Treasured war time memories of an ‘Irish bride’
May Stone and her US Navy husband Robert Le Roy Adams. "Images courtesy of the US National Archives and Records and the Beech Hill Association"
Maureen Allen, who works at Lisnagelvin Leisure Centre, has fond memories of the stories she was told of her aunt Mary (May) Stone, formerly of Bentley Street in the Waterside.
May had met Robert Leroy Adams, from Jackson County in Oregon, USA, when he was stationed in Derry during WWII and a photograph Maureen has shows him posing outside Quonset Hut No. 139 at Springtown Camp.
May and Robert were married in All Saints Clooney on April 3, 1942, and they had two children - Ethel Stewart and Richard Alvin.
May and her two children had emigrated from Derry in January 1945 and arrived in the USA on board the Queen Mary and settled in Ashland, Jackson County, near her husband’s relatives.
It was not until the end of the war that May was reunited with her husband, Robert, who by that time had achieved the rank of Chief Petty Officer.

Tragically, May died young in 1957 but Maureen treasures her mother’s stories of Auntie May and her US Navy husband, memories kept alive by photographs, press cuttings and a silver US Navy badge.
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Weather for Derry
Wednesday 22 May 2013
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 6 C to 13 C
Wind Speed: 23 mph
Wind direction: West
Tomorrow
Light showers
Temperature: 6 C to 9 C
Wind Speed: 28 mph
Wind direction: North
