The topic of this week’s Lives of Loveliness, romance, made me want to write about one of the great romances I ever witnessed, the romance between my grandparents!
My Grandpa, Calvin was originally from upper Michigan. He got a job doing some welding in Springfield, Illinois in the early 1920s. That doesn’t sound like such a big deal now, but considering there was not a very good national highway system, and automobiles and other transportation weren’t very reliable, (or comfortable) it was a very big deal! He really was a long way from home.
While working on this job, a friend set him up on a blind date with my Grandmother, Helen. For Calvin, it was love at first site. He was absolutely smitten. My Grandmother? not so much. My Grandmother was a second generation Lithuanian- American. Her parents, literally, came off the a boat from Europe and settled in Springfield. Her father was a coal miner and her mother was a seamstress. Helen was very popular. There are numerous pictures of her playing tennis, or as a part of various clubs and organizations. She had a lot of suiters.
One of my Grandma’s boyfriends had asked her to marry him. His name was Tony. I even have an engagement picture of the two of them. He gave her a ring and they were set to be married. The deal breaker for my Grandma was that he wanted to go back to Lithuania. He was going to go ahead and send for her, but she just never went. She liked it in the United States very much. But from that experience Helen seemed very empowered. She knew she was cute, attractive and popular and she wasn’t in a hurry to jump into another engagement.
But Calvin fell for her hard on that blind date. He started coming by her house all of the time to see her. It seemed to me that she started to think of him as somewhat of a pest! So one evening, she invited him to drive her car and take her to choir practice. He was thrilled. He drove her down to the church and then as a gentleman, he got out of his side and went over to open the door for her. Helen jumped in the driver’s side and took off, stranding him in downtown Springfield by himself.
Calvin’s job in Springfield was finally over and he made the uncomfortable and long trip back to Michigan, but he did not give up on Helen. He wrote her letters several times a week. He was devoted, but she never answered him back or tried to encourage him in any way. Eventually, Calvin got the hint and he wrote her one last letter to tell her how he felt, and that he would not be writing her again. Something he said, touched that part of Helen’s heart that he had been trying to reach. Apparently the only thing worse than getting a letter from Calvin, was not getting any more letters at all.
So she wrote him back and asked him to come back to Springfield for one more visit. I’m unclear on the exact circumstances but somehow by the time Calvin received this letter he had suffered a broken leg that was starting to slowly mend. Nonetheless, he endured the long bumpy car ride over the treacherous country roads back to Sprinfield. I think seeing the condition he arrived in also touched my Grandma’s heart and sparked her affection for him.
This time they courted and she really did treat him like a suitor. That spring, on Easter Sunday, they were married. It was a mixed marriage. She was Catholic and he was a Protestant. I suppose that is why the ceremony was in the bride’s home instead of a church.
They had much to overcome because of the religion issue from both sides of the family. Both families came for visits to encourage a complete conversion either to the Catholic church or away from the Catholic church. For 17 years or so, my grandmother left her Catholic faith and attended church with my grandfather, although she still took some teasing about her Catholic background from her sisters and brothers-in-law.
A year after their marriage they had their first baby, my mother, Maryrose. I can tell from the photos of that little family that the first year had been very hard on Helen. Her perfectly primped hair was too long to hold is curl and she looked heavier and tired in those pictures. Motherhood was a big adjustment for her. I imagine being a new wife in a different city during the depression was also hard. I know Calvin worked several jobs and was so tired he even lost one job for falling asleep! I know that they were homeless for a short time when their house in town burned down, although they were lucky to get out without any injuries, although the back of the baby’s head had been scorched!
Helen became pregnant again, but her second delivery was very difficult. I’m still not clear on what happened excactly other than everyone agrees the doctor was somewhat inept. My uncle, Cal Jr. was born with a facial nerve injury that left his face and vocal cord partially paralyzed for the rest of his life. He was a sickly baby that needed a lot of care and attention. A doctor told them that he would do much better if they got out of the city and lived in the country, so for the sake of their child that is what they did.
Calvin and Helen lived on a number of farms before they finally bought one of their own. My grandma, the popular city girl, learned how to be a farmer’s wife. She learned to work a field driving a team of work horses, she canned food, and took care of the farm books. She became the helpmate she needed to be. Calvin loved her, worked the farm in the evenings and weekends, and worked as a welder and an auto worker during the day.
Eventually the religion issue came up again. My grandmother missed her Catholic faith and decided to go back to attending mass. Her children decided they wanted to try it out too. Soon the children were taking instructions from the priest and converted to Catholicism. For a while my grandpa would drive them to mass and then go on to church service by himself. A few times he forgot to come back and pick them up and they had to walk home, which I’m sure didn’t go over very well with Helen! But Calvin started to hear the enthusiasm from his family about their Catholic faith and he went to talk to the priest himself. Within a short time, he too started his conversion process into the Catholic Church.
Although their lives continued to be difficult as far as the day-to-day struggles of running a household, farm and raising two teenagers, their unity now at church brought a richness to their marriage. Calvin was a typical convert – he jumped in with gusto!! They were active in the choir, with the fish fry, with fund raising for the new church. Calvin even became an usher for the 7:30 Sunday mass and did that pretty much until he died. They worked hard to send my mother to St. Mary’s College, growing crops specifically earmarked for her tuition payments! When she married and moved away, I know my grandma was sad about losing her daughter, but they settled into their lives again, which of course included their disabled son.
A few years later, in their 50s, they welcomed their pregnant daughter back with her 15 month old toddler – me!! The six of us then lived together for the next 18 years. My grandparents never ever made us feel unwelcomed, or as if we had interrupted their private lives. I always felt at home there and loved. As a squirmy little girl, I remember once in a while sleeping between my grandparents when I had a bad dream or couldn’t get to sleep. They cared for me and my sister while my mother worked as a school teacher. And as we got older my Grandfather helped to get us to all of the activities we enthusiastically became involved with, without complaining. They endured more than their share of three-hour dance recitals! Grandma sewed our clothes and cooked nutritious meals.
Living with them gave me a unique opportunity to see a marriage of love first hand. They fought and shouted sometimes, but they always made up. My Grandma’s sharp tongue never made my Grandfather love her any less. They would comfort and support each other when they suffered the loss of a loved one. They would tease each other. A couple of times I even caught Grandma sitting on Grandpa’s lap and they would laugh about it. Everyday she packed his huge lunch box full of sandwhiches, fruit and a big thermos of coffee. It was her daily labor of love.
Helen had the most health issues in later years. She had a stroke that left her partially paralyzed and other health issues, but Calvin supported her and encouraged her. Every Saturday they got groceries together and then stopped for lunch on the way home. If my sister and I were lucky, we got to go along. Every Sundy, they went to 7:30 a.m. mass and then my Grandpa fixed bacon and eggs for breakfast when we got home.
When my Grandma finally died, my Grandpa was devastated. It seemed that in death he forgot all about any of her faults. He just remembered how good she was and how much he missed her. Sometimes his amnesia to her other faults amazed us; yet there was something very tender about the sweet way he remembered her.
When my Grandpa died a few years later, I found a picture of them in his wallet. He didn’t carry a posed picture of them by a professional photographer, or even a little picture from their wedding. Instead he carred around a picture of them together, probably in their early 50s, he in his overalls and her in a simple housedress, the farmer and his wife. It was how they best fit. It was who they really were.
They were married for 53 years or so. Their romance had a rocky start and much to overcome, but their love and devotion kept them moving forward together. It was the daily things they did for each other that imaged for me what true romance is.
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