Once-lost diary tells story of WWII and love of 'Smiley'

Giving away her little blue book hasn't gotten any less emotional for Donna Mae Reishus.

Donna Mae cried the first time she gave the blank diary to her high school sweetheart, Dale Reishus, as he shipped out on a Navy destroyer to fight World War II. She cried last month as she made the difficult decision to donate her late husband's completed diary to the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress.

Once assumed to be lost forever, that little book holds a personal history of World War II and the story of a lifelong love affair that fueled a 57-year marriage.

"We were boyfriend and girlfriend since eighth grade," begins Donna Mae, 85, who lives in a lovely home on the border of Lisle and Naperville. She was Donna Mae Larson back then and lived in the small town of Cottonwood in the southwest corner of Minnesota. Dale and Donna Mae knew then they'd grow old together.

"I broke up with Dale in high school once, for a week," Donna Mae says, laughing at the foolishness.

When they graduated from Cottonwood High School in 1942, Dale knew he would end up fighting in World War II. He loved swimming and sailing in Cottonwood Lake, so he enlisted in the Navy.

"When he left, I gave him the diary," Donna Mae says. "It was a tearful goodbye."

With a population of less than 1,000, Cottonwood was too small to have a store that would sell diaries, so Donna Mae must have bought it in one of the larger towns in the area. It couldn't have cost much. The title on the front reads, "My Life in the Service." Inside are pages for addresses of loved ones back home, space to write the names of "My Buddies" met during the war, and pages to record the daily happenings.

Dale wrote his first diary entry on May 17, 1943, explaining that he had boarded the bus to Camp Farragut in Idaho for training.

Looking at Donna Mae's old black-and-white senior photograph tucked inside the pages, it's easy to see why Dale nicknamed her "Smiley."

"The theme of the diary is 'No letters from Smiley today,'" Donna Mae says.

That's not because Smiley didn't write. Her letters were screened, censored and delivered to his ship in bundles, often arriving in stacks of a dozen at one time.

"Smiley can sure write some wonderful letters!" reads one of Dale's entries.

Assigned to a destroyer coincidentally named the U.S.S. Dale, Dale and the crew were ordered not to keep notes or diaries that could fall into enemy hands.

"But he did not obey," Donna Mae says.

As an electrician's mate 3rd class, Dale worked in the bowels of the ship, which gave him the perfect cover for his contraband diary.

"He hid it amongst the pipes for three years," Donna Mae says.

Dale wrote of providing backup for invasions on the islands in the Pacific. He told of fires and explosions, bombers and battles, and Tokyo and Iwo Jima. He wrote about a typhoon in the China Sea that sunk destroyers on either side of the U.S.S. Dale. He also wrote about getting cookies and letters from home, playing pinochle with buddies, watching movies and noting that an entry of "drank my 3 cans of beer and played softball" was no match for reuniting with Smiley.

When the war ended, Dale wanted to retrieve his hidden diary, but was scared he would be caught and reprimanded. As he walked down that gangplank for the last time, he realized he had forgotten it on the ship that was slated to be used for scrap metal. Resigned to losing it forever, Dale returned home, married Donna Mae, joined the family construction business and started a family that would eventually include three children.

Two years later, a small brown package arrived in the mail.

"This may be something you'd care to keep so I've taken it from its hiding place above the control board. I hope you receive it soon, and good luck," read the note with no return address.

Like many W.W. II veterans, Dale didn't talk much about the war or his diary. But after he died on Dec. 30, 2002, Donna Mae decided to share his story. With the help of Congresswoman Judy Biggert of Hinsdale, co-sponsor of a bipartisan bill to establish a National Veterans History Project Week, Donna Mae donated the diary to the Library of Congress.

"I'm so grateful to Donna for sharing her amazing story and this wonderful diary -," Biggert says. "The stories and memorabilia our veterans have to share are each precious, and preserving that knowledge is an important part of honoring the sacrifices they have made for us."

Donna Mae had copies of the diary made by Minuteman Press, but the original sits in Washington.

"You can see it," Donna Mae says of her treasured gift, "but now you have to put on white gloves."