Getting to Know You
Emerging from the Great Depression and World War II, America's youth were in a hurry to get on with life. Aided by the GI bill and the growing post-WWII economy, young Americans wanted to finish school, get a job, and enjoy themselves. For the Greatest Generation, that included getting married and starting a family.
The average age of newlyweds in 1950 was 22, which did not leave much time for courtship. In fact, the common courtship length was about four months, an almost shockingly short time to get to know some of one’s prospective spouse's idiosyncrasies.
All of which is a prelude to the day in the Fall of 1950, shortly after their wedding, when my parents moved into a walk-up apartment on Buckingham Court in the Central West End of St. Louis. Tucked away on a leafy side street in the CWE, in the shadow of the Washington University School of Medicine on the eastern edge of Forest Park, Buckingham Court has long been a landing spot for newlyweds.
One Sunday afternoon late that Fall, my father was catching up on some paperwork at a writing desk he shared with my mother. As he rummaged through one of the side drawers looking for a pen, he happened upon a crumpled-up invoice from the St. Louis Country Club.
Curious, he unfolded the invoice and read the following statement: “For feeding, attending, walking and housing the Julia Kimball Schlafly horse at the Saint Louis Country Club stables for the month of September, 1950….. $125.00”. Well, there it was: the cost of housing the horse for a month was more than double the monthly rent on Buckingham Court!
I suspect this might have been the first major “shock to the system” encountered by my father as he began his married life. I do know that he wasted no time ordering a horse trailer to appear at the St. Louis Country Club stables on Barnes Road to transport the precious Schlafly horse from Ladue to Belgrade, Missouri, the site of the family Farm located in the foothills of the Ozarks.
The dramatic change in scenery Mom’s horse experienced was akin to being moved from the top of the Carlyle to a small motel outside of Potosi. I am not sure my mother protested very much. It was all part of the process of getting to know Dad and adjusting to married life.