The letters I received from Lyle Decker all started appropriately with the salutation, " My Darling". Other then that special term of endearment that he had used to address me in person and in his letters, there wasn't much to be said. I believe in one of the letters he told me about a rather dramatic incident where he almost drowned but since I cannot locate the letters at the moment (although being the Queen of Clutter I doubt I threw them out), I can't give you all the vivid details. Even though there wasn't much substance to any of the letters and they were all very, very short, I cherished them nonetheless- all three of them! My "dearly beloved Lyle Decker" quickly broke his vow to write faithfully and keep in touch. A letter I received from his brother, Stanley, written in pencil on yellow legal pad from the County Jail on October 25, 1961( another story that I will get to soon), informed me that Lyle had run off with an older married woman and was going to live with her in Florida. I guess you could say that Lyle didn't mourn my loss for very long. He quickly moved onto another "Darling".
Stanley, the youngest and probably the most innocent of the three brothers, was so madly in love with Dorothy and so intent on getting to see her again, that he stole a calf to get the money he needed for the trip to Floral Park, Long Island. Instead of getting to Long Island to see Dorothy, our sweet and loving Stanley was arrested and ended up in the County Jail. Dorothy's mother was horrified when the letters from Stanley started to arrive for her daughter postmarked from the County Jail. And actually, Sharon's Mom, my Aunt Marie O'Donnell, was appalled to begin with (even before she heard about Stanley's arrest and prison time). As soon as we got back home to the city the family members who were on vacation with us told my Aunt Marie and my Aunt Dorothy ( Dorothy's Mom) all the stories about our summer romances. They started tale with our dangerous trip into the back woods on the hood of a car with three total strangers. I can only imagine that my Aunt Marie and my Aunt Dorothy were horrified and questioned why they had ever let their daughters go on a vacation with the Fries Family. Therefore I guess it wasn't surprising that one Sunday in early Fall, over the dining room table at 91 Craig Ave in Freeport, Sharon and I discovered that Golden Decker had been sending letters to Sharon, but my Aunt Marie had intercepted them. Sharon never knew Golden had been writing to her and she never received his letters. I am not sure why Aunt Marie decided to divulge this information that particular day ( I guess she just had to get it out of her system ), but whatever the reason, both Sharon and I blew our tops. "How could you do such a thing" we screamed. I believe we actually got up and stormed away from the dinner table, but I can't really remember those details. I only remember the fury we felt and expressed. Stanley continued to write for awhile. He eventually started to write to me when the letters from Dorothy stopped. We were never romantically interested in each other; he was hoping desperately that I could intercede for him with Dorothy. My mother, God rest her soul, was ever the forgiving woman. She actually felt sad for Stanley and thought it was a charitable thing for me to write to him while he was in jail. I guess she considered it one of the seven corporal works of mercy - "to visit the imprisoned". Also, I think she realized he was a safe distance away and had no money to travel since stealing the calf idea didn't work out too well.
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