Veteran’s Day

Since it’s Veteran’s Day, I’d like to take a moment to honor my favorite veteran: my grandpa. He has always been an inspiration to me, and he’s lived such an incredible life. This is a picture of him on the ship returning home after WWII.

Cool story about this picture: During the war, his division chose Marjorie Main (the actress who portrayed Ma Kettle) as their pin-up girl instead of a typical sex-symbol like Betty Grable or Rita Hayworth. They chose Ms. Main because she embodied the spirit of their division.

When Wes and I got married, we had a vaguely 40’s/50’s theme, and I wanted to use Pin-up Girls as table markers instead of numbers. I thought it’d be cute to use Marjorie Main as the pin-up at my grandpa’s table, so I randomly Googled “Marjorie Main pin-up.” This led me to an L.A. Times article (which, sadly, I can’t seem to find anymore) featuring the above image. The article described the day Marjorie Main boarded the ship to meet the boys who’d chosen her as their pin-up.

But that’s not the coolest part! As I looked at the young men in the picture, one of them immediately stood out to me. He’s the one with the glasses in the upper left-hand corner reaching out to someone on the level below. I was sure that looked like pictures I’d seen of my grandpa when he was younger. He’d never said anything about being that close to Marjorie Main, though. I sent the image to my grandparents, and, sure enough, it was him! He had a similar picture from a different angle in a memory book, but he wasn’t in that one. This was a picture he was seeing for the first time almost seventy years later!

In looking for a silly nod to my grandpa at his table on my wedding day, I’d stumbled upon a picture of him returning home from World War II.