Esther @ 16

Mother brought some more pictures to the office this morning. You can count on me posting many of them here soon. Most of the photographs were of my father back in his youth in Cheraw.  Mother said that the photos were sent to her from aunt Florence Finlayson's collection after her death. 

Mom told me that she was sixteen at the time the above photo was taken. She told me that her aunt Esther had invited her down to Biloxi, MS to stay a few weeks with them. She ended up spending three weeks down there. Biloxi back then wasn't the gambling town that it is today, mother said it still was an tourist attraction and had a large Army Air Force base there. She said there wasn't much to do down there other than stroll the beach and go to the dances on base on the weekends. Her uncle was an NCO that served as a photographer on base. He took this photograph of her.

Mom told me a humorous story of a young soldier that followed her around and would camp out at their doorstep. He was quite smitten with her and young Esther couldn't get him to go away. One day he asked if she would marry him if he re-enlisted. Mother, shame on her, told the love sick Italian to go ahead an re-enlist and she'd give him an answer later. "Mother - During war time!?!"  "Mother chuckled and said, "No, this was after the war but it was still a terrible thing to do...please don't put that in your blog - that's the worst thing I ever did."  My mother was a very shy lady in her youth. I'm sure she'd rather her young love-smitten re-enlist rather than her have to dish out a cold plate of rejection.

A few years later, during the Korean war, mother dated a fellow for three years. Mom said that she loved him but the guy went off to war without asking her to marry him. A friend had warned the young pilot that he needed to secure his interests here on the home-front before flying off into the wild blue yonder. For some reason he decided not to pop the question before leaving. While he was away risking his life and limb for God, Country, and Esther - a young legal eagle fresh out of law school came rolling into town. Mother fell for Westbrook and the rest is Finlayson history. I guess it's true that all's fair in love and war.

By the way, mom and dad married 57 years ago today. After reading over this blog she told me that she "married the right fellow."

P.S. Mother said that she later learned that it was that young pilot that flew the documents overseas that ended the Korean War.