'A story of hope, longing and sacrifice': 'My Dearest Darling' takes readers back in time

Author and journalist Lisa Franco published her first book, “My Dearest Darling: Letters of Love in Wartime,” in July. The book, containing more than 135 love letters written by a couple during World War II, chronicles an incredible true story.

US Naval Officer Donald Edgar Storey and his wife Margery “Mardy” Stickles, wrote each other hundreds of letters during their time apart. “My Dearest Darling: Letters of Love in Wartime,” brings back some of them, to give readers a heart-warming and intimate look into the couple’s lives, during the war.

Franco found the letters years ago. With the Storey family’s help and other historical research, it took 11 years to put the book together and it was self-published on Amazon.

Discovering the letters

Back in 2011, Franco went into an antique shop in Dennis Port. In the basement of the shop, she found a laundry basket filled with memorabilia from World War II. Inside were air mail envelopes and she started reading one of the letters.

“It was a love letter from a young US Naval Officer to his sweetheart. As I was reading it, I got very emotional and started crying,” said Franco.

She left the shop that day, but came back soon after and bought all 150 letters.

“I didn’t yet know what to do with these letters, but I knew from that moment that it was my destiny to find these letters and I had to share them with the world,” Franco said.

The next step for Franco was to find the Storey family, which took three years. Franco contacted an amateur genealogist and with his help, found Donald Storey Jr., the youngest son of Donald and Margery. Donald Jr. was a resident of upstate New York and Margery Stickles, who was 91 years old, was living with him at the time.

“I went to New York and met with the family and I told them I wanted to write a book based on these letters; they were surprised to know about the letters at first but they trusted me implicitly to share this story,” Franco said.

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“We had no idea that these letters existed, our parents never told us,” said Donald Storey Jr. “It was a complete surprise for us and we got very emotional when we first found out.”

For Franco, the idea was to share this precious story with the world.

“The story was too beautiful not to share; besides it was not just romance, it was a glimpse into history as well,” she said.

A timeless love story

“All my love, my thoughts, my dreams, and my hopes are with you tonight, dearest. Could I but hop on a star and glide to where you are.” writes Donald Storey to Margery Storey, on Christmas Eve, 1946.

In most of the letters, Donald addressed Margery as “my dearest darling.” Among the 150 letters Franco discovered, the book has snippets from around 130 letters; most of these were written by Donald and only eight were written by Margery.

Donald Storey was born in Mt. Vernon, New York on March 15, 1922. A graduate of the Severn School of Severna Park, Maryland, and the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, class of 1944, during the war he served on destroyers and submarines.

Donald asked Margery out on a date when he was in the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. The letters start from when they were dating and expand to when they got engaged, married, during his deployment in the war, through the end of the war and a year-and-a-half after the war.

Letters were the only mode of communication for the couple during the war. Since he spent all his time at sea, there were no letters for months at a time. When Margery was pregnant with their first child, Donald did not know for months.

“They both numbered the letters as Donald got stacks of letters at a time; I found the logs of the ships he was on and annotated the letters,” Franco said. “It is a story of hope, longing and sacrifice; when you read the letters, you can feel how desperately he wanted to get back to her. He was fighting for his country, but he was also fighting to get back to her.”

Donald was not allowed to reveal any classified information about his whereabouts, each letter had an introduction explaining where he was and hinting at what was going on in the war.

“He mentioned several historical incidents such as Hitler’s suicide, Mussolini’s execution and President Roosevelt’s death; they talked about pop culture, politics, movies, songs and so much more,” Franco said. “The letters serve as a window into the war, into the sacrifices of our soldiers and their families, it is for readers who love romance, and also for those who love history.”

According to Franco, the letters are proof of a poetic romance between the Storey couple.

“They were both in their early 20s, but the way they wrote to each other, the emotions, the longing — it was incredible to witness a love like that,” Franco said.

“We always knew our father was a good writer and a great storyteller,” Storey Jr. said. “Through these letters we feel like we know him better.”

Fortunately for Donald and Margery, their story had a happy ending. A year-and-a-half after the war, Donald came back home to Margery and they had a happy marriage for 63 years. After he left the Navy, they lived in Connecticut, raising their family. Donald worked as a sales manager of Stewart Warner Corp. The couple is survived by their three children; eldest daughter, Marcy S. Waters and two sons, Chris Storey and Donald Storey Jr.

After his retirement, they moved to Yarmouthport in 1986 and lived there for several years. Donald Storey died on March 4, 2007 and Margery Storey died Nov. 23, 2017. Both their ashes are buried in St. Mary’s Church in Barnstable.

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It was when they lived on Cape Cod, during an estate sale, the letters were lost by accident.

The book also contains several photos, anecdotes and other memorabilia from the Storey family collection.

“Donald’s deployment papers, ration stamps and several photographs the family gave me are included in the book,” Franco said. “It even has a dance card from one of their first dances.”

Lisa Franco’s journey

Connecting with the family was only the first step in Franco’s journey as an author. For the last 11 years, Franco went through several processes to get the book published. Franco got the copyright license for the letters and then started compiling, scanning and transcribing them.

“The letters were like pieces of a big puzzle; I wanted to make sure I had all the correct information about where he was at a given time,” Franco said. “Cross checking the logs with the dates and going back in time to figure out what incident occurred in that specific time, was a very challenging journey.”

During writing and self-publishing the book, Franco discovered a lot about herself.

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“This journey changed my life; I learned a lot about history, family, about love and sacrifice,” Franco said. “I realized a lot about myself and what I could accomplish; I didn't have any connection with the family but now I feel l'm a part of it.”

Franco’s father, Nino Maurizi, was a World War II Army Air Corps veteran.

“My father never liked sharing stories about the war; working on this story, in a way, brought me closer to him and this has been a labor of love,” reflected Franco.

According to Donald Storey Jr., their father never liked sharing war stories with them either.

“This book gave us a great timeline of where he was and what he was doing,” Storey Jr. said. “Thanks to Franco’s incredible research, this book brings our father back to us.”

An opportunity for other families

For families of war veterans, the book is a way to get answers to the questions many of them wished they had asked their parents.

“One of the children from the Storey family told me that they now have a chance to get the answers to the questions they wanted to ask their father and it was the same journey for me as well,” Franco said. “I think anyone from a war veteran family can relate to the feeling.”

Franco, a journalist, producer and writer, worked at WTNH, the ABC affiliate in New Haven, Connecticut, for 18 years. Now a retired freelancer and author, Franco has several nominations and journalism awards, including an Emmy nomination, to her name, for producing documentaries on different subjects. Franco lives in Cheshire, Connecticut, and sometimes in Dennis Port, Cape Cod.

The book is available on Amazon for $15.95. To purchase the book and get any other information, visit the website: https://mydearestdarlingbook.com/

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Letters found in Cape Cod store tell WWII love story