Jane Beaton Bartow To Elinor

Annotation

Darrow fell in love with Elinor at first sight. But she was already engaged. To two men. He joined the Merchant Marine to train as a radio operator. His letters from Gallups Island and then the war charmed her, but Elinor had changed. Women entered the working world--as boatbuilders and micrometer testers and even riveters and movie stars--and she wanted to become Something Big. Marriage wasnt for her. Darrows letters kept coming. . . . . . the same letters my sister and I discovered in a large photo box after our parents deaths. Their romance was interrupted by the war and by the fledgling dreams of a woman, a Bishops daughter, who wanted to do something more than carry on the traditional roles women had in the forties. The tale of this romance is in both voices--Elinors from the homefront and Darrows from the war.