Monday, June 24, 2024 Red and Lucille

I’m still trying to organize the family history documents and photos chronologically. These are all things that my mom passed on to me well before she died, along with more things I came into possession of after she died.

Usually there are just the barest details known about some of the “ancient” antecedents – birth, death, children’s names, some military service records. Later on, a few photos begin to make their way into the narrative as the invention of cameras created a photography industry. It’s enough sometimes to imagine a story about these people who contributed to my gene pool. But mostly all I have is a small amount of data and a large amount of conjecture. I’m very good at conjecture, as it turns out.

Recently, however, I found my mom’s accumulation of information about my Grandpa’s older brother Harvey, who went by the nickname Red. (In a surprising surfeit of “Red’s” in the family, my grandpa later also went by the nickname Red – that’s how I knew him). Here’s a story I didn’t have to depend upon conjecture for – it was all written down by his wife, Lucille.

When Red and Lucille met, he was 28 going on 29 and she was 16 going on 17. They fell in love, but she was too young and he was in the army. They wrote letters to one another for a time, which are also in my possession (not the originals). In August of 1927, Lucille wrote to Red with the worst possible news for him to hear. I’ll share some excerpts:

Dear Red,
…Red, I’ve a terrible confession to make. Do you remember that nite? You asked me if I’d consider marrying and I said yes. I’ve decided that I’m too undecided. I want to work and go to college and help my folks.

Please forgive me and try to forget me Red, Dear. I know you love me. I thought I loved you, too, but I guess if I’m so undecided about it all, I really can’t love you like I should. Also, Dear, I couldn’t settle down. I’m too much for variety. You are older and ready to settle, therefore, you should find one more your type than I.

…Will I be a liar in your mind if I break my promise? You know people have always broken engagements.

I have no ring, therefore, it isn’t really binding. It is terribly hard to write this to you, but I’ve decided it is fairer than trying to make you believe I will someday be Mrs. Red.

…You can easily forget me. I’m a little devil anyway. …Red, Dear, you stop and think and you’ll decide you really would hate to know you had to live with me for God knows how many years.

…You go out with other girls and I’ll do the same with others. We can still be friends and a year from now, I may decide that you are absolutely my Man. If I do, really love you, I’ll come back and so will you. Don’t you think so? Answer this, if you wish, but I don’t suppose you’ll want to. I may regret this letter someday. Your unfaithful sweetheart.

P.S. Use lighter stationery cause I’ve had to pay postage on your letters and they tease the life out of me.

Lovingly, Lucille.

I don’t have Red’s reply, so I can only imagine the distress this missive may have caused him. Years later, when Lucille was very old, she decided to write the story of her life down, part of which I also have. The story picks up with her remembrances all those years later:

What a life. I was 17 years old, gainfully employed in a wonderful job, and I was rich, rich, finally rich!

And…I was in love. How much better can life get than it was for me in 1927? On September 2, a month before my 18th birthday, I married my love. My groom, Harvey (Red), was twelve years my senior and a veteran of the First World War…

Well! It appears that less than a month after Lucille sent that heartbreaking letter to Red, they got married! Red and Lucille drove to St. Louis, Missouri where he took a course in aviation and she found work in the office of the Universal Aviation Company. She got her first plane ride while there and said it was an “indescribable thrill.”

They drove from there to California and Red got a job as a mechanic, being unable to find a job in aviation. Lucille found work as a stenographer and wrote, “It was an exciting, educational and fulfilling life that I led.”

In June of 1930 they had their first baby, a boy named Patrick and ended up returning to Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Red traveled to southern Minnesota and bought an airplane, which he flew to Grand Rapids. However, when landing the plane at the fair grounds (no air strip available there yet), he hit the grandstand with one of the wings and severely damaged the plane, thus ending his career in aviation.

Sadly, Red became ill with a kidney ailment he’d contracted during the war. He went to the Veteran’s Hospital at Fort Snelling for treatment. Red called Lucille from the hospital and begged her to come get him, so she took a bus down from Duluth, checked him out and they took a bus back to Duluth. As she said, “That trip was a harrowing, frightening experience. He was so very ill and I was so young, scared and inexperienced.”

He was admitted to the hospital in Duluth. I’ll let Lucille tell the story of what happened next:

I arrived at the hospital very early in the morning and went directly to Red’s room. The sign on the door stated, ‘No admittance. Inquire at desk.’ I waited patiently instead of inquiring immediately, assuming that the nurses were busy with him. …After a while, when no one came in or out of his room, I timidly checked with the nurse at the desk. Perhaps they had moved him during the night. The nurse looked up and tersely informed me in five short words, ‘The patient expired last night.’ What a terrible shock it was to hear those words. I was not yet twenty-one years old. I was a bride, a mother and a widow – and I was still only twenty…”

Poor Lucille. Although her life seemed to be over, she went on, got a job to provide for their son and eventually got remarried.

I got quite engrossed in this story; suddenly somebody from my past had come to life! At least for a short time. I only have one photo of Red and Lucille. It makes me think they knew how to have a good laugh and must have enjoyed their short married life very well.

I hope you enjoyed this journey into the past with me.

I’ll probably do something with this in the morning, but I’m leaving it up to conjecture.