On one of Carl’s excursions in Long Beach, he again put on his best suit and went to the Cinderella Ballroom. Carl saw 2 attractive girls on the dance floor and approached them. Carl first asked Lorraine to dance, which they did. Carl then asked her friend Velma for the next dance, but Velma said her next dance was already taken. Carl returned for the next dance, but Lorraine and Velma had disappeared. Disappointed, Carl realized he didn’t even know the girls names.
Carl was shipped out soon after the dance. The ship’s first stop was San Francisco. Carl attended the World’s Fair on Treasure Island and attended concerts by Benny Goodman and Sammy Kaye. The next stop was Bremerton for several weeks. Three months later, the Pennsylvania returned to Long Beach. Carl again put on his civilian clothes and walked around the Pike.
As luck would have it, he passed Lorraine and Velma walking the other way. Carl thought to himself: “I’m not gonna miss a second chance” so he spun around and caught up with them. He introduced himself and although Lorraine was friendly, she didn’t remember him. Carl asked the girls to join him for a drink at the nearby Skyroom Lounge, atop the Breakers Hotel.
While they were in the Skyroom, the threesome was joined by a comrade of Carl’s, Lt Commander Young, who sat down next to Velma. After several rounds, Young suggested the four of them take his car and adjourn to another bar (possibly in Belmont Shore). At the end of the evening, Carl asked for another date and Lorraine said yes. A romance was born.
Carl realized that he now needed a car, so he went down the dealership and used his credit for a 1939 Dodge. On the first date, Carl did a little test. He wanted to know if Lorraine would go out with him if he didn’t have a car; so he parked his car about a block away so they would have to walk for a bit. Little did Carl realize that he was also being tested. Velma and Lorraine decided that if Carl didn’t show up to the house exactly on time, they were going to leave and go out by themselves.
Luckily Carl showed up to Lorraine’s apartment (at 1615 E 2nd St, Long Beach) on time, but how did Lorraine do in the car test? As they left Lorraine’s apartment, Carl said “let’s walk downtown”, and they started walking down the street. Lorraine didn’t seem to have any objection. Since she passed the test with flying colors, Carl said “Well, let’s go ahead and drive”.
Lorraine had just completed her cosmetician training the year before and was working as a hairdresser. She had moved out to Long Beach from Minnesota because her cousins, Helen & Mickey McDonnell, invited her to live with them… and it was warmer than Minnesota! Although Lorraine knew Carl was in the military, Carl didn’t tell her cousins his occupation. Since he always dressed in civilian clothes, it was his secret… until a Navy visitor to the house recognized Carl.
Early in the relationship, Carl knew that Lorraine was the one for him. He asked her to marry him several times, but she wouldn’t say yes. One day Carl was waiting for Lorraine to return to her apartment and he was talking to her friends, the Fort sisters Carol and Florence. They teased Carl by saying that Lorraine had recently made a big decision and that he should ask her “an important question”. When Lorraine returned to the apartment, he popped the question and Lorraine finally said yes. They were so excited, they got married the next day. Lorraine’s sister Millie was the bridesmaid and her husband John was Carl’s best man.
This was a fast romance! Carl & Lorraine met for the first time at the Cinderella in July 1939. They saw one another again on the Pike in September and they were married on Nov 6, 1939 at the Long Beach courthouse.
Right after the ceremony, the newlyweds left on their honeymoon to San Francisco. Since the Bay Area was a long 2-day journey by car, they spent their wedding night at a motel at the top of the Grapevine on Highway 5. They spent 3 beautiful days in San Francisco seeing all the sights (Coit Tower, Chinatown and Fisherman’s Wharf) and stayed at the Cartwright Hotel.
Upon their return, Lorraine stayed in her apartment until Carl could find a place. He found an apartment behind a big house near downtown Long Beach. It was tiny, but private. Not long after, Carl was ordered to go to sea and separated from his new bride.
A few months after they married, Lorraine’s dad, August, died back in St Paul. Lorraine and her cousin, Mickey, drove back east. Initially Mickey did most of the driving, because Lorraine didn’t know how to drive yet, but she quickly learned.
Carl returned to Long Beach and his new bride for a few months and then, in June 1940, Carl was ordered out to Hawaii for a six-week cruise on the Pennsylvania. This was an uneasy time for America; Hitler was on the move in Europe and Japan was seizing territory in Southeast Asia and elsewhere in the Pacific. Would America go to war? No one knew, but Carl and Lorraine knew the possibility of war was in the air as Carl shipped out.
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