A chance for love

by Marian Elizabeth Smith

In mid-February 1944 Marian Elizabeth Smith, a young Wisconsin woman, met Marine Corp Lieutenant Eugene T. Petersen on the famous passenger train, El Capitan, as it made its 42-hour run from Los Angeles to Chicago. After a brief acquaintance, he left the United States to join the third Marine Division on Guam and eventually to take part in the battle for Iwo Jima in February and March of 1945. The collected letters of their 18-month correspondence reveals much about wartime life at home and abroad and represent a time capsule of current events. After hundreds of letters the "chance for love" Marian had suggested early in their correspondence evolved into a marriage that has endured for more than half a century.