Bud & Lil...partying in 1941

This image from Ardis's memorial is dated 1941.  I'm going to assume that it was prior to Pearl Harbor.  At the time my dad was in the National Guard in Albert Lea, then known as Company G.  When he returned from WWII in 1946 he worked at Wilson & Co. Meatpacking and had a good job.  He was a 'cooler guy' and walked around checking temperatures and equipment in the coolers and freezers.

My mother would have been twenty-three, my father twenty-five.  They seem older in this image.  She had blondish hair, his was very dark.  He looks a bit hammered.  I never ever saw her smile like this..of course those were her real teeth.  She lost them and went to dentures when I was probably eight or nine...dentures at 41...don't forget to floss and brush.

I'm not sure where this was taken.  There were several bars and dance halls that they frequented around southern MN.  My dad had a bad car at the time.  Supposedly they had to stop every 20  miles and add another quart of oil.  Some bars sold beer.  Celebrating the spring 'bock' beer was a big deal.  It appears that they are either drinking dark beer 'boilermakers' or coke and booze.  In bars that did not sell hard liquor you could bring your own bottle and order a 'set up' which was 7-up or Coca-Cola.  Drinking and smoking was much more accepted.  He did not drink until he went off to war.  My mom started smoking sometime during her early years of working and stopped in 1962 following a scare of cancer.

I'm intrigued with the pinky ring on his left hand and am going to look at a few other photos to see if that continued.  I do have his wedding ring (somewhere).  They did not get married until after the war.  He did not want to leave her a widow should he not come back...but it played out that way anyway.