GRANDVIEW -- They forgot the rings. And the license. Even the dress.
The couple-to-be got all the way to Yakima from Seattle -- a five-hour drive on a two-lane road in those days -- before they noticed their wedding-in-a-suitcase hadn't made it into the car.
Some couples might have taken that as some sort of sign. But Irl Grove and Clarice Walters did what they had to do.
She went to bed to get her beauty sleep. He -- along with their two witnesses -- returned to Seattle to pick up their things, then came back to the Valley. They drove all night, arriving at the church -- Yakima's First Christian -- 18 minutes late for the 10 a.m. wedding on Nov. 20, 1941.
Irl was on a four-day pass, just long enough to get married in Yakima and honeymoon in Portland before having to report back to McChord Field in Tacoma.
Two weeks later, America went to war. And it wasn't long before Irl was shipped overseas with the 70th Fighter Wing.
More than six decades later, the thought of leaving his young bride still brings tears to Irl's eyes. While he was in the European Theatre, she waited, worried and worked swing shift at the Boeing Co.'s No. 2 plant in Seattle, supporting the war effort and earning a paycheck by operating a lathe, making nuts and bolts for B-17s.
Irl is now 92. His health and his memory aren't what they used to be. Clarice, 88, is one of his caregivers. Both say they don't dwell on the war years.
The couple met in East Selah in fall 1940 at Clarice's brother's service station. Irl, then 25, was delivering baked goods and gassing up his truck. Clarice, 19, thought he was trying to get out of paying regular price for fuel. He thought she was bossy. She thought he was a scammer. She also thought he was cute. And that night she called him to request a cake "for a friend."
Today, neither can recall what they did on their first date. ("Did we go to a show?" Clarice asks.) It doesn't matter; they've been married 66 years.
Uncle Sam called a few months after they met. By January 1941, Irl had joined the Army Air Corps and was assigned to McChord Field, now McChord Air Force Base. Clarice moved to Seattle to be closer to him -- and for a change of scenery. The self-described country girl wanted a big-city adventure.
After basic training, Irl became an member of McChord's military police. He still has the MP armband he wore back then. It's in a box with his other World War II memorabilia: black-and-white photos, phrase books, postcards, the hat from his uniform.
Later, he was assigned to a headquarters squad, then to Paine Field in Everett in preparation to ship out. He arrived in Scotland in November 1943. His unit made its way through England, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Clarice has a map marked with red ink showing all the places he served.
Irl was lucky: His job was clerical, away from the front lines. As a controller, he kept records, tracking aircraft flights.
Clarice prayed: "I think it made you stronger in your faith," she says of the war. "You had to depend a lot on prayer."
Prayer and letters from Irl, she says, are what got her through wartime in an era before pre-paid calling cards, CNN, e-mail and the Internet.
"I remember writing a lot of letters," Irl says, "but not what I wrote in them."
As a young sergeant, he wrote to his wife nearly every day, sometimes two or three times. V-Mail -- as in "Victory" -- was simply addressed: Mrs. Irl M. Grove, Route 1, Mabton, WA, USA. When she wasn't living in Seattle and working at Boeing, Clarice was living with her parents.
Clarice kept all of Irl's letters. She still has them, glued to the brittle, yellow pages of a dusty, overstuffed scrapbook, hidden in a closet for decades.
"He was a good writer," she says. He wrote about "anything and everything" -- people they knew, work, rations, memories, missing each other.
He thanked her for the tobacco she sent ("I'm smoking some of it right now, baby," he wrote March 5, 1944), talked about his fatigue ("I'm kind of tired tonite so this will probably be a short one," he wrote June 29, 1944; the letter is five pages long), and reminisced about their young love ("In re-reading this letter of yours, honey, I'm back in the days when we first met ... we're parked outside Mother Mac's place and sort of snuggled up together -- just like I wish we were now -- probably talking about our likes and dislikes and finding them very much the same -- remember dear?" he wrote July 29, 1944).
He started most letters: "My Darling Tootsie" or "My Darling Wife and Sweetheart." He ended them: "All my love and kisses" or "Yours always and forever" or "Your devoted husband." In between, he affirmed his love ("I love you darling with all my heart and send you a whole load of kisses," he wrote March 23, 1944).
Clarice leaned on his correspondence and watched for mail. But, she says, "you didn't want a telegram."
They almost always brought bad news: A son or boyfriend or husband or brother was missing in action, a prisoner of war, killed in action.
By the end of October 1945 -- a month and a half after the war in the Pacific ended and six months after the war in Europe ended -- Clarice's worry and wait were over. Irl sailed from Marseilles, France, returning home to Grandview in November.
Clarice had moved back to the Lower Valley, buying 10 acres just outside of town. Irl built a house there when he returned from the war, and they have lived there ever since. They still grow Concord grapes on the land.
Their first son was born in 1946. Their second followed in 1949.
Clarice went on to work in the cafeteria at Grandview's Harriet Thompson Elementary School for a dozen years. She also sold Shaklee beauty, health and skincare products from home.
Irl took jobs delivering freight, hauling lumber, doing construction at Hanford and working as an electrician.
Before his second stroke last Christmas Day, he typed a short memoir. On the last page, he wrote, "I have enjoyed life. There is so much to be thankful for.
"Yes, life has been good to me."
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