The GI Bride (10 page)

When we heard that my brother Peter was to
be married in August 1956, Bob decided that perhaps it would be good for me to go home
to show off our son and attend the wedding. To finance the trip, and against his
parents’ advice and wishes, he cashed in some of the savings bonds they had bought
for him. Now, with me having new hope and energy, we made plans. In my secret heart I
wasn’t sure if I would come back to America but I desperately needed to go, and
soon. At that time, plane fares cost a small fortune, but we decided that if I
didn’t go, the consequences might be far more costly.

Wayne was about seven months old and I had
been away for almost eighteen when we made that first trip back to the UK. I felt as
though I had lived another entire lifetime since Valentine’s Day of the previous
year. Now, buoyed by excitement, I had nothing but overwhelming gratitude to Bob for
having found a way to make the journey possible. I believe he knew how much it meant to
me and how much it might help me to be with my family for
a while.
Even as we prepared for the trip, my depression had begun to lift.

The journey was torturous. Carrying a heavy
baby plus all his equipment was difficult enough, but back then there was no such thing
as a direct flight from Chicago to London: we had to change planes in New York, where
there was a long layover. It was difficult changing and feeding the baby, as well as
taking care of luggage at the airport terminal. When we began our journey, we looked
very smart, but by the time we got on that second plane, we were a sodden mess.

For the overnight segment of our journey, I
had arranged to have a portable crib for Wayne to sleep in, but I had not counted on
having to hold it on my lap; it made it almost impossible for me to move, especially
when I had to use the toilet. The whole journey took twenty-four hours, whereas today it
takes seven or eight. What a difference!

Dawn was breaking as our plane began its
descent over England, and I wept uncontrollably to see the patchwork quilt of fields
below. The sun was shining on my beloved homeland; it looked like heaven to me. All I
could think was that I would soon see the faces of my own dear family, the family I had
missed so much, and I could hardly wait. I was bursting with excitement.

An eternity seemed to pass before we
staggered through the final gate after retrieving our baggage and clearing Customs. I
scanned the waiting crowds. Then I saw them. My whole family was standing there, beaming
from ear to ear. We fell into each other’s arms, Mum took her grandson from me,
and we wept with joy. I was home.

After the initial torrent of tears and
repeated hugs, Dad was most anxious to tell me about the transport he had borrowed from
friends to take us home.

‘Come on, Iris, just wait till you see
the lovely carriage that awaits you,’ he said.

‘Yeah, you won’t half feel
posh,’ chimed in Mum.

Mum and Dad still had no car and, of course,
I hadn’t even thought of that small detail. What a laugh I had when I saw that
they’d come to meet us in Knight’s the greengrocer’s van, which was
used for fetching produce from the London market to the shop in South Oxhey; it was the
only vehicle large enough to hold all of us and the luggage. We piled happily, if not
stylishly, into the back of the grubby van; we had to sit on produce boxes, and baby
Wayne travelled comfortably inside an orange crate, as we headed for home. It was not
exactly a triumphal entry, but definitely far more fun.

When I walked into Mum’s kitchen and
she put the kettle on for a cup of tea, it was as if I had never left. I walked around
the house just looking at and touching everything. It was wonderful to be home and I
couldn’t get enough of it. Mum took over with Wayne, and after I’d had
‘a lovely cup of tea’, I crawled into bed for a nap that lasted about
sixteen hours. I was completely exhausted.

My first few days in England were filled
with eating all the foods I had missed, talking for hours on end about my experiences in
America and what was happening in my life, visits to family and friends, plus preparing
for Peter’s wedding. The greatest gift of all was the laughter. Oh, how I had
missed it. Stupid jokes, my brothers and I teasing Mum to get her laughing and hearing
her old refrain,
‘Stop muckin’ about, you lot,’ and
recalling funny incidents. My life in America had been devoid of such shared humour and
lightheartedness, and I decided I had to find a way to bring it into my life there. I
didn’t know how I’d do it, but I knew it was what I needed.

A feature story appeared in the local
newspaper, the
Watford Observer
, announcing, ‘So Iris Will Be Home for
the Wedding’. When Bob and I had got married two years earlier, it had published
an article about our own wedding, probably because I was only sixteen. Now that I had
returned home after just a year and half, I was newsworthy again: not many of the local
girls who had married Americans had made return visits or none that had received any
publicity. I never did learn who had told the newspaper about my visit. It might have
been Peter and Brenda when they were giving the details of their wedding to one of its
journalists, as was usual back then, but it might also have been my father, who loved
being in the limelight.

I felt quite the celebrity, and certainly
all the attention and affection I was getting from family and friends was just what I
needed to pull me out of the deep depression I had been experiencing.

The wedding was beautiful, and my reunion
with our entire extended family and so many friends was wonderful. There are no words to
describe how it felt to be back with my own people and to feel somehow reconnected with
the world. All the time I’d been away, I had felt
dis
connected, like a
piece in a jigsaw puzzle that doesn’t seem to fit anywhere.

While Wayne and I were away, Bob wrote to me
regularly, telling me how much he was missing us. He tugged
at my
heartstrings, but as the date of our departure neared, I began having panic attacks.
Repeatedly, through torrents of uncontrollable tears, I told Mum and Dad that I was
terrified to go back, that I didn’t think I could do it again. Dad would also cry,
but they both kept telling me that I had to return to America and try to make my life
work there. They stressed that Wayne and I could have a much better life in America with
Bob than we could ever hope to have in England, and that I owed it to my son to accept
responsibility for the decision I had made when I’d married his father. Talking to
Mum one afternoon, I heard things I didn’t want to hear.

‘You wouldn’t want to end up
here living in a council flat,’ she said.

‘Why would I have to live in a council
flat?’ I asked. ‘I want to come home, Mum.’

‘Where would everyone sleep? There
isn’t room now that you have the baby, Iris. You’d have to have the bigger
bedroom and the two boys [my younger brothers] would be stuck in the box
room.’

I didn’t want to hear any more. I
didn’t want to accept that there was no longer room for me in what I still
considered my home. In my heart, I knew she was right but the thought of leaving home
and family again was tearing me apart and I was scared to death about the future.

After six weeks of nourishment to both body
and soul, and after painful goodbyes, my little son and I flew back to Bob and another
attempt at making a good marriage and a success of my life in America.

Arriving in Chicago, to an anxious, excited
husband, I found that Bob had arranged for Wayne to stay with his parents so that he and
I could go away by ourselves for a long weekend, a kind of second honeymoon. As I looked
at him and saw the love in his eyes for both Wayne and me, I knew I had to give our
relationship, and America, another chance, but this time I’d have to make an even
greater effort.

Going home to England had been both a gift
and a curse. I had loved being in familiar surroundings with my own people. The first
time I’d left home and family I’d been filled with excitement and dreams,
but this time I knew what awaited me. Now I had to face the harsh reality of the life I
had chosen in spite of everyone’s warnings.

‘I can’t wait to have you all to
myself for a little while,’ he said, as he drew our son and me into his arms.

‘Uh-oh! Does that mean I don’t
need to pack anything for the trip except my nightie?’ I laughed nervously.

‘Well, who knows? Maybe you
won’t even need that,’ he said, which was a bit bold for my usually shy
husband. ‘But I might give you time off for good behaviour,’ he added. I
wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but we laughed at our own slightly naughty
thoughts.

I’m sure we must have gone home to our
own apartment
first, but I honestly don’t remember much about
it, perhaps because I was tired after the long flight from England. All I recall is the
unpacking and repacking, first to get Wayne ready and dropped off with his grandparents,
and then to organize ourselves. We were going to get to know each other again. I think
we were both a little apprehensive: it was almost like going on a first date.

We stayed in a beautiful rustic lodge in
Starved Rock State Park, which is near North Utica, Illinois, and is a very romantic
setting. Holding hands, we took long walks along the river and through rocky canyons; we
saw waterfalls, rode horses, slept late and generally enjoyed our time together. At
first, we were a little shy and nervous, just as we had been on our honeymoon, but we
whispered our love and slept in each other’s arms. It was wonderful and I wanted
our holiday never to end.

We were shy with each other throughout our
marriage, perhaps because of our age, lack of worldliness, or because we had grown up in
households in which outward displays of affection were rare. I was always amused that
even as adults we could not call our sex organs by their anatomical names. Bob always
referred to mine as ‘Janey and her sisters’, and even that sounded rude to
me back then.

When we returned to our apartment, life was
a little easier for me and I found myself better able to cope. I was healthier,
physically and mentally, and couldn’t have wished for a more perfect or contented
child.

One of the first things I did after
I’d got back was to call my British friend Bobby McCarthy. ‘I’m
back,’ I said, ‘ready to face the music again. I wish you lived closer,
though. I need you to keep me sane.’

She laughed. ‘Don’t worry, Iris,
I’ve found something that you’ll love. It’s a sort of club for British
women and they meet once a month, downtown in Chicago. Most of the women were GI brides
and they’ve all been through the same things that we have. I’ve only been to
one meeting but it was great fun. We even had tea and English biscuits.’

‘Sounds great! When do we go?’ I
said. I could hardly wait to see Bobby, and was thrilled at the prospect of meeting more
fellow British women.

The organization was called Daughters of the
British Empire (DBE), and Bobby had been right. The women I met there were amazing, but
best of all was that each one had a great sense of humour. What a relief to find this
haven, which made me a little less homesick. The members all seemed to love throwing
parties and having get-togethers; there was usually a party every month at
someone’s home. It was comforting to be with people who enjoyed the same things
and spoke the same language. Most of the women had been married during the war and were
considerably older than I was, so I was the baby of the group and they all took care of
me. At one of my early meetings, a wonderful woman named Joan Murphy, who was Regent of
our DBE chapter, the House of Windsor, asked, ‘How old were you, Iris, when the
Second World War started?’

‘One or two,’ I replied,
whereupon she choked, spraying tea from her nose.

When at last she composed herself, still
with tears of laughter rolling down her face, she explained, to our puzzled group,
‘That’s how old I was when the
First
World War
started.’
We had a good laugh over that.

The British consul general and his wife
attended one of Joan’s parties. As always, after dinner, we played silly games. In
one, the men stood behind a sheet with just their legs from the knees down showing, and
the wives had to pick out their own husband’s knees. Then it was the women’s
turn. Well, my poor Bob marched right up to the sheet, bent down and grabbed a leg.
‘I’d know this skinny old sausage anywhere!’ he shouted.

It belonged to the consul general’s
wife, and I honestly don’t know who was more mortified, poor shy Bob or her. We
teased him about that for a long time and my British friends nicknamed me Sausage Legs,
which was nothing new since my brother Robert had once told me that my legs were like
sausages. I don’t think the consul general and his wife came to any more of our
parties. They did invite us all to cocktails at their swish apartment once, but after
one of our girls threw up over their bed, we never saw them again.