A Map to Shelby, NC
With love and war declared by the end of March 1942, the letters between my maternal grandparents (who referred to eachother by their surnames, Veazey and Kay) evolved from friendly correspondence between shortly acquainted pen pals to something containing an air of hurry. After all, Kay expected to be deployed in the coming months and the demanding schedules of both soldiers like him and nursing students like Veazey made any kind of visitation require weeks, if not months, of planning and collaboration through the mail.
Free weekends were a luxury to both of them; Kay had to win the furlough lottery and Veazey had to work around all of her studies and clinical trials and the job that paid for both of them. To make matters more difficult, Veazey’s family home was rarely anchored to the same place for more than a few months at a time, so any visit to her mother and stepfather could vary pretty wildly in destination. Even Kay seemed to struggle to predict even what state she would be in at any given time.
Kay waited weeks to confirm whether or not he’d be granted his first break from the barracks of Fort Jackson since New Years; he waited even longer to learn how long he’d be allowed off base. Nevertheless, he was quick to offer these precious hours of freedom to Veazey. Without instant communication, all of the planning for what would prove to be a monumental endeavour was conducted via snail mail.
On 10 May he writes:
You couldn’t come down by way of Columbia could you? I’ve been wondering just how to get to Myrtle Beach. I was planning on going out by car, but that 2.6 gallons of gas per week is a stickler.
Does the Bus Line run out that way or is it necessary to go by thumb?
…
I think that date can be set for June, and that can be whittled down to one of four weekends. Tenatively [sic] on the 14th.
With strict rations in full effect, it was clear that gas would be an issue. Nailing down Veazey’s itinerary would prove to be another beast entirely. Veazey’s responses are one of the many unfortunate casualties lost in pursuit of American security, which is to say that soldier’s personal effects (like letters) were routinely destroyed. Nevertheless, it’s fairly easy to fill in the gaps based on Kay’s responses.
On 23 May, the plan-making continues, as does the friendly banter seen throughout his correspondence:
Received your letter and ultra swell picture the other day — and I mean swell. Even if you don’t care for the mountains they sure turn out some really pretty gals. Was naturally disappointed to learn that you won’t be at Myrtle Beach, but then too I can understand the situation.
So when you mentioned Shelby, I sort of ran around in circles trying to find out just where it was located. At the time I couldn’t find a map of the state and no one knew just where it was.
A friend of mine married a girl from Yancy [sic] County up that way, and at present they are living in Columbia. So I asked her and all she said was that it wasn’t far. Today while cleaning out my foot locker I came across a map — and presto had my forefinger on Shelby in no time. I imagine it’s about 150 miles [241 km] as the crow flies, but do you have any idea of how I can get there? I guess I’d have to take a bus to Charlotte and thence to Shelby which is about 40 miles [64 km] from Charlotte.
In any event you can be certain that sometime next month I’ll be there. The hardest part is to get time off. They have different types of passes and the question of getting enough time off is the one. So it looks as if all I could get would be Saturday to Sunday, which brings up another hitch. I’d have to be in Sunday nite at 10 o’clock. But perhaps if I use my influence — (what influence) — Oh well when the time comes, and you can give me the definite status of Shelby on the map etc., I’ll be coming ‘round the mountain.
So you really like country life. Up where I worked I was regarded as a country boy. Funny thing — there are thousands of people in New York City who have never been more than 10 blocks from home, have never seen a horse or a cow, what green grass is like, and first it was hard for me to understand them, and vice versa I suppose. Well, Miss — after getting the on to the ropes of business life and having taken up residence in the city, I used to get quite a kick out of ‘throwing the bull’ at them. You know — such stories as you are familiar with — that is I heard a few up at Banner Elk. Like the hills were so steep, the cows had shorter legs on one side, and loading shotguns with seed and shooting them into the hillside.
I’ll never forget the time I told my Boss why I was late because we had to clean the cows off the railroad track.
It’s worth mentioning that neither of these two were from the country, not really. Kay grew up in what would become a suburban paradise on the outskirts of New York City. There might have certainly been more greenery than what could be found in Brooklyn, but there’s no doubt he’d be considered something of a city boy almost anywhere else. Veazey, on the other hand, was a far cry from a farmer’s daughter. Her father and stepfather both worked white collar jobs as a salesman and Chamber of Commerce representative, respectively, and even when everything was lost during the height of the Great Depression, the closest she’d come to country living was occupying space in a small Southern town.
Her lust for life extended beyond the desolate corn fields surrounding her, and she never hesitated to complain about the lack of activities available to her. Kay had had the world at his disposal in New York, and I imagine Veazey felt a bit swept up in the excitement just thinking of all that was possible. It’s exactly how I felt growing up in a small Southern town that even my fellow North Carolinians couldn’t pin point on a map, and learning just how far and wide my dad had travelled in the years before I came along. Google makes the pursuit of finding that town much easier now, thankfully, though the thought of Kay searching far and wide for a paper map to find a small town no one’s ever heard of just to spend a couple hours with the girl he likes makes it all a bit sweeter.
Unintentional “Cotton Eyed Joe” references aside, it didn’t really matter where they came from, only where they were going, and that was to Shelby. The letters jump from 23 May to 18 June, which leads me to think Veazey was not inclined to keep everything before this point. I couldn’t find much that discussed the contents of the weekend in any great detail, even in the letters in the years since then. This could very well change as I continue reading them all. Kay had penchant for reminiscing, (whether it was by choice or because there was simply nothing positive to focus on at the battlefront remains to be seen) which lets us know that they kissed for the first time that weekend while visiting the home of one of Veazey’s friends.
Otherwise, the events of the weekend could best be surmised through the feelings left once Kay returned to the barracks on 16 June.
All day my head was in the clouds, walking on air seeing nothing and having no physical contact with anything on earth, acting like a kid who was in love.
Yes Veazey, that’s it. I am in love — with you.
It was such an idyllic weekend — seemingly unreal — like a dream, everything worked out so wonderfully well. I found that I had lost my heart. The odd part was that I believed myself infallible to the wiles of women and their infatuous ways, but you Veazey, just broke thru everything I had built up — and I love it.
Acting like a kid I suppose I was extremely noticeable being bombarded with questions by inquisitive friends, most of whom you had met at Banner Elk.
All wondering when the wedding date was etc. In general a goodnatured razzing was had — and I felt it because of my feeling for you.
Honestly, I felt like a sixteen year old in his first throes of puppy love. But having the sense of an older person (I hope) I realize that it is serious with me. Knowing that it is a lot to ask of you to return my affection, after all you have a lot more of your life ahead of you.
But I am going by the theory that a girl your age is as mature or even more so in every respect than the average fellow of 20–21 etc. So you see Veazey, I don’t believe I’m wrong. For that matter look at Romeo and Juliet not that our love will be recorded for posterity, but there is just something about it that gets me. The way we met, our correspondence, everything. Boy meets Girl, etc.
Even now I have that funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. Oh Veazey, we can’t be forever separated. Your face has been before me since I left you at the station. The memory of that farewell kiss you blew off your fingertips was as if your lips were pressed to mine all the way back to camp and still now I can relive each of those too few precious moments we spend together.
I guess it will be ever thus. Perhaps I’m just a fool, taking too much for granted, throwing my heart at your feet heedless of the consequences. Please Veazey, don’t let me make an ass of myself. I believe I know you well enough that you would never do a thing like that. But it may just be kindness on your part the fact that we both were blindly breathless awaiting the moment to meet, that all realities were blotted out. But I do know Veazey that I have lost my heart to you.
Well, Fatso I’ve said my pretty speeches, gotten everything off my sunken chest, not too mushy I hope and don’t dare take offense — because I meant it all.
Hoping to hear from you soon. Please give my best to your folks and thank them again for their wonderful hospitality.
Reading this now, I’m struck by how young they both were. At their first meeting just seven months prior, Kay was twenty three and Veazey was six weeks past her seventeenth birthday. Kay writes with a sense of overwhelm and euphoria, like his friends’ teasing is not the first time he’s thought of their wedding. I can’t help but wonder how Veazey responded, though she remains vivid and alive in his descriptions.
I have hesitated to address the age gap in their relationship to the extent that I contemplated not including certain aspects of that letter. However, to intentionally omit any aspect of their story would be dishonest. Today, that difference would (and should!) raise questions about power, experience, and maturity. This is one of those times we really need to remember that they met eighty four years ago; the line between what was normal or acceptable and what was not was very different from where that line exists today. Women were raised to be housewives, and it was far from uncommon for girls to marry right out of high school (which only went up to the eleventh grade instead of the modern twelve).
Despite this, Veazey was always an exception. The concept of “waiting” always existed within the confines of their relationship, but at first, it was Veazey that requested for Kay to wait until she had finished school. The two wrongly expected the war to be over by the time Veazey graduated, but her expectation was clear: she would not drop out of school to get married the same way so many of her peers did.
This was no doubt reinforced by her mother, who almost singlehandedly pulled her family out of financial hardship once when the Great Depression hit and again when her husband was killed in a car accident just a few years later. Veazey’s idyllic childhood came crashing down with the stock market and her family lost everything. After her father died and her mother opened a guesthouse in Myrtle Beach, the load was lessened, but her step father’s new job and a severe housing shortage left by the Great Depression meant that the family was moving constantly. In one particularly low point, the only home that could be secured was a boarding house. Christmas of 1940 would always be described as particularly grim, as the six of them spent it piled into a two-room apartment.
All of this to say that Veazey had lived a hundred lives in her short seventeen years. While the age gap between her and Kay is enough to cause concern from a modern standpoint, it made sense for them. After reading through more of their correspondence, there is no indication that Kay saw her as anything less than his equal. She was not someone who could be moved or swayed easily and that’s one of the many things that endeared him.
Veazey’s words may have been lost, but Kay never stopped writing as if she were speaking right back to him. Kay was always quick to mention that he could feel her presence between the lines, as if she was there speaking them to him herself. I feel that way now, reading everything back.
That weekend in Shelby was all the proof he needed. For Kay, it was no longer a question of whether his love was real; it had already taken root, bloomed, and begun to grow wild.
And so began the mad dash of the summer of 1942: letters flying, furloughs gambled, plans made with fingers crossed. Luck was on their side. Kay would be granted a ten-day reprieve just one month later. He visited home for what he thought would be the last time, but he still gave half of that time to Veazey.
They met again at her mother’s guesthouse in Myrtle Beach, and for the first time, they had more than a few hours stolen between bus routes and borrowed passes.
This time, they had a week.
And Kay wrote about it like he never wanted it to end.
