She wanted to be a teacher and play the piano, but became a book keeper and secretary. She was very intelligent, loved to read and was up to date on current events, but she also enjoyed the Friday night Japanese “Creature Features.” She hated being “cooped up in the house”, but didn’t get her license until just a few years before she died. She enjoyed when the whole family went to the beach, although she would only go wading. Yet, timid she was not. 

Mary was a petite 5’2”, almost. Her hair was brown and her eyes, which seemed brown, had green in them, too. She was very stylish and loved shopping with her sister. She was charming and, in my eyes, as glamorous as a movie star. She reminded me of Vivian Leigh in “Gone With the Wind.” She and I both loved Saturday nights when she’d come down the stairs ready for her evening out with Dad. I’d exclaim how beautiful she was and she would glow.

She was very close to her mother and phoned her every day for long conversations. She loved Sunday afternoons at her mother’s house with her brothers and sister. She had planned on having more children, but the doctor advised against it after my younger brother, Steve, was born. It had been a difficult pregnancy and delivery. She was a modern woman, and trusted in the authorities of the day.

My parents had a happy marriage. There was always romance between them. When they married, and the priest said, “You may kiss the bride,” my dad did a movie star dip and gave Mom a kiss that is still remembered sixty years later.

Read more about Mary in “My Mother’s Yellow Kitchen”.