All I ever wanted was to get married and have children. Somehow, this idea has become discredited. Why? Is this a conspiracy? How did the thing that has been the most important in the survival of the human race become “unfashionable”? Where would the world be without the family unit? No one ever told me when I was young that there was anything I could not do as a woman. When speaking with my father about my opportunities, I mentioned…
We were invited to a family wedding last weekend. The “additional information” on the invitation said to dress to a Wes Anderson theme. “Who is that, I asked?” Once my family explained it to me, I forgot all about it. My week before the wedding was so full of social events, it was unusual. Monday, a birthday party for a grandson at his family home, a black tie dinner at Farmington Country Club on Tuesday. Wednesday, I rested. Thursday, there…
What is more fun than a long lunch with an old friend? Recently, I had the pleasure of spending most of the day with an old friend from my schooldays. We met at Peking, a Chinese restaurant, but we both arrived early before it opened. So, I gotinto her car, and we chatted for 20 minutes, with the windows down and a small breezekeeping us from sweating too much as the sun beat down on her automobile, until we sawthem…
The newest wedding might have been the best one yet!! Our family has had two weddings within six weeks. That is a huge burden on a family. But my daughter Helen and her wonderful husband, David, were up to the task. Both of them are remarkably unflappable. If they feel anxiety, it is well hidden from me. Grace’s wedding was special to me because I have always known she was one of those people who (like me) wanted to be…
It was calm, sedate, and pleasant for the guests. The room was lovely. The pale blue walls,with white plaster decorative touches, gave guests a feeling of peace.This peace surrounded me and filled me with loving thankfulness. After the morning I had justspent going to a graduation in the rain at UVA, it was a blessed relief. It had poured all nighton Friday and drizzled all Saturday morning. It was pretty unpleasant, but I was with agranddaughter, Delilah, trying to find…
I learned on Saturday that I no longer cry when I hear wedding vows between a young woman and a young man. Age has made me wiser, calmer, and more realistic. Weddings are so beautiful and moving; women love them. While most men seem to wish they could avoid going altogether. Marriage is full of ups and downs. Some are so small you barely notice, and others are as strong as earthquakes. I believe in Marriage. Taking Marriage vows is…
My mother, Ruth Elizabeth Hale, liked men. She had a great desire for admiration. She feltit was necessary as a young person to have a boyfriend to enjoy life. And she was a magnetfor members of the opposite sex. Men adored her. Mother’s first real love affair was with a man named Edward Wheeler. His father was asenator, and a friend of my mother’s father, my grandfather. Mother’s father liked thefamily. When they began their relationship, my mother was 17,…
Two of my granddaughters announced their engagements this summer. So exciting!!! Daisy is going to marry Steve Luck. Would you believe me if I tell you that Grace is going to marry Gil Luck? But these two men with the same last name are NOT related. Both men proposed to each granddaughter within a couple of weeks of each other. Stories about how men proposed to women flood the Internet. Would you like to know what happened between me and…
The idea of getting married is now considered controversial.How did that happen? Two-time Super Bowl champion kicker Harrison Butker of the Kansas City Chiefs delivered a speech to graduates at Georgia Tech on May 6, 2023. He gave this advice: “Get married and start a family”. He said this in reference to finding a way to better people’s lives in this country. Some people cheered when he said it. Some did not. And it has gone viral as a “controversial…
Being a woman is the best. We are so lucky. We have all the advantages and always have. Men want us and need us and protect us and basically revere us. What’s not to like about that? We have such advantages! We don’t have to go down into the basement to discover what “that sound” was! For many everyday scary things men will show us their bravery. It is they who get the snake out of the house, get rid…
The voice spoke to me from outside my body but I was alone. There was no one with me. “You don’t want to live here. You need to leave and go to Charlottesville. You want to be with your children and grandchildren. Go!” I was alone in my mothers’ bedroom on a day in late February 2020. The room was dark, curtains drawn, and the blue silk wallpaper seemed to fade out to nothing. The cream-colored, French provincial, dresser I…
All summer of 1916 Helen wrote Billy Hale every day except on the days when they saw each other. While he was absent she spent a lot of time painting china. He visited her in Midland, which was a company town, with little else to offer the visitor. She writes of longing to see him, to kiss him, but not too much. She is clearly passionate about him, but circumspect in her writing about this part. They were still chaste…
My grandmother Helen Dow Hale was smart and funny. She was one of six children, the oldest one in her family. She had loads of friends when she went to college. She was young and vibrant and full of hope and plans for the future. She graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1916. While there, along with studying and joining a sorority Theta of Alpha Phi and making new friends, she fell in love with her…
In one closet, the scent of mothballs was so strong that we usually just opened then shut the door. We knew several fur coats were hanging in this one. And an umbrella trimmed in mink hung on a hook. Finally, one day I opened the door all the way and began to remove items. There were multiple cashmere scarves, a handmade quilt, boxes and boxes of negatives to photos she had put in albums, a large feather duvet wrapped in…
When I called my mother and asked her to come to stay while I spent a night in the hospital, she said: “I am sorry, I can’t.” What? I thought I must have misheard her. It happened this way; When I was 20 and a new bride and an extremely new mother, I had a small medical issue. My doctor said he could fix it, but it would require one night in the hospital. We lived in Charlottesville, VA, in…
