Beginnings

Always I see this scene in sepia tones. It is the forties, in Washington, DC, and my mother, soon to be 16, is leaning out of the top story window of a rowhouse on Adams Street, showing her best friend the good-looking tall young man walking down the sidewalk across the street.

"How can I meet him, Rose? Isn't he gorgeous? They just moved in and he has two slightly younger brothers. He works to support his widowed mother...I've found out that much about him. But I'm going to marry him some day!

Rose suggested my mother, Lee, invite him to her upcoming 16th birthday party. Lee beamed and clapped her hands in delight. Her mother was even then writing out the letters to invite her friends. She would just have to write one extra letter.

Family history says they danced all night. Now, I know my grandmother would never have allowed teens to dance in her apartment all night long, but it was such a romantic notion that we've kept it as family history.

They danced most of the night, and fell deeply in love at the ages of barely 16 and a responsible 19 or so.