In season five, Mary Ellen marries Dr. Curtis Willard (Curt), the town's new physician, and breaks off a prior engagement to medical intern David Spencer that she had rushed in to. In season six, they welcome a son, John Curtis Willard. In season seven, Mary Ellen receives a telegram notifying her that Curt has been killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, but in season nine, considered an absurd series plot twist low point, she learns he is still alive, using an assumed name. When she journeys to find him, she discovers that he has changed a lot,(including his face) including being unable to engage in sexual relations on account of his injuries, and realizes that trying to continue their relationship is pointless because the war has traumatized him to the point of losing nearly all of his compassion and his desires. Mary Ellen finally lets go of Curt upon seeing he no longer wants to be a doctor or a husband, but keeps him as a friend who still shows affection towards their baby. She divorces him and finds a new beau, Jonesy, whom she met during the time she believed Curt had been killed and whom she had nearly married beforehand. Although this engagement is threatened once, she ends up marrying him in the second reunion movie, Mother's Day on Walton's Mountain. During their honeymoon, she has an accident and is told she cannot have more children, but by the fourth reunion movie, she has had two more, Clay and Katie, by Jonesy (who does not appear). In the "Walton Thanksgiving Reunion," set in 1963, Mary Ellen is called a "war widow," indicating that the divorce-shy have adopted an honorific white lie on her behalf.
