Their first child, Rose Marie, was born in 1947, followed in later years by sons Butch and Bill. One day Bud took Mary to a jewelry store and then, about two months after he came home, he sat next to her on her front porch swing and asked her to marry him. They ended every night talking through windows that faced each other’s house, close enough for their quiet voices to be heard. They were soon together again, and this time, neither wanted to see anyone else. “He gave me my Dear John letter back,” she said. That same day in June 1946, Mary answered his knock and he handed her an envelope. Twenty-three months after he left Conshohocken, he was back home. But Bud is right that her parents strongly encouraged her to dance with the boys at their local German club.īud was preparing for combat when World War II ended. Mary did not care one whit about his nationality, she stresses, and the decision not to go steady was hers alone. I’m Irish, and they were wishing for a German,” Bud interjects. “I was young, and I wanted to be able to date,” said Mary. “She wrote me a ‘Dear John’ letter,” Bud said. They wrote to each other, but when Bud’s words turned more serious, Mary knew she had to do the right thing.
Mary was a sophomore at Conshohocken High. He enlisted in the Air Force and left for training in Nebraska right after graduation. It was fun, and led to more dates, but “we weren’t going steady, or anything,” said Mary.īud, who was a senior, studied at Philadelphia’s Roman Catholic High School. “Afterward, we walked five blocks to the drugstore for ice cream sodas,” he said. They saw Son of Frankenstein at a Conshohocken theater - Bud paid for the two, 10-cent tickets. “I said yes, but I really don’t know why,” said Mary. “I guess I was auditioning women for my future,” said Bud. Mary walked her dog past a pickup ball game when her next-door neighbor, Bud, broke off from the other boys to ask her to the movies.
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