Long Gone

The black and white picture turned up in my daughter, Stacy’s, house in Raleigh, sent to her from a cousin, found during the time she was cleaning to sell her house in 2023. She brought it to me and I tried to remember anything about it, but nothing came to me. It clearly shows me and my first husband, Jim Long. We are in front of my in-laws’ house in Ebensburg, Pennsylvania. The biggest clue to date the picture is that neither of us is wearing a wedding ring.

I think Jim has brought me home to meet his parents. I also think it has to be summer, 1965. At that time we had planned to get married after I graduated from college in 1967. When he decided to pursue Army helicopter training in 1966, however, we realized that he would get orders for Vietnam immediately after completing the training, so we moved our wedding up to June 12, 1966, a Sunday.  

Jim had to be at Fort Rucker, Alabama very soon after completing the first half of his rotary wing flight school at Fort Wolters, Texas. We married at my home in New Jersey and left the day after our wedding to make the deadline. He completed the training that fall, and left for Vietnam, where he flew medevac helicopters, returning home in January, 1968.

This picture probably dates from March, 1968, before we sailed to Germany on the SS United States. It was probably taken by his cousin, Doreen, who wrote on the back but did not date it.

Jim’s suit jacket is open and his head is leaning towards me on his left, his left arm around me. I am dressed in a sleeveless white dress with a little jacket attached and a bow in front, all white, including my hat and heels. It looks like we are returning from church.

Although I still can’t remember the details of the picture, it brings to mind our early-adult selves and our brief marriage. After Vietnam, Uncle Sam gave us a year-and-a-half tour in Germany. Our daughter, Stacy, was born there in 1968, on her father’s birthday. Jim was discharged from the Army in 1969. He died in a lumberjack accident in April, 1970. He was 28. We were married less than five years.

This picture has taken me back through my life. Warm memories, hard times, good times, all wrapped around the figure of a young man who died before his time. Jim Long is long gone, but my life has been forever changed, in ways I could never have predicted, because of him.