[HPFGU-OTChatter] Dating/Marriage

[Amanda Lewanski]

Ebony Elizabeth Thomas wrote:

> Amber wrote:
>
> >Question to all: Did you know right away that you had met the "Person
>
> >of Your Dreams"? How long before you knew?
> >
>
> Yes, everyone, please do share!  I love hearing about real-life
> romances... keeps this lady-in-waiting from getting cynical, as does
> reading/viewing/writing love stories.  ;-)

My grandmother was a genteel Southern lady who dropped her Rs and said
"gallery" instead of porch. She was born in 1900, spent most of her life
in Huntsville, TX, and spent her teen years in Bellaire (for the
amusement of my Houston friends, I must point out that her father would
threaten to move away from Bellaire, all the way to Houston). She lived
on a peaceful residential tree-lined avenue called Westheimer.

She graduated from high school in 1916 or 1917, and her parents wanted
her to take a year off, to rest, before attending Rice. She was the
valedictorian of her high school class, and held a tea for the
graduating girls at her house. The Bellaire paper ran a piece on the
tea, with the girls' pictures, and because it was at my grandmother's
house, they gave the address.

Another girl in Bellaire was the girlfriend of a man away at the War to
End all Wars, off in the fields of France. She sent him mementos of
home, amongst which there found its way a copy of the newspaper. News
from home. The man read the piece, and wrote my grandmother to
congratulate her on her graduation and to tell her how heartening it was
to read such things when he was so far from home.

My grandmother was amazed to receive a letter from France, from a
soldier. She was not, of course, allowed to answer.

Almost a year later, she received a letter from the same man, from
Tampico, Mexico. He'd kept her address and her picture. He was back from
the war, working for Texaco. As my grandmother put it, she was floored
by this second letter from this "unknown Lothario" (unquote).

As it happened, her parents had friends who were missionaries in
Tampico, and her mother had them check this man out. The report came
back: a fine upstanding man, active in his church. My great-grandmother
let my grandmother write back.

They began a correspondence. He asked her what she liked. She said
candy--chocolate; pickles--dill, and music--classical. She received a
package, which contained a box of chocolates, with one section now
holding a dill pickle, and a note that the music--classical was being
shipped separately. They exchanged pictures; she took a razor blade, cut
out a picture of herself, cut slits on each side of his arm in his
picture, inserted herself under his arm, and sent it back.

He came to Houston in the summer of her freshman year at Rice. She was
flustered, at last to meet this man in person. She was tremendously
impressed when he arrived at her house in a "yellow cab". And by the end
of that summer, she says, there was an understanding that she would
marry him when she graduated.

In the meantime, he went back to Tampico, and she went back to school.
She dated, went to dances, and never it a secret that she was "taken."
He would visit in the summers. And when she graduated, she married him
and went to Tampico.

They had two children, my uncle and my mother. They were married for
many years. He died just after my parents were married in 1952, of brain
cancer. She died in 1993. We used to tease her, because we thought her
next-door neighbor Mr. Candler had a crush on her, and we'd ask her why
she never married again, and the answer was always a simple, "I never
met anyone else I loved as much as your Grandpop." End of sentence.

I have a fabulous letter that Grandmom wrote to my mother, when the
woman I remember as a font of wisdom and experience was a discouraged
newlywed of one month. And the words she wrote are wise and wonderful
and transcend the effervescences of passing views of political
correctness; they are words of human experience and knowledge of
relationships, gleaned from years in a marriage based on love but with a
lot of learning in there, too. I've shared the letter with newlywed
friends of my own.

Anyway, I have always thought this was the most romantic story I knew,
and I loved it the more because it was my grandmother's own, true story.
I never met Grandpop, but any man magic enough to let my mother hold the
moon (another story) must simply have swept Grandmom off her feet.

My own love story's not bad, but this is the best real one I know, so
this is the one you get. Unless I'm feeling more romantic than motherly
any time soon.

--Amanda, proud granddaughter of Tannie Lee and Ewell


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]