Quincy, MA - William “Will” and Mildred “Mil” Cox tell the story in tandem – how they fell in love under the Miami moon during World War II – as if it happened just yesterday. In a way, it did. These are not moments that are forgotten.
They had met when they were 15 in South Boston, where all the kids hung out at the octagon-shaped building on Carson Beach called The Picklejar. When the war broke out, they were seniors in high school. Will joined the Navy. Mil, whose father served in World War I, became a Marine Corps stenographer. She was one of the first female Marines.
In 1945, her Marine Corps major gave her permission to travel to Miami to see “my friend from Boston.” The major arranged for an admiral’s wife to put her up and to take the couple to a USO show.
Knowing love was in the air, the admiral’s wife met Mil at the airport driving a red convertible, top down, with a red rose in her teeth. At the USO show, the young couple, dressed in white uniforms, sat in the front row with “all the brass,” Mil recalls. “All the sailors were yelling at boatswain’s mate ‘Coxie’: Where did he get the Marine, and they they wanted one, too.”
They got engaged on that visit.
“I think it was the uniform that got him,” Mil says. No wonder her note paper still says, "Once a Marine, always a Marine."
The Coxes sent me a letter recently, the old-fashioned kind. As I read it, I thought of that saying “Don’t buy green bananas.” It’s a humorous reference to aging. The idea is that once you reach a certain age, you shouldn’t buy anything you have to wait for – you shouldn’t plan too far ahead – because you never know how much time you have left.
The Coxes are clearly having none of it. They feel a party coming on and are planning it with military precision.
“Dear Sue, I am enclosing a ‘Save the Date’ that we plan to send out in November that is self-explanatory. I am the retired head clerk of Veterans Services for Quincy. I am retired 23 years. We will be married 67 years on Jan. 14, 2014, and we have lived in Quincy since 1956.
“Will’s birthday is Oct. 11, 2013 (this Friday). Mine is 3/27/2014. The ‘Save the Date’ will be mailed out around Veterans Day. We have taken the up-to-date photo for the invitations which will be sent out Jan. 25, 2014 (our 67th wedding anniversary).”
The card reads: “Save the Date to celebrate the 90th birthdays of Will and Mil Cox, April 27, 2014, Inn at Bay Pointe, 12 to 4 p.m.” It includes a photo of the Coxes in uniform during the war. They were engaged on April 25, 1945.
They went on to have eight children, 17 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, and three more great-grandchildren are on the way. (And the Coxes proudly claim three Patriot Ledger carriers in the family). Their oldest son is 66; the youngest is 46.
Will worked for the U.S. Post Office, retiring as foreman of mails at the South Postal Annex in Boston. Mil stayed home with their children and then worked for the Quincy Public Schools, where she was president of the secretaries. In her 60s, she became clerk in the Quincy veterans services office, retiring in 1990.
Turning 90, Will says, “really is hard to believe. We just love it. We’re having such a good time.”
Sounds like a great party ahead.
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