An Easter Story, Part Two

This Easter Sunday Leta was joining herdaughter Vivian’s family for a family dinner at her grandson Don’s. While Vivian generally prepared such meals, this time her granddaughter-in-law Patricia had the honor, and she was so excited that she was ready early. Her youngest grandchild Linda, just 21, had picked her up from her senior residence and was walking her through the parking lot on a warm and sunny spring afternoon. Leta had not been paying attention to where they were headed, and she nearly tripped over her surprise at the sight of the Model A Ford right in front of them.

“Oh my word!” she gasped, releasing her steadying grip on her granddaughter’s arm. She took a few steps to inspect the vehicle. It looked almost exactly like the one her husband Ralph purchased shortly after they married. Then, as now, she couldn’t believe it but for very different reasons. When Ralph made his purchase, they were young, renting a small house and caring for a toddler. They couldn’t afford such an extravagance. When he drove it up that afternoon, she could have strangled him. As neither was particularly frivolous, Leta worried that something had happened.

“Not at all,” he answered with a big. “I just decided it was time to give up the horse and buggy once and for all, and move into the modern era.”

Linda was smiling just as broadly. “Do you like it?” she asked. “It’s a—“

“—Model A,” Leta interrupted, “I know.”

“It’s been used, of course,” Linda and Ralph both said in almost exactly the same tone, or at least to Leta, who heard both nearly fifty years apart.

“That’s why I could afford it,” Ralph added.

“It even has some contemporary parts,” Linda continued. “But it still drives slowly. That’s why I was late. I didn’t know it would take so long to get here.”

“It’s beautiful,” Leta said, “and it takes me back.”

“I wondered if it would,” Linda smiled.

“But we better get going,” Leta said after her stomach grumbled. “I’m getting hungry, and I’m sure everything’s ready by now. We mustn’t keep everyone waiting.”

Linda opened the passenger door and helped her grandmother get into the car. While they were both very excited and pleased, they both equally understood that riding in such a vehicle would be difficult for the elderly woman. This ride would be a special occasion.

Once Leta was seated, Linda also boarded and started the engine. It came to life with a little pop, and Leta immediately remembered hearing a similar, but muffled sound in the residence lobby. Then the engine started to chug, and off they went.

It was a glorious afternoon—warm, sunny, fresh—just like a spring Easter holiday should be. Although they were a bit behind schedule, Linda did decide to drive them through the park. It wasn’t out of their way, really, but a more ambling drive to their destination. Leta remembered previous drives in the first Model A, when she and Ralph were happy and laughing. How their baby Vivian (now mother to Linda) would giggle unceasingly as they bumped along unpaved roads and cry, “Do it again, please. Do it again, papa.”

Truthfully, the ride was still bumpy, even with the modern pavement. They could feel every little bump, but Leta felt like a young woman again, in spite of the slight discomfort.

The new Model A that Ralph brought home resulted in their conceiving Vivian’s brother Dale, and for him alone, it was worth it. They were coming home from a New Year’s dinner at Ralph’s parents, and he was in a particularly good mood. It was chilly, the roads were a little slick from the lightly flowing snow, and she cuddled against him for warmth. Every bump threw them into each other, and with their hearts full of cheer, drew them closer together. They even became a bit amorous in the motor car itself. After all, Vivian was sound asleep and wouldn’t notice.

But that was years ago for Leta, several lifetimes. Now, she was an old woman with six great-grandchildren, three of whom would jump up and down with glee when they arrived for this Easter dinner, as they had not yet seen their aunt’s new car. The food, of course, was wonderful. Patricia was an excellent cook. They feasted on Ham, au gratin potatoes and mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans canned from the garden, deviled eggs, Waldorf salad, macaroni salad warm rolls, candied sweet potatoes and pie. Sure enough, there was cherry pie, made from the cherries off Pat’s own tree, kept frozen until needed.

After eating, they took turns riding in the car. The younger grandchildren thrilled riding in the rumble seat. In fact, they were more excited about the car than they were their own double Easter baskets loaded with goodies. (One from the Easter bunny at home and another from the Easter bunny at their doting grandmother’s.) Although she offered to help with the dishes, Patricia would not hear of it, allowing her to sit on the front porch on this perfectly pleasant day and simply enjoy her existence.

As her daughter Vivian and son-in-law Ed drove her back to the home later that evening in their far more comfortable Oldsmobile, all she could think was that sometimes it takes a person an entire life-time before they realized how blessed they are. She was fortunate; she had known for decades.

An Easter Story, Part One

Leta had been waiting for ten minutes, fifteen minutes, actually, if one counted the extra five minutes she gave herself just in case.

“Just in case,” she said aloud and chortled a little. This was something her daughter always said. “I’m making an extra pie, just in case.” “We’ll get a 15 pound ham, Mom, just in case.” “I gave him an extra couple of dollars, just in case.”

She understood the reasoning. After all, they had both lived through the Great Depression when “just in case” was beyond the capability of so many, and even themselves sometimes. However, “just in case” was also how they helped each other out; when they could, they had extra or they were early to provide support or they stuck around, as they said, “just in case.”

Her granddaughter Linda, only 21, was picking her up for a family Easter dinner—her daughter Vivian’s family, to be more specific. Already that day, Leta had attended early Mass at the Home, taken her breakfast with the other residents, then done herself up for the holiday gathering. “Leta’s going out,” the hairdresser noted to a colleague when she went to the salon on the previous afternoon. “Let’s make sure she catches the eye of every man she meets.”

Leta laughed. The only men she would be seeing were her son-in-law, two grandsons and two great-grandsons, but still, she liked to look nice. While many of their family gatherings were held at Vivian and Ed’s, with Vivian taking on the primary cooking chores, this time her grandson Don and granddaughter-in-law Patricia were hosting, with her granddaughter-in-law cooking the annual feast. She loved a good country ham and wondered how large it would be. A big one, she was sure. Pat was also a “just in case” sort of person.

She was dressed in a nice blue dress with some crepe to enhance the sleeves, wore her best costume jewelry. By this stage in life and owing to the general lack of security in the senior residence where she lived, she had already given away her fine jewelry and other valuables. Still her costume jewelry looked nearly authentic. While she always wore lipstick, for this occasion, she even put on a little rouge and, of course, some perfume.

The sun was reaching into the lobby of the residence through the large doorway, and at any moment, Herbert would come trolling up on his walker, as he did every day after lunch, to enjoy the warmth of the sun in the lobby. Herbert was a character: he would make several lecherous comments, raise his overgrown eyebrows and smack his lips lasciviously, sit down on one of the soft chairs and then promptly fall asleep. He was basically harmless, but inappropriate. Once he had snuck up behind her and tapped her on her behind. She turned instinctively and slapped him, which knocked him off balance. It took three orderlies to help pick him up and he had a bruise on his check for a month. Fortunately, most of the elderly folks in the center were lacking in short-term memory and forgot the incident. Even Herbert. Still, she avoided him after that. A second incident might not turn out as well for either of them. She wanted to be gone before he occupied the lobby.

Linda was not usually late, and Leta was trying not to get anxious. She was also getting hungry. The rest of the residents had already eaten, and the smell of ham, mashed potatoes and corn wafted in the air, setting her stomach to growl.

She thought she heard a muffled bang from outside, but then probably misunderstood. After all, the front doors and the building were basically soundproof. She pushed the thought out of her mind and wondered what kind of pie they would be having. She would really enjoy a piece of Patricia’s cherry pie.

Just then she heard the sound of the doors and turned her head. There was her granddaughter Linda, her bright smile and glistening eyes, highlighting her smooth clear skin.

“Happy Easter, Grandma!” she said cheerfully. “I see you’re all ready.”

The younger woman offered the older her arm, which was taken. While Leta could sit down and get up on her own, it wasn’t always easy. Her body creaked a bit and it was more work than she liked to do. A helpful arm always helped ease the stress of the transition.

After she stood, she made a quick check around.

“What is it?” Linda asked.

“My pocketbook,” Leta answered.

“On your arm, Grandma.”

Leta looked. “Yes, of course,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure nothing fell out.”

Linda looked around for her. “N’kay, looks like you have everything.”

As they headed out the door, Linda began to compliment her. “You’re looking very pretty today, New Hairdo?”

“Yesterday,” Leta answered. “New dress, too. Your mother brought it for me, and it fit perfectly. We both were afraid she’d have to take it in, but it fit perfectly.”

“And you’re even wearing make up,” Linda added. “Then you won’t be underdressed.”

“Underdressed?” Lea inquired. “For what?”

To Be Continued. 

The first divorce

Although she was married at least eight times, and divorced from five of her husbands, I suspect that the first divorce was the most traumatic and integral to how my great-grandmother would pursue the rest of her life. It is also rather significant, not just because it was her first marriage, but also because the marriage produced her and her husband’s only two children—my grandmother and great-uncle.

Divorce in 1922 could not have been easy, particularly for a woman. While national suffrage had been achieved in 1920, in time for the election, there were still powerful forces at play that considered women’s first and only duty was to support her husband and raise his children. In the home, she was still subservient.

According to the Sandusky County Ohio Chancery Court records, divorce actions were removed from the jurisdiction of the Ohio Supreme Court in 1844, giving that responsibility to county chancery courts. At that time, “Ohio law provided that divorce petitions could be filed for the following causes: adultery, bigamy, impotence, extreme cruelty, and imprisonment for violations of Ohio criminal laws and /or other state and territorial laws equivalent to Ohio’s.” Further, “in 1840, under Ohio law, gross neglect of duty, fraudulent contract, and habitual drunkenness for a period of three years were added as legal grounds for divorce. It was necessary for plaintiffs to prove to the court that the allegations contained in their petitions were true.”

On June 23, 1922, via her attorney, Telma R. Smith, Leta Chetister filed a petition in the Court of Common Please of Lucas County, Ohio, to divorce her husband Ralph Chetister. My great-grandparents had been married nine years and separated on February 15. Indeed, the document reflects different addresses for my great-grandparents.

The cause of the separation and petition for the divorce was “extreme cruelty.” Leta cited several incidents of extremely hostile encounters in which her husband called her “vile and indecent names, unfit to be set forth herein, charged plaintiff [Leta] with unchastity, when defendant [Ralph] knew, or had ample opportunity to know that plaintiff was chaste, putting plaintiff at great fear and causing plaintiff great mental and physical suffering and anguish.”

The three-page document, which I obtained from the archives of the Court, lists several instances that paint a rough picture of my great-grandfather, including he had a violent temper, mistreated her lady friends by “insulting and ungentlemanly conduct,” “consorting and keeping company with women other than his wife,” and “had been guilty of neglect of duty.”

Three witnesses to the relationship were called. There is no indication that Ralph opposed the petition, and the divorce was granted on November 8, 1922. No details of custody, alimony and property distribution are listed. However, Leta agreed to pay $1,870.65 in court costs and fees.

At this time, however, Leta did not stay divorced for long. After all, she had two children to raise and support. In fact, it is quite likely she had been seeing her second husband long before November 8, although no evidence so far that she knew him before she filed for divorce in July. She married this man, Albert Mohr, on November 29, three weeks later.

Women's Suffrage and the Nineteenth Amendment

My great-grandmother Leta was born into the Women’s Suffrage movement. By 1894, the year of her birth, American heroes Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott were, whether they knew it or not, close to achieving their goal.

These women began their cry for voting equality shortly before the Civil War, and upon its conclusion had sufficient opportunity to increase their visibility and viability in response to the proposed Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which gave black men the right to vote. That Amendment passed and was ratified in 1869, although women were still excluded.

According to Wikipedia, voting rights for women in the U.S.A. began in the colonies when a woman named Lydia Taft was granted this right by the town meeting of Uxbridge, Massachusetts in 1756 upon the death of her husband and eldest son. Actually, New Jersey was the first state to allow women property owners to vote in 1790, but that right was rescinded in 1807.

It wasn’t until June 1848, when Mr. Gerrit Smith made woman suffrage a plank in the Liberty Party platform that the movement truly commenced. That July, at the Seneca Falls Convention in New York, activists including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott began the seventy-year struggle by women to secure the right to vote. Notable events include an 1850 National Women’s Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts organized by Lucy Stone. Reading Stone’s speech ignited Susan B. Anthony, who joined in 1852 and would be historically considered the primary figure of the push for equality in voting. A conflict over the Fifteenth Constitutional Amendment (which gave men only the right to vote regardless of their race) arose as some of the women followed a male Republican leader and Frederick Douglass to support it while Anthony and Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) to oppose it, since it didn’t include women, unfairly earning the moniker of “racists” in the process.

“In 1890, however (over twenty years later),” Wikipedia reports, “the two groups united to form one national organization known as the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).” Not incidentally, the right to vote was part of a broader movement for women, who in the United States could not own property or keep their own wages, or in some cases, file for divorce.

 “A significant portion of the opposition to women's suffrage in late 19th-century American circles arose from the fear—which was not without justification—that women would use their vote to enact prohibition of alcoholic beverages,” notes Wikipedia. (I wonder a little if the Temperance Movement didn’t, at least, temporarily shanghai the movement for equal voting rights for women a bit. Both movements did progress concurrently in the early 20^th century. The Amendment for Prohibition was ratified on January 16, 1919.)

Women simultaneously pursued their right to vote both nationally and at the state level with several successes, including Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Washington and California. In fact, “Clara Elizabeth Chan Lee (October 21, 1886 – October 5, 1993) was the first Chinese American woman voter in the United States. She registered to vote on November 8, 1911 in California.”

According to Wikipedia, “World War I provided the final push for women's suffrage in America. After President Woodrow Wilson announced that World War I was a war for democracy, women were up in arms. Members of the NWP held up banners saying that the United States was not a democracy. Women in the audience of his public speeches began to ask the question, ‘Mr. President, if you sincerely desire to forward the interests of all the people, why do you oppose the national enfranchisement of women?’ On January 1918 the President acceded to the women who had been protesting at his public speeches and made a pro-suffrage speech.”

While, Anthony and Cady Stanton drafted a Constitutional Amendment and first introduced it in 1878, it wasn’t until January 12, 1915 that a suffrage bill was brought before the House of Representatives but was defeated by a vote of 204 to 174. Another bill was brought before the House on January 10, 1918. This time, President Wilson made a strong and widely published appeal to pass the bill, and it was passed by two-thirds of the House, with only one vote to spare, but fell two votes short of passage in the Senate. On February 10, 1919, it was again voted upon, and then it was lost by only one vote.

In a special session of Congress called by President Wilson on May 21, 1919, the Amendment finally passed with 42 votes more than necessary. On June 4, 1919, it passed in the Senate with 56 ayes and 25 nays. Within a few days, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan ratified the amendment, their legislatures being then in session. Other states followed suit at a regular pace, until the amendment had been ratified by 35 of the necessary 36 state legislatures by March 1920. However, it wasn’t until August 18, 1920, when Tennessee narrowly ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, making it law throughout the country.

The Amendment states: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

Leta's Birthday

First, today is my great-grandmother Leta's birthday. She would have been 117 years old. I think it rather fitting that after some search (and confusion), I found my initial notes from the conversation with my grandfather Ed (her son-in-law) that inspired this project. This conversation occurred after her death in 1985. The notes are dated February 14, 1991. Interestingly, I first became curious about Leta’s marriages and romantic life on Valentine’s Day.

In any case, I wrote down several things he told me and other things I remembered. This is a sampling of my childhood memories.

The duplex apartment, where she lived on the second floor from my earliest memory until1972, had a living room/dining room that was one long room – from the front of the house to the back. The dining room table was typical for the period—Formica and chrome with matching chairs covered in plastic (or vinyl) cushions. She did not have a kitchen table. White was the color of the décor: walls, draperies, furniture and kitchen. (It was not a child-friendly house, and I have a vague sense that the living room furniture was covered in plastic, even though it wasn’t. While we never saw the downstairs neighbors, they were relatives—a niece, I guessed. In the back yard, which we could access via “escape” stairs, were a fruit tree and grape vines.

One time, I remember we picked grapes, which my mother made into jelly. We tasted them, but they were sour and had seeds.

Grandma Leta was trim, poised, her hair flawless (and white), and she always wore a dress with apron. (Her daughter Vivian wore the same combination.)

While we never ate there, I do remember Grandma keeping candy in her apron pocket—hard candy, such as peppermints, sometimes butterscotch buttons (my personal favorites), anise squares (which I hated), root beer barrels, strawberry bon bons, cinnamon buttons, but most of the time these Pepto-Bismol pink thick wafer things (like extra thick Necco wafers) that were supposed to be minty.

She had false teeth. So did her daughter Vivian. As children, when my siblings and I stayed with our grandparents Vivian and Ed, we did get to see our grandmother’s false teeth. She soaked them in a glass on the bathroom counter. They only had one full bathroom in their three-bedroom house. However, I never saw my great-grandmother’s false teeth—well, outside of her mouth.

Grandma Leta always had a pet bird or two—parakeets. Some could talk, or we (my siblings and I) thought they could. We spent a lot of time talking to the bird, begging for her to let it fly around, arranging and rearranging the jingling balls and ramps and mirrors which were its toys. The animal was the only toy we were allowed to play with at her house. None of them liked to play with us, however.

When not playing, we would sit politely. She would talk to us. She liked having us there. She just didn’t it when we were rambunctious.

Robert Fields

Sometime in the early 1930s, Leta met and married Robert Fields, her sixth (or fifth) husband. This perhaps is Leta’s second longest marriage, lasting over ten years. In fact, I suspect that this was a time of great stability for her. While I do not know the date of their marriage, it followed a period of romantic dalliances and sexual escapades that included three short marriages, one of which was shorter than a month. (It is possible that this month-marriage occurred after the marriage to Robert Fields, but verifiable information is elusive.)

Leta and Robert lived in the Point Place district of Toledo, on the northeast side of the city, very close to where the Maumee River empties into Lake Erie. According to Google Maps, the house is still standing.

Robert Fields was born in Butte, Montana on November 14, 1893, making him 2-1/2 years older than Leta. They were in their early forties when they married, his first and only marriage. While the detail is not specific, he settled in Toledo after World War I. He served with the Engineer Corps and the Army of Occupation for several years. In Toledo, he got a job at Spicer Manufacturing Company. Originally, based in New Jersey, the automotive parts company with the financial backing of investor Charles Dana, relocated to Toledo, Ohio in 1928. It is possible that Robert returned from the Great War to New Jersey first, and moved with the company. Once in Toledo, he met my great-grandmother (for they were married in the 1930s. Shortly after Robert’s death in 1946, Spicer became Dana Corporation (which still exists).

Incidentally, Robert secured employment at Spicer/Dana for his stepson Dale, who would retire from the company many years later. Further, when my parents married, Dale secured employment at Dana for my father. (My father didn’t stay; in 1963, he became a police officer in our hometown and stayed there until he retired.)

In 1942, Robert registered for the draft; he was 48 years old. Earlier, in September 1940, with War already raging in Europe, Asia and the South Pacific, the U.S. instituted national conscription for men between the ages of 21 and 45. This was the first peacetime draft in U.S. history and established the Selective Service System. Service was set for one year, and increased to 18 months in 1942. Later legislation expanded the age requirement to men from 18 to 65, with those aged 18 to 45 being immediately liable for induction. Service commitments for inductees were set at the length of the war plus six months. At this time, U.S. participation in World War II was increasing quickly. (The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and the U.S. subsequently entered into the War as an Ally by declaring war on Japan on December 8. Both Germany and Italy subsequently declare war on the U.S. on December 11.) Robert was never called, but his stepson Dale served, and his stepson-in-law/my grandfather, while not drafted, did serve by developing and installing radio communications for the air force.

During the time my grandfather served in World War II, my grandmother and father lived with Leta and Robert. Born in 1939, my father was a small child during the War, but he still holds a specific memory of going to a local bar every Friday night. While his grandparents and mother had a few beers, “I got all the root beer I could drink,” he said. There was also an experience while my grandfather was stateside in Pennsylvania. My grandmother and father visited him, but as my dad had chicken pox at the time, they were all somewhat quarantined in their hotel room. In retrospect, this was most likely not the wisest of decisions, but my grandparents were young, missed each other terribly and with the war raging wanted to spend some time together.

Robert Fields died of a heart attack on June 14, 1946, right before he and Leta were to take a vacation. At the time, he was a foreman at Dana and union leader. The information is conflicting as to whether he died at home or at work.

Don gets engaged, Part Two

Leta's grandson Don had just told her that he was engaged, and he was excited about it. In spite of his parents’ plan that he finish college and get a good job first, and her own hope that he would fully sow his wild oats before pursuing a rest of life-time romance, he had gone and asked his lovely girlfriend Patricia to marry him.

And they wanted to get married soon, he added pointedly. Leta deduced that it was going to be a rocky several months. But his telling her before he told his parents wasn’t all, and his purpose wasn’t to have her side with him for the inevitable conflict with her daughter and son-in-law.

“I wonder if you’ll loan me some money,” he asked.

She could tell he was anxious about asking her. Money was one of those forbidden topics in their family, much like sex or sharing hurt feelings. They had all lived through the Great Depression intact by whatever means they could, and now they lived as if there was a kind of shame in not having enough. When money was alluded to, it was only in the most casual way and even then in coded language after reading and interpreting several signals and hints. “Let me buy dinner.” Or “Here’s a couple of dollars for gas.” Or “I’ve been baking, and I brought you something.” Or most tellingly, “I bought two of these by accident and thought you could use one.” Certainly, they all talked about their bills and how they would never keep up. And all of these put together gave an indication of a person’s financial needs at any given time.

To ask plainly for money was a bold move, and she was interested in knowing more. She added milk to his glass and watched him intently.

“I told you that I asked Pat to marry me yesterday, and I gave her a ring,” he started, “ but the trouble is—it wasn’t a real ring.”

“What on earth do you mean?” she inquired.

“It was ring,” he clarified, “but it was a fake. I got it at Woolworth’s, and it’s all I could afford. But I really want to get her a nice ring, Grandma, with at least a diamond. She deserves it.”

He had stopped eating by this time, leaving half a cookie on his plate, and looked at her imploringly.

“So I’m wondering if you could loan me enough money to get a real one at a jewelry store.”

Leta had not seen him that sincere in a long time, not since he hit his arrogant teens and had his life further transformed by the births of his younger siblings. One of the reasons he stopped in so regularly, she believed, was to be in an environment, if only for a little while, where he was the only one. In his own home, he had to contend with an eight-year-old brother and six-year-old sister. The family he knew and felt comfortable in had been altered, leaving him more as an outsider than the beloved only child he had experienced for the first thirteen years of his life.

“I tell you what,” she said matter-of-factly, “I can loan you the money, but you have to promise to pay me back. You’ll do that, won’t you?”

His face brightened, and for a moment, she wondered if he only heard the first part.

“Thank you, thank you!” he gushed. “Of course I’ll pay you back. I’ll be getting a job and everything. You know, Uncle Dale’s getting me a job where he works at Dana, so I can.”

“That’s good,” she said, still using her business tone, but secretly smiling on the inside.

“And I have another favor,” he said. “Would you go with me to pick it out?”

Of course, she agreed, and they set a shopping date.

While they perused the options, she convinced him that the best purchase would be a combination of an engagement/wedding ring set for Patricia and a matching wedding ring for him. Initially, he balked at having a wedding ring, for, of course, his father refused to wear one. But Leta was resolute. She would only loan him the money for the entire package. She firmly believed her grandson needed to think more deeply about his own role in the marriage, that his wife was not there as an instrument or tool for him, but his partner. Wearing a ring would remind him to keep his heart and attention where it belonged.

And the marriage did take place. It was a lovely ceremony and large event. A bit too large for Leta’s taste but her son-in-law was quite prominent in the community, and that required a bit of ostentation. The groom was handsome and thrilled. The bride looked terrified, but beautiful. Sometimes, she noted, life was simply good.

Don gets engaged, Part One

During her grandson Don's early college years before she met and married Richard, Leta was a secretary for the New York Life Insurance company and rented a house relatively near to the university he attended. As her only teenage grandson, Don was responsible for coming by once a week to mow her small lawn, or during the winter months, shovel her snow as needed. She would serve him cookies and tea, overpay him five dollars for the effort and visit with him.

Don had been dating a young woman named Pat on and off for nearly four years—all through high school, quite a long time in Leta’s estimation, but as she noted, her grandson was easily distracted. Late in the summer, as they were chatting, Don asked a favor of her.

“Grandma,” he said with excitement and pride in his voice, “last night I asked Pat to marry me.”

She was flabbergasted. While she had met and liked the pleasant young woman, who was actually more grounded than her grandson and therefore a good influence on him, she knew that his parents had more immediate plans for him. They wanted him to finish college and get a good job first.

“I know it’s kind of a surprise,” he continued, “but I love her. She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met, and I just know she’s meant to be mine. Even when I was with other girls, I couldn’t help thinking about her.”

“What did she say?” Leta asked.

“She was surprised, like she didn’t expect it,” he answered with some confusion. “But she said yes, and we want to get married soon.”

“Have you told your parents?” Leta inquired.

“Not yet, but I will.”

“You need to,” Leta said.

“But I need your help,” Don continued.

“To tell them?”

“No, not that. I already know they’re not going to be happy about it, but it’s my life, right?”

She smiled and barely nodded. As a parent, she knew about letting children find their own way in life; it just wasn’t always easy and frequently accompanied by arguments, slammed doors and hurt feelings.

“I wonder if you’ll loan me some money,” he asked.

To be continued.