1930. Life
was difficult in Brooklyn, New York in the depth of the depression, but his
mother made ends meet. She worked hard to support her young son after his
father left her for other women. They never experienced the hardest parts of
the depression, certainly not to the extent that the folks in Oklahoma and
other places did, but they knew hardship all the same.
As Joe got
older, opportunities opened up for him. He attended a military school in West
Virginia for a few years in the late 30s-early 40s. Joe’s mother remarried, and
she, Warren, and Joe moved to Montreal before Joe graduated high school. While
they were living there, WWII broke out. Joe returned to the states, to
Burlington, Vermont, to complete school before enlisting in the Army. He went
through basic training in Florida in 1944 and then was shipped overseas where
he served in Europe for 6 months, in the 10th Armored Division right
after the Battle of the Bulge. “Boy, was I lucky to miss that,” he says,
looking back.
Soon after
he finished his service in the military, Joe’s mother died. He returned for her
funeral and then sought an education. Although he had been considering becoming
a doctor or dentist, he instead began college in Vermont, studying agriculture
and economics, and ended up in the insurance business, a job that took him
around the country. He met a girl and got married, had two boys and one girl.
25 years later, he and his wife divorced, and he subsequently began night school
at Fort Steilacoom Community College. It was at night school that he met Anne.
1936. She
was grateful for the bed and food the nuns offered her. Goodness knows she was
better off here in the convent than she had been at her aunt’s house where she
was just another mouth to feed. She
remembers with a grimace the clothing lines and the fact that they could never
afford new shoes, although the soles were loose on her old ones, and all that
just a year ago. At the age of 12, one year prior, she had run away to her 6th
grade teacher at the Chicago, Illinois convent, where she would be taken care
of for the remainder of the depression era. Although her cousins, who also
attended school at the convent, told her that her aunt wanted her to return,
her aunt held no legal authority over her, so she remained at the convent.
Anne’s
parents had immigrated to the US from Croatia in the early-mid 1900s, just
before the depression struck. When Anne was 6, her mother passed away. Although
she was young, Anne holds on to memories of her loving mother, especially her
beautiful blue dress with the gold fleur-de-lis design, which she wore to
church ever morning. Her father, unable to care for her, gave Anne to his
sister in Chicago, Illinois. Anne attended school at the local convent, where
she lived in her later schooling years. When she started high school, she decided
she wanted to become a nun and was sent to the motherhouse in Colorado for two
years. During her sophomore year, she changed her mind and came back to Chicago.
In high school, she met her future husband. She wasn’t everything he hoped she
would be, so she changed for him and compromised herself, something she regrets
to this day. He didn’t believe in the
education of women, so she finished high school and stopped attending school.
She had dreamed of a man of high ideals, with a love of his faith, and a
positive outlook, but settled for what she had instead. Anne helped put him
through med school and moved to Tacoma for his internship. During their
marriage, he had affairs, and, after 8 children, they were divorced.
After the
divorce, she went back to school at Fort Steilacoom Community College to pursue
her dream of becoming educated and here she met Joe.
It
was in a Human Potential Class that Anne and Joe met. This was a class that
impacted both of them deeply, focusing on Personal Responsibility and Emotional
Development, a phrase they both still remember 40 years later. Outside of Human
Potential, however, it was their shared loved for the Lord that brought and
kept them together. The Lord has never abandoned them, and, in Anne’s words,
the last 39 years have been a fairytale. They traveled together, to Europe
twice and to other places. Anne went to Europe twice more on her own, to
discover her family’s roots in Croatia. She was searching for herself and she
found it in the town where she was immediately recognized as her mother’s
daughter. Walking along a street in Kaštela, a woman called out “You’re Maria’s
daughter!” and Anne knew she had found something special. Her self-esteem had
been knocked down to zero after her divorce, and between Human Potential, Joe, Kaštela,
and the Lord’s grace, she began to be built back up. Joe and Anne continued
their education, Anne continuing on to Evergreen Community College. Anne
focused on the three children she still had at home, co-owned a bookstore, and
then got into real estate. Joe can be described as a poet, painter, and
romantic.
Now,
they sit across from me, both in their rocking chairs, both smiling brightly.
For the last several months, they have never failed to inform me that they are
praying for me. They ask after my schooling and my plans for the future, and I
am honored that they have taken such an interest in me.
Joe’s
words to me: “You’re doing okay. You have your life figured out and the smarts
to pursue it. Not many have that.”
Anne’s
words to me: “Don’t ever compromise yourself; remain true to you. Retain your
individuality.”
