When the Blitz broke out, Joy was a sixteen-year-old girl from Bexleyheath, Kent. The death of her father, William, in 1941 changed everything. She became the breadwinner for her mother, Renee, and her two younger brothers, Anthony and Geoffrey. Joy slept under a Morrison cage shelter and faced the daily terror of air raids as she made her way to London to work as a typist. The chaos and danger of the war were overwhelming, but for Joy, there was an escape—wartime dancehalls.
“I used to go to the Embassy Ballroom in Bexley,” Joy shared with me. “It was a popular spot for the GIs, and that drew a lot of girls.”
It was there, in September 1944, that Joy met Carl Beebe, a 24-year-old bespectacled GI from the US Army Intelligence. Carl worked as a code breaker at Hall Place in Bexley, part of Bletchley Park. Unlike the other GIs, Carl didn’t boast about New York or make grand claims. “He wasn’t full of swagger,” Joy told me. “He was polite, kind, and thoughtful.”
Carl was different. He would bring Joy flowers and even treats for her mother, like peanut butter, a luxury they’d never tasted before. His thoughtfulness won over Joy and her mother, and within three months, Carl proposed.
On April 28, 1945, Joy and Carl were married in Welling, Kent. The church they wed in had a roof blown off by bombs, but despite the war-torn setting, Joy looked radiant in a white silk dress her brother had managed to source on the black market. Snow fell during the ceremony, and rain dripped from the hole in the roof, but when they stepped outside, the sun broke through the clouds.
“It was the best life I had ever known,” Joy recalled. Just ten days after they exchanged vows, Victory in Europe was declared, but Carl’s work wasn’t finished. He was reassigned to Germany to decode Japanese messages before the final victory in August 1945.
The young couple’s journey wasn’t easy. They had a son, Philip, and it wasn’t until February 1948 that they set sail for America. The fifteen-day trip across the Atlantic on the SS Marine Falcon was treacherous. “It was so hard to leave my mum, and the journey was frightening,” Joy said. “To add to the drama, the ship cracked just before we reached Ellis Island, and we had to hold out at sea for a while.”
But despite these hardships, Joy and Carl quickly built a life in Oregon. They had four children—Philip, Jennifer, Barbara, and Vivian. Carl worked as a decorator and built their home, while Joy became a restaurateur. They spent fifty-one years of happy marriage before Carl passed away in 1995 at the age of 75.
“I miss him, but surviving the war has taught me I have no choice but to get on with things,” Joy said. “You can’t ever give up.”
Joy, like so many GI brides, was a pioneer—bold, brave, and full of love. I was privileged to interview her before she passed away last year at the age of 97. Surrounded by her five generations of family—children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren—her life story is a testament to the resilience, love, and courage that defined her. What a life she lived.
