The 65th Signal Battalion had no orders, but we knew we were now very "hot" to go overseas, so I phoned Fay? that I could only manage a three-day pass in Dallas-Fort Worth. She said she'd come, so we agreed to meet at the Blackstone Hotel in Forth Worth. I was at Camp Bowie about 100 miles south of there. Three of us bargained for a car and driver to take us from Brow??wood to Fort Worth. It was a nice service but those people knew we were vulnerable, and they made us pay.
My beautiful Fay? and I had a brief reunion beginning Friday night with all the T.L.C. we had both been yearning for. On Saturday morning I suggested that it might be nice to visit the campuses of Texas Christain University and Southern Methodist to stroll in the sunshine. We took a public bus and saw soemthing of Fort Worth en route to T.C.U. We did notice a rather disreputable-looking old man sat down right behind us. Fay? sniffed and whispered "Somebody needs a bath!"
The driver suddenly called the stop for Texas Christian University, and we dashed to get off. As the bus sped away, Fay? screamed, "My bag!"
Too late. The bus was gone! Instead of strolling happily, we waited desperately at the corresponding bus stop across the street for it to come back. When it came we looked and looked for the bag in and under the seats where we had sat. The man who had sat behind us was gone, too. We figured the bag and its contents were gone for good, possibly "eased" from Fay?'s side by that man. (There was enough space between the edge of the seat and the side of the bus for him to do this.) Or maybe she had just dropped it.
We returned disconsolate and desperate to our hotel, trying to decide what to do. The handbag contained Fay?'s return airline ticket to Tucson, Arizona, over $100 is traveler's cheques, her prescription eyeglasses, and her wallet which itself hed her Arizona driver's license, the actual prescription for her glasses, some credit cards, her war time food and gasoline ration coupons, and approximately $15.00 in cash.
We got on the phone to American Airlines, who said they could not issue a replacement ticket, but the would be glad to refund for the lost one in a month or so when they could be sure it had not been used! American Express ????? cancel the missing traveler's checques and issue new oens on Monday morning. (I had to be back at Camp Bowie by midnight on Sunday.)
Well, we finally phone our folks--both hers and mine--and they said, "Quit worrying! We'll send you some money by wire!"
How do you quit worrying? We couldn't even go to a movie. Fay? would have gotten a headache trying to see it without her glasses. We did a little window shopping and went back to the hotel to comfort each other as best we could.
Sunday morning we were jolted out of bed by the phone and a kindly southern voice asking for Fay? Anderson: "Have you lost something, Mrs. Anderson? ...A bag? ...Well, describe the bag, please, and what was in it. ... It's all here except the money! ...Can you come get it, Mrs. Anderson?"
We took a cab to a modest Fort Worth house and were cordially received by a pleasant, well-educated black woman, who told us she had found the bag near some bushes at the end of the bus line. She was a seamstress doing alterations for Neiman-Marcus, and she was also a Notary Public. Although she declined to take a reward, I left a ten dollar bill on her desk. She said that our obvious joy was her joy, too!
How in the world had she ever found us, to turn a long nightmare into a short bad dream?
In Fay?'s handbag she had also found a match folder from the Blackstone Hotel!