Chapter 2
Almost three months to the day we met, on June 16, 1945, Bernie and I were married. I had always wanted to be married in Grace Episcopal Church, in Detroit, by the Rev. Bertram Pullinger, who had been our minister when the family lived on Euclid and Seward. Bernie and I went to visit him. I was disappointed when he said he wouldn't do it without my parents' permission. I was sure at this time, that my parents would not have given their permission.
After first accepting Bernie and including him in Legion activities, the mood changed when Mom thought he was Catholic! She'd caught a glimpse of a card in his wallet that she thought had a Catholic symbol on it. What she'd seen was his membership card for the Veteran's of Foreign Wars. Bernie's father had given him the membership, so he carried the card. The background emblem looked something like a Maltese cross, but I'm not sure what it really was. To my knowledge, Bernie didn't do anything but carry the card.
When it appeared that we were serious about getting married, my mother was very upset. She wrote a letter to Bernie telling him all my faults and why he shouldn't marry me. She wrote letters to me also. I concluded that she would have objected to anyone I would have married. All this just added fuel to my feeling that she didn't like me and never had.
So we decided to elope. On Saturday, March 16, I packed a suitcase and we went to the Chaplain at the Naval Training Station, Hamm, was his name, and he married us. (Some years later I tracked the Rev. Hamm down to report that we were still married, and ask what his denomination was. He was with the Disciples of Christ ) A Marine buddy of Bernie's stood up with us, Harry Stiddard. We phoned my parents just before, so they would know where I was. My father said we should come over to talk the next day, but not be married. I thought that was pretty ridiculous; was it all right for us to spend the night together--unmarried? Well, we went ahead with it.
Bernie had found us a room in a house in Dearborn, not far from the City Hall Branch of the library, where I was working at the time. From there we moved to another place a bit farther away. I had my chance to try being a cook when the landlord and his family were gone for a while and we watched the house, leaving us with kitchen privileges.
My first cooking disaster was trying to make pancakes for Sunday breakfast and having them come out raw in the middle. I was devastated. Bernie maintained later that he taught me to cook, and he did help a lot. I’ve never claimed to be a good cook. He could put just about anything together and make a good meal out of it, but that was never a talent of mine!
Not long after that, Bernie got his orders to go to Washington, DC, the Anacostia Naval Station. In the meantime, we had visited my parents for some rather awkward dinners. Mom started her life-long habit of looking at Bernie as though he were some kind of odd person. She also began talking about how I had done her out of a big church wedding. I suppose she wanted to live one through me since she didn't have one herself. We were never close after that. It sounds strange now, for me to say we were never close after that. Looking back on it, we had never been close. We had some good times together, but as I remember now, we did things of interest to her. We didn't talk about my hopes and dreams or anything I was interested in. She had such plans for me (that she never told me about, just referred to them vaguely) that I didn't measure up to. It was a love/hate relationship in many ways.
Bernie arranged for me to go on the train with the other Marines traveling to DC The porter let us use his compartment for part of the trip. He was very nice.
Upon arrival in DC and doing what he had to do right away, Bernie put me on the train for New York. I met his parents and was welcomed into the family so warmly I couldn't believe it. Pop Jacobson introduced me to his friends as the Shiksa (sp?) his son had married, but it was said with warmth and love. I stayed there for a few weeks while Bernie settled in DC, found us a place to live, and visited several weekends.
I met the family doctor, who fitted me with a diaphragm. Dr. Hodkin was a family friend, who had convinced Mom and Pop J. to try having another child after their daughter, Dorothy, died of complications of colitis when she was 18, the summer before I'd met the family. Pictures showed her to be a lovely girl. Mom J. made me feel so welcome when she said the sound of my typing made her feel as though Dorothy were there. Donald Richard was that child. He was a beautiful baby and so good.
Dr. Hodkin took out my tonsils while I was with them that first few weeks in NY Pop was so attentive to visit and bring me flowers in the hospital. I wasn't there very long, of course. Then when I came back to the house, Mom fed me the same baby food Donald was having. It was good! It went down my sore throat smoothly. Bernie came home on weekends too. I had found a loving family!
Along the way, I was introduced to Mom J.'s sister Lucy and her children, Melba and Sheldon, and her brother, Hirsch. Their mother, Zina, was still living at that time. Once, when we were all sitting around the dinner table, Grandma Zina looked around at all of us and said, "Blue eyes!" Pop, Bernie and I had blue eyes. Grandma Zina lived with Uncle Hirsch, who had never married. Aunt Lucy was a dear woman full of effervescent enthusiasm about most everything. She'd had a hard life with the father of her children, and had a scar across one side of her face where he had slashed her with a knife. When I first met her, she was newly married to Ben, a quiet clothing merchant. Melba was also a newly-wed at that time. Her husband, Sol, was in the clothing business too, and somewhat older than she. Eventually, they had two sons, Martin and Howard.
Sheldon was younger than Melba, unmarried when I met him. He married Alice and I've forgotten how many children they had. All welcomed me so warmly I had a hard time understanding it. They were living in 'worldly' Manhattan, the Big City, and so sophisticated by my standards! Aunt Lucy wanted to dress me and give me hats (she'd designed them and owned a shop at one time).
Our home in DC was a room in a family house. I could hand wash a few things, but we had breakfast, lunch and dinner out. I applied for a job with the Naval Research Lab at Anacostia and got a job right away in an office typing up reports. The people there were easy to get along with. I was there a very short time, and when I left, the boss said he was well pleased with how well I had worked into the job. I was a CAF-3, probably the lowest level, but possibly could have climbed higher with more time, they were beginning to give me more responsibilities.
Our first disagreement came when we attended an office picnic at the home of one of my office workers. I joined some children and seemed to keep them from getting too mischievous. Bernie didn't like that. He felt I should have stayed with the adults. Maybe he felt left out, but he joined in a badminton game and looked to me as though he was having a good time. We had quite a period of discussions about that.
Bernie loved to be a tour guide. In new York he took me to the top of the Empire State Bldg., and we had to climb to the top of the Statue of Liberty to look out through her headdress. It was a winding climb. I made it all right, but was very sore the next few days! I don't know whether people are still allowed to do that. In DC we visited the Smithsonian and other Museums, and Mount Vernon. I wore high heels then, and the boat was so full there was no place to sit down. I can still remember how my feet hurt!
Bernie's enlistment was up the end of June, but because of the "Emergency," (we were still at war with Japan), his enlistment was extended. Then came V-J Day, when Japan surrendered. He immediately put in for discharge, and it came through in September. We packed up and moved to New York, to settle into the basement at 62-53 82d Place, Forest Hills, NY.
V-J Day was an interesting day. Everything was closed, and we were hungry! We were able to have some breakfast at our host home, but searched all day for an open restaurant for dinner. Finally, we found a chicken place. Whatever we had from the menu, I thought it was spoiled. The dressing was made with wine. We didn't get sick, so it must have been all right, but the taste didn't suit me. We ate it.
We'd hoped to move into an apartment, but for some reason, it never happened. Pop was supposed to be finding one for us. There were vacancies all around. We had some awkward times getting adjusted to each other, but it worked out well for the most part.
Pop spoke for me when I applied for a job at the Queensboro Public Library in Jamaica. I worked in the Periodicals Dept. I kept in touch with my co-workers there for quite a while after we left.
One job I applied for in Manhattan was with Pan American Airlines. I got the job, but then refused it when they wanted me to go by my maiden name. That was my first brush with prejudice against Jews.
Meanwhile, Bernie applied to Queens College under the G.I.Bill, to get on with his education. His father had kept his license as an Optician current, but he didn't want to do that the rest of his life. He had applied to Columbia University, but they were swamped with returning veterans and he couldn't get in right then.
Bernie then decided to check out other schools of Optometry. Ohio State University looked good, so we packed up our 1935-36 Plymouth in December, and headed West. That was quite an adventure too.
Bernie found this vehicle somewhere, at a price we could afford, and we had our own wheels! Pop made fun of it for its age, and whatever else he could think of. Then one night Pop's Pontiac broke down in the middle of Manhattan and Bernie had to rescue him. Our car couldn't keep shock absorbers, so gave a pretty bumpy ride. Pop described the bobbing headlights bouncing along as Bernie approached. From then on, the car was not just a car, but had a name: Jumping Jehosphat!
But I can't go to Ohio until I tell about Bernie's friends, Sammy and Dickie. They had grown up with Bernie in The Bronx, and the three were very close. They called Bernie 'Doc,' because of his father. That took some getting used to. They were wonderful people. Both gone now, taken by cancer. I keep in touch with Bunny, Dick's wife, and occasionally hear from Tillie, Sam's wife.
Sam was a dreamer and hopeful song writer. His father had been a Cantor. I think he did get one song published, but never got much further than that. He married a 'war widow' with a young daughter, and went on to have four (I think) boys of his own. He'd followed Bernie into the Marines, but it took him on a different path. Sam worked for the Post Office and they bought a home in Union, NJ.
Dick's father was a theatrical agent, his mother had been a dancer, and Dick was a dancer. He had joined the Army and served in Europe, I believe. Bunny was a partner who became his wife, and they had a pretty good career going for a while. We visited them at a theater in Cleveland one time, which was fun. They were good! Dick wanted to become an agent like his father, but his father wouldn't let him in--I'm not sure what was going on there. He and Bunny had a daughter and he worked at various things until his eyes went bad on him. Toward the end he was legally blind.
So now here we are heading West in December. Our car, Jehosephat, was loaded with all our earthly possessions. It was packed right up against the back of the front seats and I even had things to hold on my lap. Bernie learned a lot about automobile engines on that trip;. It took us several days because of the stops for one repair or another. We traveled the new Pennsylvania Turnpike. The Howard Johnson rest stops were all shiny and bright. Every time I see snow drifting across a road, memories of those days come flooding back. We didn't know what the next day would hold; we were young and confident that all would work out well, whatever happened. We knew we would find something, and we would be spending Christmas in Dearborn with my folks. It was a good time.
Our first stop was in Columbus, where there too, the school was full. They recommended that we establish residence by attending a small undergraduate school for the first two years. So we found a map with colleges on it, and headed North toward Dearborn, Michigan.
After a couple of stops, we found Bluffton College at Bluffton, Ohio. The people were Mennonites and gave us a very warm welcome. We did the necessary things to get started and then headed for Dearborn for Christmas. We had a fairly good visit with my parents and brother. It was awkward, with Mom giving her sideways looks at Bernie, but we got through it. Dad invited us to Legion parties that were going on for the season. Bernie didn't want to talk about his war experiences, and they were good about honoring that. I still use a blue blanket they gave us that year. It was a thoughtful gift.
Back to Bluffton, then, to start the Spring semester at the college. Our first home there was a room used by the American Legion, in the City Hall! Bernie became custodian for the Legion to pay our rent. It was a large room with a very high ceiling, and it was cold! The room was 12' high, heated with a kerosene stove that seemed to drink the fuel faster than we could keep it filled, and all the heat went up to the ceiling!
My first experience with hard water came when I tried washing my hair with regular shampoo. What a mess! Watkins Coconut Oil Shampoo didn't work here! Detergent shampoos were just coming on the market, so I used them from then on.
There were mice in the building too. They'd run across our bed at night! Mouse traps helped a lot after that. As soon as possible, we found another place to live.
This time it was a small 8' x 12' "cabin" behind someone's home, and next to a barn. It had no water, so we carried it from the house. There was an outhouse on the side of the barn, but we used a "honey-bucket" instead. The barn housed several very odiferous goats. Emptying the honey-bucket once a day was much better than using the outhouse several times a day.
The cabin was heated with a gas burner. We'd turn it down at night, but when the temperature went down, so did the gas pressure. One morning we awoke with terrific headaches, and discovered that the gas had gone out. We did have the presence of mind to have the window open a crack, or we might not have awakened at all! We learned later that someone had died there! We spent that day driving around the countryside trying to clear our heads, leaving both windows open.
In this tiny cabin, there was a partial partition, separating a kitchen from the rest. The kitchen had a cabinet for dishes and a hot plate. The larger section held a studio couch and fold-out table. When the table was up, the bed had to be a couch. Not much room. It worked for a while.
More and more veterans or conscientious objectors were returning from service, and more often than not, they were married. So the college put up some corrugated buildings and called it Beaver Village for those older, married students. We were able to move into one of these before another Winter. A shower/bath/toilet building was in the complex along with some surplus trailers for other students. At first we took our laundry to the neighboring dormitory building, where they had a washing machine. Our laundry hung on lines to dry.
We joined the Mennonite church as Associate Members while in Bluffton. Our possessions began to grow, too. We bought our own studio couch and a chair to go with it. We had board and block bookshelves. We still cooked on our hot-plate, and somewhere we found a portable water softener. Bernie put together a makeshift ice box for perishables, too.
After two years, we had made many friends among the students and faculty at Bluffton. One very good friend was M'Della Moon, Biology Professor. She had me do some typing for her, and Bernie was a lab assistant for a while. She was a fine teacher and a wonderful person. Donna Marie and Chuck Rufenacht were neighbors in the other half of our building. I still correspond with them. Another couple who were neighbors in those buildings was Bob and Celia Blough. I recently picked up correspondence with them.
We had Miss Moon and another professor over for Thanksgiving Dinner one year. It was my first turkey roast, and Bernie had never carved one before either. I held the cookbook and read the directions, while he did a beautiful job of carving. The ladies were duly impressed. We had fun!
We were ready to try Ohio State University again, at Columbus. After checking it all out and still not being considered residents of the State (even though that's what had been recommended), we went back to New York for a brief time. Pop had been working on the basement and made an apartment. We had two rooms. We got my furniture from Dearborn and had our bedroom in one room, and the couch and chair in the other. Pop had even built a tiny, efficient bath with shower in the space under the front porch. It was very nice.
Then we went back to Bluffton, leaving our things in NY for the time being, and lived in one of the trailers at Beaver Village. While there, the Pastor of the Mennonite Church asked me to do the church bulletin for the summer. That was fun. Bernie had a job at a gas station on the weekends. We bought some bicycles, and I'd ride my bike there with lunch Sunday evenings.
Bernie had encouraged me to paint, so one Sunday I decided to paint an aurora scene as I remembered it from my summer in Canada. I was so proud of my accomplishment! Bernie had no idea what I had in mind, and insisted on adding some things and being very critical. I never tried another painting from scratch again! Pride......
Bernie encouraged me to take some courses while we were in Bluffton, and I took some Shorthand, from Ray Hilty, and a course in Marriage and the Family with Bernie. I did all right, but still can't do shorthand worth anything.
Ray and Mary Hilty were good friends too. Ray was also the Registrar for the college. I did some things for Mary at her home, but wasn't very good at it.
Bernie did odd jobs during the summer: roofing, handy-man chores for the college. We shared a garden at the Herman and Celia Hilty farm, too. At some points we were vegetarians, eating only the veggies they let us grow or pick from their gardens. During this time, Pop sent us a weekly check that helped a lot. The GI Bill allowance was stretched to the limit. We learned frugality and thrift very well!
Jehosephat was with us for quite a while, serving us well. Bernie learned a lot from that vehicle. He even tried teaching me to drive with Jehosephat! He made a turn-signal, and I did pretty well, but I wasn't enthused about it and didn't drive often. Bernie enjoyed driving much more, and I was content to have it that way.
Briefly, I had a job at the local library, which was in the High School bldg. That was my first taste of being an older woman! (At the ripe age of 20-something!) When the students came in, there would be times that I was talking about something of which they had no notion. Strange feeling. I don't remember the librarian's name, but she was a lovely woman, and I enjoyed her. She invited us over one evening and had a great time showing us 'pictures' in the wood grain paneling of her home.
I tried working in the local Triplett Electrical Instrument Company for a while too. Friends from the Dearborn Naval Training School lived in Bluffton--Mildred and Clayton Harkness. He had a poultry business in town, and a large home. We had several meals with them. Mildred worked at the factory and helped to get me in. I didn't stay very long, and Bernie was not happy with that. I didn't have any energy!
Mildred did our laundry for us at one point, and they were very good at making us feel welcome any time we visited. Eventually, they adopted two children, a boy and a girl.
For our final year at Bluffton, we lived in our own trailer, purchased from Army Surplus. It had been a message center. Bernie took out all the shelves (typewriter desks), and rebuilt the inside. When finished, it had an old bench seat from a car attached to a plywood form that held a mattress. The car seat folded down when we wanted the bed. A fold-down table was attached to a counter, and there were drawers for a dresser built in next to that. The kitchen was the largest area, with sink, place for roaster-oven, and the ever faithful hot plate. Opposite the 'kitchen wall' was a large closet with sliding doors. At the end was an area intended to be a bath and shower, but it never got the shower. All this was in a trailer only 15' long and 7' wide!
(Or close to that, anyway) There were times when the trailer seemed a lot smaller than that!
Good friends during that last year were Paul and Virginia (Ginny) Soldner. We were able to visit them at Boulder, CO, in later years, and they made a trip to Anchorage for a pottery workshop one year, too. Ginny passed away last Fall. I don't know any details. I wrote to Paul but no answer has come. Paul is a very talented artist, having made a name for himself in Raku pottery. Ginny was talented too, with oil.
Bernie graduated from Bluffton College with a degree in Math and Science, in 1949. From there we went, with our trailer, to Convoy, Ohio, near the Indiana border. Bernie was teaching science and math and was sponsor for the camera and drama groups. We parked our trailer on property owned by the Dellinger family. The ground was low, but we were high enough to survive a small flood. Some of our things were under the trailer, so we lost them. Among them was Bernie's violin (he never played it), and my clarinet (I never played it, either). We salvaged the violin bow, and that was later used to play a musical saw. I still have both of those!
I was pregnant when we moved to Convoy. We'd gone to New York to visit the folks right after graduation, and talked about starting a family. Bernie thought it would keep me busy. I rather resented that, but I wanted a family too.