Love Story: Letters exchanged during WWII led to romance

Virginia Furman (nee Galow) talks about how she met her husband, Richard.

I met Dick, as he's known, in the summer of 1943, when we were both 15.

In those days, lakes that are now on private property were open to swimming, and I had gone with girlfriends to the “second lake” at Cold Spring Harbor, taking snacks with us to the beach in the baskets of our bicycles. Later, we found out that a group of boys had taken our snacks. We went looking for the boys, and that’s when I met Dick, who was there with his friends. We ended up letting the boys keep our snacks, and we all became sociable.

Dick and I saw each other often at the lake. Once in a while, he would walk to my house to see me and we’d play tag, running around my backyard. I liked him and he liked me, but it was nothing serious. We found out that we were both lifelong residents of Huntington and were born three months apart at Huntington Hospital in 1927. I was a student at South Huntington High School, and he went to Huntington High School.

At 16, Dick said he was 18 to enlist in the U.S. Marines; he served with the Second Division in combat in the Pacific theater during the invasions of Saipan, Tinian and Okinawa islands, and with occupation forces in Nagasaki, Japan, immediately after the dropping of the atomic bomb.

I attended St. John's University School of Nursing in Brooklyn and became a registered nurse. We stayed in touch with “V-mail,” a system put in place to improve the movement of letters to troops stationed abroad during the war.

After the war, Dick worked in dredging and went on to a career with Otis Elevator Co. Later he worked with Melrose Marine Service,then Jakobson  Shipyard in Oyster Bay building boats. I began my career working as a nurse at Huntington Hospital and went on to work at Huntington High School for 27 years as an instructional aide in the science department. 

Dick proposed to me in 1949, and we were married on Nov. 19, 1950, in Huntington. Our reception was in my family home,  where later we would raise our children, Richard Jr., Katherine and John. Sadly, we lost Katherine in 2009. Over the years our family has grown to include our children's spouses, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

We have been active members of the Huntington community throughout our lives. I volunteered at Huntington Hospital Emergency Room for 30 years. I have volunteered at Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay, been active in the Huntington Historical Society and sang with Northport Chorale. Dick, among the first EMTs on Long Island, volunteered with Cold Spring Harbor Fire Department for 35 years. He also served as an adviser to the High-Adventure Program and Explorer Post 12 with the Boy Scouts of America. Dick’s interest in the outdoors led him to become a member of the Long Island Beach Buggy Association, a family camper, backpacker (including a trip to Germany and Austria), hiker and avid bird-watcher in the Huntington Audubon Society.

I love bowling and am a lap swimmer and golfer. Dick keeps busy maintaining the homestead firewood horde and doing yard care. We have been actively restoring the family home, which was built in 1750 and where we still reside.

In the meantime, we are thankful for our long companionship and extended family and friends and look forward to celebrating our 72nd wedding anniversary in November, though because of COVID-19 concern, we have not yet made plans.

— With Lynn Petry