Marital Togetherness

I thought Luana, being interested in the togetherness of her parents, might find this memory of mine worth hearing about.



Harold finished the two years of classes offered at the Southern Branch, but I quit after the first year. The only work I could find in those days of depression was an occasional baby sitting job, so I helped Harold with the research for term papers he had to write. We lived at the Lodge Hall then and with the city library just across the street doing the research was easy. One class Harold had was American History, mainly the years of the Revolutionary War. In case you don't remember, that war was from 1776 to 1781 and was fought with England. We wanted an end to taxation without representation and wanted to drink coffee instead of so much tea. The paper the professor wanted had to be either a journal of that time or letters. And he warned the students that they better be sure of what they said. "If you say it rained on such and such a day, you better be sure it really did rain."

Harold thought it would be interesting to make it letters written by a soldier and his wife. Forget about the problems of getting the letters back and forth to each other. Harold took over
the soldier, and I took on the research about the wife. There was tons of information about a woman's life without her husband's help. The crops, hunting for meat, keeping warm during the cold winters, preserving food, caring for the animals, butchering. And all the information about the clothes they wore, the cloth for clothes, soap making, the food they ate, how the food was cooked, care of children, cooking utensils, dishes.

When all the research was done, we began the writing. Harold and I agreed that I should write the wife's letters while he took care of the soldier's. Then, the night before the paper was due, Harold could begin typing it all. We were living in the Lodge Hall then, so he took the typewriter and all essentials down to the meeting room, and I went along to keep him company. It was an all night job. While he clacked away, I read and sometimes played the piano. The Lodge had a very good piano. At one time during the wee small hours I baked bran muffins, and we took a break to eat and drink milk. Just before dawn, the job was done. After breakfast, while Harold took a bath and shaved, I quizzed him on his German vocabulary. When he walked out the door to head for his 8:00 class, I hit the sack!

How's that for marital togetherness? Oh yes, he (we) got an A on the paper, and the professor wrote several nice comments on the sidelines.