Here is the latest chapter in the story of the courtship and early married life and times of my maternal grandparents, Emily Auble and Lyle Carringer, who married in June 1918. The background information and the list of chapters of their life together are listed at the end of this post. This is historical fiction with real people and real events, and is how it might have been.
I asked my AI Assistant Anthropic Claude to tell the story of Emily and Lyle in August 1917 when he had his first day off at the U.S. Marines Base. Here is the next chapter of Emily and Lyle's story:
(AI Google NotebookLM Infographic: Lyle's First Liberty Day)
Emily and Lyle’s Story: Lyle’s First Liberty Day
Thursday, August 9, 1917
The Morning
Lyle was at the house on Hawthorn Street at nine sharp in his uniform, his Liberty Pass folded carefully in his breast pocket. Emily answered the door in a light summer dress, a cloth bag over her arm, her face bright with the particular happiness of someone who has been counting down to a moment and is now living it.
"You look tired," she said immediately.
"You look wonderful," he replied. "Shall we go?"
She laughed and took his arm.
They walked down toward the harbor through the warm August morning, through streets that smelled of eucalyptus and bread from a bakery on the corner, past the familiar landmarks of downtown San Diego that Lyle had walked past ten thousand times and loved anew each time. He told her about the PX—about Corporal Briggs and his pencil, about Hennessey and his gift for retail, about the young recruit buying stamps on his first Sunday in the Corps.
"He reminded me of myself," Lyle said, as they found their usual spot on the seawall, the bay glittering before them in the morning light. "Before all of it. Before boot camp, before you. When I was still figuring out what kind of man I was going to be."
"And now?" Emily asked.
"Now I think I know." He said it simply, without drama, and Emily leaned against his shoulder in reply.
The harbor was busy. Supply ships moved slowly across the water, and a Navy vessel was making its way toward open sea with the purposeful grace of something built for exactly this. Across the bay on North Island, the hum of airplane engines drifted intermittently over the water—Rockwell Field at work, training the pilots America was going to need.
"Your father's over there," Emily said, nodding toward North Island.
"In a manner of speaking." Lyle smiled. "Probably keeping some airplane from falling apart at the wrong moment."
Emily told him about her week at Marston's—a difficult customer who'd argued about a pair of gloves for twenty minutes before buying them anyway; a young woman who'd come in to buy a gift for her brother shipping out and had been unable to decide and had finally left with nothing and tears in her eyes. Emily had wanted to follow her outside but hadn't been able to leave the counter.
"It's strange," Emily said quietly, watching a gull circle above them. "Before you enlisted, the war felt distant. Now I see it everywhere. In the woman who couldn't buy her brother's gift. In the wives choosing practical things instead of pretty ones. In the gaps in the congregation at church where men used to sit."
"It won't last forever," Lyle said.
"No." She straightened. "Now. You promised me lunch, and I'm absolutely famished."
Broadway and the Café
They found a small café on Broadway—a clean, modest place with marble-topped tables and a ceiling fan that moved the August air without exactly cooling it, and some sailors on liberty. A waitress who called them both "honey" without distinction brought them chicken salad sandwiches, lemonade, and a shared piece of apple pie that Emily insisted on splitting down the middle with geometric exactness.
"Half," she said firmly, wielding the fork. "Don't argue."
"I wasn't going to argue."
"You were thinking about arguing."
Lyle conceded this was possibly true.
Over lunch they covered the territory of the week more thoroughly—the small details that hadn't fit into letters. Lyle described his fellow PX privates: Hennessey, whom he liked; a Private Dowd who was perpetually glum and spoke to customers as though he resented their existence; and a Private Walsh who was so cheerful as to occasionally alarm people.
Emily described her mother's ongoing campaign to grow tomatoes in a pot on the back step, which Georgia prosecuted with the strategic intensity she brought to most endeavors. Three tomatoes so far, each one described at dinner as though it were a personal victory against formidable odds.
"She's growing them for you," Emily said. "She won't say so, but she is. She mentions you every few days in a way that's very careful not to sound like mentioning you."
Lyle felt a warmth that had nothing to do with the August afternoon. "I'll tell her they're the finest tomatoes I've ever been told about."
Thirtieth Street — Family and Stories
The trolley ride to 30th Street was leisurely, and they got off a stop early to walk the last block hand-in-hand in the afternoon sun of the familiar neighborhood. Della Carringer had clearly been watching for them — the screen door opened before they reached the gate.
Inside, the house smelled of coffee and something baking. Abbie Smith, Lyle’s maternal grandmother, sat in her chair in the parlor looking as though she'd been placed there decoratively and had no intention of moving, which was deceptive — she missed nothing that occurred within fifteen feet of her and had opinions on all of it.
"Sit where I can see you both," she instructed. "And don't speak too quietly. I refuse to ask people to repeat themselves."
They sat. Emily greeted Abbie with the directness the old woman appreciated, asking after her health and receiving in return a brisk summary that managed to include a critique of the weather, a mild complaint about Della's preference for the kitchen window being kept closed, and the observation that both Lyle and Emily looked well, which from Abbie was effusive praise.
Austin Carringer arrived home at five o’clock, still smelling faintly of oil and machinery. He was a man who had always carried his work home with him, less in disposition than in the literal accumulation of his trade, and he came in pulling off his cap and declaring himself in need of coffee before noticing that Lyle and Emily were already there.
"There he is," Austin said, gripping Lyle's hand and then, in the new manner that had begun at the homecoming reunion, pulling him briefly close. He nodded to Emily with the warmth he reserved for people he'd decided were permanent. "You're staying for dinner."
"We were hoping to be invited," Emily said.
Austin settled into his chair with his coffee and told them about his week at Rockwell Field on North Island, where he worked among the growing fleet of training aircraft. The airfield had been formally renamed Rockwell Field just weeks earlier, on July 20, 1917, in honor of Second Lieutenant Lewis C. Rockwell, killed in a crash at College Park in 1912.
"They're bringing in Jenny biplanes by the trainload," Austin said. "Curtiss JN-4s. Good machine — forgiving for new pilots, which is fortunate because some of these boys have never been higher off the ground than a step stool before they arrived." He shook his head in the manner of a man who appreciates competence and finds its absence professionally distressing. "We had a student pilot this week who landed perfectly on his first solo, taxied to the hangar, climbed out, and was as white as a sheet. Instructor asked him if he was all right. Boy said, 'Fine, sir. I just haven't decided yet whether I'm terrified or exhilarated.' "
"What did the instructor say?" Lyle asked.
"Said, 'Son, if you ever stop feeling both of those things at once, you should stop flying.' " Austin sipped his coffee with satisfaction.
Uncle Davey, Della’s brother, arrived shortly after, filling the doorway with his broad frame and bringing with him the particular energy of a man who has spent his day in motion. Davey Carringer's taxi business had been growing steadily since he'd acquired his automobile, and he operated with the cheerful opportunism of someone who understood that the city of San Diego was expanding in every direction and that people needed to get from one part of it to another.
"I had a fare today," Davey began, settling heavily onto the sofa, "who wanted me to drive him from the train station all the way to La Jolla without stopping, and when we got there, he realized he had the wrong La Jolla. Wanted La Mesa. Thought they were the same place."
"What did you do?" Emily asked.
"Drove him to La Mesa," Davey said simply. "Charged him for both legs. He was happy to pay." He helped himself to a cookie from the plate Della had set out. "I also took a naval officer this morning who spent the entire ride explaining to me that San Diego was going to be the most important military port on the Pacific coast within five years. He was very certain about it."
"Is he right?" Lyle asked.
Davey shrugged with the philosophical neutrality of a man who has absorbed many opinions from the back seat of an automobile. "He seemed like a man who was usually right about things. And there are certainly more sailors in my taxi this month than last."
Della's dinner was pot roast with carrots and potatoes, fresh bread, and a peach cobbler that Abbie accepted a small portion of with the air of someone doing everyone a favor. The table was crowded and warm, full of overlapping conversations — Austin on the aerodynamics of training aircraft, Davey on the geography of San Diego as understood from a driver's seat, Abbie on the superiority of Wisconsin summers, Della quietly directing everything from the kitchen doorway. Lyle sat between Emily and his father and felt, for the length of a meal, completely and entirely himself.
Evening — The Goodbye That Wasn't
The August evening was long and soft when Lyle walked Emily from the trolley stop back toward Hawthorn Street,
"Your uncle Davey is wonderful," Emily said.
"He's always been my favorite uncle. Don't tell Edgar."
"Edgar has his own qualities."
"He does. But Davey tells better stories."
They walked in comfortable silence for half a block, their footsteps keeping time together.
"I like your family," Emily said. "I know I've said that before. But I like them more each time. They feel like — " she paused, choosing the word carefully, " — mine. Is that strange to say?"
Lyle shook his head. "It's exactly right to say."
At Hawthorn Street, Georgia answered the door before they knocked, which suggested she'd been listening for footsteps on the front path. She ushered them inside with the brisk competence of a woman who has decided that sentiment is best expressed through hospitality, and produced a pot of tea and sliced gingerbread with the timing of someone who had planned this well in advance.
Lyle ate two pieces and told her truthfully that it was the finest gingerbread he had encountered since the last time she'd made it. Georgia received this with appropriate skepticism and then clearly believed it entirely.
At a quarter past eight, Lyle looked at his watch and began the small preparations of a man who must leave. He stood, thanked Georgia formally and warmly, received in return a handshake that was slightly more than a handshake. At the door, Emily walked him down the front path.
"Thursday was a good day," she said.
"The best day I've had in weeks," Lyle said, and meant it precisely. He hugged and kissed her — properly, unhurriedly — and she held onto him for a moment after it ended.
"Two weeks until your next day off?" she asked.
"Maybe one. The schedule rotates. I'll write Sunday."
"Write sooner if you can."
"I'll try." He picked up his cap, settled it correctly, and looked at her in the last of the evening light. "Go inside, Emily. It's getting late."
"In a moment." She watched him as he walked to the corner, turning once to wave the way he always did. She waved back the way she always did. Then he was gone around the corner, heading toward the trolley and the barracks and the Friday morning that followed every Thursday, no matter how good the Thursday had been.
Inside, Georgia was washing the teacups. "He's a good man," she said, without turning around.
"I know," Emily said.
"Steady," Georgia said, which was the highest quality she recognized in any person.
"I know," Emily said again, and sat down at the kitchen table while her mother washed cups in the quiet of the evening, the distant sound of a trolley bell marking Lyle's progress back to Balboa Park.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That Sunday, Lyle's letter arrived two days early:
My Darling Emily,
I lied about waiting until Sunday. I'm writing this Thursday night in the barracks, an hour after leaving you. The room is loud and smells of boot polish and tobacco, and I can still taste the gingerbread. Tell your mother that I intend to behave in a manner worthy of her estimation of me.
Today was everything I needed. Your family, my family, the bay in the morning and Broadway at noon and 30th Street in the afternoon. I'm carrying all of it back on duty with me like money in my pocket.
I love you, Emily.
Lyle
To be continued...
Here is the Video Overview of this post by Google NotebookLM:
This is historical fiction based on the facts that are available for the life and family of my maternal grandparents, Lyle and Emily(Auble) Carringer. It is based on my research, social history and society norms at the time and place, and it is likely realistic. It might have happened this way.
Stay tuned for the next chapters in this family story.
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The AI-assisted biography of my maternal grandmother is in ABC Biography of #7 Emily Kemp (Auble) Carringer (1899-1977) of Illinois and California. I wrote a story about her life in 1916 in Ask AI: Describe Emily Auble's Life After the Death of Her Father In 1916.
The AI-assisted biography of my maternal grandfather is in ABC Biography of #6 Lyle Lawrence Carringer (1891-1976) of San Diego, California. I wrote a story about Lyle being a young working man in 1916 being teased about being boring in Lyle's Story: Finding Courage in 1916-1917.
- Emily and Lyle's Story: The Dance.
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: A San Diego Romance In 1917.
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: The Promise Made.
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: Letters From Boot Camp – Part 1, May 1917
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: Letters From Boot Camp – Part 2, May-June 1917.
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: Letters From Boot Camp – Part 3, Weeks 5 and 6, June 1917
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: Letters From Boot Camp – Part 4 (Weeks 7 and 8), Late June to July 1917
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: Coming Home -- Lyle’s Leave, July 1917
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: Lyle Carringer Starts Work at the PX
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