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"We'd never be happy together," she said — but they are. Here's the real life romance of Bill Stern and a girl who knew when it was folly to be wise
IF ONLY his mother didn't keep reminding him about Harriette May, Bill Stern thought, this would be a perfect vacation. It was the evening of the Fourth of July, and two whole weeks of leisure stretched ahead of him. The lawn of his uncle's country place fell away to a wooded lake, and on the shore of the lake people were setting off fireworks which bloomed like gigantic flowers in the dusk. He sighed in deep content.
But then his mother remarked, "Harriette will probably drop in this evening," and Bill's sigh stopped in mid-air and became a grunt instead.
Bill Stern didn't have the fame in those days that he has now. He wasn't NBC's crack sports announcer, and he had yet to make
NOVEMBER, 1942
By Adele Whitely Fletcher
vivid the color and excitement of a big football game for millions of listening ears, as he does these fall Saturdays. But Bill had, as they say, been around. Back in New York, he was stage manager at the Radio City Music Hall, and beautiful girls were no novelty to him, since the Music Hall Rockettes are just about the most beautiful girls in the world. When he was on vacation he honestly didn't care whether or not he even saw a girl — or so, at any rate, he said when his mother first brought up the subject of Harriette May.
"She's really a very lovely girl," Mrs. Stern had said defensively, "and I want you to be nice to her
while we're at Charlevoix. Her father and I are cousins. That makes her — let me see — is it your second cousin or your first cousin once removed? I never quite know . . . Anyway, it doesn't matter. Her father brought her up — her mother died when she was born. He's spoiled her a bit, I imagine."
Bill had said suspiciously, "Yes. I imagine. Well — "
"Although I must say," his mother went on, "she was charming the last time I saw her. So well-bred — "
Bill groaned. His mother had asked him to be nice to girls she described as "well-bred" before. And he'd never liked them. "Maybe," he said, "I'd better turn right around and go back to New York and my dear little Rockettes. They're
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