Positivity: Bible kept WWII soldier safe for ‘perfect’ 65-year marriage
From Belleville, Illinois (video is at link):
Posted on Sun, Mar. 30, 2008
BELLEVILLE — On Sept. 11, 1944, Margaret Woodrome bought her husband, Harold “Woody” Woodrome, a pocket-size Bible to carry while fighting overseas. “I found this Bible and I just knew I had to have it,” she said. “I just wasn’t sure that he would come home.”
“To My Beloved Husband,” Margaret wrote inside the Bible’s metal front cover. “Hurry and come home, home to your wife and your expected child. We will be waiting forever for the sweetest, most lovable husband and father in the world. May God watch over you constantly and bring you home safely to us. I love you, my darling, forever and ever. Margie.” They’d met in grade school and had their first date on a small bridge near what ended up being their home, where Margaret still lives today.
Woody was drafted into the Army in January 1941, seven months after he and Margaret married. He was deployed to Europe in August 1944, serving in Company K of the 290th Infantry Regiment’s 75th Division.
Margaret said she sent the Bible to Woody while he was in England, where he stayed after completing a training program in South Wales. He kept it in one of his coat pockets, near his heart.
He left England in December 1944. His division headed to France for the Battle of the Bulge.
….. in late December he was hit in the chest during combat. When he checked to see whether there was any bleeding, he found the Bible that Margaret had sent him, its metal cover dented.
“It saved his life,” Margaret said. “Thank God it helped and did the trick.”
….. Margaret still has all of Woody’s war artifacts on display in their home or archived in her extensive collection of photo albums and scrapbooks. Brandon Woodrome, their grandson and a Belleville West High School history teacher, documented their story for his college thesis paper.
And the life-saving Bible? It is locked away in a safe place in Margaret and Woody’s home in Belleville, its metal cover stating, “May the Lord be with you.”
Woody died March 28, 2005. After 65 years of marriage, Margaret described their life together as “perfect.”
“Nobody in this whole wide world had a better life than we have had. It’s been a terrific, terrific life.”
Go here for the full story.
