A 57+Year Romance: Aunt Inga and Uncle John

By Jathan Janove (Guest Contributor)–

My Aunt Inga and Uncle John met as young schoolteachers embarking on their careers. Now in their 80s, they’ve been together ever since. They currently live in the same house just south of Chicago where they raised six children. A seventh child, Brian, died the day he was born.

On a recent visit, I had the opportunity to ask them questions about their long lives. I asked what I call the “8 Great Questions,” adapted from Arthur Aron’s 36 questions to fall in love with study. Although at times lucid, Aunt Inga suffers from dementia. John, sharp as ever, continues to devour book after book.

Question One: Given the choice of anyone, whom would you want as a dinner guest and what would you talk about?

John chose Kirk Douglas. “What would you talk about?” I asked.

John mentioned three things: (1) the movie Spartacus; (2) the movie Paths of Glory; and (3) Douglas’s book The Broken Mirror.

In Spartacus, Douglas plays a slave gladiator who eventually leads a rebellion against Rome. While a gladiator, he is given a slave woman to service him. However, he refuses to have sex with her, feeling it demeans her worth as a human being. Later, they fall in love and have a child.

“I love Spartacus’s integrity and character,” John says. “And I love the passion Douglas brings to the role. Also, as an Irishman, I love the quest for freedom and overthrowing oppression.”

In Paths of Glory, Douglas plays the French Colonel Dax in World War I. His ambitious commanding officer orders him to lead his troops on a futile suicidal mission. Later, at the risk of his career and possibly even his life, Dax makes a complaint to senior authorities about his commanding officer’s cruel waste of life.

“I admire the courage to stand up in the face of what’s wrong and call it out,” states John, “especially when knowing the personal consequences for you may be very bad.”

In the book, The Broken Mirror, Douglas tells a tale of a young Jewish boy, Moishe, who grows up in a loving family in Munich in the 1930s. What follows are the terrors of the Nazis and the Holocaust. After WWII, only Moishe is left. In despair, he abandons his Jewish heritage, only to recover it many years later.

John, an Irish Catholic, said, “This story broke my heart.”

Regarding the first question, Inga needed some prompting. John suggested as a dinner guest, Clark Gable. “You loved him,” he said.

“But he’s dead!” Inga replied.

I responded that’s okay since Kirk Douglas is also deceased. “We can pretend,” I said.

John reminded Inga of some of the Gable movies she loved. Although Inga couldn’t remember the movies, she did remember Gable. I said, “Pretend John is Clark. What would you say to him?” Inga looked at John but didn’t have a response.

John said, “I don’t know what’d she say, but I know what she’d do – give him a big hug and kiss!”

Inga smiled at her husband.

Question Two: What’s something in your life for which you feel grateful?

John: “To be alive at 83 after having had cancer twice, a heart attack and open-heart surgery. I am grateful to God for my long life.”

Inga also said she was grateful to be alive, adding that she’d survived seven caesarian sections, the last of which nearly killed her.

Inga repeatedly ignored her doctor’s advice to stop having children because of the threat to her health. “But I wanted children. Lots of them!”

John said, “it wasn’t my idea.” He added with a smile, “But what could I do? She was awful good-looking, and she used to chase me around the house!”

That comment produced from Inga an even bigger smile.

I asked a follow-up question: What are each of you grateful for about the other? Inga didn’t elaborate and didn’t mince words. “John Lowery!” she said.

John’s response: “She’s always loved me.” After a pause, he added. “And, as I said, she’s awful good-looking!”

Question Three: If the current you could provide real-time advice to the much younger you, what would it be?

Inga’s response was simple and straightforward: “Marry John Lowery!”

John’s response was poignant.

“When I was 15. I attended St. Ignatius High School. We had a gym teacher, a big guy with a big belly and a big mouth; a big bully. One day I was shooting baskets before gym class began. He walked up from behind me and hit me on the chin. I went to the ground but quickly got up.

“I should mention that my older brother Martin was a professional prizefighter. Since I was six, Martin had been mentoring me in boxing.

“As I got up, I hit the gym teacher with a left shovel hook to the belly, followed by a right cross to the liver. He dropped like a sack of potatoes.

“I left school and went home. My mother got a call from the school, saying that a criminal complaint was being made against me, and an arrest warrant was being issued. She was terrified.

“My dad’s brother, Uncle Pete, was a police sergeant. My dad called him and he came over right away. I explained the situation. Uncle Pete went to the school and told them that if they pursued the complaint, we’d file a cross-complaint against the teacher for having struck me first.

“They dropped the complaint but expelled me from the school.

“In those days to help make ends meet, the kids in our family worked at early ages. Uncle Pete’s wife worked in the Chicago records division. She had provided us with birth certificates that generously listed our ages. Although I was 15, my birth certificate said I was 18.

I decided to drop out of high school and enlist in the army. I soon left Chicago. This caused my mom a lot of pain and to this day, I feel bad about it.

However, the army was great to me. I traveled throughout Europe and saw all the great places. I became a boxing champion, winning the Army welterweight title, European theater. And thanks to the GI Bill, I was able to complete high school, go to college, get my teaching degree and become a schoolteacher, which set the course for my career and my life.

“I can’t honestly say I regret belting that bully. But what I would say to my younger self from today’s vantage point is, “Keep your distance from jerks in authority.”

Question Four: What would you change about the way you were raised?

“Nothing!” John said emphatically. “I had great parents. Great siblings. I thank God because I was truly blessed.”

Inga had a mixed response. Regarding her father, she said the same thing as John, “nothing.” Regarding her mother, however, she said, “everything.”

“My dad was a firefighter. When he was not at work, he took care of us. My mom typically slept in and left the cooking, cleaning and other household chores to the kids and my dad.

“My mom had only one year of high school and didn’t think girls needed an education. But my sister Julie and I were determined. Julie later became a registered nurse, and I became a schoolteacher.”

Question Five: What’s a treasured memory?

Inga didn’t hesitate, “Spending Saturdays with my grandmother, Mary Kelly Larson.

“Until I was seven, every Saturday my dad would take me to his mom, Grandma Mary. She was the most wonderful person in my life. I couldn’t wait for Saturday. She taught me how to cook. We worked together in her garden. She was an immigrant from Ireland and had a thick brogue. She asked me lots of questions and was a great listener.

“She died when I was seven. I saw her in the casket. I was crushed.

“She was kind, generous and loving. For all the rest of my life, I’ve missed her.”

John also picked his grandmother, Maggie Leonard.

“I was the seventh of nine children. My birth was particularly hard on my mom. She was laid up for about a year so essentially Grandma Maggie was my first mom. She lived with us and took me everywhere. She would sing to me, ‘Oh, Johnny. Oh, Johnny. You make my sad heart jump with joy.’

“When I was four years old, we went for a walk. A car went out of control, jumped a curb and headed right at us. Grandma Maggie grabbed me and swung me out of the way. The car crashed into her, breaking her pelvis, legs and other bones. She was confined to a wheelchair thereafter. She only lived for another four years.

“Grandma Maggie was a strong-willed, wonderful woman. She’d been a suffragette and a union supporter. She was kind, beautiful, loving and tough. I was mad about her. The songs she sang warm me still.”

Question Six: What’s an embarrassing moment in your life you’re willing to share?

Inga recalled an incident from sixth grade. “There was a boy named Billy. He sat right behind me in Mrs. Collins’ class. One day during class, he dipped my pigtails in an inkwell. It was very embarrassing.

I complained to Mrs. Collins. She said, “slap him in the face, hard.” So I did, on both cheeks, hard. He chased me but I was very fast, and he couldn’t catch me.

“Years later, I saw him in high school, and mentioned the incident from sixth grade. Billy said, “I deserved it.”

John shared two experiences. The first occurred when he was a young man and worked part-time job as a roofer. “I was up on a roof and had to pee really bad. I walked around the chimney looking in all directions to make sure no one was around. Just as I started to relieve myself, I saw an older woman staring right at me. She smiled. I was mortified!

“The second occurred at an amusement park. As I mentioned before, my birth certificate gave me three extra years. When I was 14, I worked on the docks. It was hard labor, but the pay was great: $1.67 an hour!

“I met a pretty girl, Mary Ann Healy, who was 16 years old and lived on Chicago’s South Shore. I was really taken with her. I told her I was 17, which, according to my birth certificate, was true. I asked her out on a date.

“We took a streetcar to Riverview Amusement Park on Chicago’s northwest side. She loved the wild rides. But they made me sicker and sicker. Finally, when we went on the parachute ride, I could contain it no longer and vomited all over the place.

“She looked at me and said, ‘You’re not really 17, are you?’

That was the end of my romance with Mary Ann Healy.”

Question Seven: Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash. What would you save?

Inga said she’d grab a portrait painting that had been done of her as a young woman.

John’s response, “I’d grab as many family pictures as I could.”

Question Eight: Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time?

Inga: “I’ve always wanted to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.”

John: “Buying a small house in the countryside in Galway, Ireland, the home of my paternal grandfather. I’d plant vegetables and flowers and live near enough to town so that I could join other musicians for sessions singing the old Irish songs. There’d be lots and lots of music.”

Jathan Janove is Principal of Janove Organization Solutions, http://www.jathanjanove.com. Through consulting, executive coaching and training, he works with employers to create fully engaged workplace cultures. He also practiced law in Salt Lake City, Utah and Portland, Oregon.