Between my mother and father, Valentine Day fell on the 9th of February–and March, and June, and July, and August, and every other month. Here they are a few years before they met in 1933.
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- Harriette Anderson 1929
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- Paul Kaser circa 1927
Here’s a letter my father wrote to me in 1945. He had a job that kept him “on the road” most of the time, and faithfully wrote letters home. Mother and I and my baby brother were living in Killbuck, Ohio at the home of my grandmother. I think of this letter explaining their unique Valentine Day as a love letter to my mother–disguised as a letter to their nearly six-year-old daughter.
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- Paul Kaser to his 6-year-old daughter pg 1
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- Paul Kaser to his 6-year-old daughter 1945 pg 2
February 9 1945
Dearest Little Rabbit,
This is going to be a really truly fairy story that actually happened. Once upon a time there used to be a club in Killbuck called the Dramatic Club. That means a group of people who put on plays like the one you went to see Bobby in. Your mother was in the club and so was your daddy. One autumn we put on an operetta, that’s a play with lots of songs in it as well as speeches. At that time your mother and daddy weren’t so well acquainted as they are now and if daddy had kissed mother hello or goodbye as he does now she would have slapped his face.
Well your mother was a teacher and her job in this operetta was to coach the actors so that they would know their speeches when they got up in front of all the people–just like she helped you learn your speeches to say at church. Daddy was an actor (?) and played the part of a very dumb englishman and he had a mustach (now remember about the mustache.
Your daddy didn’t learn his lines as fast as he should have and so your mother had to give him lots of help In fact they used to go off in a corner of the basketball floor and go over the speeches and over and over. Now one of the reasons your daddy was so slow learning to say his speeches was that he spent most of the time thinking what a pretty girl your mother was and how sharp and perky she was, and trying to get nerve enough up to ask her to go out with him and be his girl.
Now this club always went out somewhere and had a party after the play was over so finally your daddy got up nerve enough to ask your mother to go with him to the party. And what do you know, she said she would. And we all had a very nice party except that mother said she didn’t like daddy’s mustache (remember?) and she wouldn’t go to any more parties with him unless he shaved it off. Well daddy shaved it off because mother always means what she says and as a result Mother and daddy got married.
Now all of this happened on the 9th day of the month so that the 9th day of the month is a sort of valentines day every month Just between your mother and I. And thats why I’m telling you this story today because today is the 9th.
A Few Notes:
- There are a couple more paragraphs about the snow, and telling me to be a good girl and play with my brother, and saying when he will be home.
- Mother explained that the drama club was one of the ways the young people of Killbuck found to entertain themselves during the Great Depression when they could not afford to pay for entertainment.
- “Bobby” is my cousin Robert J. Anderson, son of William J. Anderson whose letter from the Pacific we saw earlier. In one of my Grandmother Vera’s letters, she had mentioned Bobby putting on a show for the family, mimicking Hitler, so he was quite the performer.
- “…like she helped you learn your speeches to say at church.” I don’t recall speeches plural, although I know that kids had to memorize Bible verses and sometimes recite them in church. But the one I do remember is learning “Now I am Six” from A.A. Milne’s series of Pooh Bear books. Mother did a good job. Sixty-plus years after reciting that poem for the Lady’s Aid Society at the church, I can still recite it.
- “…go off in a corner of the basketball floor”. The school in Kilbuck had a small multi-purpose auditorium with only room for a basketball court. For basketball games, seating was in a balcony on one side of the court. On the other side of the court, there was a stage, raised about four feet above the main floor. For basketball games, people would sit on bleachers on the stage. When plays were performed on the stage, folding chairs were set up on the basketball floor (I can see basketball coaches everywhere shrinking back in horror!) as well as the seating in the balcony. The school was built in the twenties, and when I went to high school there in the fifties, performing in class plays, the set up was still the same.
- “get nerve enough”. Not only was she an authority figure–a teacher, and he was working at odd jobs, but she was two and a half years older than he was.
- The mustache. Not only did Daddy never sport a mustache again–I have found no photos of him with a mustache. Mother REALLY didn’t like mustaches!
The Ninth of the month continued to be a Valentine day they marked the rest of their lives. And we celebrated their 50th anniversary in June 1989.
