MEO 💗 JLH, 60 years

Sixty years ago on September 3rd, my parents got married. 

Last night (it was last night when I started writing this on September 4th) I went through some boxes of my mother's keepsakes for the first time in awhile, wanting to marvel again at her souvenirs of their  engagement and wedding. My mother, for all of the deep connection I felt to her, nonetheless remained mostly an enigma my entire life with her. If she ever shared those mementos with us while she was alive, I have no recollection of it. We got to see her wedding gown, which was created from her mother's dress. And her engagement photo and announcement were framed on her dresser. And their wedding album has been a source of endless fascination and joy to me my entire life. But my mother did, in fact, keep everything connected to that time in her life, including the letters she sent my father during the ten months they lived in different states before they wed. And we children, to my knowledge, never saw any of it before she died. I suppose I am just grateful she saved them at all, and we finally did get to discover and treasure them these last 20 years.

As I held her memories, I again pondered her secrecy with them. Although can I really say it was secrecy? Maybe it was not intentional at all. Perhaps it was the casualty of the exhaustion of keeping a home for a family of eleven. Perhaps she never opened those boxes herself in the 40 years of marriage she had before she died. Perhaps when she had moments for nostalgic sojourns, she preferred a different conduit, like her mother's piano in the family room where she could play her memories rather than look at them. Somehow I think it was more than that. But, as with many many (too many) things, I'll never know.

I didn't dwell on that question for long this time, however. Though my intention began with perhaps discovering some new insight into my mother, what pulled my attention instead was the ephemera itself, as a snapshot of a middle class life at the dawn of the new decade, in Louisville, Kentucky, USA, as seen through the time capsule of my mother's life from her engagement through her honeymoon. It was 1960, on the cusp of the "Happy Days" Fifties and the upheaval of the decade to come. Only twenty years had passed when I entered my tweens in 1981, but from my perspective it might just as well have been a century. Did 1940 seem as distant from 1960 to her as 1960 felt from 1980 for me? Do some generations just change more quickly? It seems likely. As the experience of the children of today, pre- and post-pandemic, is likely to epitomize. 

And so we begin our peek into 1960.

We start with the planning. Having never married, I am not aware of the range of topics the current wedding guides cover. But I'd have to guess it's both less and more than the one my mother had. (Whether or not she followed it, which I do not know). 

Who wouldn't want to visit Ms. Bea in "a pleasantly private nook of the Second Floor"? Note that the nook is "of," not "on," the second floor. Which suggests to me that somehow the nook is not fixed. Or maybe there are several "nooks" and Ms. Bea has a special one of her own? I like to picture my mother in such a nook, effervescently excited.

"Solemnity, beauty, and grace"; the goals for how one's nuptials would be remembered. I would wager that "solemnity" is the last quality that brides for at least the past generation, and probably longer, have connected to their weddings. But I'm less able to guess how long it's been since social customs required a woman to learn the difference between her "formal" and "informal" married name. And, while my spinster, liberated sensibility cannot imagine myself as Mrs. My-Husband's-Full-Name, my mother joyfully embraced that title.  

The guide goes on to provide a schedule of tasks to accomplish as the months then weeks then days count down, and one very practical area of focus is the preparation of the soon-to-be newlyweds' home, such as making sure to schedule the utilities to be on when the couple returned from their honeymoon trip to their new address. These endeavors were, it seems, primarily left to the woman, since the man, naturally, was busy working his 9-5 job. But, preparing the home as the woman's job aside, I would not have expected in the middle of the 20th century in the USA, to see that my mother was expected to arrive with a trousseau. To my ears that word is adjacent to 'dowry,' and equally antiquated (though I know that countries across the globe still, in fact, observe the custom even now). But, practically speaking, I suppose every modern wedding registry is essentially a very-well curated trousseau. So no sense my getting hung up on a word.

My mother had at least two bridal showers. She kept a record of them in this college blue book (I have a few of my blue books from undergrad; some things haven't changed), which she labeled with the charming romantic whimsy that she never lost and which we children cherished as much as I hope my father did (oh, yes, she romanced us children).

When my parents met, my mother was employed as a secretary by U of L but in some capacity attached to the military (so maybe ROTC?) and in one of her letters to my father she wrote about telling her boss, a Captain, about their engagement, and in another she writes of her last day at her job, not long before their wedding. So she came by that blue book honestly. And filled every page with the gifts received and from whom, in her meticulously gorgeous script.

And she kept every card that accompanied her gifts. As I looked at them again I was reminded that all progress is not progress. These are exquisite little works of art, in 2"x3" form. So vibrant. So colorful. So worth keeping for the images alone. Beautiful greeting cards still exist, but does anyone still go down to the 5 and dime store to get one to attach to a shower gift?

Here is a selection - my favorites - almost all with a "shower" theme:

Likewise with their wedding cards. For six decades they have sat unprotected in a cardboard box and yet they retain their rich hues and sparkle, perhaps because they weren't damaged by exposure to light and the oils found on human skin (maybe THAT'S why she kept them from us?). I doubt they were all chosen with particular care - but each one has unique loveliness. Or maybe not. I'm no artist. But it seems modern cards focus far more on words than image. But these images require no words.

And then there is this remarkable artifact of the most immediate means of communication available pre-computer and cell phones. A congratulatory telegram, sent directly to the reception hall, from friends of the groom's family, in his hometown of Queens Village, NYC.

 

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And here we are almost three months after I started writing these thoughts. It is now 11/21, my mother's birthday. She would have been 84 years old today. 

It's no surprise I left this unfinished. At this point I have about half as many blog posts in various stages of creation as I have that I've published. Writing is a discipline, like anything else. If it were an assignment, it would be done. But for my own enjoyment, I usually do not push myself if the thoughts and words are muddled. I'm not sure how they'll be tonight. But it's mama rabbit's birthday and it's worth the effort.

...

And so they were married...

I could look at the photograph probably forever without my joy at their joy being diminished by even the slightest degree.

As so many of their fellow newlyweds in the 50s and 60s also did, my parents honeymooned in Niagara Falls. But instead of traveling by train, as was evidently common and part of the Falls' draw, they drove, by way of Notre Dame, Indiana, my father's alma mater, where they paid $36 for 3 nights lodging (and $1.60 on one long distance call), at the Morris Inn, which remains "on the campus" to this day.

And somewhere along the way they enjoyed a meal at the Fantabulous Pizzaburg, and I am certain the modern Sonic and even Ohio's celebrated carhop Swenson's don't come even close to the ambience this advertising coaster proclaims. One has to imagine there weren't many "Pizans" (from Pisa or any other Italian heritage) any place near wherever this culinary mashup was located.

If the brand new Mr. and Mrs. John L Hechmer took any photographs along the way to or of their destination, those my mother did not keep. But I can easily see them strolling hand in hand along the promenade overlooking the Falls. I cannot imagine their conversation. But I can see their smiles and happiness. 

One memento does not fit the timeline. On September 4th, they were still in Indiana, but my mother saved a bulletin from a church in Toronto for that Sunday. Perhaps they went to Mass there when they passed through the city later that week on the drive to Niagara. I wonder if she read it, or just saved it as a souvenir. I am astonished by the subject matter. My parents were not liberal. But perhaps a living wage was not a radical idea in 1960? I did explore the history of the cathedral a bit and it turns out an order of nuns operated an orphanage and settlement house nearby starting in the late 1800s. And their investment in the disenfranchised continues to this day. But what a remarkable and remarkably timely exhortation. One that I daresay no Roman Catholic Church in the United States would publish today, if  indeed they ever have. But, lest one feel too thrown off, the Bingo is right there after the essay. The Bingo abides.

 

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And so here I sit on the day after my mother's birthday, having once again not finished as hoped last night. On this day in 1961, my mother had her 1st child. Quite a 25th birthday present I'd say. He was the apple of my parents' eyes.

And there began the next chapter, or more properly, volume of my parents' story. One with memories captured on Super 8 film and more boxes and drawers and shelves and walls holding the souvenirs and mementos of a family that grew to be eleven. Nine children blessing (I am certain they did feel blessed) the lives of a big city boy and (by comparison) small town country girl, who met in 1959, at an ice skating rink when my dad was stationed at Fort Knox. It just now occurs to me to wonder when and why my mother, a Southerner in every respect (even if "real" Southerners scoff at Louisville as being "the South") learned to ice skate. But I have video evidence of her twirling with 7 of her children (I was the baby then!) on the pond in the farmer's field behind our home, so I know she did.

< And this is where I would insert said video or photo, except I captured them from one of those aforementioned home movies, transferred a few years ago to DVD, that I last watched on my previous laptop, which has finally decided it will no longer boot up even remedially for me to pull files onto a thumb drive. >

So here is where I will leave this. With an image that doesn't exist from a moment that very much did. And really, even where we have a photograph, we are not seeing just the photo, but layering it with our own memories, or our imaginings of the story behind the still life. As I do every time I open the foot locker and take out the boxes of my mother's treasures. And catch glimpses of a time, a place, a woman, and a love story.