When all the boys were gone

By Ginny Privitar
These days, Americans on the homefront may, if we wish, conduct our lives as if we’re living in peacetime, and turn our thoughts away from the sacrifices of military personnel and their families as they bear the full brunt of fighting our wars. It was not always this way. Two local women who fell in love during the Second World War recount a time when men and women in service were never far from the mind of any American. Imagine a world where a woman can have 13 grandsons fighting overseas at the same time, where a woman gives birth on the day her husband fights one of history’s bloodiest battles, where news of the battle will come not from 24-hour cable TV but from slow-boat letters and newsreels, and where girls in their prime dating years have only one other to dance with. Vi Marino of Monroe and Alice Scanlon of Goshen tell their stories of those days.

Vi and Vinnie Marino
Vi Vassalo and Vinnie Marino of Monroe had been sweethearts since she was 15 and he 17. But when World War II swept Vinnie and all the other boys to distant shores, girls like Vi had to shift their focus from love to work.

When Vi was 16 and growing up in Astoria, she worked for a summer on the Lofts candy factory assembly line, wrapping chocolate-covered cherries individually in paper. When she started out, she wasn’t very fast.

“I was the original Lucille Ball,” she said, referring to the famous TV episode. She used to stick some of the chocolates in her bra — “sometimes because I couldn’t keep up and sometimes to eat later.”

She soon quickened her pace and was promoted to the head of the conveyor belt.

“It was fun, really,” she says.

Vi worked in several factories while Vinnie was off fighting. When the girls got off work, they’d go to dances for amusement. They heard a young Tony Bennett sing at a dance hall called Bohemian Hall.

Sometimes servicemen in training nearby would join them. But Vinnie never worried about her meeting someone else.

“We were soul mates,” Vi said.
“It was sad because all the boys were gone, brother, cousins, boyfriend,” she said. “When you went somewhere to dance, you usually danced with women.”

Vinnie went in service in 1942. Vi was then working in a Chiclets gun factory that produced K-rations for the troops. On the morning Vinnie left, she watched his train from the factory window as it was stopped on the tracks, awaiting clearance to move.

She wrote to Vinnie every day.
“I would always put my lip print on the letter, and on the envelope I would draw doves kissing,” Vi said. “When he got a letter, they didn’t even have to read it. They’d call out ‘Marino!’ They knew the lovebirds on the envelope. Even today when I write a birthday card, it’s my lips and my birds on it.”

Vi and Vinnie married in 1943, when Vinnie was home on furlough.

It was tough to get some goods during the war.

“Shoes were bad,” she said. “You couldn’t find shoes anywhere, and you couldn’t get them repaired. And forget silk stockings.”

They didn’t have access to a daily paper.

“You had to go to the candy store to read a paper,” she said. People got most of their news from the newsreels that played before movies.

Meanwhile, Vinnie, who was in the 106th Infantry, was in heavy fighting in Europe. At age 20 he was in the Battle of the Bulge, a surprise attack that caused the most casualties for the United States of any battle in the war.

Although news usually reached them late, Vi said, “we knew about the Battle of the Bulge. It was hard on the mothers, especially, not to hear what was going on.”

Two of Vi’s cousins on her father’s side were killed on D-Day. Her maternal grandmother had 13 grandsons in the war. All of them came home.

Eventually Vinnie did, too. Vinnie and Vi Marino live in Monroe today.

Alice and Vinnie Scanlon
Alice Scanlon was at a dance in Brooklyn with her sister when the waiter came over with a note.

“How about the next nice fox trot?” the note said. It was signed Pfc. Jack Scanlon.

Jack asked Alice if he could take her home. A week later they went on their first date, to see “Sun Valley Serenade” with Sonja Henie. Jack had to report back to Fort McClellan but thought he would be home for Christmas. It was not to be. Pearl Harbor intervened.

Jack was in the National Guard, which was federalized and became part of the regular army. He was sent to Fort Ord in California, where troops patrolled the coast in case of a Japanese invasion. He was later sent to Hawaii and then Fort Monmouth in New Jersey for more signal corps training.

In May 1943, while at Fort Monmouth, Jack called. “Guess who this is?” he said.

“Of course I had no clue,” Alice said. “We had corresponded, but I didn’t recognize his voice.” She hadn’t seen him in almost two years.

They got married in September 1943. A month later Jack, now a sergeant, went to England as communications chief and stayed there until the D-Day invasion. He was part of the 291st Combat Engineers.

“Jack was in all the battles in northern France and Belgium,” Alice recalled. She named a few: the Saint Lo breakout, the Mortain, the assault on the Seine River, the Battle of the Bulge, Remagen, Stavelot, Malmedy, Trois Points. He wound up in Luxembourg at the end of the war.

Alice was in the hospital on D-day giving birth to their daughter.

“All the radios were crackling with the news,” she said. “The nurses were careful not to get the new moms upset. They knew our husbands might be in the battle. It was a very tense, worrisome time for many of us.”

Alice lived with her parents, brothers and sisters, and Jack’s family lived close by. And she worked, which helped occupy her mind.

“You couldn’t really complain because everyone was in the same boat,” she said. “Everybody was concerned about their people in the service. It united America. Everyone was brave, heroic, and really concerned for each other.”

She said letters “kept us going.”

“Jack and I wrote constantly,” she said. Alice still has all of Jack’s letters, even that first note delivered by the waiter.

Alice now lives with her daughter in Goshen, where she moved after Jack died, in 1993. She donated all of Jack’s notes and memorabilia to the Library of Congress.

Jack got out in October 1945, after five years in service. It was then that they really started out as a couple, because of their long separation.

“It took some getting used to,” she said. “He came home, and life began all over again.”