Untitled - Quarter Century Wireless Association

By: Betty Strattan, W2PVS, as told to Don Steele, WINFG.
uring the first several hours of the
1992 National QCWA convention
at Scottsdale, Arizona, I was
constantly on the lookout for our (then) new
National Director, Arch Doty, K8CFU. I had
never met the man, nor had I worked him on
the air, but I had a personal and very special
reason to see him. I felt sure he
would be in Scottsdale, the fust
National convention since
joining the national board of
directors. As I concentrated on
this effort, I reflected on the
events which led up to my great
search.
In 1985, while
reporting into a 2 meter net of
the Amateur Radio Chapter of
the Family Motor Coach
Association, I was, naturally,
introduced to the mernbers of
the net. One of these was Don
Steele, WINFG, who lives in
Cheshire, Connecticut. My ears
perked up, and I mentioned that I had grown
up in Hamden, the town next to Cheshire.
When I told Don my maiden name, he
rernernbered that we had lived barely a block
apart during those days. Like any reunion of
old school friends, we soon found many
memories of each other stashed away in our
mental data banks.
We met in person a year later at a
rally of some of our mutual motor home
friends, and the reminiscing continued.
During subsequent QSOs on the
FMCA nets and others, Don and I had great
frm comparing notes about people we had
known back in the '20s and '30s. Questions
of "Do you remember so and so?" continued
between us. One of mine in particular,
evolved around V'Ona Gilb€rt.
V'Ona had been a year or two
behind me in school and had been a good
Aiend of my sister, Helen. I had visited her
home frequently with Helen, and once swam
in her uncle's pool. He was the only person
in town who had a swimming pool in the
'20s.
When I mentioned V'Ona's name,
Don replied that he did, indeed, remember
her, and that he had an interesting story to
tell.
Don had dated V'Ona during
college years and, during that time,
QCWA Journal
D6jh Vu In Triplicate
happened to introduce her to his prep school
buddy, Arch Doty, who later became
K8CFU. Don and Arch had kept in touch
over the years by mail and by radio even
though Don remained in Connecticut and
Arch had moved on to Michigan to pwsue a
career and subsequently retircd to North
Arch, K$CFU, and VOna Dog are the subjects of Beuy Straxa6
W2PVS's int*esting tilogl Photo courtesy KECFU.
Carolina. Neither had seen or thought of
V'Ona until one day in 1987.
Arch, who by this time was a
widower, went to visit his mother, who was
living in a retirement village in New Jersey.
As a ham he was always checking license
plates for fellow hams and today was no
different. This time, however, he notice a car
bearing the Connecticut "vanity" license
plate "VONA." Mentally putting phonetics
to the letters, Victor, Oscar, November,
Alpha, they suddenly rang a bell from his
past.
Arch mused that if VONA spelled
a name, and by now he was sure it did, it
b" that of someone from his distant
^ight past.
Arch made some discrete inquiries
around the retirement village and leamed
that the name indeed belonged to the V'Ona
he once knew and that she was there at the
village visiting h e r mother.
Being a bit reserved in his
discovery, Arch decided to leave a note on
V'Ona's windshield.
V'Ona followed up the note by
contacting Arch. During the course of the
conversation Arch disolosed that he was a
widower and V'Ona stated that she had been
divorced for several years. V'Ona had not
thought much of Arch (or Don, for that
26
matter) during the 50 years that had lapsed.
Nevertheless, she agreed to meet Arch for a
lunch date.
From that first date came
arrangernents for them to simultaneously see
their respective mothers at the retirement
village. As time pa.ssed, romance grew.
Finally, on October 4, 1989
they were manied, with Don
serving as best man!
The year before last
year, when Don leamed that I
was planning to attend the
national convention in
Scottsdale, he mentioned that
Arch had recently been elected
to the national board. Don
suggested that if I looked him
up, I might see V'Ona once
again.
That meeting was
almost inconsequential. It came
about when I was in the dining
room with some of my YL
friends. A man and a woman entered the
room and, as they passed ou table, I spotted
a name tag with the word "Arch" on it.
Cautiously, I asked, *Arch Doty?"
Almost simultaneously, I tumed, looked at
the woman, and timidly asked, *V'Ona?"
Her eyes pop$ wide and she
said, "How did you know my name and how
is it that you know how to correctly
pronounoe it?" All the while she was giving
me that "Who the heck are you?" look.
I told her I was Betty Garman,
sister of her grammar school friend, Helen
Garman. That stuok resonance!
It had beeo over fifty years since
we had seen eaoh other. I explained how I
happened to be looking for her at the
convention. We quickly revived our
friendship and met each other frequently
during the remainder of the conve,ntion. We
spent plenty of time catching up on events of
the intervening years.
Beyond the trnique'ness of this
trilogy, centered on V'Ona, it vividly
dernonstrates one more of the inestimable
'ualues of our marvelous hobby. Through my
participation in the QCWA and the FMCA
nets I have seen one more demonshation that
we do, indeed live in a shrinking world.
33 and 73, & Betty Strattan,
W2PVS.