Another mystery. This time, contained in a letter.

As I’ve shuffled through hundreds of letters saved from the late 1940s and early ’50s, I’ve noticed Dad calls Grandma Cassidy (his mother-in-law) “Joe.”

Thing is, her name wasn’t Josephine. It was Cecelia. Cecelia Margaret Regan Cassidy.

And when she wrote to Dad, she signed the letters “Joe.” I wonder why …

… maybe she worried that the other soldiers stationed in Korea might take a peek at one of the letters and think Dad was two-timing his sweetheart.

Perish the thought!

Here’s part of a letter from mid-May, 1953:

Golly Joe, your daughter, my wife, and I have been married for six and a half months already. It’s beginning to make me feel obsolete. I’m a way, in most ways, it’s wonderful, though. Some of the fellows come to me with their love problems and ask me, the old married man, what to do about it. They don’t bother me hardly at all to go out drinking or etc. with them. That’s one thing about the bunch I’m living with. If you don’t want to do something that they’re doing, they’ll respect your privacy and have the decency not to try to drag you down with them.

The other day a fellow who fancies himself quite the Don Juan was talking to me, and in the course of the conversation he said that he admired me, because he just couldn’t stay away from women more than a few days at the most. I didn’t say anything to him, but inside I felt awfully good. If he only knew the girl I was married to and both our families, though, he’d cease to wonder.

It really isn’t hard at all when you have people like you waiting at home.

Hope everyone is well and getting up at least five minutes before the bus in the morning. Golly how I’d love to be home right now. Only a few more months to go, thank heavens. Lemonade and soda in the kitchen and mountains of ironing on a Saturday night. Send me a pair of water-wings, I’ll swim home.

All my love, always, Hap

We may never know why Dad called Grandma Joe in his letter. I don’t remember him calling her anything but “Ceil” in person when we were kids.

I just checked in with my cousin Suzanne, just in case she knew. Here’s her texted reply: I am sure there is a funny story behind it, knowing Grandma. One day when the kids were small and Grandma was tired of the Ma, Ma, Ma … she told them she was going to change her name. The change ended up being “Sarah.”

Dad arrived home (sans water-wings) about a year after writing that letter to “Joe.” Mom had an apartment ready for them in New Haven, but first they enjoyed a week in New York City for their long-awaited honeymoon.

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