Sue Jennison was in the Cadet Nurse Corps during World WWII. She had dreamed of being a nurse since she was in junior high. Although she never actually served in the war, she says she would have been ready to if need be. She went to nursing school through a five-year program at Johns Hopkins where she went to Hood College in Maryland and Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. Sue has many fond memories of her time spent at Johns Hopkins, including two specific ones: one in which she recalls pushing Joe Demaggio down the corridors in a wheelchair, and the second in which she had the pleasure of working with the first two people, a male, Dr. Blaylock and a female, Dr. Tausig, to perform operations on infants which back then where referred to as, “blue babies”. These were babies who had heart imperfections. Because these two doctors developed on operation to correct their hearts, children came from all over the world to get their hearts “fixed”.

This is a story about two people joined together in love during a time of war. It all began with a connection, the connection that eventually would bring these two people together in marriage.

Love and War

Sue Jennison had wanted to be a nurse ever since she was in junior high. When Sue grew up, she actually did become a nurse, the occupation she had wished for throughout her entire childhood. This is something not many people can say happens to them. Most people dream of being a veterinarian and grow up to be a lawyer or dream of being an astronaut and instead become a fireman. Not Sue though, she wanted to be a nurse enough to follow her dream.

Sue was a junior in high school when World War II began. When she graduated from high school in 1943, she figured out a way to fulfill her dream and help her country at the same time, a combination which only rarely goes hand in hand. She decided to join a government run program at Johns Hopkins University in which she could be a ROTC nurse. During the time she spent at Johns Hopkins she made many friends, some of whom she still keeps in touch with to this day.

One of her friends was a girl named Jackie Dole. Jackie had a friend, Whitney Jennison, from when she had lived in Maine, whom she thought Sue would like. In the simplest terms, she wanted to set them up on a blind date. Sue and Whitney both agreed to meet.

She wasn’t at all nervous. They met for their first date, and Sue says that it was just like love at first sight. Whitney and Sue did all sorts of things such as going to dances on Saturday evenings and sailing and going to church together on Sunday mornings. Sue and Whitney talked about what each of them did. Sue told him that she was a Cadet Nurse in Baltimore, and Whitney told her that he was in the Naval Academy in Annapolis. She also discovered that he had been going to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) before getting drafted into the war.

Sue and Whitney continued to see each other and wrote letters to each other every day. Sue worked six days a week, eight or more hours a day, night, or evening shift. She would get her hours scheduled so that if she was working night duty, she would work all Friday night, take a train to Annapolis to visit Whitney. She would arrive at 12:00 in the afternoon on Saturday, go dancing all night, and stay at a boarding house for girls who had come to visit. The next day she would leave at 12:00 in the afternoon and take the train back up to Baltimore. She would travel all day and then work all night and do the same thing again when Friday rolled around. It was chaotic, but she said, “You do those things when you’re in love!”

Sue and Whitney dated for two and a half years before they got married on June 10, 1949, in Illinois. After they were married, the Korean war started; so they were in different places again traveling all over the place. They spent one year in Honolulu where Whitney was with the Marines on an island. He served on a submarine and a destroyer.

So you see, for this happy couple, who to this day are still married, all is fair in love and war!