Michael W. Dymond
Phyllis and Donald started exchanging letters as early as 1938. They had been dating for about a year. Hundreds were written and exchanged, laden with laughter and love, promise and fear and eternal hope, through to Donald’s untimely and heartbreaking death on April 30, 1945, just a mere ten days before VE Day in Europe.These letters comprise the essence of this story through which I have struggled to make the conversation real, meaningful and enduring. My palpable challenge came when I realized very early that most of Phyllis’ (Mom’s letters) had been destroyed.My intent, again, for this project was to create a story: a conversation between two young people decidedly in love, recently married, with plans for a future together...but separated by preparations for war and war itself. In one of his letters, Donald (Dad) said that his company’s constant movement across Canada and the lack of safe storage, forced him to burn the letters from Phyllis. Few survived, You, the reader, should know this. 3
