Love Is In the Air!

February is the month of valentines, so we thought we would write about the culture of love and marriage during the lead-up to WWII.

Peggy and Bob Kurtz first met in April of 1941, and for them the spring of that year was a whirlwind of love and anticipation. In July, Bob was off to basic training as an artilleryman at Camp Davis in Holly Ridge, NC. He wrote to his sweetheart almost every day, even a telegram every now and then. In fact, on December 7, 1941, the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, he rushed to the Western Union office to send this short, but very meaningful message, “Keep your chin up honey. I love you always.”

 Did the fact that they were married lessen or increase the agony of separation and the fear of loss for Peggy and Bob? It’s hard to know. But Jim Kurtz, their youngest son and author of The Green Box fervently believes that the primary reason his father survived his imprisonment and the brutal Forced March across Germany was because he knew that Peggy and their young son, Bobby, were waiting back in NY; he had a reason to hold on, to return to the family that waited for him.

For many of the couples who married quickly, their post war relationships weren’t so successful. With quick marriages came rising divorce rates as well. By 1946, 1 in 4 marriages ended in divorce according to Mintz & Kellogg, 1988. The spike in divorce rates had many possible causes. 

But for Bob and Peggy Kurtz, the end of the war was a time of celebration and an albeit brief period of family growth and potential. Only Bob’s tragic death due to a war inflicted heart condition would end their life together. And in a time of war, Bob’s love for his wife and son, and theirs for him, is what brought him home. What better love story in the month of valentines could there be?

Author Jim Kurtz sells his book which our film upcoming documentary is based on at his website: Buy the book