Margaret Whittington |
Mama', I just met the man I will marry!
I Found My Love at Gitmo
By Margaret
Whittington
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any image for a larger view
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Mama', I just met the man I will marry someday!
| I had just returned from one of my first
dances at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and couldn't wait
to tell my mother. It was in 1941 right after Pearl Harbor
when most young men were far from home because they had
to enlist or be drafted. Santiago de Cuba soon became
a popular place for American Navy men to visit and meet
Cuban girls. Well |
Margaret Elmslie Whittington, 1942
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At a Dance at Guantanamo, Cuba in 1943. That is Charles Harrington
(far left) and George Cox holding my hand. |
My Grandfather Walfrido Portuando, 1896 |
chaperoned dances were held at the naval base
and many girls from Santiago attended.. I was popular because
I spoke English and loved to dance. I was born in Santiago,
Cuba, of an American father and a Cuban mother. My father,
an engineer for Bethlehem Steel, was sent
| to Santiago to build a bridge
dock to load manganese. The year was 1920. My father,
a widower, won my mother's hand in marriage even though
he spoke little Spanish when he arrived and my mother
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Arturo and Margaret, 1943 |
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knew no English. My grandfather also worked
for Bethlehem Steel as a superintendent. When I was one year
old, my parents took me to a small mining town, Barracksville,
West Virginia, where I spent my childhood years. My mother
and father separated so my mother, my sister and I returned
to Santiago. There was a violent earthquake of 1932 so my
father immediately sent for us to return to West Virginia.
My father and mother later divorced and both remarried. I
bounced back and forth between Santiago, where my mother lived
with her English husband, and Fairmont where my father lived
with his new American wife.
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My sister Helen
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YMS-431 Tacoma,WA
November 12. 1944*
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In 1943 I joined my sister Helen in Miami. As part of the
war effort, we both worked as "Government Censors."
It was interesting work
The young officer I fell in love with in Santiago was assigned
to submarine chaser school in Miami. We had three glorious
months. He was then assigned to a mine sweeper (YMS-431) first
in California and later Tacoma, Washington.
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Lt. Whittington aboard YMS 431 |
He left me standing on the dock tearfully in Tacoma
where
I had gone to see him off. It was so painful! We were
so in love but, like so many boys then, he refused to
risk leaving a widow behind. .He was gone a year to
Okinawa and Japan sweeping for mines. It was a very
lonely trying time for us both. True to my love at first
sight, the handsome young American officer, Arthur Whittington
and I married as soon as the war was over - in the spring
of 1946. We
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Margaret and Arthur Whittington
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had 50 blissful years together, had six children: one daughter and
five sons.
Arthur Whittington and
Japanese aboard YMS 431
shortly after their surrender.
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Lt. Whittington aboard YMS 431 |
Arthur Whittington in a relaxed moment aboard YMS-431
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