The “sweet Betty Lou” of Rarey’s letters met her future husband on a blind date in the slightly bizarre setting of a Thanksgiving breakfast in Washington, D.C. He was a 21-year-old transplanted Oklahoman working in the art department of the Washington Star ; Betty Lou Hodges, the 19-year-old daughter of an itinerant newspaperman, was finishing business school and working part-time as a secretary. While it was’t love at first sight, she said, things started to “Percolate” a few weeks later, and the couple began talking marriage “darn soon.” The rub: Neither of them had any money. So in the fall of 1940 Rarey moved to New York City to seek work as a cartoonist. Letters flew in both directions, and after just one semester, Betty Lou dropped out of school, packed her bags, and followed Rarey to Manhattan.

She landed a job at the New School for Social Research working on a program for refugee scholars, a program funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and dedicated to getting Jewish and anti-Nazi scholars out of Europe. On December 7, 1941, life became very earnest and very real for the 20-year-old Betty Lou. Less than a month later Rarey was drafted into the Army. “We were both dazed,” said Betty Lou.

On his second day of military service, after a battery of bewildering psychological and I.Q. tests, Rarey was asked if he’d like to try to qualify for pilot training. Twenty-four hours of buck private status had convinced him that anything would be an improvement, and he said yes. A few days later he was sent south for preflight training. Aviation cadets were not allowed to marry until June 1942. At the end of May, Betty Lou received this letter: “I think the 6th of June would be ideal for your arrival in Ocala. It can’t come too soon....We can get the license and be married the same day.... You must write me and tell me what you think. I’m no damn good at arranging such things. As to the finances, I think we’re all set. We will he paid tomorrow or Tuesday and I should draw in the neighborhood of 85 bucks. I think that’ll see us through. I wish it were a thousand. Oh, how I love you, gal!”

With every penny she had stashed away in her purse, Betty Lou boarded a train in New York City bound for Ocala, Florida, where she established herself at the Candle-Glo Inn, a haven for newlywed cadet wives. Unable to live with their husbands, the “Candle-Glo Gang” had a lot of time on its hands, and Betty Lou’s wedding was a welcome project. After weeks of planning, the couple was married in a church ceremony, surrounded by aviation cadets, flight instructors, and three other service wives. Shortly before seven in the evening, the bride and groom made their way to the town square, grabbed a taxi—and deposited