Page 44 - Senior Link Magazine Winter 2021- Online Magazine
P. 44
borrowed car. The whole world
looked different to Betty, but,
after all, Texas was “the Wild
West”. There were no trees, no
hills, and no rivers. But she had
always liked farm life. “And I
had never met such friendly
people. There was no way I
could not like them! It was as if
they'd known me all my life.”
Joe’s family had just gotten their
first tractor in 1938, when Joe
enlisted. He had even requested
tank maintenance because he
England for ten months before and packages at once. Joe and loved tractors. He was excited to
being deployed to the theater Betty had only dated for six get back to farming.
on D-Day +5. The regiment months and been married for six
consisted of heavy tanks, and weeks before the war separated Betty settled easily into the
they had to rely on the infantry them. Their correspondence country lifestyle, but her face
to secure the beaches and destroy cemented their relationship, as screws up into a scowl when
the concrete bunkers so the tanks letters did for countless other she remembers her very first
could be offloaded. Betty stops to newly wed and immediately sandstorm. “Sometimes they
reverently remember the losses separated young couples. would last for days. There was
of that week: “There were a lot no way to keep a house clean.
of women who became widows After the war ended, Betty All the farms were dryland
during that time.” received a V-mail from
Capt. Unfred asking
The 3rd Armored was her to meet him at the
nicknamed “the Spearhead” Bluebonnet Hotel in San
because of their role on the front Antonio. (V-mail was ultra-
lines during the liberation of thin stationery necessitated
France. From Normandy, they during the war to reduce
advanced rapidly eastward bulk.) Betty boarded a train
through France and contributed to meet her husband, but
to victory in the Battle of the upon arrival in Texas, she
Bulge in Belgium. In March found that the Bluebonnet
1945, they captured the city of was full, and Joe’s train
Cologne and crossed the Rhine was delayed. Some
River. In April, they liberated unfortunate counsel led
the prisoners of Dora-Mittelbau to a cab ride and a noisy
concentration camp. room in San Antonio’s
red-light district.
The division moved so quickly Joe finally arrived at
that Betty's mail had a hard midnight, and at daylight,
time keeping up. She was only they checked out.
supposed to send one package
per month, but the resourceful After a quick trip to Dallas
young wife found a way to send to meet some of Joe's
a package a week, so Joe would relatives, they drove to
often receive a big pile of letters New Home, Texas in a Five generations
44 Lubbock Senior Link
