10/27/2024
It would have been our 68th…
Instead of the anticipated tears, I’m smiling today, as I’m flooded with the memories of all those years with the only man I ever loved.
From that day when I was just 14 and he came to his father’s office to see him, I was in love.
Not him - he didn’t even notice that school girl in the corner, pretending to be old enough to have the job, hand coloring photographs in his father’s studio. Mr. Yancy wouldn’t hire me if I wasn’t 18.
I was a baby with big dreams of being independent and a great artist someday, and I really wanted the job. He had to know but it was easier to believe the kid.
For almost two and a half years I ate my heart out, hoping for the times Foster would visit the studio when I was there, after school. After he left to go back to work - he worked Special Delivery at the main post office in downtown Detroit - I’d walk across Cass Avenue and call my mom in tears because he didn’t even notice me.
She always comforted me with things mothers say but I’m sure she was glad he didn’t; he was about ten years older, and engaged to someone else.
Then one day he heard me telling my coworker about my walk to work from Cass Tech, through the park in front of Masonic Temple as I proceeded to Wilcrest Studio on Cass near Peterborough. Not the best neighborhood even back in the 50’s, but I wasn’t aware… and I mentioned the nice men that were napping in the park.
The next day he was waiting for me at the school door when I came out, to give the naive girl a ride to work.
I was so thrilled I could barely speak!
I had just finishing my junior year at Cass, turned 16 the month before. He began giving me a ride every day, even though it was just those few blocks. He would chat a bit, trying to get the shy girl to respond but I was so nervous and afraid to say the wrong thing I was quiet. He once laughed and said “you sure have been 18 for a long time.”
I almost never dated, concentrating on my studies since I just had no interest in anything but school, or anyone but Foster, who was seemingly not interested in me except to protect me from my own naivety.
Then one day inJune, just after completing eleventh grade, a boy asked me to go to the movies and my parents pushed me to go. It was a movie theater on the other side of town, one I’d never heard of, but we went. At some point the boy put his arm on the back of my seat - adventurous in the 50’s, but I ignored him and that was it. Providence decided otherwise; several rows behind us, Foster had come to see the movie. It bothered him, seeing that arm around my shoulders.
Both of us being in that place was totally by chance, as he also had never been there before, unless you believe, as I do, it wasn’t chance - it was part of God ‘s plan for us.
The next day, a Sunday, he called. He didn’t ask his dad for my phone number so he had to find it in the Detroit phone book - a Johnson! There were eight pages of Johnsons, which he was quick to tell me.
Our first date that summer was almost our last; we went to Metropolitan Beach on a Sunday afternoon. He had worked the night before and fell asleep on the beach towel. I was quiet as a mouse, not wanting to disturb him and was thrilled just to be there - and he got a really bad sunburn, even on the bottom of his feet - not good for anyone, but especially not for a mailman!
I didn’t hear from him for a week or so, and figured he blamed me. But as soon as he recovered, he called again. I was so happy, just knowing I would be seeing him again!
Around Christmas of my senior year at Cass, my folks said they’d like to combine my Christmas gift and graduation gift, since affording both would be tough - and girls always asked for luggage for graduation in those days.
I was at the top of my class, an honor student, and received a scholarship to U of Michigan. My parents were sure I’d be leaving for Ann Arbor. . I was excited, and said yes and could it be monogrammed please? Mom said they could swing it - HKJ in gold stamped.
No - it needs to be HKY.
Mom was stunned - did he ask you? You know he’s older… then she stopped short, and I smiled… my father was 21 years older than my mother and they had a beautiful marriage.
I said no, mom, but he will. I’m absolutely sure God meant him to be mine and me to be his forever. That’s all I wanted - life with Foster.
Working as a color artist for his dad paid me more than most kids made at that time, and I was a saver. Unbeknownst to anyone, sometime in early spring of 1956, I rented a hall for a wedding reception to be on October 27th, 1956. I wasn’t old enough to sign a contract so I had to pay in cash - and do a lot of trusting, something I’ve always been good at.
I couldn’t even tell Foster because he had not asked me; he told me later that he was waiting for me to finish school, and he wanted me to go to college if that’s what I wanted. He would wait.
Just before my graduation from Cass, I saw Foster outside talking to my father. He was asking permission to marry me.
On October 27th, 1956 in the candlelight service at Bethany Lutheran Church all my drams came true.
Our grandson asked me to write down our story, so here it is, dear Foster. Thirteen months after that day, on your grandfather’s birthday, God gave us your mother as his birthday present., the first of four of the children we were blessed to receive.
