New Year's Eve 1932

Tonight I want to shine the spotlight another writer in my family: my great-great aunt, Elsie Bishop Mulry. I never knew her, but I was blessed to read her narrative of the night she met her husband, my great-grandfather's brother, John Mulry. Without further ado, Elsie Mulry:

New Year's Eve, 1932 was a magical night. My future husband happened to be walking by The Club and saw me working behind the counter. I was wearing a dark red dress and when he saw me he said to himself, "There's the girl I'm going to marry!"

He came in and sat at the end of the counter. I waited on him and then went about my business, but every time I glanced at him he was looking right back at me. Something was nagging at me, and I finally realized I'd seen those eyes before, but where?

Then it struck me! In my daydreams about descending a staircase and looking into the adoring eyes of my escort, I had always pictured the eyes that were looking at me now!

It was nearing midnight and The Club was deserted except for the two of us. I walked over and refilled his coffee cup and we began talking. We talked about the weather, the basketball tournament, and of course about Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had recently been elected president and was promising to do so much to ease the pain that had gripped America.

As the horns and whistles began to blow, and the bells of St. Patrick's began to ring out the old and welcome the new year of 1933, a strange thing happened. Maybe it was because I was feeling sorry for myself for having to work while others were out whooping it up, or maybe it was the familiarity of the eyes I had seen so many times before, or maybe it was plain old Fate, whatever it was, I kissed a perfect stranger!

But John wasn't a stranger. Our kiss was as natural as if we had known each other forever. What should have been a casual kiss, wasn't. It was the start of something mighty sweet, and we both knew it. It was the start of the love and commitment to each other that would last the rest of our lives.

I'd had my share of proposals and propositions, but I'd never had a real romance, and that's what we had. There were love notes everywhere! We had a special way of holding hands, and a secret code. We had "our" song, "our" movie, "our" favorite radio program, and all of the other silly and sentimental things that memories are made of.

We were together as much as possible. We liked all the same things, the same food, the same movies, the same politics, everything! He even shared my belief in no sex before marriage, or at least he was smart enough to say he did! We were marvelously, outrageously, completely in love!

So, on May 30, 1934, the beautiful princess married the handsome prince. The rest, as they say, is history.

 

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