A New Red Dress

The photo above is of my husband and his buddies when he was in the army.  He was a sweet and handsome man.  We were married when I was just 18 years old.  Our first child, Beth, was born a year later.

Trips to Portland were something special when I was a young mother.  But today was different. Our oldest daughter, Beth, had reached the golden age of six and Bud and I had decided she should have a brand new dress on that special first day.

It wasn't that she needed clothes, she had plenty what with all her cousins and their generous supply of hand me downs.  But she needed a store bought dress. In my mind I saw it as bright red with ruffles at the neck and on the sleeves. Would I find one at the Meier and Frank store which towered 12 stories high over our heads?

We needed to get a good deal and that's why we chose to come to town for their special Friday Surprise sale in the basement. The sidewalk was already crowded with eager shoppers milling around waiting for the doors to open. Some were even elbowing their way into the line. An over eager woman pushed her shopping bag into my face and then whopped her purse against my back side. Others pounded on the locked doors hoping to be the first to enter.

I turned back towards my husband but he was no longer there. As I searched the sea of faces I spotted him on the other side of the street. I waved frantically then headed towards him through the crowd.

“Why did you leave me?” I cried when I reached his side. 

“I—I couldn't stay,” he said.  “I had to get away. The lines, the crowds. For a little while . . .

And then I knew. I saw the crowds and a ruffled red dress, but he stood beside me and saw the lines the prisoners were forced to form in the prison camp at Bad Orb. 

I pictured them outside the barracks. So many youthful boys and yet they had to act like men in a world turned upside down. 
 

I reached for Bud's hand and he took it. We stood close together but the blank horror in his eyes told me he was in another world. A world of hate and terror. A world where boys were forced into situations they had never before seen or even imagined. 

 I lifted my head as he started to speak. “Standing in line we were at the mercy of the Germans. When they told us to repeat our names some were snatched from the line-up and taken away.

“When they came to me they said I had to go with them. But then one of them said the prisoner standing next to me was the one who should be taken instead. He pushed me back into line then grabbed the man, the two of us, shoulder to shoulder. 'You come with us,” the German ordered.  'He has Jewish name. This other one, he just American. Maybe next time.'

“And I was pushed back into line.  Waiting, waiting, for what I did not know.” He bowed his head and pressed his fingers into his forehead. His voice fell to a whisper, “I never saw him again. But several days later I smelled something awful in the air. It smelled like flesh burning.  It was horrible and deep inside I knew. The Jewish prisoner with whom I had stood side by side was no longer with us. He who had been taken instead of me had been cooked to death in the ovens.”

“Is that why . . .” I couldn't finish my thought, it was too sad. “I'm sorry,” I whispered.  “Please, let's, let's just go home. The children, they just might need us by now.”

“But there will be no red dress for our Beth.” 

And then we saw it—a candy shop displaying a tray of red and white candy in the window.  Bud reached for the door and we were inside. The pungent smell of peppermint and yummy chocolate permeated the air. We smiled at each other. 

“I don't think we need to worry,” he said as he reached for a white paper bag. “Let's fill 'er up. We're going to have a party!”

And we did. 

Eventually we found and bought that pretty red dress with ruffles at the neck for dear little Beth.  

Wings of Hope

  

          One of the highlights of my summer was when my son’s wife Jane, asked me to tell her family my favorite story their Grandfather, my husband Bud, told from his days as a prisoner of war during WW2.

            I stumbled for a bit, because over the years Bud’s stories had been told out of order, piecemeal, covering a span of some fifty years—and I, a chronological thinker, was unsure of the timing of the stories he told.

            Then my daughter assured me, “Grandpa’s stories don’t have to be told, or even written in the order in which he experienced them, to be valuable to us, Mom.  We just want to hear them. We want to remember.”

            Her words so aptly spoken, became a deep conviction, a charge, to preserve his stories. Those of us who lived through those years must preserve and tell the stories of men like Bud.  To unfold what happened for future generations, those true experiences too real and valuable to be forgotten.   

            Our generation has a responsibility to fill in the gaps of our missing history and to give voice to those who can no longer speak for themselves.  My husband has been gone now for three years.  One of his great legacies are the stories he told.  Some of the most poignant came from his experiences as a prisoner of war in Germany during WW2.

            And now for a moment—imagine that time staggers a moment…then slowly slips back to the day my husband’s mother, Leola Gibson, a weary mother of seven was preparing a meal in the kitchen of her Oregon City home.   

            So many mouths to feed, so many to care for, she was tired—so very tired.  But she must go on.  Sweat rolled off her forehead as she stoked the old fashioned wood stove, then punched down a mound of bread dough resting beneath a freshly laundered dish towl.  Her strong capable hands quickly formed it into loves which she placed into greased bread pans darkened by many bakings.

            A sudden knock—she wiped her hands on her apron and hurried to open the door.  The uniformed man standing there, held out a telegram.  “It’s for you, Madam.”

            Leola’s stomach tightened into a knot.  She took the telegram and thanked the man, but her heart cried out.  Telegrams always brought bad news.  No God.  Not my Bud.  Please God, please.  Let him be alive.

            Speechless she unfolded the paper with trembling fingers.  The words were capitalized and they burned into her heart

            THE SECRETARY OF WAR DESIRES ME TO EXPRESS HIS DEEP REGRETS THAT YOUR SON PRIVATE ORAL D. GIBSON HAS BEEN REPORTED MISSING IN ACTION SINCE SEVEN JANUARY IN BELGIUM. IF FURTHER DETAILS OR OTHER INFORMATION ARE RECEIVED YOU WILL BE PROMPTLY NOTIFIED =J A ULIO THE ADJUNTNT GENERAL.

            It could only mean one thing.  No one knew where her eldest son was.  He was missing in action.  She bowed her head.  Why he could be lying alone, wounded, on some distant battlefield. 

            A picture of her boy, covered with blood while bombs exploded overhead burst into her mind.  No, no, not my son, my first born.  He can’t be dead.   More than anything she wanted to believe Bud was still alive.

            That night she lay on her bed and cried deep soul tears until there were none left to shed.  She hadn’t yet told her children and her husband was away seeking work in a far away town.  “Morning will be soon enough,” she whispered.

            At last she slept.

            And then in the stillness of the night her son came and sat on the edge of the bed.  He leaned forward and took her hand.  “Mom, it’s me, your Bud.  I’m okay.  I’m alive.”

            He told her of the places he’d been; the small towns beside the river.  The Battle of the Bulge and where he’d been taken at Bastogne as a prisoner of war to Bad Orb, a Nazi prison camp not far from Frankfurt,  Germany.

            “I’m coming home, Mom.”  He lifted her hand and brushed her swollen knuckles with his lips.  “We only have to wait.”

            Leola awakened with a start.  Her son no longer sat beside her—had he really been there?  Was he alive?  It had all seemed so real.

            Deep in her heart she knew it was true.

            Hope bubbled up inside her as she pushed back her blanket and hurried to the kitchen.  Her eldest son was missing in action, but he wasn’t missing to  God, or to her…his Mother.

            She smiled as she mused.  Today’s family breakfast would be a celebration of words and food.  She took several loaves of the fragrant bread she’d baked and the fresh laid eggs her eldest daughter Ada, had gathered from the chicken house, and set them on the drain board.  There would be bacon her husband had bought to surprise the family, the week before.

            It was only when the food was cooked and the children gathered around the table that she told them the news.  Their beloved big brother serving on the other side of the world was safe.  He’d come through the Battle of the Bulge where he’d been captures; then endured the long trek through ice and snow, through the forests, where he was now a prisoner of war in Bad Orb, Germany.

            He was coming home.  She’d dreamed he had come to her and she knew it was real.  They only had to wait.

*      *      *

            Bud Gibson lay on his narrow hard bed, his nose close to the wires of the bunk above him.  The Nazis had housed their captives in a dank, cold building set aside for prisoners of war.  The wires stretched beneath him held no mattress, only a threadbare blanket way between him and the biting cold and the soldier above him.

            The man beneath him, a new prisoner, coughed and gagged.  Sometimes he whimpered like a small child.  At other times he shouted at those who had captured him.  And then the yelling began.  Strange, one could still hear the rustling sounds of mice—or were they rats, or stray cats prowling tin the darkness?

            Bud twisted this way and that as he struggled to pull the thin blanket higher on his shoulders.  His back ached, his feet throbbed and the aroma of unwashed bodies, blood and filthy debris shoved into every corner, assailed his senses.  What a terrible world of dirt, cold and pain it was.

            Gradually the night deepened and suddenly he felt as though he was airborne.  The cold still embraced him, but now it didn’t seem to matter.  

            Suddenly, he knew.  Somehow he was going home.

            He stepped into his mother’s room.  Sat down on a soft blanket at the edge of her bed and reached for her hand.  “Mom, it’s me, Bud.  I’m alive.  I’m okay.”

            He told her of the places he’d been:  Bastonne where he’d been captured, the snowy forest they had marched through to arrive at last in Bad Orb--Stalag B, a prison camp near Frankfort…

           I think of that 18 year old boy, drafted and thrust into the middle of a terrible war.  Bud saw and experienced things no human being should have to endure.  Yet, in the midst of this horrible ordeal, God was merciful.  God allowed my husband to fly through the night on wings of hope to let his beloved Mother know he was alright--to assure her that he was coming home. 

All they had to do was wait.