Foresight

This story is a diversion from the normal focus of this blog, but it's a very sweet story. I'm not sure my kids have heard it before, so I'm going to memorialize it here.

Those who know me well know that I adored my daddy. He worked very long hours and, as a result, wasn't around a lot. But I like to think I've accomplished what I have in my life because of his influence on me. He died at the age of 70 when I was 34, and I still miss him.

Daddy was born and raised in Wachula, Florida, a little crossroads out in the sticks of South Florida, a little east of Sarasota. Daddy had one sister and five or six brothers. I believe he was the second oldest child. His father's job was to make orange crates, and he earned fifty cents a week. They were Florida Crackers in the truest sense of the word.

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I was born in 1950 in Orlando when it was a small dairy and citrus town. I always knew my daddy was a Cracker and was proud to associate myself with that history, although my birthmother and her family (and all her ancestors to the early 1600s, I later learned) were all Yankees from Gloucester, Massachusetts. I had never heard Crackers spoken of with anything but respect. You have to understand that at this point in history, we in the South were very proud of being Southerners. When "Dixie" was played, we would stand. We still saw ourselves as very different from Yankees. It was a slower, more genteel life — in our perception, a more civilized life.

My understanding of the origination of the word "Cracker" was that the South Florida cowboys would be out rounding up the herds and would crack their bullwhips into the air to signal to their wives that they were coming in and it was time to get dinner on the table. I always heard that the women would say, "Here come the Crackers." I understand there are other theories, as explained in this article by Rick Tonyan.

When I was 21 I studied with Nadia Boulanger in Fontainebleau, France. A young black tenor from Orlando was studying there also, and from him I heard the first negative reference to Crackers. In his life experience, Cracker was applied to whites with the same disdain that the N word was applied to blacks. I was shocked to hear Cracker used as a perjorative.

I'm careful now about using the word Cracker. But it my mind it always has been and always will be an honor to be called a Cracker, for to me it denotes hard-working, clean-living, simple folk.
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So here's the story:

In 1935, Theresa (pronounced ter-ESS-ah), had just gotten her nursing certificate and was working as a private duty nurse for a wealthy Chicago woman. Theresa was 22 years old and had grown up outside of Detroit. Also in the employ of this woman was a companion who would do the shopping and cooking. Theresa's duties were strictly nursing-related. The patient decided to go to Tampa for the winter, and took the companion and Theresa along. They lived in a hotel near what is now the University of Tampa.

John, sometimes called Jay or Jake by his family, had left home at 16 to move to Tampa. There he would get a job in a grocery store and each week send money home to his family. Now 22, he was working as a clerk in an A&P near Tampa Bay.

One day the companion was cooking dinner and realized she was out of butter. She asked Theresa to walk to the nearby A&P and pick up some butter and a couple of other items.

When Theresa walked into the A&P, dressed in her nursing whites, her navy blue cape, and her white cap perched on her wavy dark hair, Jay and another clerk were standing in the back of the store. They saw her walk in and flipped a coin to see who would wait on her. Jay won. Big time.

As the story goes, Theresa picked up the items she had been sent for, and walked to the front to pay. Jay checked her out and bagged her items. As he distractedly placed an open box of sample Ritz crackers into her bag, then pulled them out again, he said, "I don't know what I'm doing. I swear I don't."

Interest was established and they began dating. Very soon Jay proposed and Theresa accepted. On Easter Sunday they walked to a nearby church and were married, going back to their individual residences that evening. (I believe it was only about three months from their first meeting until their marriage.) Theresa didn't tell her employer what she had done, but just continued with her life.

In time they moved in together. Jay was promoted to manager of the A&P and Theresa continued her nursing career. One day he came home from a hard day at the A&P and Theresa asked, "Why don't you go back to school and become a doctor?" (I can't even imagine the incredulity he must have felt at that question.) A few weeks later, he came home from another hard day and said to her, "Were you serious about my going to school to become a doctor?"

Bear in mind that he didn't have a high school diploma. He had dropped out of school to help support his family.

Washington Missionary College, in Takoma Park, Maryland, had a program where you could earn your high school diploma while working on your college degree. They also had a three-year pre-med program, leading directly into medical school. Theresa and Jay moved to Takoma Park where he entered college and she worked in the hospital and for local doctors. In 1940 he finished his course of study at WMC and they moved to Loma Linda, California, where he attended Loma Linda College (now University) Medical School, graduating in 1944.

They ended up in Orlando, where he practiced medicine for the ensuing 40 years until his death.

Whenever I recount this story to someone, I am struck afresh at her belief in his abilities, her confidence that he could accomplish the rigorous course of study leading to his M.D. when he didn't even have a high school diploma. And I am impressed with his self-confidence and ability to see into the future from that apartment in Tampa to finally reach his successful practice as a beloved family doctor in Orlando.

Behind this successful man was a woman who recognized in him something no one else could see.