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Los Gatos Weekly-Times file photograph
Los Gatos High School grads Sally Wadleigh and David Hibbs got married during World War II, while he was in the military.
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War didn't keep young adults from romance and marriage
By John S. Baggerly
In the spring a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love, say the poets. As Veterans' Day nears, American vets also turn their thoughts to their service years and their friends.
During World War II, there were many barstool romances in San Francisco, some of which resulted in marriage. It was said one of them took place at the Presidio of San Francisco, where this writer served as a corporal. The day of the marriage was allegedly the first time the couple had seen each other in daylight.
The David Hibbs and Sally Wadleigh romance was much longer in the making. David was a native of Oakland, son of a doctor father and nurse mother, Dr. David L. and Kay Hibbs. A pediatrician recommended that the salubrious Los Gatos climate would be a benefit to young David, who had a bronchial condition bordering on incipient tuberculosis. The family moved here and David improved.
When Sally was a teen, her family also moved to Los Gatos. Both she and her future husband graduated from Los Gatos High School, he in 1935, the same year as this writer. The couple married in 1944.
Flash back for a moment to David's folks creating Top of the Hill School for convalescing children. The school, like Montezuma School for Boys in the Santa Cruz Mountains, died during the Great Depression.
Flash forward to David in the U.S. Army Air Corps and stationed on Tinian, an island near Guam in the western Pacific. After the war, David recalled that an impressive airplane arrived on Tinian and was parked a considerable distance from the hangars. Personnel was told not to go near the mystery craft.
After the mystery plane departed, David and the rest of the world learned that the Enola Gay had dropped a war-ending atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 9, 1945.
After the war, David became manager of the furniture department of Breuner's. By this time, he and Sally were living in Piedmont Hills, a mountaintop community south of Berkeley.
David's life fell into place. He kept a showcase garden and did most of the housecleaning. It was perhaps the house-cleaning that made Sally amenable to her husband's playing poker on Tuesday evenings with other young Oakland businessmen. David became a steady winner and decided to try his hand at big-time poker in Reno, where gambling is legal.
David told friends that he soon learned that professional gamblers, who have become legendary in both fact and fiction, were just too tough. David went back to his hometown game. His interest in gambling led him to read Sagebrush Casino, a book that concluded: "A gambler has a better chance at the horse races than at the games in Nevada." Wise men know that you can't make a living off the horses.
When visiting with friends, David was known for telling strings of jokes. Sally, instead of rolling her eyes to the ceiling like most wives would, was quick to remind him of jokes he had forgotten. Both have now passed on.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
