Dear Hubby of Mine: Home Front Wives of World War II

by Diane Phelps Budden

Overview

Touching letters written by a loving couple; musty letters that detail past lives—my parents’ letters. A housewife and her sailor husband with shared immigrant experiences penned more than 500 letters during World War II, and the letters inform this book. Abridged versions of the letters weave a loving romantic story with actual events occurring on the home front and the battlefront. The letters are further brought to life through the 25 original family photographs and remembrances from the period.
The 75th anniversary of the end of World War II will be celebrated in 2020. Most of the participants have passed on. While servicemen’s stories have been broadly told, the tales of the resolute war wives, who had a significant impact on the outcome of the war and the well-being of the country, have not been widely shared. While some women joined the military, and others entered the workforce for the first time, the majority stayed at home to raise children. Dear Hubby of Mine focuses on this latter group of women whose stories have been under-represented and largely uncelebrated in World War II literature.
In addition, my parents’ immigrant backgrounds formed in the Hungarian community in Cleveland, Ohio, shed light on the experiences of other minority groups and refugees that came before and after them. While many readers may see the story as a touching romance, and it is, others may appreciate the depiction of the country in the 1940s under wartime conditions and how that influenced America’s culture in the decades to come. Women charted new roles during the war that led to new freedoms in the years ahead and eventually brought about major societal changes.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940164741167
Publisher:	Diane Phelps Budden
Publication date:	10/27/2020
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Diane Phelps Budden of Sedona, AZ spent over 30 years in corporate and academic marketing before beginning her writing career, and self-publishing Shade; a story about a very smart raven. With this experience, she wrote and self-published The Author’s Concise Guide to Marketing: how to jumpstart sales of your self-published book for first-time authors needing marketing skills. In 2013, Budden responded to the need for a non-fiction book about ravens for middle grade children, as well as adult raven lovers, by publishing The Un-Common Raven: one smart bird. This title is illustrated with beautiful photographs by Loren Haury of Sedona, and contains glossary, bibliography, and index to assist teachers with classroom activities. Highly recommended by Midwest Book Review; finalist in the New Mexico-Arizona 2013 Book Awards.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

1. An Immigrant Girl Grows Up in the Great Depression
2. The Newlyweds
3. 1943: Boot Camp Blues
4. 1944: Daddy’s All Gone
5. 1945, Winter: Miss You So Much
6. 1945, Spring: When Will it All End?
7. 1945, Fall: The Home Stretch

Author’s Postscript

Source Notes

Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

"Dear Hubby of Mine: Home Front Wives in World War II is a true story based on loving letters between Diane Phelps Budden's parents during the war...Under Budden's hand, her parents' experiences and love comes to life with hard-earned lessons for others who may be struggling with separation, social change, and the demands of being war wives and husbands committed to both country and each other. Dear Hubby of Mine is not just the story of one husband and wife. It's a snapshot of the experiences of a nation under siege on the battlefields of social change. No World War II, feminist, or social history collection should be without this vibrant, enlightening survey that seamlessly puts the personal touch back into social, political, and military issues.

It should also be noted that while the 75^th anniversary of the end of World War II will be celebrated in 2020, most participants of that era have since passed, making works like these letters some of the only eyewitness legacies of the times—and thus making their publication and discussion even more important."

—D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

From the Publisher

2020-01-24
A daughter lovingly reconstructs her parents' lives based on the letters they exchanged while separated during World War II.

Irma and Louis Vajda had similar childhood experiences growing up in an insular enclave of Eastern European families in Cleveland. Both Hungarian—Irma was born in the U.S. to immigrant parents, and Louis arrived from Hungary in 1921 at the age of 7—they faced discrimination whenever they ventured beyond their neighborhoods. They met in 1938 at a dance and married two years later during a tumultuous time in American history, haunted by both the Depression and the specter of world war. Louis was drafted into the Navy in 1943 as an apprentice seaman and served aboard the USS Bull, an assignment that often proved terribly dangerous. Between 1943 and 1945, Louis and Irma exchanged more than 500 letters, the correspondence a remarkably touching "lifeline between husband and wife." Budden (The Un-Common Raven: One Smart Bird, 2013, etc.)—the daughter of Louis and Irma—weaves a short history of her parents' marriage based on those letters, some reproduced in the book. Those two years of separation caused great anxiety for both, and the tender epistles provided much-needed reassurance, especially for Irma, who writes: "I want so to hear from you. Please don't give me any excuses. That isn't what I want! Don't say there isn't anything to write about. There is too! Even if you just say things like ‘I got up from my chair and then sat down again.' " The author skillfully gives a peek at her parents' lives and at those of immigrants in the U.S. during a period of unrest and scarcity. A thoughtful account of the ways in which the war transformed the place of women in society—essentially compelled to join the workforce in the absence of their husbands—emerges as well. The letters often dwell on quotidian matters like bills, and the story as a whole is very personal, accompanied by family photographs. As a result, Budden's book will likely be most appreciated by those in her sphere of family and friends.

An endearing snapshot of a wartime marriage unlikely to appeal to a wide readership.

Kirkus Reviews