Family stories--tell one of yours!

[iris lilies]

My mom told this story about her first engagement ring from my dad:

They ran off and eloped when she was 17. Her parents insisted that it be annulled. My mom and dad got married a year later when she was of age. My grandparents didn't think much of my dad because he slept a lot. That's the one criticism I remember, he "slept a lot."

So with this rocky background my dad, the sleeper, managed to cough up enough money to buy my mom a teeny tiny engagement ring. But--it was not good enough for my grandmother! She hauled my mother to Joseph's (which was the high end jewelry store in Des Moines) and bought her a "better" engagement ring. Unbelievable! And you have to understand that my grandparents were not high society, they lived on a farm outside of a small town in Iowa. WTF.

So the most unbelievable part is that all of these people got along for the rest of their lives. My father was a great dad, someone who provided for his family all of his life and was also kind and caring (though my mother worked all of her life, too) and most importantly to me--very frugal, and from him I inherited my frugal gene. My grandmother was a nice woman and I don't know how she got that ring bee in her bonnet. My father never held it against her, he was never anything but nice to her. My parents stayed together until their death.

[catherine]

What a nice story, iris lilies! I think your grandmother simply felt her daughter, your mom, deserved the best, and for many people, rich or poor, a diamond is a symbol of that. Maybe she was using the diamond thing in an effort to control the only thing she could about the swift marriage to ensure her daughter was getting what she deserved. Sounds like a wonderful woman--although if I were your dad, I'd be a bit miffed at the interference!! Glad they worked it all out.

My family story:
My great-aunt and lifelong role model/mentor was a true Victorian woman with all the modesty and virtue that entailed. She was "courted" by a young lawyer and married him. His hobby was sailing and so their honeymoon (in 1910) was on his sailboat. The first night of their wedding, she rinsed out her clothes and hung them on the line on the deck to dry. One of those garments was completely unfamiliar to my great-uncle. He asked her what is was.

"Those are my frills." she answered.

"What's that?" He asked.

She explained that they were worn under the blouse to "fill out" a woman's flat-chestedness.

With that, my uncle grabbed them and threw them off the boat stating, "I'll have nothing false on MY woman!"

I know that that sounds SO old-fashioned and chauvenistic in these days, but my greataunt took no offense and she must have told that story every summer, chuckling through it all the time. In truth, there was NOTHING false about her--she was so genuine.

[ctg492]

What great stories, thanks for sharing.

My dad who is in his mid 80s, told so many stories of his childhood that to this day I feel like I grew up with all those kids hanging out on the river! My mom shared nothing, other then she was so poor. I feel it had terrible memories for her.

[Rosemary]

My grandmother grew up in a small town in the western-most part of Germany. Her parents had 5 girls and 2 boys. All of them (born circa 1906-1913) lived to adulthood, which is rather astonishing for that era. Their father ran a stagecoach business and their house housed the coach and horses on the bottom floor. It was probably built in the mid-1700s because the landmark building across the street dates to that time. Today that house is a shop, and the stagecoach door has been replaced by a very large window. Their father was in WWI and died shortly thereafter. The family was quite poor in the 1920s, like many Germans following the war, and they were greatly assisted by foods from my great-great-grandmother's farm in Alsace. Three of the children (1 boy, 2 girls) emigrated to New York in the mid-1920s.

During WWII, the second son was drafted. He never returned home. One of the daughters lost her husband.
Later in the war, the eldest daughter remaining in Germany performed a service to the town that was never forgotten. She worked at the bank, and the town was in danger of an approaching army. She took the deposits of the bank, by bicycle and at great personal risk, to another town for safe keeping.

[Miss Cellane]

My paternal grandfather, born in 1893, was the youngest of five children. His father died when he was five. My great-grandmother had to go to work, as did his oldest two siblings. In the summers, his mother's employer would let the family use his summer home on Dorchester Bay, the southern part of Boston Harbor. On Thursdays, Grandpa would go out in a row boat on the bay with two of his older brothers and catch fish. Then they would go door-to-door selling the fish. There was a heavy Catholic population in Boston, so housewives were very willing to buy fish for their Friday dinner. That's how Grandpa got spending money during the summer.

And another story: My father proposed to my mother by mail. He was in the military and stationed half way across the country. So he wrote her a letter asking him to marry her. Even though Mom had already made up her mind that she would marry him, she responded that she couldn't give him an answer until he asked her father. This was in 1950. (I should point out that Mom and Dad had met in dancing school when they were 12 and 13 and they were 24 and 25 at the time of the proposal, so it wasn't as if they didn't know each other very well.)

I've read the letter. It was really romantic and lovely--nothing like what I would have expected from my father. And according to my grandparents and aunt, everyone was pretty sure Mom would marry Dad and they were pretty much just waiting for an announcement. As for asking Grandpa-- he was more at the point where he was wondering why Dad hadn't asked Mom already. So why she went all full of maidenly blushes at that point is a mystery.

Especially since they were planning to get married in a year. Then Dad got orders for Korea, where there was a war going on. Everyone wanted Mom and Dad to wait until Dad returned from combat to get married, but Mom threw together a wedding in two weeks, with a borrowed wedding gown, and had her way.

[RosieTR]

My parents were living together in the 60s, which would have been seen as scandalous, at least by my mom's mom. So, my dad had a suitcase which he dutifully packed up each time my grandma was coming to visit my mom, on the pretense that he was "just visiting" and of course sleeping on the couch or something. After each of my grandmother's visits, they would inevitably find some item of my dad's that they were hoping my grandma didn't notice, such as his toothbrush in the bathroom or a men's sock on the floor. Finally they got married, and at some point shortly after their wedding my grandmother commented to my aunt, "well, thank goodness. Now <Dad> can finally put away that stupid suitcase! Who did they think they were fooling?"

[Float On]

My grandfather was a foreman on ranches (both horse ranches and cattle ranches) - the stories my dad tells are like out of the wild west, or Saturday matinee cowboy western movies. He almost wasn't able to tell those stories because when grandma was holding him as an infant in a horse drawn wagon while waiting for grandpa to drive her to town, something spooked the horses and they took off down the road. Grandma had a bumpy dangerous fast ride and when the horses went around a tight curve in the road she and the baby were thrown out of the wagon. She rolled down a hill, holding dad with the broken wagon rolling down behind her. A large rock stopped the wagon from rolling on top of her.

[SiouzQ.]

These are great stories!

[pinkytoe]

I don't know much about my parent's courtship days other than personal diaries left behind from their Boulder college days (1937-1941). Lots of era-popular phrases like "Gee, what a swell gal!" or "We went coking after the picture show" meaning they went to the soda counter at the corner drugstore. My mother had a lot of stories though about growing up in the western Colorado mountains and whenever we would go back, we would drive up to the old homesteads. In one of the small log cabins they lived in, she showed us a trap door in the ceiling where her father would hide his homemade hooch during prohibition days.

[Tiam]

What a nice story, iris lilies! I think your grandmother simply felt her daughter, your mom, deserved the best, and for many people, rich or poor, a diamond is a symbol of that. Maybe she was using the diamond thing in an effort to control the only thing she could about the swift marriage to ensure her daughter was getting what she deserved. Sounds like a wonderful woman--although if I were your dad, I'd be a bit miffed at the interference!! Glad they worked it all out.

My family story:
My great-aunt and lifelong role model/mentor was a true Victorian woman with all the modesty and virtue that entailed. She was "courted" by a young lawyer and married him. His hobby was sailing and so their honeymoon (in 1910) was on his sailboat. The first night of their wedding, she rinsed out her clothes and hung them on the line on the deck to dry. One of those garments was completely unfamiliar to my great-uncle. He asked her what is was.

"Those are my frills." she answered.

"What's that?" He asked.

She explained that they were worn under the blouse to "fill out" a woman's flat-chestedness.

With that, my uncle grabbed them and threw them off the boat stating, "I'll have nothing false on MY woman!"

I know that that sounds SO old-fashioned and chauvenistic in these days, but my greataunt took no offense and she must have told that story every summer, chuckling through it all the time. In truth, there was NOTHING false about her--she was so genuine.

I've never heard this term "frills" in reference to an undergarment. Fascinating. I wonder what it looked like?

[catherine]

I've never heard this term "frills" in reference to an undergarment. Fascinating. I wonder what it looked like?

Now you have me on a mission, because I've been googling and can't find ANYTHING. However, my aunt described it as a few rows of gathered lace that would pouf out the front of a blouse. I'm going to investigate further. Maybe it was her own invention.. she was the person who taught me how to sew, so she could have done it herself.


ETA: Probably looked something like this: http://ornamentedbeing.tumblr.com/post/6493715387

Or this: http://24.media.tumblr.com/6cd2f17e0c9b857fe0664a2731dfbe78/tumblr_mqlwsujKsg1qa95lvo1_500.jpg

Or this (It's called on the website: "Corset cover with frills":
http://www.agelesspatterns.com/images/1371.GIF

[Miss Cellane]

Somewhere in the book, "Gone with the Wind," I think it's Scarlett who is proud of the fact that she doesn't have to pad out her bosom with lots of little ruffles, like some of her friends. So it must have been somewhat common.

[razz]

My father saved up his money as a bank clerk in southern Africa and travelled to Europe on a limited budget. In Germany, he asked around in fairly limited German if there was a room that he could rent somewhere . He was referred to a home, met my mother who spoke fairly limited English coming out of the house , they fell in love and, 6 weeks later, they were married and on their way back to Africa. They both had a wonderful sense of adventure and were married for the next 57 years until his passing.

[Tradd]

Somewhere in the book, "Gone with the Wind," I think it's Scarlett who is proud of the fact that she doesn't have to pad out her bosom with lots of little ruffles, like some of her friends. So it must have been somewhat common.

Yes, it is Scarlett. Towards the beginning around the Twelve Oaks barbeque, I believe. It was Melanie, Ashley's future wife, who was so flat she had to bad out her bosom with ruffles.

[Azure]

Those are great stories!

My paternal grandparents met because my grandmother got a job teaching school in a small town. She was staying with a local family. My grandpa and his friends heard there was a new girl in town and went out to check her out. I guess she saw something she liked in my grandpa. There is a funny picture somewhere of them in a canoe and she had a lily pad on her head lol. When he asked her to marry him she said yes but that they had to wait a year so she could finish up her teaching contract. They were married til he died. They had a lot of tough things during their marriage.

One year a tornado destroyed their barn and cows. His parents gave them a goat so the kids could have milk. Grandpa said he was NOT going to milk any goat. But he made a milking stool for the goat to stand on so grandma could do it lol