Ed and Helen: March 2, 1946
My cousin and her hus- band were in town from Florida last weekend to attend a funeral for their
brother-in-law. (I celebrat- ed the Mass here at Holy.) One of my other cousins decided that this would be a perfect time to get to- gether and share a meal. And it was perfect.
What made it even more memorable is that my cousin brought out all these old pictures that my aunt had mounted and saved, and several of them from my mom and dad’s wedding – 78 years ago this weekend. I had never seen these pictures before.
Their wedding day, March 2, 1946, was a bright sunny day in Denver, Colorado. Mom looked radiant in her wedding dress and Dad, surprisingly, looked dapper in a double breasted suit. (All the men in the 40’s wore double breasted suits. I need one. They look so classy!) Mom’s cousin was her maid of honor (mom was the only girl in her family) and my uncle Hank, who would become my godfather eleven years later, was the best man. My Aunt Julie (dad’s side) and my Uncle Jack (mom’s side) were in the wedding party. It had been eight months since the Second World War had finally ended and all the weddings in 1946 would be the fuse that would ignite the Baby Boom.
Mom and Dad seem in these pictures full of hope and optimism. The scourge of fascism had been beaten and there was hope for a time of peace and prosperity. They would move to St. Louis and dad would take advantage of the GI Bill and get his education at St.
Louis University and become an accountant. Mom was a stay at home mother whose love and concern would deeply touch the five children that they would welcome into their family. (I was #4.) They would never be very rich, but we never ever wanted for anything in our lives. I had always assumed we were middle class, until I ventured a bit beyond South St. Louis County and found out we weren’t. (Our exotic trips to Poplar Bluff, MO and Des Moines, IA should have been an obvious
clue.) In their wedding pictures, they seem to have little or no clue as to what lay ahead of them over the next forty years (they made it to their fortieth wedding anniversary), the joys and sorrows of family life. (Most especially the grief of that dreaded Child #4! He was a handful.) But they were people of faith, and so they were up for almost anything.
One picture from that day is particularly poignant for me: a group picture of my four grandparents. I am not positive, but that may have been the only time the four of them were together. Two of my grandparents, Grandma Gannon and Grandpa Schmittgens, had died before I was born. The other two, Grandma Schmittgens and Grandpa Gannon, I knew, but they were gone by the time I finished first grade. (If your grandparents are still alive, visit them! Now!) In the picture at the wedding they seem so old, that is until I realized that I am older now than they were in 1946.
They had seen a lot. The first 46 years of the twentieth century were a time of great progress and great strife. The Gannons began the century on one continent, (island? They were born in Ireland), but finished up in the new world of the Americas. Though I barely knew them, my grandparents’ courage, strength and integrity gave me my life, my character and my sense of humor.
Lent is a time to remember our roots, our origins or heritages. And when we do that, it gives us the
nerve and the pluck to continue on into our futures.
And then one day, someone will look back on
photos of us with a similar affection and warmth and thank God.