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Dickinson: Where My Mom Met My Dad I pulled off Interstate 94 late that afternoon and drove into Dickinson, the largest city in western North Dakota. A Normal School (i.e., teacher's college) was built in Dickinson in the early 1900s and up until World War II, hundreds of elementary and high school teachers had been taught here.
The demand for teachers dropped during the war, however, so the building was converted into a Naval Officer Training School, something like in the movie, "An Officer and a Gentleman." Dozens of Navy V-12 schools like this popped up around the country during the war to churn out officers. Far from any ocean, V-12 schools like the one in Dickinson involved only classroom instruction and were the first step in a rigorous program of officer training during which many cadets washed out. After the war, the Normal School became Dickinson State University.
In December 1941, my dad was an 18-year-old freshman attending Western Washington Teacher's College in Bellingham, Washington. The Japanese attacked the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, plunging the U.S. into World War II, and the next day my dad tried to enlist with the U.S. Navy. Since he was in college, though, the Navy recruiters told him to stay in school for another year, then enroll in Officer Training School and become an officer instead of joining the Navy immediately and becoming an enlisted man.
In June 1943, after completing his sophomore year at Western Washington, he and several other Naval officer recruits were sent to Dickinson to attend the newly-opened Officer Training School there. Dickinson's first group of officer candidates, including my dad, arrived from Seattle by train on Wednesday, June 30, 1943. Three days later, on Saturday, July 3, the Dickinson community held a U.S.O. dance to welcome the cadets.
During that same week in 1943, my mom, who was 18 and had just graduated from Bismarck High School, took a bus out to Dickinson to visit a girlfriend of hers there, Colleen Tobin. Colleen's mother was on the USO's dance committee and was worried that there weren't going to be enough girls at the dance, since it was the 4th of July weekend and many families were out of town. Mrs. Tobin pleaded with her daughter and my mom to go to the dance. At first, my mom refused to go because she didn't like the Navy because she thought all sailors were sleazy scalawags. In deference to Mrs. Tobin, though, she finally relented and went to the dance with her friend, Colleen.
A few weeks before I visited Dickinson, while I was in Bismarck, I read a front-page article in the Dickinson newspaper dated July 3, 1943, the day of the dance. According to the article, "Girls at the dance will not be permitted to tell the cadets their last names, supply telephone numbers nor make dates. The cadets will not be allowed to take the girls home after the dance." That was just as my mom had once told me.
As you probably guessed, my dad met my mom at the dance that night. Naval regulations notwithstanding, my dad asked if he could walk her home and they decided to meet outside and across the street after the dance was over. He walked her home that night and she asked him if he'd like to go horseback riding the next day. My dad, who had never ridden a horse in his life (but didn't admit it to her), enthusiastically said yes. In fact, he told her that he loved riding horses. Smart move, dad!
The next day, four of them – my dad, mom, Colleen and one of my dad's Navy buddies – went on a horseback-riding double-date on the plains near Dickinson. My dad bounced up and down in his saddle for four hours and then hobbled home with a raw backside; his white Navy pants had turned red from the blood stains. My mom probably wasn't overwhelmed with my dad's equestrian skills, but he must have made a good impression otherwise because they got married a few months later.
After graduating from Navy V-12 school in 1943, my parents moved to Chicago where my dad graduated from Navy Midshipmen's School in 1944 and became an officer. After that they moved to Florida, where he trained in one of the first groups of Navy SEALs (called "Scouts and Raiders" back then). Then he was sent to China to fight the Japanese and later told me some harrowing stories about his experiences there. Starting as an Ensign, the lowest rank of Naval officer, he left the Navy in 1946 and returned to America, now a Lieutenant.
I had spent much of the past four months driving around America while researching my family's history so, of course, I had to see the place where my parents met. I told this story to a nice woman at the Chamber of Commerce in Dickinson, but she said that the Community Building, where the dance was held in 1943, had been torn down the previous year. She gave me directions to the lot where it had once stood, though, so I drove out to see it. As I stood there in the empty lot, I tried to imagine what that night in 1943 must have been like. I could almost hear the music.
Above left: Dickinson State University in Dickinson, North Dakota. During World War II, my dad attended Naval Officer Training School in this building, May Hall. Above center: This was May Hall in 1943. It had been Dickinson Teacher's College before World War II but during the war it was converted to a Navy V-12 school to train officers. That's my dad in his Navy uniform, behind the fellow in front. Above right: My mom and dad ice skating near Dickinson in 1943 shortly after they met. They married a few months later, before my dad was sent to China to fight in World War II. He still has that Western Washington University sweater.
Above left: A front page story in the Dickinson newspaper on July 2, 1943. A dance was to be held on Saturday night at the Community Building for the newly-arrived naval officer candidates. As it states, "Girls at the dance will not be permitted to tell the cadets their last names, supply telephone numbers nor make dates." Yeah, right! Above right: Unfortunately the Dickinson Community Building, where my parents had met in 1943, was torn down last year. This is the empty lot (with my truck, of course). After the dance in 1943, my mom walked across the street to meet my dad and the rest is history. Good thing for me they didn't follow those dance rules!
Above left: My mom's friend, Colleen Tobin, on the horseback ride the day after my parents met at the dance in July 1943. My mom's horse is on the left. Above right: My dad, dressed in his Navy cap and white pants, on my parent's first date. He bounced up and down so much in the saddle that he had blood stains on his backside – but I'm sure he didn't complain!
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