“Every time I saw those letters, just out of the corner of my eye, I kind of had this little nagging feeling that I wanted to do something with them,” said Marilyn Dale, artist of “Between the Lines.”
For 25 years, Naperville artist Marilyn Dale stored over 500 letters that her father, Chester Mackowiak, sent to her mother, Irene Golata, during World War II. Mackowiak was an Army infantryman serving in the Pacific Theater from 1944 to 1945.
The story of Mackowiak and Golata
“While he was there, he started to write letters to my mother, a woman that he had met at a family wedding. In fact, his brother married her sister. They knew each other for six years, probably at family events, but never dated,” said Dale.
Though Mackowiak and Golata were just friends at this time, Dale said her father began professing his love in the early stages of the letter-writing relationship.
Some letters featured lines like, “I sure miss your letters. I miss you very much. I keep thinking of you every day.”
While Golata was initially doubtful of his feelings, Mackowiak confirmed his affection in a letter written in October 1945.
“Typically, the letters that he wrote were a page and a quarter, maybe a page and a half. This letter was, I think, six pages, and it was essentially the proposal,” said Dale.
Mackowiak returned home in November 1945 and married Golata in May 1946. Golata kept the letters in a box at home, and Dale became the caretaker of them when her mother passed away in 1999.
Dale turns her father’s letters into art
Having read the letters twice over the years, Dale initially thought they weren’t as exciting as war-era letters often portrayed in movies.
“When I first started reading the letters, I was kind of bored. I could practically recite to you what they said. It was, ‘My dearest darling, I am fine. Everything is fine here. I hope you are the same,’ and I was like, ‘Wow, is that all there is to say?’” said Dale.
But this year, Dale was inspired to turn her father’s prose into art.
“First thing I did was to scan them all. As I scanned them, I read each and every one, and all of a sudden, I started to see little threads, little tidbits of feelings, just things I’d never noticed before,” said Dale.
In January, she began reimagining the letters as mixed-media art, which includes paintings and collages. Layered throughout the pieces are copies of the letters, photos, and other ephemera from the World War II era. Included among the ephemera are postage stamps, newspaper headlines, magazine pages, and Bible verses.
“Over a period of days, maybe even weeks, everything kind of drifted into three themes. One was longing, wanting a normal life, wanting to be back home, wanting to see the little kids grow up, his nephews and nieces. Then secondly was faith. I was floored by all of the references to praying, saying the rosary, going to mass, and so on and so forth. Then the third one was camaraderie. Just talking about his buddies all the time, talking about wanting to be with them,” said Dale.
Partnering with North Central College on an exhibit
To share her art with the community, Dale partnered with North Central College, which will display around 30 of her pieces at the Schoenherr Art Gallery in the Wentz Fine Arts Center, located at 171 E. Chicago Ave.
“It wasn’t until maybe two months ago that I met Kate Pszotka at North Central College, and I was just interested in how to get a show in the gallery. I had the opportunity to talk with her, and she thought what I was working on was exciting, and they have this tie-in to a war history class that they teach in the fall, and it just all fell into place,” said Dale.
The exhibition, titled “Between the Lines,” opens on Oct. 21 and will run through Dec. 5. Dale will host a meet-the-artist event on Saturday, Nov. 8, from noon to 2 p.m. There will also be a reception open to the public on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Though the collection illustrates her parents’ wartime correspondence, Dale said the emotions woven into the pieces can resonate on a broader scale.
“So many people experience being apart from people that they love, or relying on faith in something to carry them through, and friends. So the themes are pretty universal,” said Dale.
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