I’ve Danced My Life Away

Learning Spanish in Panama

I went to the University of Panama for a year and studied Spanish when my husband was working down in Panama just prior to World War II. They expected war of course, and they expected trouble from Japan. So he was sent down there by Hageman Harris of New York, the ones who built Radio City. He built a big, big radio station down there in the jungle and then he built officers’ quarters for the Navy and a big administration building. I came home because my mother was sick, and they wouldn’t let me go back to Panama! The State Department wouldn’t let me go back because there was no housing for wives, and I kept writing to them saying I had an 8-room house down there - please let me go home! I got the same form letter back from the State Department time after time, and finally my husband realized that I couldn’t come back. He was a reserve officer anyway, so he just said he had to go in the Army. War had been declared then, and he came home.