Open Writing

When my sister Jessie was ten years old, a girl who lived nearby and had a pen-pal in America asked her if she would like to write to her pen-pal's friend. Yes, Jessie would, and so began a friendship that would last for many years. Jessie's pen-pal was called Bonnie Jean Nelson; she was about the same age as Jessie, had a younger sister called Patty and they lived with their parents in Hastings, Nebraska, where their father had a photography studio.

Soon Jessie began to receive pictures of the girls, and as they grew older the pictures became steadily more glamorous, for they were both good-looking and it helped to have a professional photographer for a father. I used to like reading Bonnie's letters, and even more interesting were the photos of the two glamour girls! Later, when I was in the Army, Bonnie and I exchanged a few letters.

Jessie left school when she was fourteen and went to work at George Hall's, a high class clothes shop in Huddersfield, for a wage of £i a month, paid on the first day of the month. When she was nineteen she joined the Land Army: we were at war, and girls were volunteering for the war effort to replace young men who were being called up. She was sent to work on a farm at Northallerton in North Yorkshire. Hard work after a quiet shop, but like other girls in their teens she was doing her bit. Just before the end of the war she returned to George Hall's.

When Jessie was in her teens she had a letter from Bonnie to say that a young man who worked for her father had joined the American Air Force. His name was Dean Bierhaus and she had given him Jessie's address as he was about to be posted to England. I was abroad in the Army at that time.
In due course Dean arrived at the American Air Force base at Warton, near Blackpool, and decided to contact my family. He wrote to say that he had a weekend pass and would like to visit them, but for some reason the letter never arrived. It was a Saturday, Jessie and my mother were at a christening, and my father was at home alone.

Dean arrived at Huddersfield station in the afternoon and he asked an elderly gentleman how to get to Lockwood. The man said 'I'll take you.' Dean had no idea that Lockwood was two miles away so he walked all the way with his guide. My father, who wasn't expecting him and wasn't very socially inclined, didn't invite him in. Dean asked for Jessie, and Father just said she wasn't at home. An awkward silence ensued. Then Dean turned on his heel and walked back to Huddersfield, where he spent the night at the YMCA.

The next day (Sunday) he walked to our house again; this time Jessie was at home and he received a very excited welcome. Soon Dean was coming regularly to Huddersfield and sometimes he met Jessie and my parents in Blackpool. In due course he was sent to Germany but while he was at Warton a terrible disaster happened at nearby Freckleton. An American bomber returning from a flight was struck by lightning and crash-landed on the local school. Many of the children were killed, and Dean was one of the airmen who helped in getting the children out and clearing up the debris. A heartbreaking task.

In the meantime the Nelson family had moved to Longmont in Colorado. Bonnie's father had opened a studio there and Dean went to Longmont to work for him. Soon however, he left and moved to be near his sister Ruby and her husband Joe, who had also left Nebraska for Colorado, and had opened a hardware store on the main street of the small town of Golden, about twelve miles from Denver. Here he went to work in the city, for Continental Airlines.

I was out of the Army in February 1946, having never met Dean who by now had returned to the USA. During that year a romance by correspondence blossomed between him and Jessie, and by the summer Dean had asked Jessie to marry him and sent an engagement ring. What was she to do? This was the biggest decision of her life. She accepted Dean's proposal and booked a passage on the Queen Elizabeth on 22 November.

I had been excited at the prospects of her going to live in Colorado, overwhelmed with my own romantic thoughts of Zane Grey and cowboy country, but now that she was actually leaving, my enthusiasm suddenly waned. We had always been extremely close to each other, going about almost like a courting couple rather than brother and sister. Now she was going away. She and I spent a week at Blackpool early in November, but the 22nd was soon on us. Jessie was crying the night before she left, torn with indecision. She said to me tearfully 'If you say don't go, I won't.' I didn't want her to go but it was too late. I told her if things didn't work out to come back home.

My father and I went to London with Jessie. We saw her off on the boat train at Waterloo Station. I never saw my father cry before that day, but we were all in tears. We came home, and for a long time there was an empty feeling about the house. Jessie was twenty-two years old. I hardly felt to have been at home any time at all from the war, and now we were parted again.

Just over two weeks after leaving home, Jessie married Dean, and Bonnie was a bridesmaid. To prove they weren't superstitious they chose Friday 13 December as their wedding day. It could have been a wrong choice, for there was a near disaster. The wedding reception was at Ruby and Joe's apartment. Ruby had a gas stove in the kitchen with a pilot light. Jessie's veil was an old one, very flimsy, and as she walked past the stove it caught fire. Fortunately, quick thinking by Joe put out the blaze, burning his hands, but for a moment there was panic. On the wedding photos the veil had to be sketched in. But in the end it must have been a good date to choose, for in December 1996 they celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary.

What we didn't know when Jessie left home was that Dean had left Continental Airlines and was out of work. Golden is the home of Coors brewery, and they also had a porcelain factory, where, luckily for the newly-married couple, Dean found work soon after the wedding.

I had never worked anywhere else than in Whitaker's bakery. The business was owned by two brothers, Mr Ralph and Mr James, and had been started by their mother. It was for Mr Ralph's wife that my mother used to go cleaning, and no sooner was I out of the Army than he was knocking on the door wanting to know how soon I would start work. The bakehouse again! The thought of it after all the years away didn't appeal to me at all, but I had to have a job, baking was the only trade I knew, so there was no alternative, at least for the present.

However, because of the length of time I had been in the Army I was due over three months' leave with pay. I wanted to now enjoy some time at home, but Mr Whitaker desperately wanted me back, so I made him a proposition. If I came back now, next year, when perhaps things were more settled down, would he let me take a long holiday? He agreed. So within a few days of being demobbed I found myself among the flour and ovens again.

Shortly after I returned to the bakehouse we were all shaken by the sudden death of Mr James. He and Mr Ralph had made a big success of the business: from the single shop in Lockwood they had gradually expanded and now owned another seven shops in and around Huddersfield. The death of his brother was a big blow to Mr Ralph. About a month later the foreman left, and I was promoted to foreman.

Jessie was in America, I was having difficulty in settling down, so early in 1947 I reminded Mr Whitaker about the deal we'd made. He was a good employer and had known Jessie and myself since we were children. Indeed most days he walked past our house to and from work, and often on his way home in the evening he would call in for a rest and a chat with my parents. He agreed that in the summer I could take nine weeks off work to go and visit Jessie and her husband.

We made enquiries. To get to Denver it meant a day's journey to Southampton, five days across the Atlantic then two days by train from New York to Denver, eight days each way, sixteen days out of my nine weeks. How about flying? 'Flying!' exclaimed my father. You would have thought I was planning a trip to the moon. I had in fact flown twice before, the first time the previous year when I was flown home by the Army from Foggia in Italy, the second time - less ambitiously - at Blackpool, a ten-shilling trip 'around the Tower'.

My father could see the sense of it, but flying... However he got used to the idea, and he and my mother bought an aluminium suitcase for me so it would be lighter than a regular one. I still have the suitcase, rather battered now after over fifty years, but occasionally it is still pressed into service.

And so on 29 June 1947 I left home, tremendously excited, to see Jessie and discover the cowboy country of the Wild West.

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To read Jack's vivid account of his wartime experiences To War With The Bays please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/to_war_with_the_bays/