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Anne was a nurse who worked for a kindly and prominent doctor in her hometown. He was friends with all of his employees and genuinely cared about them. So when Anne announced she was engaged to this man she’d only met three weeks earlier, he was more than a little concerned. Despite all her reassurances that he was a “good man” the doctor was upset when Anne couldn’t tell him anything about Tom’s work or history. She didn’t know herself. So the doctor hired a private investigator.
As it happens, Tom worked for the government – which at the time had assigned him to work on the top-secret Manhattan Project out at the Hanford Area. So the private investigator was stymied whenever he tried to find out any information on Tom – the government kept him from finding out anything. So the doctors fears were not assuaged. He feared the worst – that Tom was a serial killer or even worse, a spy. He straight up told Anne, “Don’t blame me if he turns out to be a serial killer and I never see you again – I’ve warned you not to marry him!” But Anne did anyway, and afterwards, found out what all the kerfuffle was about.
When Anne and Palma returned from their vacation at the Ellensburg Dude Ranch, Anne was reunited with her boyfriend at the time, Jim Kirke. Jim was from the local military base and had been seeing Anne on and off for a while. So, suffice it to say, Anne was surprised when Tom showed up during her first weekend back home!
Every weekend for three weeks in a row, Tom showed up at the Davis house. Anne wasn’t quite sure what to do, so she showed him around the area, doing her best to explain things to Jim. Her employer was a little disturbed at the sudden appearance of this man.
The third week, as Tom and Anne sat in her front room talking, he got down on one knee and pulled a ring out of his pocket. Anne says, “Well, I’d never been proposed to before, so I figured I should just say ‘yes!’” Which is exactly what she did.
Anne and her close friend, Palma Lee, were both very into horses. Anne and her brother both had horses stabled out behind their mother’s house, and Anne loved to ride – especially with the young men from the nearby military camp. So when Anne and Palma both had some vacation days at the same time, they decided they wanted to take a “horsey” vacation and booked a cabin at a dude ranch in Ellensburg, Washington.
The first night they were there, they unpacked all their things in the cabin and headed up for dinner. At a ranch like this, everyone came to eat in the main hall for all their meals. When Anne and Palma walked in the big front doors, they came into the lounge, which had a huge fireplace with a stone hearth encircling it. And there were several young men sitting on the hearth, chatting. As Anne and Palma walked by, one of the young men looked directly at Anne and said, “Hello, my name is Tom Clement.” She thought he was very forward and ignored him, while thinking “Gee whiz, he’s ugly!”
But Tom wasn’t going to give up that quickly. As the young women went into the mess hall, they sat down at one of the long tables where guests ate family style. Tom came in and sat down right next to her. She was embarrassed to be so publicly pursued.
And Tom still didn’t give up – he kept showing up wherever Anne went; whether it was to meals, or on trail rides (even though he was a Pennsylvania boy and didn’t know much about horses). He was bound and determined to get her attention.
