While living in this house on Joan Avenue, Bill met the love of his life. His family lived here before, during, and after World War II.
Photo by Nancy Roe Pimm
She said, “Margie is so shy. I know she likes you. Next time you come down the street, I’ll latch the screen door and lock her out. This way you can finally talk in person and tell her you are her ‘mystery caller.’”3
The scheme came off without a hitch. According to plan, Bill walked down the avenue. When Margie saw him coming, she raced for the house. She pulled and pulled on the screen door handle, only to realize that she was locked out. Bill vaulted over the porch railing, and Margie turned around. When they finally came face to face, the two busted into laughter. After some small talk, Bill asked Margie on a date.
Margie models for Bill as he practiced photography in 1941.
Photo by William A. Wynne
The following day, Bill borrowed a friend’s bicycle, along with fifty cents. Bill and Margie rode bikes and rented a rowboat. On their way home, they stopped for a couple of Cokes, which cost ten cents apiece.
That night, Bob Howard asked Bill about his first date with Margie. Bill took a nickel out of his pocket and said, “She’s not after my money!”4
For their second date, Margie suggested the nearby roller rink. Bill pawned a broken pocket watch to afford the price of admission. When they arrived at the rink, Margie laced up her shoe skates, while Bill clamped on his old metal skates. Margie rolled onto the wooden floor, ready to circle waltz, a couple’s dance on skates, but Bill seemed to have two left feet and could only skate in a straight line. Margie admitted on a later date that Bill’s inability to dance on skates was almost a deal-breaker. She considered not going with him on a third date. But when Bill showed up with a jar for butterfly hunting, she had a change of heart. Bill had an amazing butterfly collection, and Margie loved the challenge of hunting the winged insects. After a successful hunt, Bill and Margie took a bike ride and stopped for malted shakes on the way home.
Bill and his sweetheart, Margie Roberts, in October 1942
© Smoky War Dog LLC
Some evenings they went to a movie, and if it was dark enough, they held hands on the walk home. One day, Bill and Margie rode bikes to the Rocky River Reservation Metro Park. They rested by a beech tree. Bill took out his pocketknife and carved their initials, MR and BW, and the year,’40, inside a heart on the tree trunk. From that day, it was official: they were a couple, and this was their tree. But it wasn’t until Christmas of that year that Bill asked for his first kiss. Out of respect for “the girl who had never been kissed,” he thought he should ask permission. The look on Margie’s face made him realize that she had been waiting for this kiss for a very long time.
On December 7, 1941, a Sunday afternoon, Bill and Bob Howard played football in a neighborhood park. After their game they went to Bill’s house to get a drink of water. They found his mom pacing the floor, her eyes wide. When she saw the two boys she shouted, “The Japanese just bombed Pearl Harbor!”
Bill looked at Bob and then turned to his mom. “Where’s Pearl Harbor?”
His mom shook her head. She bit her lip, “It’s an American naval base in Hawaii. Our country hoped to stay out of World War II, but this changes everything.”5
Bill and Bob talked about enlisting. They wanted to help their country. Bill’s mother made it clear she wouldn’t hear of it, not for her son, anyway. Out of respect for his mother, Bill dropped the subject.
One of Bill’s friends, Babe Lovejoy, did enlist. When Babe came home on leave, a few of his friends went on a group date. Three girls and three guys piled into the car. Babe, on furlough from the war in the South Pacific, said, “I gotta go back soon and I know I’m not coming home. I’m gonna die over there.”6 The entire car went silent. No one said a word. As it turned out, Babe went back to war and never returned: he was killed by a hand grenade on Luzon, an island in the Phillippines.
In 1942, Bill finally graduated from high school at age twenty. His romance with Margie continued. For his birthday, Bill asked for a dog. It had been many years since Pal had disappeared, and he finally felt ready to allow a dog into his heart and his home. Margie bought a German shepherd/Doberman pinscher mix for five dollars. Bill named the six-week-old puppy Toby.
Although Bill spent lots of time training the dog, what he really needed was a job. Since he had studied horticulture in high school, Bill landed a full-time job at Cleveland’s largest floral shop. He loved the job and told Margie he had hoped to own a shop of his own someday. But the pay at the shop didn’t make ends meet. Bill had to leave his dream job to work instead at American Steel and Wire for fifty-seven hours a week. Bill made ninety cents an hour at the steel mill, and overtime pay doubled his earnings. Some days he worked two shifts. Every week he handed half of his salary to his mother. On the job, Bill handled lead-coated wires, exposing himself to the poisonous material. He took weekly laxatives to flush the toxins out of his body and endured regular testing for lead poisoning. The only good thing about the new job was that he could bring Toby to work. While Bill sweated beside a 1,500-degree furnace, Toby slept, snoring on the warm bricks.
Bill, Margie, and Toby in front of Margie’s Joan Avenue home
© Smoky War Dog LLC
When Toby turned six months old, Bill enrolled his dog in a new program called “Dogs for Defense.” It was a national movement by the American Kennel Club to supply dogs for World War II. Bill had wanted to join the fight himself, but his mom needed his salary, and he didn’t want to leave Margie. So, if Bill couldn’t go to war, Toby would represent the family. The Cleveland All Breed Training School held classes downtown at Public Square. Five weeks into the course, Toby’s training came to a screeching halt when Bill was drafted to fight in World War II. He needed to drop everything and head to basic training. Margie had known it would probably happen eventually, but the news still came as a shock. Bill’s employers at the steel mill hated to see such a hardworking employee leave. They offered to talk to the recruitment officer to try to get a deferment. Bill thought about all of the hardships he endured in a workday and said, “No thanks! I’ll take my chances with the war.”7
After a tearful good-bye with Margie, Bill left for training camp. Because of his background in photography, he was sent to Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, Colorado, to learn aerial photography and attend mapping school. In August 1943, he passed his physical examination, completed his technical courses, and flew to North Carolina for overseas training. The trainees camped in the wilderness for weeks and hiked twenty-five miles through the woods with thirty-pound packs on their backs. They learned to fire pistols, rifles, and Thompson semiautomatic machine guns. The soldiers studied survival skills and learned how to turn their trousers into flotation devices in case of an emergency on the open seas.
Bill passed all of his courses and was set to join the war in Europe. The day he was scheduled to be deployed, Bill received orders to see the commanding officer. The officer explained that Bill’s mother had breast cancer, and she already had an operation. Bill could hardly believe his mom had
