The flowers weren’t really forget-me-nots, but she was right in assuming he couldn’t forget her

Eileen and Jon Rueckert

Eileen was back home in the Shetland Islands for a few weeks before starting higher education in England, and there was a Yank in her parents’ Scalloway kitchen.

Jon Rueckert, a US Naval Academy midshipman on a North Sea cruise in the summer of 1961, was writing an essay on the Shetland Bus – the resistance that local fishermen had waged against the Nazis two decades earlier. Jon was there to speak to Eileen’s father, Jack Moore, who repaired the boats that surreptitiously took weapons, supplies and spies to Norway, brought refugees back to the islands and were badly beaten in combat or by the North Sea.

Jon ate all meals with the Moors and also spent his free time with them. It always made him happy to see the elegant and charming Eileen. “I liked everything about her,” he said.

Eileen loved Jon, but romance was not on her radar. “I was pretty excited to go to Nottingham University in England. I was drawn to him, but I had so much to look forward to. I didn’t shed tears when I had to leave.

Jon continued his research on Shetland buses in Norway, where his mother was born. He sent gifts of appreciation to all of the Moors. Eileen received a brooch with blue flowers – forget-me-not chosen by Jon to convey a sweet message, she thought.

His thank you note kicked off a four-year exchange of letters. They wrote about what was going on in the world, particularly in Southeast Asia, where Jon was based at the time. They also began to share details of their lives.

“I was busy with the Navy, but getting to know them through our correspondence was exactly what I needed,” Jon said.

“I really enjoyed what I was learning about this guy,” said Eileen. “He was very gentlemanly and very kind. “

Sailors on leave were allowed to take all available seats on Navy planes, and after several months of writing Jon flew to England to visit Eileen. By the time he returned to his ship, they were a couple.

In 1962, Jon received the Allan F. Westcott Award for the best research paper in naval history. “He got two awards because he came to the Shetlands,” said Eileen. “A $ 250 bond, and me.”

Jon made two more leave visits, the last in 1964. He flew to Edinburgh, Scotland, where Eileen was a social worker, but asked the two to take a boat to the Shetlands.

Jon left Eileen in the living room to speak briefly to her parents in the kitchen. “I have your parents’ permission to ask,” he said on his return. “Would you marry me?”

The couple planned to get married in August 1965, but the papers Eileen had to fill out for Jon to marry a citizen of another country got lost in a typhoon. Two weeks before the date, Eileen and her mom called everyone to reschedule. Finally, on October 25, the couple, their families and 75 guests met in Aberdeen, Scotland. Jon and Eileen got married in the Chapel of King’s College, where she had graduated from undergraduate studies.

They were living in Brandywine, Maryland, when Jon, originally from Baltimore, was stationed in Washington. Eileen returned to Scotland and England for the year Jon was called to serve in Saigon and on riverboats during the Vietnam War. She flew from England to New York, then to California and Hawaii to spend Christmas with her husband. This glorious week in Hawaii felt more like a honeymoon than their boat trip to the fjords after the wedding, which made Eileen incredibly seasick.

They were based in London when their daughter, Jackie, was born in 1969, and in Spain, when their son, Glenn, arrived in 1971. They returned to Maryland, then to Virginia and California. Finally, in 1979, Jon was assigned to the aviation supply office in Philadelphia, and the family moved to Lansdale, where Jon, who is now 83, and Eileen, now 81, still live.

After retiring from the Navy in 1983, Jon worked for RCA and GE until his factory closed. During this time, he obtained an MBA from Monmouth University. He went on to earn a Masters in Science Education from Drexel University and taught chemistry at West Philadelphia High School until his retirement in 2005.

Eileen, who had stopped working after her marriage to Jon, became a teaching assistant for the North Penn School District. She retired after 18 years.

Jon spent a lot of time in his retirement at the chapel of the four chaplains in Philadelphia. In 2008, he received the group’s Legion of Honor award.

He kept the promise made to Eileen on their engagement that they would be sure that she would visit the Shetlands regularly. Outside of the COVID-19 response, Eileen has been there every year, sometimes with Jon, and often with their children, who have a close relationship with their families there.

In recent years, Jon has not been able to take any plane trips.

In 2009, the couple were helping friends prepare for their son’s wedding when Jon suffered a heart attack. Her heart stopped beating.

“We are very lucky to still have it,” said Eileen. There have been lasting impacts on his body, which is why he cannot fly, and also on his brain.

“My memory has been diminished, but it fills in the blanks for me,” Jon said.

Jon’s memories of the distant past are often very clear. Because her short-term memory is less reliable, Eileen manages her medications and medical appointments. She does all the driving. Because he is weaker than before, she takes care of their house, even though she has hired someone to mow the lawn.

Sometimes it’s hard not to be able to do more and see Eileen doing so much, Jon said. But, he notes, she has always done so much. When he was on a Navy ship, she had to look after their children and take care of housekeeping solo. She once had to pack and sell a house on her own, then take the kids to Spain to meet him when his ship arrived.

“She’s so resourceful. She never gives up and there were many times we had to be really determined to do the next thing we had to do, ”he said. “It’s great to have a wife like Eileen.”

Eileen loves Jon’s kindness. “He’s very kind, caring and very sincere,” she said, noting that Jon had taken her hand and squeezed it tight.

“If you love someone, taking care of them is not an ordeal, even if there are difficult times,” she said.

And there is so much joy, like grandsons Andrew and Bradley. They and their parents – the couple’s son and wife, Laura, travel from Anchorage to Lansdale every summer.

Eileen and Jon looked back on their postponed marriage 56 years ago this month when her goddaughter, Claire’s wedding was postponed due to COVID. The postponed event took place last July, and her daughter Jackie came from Chicago to stay with Jon so Eileen could attend. Then Jackie drove her mom and dad to Chicago to visit her and her husband, Jim. After so much time locked away separately in 2020, everyone even enjoyed the two 12-hour car rides together.

When Eileen and all the governments involved agree that the COVID-19 situation does not put her at risk, she will travel to her homeland again. Their daughter will stay with Jon here, and there Eileen will stay with her brother, Bill, who now shares the story of the Shetland Bus as administrator of the Scalloway Museum.

It was decades after their marriage began when Jon told Eileen that the blue flowers on the brooch he sent her from Norway weren’t actually forget-me-nots, but bluebells. He still feels grateful and lucky, he said, that his botanical error led to the rightly assumption that he wanted her to remember him because he would never forget her.