A Family Heirloom and a Love Story
Today, I have a story to tell that is over one hundred years old and that will, with luck, continue for another hundred years. Is it a true story? Well, yes, and no.
It is a story passed down to me by my grandmother, a remarkable woman who lived in three centuries and two millennia and who also knew how to tell a good story. Is every part of it true with absolute fidelity? I doubt it. Don’t we all reshape our past just a little to show ourselves, and those we love, in the best light? Over the years, I have learned to say, “Well, it makes a good story,” when repeating family lore. I am sharing this one to the best of my recollection, and I am sure my grandmother did the same.
My grandmother’s name was Leona, a very old-fashioned name that suited her well. She was a woman who knew what she wanted, and equally, knew what she didn’t want. When she married at eighteen to a man who did not turn out to be compatible, she had the marriage dissolved, a form of divorce that was quite scandalous at the time.
By the time the dissolution was final, she found she was already quite far along “in the family way” from her brief marriage. She had moved back into her parents’ home and taken a job as an assistant cook to pay her own way. She had more to think about than just herself. Her infant son, Bill, made his appearance shortly after her nineteenth birthday.
As men geared up and began leaving for World War I, Leona stepped into a job at a blow-mold factory. These factories formed part of the industrial backbone of the war, producing chemical containers, glass food jars, and other essential industrial items.
The work was physically exhausting, and the conditions were harsh. Women typically worked ten or more hours a day in factories that were hot, poorly ventilated, and coated in grime from constant use. The pace was set by machines, not by human endurance, and the tasks were repetitive and unrelenting.
Leona was paid less than the older men who remained after the call-ups began, but the wages were still far better than domestic work, which had previously been one of the few paid options available to women. For the first time, factory work offered a measure of financial independence, even if it came at a high physical cost.
While Leona worked long shifts on the assembly line, her older sister cared for her baby. It was a quiet, practical arrangement, one born of necessity. Leona did what needed to be done, trusting family to help fill the gaps, just as so many women did during those years.
As a devout Quaker, technically divorced, and with a young son, one might think her prospects were bleak. However, nothing could be further from the truth.
She met a quiet, unassuming man named Ward. Though only two years older than Leona, he was already accustomed to hard work and responsibility. When his own father became ill and later passed away, Ward left school after the sixth grade and worked full-time to support his mother and three sisters. He was quiet by nature, but his devotion to family was always evident.
I have never heard the story of how Ward and Leona met, only that they did. Ward was kind to Leona’s infant son, and she knew almost immediately that he would be a good father. Soon, they began to speak of a future together.
When Ward was drafted into the army and sent to Europe near the end of World War I, Leona told him that when he returned, if he wished to ask her to marry him, she would be most agreeable. Ward said nothing, but his quiet smile spoke volumes. This would become the pattern of their lives. Leona suggested things, and Ward quietly and happily went along.
When Ward’s enlistment ended, he returned home from France carrying a gift wrapped only in white tissue paper. As a private in the Army, he couldn’t bring back anything large or costly, but he brought something meant for their home and for the life they would build together. While in France, he chose a small linen tablecloth, just large enough for a modest lamp table.
The cloth was made of fine linen, with hand-crocheted lace and drawn-thread work typical of French household textiles from the early 1900s. It was sized for a small table and used beneath a lamp in the parlor. It was not hidden away or saved for special occasions. It was washed, ironed, and used as part of everyday life.
Ward gave it to her, and shortly afterward, they were married. Ward wore his suit, not his best suit, but his only one. Leona wore a plain beige dress with a lace collar reminiscent of the crochet work on the tablecloth. In her hands, she carried a small bouquet of violets she had gathered herself outside the registry building.
They began their married life as a family of three. Ward’s quiet composure and humility became his hallmark, while Leona, not so quietly, steered the family.
Their family eventually grew, though much later than they had expected. Seven years after their wedding, Jack was born. He would go on to a life of ministry, serving as a minister and missionary alongside his wife and their two children. After waiting so long for Jack, Ward and Leona believed their family of four was complete.
But as life often does, it surprised them. Twelve years after their wedding, another son arrived. Born at home on Mother’s Day after two days of labor, their unexpected thirteen-pound, thirteen-ounce baby, Joe, was always regarded as a joyful surprise and a blessing in their later years.
The years went by as they always do, bringing good things and bad, but always more good than bad. Leona’s oldest son, Bill, married his childhood sweetheart and became a sheriff’s deputy. He valued Ward’s steady, fatherly advice and quiet concern.
Their son Jack married his soulmate, became a minister, and together he and his wife served as missionaries in Africa before settling into a lifelong calling in ministry.
As for their youngest, Joe, he married a young woman he met and fell in love with at a drive-in restaurant. Like his father before him, he served a tour in the army and later became a successful businessman.
That small ecru tablecloth brought home from France always found a place wherever my grandparents lived. As they moved from one rental home to another, it moved with them. It remained proudly displayed until many years after Ward’s passing.
A tiny blood spot still marks the cloth, left behind when my grandmother pricked her finger while ironing it. That mark has never been removed. It is part of the cloth’s history, a quiet reminder of the care and labor that went into keeping a home when there was very little to spare.
This tablecloth is not valuable because it is rare or ornate. It is valuable because it tells a story of love, effort, and a devoted life. It represents a young couple beginning their life together with few possessions, choosing beauty where they could, and making a home out of what they had.
Ward and Leona never owned a home until they were long past retirement age. They moved from one rental to another, always fixing things up and leaving each place better than they found it. Their plates and silverware never matched. Many of their drinking glasses were old jelly jars or Ball Mason jars that had lost their lids. It would have been hard to find a coffee cup without a chip somewhere along the rim. Their means were modest, but their love and devotion were beyond measure.
Sixty years after receiving it, Leona entrusted her beloved linen tablecloth to her youngest granddaughter. For the past forty-some years, that granddaughter, Jan, has kept it safe and will one day pass it along to one of Ward and Leona’s great-great-grandchildren.
The tablecloth is not important for what it is, but for what it carries. The love and devotion woven into it will remain long after the final crochet threads have worn away. And that is exactly as it should be.
For another family story by Jan Mariet, why not check out When the Table Was Full – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life. I think you’ll enjoy it, no matter what the time of year.
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