Friday - An Old Maid's Daugher
Nov. 10th, 2006 01:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreToday on my drive into work, I was thinking about a joke my mother used to tell people about her plans never to marry, and how I didn't realize how shocking her words were to those around her until I was much older.
"I told everyone that I was going to be an old maid," she said, "and that I planned to raise all my kids to be old maids, too."
These words may be only mildly amusing to people born in the late 20th century, but hearing them from a Baptist girl from a small Texas in the late 1940's and early 1950's must have raised the eyebrows of her friends and family and even produced a gasp or two.
The truth is, my mother was an old maid, at the ripe age of 24, when she married my father. Her sisters all married while still in their late teens. Her mother, born in more rural circumstances, married even younger. Her family fretted over her unwillingness to settle. She had offers, she told me, but she turned them all down. She wasn't willing to settle for anyone who considered marrying her to be settling.
On one hand, she had a lot to offer. She had a pretty face and a nice figure. She was smart and witty and had a great sense of humor. The problem was the other hand - it wasn't there. She was born without a hand on her right side; her arm ended in a rounded wrist that, if you looked at it very closely, had little fingerprints for the digits that never developed. There are few photos of her from her early years that show her right arm in it's entirely, or lack thereof. When someone pointed a camera at her, she instinctively tucked it behind her back or hid it in the folds of her skirt. I think she wanted people to focus on what she had - on her face, her smile, her nice figure - and not what she didn't have when they looked at her picture. She wouldn't consider marrying anyone who thought she was wonderful despite her handicap. She would either hold out for someone who thought she was wonderful, period, or do without.
She grew up in Bryan, a city that butts up against the town of College Station, Texas, home of the Texas A&M University (then College) campus. In her early 20's she took a job at the college working for the Student Health Center (known then, and still, as The Quack Shack). A&M was an all male, military-style school at the time. The Corp of Cadets is now optional, but at the time if you went to A&M then you served in the Corp. The A and the M still stood for Agriculture and Mechanical, and the young men who attended school there were from rural or working-class backgrounds. It was a poor man's college that turned out educated farmers, veterinarians, military officers, and lots and lots of engineers. Many of the graduates went on to successful careers in these fields, and now the alumni can afford to pay today's much steeper tuition for their own offspring. I don't think that my father, as the son of a carpenter, could have afforded the school that Texas A&M has become.
In 1954, he was in his senior year, and the Commanding Officer of his unit in the Corp. One of the guys in his unit had spent the weekend drinking on the beach in Galveston and had managed to get a sunburn so severe that he had to be admitted overnight in the Quack Shack.
"That silly Aggie," my mother told me, "How could anyone not have enough sense to come in from the sun before they got that burned? He was so blistered he couldn't even move." Having since been a college student myself, I suspect the man probably passed out drunk on the beach, assuming college student weren't all that different back in the 1950's then they were when I went in the 1990's.
My father dropped by one evening to visit his friend in the Quack Shack, where my mother was covering the front desk. She told him visiting hours were over, and he could come back the next day. He tried to talk her into letting him slip in, but she wouldn't back down. He liked her spunk, so he asked her to a campus dance the next weekend. She turned him down for that, too; she already had a date to the dance. Just because she was an old-maid-in-training didn't mean she liked to sit at home on a Saturday night. He asked her what she was doing the next weekend, and it turned out she was free.
The rest, as they say, is history. My history, in fact, though I wouldn't be born until 15 years later. I feel lucky. I've known so many people with parents that never got along and who don't like each other, much less respect each other. I appreciate the privilege of growing up with two people who were best friends and who admired each other. He thought she was wonderful, period. He held tight to her left hand for the next 30 years, and didn't let go until the day she died.
I don't think my mother was really joking when told everyone she was going to be an old maid. She planned to grow old alone because she didn't trust that she would find anyone who would not find her beautiful despite her handicap, but instead find her beautiful even with her handicap. The difference is subtle, but profound: when you love someone, you must love the whole person, not most of them except for one or two things that you would change, if you could. You can't think I guess they'll do and that they are lucky to have you, you must believe that you are lucky to have them.
My mother didn't have faith that she would find this kind of love. I'm glad she was wrong.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ # ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
"I told everyone that I was going to be an old maid," she said, "and that I planned to raise all my kids to be old maids, too."
These words may be only mildly amusing to people born in the late 20th century, but hearing them from a Baptist girl from a small Texas in the late 1940's and early 1950's must have raised the eyebrows of her friends and family and even produced a gasp or two.
The truth is, my mother was an old maid, at the ripe age of 24, when she married my father. Her sisters all married while still in their late teens. Her mother, born in more rural circumstances, married even younger. Her family fretted over her unwillingness to settle. She had offers, she told me, but she turned them all down. She wasn't willing to settle for anyone who considered marrying her to be settling.
On one hand, she had a lot to offer. She had a pretty face and a nice figure. She was smart and witty and had a great sense of humor. The problem was the other hand - it wasn't there. She was born without a hand on her right side; her arm ended in a rounded wrist that, if you looked at it very closely, had little fingerprints for the digits that never developed. There are few photos of her from her early years that show her right arm in it's entirely, or lack thereof. When someone pointed a camera at her, she instinctively tucked it behind her back or hid it in the folds of her skirt. I think she wanted people to focus on what she had - on her face, her smile, her nice figure - and not what she didn't have when they looked at her picture. She wouldn't consider marrying anyone who thought she was wonderful despite her handicap. She would either hold out for someone who thought she was wonderful, period, or do without.
She grew up in Bryan, a city that butts up against the town of College Station, Texas, home of the Texas A&M University (then College) campus. In her early 20's she took a job at the college working for the Student Health Center (known then, and still, as The Quack Shack). A&M was an all male, military-style school at the time. The Corp of Cadets is now optional, but at the time if you went to A&M then you served in the Corp. The A and the M still stood for Agriculture and Mechanical, and the young men who attended school there were from rural or working-class backgrounds. It was a poor man's college that turned out educated farmers, veterinarians, military officers, and lots and lots of engineers. Many of the graduates went on to successful careers in these fields, and now the alumni can afford to pay today's much steeper tuition for their own offspring. I don't think that my father, as the son of a carpenter, could have afforded the school that Texas A&M has become.
In 1954, he was in his senior year, and the Commanding Officer of his unit in the Corp. One of the guys in his unit had spent the weekend drinking on the beach in Galveston and had managed to get a sunburn so severe that he had to be admitted overnight in the Quack Shack.
"That silly Aggie," my mother told me, "How could anyone not have enough sense to come in from the sun before they got that burned? He was so blistered he couldn't even move." Having since been a college student myself, I suspect the man probably passed out drunk on the beach, assuming college student weren't all that different back in the 1950's then they were when I went in the 1990's.
My father dropped by one evening to visit his friend in the Quack Shack, where my mother was covering the front desk. She told him visiting hours were over, and he could come back the next day. He tried to talk her into letting him slip in, but she wouldn't back down. He liked her spunk, so he asked her to a campus dance the next weekend. She turned him down for that, too; she already had a date to the dance. Just because she was an old-maid-in-training didn't mean she liked to sit at home on a Saturday night. He asked her what she was doing the next weekend, and it turned out she was free.
The rest, as they say, is history. My history, in fact, though I wouldn't be born until 15 years later. I feel lucky. I've known so many people with parents that never got along and who don't like each other, much less respect each other. I appreciate the privilege of growing up with two people who were best friends and who admired each other. He thought she was wonderful, period. He held tight to her left hand for the next 30 years, and didn't let go until the day she died.
I don't think my mother was really joking when told everyone she was going to be an old maid. She planned to grow old alone because she didn't trust that she would find anyone who would not find her beautiful despite her handicap, but instead find her beautiful even with her handicap. The difference is subtle, but profound: when you love someone, you must love the whole person, not most of them except for one or two things that you would change, if you could. You can't think I guess they'll do and that they are lucky to have you, you must believe that you are lucky to have them.
My mother didn't have faith that she would find this kind of love. I'm glad she was wrong.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 07:44 pm (UTC)Thank you for the warm & fuzzy, but solid reminder of what true love is. What a great story, and very well written.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 09:31 pm (UTC)I am Queen of the Overshare Today. Bow to me! (Ha. Just kidding)
Date: 2006-11-10 07:44 pm (UTC)The day she told me that story and I had to tell her I was 24? Hmmm... Uncomfortable. Almost as uncomfortable as that time we both unwittingly went to see "Basic Instinct" together without knowing the content.
Re: I am Queen of the Overshare Today. Bow to me! (Ha. Just kidding)
Date: 2006-11-10 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 07:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 09:35 pm (UTC)Incidentally, the section of the cemetery where she is buried is called The Garden Of Inspiration. I think that couldn't be more perfect.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 10:11 pm (UTC)How cool is that? It was meant to be.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 10:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 10:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 10:31 pm (UTC)Yeah, that would be my middle brother and my husband's middle brother, as well.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 09:11 pm (UTC)Now, I've got an idea of where you may have gotten your tenacity.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 09:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 01:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 06:34 pm (UTC)nice....
i think i wanna steel this quote from you :)
The difference is subtle, but profound: when you love someone, you must love the whole person, not most of them except for one or two things that you would change, if you could.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 06:45 pm (UTC)As long as you give me props (i.e., attribution), you can quote me at will. :D