How They Met: Nana and PopPop

Bruce Judson Cheney
Born: October 1917, Morris County, New Jersey
Living
Relation to Author: Grandfather (PopPop)

Elizabeth (Betty) Charlotte Cheney (nee Paulus)
Born: November 23, 1919, Roxbury, New Jersey
Died: December 16, 2009, Randolph, Morris County, New Jersey
Relation to Author: Grandmother (Nana)

I wrote recently that I don't have much oral history from my grandparents generation because I didn't ask questions while they were alive. Fortunately, there are a few exceptions to this. In one of the exceptions, my grandparents (Nana / Betty and PopPop / Bruce) told me (us) the story of how they met. I think they told us the story many times, often after we had all eaten dinner together. We'd often sit around the table after dinner talking. When they told this story, PopPop did most of the talking but Nana would chime in at times. Here is how I remember it:

Around the time that America was getting involved in World War II, Bruce Cheney and Betty Paulus were both working at Picatinny Arsenal. During this time, the arsenal hired four men for every one job they had for men knowing that three would be drafted or enlist in the war. This meant the men did not have a lot of work to do and lots of free time. Bruce used that time to flirt with the women working at Picatinny.

Apparently, just before he met Betty, Bruce was flirting with and interested in a different woman. A friend of his though told him that he would really like Betty. At first, Bruce was skeptical. But because he had time, he decided to get to know Betty. And sure enough, the friend was right; Bruce fell for Betty.

During this time, Betty was working as an administrative assistant at the arsenal. In contrast to the men, the women had a lot of work to do. In fact, they might have been taking up the slack for the men. In any event, Bruce was spending a lot of time at Betty's desk, which of course got in the way of her work.

Betty (Nana) would chime in here. When she told this part of the story, she said she had to tell Bruce to go away - affecting the shooing of a fly. But Bruce would not be dissuaded and so Betty had a hard time getting him to let her do her work.

As the story goes, senior staff at the arsenal decided that the only way to allow Betty to do her work was to promote her so that her new desk and assignment were too far away for Bruce to visit regularly.

As you can tell, that didn't have the unintended effect of keeping Bruce and Betty apart long term. They would later marry and have a family.


To be clear, I can't say this story is 100 percent true and accurate (as is the problem with oral history). There are two places for error. Nana and PopPop may have embellished parts of the story (though I find that unlikely). Or my memory might be faulty (since I didn't take notes and the last I heard the story was a number of years ago).

So take the story with a grain of salt. Whether we know it to be true or not, I really like it. I love imagining them when they were young. I like thinking of PopPop as a flirt. And I like thinking of Nana shooing him away - not because she didn't like him, but because she needed to do her work. And so I imagine she didn't shoo too hard.

One final note to my family, if you remember the story differently (or the same) please let me know in the notes or via email. I will of course update with any of your feedback.