Free Faith of My Fathers by John McCain

served on the
Oklahoma.
At his brother’s urging, he had called on Rowena, and soon became a frequent visitor at the Wright home.
    Eventually, Ensign McAvee developed a crush on my mother. He took her out on several occasions and often invited her to visit the
Oklahoma.
On one of those visits she met my father, who was dressed in his bathrobe when McAvee introduced them. My mother only remembers thinking how young my father looked, and small, with cheeks, she said, like two small apples. My father, however, was infatuated at once.
    Until my parents’ courtship, my mother had, in her words, “never teamed up with any man.” She was, she confesses, immature and unsophisticated, possessing no serious aspirations, but cheerfully open to life’s varied experiences. Her mother frequently complained to her, “If a Japanese gardener crossed the street and asked you to go to Chinatown, you would go.” To which my mother always responded, “Why, sure I would.” When she met my father, she was a beautiful nineteen-year-old student at the University of Southern California. But unlike her twin sister, she had never fallen in love nor shown more than a casual interest in dating.
    As my mother describes it, she would typically go out in large groups where the boys always outnumbered the girls. When a young man asked her for a date, she would reply by inquiring what he had in mind. If he proposed to escort her to the Friday-night dance at the Biltmore Hotel, or the Saturday-afternoon tea dance at the Ambassador Hotel, or the Saturday-evening dance at the Roosevelt Hotel, she consented, believing any other assignation to be a poor use of her time. But even obliging dates were rewarded with nothing more than my mother’s charming company and had to content themselves with membership in her wide circle of frustrated suitors.
    A short time after being introduced to my mother, my father appeared on her doorstep and asked her to accompany him the following Saturday to the Roosevelt Hotel. She agreed, assuming he was acting on behalf of Ensign McAvee. But McAvee would not be among the young naval officers consorting with my mother’s crowd that evening. Instead, my mother found herself having “more fun than I had ever had in my life” with the diminutive, youthful Jack McCain.
    Their romance progressed for over a year, despite my grandmother’s growing anxiety and the aggrieved McAvee’s angry reproaches. When my grandmother finally ordered an end to the relationship and banished my father from the Wright home, my mother prevailed on former suitors to call on her and take her surreptitiously to meet my father.
    Until confronted with maternal opposition, my mother “had never planned on marrying anyone.” By her own admission, she was a willful, rebellious girl. Her attraction to my father was only strengthened by her mother’s disapproval, and when my father proposed marriage she consented. They eloped on a weekend when my grandmother was in San Francisco. Just before they departed for Tijuana, my mother informed her softhearted father of her intention. Despite his misgivings, he did not stand in her way.
    My father had asked one of his shipmates to explain to the executive officer on the
Oklahoma
that he had gone off to get married, but the friend had thought my father was joking. That Saturday, during the ship’s inspection, the captain asked, “Where’s McCain?” My father’s friend responded, “He said he was going to get married or something.” When my father returned to the
Oklahoma
that Sunday, having dropped his new bride at home, he was confined to the ship for ten days with a stern censure from the captain for failing to ask leave to get married.
    The bond between my mother and her parents was a strong one, and my grandparents’ alarm at losing their daughter to the itinerant life of a professional sailor was understandable. It took