438th AAA AW BN
APO 527 % Postmaster, N.Y.
England
15 February, 1944 1115
Dearest darling Wilma,
I don’t expect to finish this before lunch, when I’m left alone. I haven’t written to you in the forenoon for some time now. I happen to be free at the moment.
I’ve just looked at your letter of the 31st in which you toasted me at dinner. That was thoughtful, darling, and believe me – I would have given anything to have been with you that evening. Incidentally, you’re still a two-drink girl, aren’t you, dear? It’s just as well. I never could like a girl who was heavy drinker – and boy! there are plenty of that kind around.
Your news about the 570th was interesting. They should be through their training by now – but the usual procedure is maneuvers and then overseas. Incidentally no outfit like that one is in the E.T.O. – so if they do come overseas – it won’t be in this direction. I guess it’s just as well I stayed with this battalion, dear, because I do feel it has been lucky so far. And yet in my early days here – I couldn’t help but think that had I stayed with them we’d have been engaged and who knows – even married. But everything must be considered as happening for the best. The ability to leave you and find that I love you more – your loving me, even though I’m away – that adds up to an awfully strong point to our love for each other. I have never felt more certain about anything, sweetheart, than I do about my love for you, and I know you feel the same way about me. But I don’t want you to feel ‘years older’, darling. And the feeling for fun etc. shouldn’t leave you at all. If anything – you should merely be saving it up, because that’s what I’m doing.
Late last night I got your letter of January 22. You can see how screwed up the sequence is, but each letter is a symbol in its own right, and the order really makes very little difference. You give me some of the reasons which led you to give up your job, and I don’t blame you one bit. Of course – as you say – being my wife would be a 24 hr. job, but it would entail being my companion, confidant, mother of our children – and what job that you know of gives you a 50-50 split of the profits, darling? And all expenses, naturally. The job is yours, dear, and I’m not advertising for anyone else. And don’t forget. I am not asking for previous experience!
I suppose working in the bridal shop must have been hard to take, dear. I think about our getting married very often when I’m alone. I wonder what it will be like, will I be excited, nervous, in a hurry to get the actual thing over with, I think not. I’ve had so much time to think about getting married that I know I’m going to enjoy it immensely. I suppose when the time comes I’ll feel somewhat differently, and you’ll be there to remind me of it – i.e. that I said I wouldn’t be nervous.
You mention reading; you certainly should do some if for no other reason than to keep your mind working. I’m not doing a heck of a lot myself, for that matter – but I try whenever there’s something available.
Darling, I must mention again how nice it is to get your letters and find that you still love me. I know I keep repeating that – and I’ll continue to do so. I don’t want you ever to forget my appreciation. Your letters have been so helpful – you’ll have no true idea until the time comes when I return home to you and tell you. I’ll be able to tell you what my thoughts and feelings were on these long winter days and nights in a faraway spot, alone a good bit of the time. It’s then that your letters stand out like beacons, darling, giving me the lift that nothing else could match. I’ll tell you about it, someday, and you’ll really know what I meant.
I love you so strongly, dear, that I know my words are constantly falling short of what I feel. But I can only repeat over and over again that I love you and won’t rest completely easily until I can marry you, call you my wife and take you with me to our own home. Then, perhaps, darling, will you know what I mean and how I feel when I say I love you strongly. For now dear, I can only say so long, once more, but keep in mind always that my love for you will always exist and grow stronger. For now dear –
I don’t expect to finish this before lunch, when I’m left alone. I haven’t written to you in the forenoon for some time now. I happen to be free at the moment.
I’ve just looked at your letter of the 31st in which you toasted me at dinner. That was thoughtful, darling, and believe me – I would have given anything to have been with you that evening. Incidentally, you’re still a two-drink girl, aren’t you, dear? It’s just as well. I never could like a girl who was heavy drinker – and boy! there are plenty of that kind around.
Your news about the 570th was interesting. They should be through their training by now – but the usual procedure is maneuvers and then overseas. Incidentally no outfit like that one is in the E.T.O. – so if they do come overseas – it won’t be in this direction. I guess it’s just as well I stayed with this battalion, dear, because I do feel it has been lucky so far. And yet in my early days here – I couldn’t help but think that had I stayed with them we’d have been engaged and who knows – even married. But everything must be considered as happening for the best. The ability to leave you and find that I love you more – your loving me, even though I’m away – that adds up to an awfully strong point to our love for each other. I have never felt more certain about anything, sweetheart, than I do about my love for you, and I know you feel the same way about me. But I don’t want you to feel ‘years older’, darling. And the feeling for fun etc. shouldn’t leave you at all. If anything – you should merely be saving it up, because that’s what I’m doing.
Late last night I got your letter of January 22. You can see how screwed up the sequence is, but each letter is a symbol in its own right, and the order really makes very little difference. You give me some of the reasons which led you to give up your job, and I don’t blame you one bit. Of course – as you say – being my wife would be a 24 hr. job, but it would entail being my companion, confidant, mother of our children – and what job that you know of gives you a 50-50 split of the profits, darling? And all expenses, naturally. The job is yours, dear, and I’m not advertising for anyone else. And don’t forget. I am not asking for previous experience!
I suppose working in the bridal shop must have been hard to take, dear. I think about our getting married very often when I’m alone. I wonder what it will be like, will I be excited, nervous, in a hurry to get the actual thing over with, I think not. I’ve had so much time to think about getting married that I know I’m going to enjoy it immensely. I suppose when the time comes I’ll feel somewhat differently, and you’ll be there to remind me of it – i.e. that I said I wouldn’t be nervous.
You mention reading; you certainly should do some if for no other reason than to keep your mind working. I’m not doing a heck of a lot myself, for that matter – but I try whenever there’s something available.
Darling, I must mention again how nice it is to get your letters and find that you still love me. I know I keep repeating that – and I’ll continue to do so. I don’t want you ever to forget my appreciation. Your letters have been so helpful – you’ll have no true idea until the time comes when I return home to you and tell you. I’ll be able to tell you what my thoughts and feelings were on these long winter days and nights in a faraway spot, alone a good bit of the time. It’s then that your letters stand out like beacons, darling, giving me the lift that nothing else could match. I’ll tell you about it, someday, and you’ll really know what I meant.
I love you so strongly, dear, that I know my words are constantly falling short of what I feel. But I can only repeat over and over again that I love you and won’t rest completely easily until I can marry you, call you my wife and take you with me to our own home. Then, perhaps, darling, will you know what I mean and how I feel when I say I love you strongly. For now dear, I can only say so long, once more, but keep in mind always that my love for you will always exist and grow stronger. For now dear –
All my love
Greg.
* TIDBIT *
about Carolyn Gardner and Roe v. Wade
about Carolyn Gardner and Roe v. Wade
In yesterday's letter, Greg spoke of Dr. Stuart Gardner and his wife Carolyn Gardner. What he did not mention, but probably knew, was the story of how Carolyn Gardner contributed to the eventual Roe v. Wade decision giving women the right to choose whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term. Much of the material here was taken from a book written by David J. Garrow. This book, Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v.Wade was published in 1994.
An 1879 Massachusetts statute, brought about to fight debauchery, stated in part:
Anyone who violated this statute faced stiff fines and imprisonment. The first successful change in the law came from Margaret Sanger's 1916 arrest for opening the first birth control clinic in America. The Federal case that grew out of her arrest resulted in a 1918 decision, which allowed women to use birth control for therapeutic purposes. The next amendment of the law came in 1936 when doctors were given permission to distribute contraceptives across state lines. While this decision did not eliminate the problem of the restrictive "chastity laws" on the state level, it was a crucial ruling.
On June 3, 1937, five days before the American Medical Association’s landmark birth control resolution acknowledged that contraception merited a physician’s attention – Lieutenant Charles Duffee and 3 others of the Salem, Massachusetts Police Department, armed with a search warrant signed by John McGrath of the Salem Board of Health, raided the North Shore Mothers Health Center on Flint Street in Salem, one of seven birth control clinics operated by the Birth Control League of Massachusetts (BCLM). Undercover policewoman Beatrice Clark and a female colleague had just left the clinic. Dr. Lucille Lord-Heinstein was in the midst of seeing patients, and the patients were detained and questioned while the officers packed up the clinic’s medical records and supplies. Dr. Lord-Heinstein, nurse Flora Rands and social worker Carolyn T. Gardner were arrested and taken to Salem police headquarters for questioning, and all three women were charged with violating the Massachusetts birth control statute by distributing contraceptive devices.
The Salem clinic had been operating for seven months, and the BCLM had heralded its opening by announcing that it had “the backing of a large committee from Salem and nearby towns, comprised of leading physicians, ministers, public spirited citizens and representatives from the boards of welfare agencies.” The BCLM had also noted that, in the opinion of its lawyers, “advice given for medical reasons does not come under prohibitions of our statute.”
But when the three Salem defendants appeared in court on June 22, Judge George Sears refused to return the patient records that had been seized and set trial for July 13th. The prosecution’s first witness that day was Policewoman Clark, who testified that she had first visited the Salem clinic in late May under a false name, and then had returned on June 3 along with a civilian woman, Rose Barlotta, whom she had paid for her assistance. Mrs. Barlotta had been examined, was found to have severe hypertension, and was fitted for a diaphragm, which she had turned over to the officers as evidence. Defense attorney Robert Dodge put all three defendants, plus three well-known Massachusetts doctors and prominent clinic chairwoman Dorothy Bradford on the stand, and Judge Sears said he would reserve his decision.
On July 20, Sears entered a verdict citing a previous Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirmation concluding “I must find the defendants guilty” even though they did not believe “they were acting contrary to law.” He imposed a fine of one hundred dollars upon each of the defendants, and the league filed notices of appeal. The cases against the three Salem defendants, plus a fourth colleague, clinic volunteer Pamelia Ferris, were set for a hearing in Superior Court. On October 15, Essex County Superior Court Judge Wilford Gray upheld Sears’s verdicts against Lord-Heinstein, Gardner and Rand and levied a hundred dollar fine against Ferris.
Fifteen Massachusetts doctors wrote to the membership of the Mass Medical Society to ask that each doctor join in a statement of protest. “Two fundamental rights of physicians have been violated,” they declared. “First, in the seizure and holding of confidential medical records by the police; second, by police interference with the right of physicians to practice medicine in accordance with accepted methods.” Within several weeks more than 1700 Massachusetts doctors, more than one third of those in the state, joined their petition of protest. However, on May 26, 1938 the Massachusetts court unanimously affirmed the Salem convictions, saying that the statute was clear and relief should be sought by changes in the law and not from the judicial department. The Massachusetts League decided to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court as to whether a state legislature may interfere with the practice of medicine under the guise of police regulation of morality and health.
On Monday, October 10, 1938, the US Supreme Court dismissed the Massachusetts League’s appeal of the Salem convictions. The Gardner ruling, as it became known, shocked and disheartened the Massachusetts activists. On Friday the four Salem defendants appeared in court and each paid their hundred-dollar fines.
In 1965, Griswold v. Connecticut,, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution protected a right to privacy. The case involved a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives. By a vote of 7–2, the Supreme Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated the "right to marital privacy". The argument was built on the claim that it was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to deny unmarried couples the right to use contraception when married couples did have that right under Griswold. Justice Brennan wrote that Massachusetts could not enforce the law onto married couples because of Griswold v. Connecticut, so the law worked "irrational discrimination" if not extended to unmarried couples as well. Since Griswold, the Supreme Court has cited the right to privacy in several rulings, most notably in Roe v. Wade in 1973. The Supreme Court ruled that a woman's choice to terminate a pregnancy was protected as a private decision between her and her doctor. And that is the story of how Carolyn Gardner played a part in the events that led to a woman’s right to choose.
POST NOTE: 10 years after this was written, a woman's right to choose was astonishingly lost by a decision of the US Supreme Court, against the will of the majority of Americans. The quest for freedom-to-choose endures.
An 1879 Massachusetts statute, brought about to fight debauchery, stated in part:
whoever sells, lends, gives away an instrument or other article intended to be used for self-abuse, or any drug, medicine, instrument or article whatever for the prevention of conception or for causing unlawful abortion, or advertises the same, or writes, prints, or causes to be written or printed a card, circular, book, pamphlet, advertisement or notice of any kind stating when, where, how, of whom or by what means such articles can be purchased obtained, or manufactured or makes any such article shall be punished...
Anyone who violated this statute faced stiff fines and imprisonment. The first successful change in the law came from Margaret Sanger's 1916 arrest for opening the first birth control clinic in America. The Federal case that grew out of her arrest resulted in a 1918 decision, which allowed women to use birth control for therapeutic purposes. The next amendment of the law came in 1936 when doctors were given permission to distribute contraceptives across state lines. While this decision did not eliminate the problem of the restrictive "chastity laws" on the state level, it was a crucial ruling.
On June 3, 1937, five days before the American Medical Association’s landmark birth control resolution acknowledged that contraception merited a physician’s attention – Lieutenant Charles Duffee and 3 others of the Salem, Massachusetts Police Department, armed with a search warrant signed by John McGrath of the Salem Board of Health, raided the North Shore Mothers Health Center on Flint Street in Salem, one of seven birth control clinics operated by the Birth Control League of Massachusetts (BCLM). Undercover policewoman Beatrice Clark and a female colleague had just left the clinic. Dr. Lucille Lord-Heinstein was in the midst of seeing patients, and the patients were detained and questioned while the officers packed up the clinic’s medical records and supplies. Dr. Lord-Heinstein, nurse Flora Rands and social worker Carolyn T. Gardner were arrested and taken to Salem police headquarters for questioning, and all three women were charged with violating the Massachusetts birth control statute by distributing contraceptive devices.
The Salem clinic had been operating for seven months, and the BCLM had heralded its opening by announcing that it had “the backing of a large committee from Salem and nearby towns, comprised of leading physicians, ministers, public spirited citizens and representatives from the boards of welfare agencies.” The BCLM had also noted that, in the opinion of its lawyers, “advice given for medical reasons does not come under prohibitions of our statute.”
But when the three Salem defendants appeared in court on June 22, Judge George Sears refused to return the patient records that had been seized and set trial for July 13th. The prosecution’s first witness that day was Policewoman Clark, who testified that she had first visited the Salem clinic in late May under a false name, and then had returned on June 3 along with a civilian woman, Rose Barlotta, whom she had paid for her assistance. Mrs. Barlotta had been examined, was found to have severe hypertension, and was fitted for a diaphragm, which she had turned over to the officers as evidence. Defense attorney Robert Dodge put all three defendants, plus three well-known Massachusetts doctors and prominent clinic chairwoman Dorothy Bradford on the stand, and Judge Sears said he would reserve his decision.
On July 20, Sears entered a verdict citing a previous Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirmation concluding “I must find the defendants guilty” even though they did not believe “they were acting contrary to law.” He imposed a fine of one hundred dollars upon each of the defendants, and the league filed notices of appeal. The cases against the three Salem defendants, plus a fourth colleague, clinic volunteer Pamelia Ferris, were set for a hearing in Superior Court. On October 15, Essex County Superior Court Judge Wilford Gray upheld Sears’s verdicts against Lord-Heinstein, Gardner and Rand and levied a hundred dollar fine against Ferris.
Fifteen Massachusetts doctors wrote to the membership of the Mass Medical Society to ask that each doctor join in a statement of protest. “Two fundamental rights of physicians have been violated,” they declared. “First, in the seizure and holding of confidential medical records by the police; second, by police interference with the right of physicians to practice medicine in accordance with accepted methods.” Within several weeks more than 1700 Massachusetts doctors, more than one third of those in the state, joined their petition of protest. However, on May 26, 1938 the Massachusetts court unanimously affirmed the Salem convictions, saying that the statute was clear and relief should be sought by changes in the law and not from the judicial department. The Massachusetts League decided to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court as to whether a state legislature may interfere with the practice of medicine under the guise of police regulation of morality and health.
On Monday, October 10, 1938, the US Supreme Court dismissed the Massachusetts League’s appeal of the Salem convictions. The Gardner ruling, as it became known, shocked and disheartened the Massachusetts activists. On Friday the four Salem defendants appeared in court and each paid their hundred-dollar fines.
In 1965, Griswold v. Connecticut,, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution protected a right to privacy. The case involved a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives. By a vote of 7–2, the Supreme Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated the "right to marital privacy". The argument was built on the claim that it was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to deny unmarried couples the right to use contraception when married couples did have that right under Griswold. Justice Brennan wrote that Massachusetts could not enforce the law onto married couples because of Griswold v. Connecticut, so the law worked "irrational discrimination" if not extended to unmarried couples as well. Since Griswold, the Supreme Court has cited the right to privacy in several rulings, most notably in Roe v. Wade in 1973. The Supreme Court ruled that a woman's choice to terminate a pregnancy was protected as a private decision between her and her doctor. And that is the story of how Carolyn Gardner played a part in the events that led to a woman’s right to choose.
POST NOTE: 10 years after this was written, a woman's right to choose was astonishingly lost by a decision of the US Supreme Court, against the will of the majority of Americans. The quest for freedom-to-choose endures.
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