91-year-old cherishes wartime letters from her beau
When Chicagoan Richard "Dick" Davis enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II, he promised his sweetheart, Bette, he'd write to her every day. She made the same pledge.
They both kept their word. For more than three years, almost every day, they corresponded.
"We kept it up," recalled the now-91-year-old Bette Davis, who has a home in Grayslake but has been living at the Libertyville Manor extended care facility. "We wanted to be together all the time. There were no ifs ands or buts."
Decades later, Davis cherishes the 400-plus letters she received during wartime from the man she married. She keeps them in boxes at her home.
After her husband died in 2006, Davis used a computer to transcribe the letters, making them easier to read. She printed them and collected them in two blue, three-ring binders she shares with family, friends and other people she meets.
She regularly rereads them, in chronological order.
"I get the albums out and I start with (No.) 1 again," Davis said.
Dick Davis trained as a bomber pilot but never saw action. Chronic sinus trouble kept him out of the air.
He spent his time in the Army at various bases in the U.S., working as a crew chief and specializing in the care of radar equipment.
He sent Bette letters from Tennessee, Florida, Wisconsin, California and other spots.
He wrote of his training, hours spent on kitchen duty and the places he saw. He wrote of hitchhiking to Los Angeles and seeing well-dressed celebrities in clubs and restaurants.
"He would tell me everything in detail," Bette said. "He wanted me to know everything."
Most of all, he wrote about Bette, whom he married in July 1943 while on a three-day pass.
"All I can think of is that I love you so much darling that I would go AWOL just to see you," Dick Davis wrote Jan. 1, 1943. "I guess I'll have to wait to see my beautiful sweetheart and when I do come home I'm going to kiss and kiss and hold her for always and never let her go."
Bette Davis lived with her parents in Chicago during the war. She remembers eagerly awaiting visits from the postman and the letters he brought.
"I was so excited," she said. "I could hardly wait until I opened them."
Davis lights up when she talks about the letters with other people, said Sue Field, Libertyville Manor's activities coordinator.
"The reminiscing is good for the soul," Field said.
The couple's son, Rich, knew about the letters as a youth. He read them years later, and discovered much about what his father was like as a young man.
"I learned that he was much more gregarious than I had seen him," said the younger Davis, 67. "He was much more romantic, too."
Rich Davis hopes to share the letters with his daughters one day.
"They'll enjoy them," he said. "They'll see what Grandma and Grandpa were like."