Then and Now

My mother was a war bride. She and my father met when he was training in Australia, preparing to go to New Guinea, and she had just joined the Australian Air Force. They married a year before the war ended. Their story contains one of my very favorite catch 22's: the war in the Pacific had ramped down, and my dad was sent home. Thousands of war brides followed after the troops were returned. My mother wasn't among them. She was in the service; she couldn't get a visa to the USA until she got a discharge from the Australian Air Force. She couldn't get a discharge from the Air Force until she obtained a visa. She had to wait for the war to end, and then joined thousands more war brides on a ship to a far off land. These were the women I grew up around - women brave enough to travel alone 7,000 miles by ship to a foreign land, to begin a new life, no guarantees they would ever return home.

In 1965 the Seattle Times ran an article about my mother's cooking. It's a fun piece to have. And I remember with great affection all the lovely treats we had at parties.

And here she is now, at a family gathering at the house I grew up in. Still full of life and fun and adventure.