They Eloped!

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

It was a beautiful and quiet evening and I was exited about being at our hospice to be of some service to others.  After brewing some coffee at the downstairs break room for our family members, I walked around looking for someone to visit.

            I found a room with a ninety-seven-year-old lady!  For her age her mind was still very sharp!  But she was very hard of hearing, so I had to talk very loudly, which for me is difficult. 

            I start a conversation with this wonderful lady.  She was born and raised in New York City.  When she was a young lady in her early twenties, she worked in New York City at a department store called Macy’s.  Beautiful, but still single, and working full time to support herself showed me that she was an independent lady!

            Very often she would go by train from New York City where she lived and go to the Catskill mountains, to go skiing.  Sometime she would go by herself or with some girlfriends.  The Catskill mountains are only one-hundred-forty miles directly north of New York City.  There are a lot of ski resorts and other recreational activities in the Catskill’s.  It is commonly called the playground for New Yorkers.

            She loved to ski and loved to be with friends of all kinds.  She could jump on a train and be in the Catskill’s in only three hours.  It sounds like a busy and fast passed life, but she was young, outgoing and full of life.

            At one of the ski resorts she met someone!  A young German immigrant who had escaped from Nazi Germany and all of the troubles that were happening in Europe.  He had a job there and when they met, they fell madly in love with each other!

            They started to date and see each other more often.  She would go to the Catskill’s to ski with him.  He would travel to New York City to be with her.  They had a fast and very passionate love affair.

 When her lover proposed marriage and a lifelong commitment, she said “yes!”   But her family said, “no!’

            He was a penniless man from a troubled part of the world.  There were concerns about German spies being sent to the United States.  Was he a German spy?  Germany did have an extensive spy network during the last war!  They were just afraid of her brash decision.  Why a German immigrant?  Was there not plenty of native American men available?

            Being the independent folks these two were, they decided to elope and get married without their blessing.  A very bold move for her.  But her life was full of bold moves!

            They took the train for Chicago, Illinois, and got married.  This was in the hot summer of nineteen-thirty-eight.  They lived in Chicago for the next three years, until he got a job in Houston, Texas.  He worked for Continental Airlines as an economic strategist.  They lived in Houston for the rest of their lives.

            He lived to be an old man and passed away.  A couple years later, she has only a few days left and I am blessed to talk with her and to bear witness to her love story.  I leaned over and told her that her husband was a smart man.  She answered, “yes he was, he married me!”  With that answer we both laughed!  What a great lady!

            In today’s world that seems like the norm.  Women today are enjoying those freedoms and much more.  But, here, we are talking about the nineteen-thirties!  Women’s lives in those days were much more restricted then they are today.  That is what make her story much more fascinating!

Do you know of anyone who had to elope with their lover?  Can you tell me about it in the comments section?

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Brother Roop
Nov 19, 2011

My website:
www.billroopministries.com

My other blog:
www.biblicalhermeneuticsposts.blogspot.com

Apostolic Theological Seminary
www.atseminary.com