Friday would be my parents’ 85th anniversary. On a Thursday afternoon in the middle of the Great Depression, Alex and Edith said their vows at the Trinity Lutheran Church parsonage in Durand. His sister, Marion, and her cousin, “Spud,” stood up with them in front of Rev.Swenson, a typical preacher with white hair and goatee. The following Saturday night, his shirttail relations, the Larison family, played for their wedding dance at the Avon Town Hall located just across the Wisconsin state line. Her sister, Frannie, made a wedding cake and his family provided the rest of the celebratory lunch. Relatives and friends from as far away as Rockford and Monroe came and brought gifts. I asked Mom why they were married in February when the weather is so unpredictable. She said they wanted to be ready to move to the farm they’d rented when landlords changed tenants March first.
For a long time, I thought the professional photograph of the three of us taken when I was six weeks old was their wedding picture. Her black dress with a white collar and his blue suit were the same clothes they’d worn two years earlier. I couldn’t imagine them without me.
Mom and Dad taught me about equality in marriage at work and at play. They farmed side by side beginning and ending each day milking cows. On shopping trips to Rockford, our last stop was always Hot Smacks on West State Street for ice cream. My parents each ordered a banana split, a boat-shaped dish with scoops of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry nestled between the two halves of a banana. Chocolate sauce, marshmallow cream and pineapple topping were dribbled on the balls of ice cream. Whipped cream, nuts and a cherry topped off the concoction. I ate a small, butterscotch sundae.
As a teenager, I heard that some girls demurely said, “I’ll just have a coke,” when a dating couple stopped at a drive-in. Ken never got by that cheap. He’d say, “I’m going to have a cheeseburger, fries and a coke. What do you want?”
My reply was always, “Sounds good. I’ll have the same.”
When we were first married. I thought I’d be Mom’s opposite, a rural June Cleaver. But I wasn’t satisfied being a housewife and mother while my husband was the breadwinner. As soon as our three children were enrolled in school, I looked for a part-time job. I ended up with two–Durand Township Clerk and freelance journalist.
Do you believe women and men are equal in a marriage?
