F-Bar-Z Ranch
Box 21, Rural Route 3
Midland, Texas
Christmas Eve 1945
Dear Jim,
I really hate to burden you with this, but there is no other option.
We have — your mother has — heard from her family in Strasbourg. This came as a surprise to us, as the only time we have ever heard from them was a few years before the war when they notified us that your mother’s mother — your grandmother — had passed on.
That obviously needs an explanation, so herewith.
In early November of 1918, I was a very young (twenty-six), just promoted major. Colonel Bill Donovan sent me to Strasbourg to get the facts concerning rumors that he (and General Pershing) had heard about the Communists wanting to establish a “Soviet Government” there.
After the abdication of the German Emperor, Wilhelm, the Communists had done so in Munich, and were trying to do in Berlin and elsewhere.
Our little convoy (I had with me four officers and a half dozen sergeants traveling in half a dozen Army Model T Fords) arrived in Strasbourg on November sixth and found very nice accommodations in the Maison Rouge Hotel.
I immediately sent one of the officers and one of the sergeants back to Col. Donovan’s HQ with the news we were in Strasbourg and prepared to carry out our orders to report daily on the situation.
I was by then already convinced I had been given the best assignment of my military career. It had nothing to do with the Communists, but rather with a member of the staff of the Maison Rouge, a strikingly beautiful blond young woman who had, blushing charmingly as she did so, told me her name was Wilhelmina.
Right. I had met your mother.
She had also told me that she could not possibly have dinner, or even a cup of coffee, with me, else her father would kill her.
Nothing would dissuade her from this, but over the next few days, I managed to spend enough time with her at the front desk to conclude that she was not immune to my charm and manly good looks, and it was only her father’s hate of all things American that kept her from permitting our relationship to blossom.
The Communists solved the problem for us. on November 11, 1918 — Armistice Day — they started trying to take over the city. There was resistance, of course, and a good deal of bloodshed. Citizens were ordered by the French military government to stay off the streets, and to remain where they were.
The threat was real. Two of my officers and one of my sergeants were beaten nearly to death by the Communists.
Your mother’s family lived on the outskirts of town and it would have been impossible for her to even try to get home. The Maison Rouge installed her (and other employees) in rooms in the hotel.
She was there for almost two weeks, during which time our relationship had the opportunity to bloom.
Finally, on November 22, General Henri Gouraud, the French military governor, had enough of the Communists. Troops, including Moroccan Goumiers, moved into the city and restored order. Brutally.
The next morning, I loaded your mother into a Model T and drove her home. I had the naïve hope that her father would be grateful that I had protected his daughter during the trouble and would be at least amenable to my taking her to dinner, if not becoming her suitor.
Instead, when he saw us pull up outside your mother’s home, he erupted from the house and began to berate her for bringing shame on the family. I managed to keep my mouth shut during this, but when she indignantly denied — with every right to do so — that anything improper had happened between us, this served only to further enrage him.
I would say he slapped her, but the word is inadequate to describe the blow he delivered, which knocked her off her feet. At this point, I lost control and took him on. He wound up on the ground with a bloody nose and some lost teeth.
I loaded your mother, who was by then hysterical, back into the Model T and returned to the Maison Rouge.
When we got there, we found Colonel Donovan and a company of infantry. They had come to rescue us from the Communists. The French had already done that, of course.
When I explained my personal problems to Donovan, he said there was one sure way to convince your mother’s father that my intentions were honorable, and that was to marry her.
To my delight and surprise, your mother agreed. We drove that same morning to Paris, armed with two letters from Donovan, one to the American ambassador, the other to the manager of the Hotel Intercontinental on rue de Castiglione.
The ambassador married us late that afternoon, and issued your mother an American passport. We spent the night in the Intercontinental and then drove back to Strasbourg as man and wife.
There was a black wreath on the door of your mother’s house when we got there. Her father had suffered a fatal heart attack during the night.