By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
March 19, 2000
It was Christmas 1942 when Edward Yaras proposed to Marie. He got down on bended knee and asked for her hand in marriage . . . in her closet.
“My mother and brother were home, and he was too embarrassed to get down on his knees in front of them,” recalls Marie, now 75. “So when I went to put the coats away, he followed me. Before I knew it, he whisked me away into the closet and put the ring on my finger.”
The proposal wasn’t unexpected. Since meeting on a blind date the year before, the couple had been inseparable. After their fathers died, they bonded even more.
“She was such a nice girl,” says Edward, now 76. “I remember on our first date, (my friend) Jim borrowed his father’s car – this ’33 Dodge – and we went on a double date. Marie was pretty, funny and smart. I really enjoyed her company.
“I sometimes think about what my life would have been like if she hadn’t married me. I think I’d just be a beach bum.”
Unlike other enlisted men who pushed for quick marriages before heading off to war, Ed wanted to hold off a bit.
“I knew that I wanted to enlist (in the Navy), and I didn’t want to get married and then leave Marie behind right away,” Edward says. “Everyone wanted to begin families immediately, but I didn’t want to just in case I got knocked off in the war. I didn’t want to leave behind a widow and a baby.”
They waited almost a year before marrying on Sept. 4, 1943, when Edward had leave from basic training.
“Even with the rationing, my mom was able to serve a dinner for the bridal party,” Marie says. “She also threw a small party in our flat after the services. A friend drove us to the Edgewater Beach Hotel for our honeymoon. The day after we returned, Ed took the streetcar downtown to get the train to boot camp in Great Lakes.”
In 1944, Edward was shipped to the South Pacific.
“It was tough being so far away from each other,” Marie says. “We didn’t see each other for such a long time. Back then, we wrote letters. There were no phone calls like today. I tried to write him every day, but the military mail sometimes caused delays and he’d get six or seven of my letters at a time.”
Not that Edward minded.
“It was like a piece of home reading her letters,” he says.
Based in Cicero, Edward and Marie marked their 56th anniversary in September.
“We have never gone to sleep angry, and we never leave each other without a kiss,” Marie says. “On the fourth of every month, we wish each other `happy anniversary.’ “
