HELEN’S CHOICE [F, 2-14-25]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—HELEN’S CHOICE [F, 2-14-25]

[Continuing my birth month personal history columns… so, today, a column about my Valentine.]

As a teen, Helen loved her pastor, Newton Fowler. Even more, his wife, Lucretia. They were warm and personal, but also dignified. Helen wanted to be like that.

“Dignified” was an exception in Gary, Indiana in the 1940s and 50s. Helen’s family moved to Gary because her father had a job at U.S. Steel. Her first ten years had been in the little town of Monon, where three generations of relatives, on both sides of her family, lived. She and her same-age cousin, Sam, could safely roam the town together. It was idyllic, and all she knew.

Gary was different. The first day there, Helen was sitting on her front stoop, reading a book, when a girl her age walked by. With malice, without knowing her, except that she was new, the girl called Helen a dumbass. [1] Gary was a rough and rowdy place.

Helen and her mother had attended the American Baptist Church in Monon. [2] After a couple of church tries in Gary that didn’t work, about the time Helen became a teen, they discovered Westminster Presbyterian, and Newton and Lucretia Fowler.

The Fowlers encouraged Helen. She was the only teen who sang in the chancel choir. She became president of the youth group. She began to think, vaguely, that perhaps she should have a career in the church. Probably as a Christian ed director, since women could not be ordained as clergy then. [3]

She met me at the start of her sophomore year in college. She’d already had a year as a home ec major, but a degree in home ec led to being a wife or a teacher. She didn’t think she wanted to teach, and being a wife was not in her control. She was still thinking, vaguely, about a church career, when she met this guy who as a college junior was already preaching on a three-church circuit. Getting involved with him meant a church career one way or another.

That didn’t bother her, of course. She liked the church. She had seen Lucretia Fowler live a good life as a preacher’s wife. But it did give her one problem…

…was she interested in me because I was a preacher? Did she want a Newton Fowler clone? Did she want the church, or did she want me?

I broke up with her in the summer of 1958 because I had so much responsibility for supporting my parents and younger brother and sister that I just couldn’t see my way to marriage, either financially or emotionally.

That summer Helen went on vacation with her parents and sister, making the grand loop around Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. As they passed through a town, she saw guys working the garbage truck. The question suddenly posed itself: would I want to marry John if her were a garbage truck guy instead of a preacher? It was sort of moot, but she said the answer was very clear: Yes! [4]

So, when I called her up on Oct. 18 that fall, with no preface at all, and asked her to go out with me, and presented her with an engagement ring, she had her answer ready.

Why did I change my mind? Because my heart had not made the change. When you are in love, all the reasons why you should not marry just fade into insignificance.

What happened to all my concern and care for my family? Poor Helen! She got 45 years of that, too!

John Robert McFarland

1] Maybe something worse. Helen was so shocked she isn’t sure she remembered it accurately.

2] Also called Northern Baptists, to distinguish their theology from that of the Southern Baptists.

3] Presbyterians didn’t get around to ordaining women until 1965.

4] She can’t remember which UP town it was where she saw the garbage guys at work. Maybe didn’t even know its name then. But there is only one highway to loop around the UP, US 2, so it’s possible it was Iron Mountain, where we lived 50 years later. That’s a fun coincidence to consider.