Mother, Marriage, Continuing College, Family, and Career

In April of 1954 I decided to call Lida Healey, the last girl I had been dating prior to reentering the Seminary. We had broken up in the spring of 1953 when I found out that she had a boy friend in the Military Service whom she really cared about and I had been a convenient fill-in while he was gone for months at a time. I had really liked her and on impulse decided to call her because we had been friends for six years in our Grange Youth Group. The telephone call was very warmly received so I asked her if she’d like to go to a square dance the following Saturday and she said, “Yes.” After the dance we went to a burger joint for a snack and had a long conversation. She told me she had discovered that Don had been home on leave at times when she didn’t know it and dating other girls so she dropped him. Then she told me how sorry she was for using me and that she had missed me. My “liking” turned to love that very moment and we started dating on a regular basis. In September of 1954 I proposed marriage and she accepted. I was crazy in love with her and she with me. We set the wedding date for August 20th of 1955 but Hurricane Diane came to our town that week and my fiancée–’s house was isolated on an island with a huge road washout on both sides of it. One week later on August twenty-seventh, thanks to a hastily constructed footbridge of logs and a rope rail, Lida and her entourage carried their garments over the bridge to her cousin’s house where they dressed. We were so numb from the devastation we had lived through for nine days that I don’t remember much about our beautiful ceremony or the reception. We honeymooned at the A Bar A Ranch Resort in the Adirondacks for one week – that week I remember. I returned on Saturday to my parent’s home for supper. My mom loved Lida from the start for they were very much alike – beautiful, spirited women who gave all to those they loved. I had really lucked out in choosing Lida as my wife. I had to resume my position as Principal, Teacher, and Coach at East Whately Grammar School the following Monday while Lida settled us into our four room apartment less than a mile from her parents. Lida was the one who remained in daily contact with both of her mothers, because my mother looked on her as a third daughter. I heard about my Mom much of the time through Lida because for the first year of our marriage, in addition to my job, I also was finishing my dissertation for my Master’s Degree. Lida, too, went back to work as a secretary at a local insurance office. I couldn’t wait to get home from work after coaching a ball game, but my “romantic French ideas” often got buried in tiredness and Lida spending her time typing my thesis as I wrote it. Nevertheless we were so in love that we made time for each other. Holding her in my arms was the highlight of my day. When our first anniversary came and went without Lida becoming pregnant, our mothers began to ask, “When are we going to get our first grandchild?” Shortly after our first anniversary those frequent Arabian nights paid off and Lida hugged and kissed me with a special fervor one evening when I returned from work. “Guess what?” she asked? Her look told me the answer. She was indeed pregnant and was to have our first child in April of the next year. We hugged each other alternating between laughing and crying tears of joy. We visited her parents and mine the same night with the news and they too were overjoyed. Both sets of parents would be getting their first grandchild. In early March 1957, I returned home one evening to find Lida in tears and her mother, frantic! The doctor said she had signs of leaking water from a small premature rupture of the membrane. Though our baby wasn’t due for five or six weeks our doctor told her to stay quiet, lay down as much as she could to see if the leakage would stop. It did temporarily and on March thirteenth Lida went into labor and our son was born three weeks prematurely, a small five pounds and five and one half ounces, with flaming red hair, and healthy. Being so small he had to be coaxed to suck and Lida had to feed him every two hours around the clock. She took a leave from work and her mother came to help her during the day so she could catch up on some sleep. I had to sleep in order to work, so my time with him was limited to early evenings for the first several months.