1
The Beginning
Sunday, 20 April 1997
My memory is capricious these days. I suppose it is just a consequence of being eight-years-old, but it is annoying. I can't recall the title of this morning's sermon, while events from decades ago are crystal clear. Heck, I remember the ruffled bodice on the yellow dress that Mama was wearing on my wedding day. Years later, as my sisters and I watched, my first child in his bassinet at my feet, our father buried Mama in that same outfit.
I set my glass of iced tea on our kitchen table and ease myself down into my chair. My hip is reminding me I will pay dearly for so much walking today. I square my yellow legal pad with the table's edge and reach for the teapot that holds our writing instruments. There is an assortment of yellow No. 2s, along with the last remaining promotional ballpoint from my husband's union, good old UAW/CIO 933.
I pause for a second, remembering. The teapot is the only item that has survived our sixty-plus years of marriage. It was originally part of Pop and Mama's wedding gift. We lost a cup and saucer during the FBI move to DC, when all our possessions didn't even completely fill the Oldsmobile's back seat. I dropped the second cup when I heard Lois (my favorite sister, always) was pregnant-what a shock that was! I have no idea where the creamer and sugar bowls went; probably lost in a box misplaced during one of our five moves in Indianapolis. I finally reluctantly relegated the lidless teapot to serve as the house's pencil holder. I sip the glass of tea and take in a long, ragged breath. Mama, Mama, Mama, how different might it all have been?
The thought causes me to sit up straighter in my chrome kitchen chair. No regrets. Not today. So much water has passed under the bridge. I remember our wedding as clearly as if it were yesterday, even though it was the final day of 1935. It was chilly, gray and overcast, with intermittent sleet. Weather rather common to December in Southern Indiana.
I awoke early in order to compose a list.
Tuesday, 31 December 1935
Today:
- Slop the hogs.
- Feed the chickens.
- Take Cecil the pumpkin pie.
- Dust the parlor one final time!
- Write Lizzie a note about why.
- Ask Mama to move the damn rifles.
- Let Rose choose any books she wants.
- Try on my dress. Such small stitches!
THANK MAMA AGAIN! - Pack everything except traveling clothes (does Ruth
have tissue paper?). - Get married!!!
I chuckle to myself. Hell's bells! Marrying in a depression. What are we thinking? Especially today. At least I'll never have to jog anyone's memory. In five years, my husband's not going to come home, look at my disappointed face, snap his fingers, and say, "Whoops, New Year's Eve, now I remember, it's our anniversary!" Given the unusual date and my perceived "rush to the altar," I expect everyone will be counting months as alertly as an owl observing a rustle in the grass. When I don't show pregnant, this date will eventually become part of "our story," like a charcoal sketch of a forgotten great-aunt hung in a dimly lit hallway.
At the moment, the rush and the Depression are two of my lesser worries. My parents remain opposed to our nuptials. If they don't change their minds and throw in a few dollars, my husband-to-be doesn't see how we will be able to stay in college. If they don't come through, we will face more problems than spitting snow. To begin with, no one these days is employing married women. "Save the jobs for the men" has become nearly as ubiquitous a phrase as "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without!"
There won't be many witnesses today, other than my five sisters. Few people are about to travel in this weather. Even a couple of our blood relatives have discovered more pressing engagements, including my husband-to-be's older brother and only sister. Their absence is probably just as well; our parlor isn't that big, even if Pop's oversized desk had been moved to another room, which, despite my pleas, it wasn't.
At the moment, I am upstairs in Mama's bedroom, putting on my wedding dress. She just handed me her precious silver filigreed hand mirror, the one Pop brought back for her from an auction jaunt to Louisville. I glance over at where she is sitting on their high bed, her feet propped on the little upholstered stool she uses to reach the shoulders of her mannequins. I am always taken aback when something like the stool reminds me of how tiny she is. We older girls are already taller than her; I am five inches over five feet, and baby sister Rose will probably shoot up past her soon. Mama even appears a bit fragile, but it may be the rimless glasses she wears, the ones with those small round lenses. The long hours sewing my wedding dress have also taken a toll. There are deep blue shadows beneath her eyes.
I turn again to the long mirror affixed to her armoire. I love the way the dark navy blue of my dress accentuates the deep black of my hair and adds depth to my brown eyes. The rayon weave is crepe Georgette, a material for our new age (and the natural ripples minimize my bottom). Mama jiggered the pattern to include a cute little cloth belt to accentuate my tiny waist. She covered the buttons and belt with fabric and used tape on the hems just as you find on store-bought frocks.
I twirl once for her and smile my genuine thanks, "Oh, Mama, this is perfect!" I turn back to the mirror, running my hands over the material while suppressing a grin. As I suspected she would, Mama has sewn piping into the bodice. My full bosom discomfits her, which I have always found laughable, since her nighttime bareback horse rides, purportedly clad only in a thin white shift, once made her a Knox County legend.
Mama sews all our clothes in the oversized bedroom she shares with Pop, an arrangement that successfully keeps most clutter on our second floor. Lately, she has been spending many long hours here. It is the sixth year of what newspapers are calling "the Great Depression" and even the Wallen family is feeling the pinch. Money has been very tight since Pop lost his car dealership business.
Pushed back against one of their bedroom walls is Mama's Singer sewing machine, along with the low white wicker dresser she uses to store fabric. Alongside the dresser are her two dress forms, one more full-bodied like Lillie, Lois, and me, the other a bit thinner for the other three girls. All my life, Mama has made our going-to-church and first-day-of-school dresses. And ever since Sears opened their very first store (in Evansville at 4th and Sycamore), one or more of us girls often accompany her to help sift through the hundreds of pattern envelopes.
This afternoon, memories like this make me teary. Nothing particularly unusual. I have always cried much too easily. Nevertheless, I know I will truly miss everyone in our eclectic family, especially Mama. She has always been my hero, and her life was never easy. Six unmarried daughters, all still living in the same house! It is Mama's serenity that keeps the Wallen waters calm. She is definitely the only person in Knox County who can temper Pop.
But she has been against my marriage, and while we are down to the final minutes, she is still working to change my mind.
"Dorotha, you are too young and it is a tough world out there... you have your whole life ahead of you... you haven't dated that many men..."
I try to ignore Mama's entreaties twirling back and forth before the mirror, letting her words flow like water off a duck's back, but she will not be dissuaded by my silence.
"I was four years older than you before I got hitched, and that was forty years ago, when everyone married much younger." She pauses while I focus on my image in the mirror. She has just summarized all the objections she and Pop have been laying out for the last month. But it is too late; in less than an hour, my husband-to-be, his parents, and his best man will arrive.
"You are going to be as poor as church mice. You'll be even worse, since church mice at least have someplace to live. You know your father and I have prayed you will wait."
"I do, Mama." And I not-so-secretly resent their pressure. I have four older unmarried sisters. I am still in my teens. I know everyone in our house feels I am full of myself for marrying first. But I am not about to chance losing my man while I wait for some hesitant old maids to get their acts together. I adore my man. I intend to work day and night to make his life-our lives-special.
And worrying about older sisters marrying first is medieval thinking! Even if Pop and Mama can't or won't help, I need to find my own way back to college. My fiancé's folks are funding his fraternity dues along with his tuition, books, and fees. If he drops out of Greek life and we use that fraternity money on the cheap Bloomington apartment I found, we will both be able to stay in school.
Mama is not about to call it quits. "All those years fighting the Ku Klux Klan and this terrible depression has put such stress on your father. I know he wanted to keep you in college..."
But he didn't, even though I had all "As." When I was forced to drop out, I abandoned my man to a bevy of sorority queens who flocked around him like...
