Mom in the 1930's and 1940s

I've already shared a letter Mom wrote to Daddy in 1943.  Here's a capsule of the 1940's with perhaps a little bit of a dip back to the 1930's:

Mom was engaged to another man when she met--or at least when she became involved with--Daddy.  His name may have been George, but they called him Pinky.  I don't remember why, but I don't think he got beaten up because of it.  Pinky adored Mom and treated her very well, but he wasn't an intellectual like Daddy.  Mom loved the people in Daddy's PhD program because they had exciting ideas.  Daddy was ten years older than she was, and she was impressed by all he knew.  They never lived together before marriage, but she broke off her engagement with Pinky, and when the US got involved in World War II, they eloped in Virginia, where Daddy was going to Officer Training School.  She was horrified that because she was under 21 and she couldn't get married without her parents' permission,  she had to call them--not a very gentle way to announce the good news.  Her parents  were hurt, of course, that they hadn't been told or invited before they were needed to give the go-ahead, but they gave it.  Daddy was convinced that he'd be killed in the war and wanted to start a baby before he went overseas with the Navy. 

Before he left to go overseas, they showed their sympathy for the Japanese Americans by taking them coffee, tea, and donuts.

World War II brought Mom's father t a good job after he lost his grocery store in the Depression and then to large supermarkets...and after he hadn't succeeded with his Fuller Brush Man routine, which was too full of honesty and sincerity and empathy with the clients.  But with WWII he got a job as a director with the Works Progress Administration supervising women left behind to fill the jobs men had before being called into the military.  Mom wasn't one of them.  I wonder whether her birth mother was.