2019: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 7 (Love)

I've always been a great believer in love and am a romantic at heart.  My collection of romance novels will attest to that.  In my personal life, I was prepared to stay single than marry someone just for the sake of being married.  I did find my soulmate when I was in mid-30s and we will be celebrating our 24th wedding anniversary this year.  Family and friends still say we act like newlyweds.

As I continue to do my genealogy research, I am surprised at the number of males and females who never married.  Were they like me and were holding out for their true love and never found him/her?  Or was their story more tragic and they lost the Love of their Life before getting to the altar?  I will likely never get the answer to those questions. 

And then there are some that did get married later in life.  Did they "settle"?  Or did they finally find their True Love like I did?  There are many couples in my trees that lived into their 80s (which is something for people born in the 1800s and earlier) and celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary together. 

Mary Jane (nee Woodland) & William Daisley ALLEN

There is a family "heirloom" that has been used at Golden Wedding anniversaries for three generations of my Allen family.  The sign had been created in 1931 for the 60th Wedding anniversary of my great-grandparents: William Daisley Allen and Mary Jane Woodland. 

It was used again in 1970 for my grandparents' (Harry Allen & Gertie Cooper) 50th Wedding Anniversaries and then in 1997 for the 50th anniversary celebrations of two of their children: daughter Dora and her husband Fred McWhinnie and son Albert and his wife Helen Maloney.

When the Allens love, they love for a long time.

My father died before my parents were able to celebrate their 50th Wedding Anniversary.  However, my parents set the bar high for a loving relationship - which is why I believe I was not prepared to settle for less in my love life.

My parents (Jack Allen and Eveleen Schell) grew up in the same small Ontario hamlet: Brentwood, so they knew each other.  My father was six years older, so they were never went to school together - the community was large enough that the school house was divided into two rooms.  By the time my mother started school, my father would have been in the senior room.  However, several siblings of my father did attend school with my mother. 

By the time she was a teenager, my mother had set her sights on the local farm boy - but it took her several years before he gave in and paid her any attention.  It took a mutual friend to con him into double dating as the friend was interested in the school teacher that boarded at my maternal grandparents' house.  Although my father didn't pursue my mother, he apparently always made sure that he was dressed his best when hanging out at the local store with his buddies and "conveniently" ran into the local girls, including my mother. 

When they did become an item, Dad still played hard to get.  At church each Sunday, Mom would invite him to dinner and he always tried to use the excuse of farm chores to try to turn down the invitation.  Mom later learned from his sisters that he always made a point of doing his share of the chores in the morning before church, leaving the afternoon chores to his younger brothers.

Dad was a man of few words, but his actions spoke volumes.  He never left for work without a kiss from my mother.  He would not go to her for the kiss, but would stand at the back door waiting for her.  There was one year during my childhood that Mom was in and out of the hospital for several surguries: broken ankle, gall bladder and hysterectomy.  At that point in time, Dad's job as the Superintendent of a mechanical construction company required him to check in on various out of town job sites.  After driving for several hours each day, he would come home and cook the dinner I had prepped and then take my brothers and me to the hospital to visit my mother.  Once back home, he had paper work to complete before heading to bed and repeat the process the following day.

My Father died of pancreatitis in 1990 after only a few weeks of illness.  My Mother was devastated and wanted to give up the will to live.  But my brothers and I were able to get her to accept that he would have wanted to her continue with her life.  Dad's goal in life was always to provide a better life for his wife and children.  With his investments, insurance and pensions, Mom has been able to continue living without changing her lifestyle.

On the first anniversary of my father's death, my mother spent the day reading letters that he had sent her back in the days when they had been dating.  Prior to marriage, she worked as the Cook's Assistant in an Old Age Home and boarded at the home.  The man of a few words actully spent his evenings writing notes to his girlfriend.  They were more notes, but meant a lot to my mother - so much that she had kept them for over 40 years.  Even 29 years since my father's death, she still has them and refuses to let us read them.  She has requested that they be buried with her.

As Mom was adjusting to life as a widow, I began to realize that I was holding out for a True Love like I grew up seeing in my parents' relationship.  I eventually did meet my True Love and my husband has many of the qualities of my father.  Like my father, Terry's actions speak volumes.  We were together for several months before he acutally said the words "I love you" to me, but I was confident of my love from his actions.  He made been through a bad divorce, so I knew the words would be difficult for him but I knew I was loved.  Once he finally vocalized the words, he tells me several times a day.  And like my father, he will do anything for his wife without thought of himself.