This story about Eva, my mother, is one I never get tired of telling
VALENTINE’S DAY, 1922
Around ten-thirty on Saturday morning there was a loud knocking on the front door. Eva slammed the hot iron down on the trivet and hurried into the living room. “It’s probably that delivery boy from Darwishes grocery store again. He’s already been here twice this morning,” she fumed. “I am never going to get done with Sophie’s work blouses. I need that quarter that she always gives me for pressing them! Mom will let me go to the movies tonight with Ruby if I have enough money.”
She had already mopped the kitchen floor that morning and then helped her mother do some clothes on the scrub board. Eva was just glad it was Saturday and she didn’t have to drag the big tubs into the kitchen and fill them with hot water for her dad, a coal miner, to wash the black grim away.
It wasn’t good to be the youngest of six girls in a big family. Her older sisters were all working and it fell on her to help their mother, who had been left crippled after the birth of Harry, the baby of the family. Of course, the younger brothers were no help at all.
While she was out in the yard hanging the clothes on the line, Walter, the Russian man who was courting Annie, had been teasing her about being the only one in the family that didn’t have a boyfriend sending fancy valentine hearts. He was helping her dad hoe the garden while they discussed the union meeting last night at the mine. “Boy, he must really love Annie; he’s even helping dad hoe” she thought.
Earlier that morning she had trudged upstairs twice, careful to avoid her mother’s hot pies for Sunday dinner, cooling on the narrow wooden steps. Those first two beautiful heart shaped boxes of candy to arrive that day were for Sophie and Sarah from their current beaus. Just thinking of all that chocolate candy made her mouth water.
This time the boy called out “Delivery for Katherine Gunto” as he handed Eva a red satin box. As she pushed open the bedroom door again, she saw the usual Saturday morning activity. Her sisters were all working and were happy to have the weekend off. They were laughing and trading dresses and secrets. Some were busy washing their hair over a tub of heated rain water to be styled later with their curling irons heating downstairs on the coal stove. “Oh, this is from Paul. He wants to see me this evening,” her sister Kate bragged. That was the last straw. Angry tears welled in Eva’s eyes. It wasn’t fair. Her childhood playmate was deserting her for a boyfriend!
The next box that came was for her older sister Annie. Annie was a young widow, with two little girls. She had moved back home with her folks after her husband was killed. This valentine, of course, was from Walter. He had already asked her to marry him. He loved Annie’s girls and they adored the kind red-haired Russian.
Later, as Eva was washing the dishes, there was another demanding banging on the front door. She wiped her hands on her apron and opened the door just as the boy announced loudly, “Delivery for Eva Gunto!” Then he laid a large golden heart tied with a gold satin ribbon, the largest valentine box that she had ever seen, into her arms.
Slowly, in a fog of bewilderment, she carried the box into the kitchen and reverently placed it on the table. “Come see what Eva has,” her mother called to everyone. They all gathered around and watched as their little sister opened the most elegant box that had come to the house that day. “Who is it from?” demanded Katherine.
“Why would anyone send her a valentine?”
“Strange, it doesn’t have a card.” Sophie chimed in after checking it over. For the first time in her young life in that big family, she was the center of attention, and even a little envy. Her twelve-year-old ego was getting a huge boost.
When Walter came to take Annie out that evening, he asked “Well, Evie, so who’s the secret beau? And what does your dad think about all this?”