Jake took a deep breath. He felt as though he were about to climb onto a roller coaster and strap himself in for the ride. Apparently President Watson and Helen, who served as Mr. Watson’s secretary, had talked the situation out and believed that he could do it.
As Jake thought about it, something clicked inside him. Jake felt a surge of confidence. “All right,” he said. “If you think I can do this, sign me up. I’ll go home and talk to my parents and be back to start college tomorrow.”
Jake drove home from Seattle to Salem in a state of shock. Only three months before he had been so ill in prison that he thought he was going to die. Now, as impossible as it seemed, he had just enrolled in college. The GI Bill would cover the cost of his college tuition and textbooks, and Jake felt confident that God was guiding him forward.
Back home Jake’s mother was delighted when she learned of his new plan, though she made him promise that he would come home often to visit. She explained that she loved to hear his voice around the house and watch him eat and enjoy himself.
The next morning Jake packed up his few belongings and headed back to Seattle Pacific College. When he reached the campus, he discovered that news of his enrollment had traveled fast. All of the other students knew his name and who he was, and many of them came up to shake the hand of a Doolittle Raider and welcome him to the college. This new celebratory status took a little getting used to for Jake. He wanted to blend in and be just another student, but he knew that would not be possible. For one thing, every weekend Jake found himself out talking at Youth for Christ rallies or church services. Sometimes he teamed up at these events with the College Singers from Seattle Pacific College; at other times he went to them alone.
Although other students at Seattle Pacific College were usually asked to deliver sermons at meetings, everyone seemed to want Jake to tell the story of his captivity at the hands of the Japanese. At first Jake stumbled over his words and spoke in a monotone, but the crowds who came to hear him didn’t mind. They took into account the lack of social contact he had suffered during the war. And when he ran out of things to say, Jake would recite many chapters of Scripture from memory. The crowds loved this as well because Jake spoke with such conviction. Yet aware of his need to become a better speaker, Jake enrolled in a speech class at college.
On the USS Hornet, before taking off to bomb Japan, Jimmy Doolittle had promised the men that he would throw a party for them once the mission was over. It had taken a while, but now that the war was over, Doolittle decided it was time for the party. In the fall of 1945, he arranged for the surviving Doolittle Raiders to gather for a party and a reunion at the MacFadden Deauville Hotel in Miami, Florida. Jake, though, was too busy with studying and speaking engagements to attend the reunion.
Interest in the exploits of the Doolittle Raiders was further kept alive in February 1946, when the U.S. government brought a group of former Japanese prison guards and military officials to trial on a number of charges relating to their treatment of the captured Doolittle Raiders. The trial was held in Shanghai, and Chase Neilson returned to China to testify at the trial. Jake was not surprised that Chase was the one called on to testify at the trial. Throughout their time in prison, Chase had been driven by a strong desire to survive in order to be able to tell what happened to the captured Doolittle Raiders during their internment and to see that justice was brought and that those who had mistreated them were brought to trial and made to pay for their actions.
Jake had no doubt that his former tormentors would receive a fair trial—unlike the Japanese trial of the captured Doolittle Raiders. As the trial progressed, Jake found himself thinking about those prison guards on trial who had shown him kindness during his imprisonment. He wrote letters to the tribunal trying the guards in Shanghai and asked for leniency for the men. He explained that they had all been part of a system during the war that they could do little about. He was relieved when he learned that none of those on trial for the treatment of the Doolittle Raiders received the death penalty. Instead, the convicted guards were sentenced to imprisonment with hard labor for periods between five and nine years.
Jake was glad that he had not been asked to go to Shanghai to testify at the trial. His focus was now on getting his degree as quickly as possible. Jake did not have difficulty with his course work at Seattle Pacific College. He made good grades by working hard and spending long hours in the study hall. It was there that he met a junior named Florence Matheny.
Florence, or Flo, as most of the students called her, was a vivacious woman and a dedicated student. Like Jake, she was a few years older than the average student at Seattle Pacific College. She had already graduated with a two-year degree in Iowa and had taught at a small public school during the war years. Then in the summer of 1945, Florence felt that God wanted her in full-time Christian service as a missionary, though she was not sure where. She also felt that God was directing her to attend Seattle Pacific College, and so she enrolled in the school.
The more time Jake spent with Florence, the more he felt relaxed around her, until he finally asked her to go with him to a Youth for Christ rally where he was to be the featured speaker. Flo agreed, and from that time on Jake and Flo were constant companions.
One day Florence told Jake that several weeks before starting at Seattle Pacific she had picked up a newspaper and read an article about the four Doolittle Raiders who had just been released from forty months of incarceration in a Japanese military prison. She also read how one of these men had become a Christian while in jail and how he wanted to return to Japan as a missionary after he had attended a Christian college. She had mused to herself as she read the article what a coincidence it would be if the man chose to attend Seattle Pacific College and she got to shake hands with him. Jake and Florence laughed together over the incident. Not only had Flo gotten to shake the man’s hand—now she was dating him.
In May 1946, just before the end of the school year, Jake and Florence were secretly engaged. Soon afterward, Flo told a few close friends of the engagement but asked them not to tell anyone. The plan worked well until the end-of-the-year college outing, which included a ferry trip up to Victoria, British Columbia, and a picnic in the seaside park there. Jake’s mother and niece came along for the trip, though his mother had no idea that he and Florence were a couple.
As the ferry pulled away from the dock and headed for Victoria, Jake’s mother offered him some motherly advice. “Jakie, why don’t you date that Florence gal? I think you two would be good together.”
Jake looked downcast at the suggestion and said, “Why, Mom, she’s really popular. She wouldn’t have anything to do with me.”
“Oh yes she would,” his mother replied, poking him in the chest as she spoke. “You just don’t think enough of yourself. You just have to march up to her and ask her out!”
Jake nodded. “I might try that if you think it would work,” he said, trying to hold back a smile.
An hour later, as they sailed into Victoria Harbor, the ferryboat’s Klaxon sounded and a voice came over the speaker system. “Hello, we have a special announcement to make on this spring trip,” said a female voice, which Jake recognized immediately as Flo’s roommate’s voice. “We would all like to congratulate Jake DeShazer and Florence Matheny on their engagement.”
A loud cheer went up from everyone on board. Jake’s mother turned to him in mock indignation. “Jakie, you knew this all the time and you didn’t tell me!”
Jake chuckled.
Three months later, on August 29, 1946, Jake and Florence were married in a United Methodist church in Gresham, Oregon. Florence’s former pastor performed the ceremony. It was a small wedding. There were still a lot of shortages following the war, and Jake could not buy a white shirt for the event. Instead he had to borrow one from his stepfather and wore it with the same brown suit that he often wore to speaking engagements. Flo wore a white dress and carried a big bunch of yellow roses.
The wedding reception of cake and punch was supposed to have been held outside, but when it started to rain, one of the church women offered her house as an alternative, and the wedding party walked there from the church.
Following the wedding, Jake and Flo drove back to Toddville, Iowa, Florence’s hometown, where they received a warm welcome from Flo’s parents and sisters and brother. As they drove along, Jake and Flo made plans for their future. Flo had a call to be a missionary, but she had not known where the Lord was calling her. Now she knew for sure that her place was beside Jake in Japan. It was an exciting prospect for them both.
At the end of World War II, American General Douglas MacArthur had been appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Japan. Now MacArthur was calling for churches in the United States to send as many missionaries to Japan as possible. The country had a religious vacuum, and MacArthur believed that Christian missionaries were necessary to fill that void by bringing hope to the people, along with a new set of values necessary for the new emerging Japanese society. As a result, Jake was eager to get to Japan as soon as possible. He and Flo discussed how he could complete the summer study program and graduate in two years instead of the three years of study he had left.
Classes at Seattle Pacific soon started up again for the new academic year. This time Jake and Flo shared a small duplex on the edge of campus. They were a happy couple, working together for a common goal. As Jake continued to be a sought-after speaker at churches and youth rallies, Flo would accompany him to his engagements and tell the audience a little about her own call to the mission field.
By the end of March 1947, the couple received some good news. Flo was expecting a baby in the fall. Jake was going to be a father! Flo took time off from college to have the baby, but they worked out a study plan so that she and Jake could graduate together in the summer of 1948.
Paul Edward DeShazer was born on October 31, 1947. He was a big, round baby, with the same dimple on his chin as his mother. At nearly thirty-five years of age, Jake was a proud father. He marveled that he had such a wonderful wife, and now he was a real family man as well.
Jake and Florence were members of the Free Methodist denomination. Normally the Free Methodists required two years of “home service” before new graduates could leave for a foreign mission field. However, the denomination made an exception in the case of the DeShazers. Everyone agreed that the sooner Jake and Florence got to work in Japan, the better it would be.
For the DeShazer family the rest of the year passed in a whirl of study and making concrete plans to live in Japan. They read all they could on postwar conditions in Japan. Things sounded bleak there, and they were warned that they would not be able to find a proper house to live in. They would also have to take with them everything they needed for four years of missionary service.
The United States was still experiencing postwar shortages of its own, and it became quite a feat for Jake and Flo to gather everything the family would need to live in a foreign country for any length of time. Florence and Jake wrote and rewrote lists of household goods that they would need: blankets, sheets, towels, plates, and pots; personal items such as clothing, shoes, and toiletries; and other items such as furniture, hot plates, an oven, boxes of canned foods, milk powder, and other staples. Many of their friends and family members donated items on the list. Soon the DeShazers’ living room had been transformed into a packing station as crates and barrels of belongings were sealed and labeled, ready for the trip to Japan.
