You're Getting Bumped (eBook)

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BARBARA’S ROOTS

Told by Madeline - Barbara’s Sister

I feel fortunate to tell my sister’s story. Her life is a testament to what is good in this world. She had faults, but they were dim shadows compared to the inspired light of her kindness.

Barbara provided some of the happiest moments of my life. She did it by sharing the most precious gift a sibling can offer a barren sister; her children. She humored me when I offered impractical advice, like when I told her she should be a better housekeeper. I had little clue, and she knew it. While she let me pretend I played an important role in her children’s success, I was, at best, a cheerleader. I enjoyed all the fun of sharing their lives without the drama of babydom, teenage angst or any other catastrophe that befalls a kid while growing up.

Her 1920s and 30s “struggling class” upbringing—somewhere between a lower class and a middle class yet to exist—foreshadowed the life she chose. I say that while believing it is a rare individual who actually ‘chooses’ a particular life. It doesn’t happen that way for most people. I think we stumble into an existence that is more a surprise than a choice. Take my own life for example. I married Al Lafayette, but it was more out of exasperation than love, and I don’t mind admitting it.

I was the Kelly family’s first child—ten years older than Barbara. Our mother, Florence and father, Patrick had two girls and four boys. I was considered tall, though I preferred, ‘statuesque’. I studied glamor magazines to ensure my hair met the standards of the day, and in that sense, I was clearly trendy. My taste in clothes was another matter. I knew early on that my body was made for classically styled dresses, shoes and accessories. Our family might have been poor, but our circumstances were never revealed through my fashion. I became expert at modifying cheaply designed patterns and sewing them back together into something special.

Some of my girlfriends thought I looked like a movie star. One even said I reminded her of Lauren Bacall. I pretended it was impossible to believe something so outlandish, while letting the words repeat in my brain like a fading echo.

As foreign as it sounds by today’s standards, in the 1920s and ‘30s most young women aspired to become housewives and mothers. It was an honorable goal, born of a dream they understood and that was nurtured by near universal experience. It fulfilled their purpose as history and convention defined it. It completed them. Those who felt trapped tended to escape through education. They became teachers and nurses and a few of the brilliant ones, scientists and doctors. Their road was difficult. In 1915, the percentage of women graduating with medical degrees was 2.9%. By 1930 only a single women’s medical school existed.

For my part, I was neither brilliant, nor driven. Enter Al Lafayette.

I met Al through a friend. While ok, he was hardly my type. He stood half a head shorter than me, which meant I had to wear flats rather than the high heels I preferred. He slicked down his coal black hair with pomade. It made him look more like a mafia figure than the electrician he had become. In fact, that job was his saving grace. He had a trade and tradesmen were in demand.

We went out a few times with only limited success. He was a bad kisser. His parents emigrated from France, and I think he believed the French kiss was how it was supposed to be done. If I decided to give him a chance, his reeducation would be messy, but I could make him a decent kisser. On the plus side, he was fun and courted me with enthusiasm and gifts. It became clear however, that he was developing a mad crush before I was ready. Regardless, I continued to accept his offers while making it clear I would be dating other men. He halfheartedly agreed.

Before long, he began showing up on my family’s front porch when I came home from a date with someone else. On one occasion, I was with a sweet young man I had seen three times. Three seemed to be Al’s limit. My date and I arrived home from dinner and a movie. We climbed the five steps leading to our front porch. When we reached the top, I noticed Al sitting on the ceiling-mounted porch swing, wielding a pipe wrench the size of his arm. He came at my young suitor with a menacing glare, an upraised wrench and a conviction that caused me to shudder. The young man turned so fast he stumbled over his own feet and in a flash, he was off the porch and streaking toward his car.

“And don’t come back,” Al yelled. “She’s gonna marry me.”

That was the first time I heard his real intentions, but I had to admit it was a little romantic in a ‘freaky side show’ kind of way. Al turned to face me, the pipe wrench now resting on his shoulder.

“You’re gonna marry me,” he said. And with that, he sauntered down the porch steps and into the darkness. He carried away my future that night, along with the pipe wrench and his persistence. Oddly enough, I didn’t mind. I was going to be a housewife and hopefully a mother. I would learn to love him—and that’s what happened. Did I ‘choose’ that life? In an odd way, maybe, but I believe it was more the ‘surprise’ I mentioned earlier.

Enough about me, now back to the world that shaped Barbara. Our parents, Patrick H. Kelly and Florence Wiedenmann, were an unlikely pairing of a gregarious Irishman, and by universal agreement, an understated and dour German lady. They met near Hiatville, Kansas. Patrick was 31, Florence 21. He was tall and broad shouldered with a wide face, distinctly prominent nose and a strong chin. She was slight, with a tiny waist and a sharp face punctuated by small, close features. Family and friends considered her the prettiest of her sisters. Some thought she was quiet and bookish to a fault. Apparently, Patrick found that trait desirable. He might have reasoned his buoyant charm was a perfect antidote to her natural reserve.

I mentioned that Florence was a teacher. You might wonder how someone with an eighth-grade education was qualified to teach? In the early 1900s a person could take a standardized test covering a wide range of subjects, including— Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Orthography, English Grammar, Geography, United States History, Physiology and Hygiene and the Constitution of the United States. An applicant was required to score at least 75% in each subject. Florence scored 84%.

Later in life we asked Mom why she married someone so much older (in that era, 10 years was a great deal of time). She thought about it briefly before answering. And then she admitted, “Because he could take care of me.” I knew there was a potent precision in that answer, but the greater truth was that he loved her and she loved him. You knew it through the little things they did for one another—simple things whose value came largely from the pleasure of one’s giving and the other’s receiving.

It seemed odd that Patrick waited to marry so late in life. People found him handsome, fun, kind and loving. A former teacher himself, and later a rural mail carrier, he surely stood out as stable and a good catch. Then again, the odds were low that he would meet an eligible young woman on the sparsely populated prairies of southeast Kansas. Compounding the problem, he lived on the original Kelly family farm with his parents, along with a sister and brother. Plus, he was thirty and beyond middle age. It was 1910 and most men married in their late teens or early twenties as life expectancy for a male was only 48.4 years. It wasn’t so much that young people were in a hurry—life itself was the hurry.

Regardless of why Patrick waited so long to marry, or why Florence chose a man considerably older than herself, the die was cast and the Wiedenmann and Kelly families were going to host a fine wedding. Florence’s parents were financially comfortable. Her dad, C.A., was a member of the Wiedenmann family that settled Westport Landing, considered the birthplace of Kansas City, Missouri.

Florence was their first child and they intended to give her the grandest ceremony they could afford. Good intentions aside, there were only so many extravagances a person could buy in Hiattville, Kansas. Patrick and Florence had little money at that point, so Patrick contributed to the cause by taking advantage of his perfect cursive penmanship. He wrote each wedding invitation by hand and friends in the printing business said the results were indistinguishable from printing press quality. One was as elegant as the next.

The wedding took place on July 6, 1910. The Society page of the local newspaper provided a thorough recap (The column even included: “Society Editor’s Phone No. 128”). The first paragraph read:

On last Wednesday morning at 9 o’clock at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Hiattville, Miss Florence E. Wiedenmann, eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C.A. Wiedenmann and Mr. Patrick H. Kelly, eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. T.J. Kelly, were united in marriage by the Rev. Father O’Brien. The young people were attended by Miss Grace Kelly and Mr. John Driscoll.

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After the wedding, they mortgaged a small house in Hiattville and set about raising a family. Florence wanted a baby right away. In fact, it took nearly two years before I was born in June of 1912. In short order, Patrick, Cliff, Barbara and Joe arrived. Then, ten years—and a huge surprise later—Charles was born. From the beginning, Patrick felt uneasy about how fast the babies were coming. He needed to make more money....