During his five weeks in Chicago, at the Hurricane Lounge, Lester met the woman who was to become his next wife. Her name was Mary Berkeley and she was African-American. Little is known about her life before they met, but by all accounts she was a quiet, calm person, the precise opposite of the volatile Mary Dale. They were married towards the end of 1946. Mary was just the kind of companion Lester needed at that stage in his life. His army days were behind him, but a legacy of bitterness and suspicion remained. He found it hard to trust people, especially white people whom he didn’t know well, and tended to avoid socializing if at all possible. He had, of course, always been shy.