Category Archives: Marriage

Newlywed Love (#21)

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January 19, 1970

The University of Illinois was on the quarter system. That meant students didn’t finish their studies and exams before Christmas break but had to face them when classes resumed after the holidays.

Tom, Dad, TypewriterThe university had just begun allowing students to bring portable typewriters to the exams for essay questions, but we no longer owned one. My college typewriter had traveled to the East Coast with brother Tom, where he was using it (right) for the same purpose at American University.

But Nate’s parents came to his rescue, sending money to buy another typewriter. We were both appreciative, and it would be a big help through the rest of law school.

Nate had returned to intensive study when I’d returned to teaching, and his exams had now come and gone. He felt like he did alright, though he said the tests were complex and extremely difficult. (That’s what A-students always said.)

About this time we got a crazy letter from Mom. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought she’d been sipping sangria. At a minimum she was in a goofy mood when she typed.

She began by letting us know it was Monday and then said, Isn’t it great to be ALIVE? That should have been our first clue.

Mom's zany letter

Her salutation was good, even excellent – Our dear children – proving she had completely embraced Nate as her own. I was thrilled about that. And she went on:

We trust and have prayed that our young lawyer has survived his ordeal of testing. Regardless of his scores, he definitely scores high with us. We realize his sincere desire to do his best, and this he has done. Our congratulations to this good son-in-love. Relax a bit, Nate; there will be more pressures. It is Charles Percy who welcomes problems because he says it helps him grow. So who wants to grow?

Hmmm. And she continued:

Last night during the evening service [as the organist], I played “Stranger in Paradise” for the offertory, and Pastor Sweeting had a few jollies out of it. Even the audience got into the act to laugh, etc. On Sunday nights Bervin and Mary sit with your father’s old wife, so we all were in stitches. And I just let Pastor Sweeting enjoy himself.

I pictured Mom at that massive organ shaking with laughter as she played with her church-hat askew.

She seemed proud of her “crime” but was just getting warmed up:

Last week we invited two older ladies over for dinner. But then the guest list swelled to include another family and two more women. Good thing I had a 12 pound leg of lamb that had to be used, since it had already thawed. Got it? Get it! It felt good to throw my leg into the oven. See how mundane a homemaker’s life becomes when she can get word-happy about a leg of lamb?

By the way, your high school friend Linda has a new baby boy. So does her husband.

And there was more:

The folks.Your father’s retirement is going along well. Bless the boy. He’s an easy guy to have underfoot, and I love him dearly! He manages to get down to the office once or twice a week, despite his full retirement. And me? I’m re-treaded.

Her letter was a script for a stand-up routine that lasted through two single-spaced typed pages. Nate and I wondered, if not alcohol, then what? Whatever it was, it had produced a fountain of good cheer that had bubbled up and out of her.

She signed her letter thus:

The Bible says “to depart is far better.” So…. so long. And keep warm! Mom

All I could do was thank God for such a happy parent and hope she could stay out of trouble.

“For the happy heart, life is a continual feast.” (Proverbs 15:15)

Newlywed Love (#20)

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January 15, 1970

The month was half over, and it was time to establish another tradition: the burning of the Christmas tree. My family had done that almost every year, and it was always a festive evening.

StairwayNate and I walked two floors down and knocked on the door of friendly neighbors in our building. Fred and Alice were a sweet elderly couple who had been kind to us from the day we moved in. I remember Nate shaking hands with the old man the day we met. “So,” he said, “what do you do?”

Alice answered for her husband. “I have no idea what he does now, but he was a bank examiner when I married him.” Then they both laughed. Nate and I found that statement to be a charming commentary on a happy marriage and quoted it to each other often after that, always remembering Fred and Alice.

When we asked if we could borrow a saw, they wanted to know what we were sawing. “Our Christmas tree,” Nate said. “We’re going to burn it in the fireplace tonight.” Fred and Alice’s apartment was the identical layout to ours, but we doubted they’d ever used their fireplace. It looked pretty clean.

“Well,” said the old man, “don’t burn the building down. It would be a disappointment if we had to move.”

well used sawThey sent us off with a well-used saw and a plateful of yummy brownies topped with powdered sugar – wonderful examples of warm hospitality.

Back upstairs, it was easy to dismantle the tree – two ornaments and one string of lights. The sum total of our Christmas decorations fit nicely into a shoebox. And then it was time to make a big fire.

The previous August, when we had been hunting for a rental apartment, we had narrowed it down to two possibilities: one had a swimming pool, the other a fireplace. We agonized over the choice, but the fireplace won out.

Since even before Nate and I had married, we’d had fun scrounging the neighborhood and local forest preserves for pieces of firewood and kept our stash in the basement storeroom that came with the apartment – a rough-hewn closet 3 feet by 5 feet. Other than a couple of suitcases, we didn’t have much to store, so it was perfect for our collection of wood. And we made cozy fires almost every evening.

Burning the treeOnce we  had Fred’s saw, Nate set to work dismembering our brittle tree, then stuffing the fireplace full of branches. When he touched it with a match, however, neither of us were prepared for the size of the flames that roared to life and filled the fireplace with an angry orange blaze top-to-bottom and side-to-side – a situation dangerously close to being out of control.

Nate shouted, “Get a bowl of water!” (We didn’t own a bucket.) Thankfully, with the screen and a couple of fireplace tools, we were able to control things just enough to keep flames from leaping out onto the hardwood floor. Once everything calmed, we sawed the tree into smaller hunks and moved a little slower.

After all, we didn’t want to be the reason our downstairs neighbors had to move!

“A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions.” (Proverbs 22:3)

Newlywed Love (#19)

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January 10, 1970

Now that Mom and Dad were fully recuperated from the back-to-back stresses of our wedding and Christmas, they turned their focus to our nearly-bare apartment in Champaign. Long ago they had asked if we wanted some of the furniture they couldn’t fit into their new, smaller home. We didn’t think twice.

Mom wrote that a small moving van would arrive by the end of the week. When the truck came, we couldn’t wait to see what was inside.

FurnitureIt turned out to be a table and chairs, a dining room “breakfront” with drawers on the bottom and shelves on the top, a couple of lamps, a set of book shelves, a plant stand, a living room chair with the promise of another one coming later, a round hassock, and an end table.

Mom also sent her sewing machine, just on loan, so I could make a few things – maybe a tablecloth and napkins (I was good at straight edges) and possibly some simple, A-line skirts.

New furnitureOnce we arranged all this furniture, our apartment began to look home-y. We decided to celebrate by inviting friends John and Cathy for dinner. Though I had no confidence that I could produce a good meal, I thought of a way to avoid cooking altogether.

We would unpack a couple of our new fondue pots, and each of us could use the long forks to cook our own. I did have confidence in my veggie-chopping/meat-cutting skills, so with a little hot oil in the pot, our guests could do the rest. Even dessert could be managed fondue-style with cut-up fruit and a pot of melted chocolate.

I bought some fabric and made a gold tablecloth (i.e. hemmed the edges and put a seam right down the middle). Napkins for each of us completed the set. Thanks to our generous wedding guests, we now had plenty of silverware, plates, and glasses. So setting the table for our very first company felt just like playing house.

First dinner guestsThe evening was a success, and the 4 of us sat at the table “cooking” for several hours – fun with fondue. Cathy and John had just put their wedding invitations in the mail the week before, and when they wished out loud for a fondue pot of their own, Nate assured them they’d have one by the end of the month. We’d received 5 of them, and if their wedding gifts didn’t follow suit, they could have a couple of ours.

Well after midnight, as Nate and I did the dishes, we rated the evening A+ and talked about who to invite next. Many of his law school friends were far from home and would love a home-cooked meal – even if they had to cook it themselves.

We had our doubts, though, about Nate’s parents, who planned to spend the last weekend in January with us. Would they embrace the fondue system? Nate suggested I make a more traditional meal, something nicer, but I wasn’t sure he knew the magnitude of what he was asking.

“Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.” (1 Peter 4:9)