15 May, 1944

438^th AAA AW BN

APO 578 % Postmaster, N.Y.

England

15 May, 1944      1045

Good morning, darling –

First of all – I love you! I always believe in putting first things – first – and in case you don’t know it, dear, that thought is above all – first in my mind. I’ve just returned from the Dispensary and have to attend a B.C.’s meeting at 1130. Other than that, things are on a routine schedule – i.e. – as far as I know.

Yesterday was a very quiet and uneventful day. I hardly moved out of my room. I spent the day reading a couple of back copies of Stars and Stripes, Yank and Time Magazine – as well as listening to the radio . It was all quite restful – but I needed it after running around for the previous two days. I wrote you, my folks, Shirley Feldberg – who had written me a very friendly and sincere letter, and finally to a Major, friend of mine at Pearl Harbor. I don’t know if I mentioned to you dear, that I had heard from Col. Pereira in California. He wished us luck, by the way.

Say, darling, when you ask me if I love Borscht – you have to be more specific. Now – as a doctor’s wife – you’ll find that details are very important. As everyone knows there are several kinds of borscht – beet borscht, spinach borscht – and I suppose – just plain borscht. I lean towards the spinach type, for some reason or other, but if you make it, I’m inclined to think I’ll eat any type.

Oh – and before I forget it – you mentioned something about a souvenir of some sort from the Cathedral here. I had already looked around for something – before – but all they have are postcards. But from Mary’s point of view – a relic wouldn’t mean too much, anyway, for this reason: the Cathedrals in England are Protestant, chiefly, all belonging to the Church of England – which is strictly Episcopalian. Will you explain that to her, dear?

I remember well the night we went to D. Moore’s and waited for our table. As I recall it – we didn’t get our steak, either – but oh those Martinis! Darling, I do hope you learn how to make a good Martini – as if that were all I had to think about! It was interesting your running into Stan. I haven’t heard from him about the Zippo – but I’m glad it arrived, anyway. He’s apparently started up again where he left off – in reference to the women, I mean. I hope he gets someone and settles down. I believe that will make him again the fellow he used to be and whose company I enjoyed.

Yes, darling, as many kids as you want. I love them too and I hope we can afford to have a few of them anyway. Gosh it will be nice to have a late snack with you. I used to go alone and was always very lonely. It will be swell – the two of us – and I’m willing to arbitrate on the onions, sweetheart – say – one thick slice instead of two?

Dearest – that’s all for now. My best love to the folks and from me, darling, my deepest and sincerest love for always

Greg

* TIDBIT *

about Dinty Moore's

The popular comic strip Bringing Up Father, started in 1913 by cartoonist George McManus, told the story of an Irish-American, a former bricklayer named Jiggs, and his wife Maggie, an ex-laundress, who achieved sudden wealth, supposedly by means of a lucky ticket in the Irish Sweepstakes (though McManus was a bit vague about their means of wealth in the strip, and the Irish Sweepstakes didn't come into being until 1930). While the snobbish Maggie and beautiful daughter Nora constantly try to "bring up" Father to his new social position, Jiggs can think of nothing finer than sitting down at Dinty Moore's restaurant to finish off several dishes of corned beef and cabbage, followed by a night out with the boys from the old neighborhood. The clash of wills that ensued often resulted in flying rolling-pins, smashed crockery, and broken vases, all aimed in the general direction of Jiggs's skull.

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"Bringing Up Father" strip from 1928

Because George McManus favored a restaurant on West 46th Street in Manhattan owned by a Mr. James H. Moore at that time, James Moore soon claimed he was the inspiration for the character Dinty Moore. He changed his restaurant's name to "Dinty Moore's" and made a fortune from the Bringing Up Father connection. In fact, Bringing up Father was so popular that many Irish men at the time named Moore were nicknamed Dinty.

According to the blog A Week in New York April 1946, posted about the original Dinty Moore's in New York City, written by Bill Bence, strangely enough, on May 15th, 2010:

James Moore, who changed his name to Dinty after opening the restaurant, was notorious in the 1920s for his flagrant disregard of Prohibition which endeared him with the hard-drinking celebrity set. Corned beef and cabbage, which is not a traditional dish in Ireland where Irish bacon and greens was the usual holiday fare, was the signature dish. The restaurant also served an Irish stew made from kosher beef and lamb and an array of steaks and chops. Its chopped steak was a favorite as was rice pudding, a dessert that was popular throughout New York at the time. Many patrons ordered sandwiches to go with their beers. In Arthur Schwartz's New York City Food, Schwartz took note of a menu from the establishment in the 1940s that offered gefilte fish, a sign of the importance of the New York City's sizable Jewish community, even to an ostensibly Irish restaurant.

In his 1930 restaurant guide, Dining in New York, Rian James reported the high prices of the establishment but added that the "food is wholesome, the portions large, the waiters quarrelsome and slow, and inclined to argue with you if you attempt to speed them up; but the quality of the food that is set before you --when it is set before you--has no equal." In a magazine short story from the '30s, "The Grasshoppers and the Aunt," collected in the anthology Beacon Light of Literature, the heroine is taken to Dinty Moore's to experience sophisticated Manhattan life and is astonished to discover linoleum on the floor and the only decoration "a lot of black-and-gold signs hung around with a portrait of an oyster on them." The menu seemed mundane but to her astonishment the place actually was full of celebrities. On the other hand, in Ghost Light: A Memoir, Frank Rich remembers the place on his first visit some decades later as "exotic as everything else I'd seen in my few hours in the city. The warm glow of brass gleamed from every nook; a long wooden bar with bottles and gold spigots aligned behind it ran the length of a wall." Crisp white cloths covered the tables and the attentive waiter wore a black suit, starched white shirt and bow tie. But Rich was just a kid and easily impressed.

In 1940 Life magazine called Dinty Moore's a favored establishment of West Side cafe society made up of "semi-solvent actors, sportsmen and Louis Sobol." By sportsman the magazine meant the horse racing set and Damon Runyon and friends. Sobol was a Broadway columnist for the Journal-American. This crowd, the magazine said, was distinct from the Easy Side cafe society of "semi-solvent refugees, parvenus and Lucius Beebe." Beebe was the snooty society columnist of the Herald Tribune. In 1946 it was known to be a favorite hang-out place for the theater crowd. The restaurant had nothing to do with Hormel's canned Dinty Moore beef stew, which was introduced in 1935.

Eventually other Dinty Moore's were opened in cities around the country. By 1952 when Dinty Moore passed at the age of 83, the American had become known as the "Corned Beef and Cabbage King." Here are some memorablia collected on the internet from the Dinty Moore's in Boston.

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Menu from 1948


Menu from 1956


Postcard of the inside


Matchbook

The address of Dinty Moore's, 611 Rear Washington Street, no longer exists in Boston. The alley below is now part of the Millenium Place Garage for the Ritz Carlton Residences.

The Boston restaurant in 1976