DEAR HUBBY OF MINE

A daughter lovingly reconstructs her parents’ lives based on the letters they exchanged while separated during World War II.

Irma and Louis Vajda had similar childhood experiences growing up in an insular enclave of Eastern European families in Cleveland. Both Hungarian—Irma was born in the U.S. to immigrant parents, and Louis arrived from Hungary in 1921 at the age of 7—they faced discrimination whenever they ventured beyond their neighborhoods. They met in 1938 at a dance and married two years later during a tumultuous time in American history, haunted by both the Depression and the specter of world war. Louis was drafted into the Navy in 1943 as an apprentice seaman and served aboard the USS Bull, an assignment that often proved terribly dangerous. Between 1943 and 1945, Louis and Irma exchanged more than 500 letters, the correspondence a remarkably touching “lifeline between husband and wife.” Budden (The Un-Common Raven: One Smart Bird, 2013, etc.)—the daughter of Louis and Irma—weaves a short history of her parents’ marriage based on those letters, some reproduced in the book. Those two years of separation caused great anxiety for both, and the tender epistles provided much-needed reassurance, especially for Irma, who writes: “I want so to hear from you. Please don’t give me any excuses. That isn’t what I want! Don’t say there isn’t anything to write about. There is too! Even if you just say things like ‘I got up from my chair and then sat down again.’ ” The author skillfully gives a peek at her parents’ lives and at those of immigrants in the U.S. during a period of unrest and scarcity. A thoughtful account of the ways in which the war transformed the place of women in society—essentially compelled to join the workforce in the absence of their husbands—emerges as well. The letters often dwell on quotidian matters like bills, and the story as a whole is very personal, accompanied by family photographs. As a result, Budden’s book will likely be most appreciated by those in her sphere of family and friends.

An endearing snapshot of a wartime marriage unlikely to appeal to a wide readership.