yes. That was it. Just yes and nothing else. I waited then finally asked him if he would like to dance?” He said no. “I thought how rude and got up to go downstairs to the game room to play table tennis. I was quite good at it.”

"As I was playing, I noticed that he had come downstairs and was watching me play. I didn't like being watched, so I went back upstairs. By that time the dance was ending so all I remember was having to clean up.” The next time they met was between classes, “I had a history class in the upper wing of Academic Hall. Every other word the professor said was 'uh’. It was distracting and kind of funny. We would count how many times he said it during class. Isn't it funny that I remember something like that?”

Part Four: Showing Up Late for a First Date

"Anyway. One day I was hurrying to class and a book slipped out and fell on the steps I was going up. I hadn't noticed him, but he stopped and picked it up. We ended up having classes on the same floor but across the hall from each other. I don't know, I guess he made small talk as he walked me to the door of my class. I mentioned that the sailors kicked us out of our dorm rooms. He said ‘Oh you lived in Leming Hal? I said yes of course since I just mentioned it to him. I used to live in room 43. I didn't mention that I could see in the window of my old room. He mentioned that he now lived in that room. I suppose we laughed about it.”

After class "I would leave by the back stairs which led to a door in the basement. It was easier to leave that way and less crowded. Don mentioned that he noticed we both walked out the same way. I didn't remember seeing him leave that way before.” Then "After class a day later he seemed to be waiting for me. He said hi. I said hi yourself. He was so good looking with his dark wavy hair, and he had a good shape in his uniform which had a red hash mark on the sleeve. He asked me if I wanted to go out. I said yes.”

"On the day of our first date he showed up very late. I thought he had stood me up. We were going to the Rainbow Room to dance. It was in a nice hotel and had a juke box, booths, served beer and had a nice sized dance floor. I hated beer. After nearly an hour and a half, I was mad and ready to change when there was a knock on my door, I thought ‘well finally', but it turned out to be Earl Coffey. Earl was a friend of my friend Leona from Belgique. He was tall and very good-looking and could really dance! He was in the Army. He invited me to go dancing with him and some friends. We were ready to walk out the door when Don showed up.”

 He said he was shooting pool and lost track of time. Earl backed out. “Don didn't offer an apology. He did try to buy me flowers. There was a florist across the street from the Rainbow Room. We went in but he didn't have enough money for the dance and flowers. So, he bought me just a single flower. A yellow rose. It was cute. We went to the Rainbow Room and had a good time after that. But I found out he could not dance!"  

From this most auspicious of beginnings a deep and long-lasting love story evolved.

“Later he would take dance lessons. I loved playing tennis, and my instructor was an old lady from Ste. Genevieve. He would come and watch me play. Don ended up taking tennis and dance lessons from her.”  These events took place during September and October of 1943. Muriel was 20 years old. Her brother Burt would die in a plane crash in Lake Michigan in November of that year. He was returning from the war in Europe. He was flying solo on a foggy night, to his new duty station as a flight instructor for Naval pilots. Don turned 23 in October 1943. Explaining how old he was to his kids he would always say, "I go with the years minus twenty.”

Part Five: The Scared Country Girl and a Train Ride

Don and Muriel would continue to date until he graduated in late April 1945. "They graduated several weeks before the senior class did.” He was then shipped off to continue Officers Training, first at Columbia College in New York. Then finish out as a Communications Officer at Harvard in Cambridge Massachusetts. When Dad was still alive and I was much younger, he said that he had asked my Grandpa Huber permission to marry mom. Grandpa said yes, after she finished college. After he left Missouri, Muriel age 20, ‘the scared little country girl ‘would jump on a train in St. Louis and travel to the busiest train station in the U.S. in one of the largest cities in the world, New York. My dad and mom were not happy about me leaving at all. Less than a month after her arrival, Don and Muriel were married by a Justice of the Peace on May 12, 1945 in Cambridge Massachusetts.

Dad would raise his eyebrows when mom claimed her prayer on December 31, 1941, was answered. “Sitting so close to the old radio” so she could hear through the static, the report on the USS Heron’s Sea battle, she had prayed “for one sailor to get home safely”.

This final draft was typed on May 12, 2013. It was their anniversary, It was also Mother's Day.

Postscript: Mom never got to read the story of Dad’s and her love story, the beginning. She died in her sleep a month earlier, in April. I think she would have enjoyed the memories.

Just A Coincidence?

Dad would often good-naturedly scoff at the idea that Mom's prayer for "for one sailor to get home safely" led to their meeting.

Consider this though:

-          A sailor's duty station at the Communications desk and a 3' gun he manned were disabled by enemy fire, from which he incurred many wounds. Certainly, he could have used a prayer.

-          He was shipped from New Zealand over 10, 000 miles away to a small college in Missouri, despite other V-12 Officer’s programs much closer to his home port in San Diego.

-          He resided in Room 43 Leming Hall, forcing her to move out.

-          Then on a campus full of “girls preening and posturing for the sailors” (mom’s words), he chose to sit down beside her when plenty of other chairs next to “those girls” were available.

-          They happened to have a class across the hall from each other at the same time. He also took the back stairs of Academic Hall and happened to be there when she dropped a book. (Dad even admitted that had happened.)

And Finally:

Dad completed two years at Weatherford College in Oklahoma. He played basketball on a scholarship "He studied agriculture thinking he would be a County Agent. He joined the Navy following in his brother Hershel’s footsteps and avoided being drafted into the Army.” Leading to, and I can hear the smiling triumphant smirk in Mom's voice as she concludes,

“On one our trips to Oklahoma Don showed me Weatherford College. We turned down this long straight road that led to the front of the College. I pointed out the name on the sign of the road. Huber Road!”