War Torn Love (19 page)

             
One day, Momma had me follow her up to the attic. She knelt down before a lovingly bound chest, with a brass and copper panel which said ‘keepsakes’ in flowing copperplate - she never let my sister or I open. This is where she stored grandma’s wedding dress. She first showed me pictures I had never seen before. She showed me a whole stack of love-letters my father had written to
her, before they were married. She had them tied together with a pink ribbon, she untied it and handed me the stack.

             
“Go ahead sweetie I want you to read!”

             
I was flattered when she let me read through a few of her personal letters. They were so romantically written. It was hard to believe that it was my Momma and Poppa in the letters.

             
Momma’s wedding had one differences from mine, hers and Poppa’s were prearranged, and they did not actually meet each other until right before their wedding.

             
“My daughter your father just wasn’t going to have this. He desperately wanted to know the woman he would be marrying. So after getting permission first, father had started corresponding with me for about a year before our wedding, so that we could get to know each other. We sent pictures of one another.

             
Momma said that, “through our correspondences, we ended up falling-in-love through the words, and pictures we sent to one another.”

             
“That’s so romantic Momma, I hope I have as happy as marriage as you and Poppa have.”

             
“My daughter, I want you to know that you will have your up and downs in your marriage - it’s something that you both need to remember that you have to both work at it every day, never take your marriage for granted.”

             
I could see Momma had been trying to pass down some of her wisdom to me, before I went off and got marry.

             
  We spent a good hour or so, going threw her possessions. We both had some good laughs, and cries. Once Momma brought out the wedding dress out, she showed it to me, but before I was to try fitting it, she delicately cleaned and ironed it. It had been in storage for so long. When I tried it on, we realized we had to make some alterations, especially in my chest; I must have larger breasts then grandma. If we didn’t, I couldn’t breathe – and could possibly blaspheme in the eyes of the whole congregation, simply by taking a deep breath. I didn’t want to split the fine dress, and there just wasn’t enough time to sew a whole new dress, not in the short amount of time we had until the big day I really wanted to wear the dress - I could tell how much it meant to Momma, maybe my own daughter would also wear this dress. Truthfully, I was worried we were not going to be able to make the changes, without ruining the dress. Momma and I worked on it for three days, but finally it fit perfectly, as if it was tailored just for me in the first place - you could not even tell that we had altered the dress in any way.

             
All of Momma’s flowers throughout the yard were pretty much in full bloom - I could tell how excited this made Momma since she had promised her flowers for my wedding, to add as much color to the proceedings as she could.
 

             
A day before the big day, Sissy, Momma, and I were busy making up flower arrangements. Abram’s
mother was busy baking a three-layered wedding cake. The men were not off the hook -my father, Abram, and his father, and brother-in-law went and set up the “chupa”, table, and chairs they borrowed from the congregation.

             
Abram had also been extremely busy doing his own bit of preparation, not per say so much focused on our actual wedding - he showed no real interest in that part, but rather he was busy arrangement for our life that was to take place afterward the wedding. He was the very practical sort.

             
Besides the poor dear did not have the time for it. He was very serious about our prospects for our future. A couple of weeks ago, Poppa and him went up to get a firsthand look at the property he wanted to buy. Abram wanted to show him what he was planning. It was at that time, Abram had talked it over with Poppa, and with Poppa’s blessing, it was decided that Abram and I after the wedding would be living in Momma and Poppa’s house together as man and wife, staying in my room. Therefore, we could then be able to save our money up.
             

             
Last week Abram signed the papers, and officially made the final payment, he bought us a charming forty acres of land, to start our future together as farmers. When he made that payment he had me come – to me - he wanted to share in the excitement, since it also involved
me,
I have only seen him that excited once, that was when I said yes to his proposal. I made us all a nice dinner to celebrate.

             
Oh, you should
have seen it
was fabulous, with amazing, breathtaking views. The farm was so quaint and quite, a quarter mile off the nearby road. Only just about a mile from there, there was a year round creek, even a small pond feed by the
creek, which
meant good fishing. The only setback with the property was there was no house situated on the property, and we did not have the money to build one.
Fortunately,
for us, there was already a lovely barn, and the entire property was already fenced off.  Abram had just enough money left over after buying our farm, to get a small start on some livestock. What is a farm without any farm animals, right?

             
Abram bought the land off of the farmer he had been working for all these years. The farmer really liked him, which is why the farmer agreed to the arrangement. He was quite taken
by my
beloved. Even back when, Abram actually had the insight to think ahead - even as a young boy, he already knew what he wanted to be…a farmer.  So to achieve this goal, he had made a special arrangement, every year a major portion of his salary would be set aside, like a savings account, going towards the purchase of the land, he finally bought. He and the farmer got on very well together - he almost thought of him as a son. Abram would continue working for the farmer, giving us a small wage to live on. And in turn helping the farmer run his own large farm. He especially needed the help, as he was getting on in years. The farmer’s only son had been tragically lost a half a dozen years before. I remember it – it was just before Abram and his family joined us – he was devastated, and the community shocked to
its
core.  This left him definitely shorthanded Abram had just come along
at the right time, since it was just him and his son-in-law, trying to run the farm
themselves
, a daunting task.

             
Once the son-in-law and Abram were done plowing and planting the farmer’s fields, Abram and he then plowed our land, oh I guess that was back in the early April – before we graduated, and with the help of the farmer, they planted crops of wheat, corn, and potatoes. And a small patch for a vegetable garden. He wanted to be sure that we could get a crop in that year. He insisted on that fact.

             
He said that in a year or two, time with a few good crops, and God’s blessing we could have saved up enough money to build us a fine house. Then, we figured that we could then start creating a family.

             
To further our success the week before the
wedding
, he bought half a dozen cows - one was a bull, the rest females. A dozen
sheep
and he built a small chicken coop next to the barn. Poppa was going to give us some of their egg laying hens, and a very hoary rooster name Fred - he gladly wanted to be rid of him. He and that rooster did not get along so well, they warred with one another. I am surprised Poppa had not butchered him before now. The only reason he has still even managed to be alive because I lobbied for Poppa to spare his life. The darn rooster chased dad every time he enters
the chicken
coop, and pecked at him. See the bird is notorious for starting to crow an hour before the sun even begins to
raise
and then will not stop for a good hour after sunrise. Therefore, I do not know if him giving him to us was such a good thing, but you know the old saying, “beggars can’t be choosers.” And let’s face it; we weren’t going to be living there for several years.

             
His parents - as well as my own parents were trying to help us out all they could - but these were pretty tough economic times on them, neither family had much extra money, business was slow, with some recent contracts in Germany being cancelled.

             
Neither Abram nor I wanted to impose any financial burden on our parents.

             
I could not have been more proud of Abram for what he has already managed to accomplish at his age. On another related note, he had another boxing bout. He won the heavyweight title of Poland. He had also been approached to compete in the 1940 Olympic Games.

             
One night while we were all eating dinner together, he told us about being
-
approached. He talked it over with me before saying yes, before giving his answer.

             
I said, “Honey I’m so proud of you - you have a real gift. If it is what you want, than it is what I want too. I can help
-
out on the farm while you train. I mean it - I think that you should go for it!”

             
He looked at me, and the rest of the family, thought about it a second, “Ok, I am going to do it.

             
Everyone got up and cheered, he looked so happy.

             
He now was taking on so much. He has been working, and training so hard over the last couple of months, He’d been leaving out of his parents house before first light - first to train, then to go to work, and then not returning usually back home again until more often than
not well after dark. This time of years was ten PM in the evening. He was working this hard nearly six days a week, only stopping before sunset Friday, and then taking Saturday off for Jewish Sabbath. It-is law in the Jewish religion; the only exception is the feeding of the animals. He made sure that the Sabbath day was spent with me, and God, and family.  That was the only time I really get to see him during the week - when I either brought him a picnic lunch. We would sit together and eat. We would walk the property. He would show me where he wanted to position the house we were going to build, how we would sit together in the evening, there on our new covered porch, and look out at our farm.

             
He said, “Honey I can see it, as clear as day, as clear as the hand before my face. I have the whole house planned out in my head.”

             
I loved to observe how over excited he tends to get, just talking about it, in turn I would get excited as him. He really wanted to build it with his own two hands.

             
I worried about him working himself so hard - I could not eat supper without him, knowing how hard he was working.  Sp, I waited for him out on his porch, or I walked up to the farm
, and
then walked home with him. Even if I did not walk up, I personally waiting on my own dinner, I started cooking for him, I took great satisfaction in that. And I might add he was darn lucky with the fact that I am an extremely good cook, thanks to my Momma teaching me.  I liked taking dinner with my future husband - his Momma taught me how to cook his favorite dishes. It was so pleasant to share this precious time; I will take
whatever moments I can. I had to at least see him a little each day.  I more often than not ended up having to put him to bed, since he generally fell asleep on me, right there at the dining room table. He is so exhausted all the time. Yet somehow, he stills kept pushing himself as each new day arrived.