The Love Story

Cover image: Wedding day of Phil and Alma Patton, July 6, 1940, taken at the home of Alma’s parents in San Francisco.

Phil met Alma in high school as was immediately smitten. She worked for the school newspaper and would come in to the classroom to sell papers. She had to interrupt the lecture in order to do so, which made her embarrassed, which Phil found charming. He would buy a paper from her, but give her a large bill which she would not have change for, so she would be obliged to leave the classroom, get change and go through the embarrassment of interrupting the lecture all over again.

Phil signed up for journalism classes in order to get to know Alma. He asked her to type his stories for him. He asked her out and she accepted, telling him to come by her house. When he got there there was another boy which was a huge disappointment to him. They played cards. Alma and Phil did not develop a lasting relationship in high school. They drifted apart, going their separate ways. It was only some years later when Phil was working as a Western Union delivery boy, that he by chance had a telegram for Alma’s mother. He asked Mrs. Bracken about her daughter and found out that she was not married, so he then began to pursue her in earnest. Alma’s mother liked him a lot and was his advocate.

Phil wrote numerous love letters to Alma which are preserved. Any responses by Alma to these were not. The dates do not always appear, so they have been put in the best order possible, but not necessarily the correct order.

Here is how Gary recalls it:

It was in San Francisco, when they were both students in Polytechnic High School, that my father met my mother. Had that not happened, I don't think that I would be around here to tell the tale. Speaking strictly from my own personal perspective, that move to San Francisco turned out to be a very good thing!

My father was really a great writer, as you can tell from that story about Geri and the contest sponsored by American Boy magazine. That ability to write turned out to be pretty important with respect to his relationship to my mother, too.

The way I remember the story is that my mother, then Alma Bracken, came into a classroom where my father was taking a class, to make some kind of announcement. I think she was trying to sell subscriptions to the school newspaper, or something like that. My father was immediately smitten, and he began pursuing my mother. My mother, though - at least the way I understand it - was not immediately and reciprocally attracted to my father, at least not in quite the same way.

It is my supposition that my mother was pretty "popular" in high school, and that my father, having just arrived in the big city from little St. Anthony, Idaho, was not exactly one of the "popular" set. My Dad was really involved with experiments with electricity, and radio. I won't claim he was a "nerd," because I actually don't know that, and that word didn't really exist then, either, but I think my Dad might have been the equivalent.

Nerd or not, my father did pursue my mother, and that continued even after high school, when my Dad was working for Western Union and my Mom was working for some kind of insurance company. My Dad was always on the track. I have had a chance to read my father's love letters to my mother, which I think are now in the custody of my sister Nancy (though I am not positive about that), and they were extremely well-written. VERY persuasive. Unrelenting, you might even say - but his years' long campaign to win my mother's heart was ultimately successful.

The only letter existing from Alma to Phil is from 1964 written in an airplane on a trip with Nancy to cousin Johnny’s West Point Graduation. As you can read, the love story continued throughout their lives: