Weddingbee Blog

A little romance for your Friday…

In August 1944, during the throes of World War II, Major Claude Hensinger, a B-29 pilot, and his crew, were returning from a bombing raid over Yowata, Japan. Their plane’s engine caught fire and they were forced to bail out. It was night and Major Hensinger landed on some rocks, suffering minor injuries.

During the night, he used his parachute as both a pillow and a blanket, and he survived to return home. Once there, he presented this same parachute to a woman named Ruth as a gift of proposal: when she accepted, he suggested she make a gown out of it for their wedding.

Ruth wondered how to make such a “voluminous item” into a dress until she saw a gown in a store window based on a costume from Gone With The Wind. She patterned her dress after it, making the skirt herself by pulling up the parachute strings so it would be shorter in front and have a train in back.

The couple were married in 1947; their daughter and their son’s bride both wore the dress as brides, as well. It now resides in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

(Courtesy of Smithsonian National Museum of American History — see here.)