I\u2019ve written a lot about my Mom, Babs Dahlman. She\u2019s been gone almost ten years: Friday would have been her 103rd birthday. I\u2019ve told some of her childhood stories of England, and about her exploits as an agent for Special Operations Executive in World War II. She wrote many of those stories herself, and I am still working at getting them online for folks to enjoy (The Dahlman Papers<\/a>). It\u2019s a body of work, and still more to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My Mom\u2019s life was lived in phases. There was her childhood, growing up in post-World War I England, still an Empire. That ended with the beginning of World War II. Then there was the crucible of her generation, “their war”. Mom lost many of her closest friends in the early part of the War, including her fianc\u00e9. She chose to fight back and joined the Special Operation Executive, an impromptu clandestine service in the British government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of her comrades from the SOE didn\u2019t survive the war, but Mom did, and fell in love with \u201can American\u201d as the bombs fell on London. They both had \u201cadventures\u201d in the last year of the war as the Nazi Reich collapsed. And when it was finally over, Mom committed to going to the United States with her new husband, Don, and to a town in the Midwest called Cincinnati. Dad arranged passage for Mom on a returning Liberty Ship,<\/em> the Francis D Culkin. <\/em> It was in January of 1946 that Phyllis Mary Teresa O\u2019Connor Dahlman, \u201cBabs\u201d to all who really knew her, stepped off the boat and into several feet of snow in Portland, Maine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Before it was \u201cfashionable\u201d, my parents had an \u201cequal\u201d relationship. They were a team, whether it was in their first business venture, or raising three kids. Dad from the very beginning wanted to have his own business. So soon after they arrived in Cincinnati, they started a small one with a big title: The United States Bottling Company. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They had a building by the Ohio River in Kentucky, and the two of them were literally \u201cthe head cooks and bottle washers\u201d. Mom would mix batches of their soft drinks, pouring bags of sugar into vats and stirring in the flavorings. Dad would help, but mostly he did what he always did best: sell. Dad went from store to store, convincing them to purchase the drinks for sale, delivering it to them, then picking up the used bottles \u2013 to wash and refill. In 1950 when my grandfather from England came to visit for several months, he walked from their small apartment in Cincinnati through downtown and over the bridge to help with the manufacturing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time they had two children, my sisters Terry and Pat. So they were raising the kids, wrestling sacks of sugar, and driving all over Cincinnati marketing their product. But they also found ways to have a great time together, dancing to the Big Bands and partying with both Dad\u2019s old friends from before the war and making new ones as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The 1952 Ohio River flood wasn\u2019t the worst, but it was bad enough to drown the United States Bottling Company. They sold what little was left to a company from Atlanta, Coca-Cola, then searched for another industry to make their mark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dad went into the new broadcast medium replacing radio called television. He started as a \u201clocal\u201d salesman, selling commercials for the new station owned by Crosley in Cincinnati, WLW-T. When he wanted to close a deal, he brought in what he called \u201chis best asset\u201d. It might be at dinner in a local restaurant, or around the table at their apartment or later the home on Glenmary Avenue just down the road from the Cincinnati Zoo. But when Dad wanted to \u201cimpress\u201d the buyer \u2013 he introduced him to Mom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mom didn\u2019t learn to cook in England. But when she came to the United States, folks always wanted to see what \u201cEnglish cooking\u201d was all about. So Mom had help, The Settlement Cook Book, <\/em> and with that, her charm, Dad\u2019s wit, and a fully stocked bar, many sales were made. Business and family were always one and the same, and often the now three children (I showed up in 1956) were a part of the sales pitch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was going through some of Dad\u2019s papers recently and found a 1974 note from a business associate. The letter discussed their business agreement, then thanked Dad for including him in a family dinner with his \u201cliberal children\u201d. I guess things haven\u2019t changed much.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n When Dad grew frustrated with his career at Crosley, Mom backed his move to a different career track in television, selling programming. Dad worked for the Fred Ziv Corporation, producer of many early television shows. You have to be a certain age, maybe even older than me, to remember Highway Patrol <\/em>or The Cisco Kid <\/em>or Sea Hunt. <\/em> Ziv had those shows and others; they were some of the top series of the late 1950\u2019s and early 60\u2019s. Dad was travelled all over the country to sell them to individual stations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He went on the road on Monday, and often wasn\u2019t back home until Friday night. Mom was home with us kids. It was a lonely life for both of them, with Dad calling from hotels in such exotic places as Dubuque, Iowa or South Bend, Indiana. But Mom had help from the fast friends she made in Cincinnati, her \u201ccorps\u201d of women who were always around. Maggie lived just up the road from us, Libby and Helen were not too far away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mom didn\u2019t drive. It\u2019s hard looking back to understand how she could jump out of burning airplanes and secretly bring bombs and radios into occupied Europe, but couldn\u2019t drive a car. I never got the story completely straight, something about 1942 and a bad car accident with friends hurt. Dad would always try to \u201cteach her\u201d, especially when we were on vacation in rural Canada. And Mom would try, but really didn\u2019t have her heart in the effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So she knew all the cab drivers in Cincinnati, even into the early 2000\u2019s. And if a cab or the bus wasn\u2019t going to work, Maggie would volunteer. We kids sang a \u201ccar\u201d song about Maggie \u2013 set to \u201cYou Can\u2019t Get to Heaven<\/a>\u201d. As an adult now it tells me a lot about what was going on back then.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOH you can\u2019t get to heaven, in Maggie\u2019s car, \u2018cause the gosh darn thing, stops at every bar!!!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Dad moved us all to a Detroit suburb for a year. I remember it as being one of the best. We went to parks or lakes every weekend and spent a lot of time together just having fun. I built a NASA spaceship from refrigerator boxes in the backyard, and got my hair cut like my hero, John Glenn. I didn\u2019t know he was going bald. Much later, I learned it was the toughest financial year Mom and Dad had. But as a kid, I never knew it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then it was back to Cincinnati and WLW \u2013 this time Dad was in Dayton. A couple of years later we moved there, then after six years back to Cincinnati. It was the \u201cfamily business\u201d, we went wherever Dad needed us to go. And everywhere we went, Mom and Dad found new friends. There was always a group of people around the table for Friday or Saturday dinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that was Mom, always drawing people together. There were the \u201cofficial groups\u201d. When we lived in Dayton, it was the Dayton Opera Guild. In Cincinnati, there was \u201cUnquotes\u201d, where members presented papers to each other over a variety of subjects. Sometimes it was a professional subject or their most recent trip. Mom wrote a paper on the Knights of the Templar and the search for the Holy Grail<\/a>. It required research, and on a trip \u201chome\u201d to England Mom investigated castle ruins trying to ferret out where the goblet went.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mom was a founder of the \u201cInternational Group\u201d made up of men and women who came from overseas to work for the big industries in town, particularly Proctor and Gamble. There were too many countries represented to remember, but as a sampling: Tamara from Russia and her husband Carlos from Argentina, Peter from Texas (kind of a foreign country) married to Luce from Belgium, Paul and Elisabeth from the Netherlands, Marguerite from India and her husband Robert. And there was Dick and Lois, both American, but who worked decades overseas for Proctor and Gamble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They became more than just \u201cassociates\u201d in the clubs. They were friends, often gathered around the handmade wooden table that graced all of Mom\u2019s dining rooms (now in my niece\u2019s dining room). The conversations covered every conceivable topic, from politics to travel. Sometimes it got a little tense. One night an engineer for General Electric was describing an exotic airplane. The chardonnay was flowing, and we learned all about what would be called the Stealth Fighter \u2013 years before the government acknowledged its existence. I was waiting for the FBI to break down the doors.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mom and Dad told stories as well. Most of their friends were too young to have fought in World War II; it was their parents\u2019 war. When Mom was released from the Official Secrets Act in 1970, we began to hear her \u201cspy\u201d stories. And both she and Dad would talk about their international adventures, whether they were flying in hot air balloons in LeMans, France; toasting with akvavit in Sweden; or accidently videoing lots of Chinese feet on the Great Wall. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mom and Dad were a team in Dad\u2019s work \u2013 from being part of a \u201ccrowd scene\u201d in a 1950\u2019s production at WLW-T, hosting celebrities at midnight in Dayton, or \u201cchecking out\u201d one of Dad\u2019s potential salesmen. If he couldn\u2019t make it through a Dahlman family dinner, he probably wasn\u2019t up to the task of selling the Phil Donahue Show <\/em>nationwide. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When I asked Mom if she felt she missed something by not having a \u201ccareer\u201d of her own, her answer was pretty simple. She proved herself in the war. She and Dad were a partnership \u2013 and together they made a family, a successful business career and a life. And for sixty-eight years they loved each passionately, literally until death did they part. She didn’t miss a thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mom died almost ten years ago. Dad left us five years after that. I\u2019m not a religious man, but I\u2019m sure they\u2019ve found a way to be together again. There\u2019s a big dinner party on a Friday night \u2013 and a group is still sitting around a table, hours past the main course and even dessert, pouring another glass of wine and telling the stories of their lives. Mom and Dad have some of the best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Partners<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Television<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Mom’s Corps<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Family Business<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Friends<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Table<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Life in Love<\/h3>\n\n\n\n