Roses rambling

       I am going to attempt to write a tribute to my mother.

I may have to write several days about her as she lived a

long and full life.   She passed away 12 days before her

91st birthday.   She was born in October, 1913 and passed

away in October, 2004.   My father survived her by one year,

one month and one day.  Then they reunited in Heaven.

She was a wonderful mother to two daughters, and grand-

mother to four grand-daughters and two grand-sons.   Her

family was her life, and my father was the love of her life.

             When I was a child,  I can remember the many times

she related their love story to us.   She always made it sound

like an enchanted time even though I know now that it was a

time of hardship.  She was a teen during the "Roaring Twenties",

and had the classic bobbed hair,  chemise, and pearls.  She loved

music and dancing though it was forbidden by her puritannical

mother.  After the stock-market crashed in '29,  the lean years

of the depression followed.  She met my father in the '30's and

they married in 1939. 

        They had met at Mom's oldest sister's.  She was married to

my father's uncle.  Mom and Dad were absolutely not related,  but

my Aunt's children were my double cousins.  (First and second,  if

that makes any sense.) Anyway,  they were visiting their respective

relatives when they met and apparently it was love at first sight.  My

Dad was an exceptionally handsome young man.  I have often been

told by their friends that he could have been a movie star if he chose.

As a child,  I often thought he looked like a combination of Clark Gable

and Rock Hudson.   My mother was pretty,  with hair as black as a

raven's wing and unusual amber-colored eyes.  Her high cheekbones

andolive skin reflected the Native American ancestors from her mothers

side.  Her father was Irish.  My father's ancestors were from England.

       I have heard that Native Americans sometimes name their babies

for the first animal or bird they see or hear after the baby's birth.  I do

not know if my mother's name was chosen this way,  but it is an enter-

taining thought.  Her name was Dove and the middle name meant

sorrowful in Spanish.  I wonder if her mother heard the lonesome

sounding cooing of the turtledove.  I think of her every time I hear

the name "Lonesome Dove"  which was my father's favorite series.

           My mother and father had a whirlwind romance, and wanted

to marry .  However,  they had a young lover's quarrel that ended

with him going to Florida.  He worked as a lifeguard in Tampa for

almost a year before they finally got back in touch.   Then he headed

for home,  and they eloped on a cold, snowy day, the first in November.

They liked to tell that they married in Canada.  Actually, it was Canada,

Kentucky.  That was the closest place (by bus) that did not have a

three-day waiting period for a marriage liscense.   They would tell

all about their pretty little wedding ,  the kind Justice of the peace and

his wife,  who played piano and sang. 

         They caught the bus back to a nearby city and spent their wedding

night at a hotel that is still there.  They told of their wedding supper and

made the scrambled egg sandwiches from room service sound so

romantic.  (They were served with dill pickles on the side,  and though

neither had ever eaten eggs with dill pickles prior to that time,  they

always had them that way ever after during their 65 years of marriage.)

They were inseparable all this time,  and spent very few nights apart.  I

would say less than ten, if I were guessing.  They were always very much

in love,  and everyone knew it.  For better or worse,  and they meant it.

                                                                                   To Be Continued--------:)