106-year-old nurse saved bullet that hit her veteran husband. 84 years later, it’s helping her heal
Many couples have mementos that are an important part of their love story. For a 106-year-old woman, it was a bullet that had been lodged in her husband's heart. The man, Dean Darrow, was shot during the attack at Pearl Harbor during World War II in December 1941. He was admitted to the hospital with a bullet in his heart. His future wife, Alice Beck Darrow, was working as a nurse at the same hospital at that time. They met each other, fell in love and got married. Alice kept the bullet as a memento of their love. She finally donated it to a museum this year, after holding onto it for over 80 years, per PEOPLE.
Dean was a World War II veteran and was receiving treatment for the bullet inside his heart at Mare Island Naval Hospital. Alice was working as a Navy nurse there and he asked her to go out with him. The couple got married a year later. Their love flourished for years before Dean died in 1991. For all those years, the woman held onto the bullet as a symbol of their love and then as a memory of her late husband. "It became a little part of Dean and I cherished what the bullet represented: Love. It was now time to let others hear of this love story," Alice expressed.
She donated the bullet to the Pearl Harbor National Museum. "Twenty-eight years ago, someone from the Museum at Pearl Harbor contacted me, asking if I would like to donate the bullet. I was not ready to part with the bullet at that time. In recent years, we had decided the Museum at Pearl Harbor would be the place for the bullet, not in a drawer," Alice remarked. She handed over the bullet to an employee from the museum in person. The woman was sailing with Holland America Line's Westerdam with her daughter and son-in-law when she made the donation. The ship had stopped at Honolulu overnight, allowing the family to deliver the bullet.
The woman also attends the local chapter of Pearl Harbor Survivors' Meetings each year as a Pearl Harbor Survivor's wife. "The men would share their war stories and I would always end it with my love story. I would conclude by saying Dean always said, 'The best thing he got out of the Navy was his nurse.' I would then say, 'When the bullet was removed, I was able to fill that hole with my love.'" She added, "How could he not fall in love with his nurse taking care of him? He had been at sea for the past four months with only a boatload of men."
The couple was in love the first time they saw each other. Dean had also asked Alice for a date even before he underwent surgery. Alice remembered Dean as a person who was always generous and kind to her. "He would always remember my birthday with a gift or Valentine's Day with candy. He was very generous." She also shared some advice for couples, according to her experience. "Do things together and travel. Don't fret over the small things that occur in every marriage, like an argument. Say you're sorry, if you really are and put it behind you. Tell each other, 'I love you,' at least once a day."