While he was gone one day, I got a job at Woodward and Lothrab, one of "the" stores in Washington. I can't imagine how I talked myself into that. I found us a room and I was so excited about the whole thing but when I met Marion when he got off duty, he decided I should not do any of these things and go back home - what a blow! But I went. When I got home I decided I just could not live like I had been. I called the Delco Remy Employment Office and explained to them that I had no job, We were all GM people and my husband was in Service and I had to have a job. (This was on a Friday) The man I talked to was Paul Pflaster and he was only hiring Office Personnel and asked me if I could take shorthand and type. I told him I had had some of both in High School but I would love have a chance to try. He gave me an appointment to come in the next morning on Saturday and take a test. I went, took the test, he hired me and I went to work on Monday. I could hardly believe my good fortune. I went to Mother and Daddy's in Alex to tell them and they could hardly believe it either. Hardly anyone we knew had ever been hired on Salary - it was the epitome of employment.
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I worked for a month and then Marion called and said he had a pass to come home and wanted me to come back with him. Decisions, decisions. I was afraid to give up my job, but I wanted to go back with him worse. I explained to my superiors what the situation was and they encouraged me to go with him for a month or so and then if things didn't work the way we hoped they would I could have my job back. We went to Washington by train (this was really a big adventure for a couple of kids who had hardly been any farther away from home than Indianapolis).
When we got to Union Station they were recruiting Government workers there in the Station. They recruited me on the spot and made an appointment for me to take a test the next day to go to work for the Navy Dept, I don't remember exactly how we did it but we found a room (a really crummy place two blocks from the Supreme Court Building) and the next day I found my way to the place where I was supposed to take the test, and went to work immediately. It was in the Department of Naval Personnel across the road in a Temporary Building across from Arlington National Cemetery, and a short distance up the road from the South Post of Fort Meyer where Marion was stationed.
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When he spent the night, we had to get up and leave at 4:00 AM and walk to catch a street car to 12th and Pennsylvania and then catch a bus to Virginia. I had to leave at 4:30 AM to do the same thing. The first day I went to work I was half an hour late to work because I was lost in the building. I had to go to work earlier than most of the other people because I worked in the mail room and the mail had to be sorted and ready to send to the other offices when they came to work. By the way, the bus went through the Pentagon building to get to the Bureau of Naval Personnel where I worked. The Pentagon was not finished when we went there and the story goes that one of the bus drivers kept circling around and around it and finally stopped and told his passengers to get off because he didn't think he could get any closer than that. When Marion first went to the South Post, he was sent on duty to the Pentagon to paint parking lines on the floor in the garage.
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We stayed in that first terrible room about a month, I think. Marion ate on the Post and I ate at the cafeteria at the Navy Dept and sometimes got a little something at a drug store that was close by in the evening. We couldn't afford to eat out together.
After we had been there a while Marion had the opportunity to go to a Medical Corpsman School at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D. C. It lasted for 16 weeks and during that time he could only be off the Base one Saturday night every two weeks. The other Saturday I could visit him. It was a very long trip by bus, walk and streetcar to visit each other, but we didn't mind. When he was finished there, we found a very, small and I do mean very small apartment in Virginia that they had built especially for service personnel. It was made of cinder block and had cement floors but after the way we had been living, it seemed like a castle. Also the rent you paid was according to the rank you held in the Service, and since Marion was a Private, it was affordable for us. Getting some furnishings for it was something else again. We bought a bed, a hideabed, a table and two chairs at Sears and they delivered that. Everything else we bought we moved on the bus. That was a real experience. Can you imagine carrying a mop, broom, dishes and whatever else we could afford on a bus? Of course, since we didn't have much money, it didn't take too many trips. Marion had a friend in Supply who gave us some sheets, blankets and towels. We did our laundry on a washboard (At that time, there were no automatic washers or dryers.). We lived there for almost 3 years.
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One of the big thrills then was when you got a promotion. You always sat on the little tiny porch and sewed on the new stripes. There never was very much money involved, but anything was very welcome. Marion had $18.00 a month take home pay, my allotment was $50.00 a month, and my pay from the Navy was $60.00 every two weeks, so we had to manage our money very carefully to be able to live. One thing that helped a lot was Marion's friend in the Mess Hall. When we had so much month left at the end of the money, he would go to the mess hall and the Sergeant would find extra supplies for month so we could eat until the next payday. Every thing was rationed then so we had to save ration stamps for everything.
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