“Staff Valentine stories have bittersweet side” from the February 12, 1976 Door County Advocate
Staff Valentine stories have bittersweet side
Grace Samuelson’s moving story “To One I Love” published in the February issue of Family Circle as a special Valentine Day’s treat, proved so moving to the Advocate’s editorial staff its five writers decided to try to recapture their own very special Valentine’s memories.
So bear with us as we take up Cupid’s fallen bow and let its feathered arrows fall where they may.
KETA STEEBS
(Oldest go first)
It was wartime Milwaukee in the winter of ’43. My fiance, 20-year-old lieutenant whom I shall call Robert Horton because that’s what he was christened, was stationed at Sheridan Field. We hadn’t seen each other since Christmas and I had a feeling, reading between the lines of his infrequent letters, he was still recovering from the shock of meeting the Pearson clan.
The Pearsons of Homestead were, when they so chose, a formidable lot. My grandmother, true to form, had three stock questions ready to hurl at whatever boyfriend any of her 14 granddaughters chose to bring over for an introduction.
“Are you Swedish?” “Are you Lutheran?” “Are you working?”
If the answer to any of the above questions was no the young man could forget about sharing lutefisk at grandma’s Christmas eve table. If not exactly persona non grata he was never really part of the family as far as Grandma Pearson was concerned. She also, as I remember, hated brown eyes.
Fortunately for Bob my maternal grandmother did not discriminate against brown-eyed Anglo-Saxons who were brought up in the Presbyterian faith. Grandma Everingham asked one question and one question only, “Do you love her?”
Bob assured her solemnly that he did but observing that she still seemed skeptical I hastened to get in my two cents worth. “Bob signs his letter “tu amat” everytime he writes,” I said proudly. “It means I love you in Latin.”
Since Christmas I had formed the habit of signing my letters to grandma with those same beautiful words. They seemed to forge a tangible link between the three of us.
As Valentine’s Day approached with no word from Sheridan Field I became more and more dispirited. I knew Bob’s outfit was due to be shipped out; he had mentioned at Christmas that all signs pointed that way but we had hoped for one final leavetaking before that day came.
The afternoon of Feb. 14, 1943 was grey, dark and just about as dismal as my mood. The mailbox on our apartment door stood empty. I remember telling my roommate that even the Boston Store must have forgotten me. My usual bill hadn’t arrived.
No, Doris informed me in answer to my first question, there had been no calls, no wires, no nothing from Sheridan Field. Neither of us had received as much as a paper heart from anyone that day. Just as we were forcing ourselves to sit down to a cold supper the doorbell rang.
A lanky delivery boy, corsage box in hand, asked Doris if this was the residence of Marcheta Pearson. Brushing her aside I assured him breathlessly that I was that person and without giving the boy a chance to tell what shop he was from grabbed a plain white box from his hand. I believe Doris tipped him a quarter but I was too busy reading the card to even look up.
It said, as I expected, “Tu Amat” — no signature but those two words told me everything I needed to know. Bob had remembered me on Valentine’s Day.
Years later, long after the war ended; ages after the battle of Salerno; an eternity since a battle-scarred Lt. Horton was sent to Germany with the occupation forces and married a German girl, I talked about that Valentine’s Day gift with my failing grandmother.
“He must have loved me once,” I told her stubbornly. “Why else would he have sent me those beautiful flowers?”
Grandma smiled sadly.
“Keta,” she said quietly. “He never really loved you at all but Grandpa and I knew how you felt about him. We sent the flowers that day. The girl didn’t know how to spell those Latin words but I had your letter to go by. I hope she spelled ‘tu amat’ right.”
JIM ROBERTSON
When you’re away from your wedding day it’s pretty hard to come up with an idea for a Valentine gift. Or so I thought on Valentine’s Day, 1952.
My bride-to-be had moved into her parents’ new home the previous year and had furnished her bedroom with a new bedroom set, but lacking in a matching-cedar or, as we called it, a hope chest.
So it was on that Valentine’s Day of 24 years ago that I walked into Prange’s in search of a gift idea with no thought of a furniture piece in mind.
But as I wandered down the aisle along the downstairs furniture department my eye fell on a cedar chest, which except for the knobs was almost identical in wood and color to the set she had purchased in another store in another year.
Better yet, it even had a sale tag on it, marked down some $30 which to a fellow making $65 a week was a grand saving in those days.
The Prange salesman said he could have it delivered the same day. But better than a ' valentine gift was the good feeling I had when it came time to move the bedroom set over to the Robertson farm. It was not “her” set we were moving, it was “ours.”
CHAN HARRIS
I hesitate to get into a head to head writing match with Keta (editing is my forte) but here’s my Valentine offering:
The teacher, Miss W, wanted to have a nice Valentine party. No flaws. Everything just so. We drew names and were to get an inexpensive gift for the person drawn. I drew Dorothy.
Not having any sisters and being deathly afraid of girls besides, I had no idea what to get. But Dorothy lived near our house and I knew she had a cat so l got a pouch of catnip.
“Now remember, everybody has to get a present or somebody won’t have one on Valentine’s Day,” the teacher admonished as Feb. 14 drew near.
The afternoon of the big day I ran the two blocks from our house on Lawrence avenue (now Michigan street) to the school (the present junior high then held everything from kindergarten through high school; Sunset and Sunrise didn’t exist). I always waited till the last minute and then took off sprinting.
Not until I got to class and saw the others coming in with small packages did I realize that I had left mine at home. Too late to go back, too mortified to ask to go back.
Party time came and the teacher called the names on the packages. When it was over there was Dorothy, left out and somewhat put out. But her chagrin was nothing compared with Miss W’s. She was furious. She scanned each face during a well punctuated reading of the riot act. I tried to put on my blankest look but it must have been curiously pale.
The teacher never tumbled, though, and to this day neither she nor Dorothy knows who didn’t bring a present.
LINDA ADAMS
Being a great reader of gothic romances and traditional love poems and sonnets, I had always considered my best Valentine Days those years l was dating a boy who courted me with candy and roses and cards filled with romantic verse. To me those objects were the epitomy of what Valentine’s Day was all about. But that was before I met my husband and learned there is more to a relationship than just hearts and flowers.
I think my most memorable Valentine’s Day would probably be Feb. 14, 1973, the first year I was married. A new bride, I was full of anticipation all through the day wondering what lovely surprises my husband would have in store for me that night. Since this was our first year I thought surely he would have some flowers waiting on the dining room table or perhaps a box of candy. Whatever it was I was prepared to be surprised when he gave it to me.
Shortly after 5 p.m. I left work and headed out to school to pick up Jim from a late afternoon basketball practice. It was dark and the afternoon rain had changed to a heavy snow which covered the already slick highway.
I had barely gone, a-mile when suddenly I felt my car begin to lose control as my back wheels slipped off the uneven pavement. Being an inexperienced driver I knew something was going to happen that I would have little control over. I tried to get the car back on the road but in the process began to slide over the median into the other lane.
About the same time another car was traveling toward me. As soon as my brain relayed the danger message I decided to head for the ditch on the opposite side of the road rather than risk the chance of striking the other car,
I’ve heard people say they had their lives flash before them as they were about to experience a serious accident I but in my mind the fear of hitting the other car was more prevalent.
Instead of striking the vehicle on the road I was headed for an implement lot with a horrendous hunk of metal with lance-like prongs coming at me.
I knew l was going to hit and that those hideous long metal prongs were coming through the windshield. Somehow I was aware enough to move my head to the side just as the car struck the implement sending part of it crashing through the window.
As I sat there with fragments of glass in my hair staring at the deep gouges in the dashboard all I could think about was having wrecked the car.
When I finally got to a phone to call my husband at school I had to go through one of the secretaries. I first relayed my message to her and then she hurried down to the coaches’ locker room to get him on the phone. When I told him that I had been in an accident his first words were “How are you?” The concern in his voice was more than I could stand at that moment and my thin veil of courage fell aside as tears started down my face.
Later the secretary told me she knew it must be love because when she had once phoned her husband about an accident he had first asked how the car was and whose fault the accident was before inquiring about her state of health.
In a short while he came to get me and the first thing he did was put his arms around me and tell me that as long as I was alright it didn’t matter about anything else. “We can always get another car but I can’t get another wife," he said in his lighthearted tone.
That night as I sat thinking about what had happened I realized how foolish I had often been measuring such things as love and friendship by pretty phrases and tokens of remembrance. The full measure of love must be found in everyday actions and feelings and not in commercial greetings and objects of monetary value.
When Jim kissed me goodnight and delivered a verbal Valentine (he was feeling bad because his card for me was still in the wrecked car) I knew that this was a very special Valentine’s Day indeed.
JON GAST
I must that confess that when Keta asked me to write about my most memorable Valentine’s Day I felt very much like those poor people on the Ultra Brite commercials. You know, the ones that get asked “How’s your love life?” The ones who invariably, answer “Not so good.”
I like to think, that at 22, my supply of Valentine’s Days are far from reaching their potential and that the most memorable ones are still ahead. I sure hope so, because I haven’t had any memorable ones yet. I’m the poor fellow who always meets THE girl on Feb. 20 and then breaks up with her on Feb. 10, left only to share the most romantic 24 hours of the year with a memorable Tonight Show.
Of the 21 Valentine’s Days that I have lived through I found the most interesting occurring in the early sixties, the years that I was in second, third and fourth grades at Redeemer Lutheran in Green Bay. You know, those years when sending a Valentine to a girl was about as traitorous as sending United States missile installation plans to Russia. I felt it was kind of ironic that we should spend more time expressing love by cards in those years than when we became love-crazed teenagers.
I remember distinctly St. Valentine’s Eve of 1962. A week before Mrs. Redeker (our teacher) gave us mimeographed sheets of paper with our classmates’ names on them (the boys in one column and the girls in another). I also remember the looks around the room that seemed to exclaim “DO I HAVE TO?”
That night as I desperately tried to forget to do the cards I remember my mother placing a pen, the valentines and the list on the table. I remember how I, out of sheer desperation, volunteered to take the garbage out and even (shuttterrrrrr) take a bath. Of course I did the cards and of course I gave them the next day. I always thought it was remarkable how we managed to exchange cards considering no one dare look at each other in the process of handing the card to a classmate.
Isn’t it kind of ironic that in those early years, when we knew so little, we went through the work of preparing cards. Yet in later years when we have supposedly grown up physically and emotionally we often don’t have the time to say hello.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
Articles about Valentine’s Day
https://doorcounty.substack.com/t/valentines-day
Articles by Keta Steebs
https://doorcounty.substack.com/t/keta-steebs
Articles by Jim Robertson
https://doorcounty.substack.com/t/jim-robertson
Articles by Chan Harris
https://doorcounty.substack.com/t/chan-harris
Articles by Linda Adams
https://doorcounty.substack.com/t/linda-adams
Articles by Jon Gast
https://doorcounty.substack.com/t/jon-gast