| Contents > Australian WWII War Brides of American Servicemen: Myths, Stereotypes and Realities by Robyn Arrowsmith |
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Australian girls enjoyed social activities and dancing was a popular past time. There was a never-ending supply of young American men with whom they could dance and have fun, however, in order to prevent liaisons and hasty marriages between Australian girls and the Americans, regulations prevented the girls leaving the club with any servicemen (J. Fargo, Interview, September 30, 1999). Despite these precautions, with an influx of more than a million Americans during the war years, many liaisons were formed.
It was at the Dugout Club, in Melbourne, that Jean Fargo 1 met her husband. Jean and her sister were volunteers at the Club where there was dancing after eight o’clock at night (Potts, 1986, p. 99). Jean recalls:
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once a week we’d have to go and do our thing …clean up the tables, wash dishes or sometimes…dance, or just stand and sing around the piano and be friendly. (J. Fargo, Interview, September 30, 1999).
One afternoon Jean and her sister stayed for the evening dance:
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someone was playing the piano…I was standing there in the chorus line and all of a sudden I felt this finger down my back…there was this navy guy…he said ‘When the music starts will you dance with me?’ So I did, and I danced with him quite a bit that evening (J. Fargo, Interview, September 30, 1999).
Jean declined his offer to take her home, but upon his insistence to see her again, she invited him to the home of a couple aged in their sixties, whose sons were fighting overseas, and who had opened up their home to the servicemen. The older couple ‘just loved him’ and they met there every Sunday. Jean didn’t dare to tell her mother as ‘she would not have approved’ (J. Fargo, Interview, September 30, 1999) of her going out with an American. It was a year and a half later that they married, and it was by no means a fast and short-lived infatuation. Although there were opportunities for personal freedom offered by wartime conditions, ‘self-chaperoning’ such as this was not unusual and indicates a sense of caution and control.
Couples met at dances, clubs, cafes, on blind dates, through friends and relatives, at skating rinks, on public transport and simply in the street. Many of these meetings eventually led to marriage.
Surveys of the early 1950s show that, while they were experienced in kissing and ‘petting’, most young unmarried women had not had sexual intercourse (Lake, 1995, p. 74). Sexual education was virtually non-existent in the 1940s, and most girls knew very little about sexual activity or its consequences. One war bride comments:
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We were very moral, very Catholic, very young and innocent. At 16 you thought you could become pregnant from kissing! That’s what we thought in the 40s! (N. Lankard, Interview, November 13, 2004).
In spite of their ignorance, however, the women interviewed indicated a caution around sexual activity, due to the fear of pregnancy, even if initially they were unsure what caused it.
Nancy Lankard, one of seven daughters of a very strict father, loved dancing at the Trocadero and other Sydney nightclubs and had dates with a lot of ‘Navy men – Aussies, Brits, and French’. She and a group of friends all went out with Americans ‘who were all very well mannered’. She recalls
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we just kissed and that was all…we were all very innocent and we all came home together from the night-clubs… there were the big bands and I loved dancing. We had really good times – but never did anything bad. (N. Lankard, Interview, November 13, 2004).
Nancy met her future husband in July 1942 and she admits (N. Lankard, Interview, November 13, 2004) that she wasn’t ‘too thrilled’ about him at first, as she had plenty of boyfriends. However, getting to know him through his letters over the next nineteen months, she thought that he was ‘a good person, dependable and reliable’. When he returned two years later in February 1944 on a 30-day leave, they married.
Nancy’s future husband was more certain than she was that they would be married. He had asked his aunt in America to send both engagement and wedding rings to Australia in readiness for the wedding day. Surprised when the rings arrived, Nancy thought to herself, ‘Oh, I must be getting married!’ She readily admits that had it not been for the wartime atmosphere, she probably would not have married so quickly and would most likely have married an Australian boyfriend she had been going out with since she was 15 (N. Lankard, Interview, November 13, 2004). In this time of social upheaval, when each day was uncertain, the American boyfriends of the Australian women in this study seemed determined to marry. There appeared to be a sense of urgency to get married, perhaps to fulfil a promise of some stability and optimism for the future, rather than simply rushing in to a sexual relationship.
| Jean Fargo was tragically killed in a road accident in May 2004, near her home in Virginia. |
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| Contents > Australian WWII War Brides of American Servicemen: Myths, Stereotypes and Realities by Robyn Arrowsmith |