ReTRo HouSeWiFe

1940 LOVE STORY

So I suppose if this remains anonymous, I won't be offending my grandparents' memory. Grandma always made sure I wouldn't tell Grandpa that she had told me this story.

They were married in mid-1940, so it's almost a 1930's love story!

My grandparents were getting to the age where they were thinking it might be about time to get serious about marriage. Grandpa was 30 and Grandma was 27. They were introduced through some college friends of my grandpa's, and had been seeing each other for a while, which was a pretty big deal because Grandma was Baptist and Grandpa was Catholic. Back then, this was a major issue. Their parents were also concerned because he was a farm boy and she was a city girl.

Also, funny enough, when Grandma was later confessing her disappointment about not going to college to me, she said, "I told my dad I wanted to go to college, but he didn't want to pay for it. He said, 'Why send a girl to college? She's just going there to find a husband.' And I thought, 'Well, WHAT BETTER PLACE to send your daughter to find a husband than COLLEGE??'" For the time...sound logic. I shared in my Grandma's disappointment that she didn't get to further her education (she was extremely smart!), but for very different reasons!

Anyhow, Grandpa started to get pretty serious. He said he'd like to take her to the jewelry store to "look at some rings." They sat at the counter, and the jeweler took out tray after tray of rings for her to peruse. She didn't choose any. In the car headed home, Grandpa asked, "Don't you see anything you like?" She replied, "No, they look too much like engagement rings." Ouch...Grandpa was shot down by a tacit proposal. (In retelling the story, at this point she would sigh and say, "Can you IMAGINE?? I said THAT?? That's TERRIBLE!") [Although I have to say, my other grandpa didn't do much better. He sent my grandma a ring by mail while deployed stateside across the country during WWII, and when he returned home, asked, "So are you going to marry me or what??" How romantic.]

Anyway, Grandpa was pretty upset that he'd been so roundly rejected, so they decided to take some space from one another. They went on with their lives for a couple of months, he working as a business clerk and she a legal secretary. One day, on a particularly rainy afternoon, Grandma was walking home from work. Grandpa pulled up in his car and offered her a ride. She thought about it, and accepted. Thankfully for all us resulting offspring...they talked it through and decided they'd rather be together than apart. They bought a 3-story house in the suburbs for around $4,000 and lived there sixty years. They volunteered in the neighborhood and at church, drove the neighbor kids to school, housed their kids' college friend, and helped raise a gaggle of very grateful grandchildren.

After they could no longer care for themselves, they accepted the painful reality that it was time for the nursing home. It was another two years before Grandpa passed away. Grandma lived a further five years, and she kept saying she was ready to go at any time. She really missed Grandpa, and was tired and lonely. Though it was a relief when things were over for her and we were in our hearts thrilled she could be reunited with Gramps, we miss them both greatly. They were the center of our family and a pair of really outstanding human beings.

The other amazing element to this story is Grandma's parallels to her brother -- they were fraternal twins born prematurely in the "teens" decade (weighed around 3 pounds each at birth!!)...and both survived. Grandma credited the late summer heat. Grandma and her brother were married within a year of each other, lost their sixty-plus year spouses within a year of each other, and died within a year of each other. Sometimes life is just a crazy miracle. :)