THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 13, 1996 TAG: 9602130038
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH SIMPSON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 193 lines
THE YEAR AFTER World War II ended was a time when the phrase ``Till death do us part'' echoed across the country.
Weddings surged as servicemen came home from overseas, and women quit their defense-plant jobs to settle down to the business of starting families.
The marriage rate went from 8 per 1,000 people just before the war to 16 per 1,000 after the war's end. Those unions spawned the largest population surge in American history: the Baby Boom.
``There was a sense of victory, and a validation of the American way of life,'' said Suzanne Kennedy, who teaches 20th century history at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. The GI Bill and a relatively robust postwar economy also meant many couples could move up to the middle class, making it a prime time for starting new lives.
And, oh yes, one other thing fueled the bulge of marriages that year: love. In many cases, it was love that had either survived war or blossomed in the midst of it.
Many of those couples are now celebrating their 50th anniversaries. Their long-ago introductions are rooted in USO dances, wartime shortages, overseas engagements and separations bound by long-distance love letters.
What gave these golden-anniversary marriages the lasting power that many unions lack today? That's a subject for a book, but here are some possible reasons: People's expectations for happiness were lower. The roles of husband and wife were clearer. Commitments carried weight.
And divorce had a stigma.
``The only people who got divorced back then were movie stars,'' said Marie Fehmel, a Virginia Beach woman who will be married to her husband, Roy, for 50 years come May 11.
Still, it's hard to say exactly why a marriage succeeds for half a century. Press Hampton Roads couples celebrating golden anniversaries for the secret to a long marriage, and husbands and wives will often exchange looks, shrug their shoulders and pass on short phrases of advice:
``It takes a lot of give and take,'' says Tina Brown, who married H. Ernest Brown on May 28, 1946.
``You have to stick together when times are hard, instead of pulling apart,'' says Hazel Jennings, who wed husband Lister during his six-day Navy leave in December 1945.
``You have to like the same things,'' says Roy Fehmel, who still goes dancing with the woman he took to USO dances during the war.
Perhaps their stories speak for themselves.
The Browns
Tina Brown lived above the restaurant her aunt ran in the town of Antwerp, Belgium, at the same time that H. Ernest Brown was serving out an overseas stint in the Army.
``I was a GI roaming the town,'' Ernest recalls. ``That started the whole thing. You know, boy meets girl.''
``I'd sit across the way and he'd wink at me once in a while,'' remembers Tina, who still has the slim figure she had when she met Ernest 50-plus years ago.
That's how their union began. With a wink and a smile.
Tina had spent the war years with her family in England. So by the time she returned to Belgium in 1945, she was fluent in English. But that's not the only thing that attracted Ernest to Tina.
``She was a good-looking girl,'' he says matter-of-factly. ``Still is.''
The couple met in October 1945, and by the following New Year's Eve, Ernest was ready to pop the question. He phrased it in such a way that still makes Tina laugh.
``He said, `Suppose I were to ask you to marry me. What would you say?' ''
``That's one way to keep from getting turned down,'' Ernest says with a laugh.
To marry him, Tina had to face the prospect of leaving her family, her friends and her country. ``I knew if I said yes, I would have to leave. But I was young and in love,'' she says.
So she said yes.
To marry her, Ernest had to re-enlist in the Army for three more months, something he never told his mother for fear of upsetting her.
Ernest and Tina set the date for May 28, 1946. Wartime shortages meant there was no silk to be found for a wedding dress, so Ernest went to the PX and found a white silk parachute. A seamstress snipped and stitched the cloth into a wedding suit for Tina.
``It was short because there wasn't enough for a long gown,'' Tina remembers. ``But I always wanted to be married in white, so that's the way we did it.''
Soon after an Army chapel wedding, Ernest returned to the States with his Army unit. Tina arrived in New York City a few months later on a ship with 800 other war brides.
``I can still see the Statue of Liberty,'' she says. ``All of us were scared. But it was very, very exciting. It was a very special moment.''
She took a train from New York City to the Eastern Shore, and a ferry from Cape Charles to Norfolk. But her husband, thinking she was coming by ship from Baltimore, went to the wrong place to pick her up.
``I thought I had been abandoned,'' Tina remembers. ``It scared me because I was so far from home.''
But it only took a phone call to reunite the couple.
In July, the couple plans to travel from their home in Virginia Beach to Antwerp for a 50th anniversary celebration with their three daughters and their families.
``It doesn't seem like 50 years,'' Tina says with a sigh.
Ernest sums up his advice for young couples succinctly.
``You have to love each other,'' he says. ``Don't ever let that go.''
The Jenningses
Lister and Hazel Jennings of Portsmouth didn't have to cross oceans to meet one another as the Browns did.
They met on Liberty Street in Norfolk while Hazel was working in a beauty shop and Lister was looking for a place to eat.
``The first time we met, he was going to a noodle shop, a Chinese restaurant, next door to a beauty parlor where I was working,'' recalls Hazel Jennings.
The two struck up a conversation, and then a friendship. Lister would give Hazel rides to Norfolk Community Hospital, where she was working as a licensed practical nurse. Soon, they were going to church together at St. Mark's United Church of Christ in Norfolk.
Lister joined the Navy soon after that and was sent to Maryland for boot camp. During a six-day leave in December 1945, Lister brought home a ring for Hazel. She was completely surprised.
``I didn't even know he wanted to get married,'' she says.
She and her mother went to Altschul's department store on Granby Street in Norfolk and bought her a light-blue dress with a scalloped neckline, and they invited 25 friends and family to their home for a wedding a few days later.
Lister had to return to boot camp before they even had time for a honeymoon. From there he was sent to San Diego, then shipped out to Panama and Cuba before returning to Norfolk, where he left the Navy to work as a civilian employee for the Naval Supply Center.
Hazel worked as a licensed practical nurse until she had her first child, then went to work for the Southeastern Tidewater Opportunity Project when her youngest child was 3 years old.
``When my husband made his salary and I made mine, we'd come home and put the money on the bed and pay the bills, and what was left, we divided among us to pay for gas and food and whatever else we needed,'' Hazel recalls. ``We didn't overspend.''
Although her memories of their living-room wedding are just as warm today as in 1945, Hazel always had the smallest of regrets about not having a big church wedding.
But her children took care of that for her. For the Jenningses' 50th anniversary in December, the couple's children arranged for them to renew their vows in a church wedding with 200 guests, a limousine and an elaborate reception. Hazel wore a hand-stitched gown made of gold cloth, with a long train and a headdress. Lister wore a white tuxedo trimmed with gold, and their 11 children served as bridesmaids and groomsmen.
``She said she wanted to do the whole thing over again, and so we did,'' Lister says with a smile.
``A long marriage is built on more than love,'' Hazel says. ``You have to have trust and commitment. Nobody seems to want to make a commitment any more, but that's what it takes.''
The Fehmels
If Roy Fehmel's eyesight had been strong enough to become a Navy pilot, he might never have met his wife, Marie.
And if it weren't for the fact that Roy could do a dip on the dance floor, Marie might have moved on to the next dance partner.
Those are the kinds of things that bring people together.
Roy Fehmel had wanted to be a Navy pilot but failed the eye test. He joined the Air Force instead, still hoping to become a pilot. He moved from his home in the New York City borough of Queens to Randolph Field in San Antonio.
Roy and his Air Force buddies used to go to USO dances where Marie, her sister and friends used to sing. Marie's sister met a young Air Force man at the dance. He introduced Marie to his buddy, Roy Fehmel.
``When we first met, it was just a hello-goodbye thing, and then we went out the following week,'' Marie says.
They went to a nightclub called Klein's in San Antonio. ``We were dancing,'' Marie remembers, ``And all of a sudden we did the dip. Not everyone could do the dip, so I was impressed. He was a good dancer.''
That dancing date was the first of many. ``She and her friends would sing at USO dances, and I'd tag along,'' Roy remembers.
``I used to sing `If I Loved You.' That was our song,'' says Marie.
The war ended and in February 1946, Roy went back to Queens. Marie moved there a few months later to live with her sister, who had married Roy's Air Force buddy.
Roy and Marie tied the knot in a Forest Hills, N.Y., church on May 11, 1946. ``Texas girl wed in Forest Hills,'' the newspaper headline read.
She wore a gray suit and a pink hat. Fourteen guests were invited to the wedding and sit-down dinner, and then the couple honeymooned in the Poconos for two nights.
``That's all we could afford,'' Roy says. ``We couldn't lose any more time from work.
The Fehmels, who moved to Virginia Beach in 1972, will go on a cruise in March to celebrate their golden anniversary. Their four children will help them celebrate their anniversary date in May.
``It's gone by very quickly,'' Marie says. ``It doesn't seem like 50 years.''
``You have to like the same things, have the same personalities,'' Roy Fehmel says. ``And you have to give and take.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by Motoya Nakamura/The Virginian-Pilot
[Lister and Hazel Jennings]
New Yorker Roy and Marie Fehmel
JIM WALKER /The Virginian-Pilot
Ernest Brown was in the Army when he met his Belgian-born wife,
Tina, while on duty in Europe after World War II. To marry him, Tina
had to leave her family, her friends and her country.
by CNB