How I Started Writing & What I Wrote About

Vitality Stories

If not now, then when?

In late 2011, I sat down at my desk and confronted my exhausted creative mantra: Someday I’ll write a book. At 41 I decided someday was now. I had just left my job and knew I had six months before my next role would begin. Time was in my favor, but what did I want to write about and how should I get started?

I signed up for Ann Linquist’s Beginning Writer’s Workshop where I could “get a taste of the writer’s life” by completing a series of lessons that would result in the first 500 words of my creative piece. In one of our first lessons, Ms. Linquist encouraged us to set up our office and writing space and then she said, “Now find something around you that gives you ideas and write about it.”

I had three pictures hanging on the wall next to my desk. One was of my mother in her high school graduation photo and the other was of my father in the Merchant Marines. I’d often looked at these pictures and wondered where their happy lives strayed off course. My parents were so youthful, eyes shining with dreams of their respective futures, and by the time I would come into the world, their complicated lifestyle seemed etched in stone. The third picture was a charcoal sketch of my dad in his uniform and dated February 2, 1945.

For the first time, I looked more closely at this sketch my Aunt Betty had sent me five years before along with her letter explaining she and her parents had received the drawing from my father while he was a Merchant Marine during World War II.

Thanks to Ms. Linquist, it finally occurred to me I could Google the artist’s name boldly written at the bottom: M. Korach.

To my surprise, I found the artist and my dad’s portrait on the Library of Congress’s website. I couldn’t believe my eyes—there was my handsome dad, who died in 1986, on the internet!

I poured over Ms. Mimi Korach Lesser’s profile and was immediately enamored with her. Here is a link to her personal narrative—I can’t do her life justice and her experience in WWII is spellbinding. A commercial artist in New York City in 1944, she was approached by the U.S.O. to visit wounded soldiers in VA hospitals to sketch their portraits. She would cajole and flatter double amputees, scarred faces and hearts until she could coax a smile from them and then create a complimentary portrait rendered in charcoal. Impressed with her charisma, dedication, and talent, the U.S.O. sent her, along with another woman, to army hospitals in Germany. The dynamic drawing duo (one brunette and one a blonde) became known as ‘Blackie & Blondie’ amongst the soldiers who were grateful to the two artists who drew their portraits—something they could send home to their families during the war, assuring loved ones they were okay.

So this is where my heart stopped. Why and how did my father and Mimi Korach cross paths in 1945?

My dad’s portrait was dated Feb. 2, 1945, and according to Ms. Korach’s timeline, this would place my dad on the ground in Germany and in a hospital. The war in Europe would not cease until May 8, 1945, when the Allies accepted Germany’s defeat, and WWII would not officially end until September 2, 1945. This was the first time I’d heard my dad had been on the ground during the war, and I certainly had never heard about an injury or hospital stay. I asked the family members that might know but I couldn’t find certainty. My dad had been a hard working man but tortured by alcoholism and unfulfilled dreams. At times, he shared stories about his youth that seemed impossible to reconcile with the man himself. Now, I could not help but wonder if I was finding one of the missing pieces of the puzzle who was my father.

My dad was never given credit for fighting in the war as a Merchant Marine. It was often implied, at least by my maternal grandfather, that my dad had it easier than other men and hadn’t been a ‘true soldier’ (not that my grandfather had been in the war). I knew this always bothered my dad. He was a proud man, and WWII was a fundamental event in the lives of every American of his generation. Even the U.S. government would not recognize Merchant Marines as WWII Veterans until the Reagan administration in 1988—over two years after my dad died.

Richard Case Vitality Stories

The few memories I have of my dad discussing the Merchant Marines are positive, involving lively stories about him and his three mates who would share their annual leave, port in Boston, buy a convertible car, drive it to his hometown of Farmington, Minnesota, where they’d stay on my grandparents’ farm for two weeks, and then turn the convertible back to Boston, sell it, and jump on board. My Aunt Betty has shared fun stories about how handsome my dad and his friends were, leaving all the young ladies atwitter when they descended upon and then departed the small town.

There are many questions I’d ask Dad if he was alive today, and his experience on the ground in WWII would be one I’d invite him to share. I’d also take advantage of the dozens of past opportunities to say, “You look sad, Dad. Do you want to talk about it, or can I just sit with you?”

Often times in my life, I’ve wanted to ask friends or family members about their experiences, but I often feel intrusive, particularly when the memory may be negative. When is the right time to ask? Where is the right place to ask? Which is more considerate: inviting someone to talk about his, or her life experiences, or accepting he/she will bring something up if he/she wants to? And yet, when there truly is no time like the present, what should one do?

It’s been a few years since I learned about Mimi Korach Lesser and found a duplicate of my father’s sketch on the internet. My dad would be pleased to be forever sketched into the world wide web. I still don’t know the best way to raise difficult topics with loved ones and I’ll never know my dad’s full story, but the day I addressed Someday and began writing, I paved the way for the following accomplishments:

I wrote a fictional short story, Forgive And Forget, about a woman learning, belatedly, her father had been in a psychiatric ward during WWII.
I wrote the first 500 words of my now completed novel, Tiger Drive—the story about a woman who after thirty years of smothered dreams, hatches a secret plan to leave her youngest children with her estranged alcoholic husband to pursue her previously aborted dream to be a country singer.
I submitted the necessary forms to Veteran Affairs to have my dad’s status as a WWII vet recognized, and in turn, a small stipend is now paid to my mom. While monetarily minuscule, my father would have gloried in the significance and this tribute due to a true soldier of that time.

Thank you for joining me today. I hope you might walk around your workspace or home today and be inspired to create something or to ask a loved one questions because there truly is no time like the present.