Chapter 1
My Parents' Marriage.
In those days, in the forties, there was no birth control and teenagers had to deal with their surging hormones without having sex. That is why kids got married early. Any time after 16 was socially acceptable to wed, although late teens or early twenties was better. Too much longer, say at 28, and the young lady would be regarded as a ‘spinster’, an ‘old maid’.
My parents fell in love when they were 12 so it was a long wait to get married at 17 or 18. But the war came along and wedding plans had to be postponed until my dad came back from action. Four years later, at 20 and 21, they tied the knot.
My mother was Catholic and because she was marrying a Protestant, the church excommunicated her.
She’s very much the type to say, “You can’t fire me. I quit!”
Insulted that her faith rejected her, she turned her back on it and never thought about it again. I’m very glad she did this. To be raised Catholic is to grow up with haunting guilt and unfounded fears of God and of the ever after. I was happy not to have to deal with any of it.
I could never understand, however, that the Catholic church excommunicated my mother for marrying a Protestant, but not for marrying her first cousin. Catholics today are much more fortunate as they get to go to Heaven if they marry outside of their faith (or even if they marry their cousins). Just rotten luck for my Mom that she missed this window of opportunity by being born in the wrong era.
The wedding took place at the lodge at Mont Tremblant, a ski resort in Quebec. Both my Mom and Dad were active in the ski world up there and it seemed the perfect setting for their wedding. It was small, just family and close friends. So small and out of the way, I got the feeling of ‘clandestiny’; but I may be wrong. My Mom’s Dad and his sister, who was my Dad’s Mom, were there with their spouses, my Mom and Dad’s aunt and uncle. I still get cross-eyed trying to figure it out.
