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by Sue Orsen The days, months, and years went by so fast that they are kind of surprised to find that seventy years now lie between today and the day of their wedding on May 3rd, 1944. Tommy and Jeanne Thompson, who have lived on Smithtown Bay since 1959, are amazed at their newest milestone. “It’s surprising that we’re both still here,” says Jeanne. “Usually by this time, there is only one left to celebrate a 70th.” “I never dated him when he was in high school,” she said, “but only when I graduated from high school. We met through his sister who was my friend and classmate. There were nine of us in a club -- it was what you call a clique -- but we called it JUG, Just Us Girls. Tommy dated several of us and stopped when he got to me. That was a long time ago.” Their first years and first decisions together centered around the War. They had both graduated from Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis, Tommy in 1939 and Jeanne in 1941. After a couple years of a job repairing typewriters and adding machines, Tommy was drafted into the U.S. Army. It was 1941, the same year that Pearl Harbor was attacked and it became World War II. Said Jeanne, “We didn’t know if we should get married before he left for Europe or after he returned. A lot of men in my high school graduating class never came back. War is terrible.” Tommy and Jeanne decided to get married before he was shipped off. Stationed for the first years at Fort Snelling here in St. Paul, Minnesota, Tommy received two three-day passes to marry his sweetheart and take a trip to Duluth for their honeymoon. Jeanne was attending the University of Minnesota, living in the nurse’s dormitory and studying in the College of Home Economics where she majored in Dietetics and minored in Chemistry. “Chemistry was not easy for me and I struggled with it, but I stuck with it because I had to,” said Jeanne. “It was required if I wanted to be a dietician. It’s amazing what you can do when you really need to, and want to.” They were married at St. James Episcopal Church, also called St. James on the Parkway, in South Minneapolis. Then Tommy was off to France and the young couple didn’t see each other again for the next three years. There were letters back and forth -- but no daily emails, no texting, no Skype, as there is today. There were also no phone calls between the newlyweds. It was a long three years. “The German prisoners called themselves Ruskies,” said Tommy. “They didn’t want us to know they were Germans. I picked up the prisoners in Epinal, France, which is over by the border with Germany, and I’d bring them back to the camp at Marseille.” While Tommy was overseas, Jeanne graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1945 and then worked one year of internship at the University to become an R.D., a Registered Dietician. Finally, in 1946, her husband came home from the European Theatre. It was worth the wait. “I had two months to finish off my internship when he returned,” said Jeanne, “and they let me live off campus then. That was very unusual, but everything was unusual because of the War.” What had attracted Jeanne to this particular young man? “He was just a good person,” she replied. “That’s the bottom line. He was a good person.” “And sweet and lovable,too,” added her attentive husband of 70 years. What attracted him to Jeanne? “She was full of pep and energy,” replied Tommy. “We did lots of dancing together.” “We did ballroom dancing,” said Jeanne. “There was always music in the school gymnasium and we also danced at the Colosseum and the Prom. We didn’t go to movies very much. We did ballroom dancing -- the jitterbug, the tango, the swing. I think it’s kind of sad that young people don’t dance anymore like we used to. Now Tommy is 93 years old and can’t dance or walk. His legs are weak, a result of medications and prostate cancer. I don’t know why they call our 90’s the Golden Age. I don’t agree that it’s golden. Everything is a little bit more difficult.”
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The Victoria GAZETTE |
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June Bugs 2014 |
