A series of recently discovered WWII love letters unveiled how three WWII soldiers contented for the heart and the hand of one woman.
Teal Davis and Evangeline Poteat never had the opportunity to personally meet the first time around. They were miles away, Davis being a one of the American WWII soldiers stationed in Burma in 1945. On the other hand, Poteat was in North Carolina working at a factory.
They were ‘introduced’ to each other by Teal’s sister, Sarah Kate, who had been Evangeline’s roommate Appalachian State Teachers College. In fact, Sarah Kate was the one to come up with the idea of letting Evangeline correspond with her brother while he was on duty in Burma.
Eventually, from what started as letters of friendship bloomed love. And long before their first meeting, the two had planned their wedding.
Nevertheless, this truth came out as a surprise to their children, Larry and Jane. Yes, they knew their parents were very much in love with each other but the start of their love story — that it started from letters — was something they didn’t know and only came to know when Jane recently inherited a stack of eighteen WWII love letters, the correspondence between Davis and Evangeline in the early years of their relationship.
The second surprise was, Davis wasn’t the only one interested in Evangeline. Two other WWII soldiers, both stationed in California, also wrote to her expressing their love and their desire to have her hand in marriage.
One had asked her marriage while stationed in Camp Cooke and the other one was a former high school beau who reminded Evangeline in the letter he wrote what ‘swell time’ they had before Uncle Sam nabbed him.
Larry’s wife, Beverly, described her mother-in-law as the ‘real deal’ with auburn hair and fetching beauty. It wasn’t a surprise as to why the three WWII soldiers would compete for her heart.
But it was to Teal Davis she gave her to in the end and went on to enjoy fifty-five years of marriage bliss with their two children.
Inheriting the Love Letters
These stories were all chronicled in the stack of eighteen WWII love letters that Jane and Larry acquired unexpectedly, all thanks to a reporter in a local newspaper.
Somehow, the stack of WWII love letters, already seventy years old, ended up in Oregon where it was auctioned off in eBay by an unnamed collector. The reporter, Gary Schwab, who believed they needed to be returned to their rightful owner, took up the auction, got the WWII love letters and went on to track down its owners.
Now, they are in the hands of Larry and Jane who were shocked at their little inheritance. Both did not know how the WWII love letters ended up in Oregon, saying that their mother was good at keeping things.
However, Jane is happy to have the WWII love letters, the history keepsakes she never knew they had. As their parents have both passed away for quite sometime, she said that the WWII love letters are reminders of how their love story moved on from chapter to chapter.
Leave a Comment