November 15, 2006

Fred and Colleen Schuler as newlyweds

Today is my mom’s birthday and, as usual, I’m posting about her life. I’ve already posted about her childhood and young adulthood. Sometime I’ll post about the start of her teaching career and her experiences during World War II.

But right now I’ll fast-forward a bit and post about her experiences as a newlywed. My parents were married in the summer of 1946. They’d planned to honeymoon in Cuba (how different things were then!) but my dad—never one to let a standing plan get in the way of a good idea changed that at the last minute to Canada.

So, what did my mom do? Here she was, a young bride packed for Cuba in the summer, suddenly finding herself in Canada’s early autumn. Did she whine, complain, go home to mother? Not a bit. She bought a sweater, soldiered on, and had a great time.

When they returned to St. Louis they moved into a small house that my dad had inherited from his grandfather (I’ll tell you about Joe Schuler some other time). That’s them in that house in the picture above, exactly as I remember it so many years ago (click on the picture for a larger version). Judging by the styles this is a year or so before I was born. In this picture my mom and dad are much as I remember them in my earliest memories.

The house was too small. My dad, undeterred by his lack of experience as a builder, put on an addition. Much of the actual work was done by my mom and my dad’s college friend, Jack Fischer, an FBI field agent and quite handy. My mom took this, too, with characteristic good humor.  I’ve heard it said that the secret of happiness is turning all of life’s activities into a game, into play.  In many ways my mom embodies this attitude in her life.  The large, open back room that was added became bedroom and playroom for us kids as we came along.

As my mom frequently notes, life with my father was never dull.

Other posts about my mom:

My mom’s StoryCorps recording
Time for a visit

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