Ina Mae Wadsworth and George Paul Wimsatt
I was 18 and had just graduated from High School and gone to Salt Lake City. I had this picture taken for George. (No I didn't give Ollie one.) I also gave one to my parents and mom proudly displayed it on the piano with other family pictures. Several of the older women in Panaca told mom it was a scandalous picture and she shouldn't show it.
We had been dating for awhile when George went to Las Vegas and had this picture taken. It was just a couple of months before his 18th birthday. He gave it to me and I took it to Salt Lake City with me.
In chapter 3, writing of my romance with George Wimsatt, I had just returned home to Panaca from from Las Vegas where I had gone to watch the Lincoln County Lynx High School basketball team play in the Division Finals.
George had just returned from Washington D.C. and at the conclusion of a very strained visit, had asked me if I would be going to Las Vegas for the tournament. I told him yes and made elaborate plans to accomplish what I hoped, with all of my heart would be the end result, a long overdue and much anticipated date.
Even though our Lynx came through with flying colors, it was a difficult time. George was there, sitting behind me and doing a grand job of watching the game with friends while acting uninterested and nonchalant in what was happening with me. And what was happening with me was the Academy Award winning performance I was projecting to show him what a wonderful time I was having with a group of young men and women while being completely oblivious to him. In retrospect, I don't think either of us fooled the other and the evening ended with him asking me if he could come and see me on Tuesday. I said yes, we smiled at other and I returned home to wait, with butterflies in my stomach, for Tuesday to arrive.
Tuesday did arrive and I nervously answered the door when he knocked. Two very subdued and frightened young people stood facing each other, neither knowing how to act or what to say. Neither of us was willing to be the first to start a conversation. Finally, we agreed that it was time for us to talk about our feelings of disappointment, disillusionment, heartache and expectations.
George talked first. He told me how angry and betrayed he felt when I dated Ollie while I was his "steady" date and whom he considered to be his special girl. He went to Washington D.C. intending to cut me completely out of his life. He spoke about his loneliness when he was trying to settle in and make friends. Ruby and John were there and he saw them frequently, but they were a recently married couple, both working and trying to adjust and make a home. Gino was there also, but they were not able to see each other as often as they had thought. He dated a few times but found he wasn't really interested. He spoke of one night when he was particularly lonely and sad and all of a sudden it came to him, with a strong conviction and peace, what he should do. He found a phone book and looked up The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He made some calls to be put in touch with some LDS Missionaries and to find the address of the nearest chapel and their Sunday meeting times.
He told me that he had never understood why, during all of the time I dated him and when most of his other friends were LDS, we had never talked to him about our beliefs or offered to put him in touch with the missionaries. He went to all of the activities with us, even playing on church basketball and softball teams and as a young boy, he had participated in Boy Scout activities with a LDS sponsored troop. He said he liked the attitude and morals of the LDS kids and that when he was in my home, he felt a peace he had never had in his own home. He said he often found himself wondering what his LDS friends really thought of him.
He told me how good he felt while he was meeting with the missionaries. He said it felt "right. He said when my letter came, he was overwhelmed once again with feelings of hurt and anger and found himself thinking, "Ina has found out I am meeting with the missionaries and all of a sudden I am 'good' enough for her." I haven't mentioned this before, but that is what he had told me in the letter I received in Salt Lake City that had made me so angry.
It was then that he received a letter from his father telling him that his name was at the top of the draft list for Lincoln County and if he didn't want to be drafted into the army, he needed to come home immediately and join the military unit of his choice. On the way home, he said he had time to think about what he had said to me and realized it was said in anger and now seemed immature and spiteful to him, but he had no idea how to undo it. Now, here he was, and here we were, and he would be going to Las Vegas in the next few days to join the Air Force.
I was totally blindsided by what he told me. I told him that myself and the rest of his LDS friends looked at him as we did at each other. He seemed so "Mormon". He was such a good person with high morals and such a sense of knowing who he was, being comfortable with it and always being true to himself. Because he never talked about it, it did not enter our heads that we were doing him a disservice when we didn't talk about the church with him. I told him it never entered our heads that he wanted more, and that we owed him more than we offered.
I told him I had always cared a lot for him but my future at that time, was focused on going to Salt Lake City, to work, go to school, and have orthodontic work done. I told him that as he still had to complete his senior year, I had wondered how committed he wanted to be to a girl who would be living in another state. At least, I was honest when I told him that when Ollie started to ask me out, I was very flattered and let my ego sway me into thinking I must be special if this handsome, older guy wanted to date me. I told him I knew Ollie was a good person, after all he was my brother Leo's good friend. I told him I now understood how selfish it was for me to think I could date both of them without someone getting hurt. But, I asked him why he never confronted me about dating Ollie if he considered me his steady girl. I told him that made it easy for me to wonder how much he really liked me if it didn't seem to bother him, and so I didn't have to feel guilty. I was involved with the young men and women in my ward in Salt Lake and had dated a young man for some of the dances and other activities. I told him I now realized that I had the best of it all; Ollie came to Salt Lake to see me, I went to Panaca to see George, and Howard was a fun date for church activities in Salt Lake.
I told him my life in Salt Lake was good, fun, exciting, and it wasn't until Ollie came to Salt Lake with an engagement ring for me that I was forced to make a decision about what I really wanted. I told him it only took me a very short time to realize what I really wanted was to be his "special girl" again, and to be mature enough to admit I had been unfair to him, Ollie, and myself. I told him I had been naive enough to think that if he really liked me as much as I liked him, the letter I wrote to him would undo the mess. It didn't, and I had no idea what to do about it.
We were both a little teary and still wary of each other's feelings. He hugged me and asked if he could see me when he got back from Las Vegas. I said yes, he left and I went to bed smiling, with butterflies in my stomach. But, they were a different kind of butterfly. Not butterflies of disappointment and fear, rather they were fluttering with hope and anticipation and joy.
To be continued. . . .
