The Night Before Mrs. Andris Died 


A reflection on my daddy's parents. 

You've heard it before from me, and you'll hear it again. My mother has an incredible memory for her past. I wouldn't really know anything about my own ancestry if I hadn't started to listen to her stories about 25 years ago. This morning (New Year's Day) I was treated to a repeat report on what happened surrounding the death of her mother-in-law, Victorine Dorval Andris, nicknamed "Torienne." It is because of this and other stories from my mother that I have been able to piece together a clear picture of a transitional period for my paternal grandparents from about 1930 to about 1940.

Imagine the setting of the drama to be described. Marietta, Ohio lies at the confluence of the Ohio and the Muskingum River in Washington County. It is the county seat. Greene Street runs parallel to the Ohio for several blocks and intersects with Front Street, which runs parallel to the Muskingum River. In this flood plain most of the major businesses of the day resided. The houses that were closer to the Ohio River than Green St. were mainly inhabited by poor people, people who had somehow made it through the Great Depression canning their own vegetables and doing piece work for dirt cheap when they could get it. My mother, her mother, Clara, and her mother's mother, Eva were descended from German immigrant farmers who arrived in Washington County in the middle of the 19th Century. They had lived together since 1921, when Clara's German-Irish husband, Frank had died at age 39. The three women lived in that flood plain in an old brick rented house without hot water.

My mother was remembering that Torienne got sick on the 80th birthday anniversary of mom's own grandmother, Eva Noe. That would have been March 4, 1937. In order for you to appreciate the full impact of this story, I will have to give you some background information. Marietta, Ohio, was a crossroads for several immigrant communities. In my case, the relevant communities that swirled together and formed mixed familes were Belgian, German and Irish. The Belgians, who are the topic of this reflection, have turned out to be descended from ten generations of glass-blowers ("verriers") in and around the area of Charleroi, Belgium. They came to this country around the turn of the Twentieth Century to find work, and when the work dried up early in the Twentieth Century, they turned to other occupations. In the case of my Belgian grandparents, that turned out to be grocery work.

My grandfather Arthur Andris was himself a verrier, making both window glass and ornamental glass. My dad's two older half-brothers worked as his helpers in the glass factories of Clarksburg, West Virginia and Marietta, Ohio. About 1927, Arthur's health began to fail, and he died of a brain tumor in 1930. Way before that, Torienne had started a Clover Farm grocery store at 313 Greene St. in the flood plain business district of Marietta, Ohio. After Arthur died, she continued to operate the store with the help of her younger sons, Louis, Alphonse, and my dad, Fernand.

The year 1937 started out very wet and very cold, and some time in January, there was a flood in the Ohio River Valley of monumental proportions. It crested at 55 feet in Marietta. Torienne's store was flooded first on the main floor at 40 feet, and then on the second floor at 50 feet. All of her stock had been moved up there. Mrs. Andris was stricken with grief the day the water had fallen and she saw the horrible destruction the river had wreaked. The flour and sugar were completely lost. The cans had the labels washed off them. She sat for weeks scrubbing the cans with steel wool and selling them, with unknown contents, at a greatly reduced price. My mother told me how Mrs. Andris clutched each can to her stomach as she scrubbed it.

Now we are to those final days in her life that my mother was remembering this morning. It was Eva Noe's birthday. Dad and mom had been dating, but no discussion of marriage had taken place. Mom has told me that she loved dad from the moment she laid eyes on him, at age 13. Red (my mom) came over to 313 Green about 10 p.m. to see why Squee (my dad) had not dropped by 107 N. Fourth to help grandma Noe celebrate her 80th birthday. She found him white as a sheet and "almost wringing his hands" in the doorway. Mrs. Andris was very sick downstairs. She was also very overweight. Dad and mom pushed her up the stairs and got her into bed. Mom told dad to go for Dr. Labarre, a Belgian physician and friend of the family. Dad ran down the side stairs and came back later with the doctor and his nurse.

The news was not good. Mom's fears were confirmed. Torienne had had a bad heart attack. She lasted just another week. Mom often sat at her deathbed. The night before she died, she asked my mom, "What about you and Fernand?" Mom told her that she and dad had never discussed marriage. "Promise me that you'll take care of my Fernand, Lorette! Promise me that you'll marry him." My mother said that she would. I have often heard the story of how one night shortly after Torienne's death, my mother had a dream in which Mrs. Andris sat on her and pounded on her chest and said "You promised me, Lorene. You promised you would marry my Fernand!" A few days after his mother died, my father told my mother, "Red, we'll fix this apartment (above the store) up and we'll get married."

Spring turned into summer in 1937. It was a year of recovering from the flood. There was a bitter fight between the descendants of Arthur and Victorine Andris over the disposition of Torienne's estate. One half-brother never again spoke to my father for the remaining 40 years of his life, although he did speak to dad's children, including me. My dad and his brother, Alphonse, ended up buying out the interest in the store and they were in partnership for another 20 years.

Mom and dad's commitment grew that summer, and on August 16, 1937, they were married. Mom has told me how they had one of the last bellings, or chivarees, in Marietta. This is a pre-nuptual celebration. Over five hundred people showed up at the Greene Street grocery store to cheer and hurl good-natured best wishes and off-color comments at the couple. They filled the street, blocking traffic. They stood on the roof of the store throwing penny candy and coins to the kids on the street. Fernand and Lorene were now firmly turned towards a life in the grocery, and later, the real estate business, and faced away from their Belgian, German and Irish forebearers. The blending of my family was complete.

I was born into this situation on December 3, 1938. Here is a photo of mom, dad and me when I was five. I was 45 years old before I fully began to appreciate my mother's German-Irish background, and 60 before I had an inkling of the long line of professional glass blowers from which I came. I didn't even have a clue about it when I was in school. I'm so glad that it has become a part of the stories which I inherited from my mother, and which I now pass on to others.


 

Posted: Sun - January 1, 2006 at 10:55 AM          

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