Passing Through
by Peter John Bailey

THE STORY: The time is 1944, the place Catesville, Kansas.

Restless and bored with small-town life, Sarah Carson, an attractive widow of thirty-seven, contemplates selling her late husband’s dry goods store and pursuing her dream of becoming a novelist.

The local minister and the boy who works in the store both make romantic overtures to the lonely Sarah, but she is not moved—until she meets Walter Dobbins, a young soldier of twenty who is passing through Catesville and who confides to Sarah that he plans to become an actor after the war.

Despite the difference in their ages, Walter and Sarah know immediately that they are kindred spirits, and love grows quickly and spontaneously.

After meeting for a weekend in New York, before Walter goes overseas, they correspond regularly until Walter is wounded and sent home to Texas to recuperate.

Mustering her courage, Sarah visits Walter at his family’s drab home—and suddenly the difference in their ages becomes, at least for her, an obstacle too great to overcome.

But, in the tender and moving final moments of the play, this too gives way to the power of a love that will not be denied.