World War 2 Love Story

My Grandma Donna and Grandpa Wesley

I wrote this as it was told to me by Donna my Grandmother.

Grandpa Meeting Grandma:
Grandpa was training new soldiers in Texas with Grant Morrison, Bill Dunn, and 2 other Mormon guys. Grant would write to his wife Patsy. Patsy was friends with Donna Bishop at Fort Douglas Utah. Grant asked Wesley to write Donna but Wesley said that he’d had enough of women after a recent bad experience. Grant kept pushing him for about a month so he finally gave in and wrote her after Grant said that Donna was “so pretty that she could be an optometrist model “. So then Donna wrote him a nice letter back. Then he wrote, then she wrote and then they exchanged pictures. Wesley said the letters were really fancy but were not love letters. They wrote about three months to each other.

Anyways, Patsy was coming to visit Grant so Grant suggested that Donna should come with her too. So Grandpa wrote Donna a letter to see if she could come & she said yes. The girls were supposed to come a certain day so Wesley asked Lieutenant Williams if he could have a tank to let Donna ride in (even though that was a no, no!) He said off the record “Yes”. Then Donna wrote a letter saying she had chicken pox and couldn’t come. After she sent that letter, the boys were told that in one week they were shipping out. Grant called and told the girls to come right then and so they did. Grandpa had to catch a ride to El Paso to meet them. When Donna stepped off the train she was so beautiful it startled Wesley and he accidentally called her Patsy instead of Donna. They found Donna a room with a Mr. & Mrs. Sally, an old couple. Together Wesley and Donna went to town and visited people and enjoyed each others company. It was very apparent that Wesley loved Donna and so he proposed to her 2 days after she arrived. After only 9 days total of being there Donna was married to Wesley at the Justice of the Peace December 14th 1945, in Brownwood, Texas. Then, 4 days later Wesley was shipped out. Grandma Donna had to catch a train to Kansas City then to Colorado then to Fort Worth just to get home to Utah. Her family gave her a wedding shower. Donna remembers that a lady at the shower told her mother that, "Mary looks like her Dad, Anna May looks like her mother, but Donna looks like she came out of the broom closet." -too funny-

Not long after all this she had to quit her job because in January she “observed she was pregnant”.

Then on April 12th 1945, Grandpa was severely wounded.

He was a tank mechanic in the thirteenth armored division called "The Black Cats". One night they dug a trench and pulled a tank over it for a roof to protect themselves. Suddenly a mortar shell blew the track of the tank sending heavy shrapnel into the makeshift barracks. Wesley's head was hit sending pieces of his own skull into his brain. The enemy had them totally surrounded and Wesley looked as if his last moments were upon him. At that very moment our guys burst in and beat the Germans back saving the wounded. They didn't even believe Wesley would survive the air trip to hospital. He remembered waking up and seeing double. The doctors were shocked that he was alive and yet would not tell him about his condition. So he managed to sit up and get a hold of his own chart, cover his one eye and read it. Later he was told by a doctor that he believe he survived because he lived his religion, the Mormon's "Word of wisdom". (NO alcohol or tobacco use)

When Donna got the news that Wesley was gravely injured her father told her that she should leave him because how could an invalid take care of her and a baby. Donna was heartbroken but resolute in her love.

Before he arrived in the U.S., the Army had asked Grandpa where he would like to go. He knew that the army (by a notorious reputation) would not send him home if he asked to go home to Arizona so he asked to go to Utah. So they approved that and shipped him to Utah which is where his new wife and new home was unbeknownst to the army. Meanwhile Grandma had to buy a chest of drawers to get ready for Ron’s birth. It cost her $65 and she still has the chest of drawers in her room today. Wesley's mother, Clara, (who lived in Arizona) came & picked up Donna to go see Wesley in the Brigham City hospital in Utah. Donna & Wesley began living with Donna’s parents in Utah. On September 5th as Wesley was learning to walk and Their new infant was just home from the hospital Donna’s mother Emily came in crying. She said “I hate to tell you this…” She informed them that Don (Donna’s Father) was kicking them out. They were taken in by Grant and Patsy. Grant and Patsy Morrison had a little rental home on the property they were renting. After a few months the owners of the property said that two families could not live there so they were again kicked out. When Grandma Clara heard this she came up that very day to rescue them. She was a take charge kind of person and she was upset with how Donna and Wesley had been treated. She had 2 automobiles; a black 1935 ford pickup truck and a 1937 Chevy. As they were packing up Donna’s dad told them that he wanted his bed back and threatened to have them arrested. They gave it back. So in January of 1946 with very little they moved to Globe, AZ, in a housing project (next to what is now a Wal-Mart.) (A few years later Donna’s grandmother, parents and sisters had Donna and little Ron come to visit them. They actually asked when Donna was going to come back to live in Utah! She let them truly have a piece of her mind in what is now known to us as the infamous dinner! Grandma still has the pictures of this night.) Many years later Donna's father, Don, apologized to Wesley and said “Let’s let bygones be bygones.”

Donna and Wesley had 4 children together and were sealed in the Mesa Arizona Temple.

They were the ultimate testament that love can endure all things.

The last years of Wesley's life were spent in great physical pain. He suffered broken hips and a heart bypass and much more. Grandma Donna was his undying devoted nurse. Wesley and Donna never stopped though, they came to all their grand kids concerts and ball games, babysat, took us up to stay a while at their home. Grandpa helped us do math homework, showed us how to fix things, told us stories about faith and miracles, and told us we were everything to him. We were beautiful and smart and we could do anything we wanted to do. (That kid is me in the center)

Grandma Donna taught us manners, how to paint, how to play the piano, and how to sew and how to spell and she thank us for every single thing we ever did. She told us to say a prayer each time we got behind a wheel of a vehicle. Not one of her 18 grand kids were ever killed in an accident and are all alive today.

Wesley died Sunday February 25th 2007

I will forever miss him and all he gave.
Commitment and self-sacrifice were given a new definition to me through them!