September Song

My parents had an amazing marriage. They actually got married twice. They eloped once in May of 1947 and made it official in September after dad’s mom found the first marriage license. Mom’s parents never found out about the first wedding. All the photos in this blog were taken during the second wedding.

My dad told me that my mom could have married so much better and that he never wanted to do anything to make her regret marrying him. My mom, on the other hand, said she would live in a cave to be with him. Nothing else mattered. They were very happy.


My mom’s father was a teaching PGA golf pro and the head of the largest ad agency in Chicago during the depression. He bought a new car every year. My mom was the youngest of three children and music played a huge role in their upbringing. She tells about her brother bringing a piano home and trying to get it up into his bedroom on the second floor. It got stuck on the stairs. As pianos and dining room tables are not real necessities, these were usually sold first if a family needed money during the depression. It cost her family more money to hire movers to get the piano into her brother’s bedroom than the cost of the piano itself. She talks about having her sister and brother playing duets with him in his bedroom and her in the living room while Mom would tap dance or sing from the bathroom. They went on vacations, joined a country club for golf, had wonderful dinners and clothes.


A few blocks away, my dad’s father was a salesman for company that sold cash registers, which later became IBM. During the depression, there was not a lot of need for cash registers. It was not a happy home. They moved from apartment to apartment, as the rent was not always paid. There was never enough food. He was the second of five children.

Dad once told me that the only time his father showed up at his school was the day he graduated from high school. He was a very absent father. My dad said that he vowed to remember what it felt like as a kid and not raise his own children that way. He was a type of father that is more common today but it was not at all common in the 1950’s. He used to say that the best part of his day was getting home as soon as he could to be with his family.

He was an outstanding cook who used to hang out near his mom while she was cooking. I would watch him “worry” a spaghetti sauce, make SOS from the Army days, wilted lettuce salad like his mom’s, corned beef and cabbage and the best French fries and onion rings on earth. He had heard about Pot a feu, which is a pot on the stove for months and the cook just keeps adding leftovers from dinners to create new soups each day. He took it on as a challenge. We would have hot soup when we got home from school half frozen from walking up the long driveway in the snow.

Everyone in their day had “their song” and for them it was the “September Song.” It is about two people growing older, worrying about the separation of death and appreciating each day together.

Michael and I were married in September 1973 and the words of their song have been so much on my mind these past few months:

Oh, it’s a long, long while from May to December,

But the days grow short, when you reach September.

When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame,

One hasn’t got time for the waiting game.

Oh the days dwindle down to a precious few,

September, November!

And these few precious days, I’ll spend with you.

These precious days, I will spend with you.