Not long ago I had the opportunity to take a glimpse into the mind of my father as a very young man. During a recent visit, my sister brought a box of letters and mementos my mother had saved from the early days of her dating my dad, through their times apart while they were in college and lastly while my dad was stationed in Hawaii so that I could take them to my daughter, Maggie, who has become our family historian. I wasn’t going to open the box, but on the eve of our taking them to her, I couldn’t resist the desire to take a peek.
Spanning a period of three and a half years from fall of 1952 until March 1956 these letters were written from several different locals and under different circumstances, but the recurrent theme in each and every one was how deeply he loved my mother and how desperately he wanted them to be together.
The letters began with my father’s arrival at Alfred University. If I recall correctly, he was studying poultry farming.but later he discovered he was allergic to chicken feathers and had to drop out. Based on his letters, I got the impression that he didn’t really want to be there. He was a year ahead of my mother in school so while he was away, she was back home doing all the usual social things they been used to do together. His words echoed a longing to be home and with her. After a year at Alfred he dropped out.
The next year, my mother went to RIT to study interior design. Left to her own devices, she would have married my father right out of high school but as she put it, my grandfather wouldn’t allow it and insisted that she spend the funds she’d saved for a wedding on college tuition. At this point, dad is back in the hometown while my mother was away. These letters gave me a look into what life was like in Springville, NY, the little town where I was born. Dad talked about his parents going to the high school basketball games, his sister and brothers, of life on the farm and going out with his friends. All the while, he missed his girl and wished she were home. He even talked about spending time with my mother’s family; stopping by in the evening to talk or watch television with them even though he secretly worried that they didn’t think he the kind of guy they would have chosen to marry their daughter. The letters indicate that she went home to most weekends so it wasn’t surprising that after a year, she dropped out as well.
The last set of letters were written while Dad was in the Army. Dad seemed to enjoy Army life. Having grown up on a farm, he was accustomed to hard work and I don’t think the discipline was foreign to him either. The hardest part for him was again, the separation from my mother. Eventually he was given a pass and in September, 1954, he came home and they were married. They spend a few months together in Ft. Hood, TX until Dad was sent to Hawaii for a year. Mom, now expecting me, went back to live with her parents.
As a young husband (he was 20), separated from his wife and expecting a child, my father’s letters always spoke of home and the life he and Mom would share when he got home. One major topic of discussion was Mom’s learning to drive. She’d never learned in high school so when dad left his car with her, he expected her to learn how to drive and have some independence. In his letters he encourages her to get behind the wheel and also consoles and shoes understanding when she apparently reported a mishap that resulted in a dent. There was also a small amount of talk about me, “the expected one”, and a request that Mom not let anyone spoil me while he was gone, because he wanted to do that himself. Dad left the Army and returned home when I was five months old and the letters stopped. Mom and Dad were finally able to be together.
At first I was reluctant to read the letters from my Dad. They weren’t written to me or for me to read, but I’m so glad I did. I’ve known my dad as John Farner, my dad. All my life as a loving, kind father. It was nice to get to know him a little bit as Johnny, the young man.
