LETTERS FROM HOME
BETTY DRISCOLL, 1944 (THE PHOTO THAT MADE ALL THE GUYS JEALOUS).
DEAN RATZMAN, 1943.
Love Letters —VICTOR YOUNG & EDWARD HEYMAN, 1945
A phone call from a stranger one spring evening forever changed Betty Driscoll’s life. It was 1943, and the 18-year-old college freshman answered the phone. That’s when a man she’d never met had the audacity to ask her for a date.
That young man was Dean Ratzman. He explained, “I was a pledge in a frat at Washington State University. We did this thing called the ‘Pledge Sneak,’ and a few of us rented a room in Spokane at the Davenport Hotel.” Being from Tacoma, he didn’t know any local girls, so before he left the campus he asked his chemistry partner for the names and phones numbers of some of her friends. Once the frat pledges arrived in Spokane, Dean began to work his way down the list. “I called Betty, and we visited. She said she wouldn’t go anywhere with me alone, but she called some girlfriends and we all went to a movie.”
While the date proved memorable for Betty—the movie did not. “We went to see Cat People,” she said. “I was very farsighted and I’d just gotten my glasses, but I didn’t put them on.” Unfortunately, the only seats available were in the front row. “I sat through the whole movie with my neck back and my eyes closed,” she said. Periodically, Dean whispered movie updates to her.
“I thought she was very pretty,” he said. “I definitely was more interested in her than she was in me.” He cleared his throat and grinned. “She told me not to get my hopes up.” He also didn’t have a car, which made longdistance dating difficult. Betty, a freshman at Holy Names College, was still attached to her high school sweetheart. He was away attending officer’s training school, but they corresponded regularly.
In the fall of 1943, Dean enlisted in the Navy and was sent to Farragut Naval Base. He chose the Navy because his father had served in the infantry during World War I and told him, “Whatever you do, don’t do that!” Betty may have discouraged him, but he didn’t quite get the message. “I told her on our second date, ‘I guess you know I love you.’”
She didn’t take him seriously. Shaking her head, she said, “At the time I thought it was another line from a sailor!” While on a short leave, that sailor showed up at her parent’s home. The surprise visit worked out well for him. He grinned. “They invited me in for dinner!”
DEAN RATZMAN (TOP ROW, 6TH FROM RIGHT), WITH HIS UNIT, 1944, SAIPAN.
Soon, Dean left for California and then shipped out to the Central Pacific. Throughout his tour of duty, Betty wrote to him. She also sent a picture that Dean said made the other sailors jealous. “I hung it over my bunk and the fellas would come by and say, ‘That’s a beautiful girl!’” he said. “In fact, we’d compare all our girl’s pictures and mine was always the prettiest.” But it was her letters that kept the young man, far from home, from feeling too lonely. “Betty is a great letter writer,” he said. “Her letters were a highlight for me—but I didn’t know who else she was writing to.” He shot her a sideways glance. “She was very patriotic.”
Laughing, he recalled her frequent mention of someone named Rusty. “I thought it was her brother, but it turned out it was her dog!”
He needed that connection to home and normal life, as Dean was about to become part of the invasion of the Marianas. In particular, the island of Saipan was of great strategic importance. American forces wanted to use it as an air base to launch B-29 bombers directly at Japanese islands. After eight weeks of brutal fighting, 60,000 Japanese ground troops and most of the carrier air power of the Japanese Imperial Navy was destroyed. Thousands of American troops perished, as well.
DEAN RATZMAN (SHIRTLESS), 1945, SAIPAN.
Dean shook his head and sighed. “The invasion of Saipan happened a little more than a week after D-Day. Thousands and thousands of people died, but there’s no talk of it.” He rubbed his hand across his head. “Everyone just recalls D-Day.” While Dean wasn’t injured during the invasion, his health still took a beating. He contracted dengue fever several times during his stint in the islands. While in Saipan he got a hernia from lifting a large battery, and following surgery, he was sent to a hospital ship, the USS Sanctuary. There he received some startling news—doctors aboard ship discovered Dean’s heart had been damaged during his bouts with fever.
When the ship docked in Oakland, physicians at the naval hospital diagnosed the 20-year-old sailor with two leaky heart valves. “The doctors said there wasn’t anything they could do,” Dean recalled. “They told me I probably wouldn’t live past middle age.” From Oakland, he called Betty to tell her that he’d been given the option to recuperate at any military hospital. “I asked her about Farragut and she said that was a good idea.” He smiled. “My heart leapt. I thought maybe I had a shot.”
They quickly reconnected and their budding relationship flourished. In February 1946, Dean was discharged. Once again, he showed up at Betty’s home for a family dinner—but this time, he said, “I had a ring in my pocket.” He couldn’t wait to pop the question and ended up proposing in the kitchen.
Betty laughed. “He’s very impulsive!”
He was undeterred when Betty’s aunt walked into the kitchen in the middle of his romantic speech. Dean had fallen deeply in love with Betty through her letters. “You can find so much more about someone in letters.” He’d grown to love her family, too. “I was from a broken home and she had this wonderful, close-knit family.” Her family liked him, but they were a bit overwhelmed by his boisterous spirit. “I’m a type-A personality and her family was all so quiet!’
Betty recalled his proposal. “He told me the doctors said he wouldn’t live past 40. Then he asked me to marry him! I told him, ‘You’re not going to get out of it that easily!’”
Almost seven decades later, she smiled at her husband. “When you’re 20, 40 seems like forever. I figured I’d get another one (husband) after that.” During their engagement Dean attended classes at WSU and Betty taught at the Benewah School in rural Idaho. “I taught 31 children in eight grades,” she recalled. “There was no running water. My uncle cut wood for the school and for the teacherage, which was just a tiny one-room shack.”
Dean laughed. “She weighed about 98 pounds. She had 8th grade girls bigger than she was!” Betty shook her head at the memory. “I was ready to get married.” Her husband nudged her shoulder. “Marrying a penniless, disabled sailor was more appealing than returning to Benewah School!”
They wed on June 23, 1946. Immediately after the wedding, they returned to Pullman because Dean had class the next day. Betty glanced at her husband. “I’m waiting for my honeymoon,” she said. In 1947, their son Michael was born, and soon the family moved to Missoula, Montana where Dean graduated from law school at Montana State University. A daughter, Celia, arrived in 1949 and a second son, Steve, completed the family in 1956.
Dean took a job with Bonneville Power Administration and eventually became a supervising attorney for the U.S. Department of the Interior. That position led to an appointment as Chairman of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s board of contract appeals, which necessitated a move to Virginia. “On the weekends we explored the Civil War battlefields,” Dean said. “Our youngest didn’t have to read about history—he experienced it.”
RATZMAN WEDDING, JUNE 23, 1946.
Dean later accepted an appointment as a U.S. administrative law judge and the family moved to Sacramento. When he retired from that position in 1981, he and Betty returned to Washington. “Her family had become my family,” said Dean. “Her father called me the son he never had—we were great friends and fishing partners.”
While living in Virginia, Betty discovered an abiding passion for genealogy. The couple has twice traveled to England and Ireland, exploring their family history. “She’s so intelligent,” said Dean. “I’ve been amazed through the years about what she knows and what she can recall.”
He may still be impulsive, but his wife said, “I’ve always appreciated that he lets me be me. I’m unusual—I can entertain myself quite well.” Dean smiled at her. “She’s not a pushover!”
As for his expected short life span, he’s still going strong, though he has undergone several heart surgeries. And after 68 years marriage, Betty remains glad she answered that phone call from a stranger. She reached over and took Dean’s hand. “He’s a great man.”
LOVE LESSON
“Everybody can have a difference of opinion—but don’t stay disappointed in each other for any long period.”—Dean Ratzman
DEAN AND BETTY RATZMAN, 2011.