Merry Christmas in July by Aaron Elson

Author:Aaron Elson [Elson, Aaron]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Chi Chi Press
Published: 2012-11-18T16:00:00+00:00

John and his daughter Julie in Fierville-Bray, France, July 28, 2005

Aaron Elson: Tell me how you met your wife. Your first wife.

John Sweren: I was going to college and in the summertime I got a job in the paper mill, as summer help. From where I lived to the paper mill was probably eight or nine miles, and I walked sometimes, rode a bicycle other times. When I was walking a lot of people picked me up. And finally one of the people I was working with said, “If you ride your bicycle over to my place, I leave 35 minutes before we’re supposed to be at work, and I’ll take you to work.” So he and his wife lived there, plus his wife’s sister, which was the lady I met, and he was talking to her, and said I’d like to introduce you to my wife’s sister. So I met her, talked to her one time, she came out before I got on my bicycle and went home. That was of course after the war, I must have been 23 years old or 24, so one thing led to another. I took her out to dinner, and finally we got married the day after Christmas. That’s how I met her, through another employee at the paper mill.

We had three children and, like any other, we had some ups and downs. She wanted to work. I never let her work because I made good money and we didn’t need another income. We could always use another income, but I thought it was more important for her to tutor the children than to be working. As time went on, we were married for 37 years, and I guess, I had a worse feeling than being shot down, when she filed for divorce.

Well, wait a minute. I was out of town one day. I came back and I called her from my daughter’s house, and I said my luggage was a little bit late, it didn’t get on the plane, so it would be on the next plane. And I called her, she said that’s okay, that’s okay, and everything seemed to be fine. When I got home, she told me to sleep in the guest room.

I said what’s the matter?

“I don’t want you sleeping here.”

And the next day she filed for divorce. Or she’d filed already. “You stole my ring.” A little diamond ring that I bought her years back, that I paid quite a bit of money for.

I said, “No, I didn’t take your ring,” and take money out of her purse. We had a beautiful home. She sold it for nothing. Somebody really conned her into selling the house. She sold it for half of what I paid for it. Of course, I felt really bad. Then I come to find out, about a year after, she was forgetting a lot of things at home, leaving the burner on the stove, let the water run. She got really sick and they had her in an assisted living home with four other people, and I visited her quite a bit.

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