As my wife and I sorted through family memorabilia years ago, we came across a Western Union Telegram the message of which had so completely faded as to be unreadable. As noted on document conservation websites, a “wired” message was transmitted ticker-tape style to be printed on a narrow ribbon of paper with fast-drying ink, the ribbon then being pasted on the message form. Telegrams were not produced with preservation in mind. Adding to this degradation was the fact that, for years, the telegram had been displayed in a frame, exposed to light. While my wife and her siblings recalled that the wire had been sent shortly after WWII from their father to their mother and was at one time, legible, no one could recall the specific message.
The only mark remaining on the document was a bold stamp noting the date of receipt in Erie: “1945 OCT 10 AM 9:41.”
To understand the context of this telegram, likely one of millions sent before, during and after the Second World War, it is helpful to take a look at a chance meeting that is said to have taken place a few years before the war. In the summer of 1941, Neal Haven Moffett age 15 and Betty Rose Kettering, age 14, met in the back of a truck on their way to picking cherries with other boys and girls in the borough of North East PA. (It should be noted that at that time, Erie County ranked 12th of all counties in the United States for the number of cherry trees; more than 82% of those trees were in North East). Betty’s verdict on meeting Neal: “He’s a nice boy!” They would not meet again for 2 years.
Neal (on the right in the photo) had been born on August 19, 1925 in Salamanca N.Y. His father died in 1936 during the Depression and for a time, Neal and his brother Dean lived with their grandmother in New York before joining their mother, now remarried, living at 2243 Eastern Avenue in Wesleyville. In May of 1942, after finishing the 11th grade, Neal began working at Zurn Manufacturing as a milling machinist. On October 14, 1943 he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and in December 1943, he was sent for recruit training at the US Naval Training Center in Sampson, N.Y.
Betty had been born in Erie on September 22, 1926, to Simon Peter Kettering, a locomotive brakeman, and his wife, Clara. In 1943 the family home was at 1132 East 20th Street in Erie. Attending Academy High School, Betty was a standout for her looks, her personality and her athleticism. A cheerleader and twirler, she was a member of the Dramatic Club, acting in school plays and serving on the Prom Committee as well as the committee planning the 1944 Drum Majorette’s Dance.
Neal returned to Erie from upstate New York on December 2, 1943, enjoying a “Recruit Leave.” It is part of family lore that sometime, during that week, Neal and some buddies noticed Betty and some girlfriends while driving on lower State Street.
Betty at that time was working at the Columbia Theater with its entrance located on West 8th off State. The sailors apparently called out to the girls in a manner befitting sailors on leave. In a manner befitting girls in that situation, Betty told the boys to “move on!” Neal, recognizing his “cherry-picking” companion, shouted out “Betty!!” It is said that by the end of Neal’s one week leave, Betty told her mother “He’s the One!”
At the end of his December leave, Neal was sent to Engineering School at the Naval Station in Great Lakes, Illinois. In February, 1944 he was sent to Bremerton, Washington and on March 20, 1944, at age 18, he boarded the Battleship U.S.S. Washington bound for active duty in the Pacific theater. The Washington served in close support of the invasions of Saipan (6/44), Guam (8/44), Peleliu (11/44), Leyte (12/44), Iwo Jima (3/45) and Okinawa (6/45).
Though on the other side of the world, the Kettering family was not spared the pain of the war. Betty’s older brother, 25-year-old Charles “Buzz” Kettering, had spent more than a year in the Second Ranger Battalion training intensively to develop the skills to scale the 100-foot cliffs (the Pointe du Hoc) overlooking Omaha and Utah beaches on D-Day, the goal being to disable and capture a six-gun German coast defense battery situated on those cliffs. The casualty rate for the Second Rangers was 70% killed or wounded. Buzz Kettering was one of 77 men killed that first day. He is buried in the Normandy American Cemetery and honored by a monument in the Lakeside Cemetery and Gardens in Erie.
Betty graduated from Academy in the February 1945 Senior Class. In 1946, Betty was working at Conrad’s Jewelers at 703 State Street and living with her family at 1146 Buffalo Road.
After the Japanese surrender in September, the Washington began its transit of the Panama Canal en route to Philadelphia to join other warships to celebrate “Navy Day” scheduled for October 27th. On Tuesday, the 9th of October 1945, the ship entered the Canal through the Pacific entrance at Balboa, then the capital of the American Canal Zone. (One can see the Washington entering the Canal to the left of the carrier Enterprise, the date 10/9/1945 noted on the lower right corner of the photo.) On the very day that picture was taken, Neal sent the now-faded telegram to Betty.
Deciphering the telegram was a challenge. A number of printing and restoration services declared the project impossible to fulfill. However, through dogged photoshop manipulation involving darkening and increased contrast followed by overwriting of revealed letters, then lightening of the document, printing on heavy paper and cutting out and pasting the ticker-tape ribbons, the message was revealed.
Neal left the military on 5/21/46. He and Betty married on 12/7/46. On that day, Betty changed her name to Bette K. Moffett. Neal worked for years in management at Smith Meter and is still remembered for his jovial personality. After raising five children at home: (sons Don, Robert, Gregg, Jeffrey and namesake daughter, Bette) Bette earned her LPN and went on to be a revered member of the staff of Saint Vincent Family Medicine. The couple came to be known as energetic and polished square dancers. Bette died of lung cancer on October 10, 1990 and Neal, of Mesothelioma, on June 12, 2010.
In the midst of the terror of the Second World War, of unfathomable fear and danger abroad, a telegram often brought unspeakable grief to families on the home front in Erie. Other telegrams, such as that from Neal to Betty, conveyed simple human sentiments that transcended the horror of war and reaffirmed the life-sustaining power of love.
