In early March, my parents got a letter from my brother on his aircraft carrier somewhere in the South Pacific, saying, “You’ll be hearing talk of surrender soon. I’m sure of it.”
That was the last we ever heard from him.
—
Angela, I know that you—of all people—know about the USS Franklin. But I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t even know the name of my brother’s ship before we got word that it had been hit by a kamikaze pilot on March 19, 1945, killing Walter and over eight hundred other men. Always the responsible one, Walter had never mentioned the name of the ship in his correspondence, in case his letters fell into enemy hands and state secrets were revealed. I knew only that he was on a large aircraft carrier somewhere in Asia, and that he had promised the war would end soon.
My mother was the one who got the notice of his death. She was riding her horse in a field next to our house when she saw an old black car with one white, non-matching door come speeding up our driveway. It raced right past her, driving far too fast for the gravel road. This was unusual; country people know better than to speed down gravel roads next to grazing horses. But the car was one she recognized. It belonged to Mike Roemer, the telegraph operator at Western Union. My mother stopped what she was doing and watched as both Mike and his wife stepped out of the car and knocked on her door.
The Roemers were not the sort of people with whom my mother socialized. There was no reason they should be knocking on the Morrises’ door except one: a telegram must have come in, and its contents were dire enough that the operator thought he should deliver the news himself—along with his wife, who had presumably come to offer womanly comfort to the grieving family.
My mother saw all of this, and she knew.
I have always wondered if Mother had an impulse in that moment to turn the horse around and ride like hell in the opposite direction—just to run straight away from that horrible news. But my mother wasn’t that sort of person. What she did, instead, was to dismount and walk very slowly toward the house, leading her horse behind her. She told me later that she didn’t think it was prudent for her to be on top of an animal at an emotional moment like this. I can just see her—choosing her steps with care, handling her horse with her typical sense of conscientiousness. She knew exactly what was waiting for her on the doorstep, and she was in no hurry to meet it. Until that telegram was handed over, her son was still alive.
The Roemers could wait for her. And they did.
By the time my mother reached the doorstep of our house, Mrs. Roemer—tears streaming down her face—had her arms open for an embrace.
Which my mother, needless to say, refused.
—
My parents didn’t even have a funeral for Walter.
First of all, there was no body to be buried. The telegram notified us that Lieutenant Walter Morris had been buried at sea with full military honors. The telegram also requested that we not divulge the name of Walter’s ship or his station to our friends and family, so as not to accidentally “give aid to the enemy”—as though our neighbors in Clinton, New York, were saboteurs and spies.
My mother didn’t want a funeral service without a body. She found it too grisly. And my father was too shattered by rage and sorrow to face his community in a state of mourning. He had railed so bitterly against America’s involvement in this war, and had fought against Walter’s enlistment, too. Now he refused to have a ceremony to honor the fact that the government had stolen from him his greatest treasure.
I went home and spent a week with them. I did what I could for my parents, but they barely spoke to me. I asked if they wanted me to stay with them in Clinton—and I would have, too—but they looked at me as though I were a stranger. What possible use could I be to them, if I stayed in Clinton? If anything, I got the sense they wanted me to leave, so I wouldn’t be staring at them all day in their grief. My presence seemed only to remind them that their son was dead.
If they ever thought that the wrong child had been taken from them—that the better and nobler child was gone while the less worthy one remained—I would forgive them for it. I sometimes had that thought myself.
Once I left, they were able to collapse back into their silence.
I probably don’t need to tell you that they were never the same again.
—
Walter’s death utterly shocked me.
I swear to you, Angela, I’d never considered for a minute that my brother could be harmed or killed in this war. This may seem stupid and naïve of me, but if you knew Walter, you’d have understood my confidence. He had always been so competent, so powerful. He had brilliant instincts. He’d never even been injured, in all his years of athletics. Even among his peers, he was seen as semimythical. What harm could ever befall him?
Not only that, I never worried about anybody who served under Walter—although he did. (The one worrying subject my brother mentioned in his letters home was concern for his men’s safety and morale.) I figured anybody who was serving with Walter Morris was safe. He would see to it.
But the problem, of course, was that Walter wasn’t in charge. He was a full lieutenant by then, yes, but the ship wasn’t in his hands. At the helm was Captain Leslie Gehres. The captain was the problem.
But you know all this already—don’t you, Angela?
At least I assume you do?
I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I really don’t know how much your father told you about any of this.
—
Peg and I held our own ceremony for Walter in New York City, at the small Methodist church next to the Lily Playhouse. The minister had become a friend of Peg’s over the years, and he agreed to conduct a small service for my brother, remains or no remains. There were just a handful of us, but it was important for me that something be done in Walter’s name, and Peg had recognized that.
Peg and Olive were there, of course, flanking me like the pillars they were. Mr. Herbert was there. Billy didn’t come, having moved back to Hollywood a year earlier when his Broadway production of City of Girls finally closed. Mr. Gershon, my Navy censor, came. My pianist from the Sammy cafeteria, Mrs. Levinson, also came. The entire Lowtsky family was there. (“Never saw so many Jews at a Methodist funeral,” said Marjorie, scanning the room. This brought me a laugh. Thank you, Marjorie.) A few of Peg’s old friends came. Edna and Arthur Watson were not there. I suppose that should not have been a surprise, although I must admit I’d thought Edna might show up in support of Peg, at least.
The choir sang “His Eye Is on the Sparrow,” and I could not stop crying. I felt a stunned sense of bereavement for Walter—not so much for the brother I lost, but for the brother I’d never had. Aside from a few sweet, sun-dappled, early childhood memories of the two of us riding ponies together (and who knew if those memories were even accurate?), I had no tender recollections of this imposing figure with whom I’d allegedly shared my youth. Perhaps if my parents had expected less of him—if they’d allowed him to be a regular little boy, instead of a scion—he and I could’ve become friends over the years, or confidants. But it was never to be. And now he was gone.
I cried all night but went back to work the next day.
A lot of people had to do that kind of thing during those years.
We cried, Angela, and then we worked.
—
On April 12, 1945, FDR died.
To me, this felt like another family member gone. I could barely remember there ever having been another president. Whatever my father thought of the man, I loved him. Many loved him. Certainly in New York City, all of us did.
The mood the next day at the Yard was somber. At the Sammy cafeteria, I hung the stage with bunting (blackout curtains, actually) and had our actors read from years of Roosevelt’s speeches. At the end of the show, one of the steel workers—a Caribbean man, with dark skin and a white beard—rose spontaneously from his seat and began to sing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” He had a voice like Paul Robeson’s. The rest of us stood in silence while this man’s song shook the walls in doleful sorrow.