Nurse Kathy Rose is running away. She can't bear to live in the same neighborhood on the south side of Boston where she and her husband both grew up. Bill was dead, killed in a German POW camp after the Battle of the Bulge. So she packs up her bags...
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Miss Jane Sharp 1352 Emerald Street Washington, DC
September 1, 1945
Jane,
I cannot tell you how thrilled my mother and Aunt Dorothy were to hear that you agreed to go with our Kathy out to California! She needs a friend right now. A good friend and a new perspective. I believe without a doubt that when she sees things in a fresh light, she will be able to move past this great tragedy of her young life
A great tragedy for all of us, really. The entire neighborhood felt Bill's loss. You were at their wedding and met him only for a brief moment, but I hope you were able to sense what a special person he was. Everyone who met him, loved him. He was a big brother to me always, even when I was a child and he would come over to our house to listen to Benny Goodman records in the parlor with Kathy. I'm not waxing poetic about him because he is my cousin's dead husband. My heart broke with the news when we received word of his death, after months of waiting in agony when he'd been reported missing in action.
It was a huge blow. His father has no one now. Bill's mother died when he was a child. It was just Bill and his father, a kind and devoted man. He sold their apartment next door soon after we heard that Bill's friend Geoffrey, his best man at the wedding, was shot down on a mission in the Pacific and killed. I think that was what finally sent Kathy over the edge.
I came downstairs in the middle of the night after we got word about Geoffrey. Kathy was sitting in front of the fireplace in the parlor, a pile of letters and photos next to her. She was burning them all. All of Bill's letters, all his pictures that he took while he was in Europe. My Aunt Dorothy was standing in the shadows by the window. She put a finger to her mouth for me to be quiet and allowed her daughter to continue. What else could she or any of us have done?
Kathy told me while she was packing that she can't turn a corner in this city without seeing Bill. As much as it pains us to see her go, she needs a change of scenery. I am so thankful for your friendship with her. You are a good egg, Jane Sharp.
