Daddy and Marlene Dietrich.

An envelope came in today's mail from my cousin R....... after much searching, he found an old black/white World War II photo of my dad, taken in Germany after a USO Show in 1945.  Daddy was sitting on a bench outside a large concrete and stone building, and right next to him was the actress Marlene Dietrich.  She had been part of the USO Show and had offered to have her picture taken with any of the soldiers who wanted to sit there next to her. (As if any of the soldiers would have refused?)

My dad and my Aunt Dolly had talked about that photo with Marlene Dietrich over the years, but I had never seen it.  Aunt Dolly kept important papers and keepsake items either in the family safe or tucked up in the attic.   If something was in the safe, she would tell you that she didn't have time 'right now' to open the safe.  If the item was up in the attic (the third floor of the house, actually) she would tell you that she didn't have time to go through 'all of those rooms' to look for it. (There were just three rooms up in the attic.)

But every time Marlene Dietrich was in an old movie on Channel 9 years ago, Aunt Dolly would start talking about 'that time in Germany when your father had his picture taken with Marlene Dietrich and we all couldn't believe it until he finally sent us the photograph.'

Well, thanks to cousin R, now I have seen the photo, and I've already put it into a picture frame, and it's sitting on one of the tables in the living room.  Daddy has the biggest smile on his face as he sits there with his arm around Marlene Dietrich....... he's looking at the camera, Marlene is looking at him and holding his army helmet against her knee.  As my cousin R said, it looks like my dad's shoulders are going up and down as he laughs and smiles into the camera.  When daddy laughed very hard at something, his shoulders seemed to take on a life of their own, and that's just how it looks in the photo. She was smiling, he was laughing.... if you didn't know the history of the picture, you would never guess there was a war (a War) going on around them.

I have quite a few old family pictures in the living room, mostly black & whites.... wedding pictures of my parents and my husband's parents, daddy in his Army uniform, my husband when he was a toddler, me when I was a baby, my aunts and uncles at my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary party, and now, daddy and Marlene Dietrich.

It's better to have the family history out in the open, not tucked in a safe, or up in the attic. You are who you are because of that family....