20th Century Women

In the April issue, Mabel Cunningham described a life derailed by the onset of epilepsy. At the age of 26, as she prepared to set out to become an itinerant teacher—a choice that would lead to many lonely years of poverty, hardship, and endless struggle with prejudice and fear-she concluded that no man would ever marry her. And for many years it seemed that her prediction was accurate. In the early years of the 20th century, epilepsy was still misunderstood. Most people were prejudiced against those afflicted and believed that epileptics were retarded or crazy. In a society where this was the general attitude, even among those in the medical profession, who indeed would consider marrying such a woman? In the story that follows, Mabel is no longer a young woman; she is in her mid-thirties when she finds love. Today’s culture emphasizes youth and youthful romance. One of the most delightful surprises of interviewing elderly women has been the discovery of how many found satisfying love at a later age.
The lines of poetry at the beginning are used with the kind permission of Mabel Cunningham.

                        It was in the springtime amid the lilies white
                        We met and learned to know each other fair ...
                        from “We Wanted Each Other”, by Mabel Cunningham

In the summer of 1944 I had a job in Kansas City at Rhinehart Dental College. I was going to church at the Grand Avenue Temple, but I stopped because the war was on and there were blackouts and I was afraid of walking alone such a long way on the streets when everything was so dark. The Old Christian Church was closer to the house on Twelfth Street where I was boarding, so I decided to go there.
     That night, I went to be admitted to the Christian Endeavor that they had in those days for the young people. Their pianist was late, and somebody asked if anybody could play. I said I could, and I got up and played “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”
     While I was playing, Taylor came into the endeavor room.
     I finished at the piano and I started back to my seat. Taylor was standing in the aisle. I didn’t know who he was then. He said, “Well, go ahead.” So I went on and sat down. Later, Lillian Middleton introduced him as Taylor Cunningham. She said he was one of the trustees of the church and one of the elders. He was also the church treasurer. He was a crank on that, too.
     During the services, I looked at him and something said to me, “That’s the man you’re going to marry.” Then I remembered and I said to myself, “Oh, silly thing,” because I really didn’t expect to marry.
     When the services were over, Taylor asked me to go and eat watermelon with him down by the lake. That’s how we met.
     We ate watermelon and then he wanted to walk me home. Some other church members were walking that way too, and they kind of walked with us. Then Taylor wanted a date for another night. I said yes. On the day of our date I worked. I got back to my room and laid down for a while, and I fell asleep. When I woke up, I thought, “My land, I have a date.” I got downstairs, and Taylor was sitting on the porch. He said, “I was just going to wait and see who you stood me up for.”
     Taylor wasn’t my first boyfriend. I’d had one in high school and I had dated Frank Larsha in California, and some other ones. During the war, I went to Camp Hale to dances and recreational activities for servicemen. A dentist, a little, short fellow, wanted to date me. I don’t know what his wife was like, but they didn’t get along, and as a result he was divorced. Well, I wasn’t interested in him. He was all right to fix teeth.
     Taylor worked at Cook’s Paint and Varnish Company as a certified accountant, and he kept their books and records. The owner, Charlie Cook, was a diabetic who had both legs sawn off, but he was able to carry on his business sitting in a wheelchair. He was brought to the store in a special car.
     Taylor wasn’t too beautiful. He kind of looked like Harry Truman, though he didn’t like the comparison. He had blond hair, a little bit white. He had a little mole on his head. He was kinda short, a little taller than me. I’m about five foot four inches, and he was about five foot six.
     We dated that summer. Since the seizures started again, I had a vision of the man who would propose to me. I’d tell him about myself, and I’d look at him and say, “Well, I’m sorry,” and I’d watch him walk off across the pasture saying to himself, “Thank God I didn’t marry her.”
     It didn’t happen that way. Before any proposal, I told Taylor outside the Liberty Theater in Kansas City. We had been to a show, and we came out of the theater and the rain was pouring down. We stood on the sidewalk under the awning, and a blind man came down the street playing a violin, and his mother was with him holding a tin cup. I said to Taylor, “Handicapped people don’t deserve the right to happiness, do they?” He said, “Why, yes they do. They have just as much a right as anybody.” I said, “What would you say if I told you I had a handicap.” I told him then about my epilepsy. He said, “You’ve got more sense than anybody.” He said, “Come on, I’m taking you home.” And he got a taxi and took me back to the boarding house, and he went home.
     But our relationship didn’t end. We went on dating, almost every night.
     At the end of that summer, I went up to Albany to see my folks. While I was visiting Marie, helping to peel peaches, the phone rang. Marie answered. She turned to me and said, “There’s a man who wants to talk to you.” It was Taylor. Marie’s children, Norman, Harlan and Ruth Ann, were little, and they started to run around and sing, “Aunt Mabel’s got a boyfriend. Aunt Mabel’s got a boyfriend.”
     At the end of my visit, my folks were going to drive me back down to Kansas City. Dad didn’t like to drive in the traffic, and I had mentioned that to Taylor. He offered to meet us at the ASB bridge (that was a railroad bridge for the Atlanta, Santa Fe and Birmingham Railroad). That was where Mother and Dad met him. We went to Swope Park and ate together.
     In late August I caught the bus back to California to teach school. Taylor and I corresponded back and forth, but finally we quit. He told me in one letter that he was dating another woman. The next summer I didn’t go to Kansas City. I volunteered to work at a Methodist Settlement House in Utah.
     The next summer I went back to Kansas City, and I decided to go to church and see if Taylor was still around. I thought he might be married.
     The first Sunday I kept a veil over my face. I sat in church and looked for him, but I didn’t see him. The second Sunday he was there, and when he was passing the offering he came over to me. He leaned over and said, “I want to see you after church.”
     After that we went to work and we dated. I had a job as a fountain clerk, and he was practically under my feet nearly every night. As soon as he got off work, he would come to the store and sit down and wait until I got through, and then we’d eat together or go to the movies. That’s what we did for dates.
     The school board in Selma had contracted with me to teach a third year. Come along about August, I got me a new green suitcase. School didn’t start out in California until late September, and I fixed it that I was going to go to Chicago and take a little vacation. But first I wanted to go up to see the folks for a weekend. Taylor said, “Well, I’m going to go with you.”
     On the bus I told him that I was leaving for Chicago after this weekend and then I was going straight back to Selma. Taylor said, “No, you’re not. You’re coming back to Kansas City and marrying me.” That was all of it. That was my proposal, on the bus going up to the little Missouri town of Albany.
     My twin sister and her husband, John Higginbotham (he and Taylor had the same birthday, February 12), lived in Albany. Taylor and I got up there, and John said, “Marie’s up at your mother’s, canning peaches and green beans and corn.” John drove us out to the farm, and mother and Marie came out to greet us, both of them barefoot.
     On the way out to the farm, I told Taylor not to say anything about our getting married. I was afraid something would happen and I wouldn’t go through with it.
     I’ll tell you the truth. This is a terrible thing to say, but before I married Taylor I sat down and I made a list. I think I wrote down twenty different things I thought were wrong with him. Some of them were exaggerated. For instance, that he was a spendthrift, he couldn’t save money and we would be poor as could be. He liked to smoke and he would take a drink of alcohol once in a while and I didn’t like that. But on the other side, he was a church treasurer, and a trustee of the church, an elder, and I was old and I had the epilepsy and if I married him I would have somebody to come home to at night. I would have somebody who would care if I got home or not, somebody who would worry if I was out on the streets.
     Sunday evening, Taylor and I came back to Kansas City. I had given up my room before we went up home, so I went to the Jackson Hotel to sleep. Taylor lived in the Chase Hotel, and he went there. On Monday I got a permanent in my hair, and I bought me a wedding dress and shoes and a hat. Taylor bought the rings and a suit.
     The man we wanted to marry us was Reverend Emmanuel Jones. He was a Welshman who had come to the United States, and he was doing what I call temporary preaching in the Old Christian Church. Taylor and I asked him to be the minister, to do it, marry us, but Reverend Jones was living in Kansas and didn’t have a license to marry people in Missouri. So the next day in the morning, Taylor and I took the bus to the City Hall in Kansas City, Kansas to get a marriage license. On the form there was a question—whether I had anything like epilepsy. I said no, and I felt guilty about it. I always said I wouldn’t get married and tell a lie, but then I did. At the time, I thought: Well, I’m never going to ask the state of Kansas to take care of me.
     We got the license and came back on the bus to the Missouri side. We separated while we got dressed. For our wedding, I wore a blue dress and a blue hat. I had a little black veil that came down just about to the bottom of my nose. I didn’t wear white. Wasn’t because I wasn’t a virgin because I was that, truly. I chose those colors because I thought they were practical—and my mother was married in blue. Her dress was handmade, and she went to work and made dresses for Marie and me out of it and I wore that blue dress for a long time. My wedding outfit was store bought.
     In the evening Tom and Nadine Summit picked us up in their car and drove us to the Quindaro Christian Church in Kansas City, Kansas. I’d never been to that church before and I never was back. The custodian let us in, and Reverend Emmanuel Jones performed the ceremony. Tom and Nadine and the sexton were all that was there to witness Taylor’s and my wedding.
     After the ceremony we signed the license, and then Tom and Nadine convinced us to eat at the Paramount Restaurant. I had never been to that restaurant before, and I had never heard anything about it, and I don’t think I ever went back. Up on the wall was a great big picture of a naked woman lying on a couch. We laughed about it.
     We ate a great big meal that evening, but the next year for our first anniversary, Taylor and I ate fish and chips.
     After we left the restaurant, we went and played miniature golf, both of us dreading to go home.
     I don’t believe the two of us together spent more than two hundred dollars on our wedding, and that’s including his and my clothes and my permanent and the rings and the restaurant.
     When we couldn’t put it off any longer, Nadine and Tom drove us to the Jackson Hotel because I had to pick up my suitcase. I checked out, and they took us over to the Chase Hotel where Taylor and I were going to live. I said, “I don’t feel married.”
     Tom said, “You will after tonight.” That was August 21, 1946.

When I told my family that I had gotten married, they didn’t seem surprised at all. They didn’t get excited or make any kind of a fuss; they acted just as if I had said “Well, I got up this morning and ate breakfast.”