Keith Tillotson
Lorraine O'Conner (1939)
I had a girlfriend, and I was really in love. When I got back from a trip, she'd got married on me. Ada – I forget her last name – she got married on me when I was at sea. She was from Southgate, which is like a suburb of Los Angeles. I met her at the theatre with a guy I run around with. We met two girls at a movie. Made dates with them. But, she dumped me, and so I had to find another girlfriend. I think I met this girl – the one I married – at a roller rink.
Her name was Lorraine O'Conner. She liked to roller-skate. But I don't know how to roller-skate. I guess I was standing out in front or something, and somehow I met her. Or she recognized me because she knew a friend of mine. Started goin' together and got married in Yuma Arizona. Yuma is kind of like Elkton here – you just go in and they're all set up to take care of you.
I had a Chevrolet coupe. I forgot what year it was – probably '34. Went to sea, and wasn't too long before she's runnin' around with somebody else. So I decided to get divorced, and I did it in Hawaii. I went to a lawyer in Hawaii. He charged me – I can't remember if it was 60 or 80 dollars. Guaranteed, to get a divorce. Took about ten minutes.
I was married a few months – less than a year. So that was about the end of that. Had it published in the Los Angeles Times. Whether they did or didn't I don't know – that's what they were supposed to have done.
Junior and Lila with Lorraine and Keith during the war,
the night they announced their plans to remarry
I met her again during the war. I was in a nightclub in Los Angeles during the war, and she was takin' pictures – photographs of people. We met there again, so she wanted to get engaged again.
I took her out to Junior and Lila's. I got to thinkin' about it when she kept harpin' on this engagement ring, you know. I didn't have any money with me, but I'd left some in the bank in Harlan Iowa. I was gonna' send for some money, but she kept harpin' on this engagement ring, and I says, "I think you're more interested in the ring than you are me." That kind of peed her off, so we ended up … never saw her again.