Mommie, Why Don't I Have a Daddy?
Letters of Faith, Longing, and Survival from a World War II Family
A true family story told through preserved letters, photographs, memories, and Lana's own reflections — not a book of battles, but of one family's effort to remain connected while a father was held on the other side of the world.
“Mommie, why don't I have a daddy, like everyone else?” — “Lana, you do have a daddy. He is a prisoner of the Japanese in Shanghai, China.”
A Family in Their Own Words
The emotional backbone of the book is the real correspondence among the Lane family and their extended family — letters that record not only wartime anxiety but ordinary life: children, health, farming, weather, work, relatives, gardens, and pets. Below are descriptions of letters from the archive. Actual scans and transcriptions will be added as they are prepared.
From the Family Archive
Fran (Francenah) McCroskey Lane
To: Victor D. Lane
Care of the International Red Cross
Family Archive Record
[ACTUAL LETTER EXCERPT TO BE INSERTED — transcription of the May 27, 1942 letter from Fran McCroskey Lane in Little Rock, Arkansas, to Victor D. Lane, care of the International Red Cross, Shanghai, China.]
The actual scan and transcription of this letter will be inserted here.
Historical & Personal Context
Addressed to Victor, formerly of Wake Island and held by Japan at Shanghai, China, care of the International Red Cross. In this letter Fran shares news of Lana and Carol, family health, work, and the family's relief at finally receiving definite information about Victor's whereabouts.
Not About the Battles, But the Family
This is the intimate story of what war did to one ordinary American family — the waiting, the uncertainty, the love, the faith, and the everyday life carried on while a father was held on the other side of the world.
A Father Leaves for Wake Island
Lana is still a baby when her father, Victor D. Lane, leaves his family to work as a civilian construction worker for Morrison-Knudsen on the Naval airbase at Wake Island — before the United States enters World War II.
Wake Island Falls
Japanese forces attack and ultimately capture Wake Island. The civilian workers, including Victor, are taken prisoner and treated by the Japanese as prisoners of war.
Word Finally Comes
After agonizing uncertainty, the family receives confirmation that Victor is alive and being held by the Japanese. Letters begin the difficult journey across the world — addressed care of the International Red Cross.
Waiting and Ordinary Life
Family correspondence records the years of waiting: ordinary home-front life, faith, fear, children growing up, and the family's efforts to remain connected with Victor on the other side of the world.
Liberation and Homecoming
The family learns that Victor has been liberated from Japanese custody and is reported to be in good physical condition. He eventually returns home to a daughter who has essentially grown up without knowing him.
An Archaeologist in Her Own Home
After Victor's death, Lana and her sisters Carol and Billie clear the old family farmhouse in Oklahoma for auction. Sorting through an enormous accumulation of papers, receipts, clippings, and memorabilia, Lana preserves the wartime letters that become the source material for this book.
A Daughter Tells the Story at 88
Now 88, Lana has shaped the letters, family history, photographs, and her own memories into this book — an intimate family story told in the words of the people who lived it.
The Little Girl at the Center of the Story
Lana Anne Lane Thomas is the little girl at the heart of this book — the child who once asked her mother why she didn't have a daddy, and who is now telling the story at age 88.
Circa 1946–1947
“The little girl, smiling after her daddy finally came home.”
Present Day • Age 88
“Nearly eight decades later, she's telling their story herself.”
As a baby, Lana watched her father, Victor D. Lane, leave for civilian construction work on Wake Island. When Wake fell in December 1941, Victor was taken prisoner and held in Shanghai, China. For years Lana knew him only through his photograph and the objects associated with him — aware, in some small way, that a beautiful shell purse had come from her daddy, yet not knowing him “as someone who actually ate and slept and suffered.”
Lana was surrounded by a large and loving extended family and was substantially sheltered from the horrors of the war. Her childhood was not simply one of misery; the emotional tension of the book comes in part from the contrast between an often happy, protected little girl's life and the enormous uncertainty being carried by the adults around her.
Beyond this memoir, Lana is an accomplished textile artist and quilter whose work has been exhibited and toured in museums, and she writes poetry. She is currently developing a second book, Fear Not Joy: Dealing with Depression Through Artistic Expression, which brings together poetry, quilts, photographs, and personal experience.
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