The price of a 1941 phone call- Ouch!

[Amy Jeanne]

Oh Marjorie Weaver! She was on the cover of one of my magazines from 1938:



Thanks.

[Bluebird Marsha]

Thanks for the magazine cover. I saw some newspaper pics of her. They were pretty "smudgy".

And thanks Lizzie! I had to google who Breen was. So now I need to watch the pre-code version of Babyface!

[sheeplady]

Synopsis of gossip: young actress marries young navy officer, circa 1937 or 38, and then spends time denying she's married. Off he goes to sea. In the Pacific. Two years later, he's still in the Pacific, and she wants a divorce. He doesn't, and hits the phones trying to talk her out of it. Fail. But she needs permission in writing from him before she can get a divorce, cause he's deployed. He agrees, as long as she promises not to get engaged or married before he gets some leave and then he's going to get her to change her mind and remarry him. She agrees to his conditions and they divorce.

Several problems arose. The phone call was in November (?) of 1941. His leave was scheduled for April of 1942. And in March of 1942 his submarine was scuttled, and the crew spent the rest of the war in Japanese POW camps. And somewhere before the war ended she remarried.

On first reading parts of this story, my first thought was "what a wench!" But from the papers I gathered they had only known each other a couple of weeks before they got hitched, and maybe spent a few a month or two together during their entire marriage. In the future when I read of current Hollywood antics, I will remember this tale, to remind myself that goofiness is not limited to any particular decade.

You have to wonder about the husband too... I know it's totally normal to idealize your partner when you are away fighting in a stressful situation... but he also knew her only a few weeks and agreed to get married, and when she requested a divorce he still wouldn't give up and made her promise to not marry anyone else (which isn't really a divorce, it's purgatory). He seemed to be a little obsessed or he was so in love he couldn't see that she wasn't interested in him.

I'm of the mind that if someone tells you it's over to the point to ask for a divorce, you shouldn't try to attach strings to them. Granted, it seemed like she chose a bad time to ask for one.

If he was in a POW camp for 3 years (if my math is correct) I would assume that she didn't know he was captured, just that he was MIA and she likely thought he had passed away (unless the U.S. government had told her differently). I don't think only waiting three years (or even 2) for your MIA possibly deceased ex-husband to possibly come back from the war is at all shameful. I've known plenty of widows who have been re-married 3 years after their husbands passed; and these were people that they were actively married to and in love with, not people they had known for a few weeks and gotten divorced from.

[countryclubjoe]

The phone call cost exceeded the cost of the divorce.

Best regards

CCJ

[Bluebird Marsha]

I agree with you Sheep Lady. The first time I read about this was in a book. In there it just said that she got a divorce while he was in the POW camp - on grounds of desertion. It didn't mention much else, and my first thought was "what a little creep!" That would be just low down. I would think it a bit obsessive on his part to put conditions on the divorce. But... she asked for the divorce in roughly Sept-Nov. And he thought he'd be seeing her again in April. Not exactly a long time. Just horrifically bad timing. It really did put her in an unfortunate position. I didn't get the impression he was all that upset when he got out either.

She wouldn't have reason to think he was still alive. Early on there was just word that the sub was missing.Which would usually mean everyone on board had died. I don't see anything at all wrong that either of them did. Just a hormone fueled marriage that hopefully was a few weeks of fun.It just amused me how blithely everything was stated. It read like she didn't really know him at all, and seemed like it was normal to having both a persistent ex-husband and a new fiance on hand. You know "They're both great guys" and "I'm visiting new guys family for Christmas". If it hadn't been for the bad timing I can just picture her talking to new guy's family.

"Well yes Donald is a wonderful man. But Kenneth is coming home in April to state his case. I'll weigh the pro's and con's of each of their positions, and make a decision after due consideration."

Good point CCJ!

[sheeplady]

"Well yes Donald is a wonderful man. But Kenneth is coming home in April to state his case. I'll weigh the pro's and con's of each of their positions, and make a decision after due consideration."

I wonder if the parents thought she was a keeper?

[Retro_GI_Jane]

That is 1941 rates.. Today's call is likely significantly cheaper.

I'm not sure about that. I made a call from the Czech Republic to my husband in 2003 on our anniversary and it was $50+ alone for the first five minutes. We didn't stay on the phone long, but I can't imagine that if we had an hour long conversation that it would have been under $163.00 for the call.

I did find a mobile phone when I finally arrived at my destination overseas and it cost me a small fortune to keep minutes on it to call the US. A calling card would have been much cheaper but the phones we had weren't reliable to use them and making morale calls were on the government's dime and only when we were near a DSN line.

[Bluebird Marsha]

I've had friends stationed in Europe who had to very careful about how they made cell phone calls. I'm not sure what the cause of the high prices is, but it dang sure isn't the cost of undersea cables and operator assisted connections!