Family Memory (V): Uncle Don, Aunt Evie, Love, and the Train which hit a Model T

So, I’ve written a bunch of stuff about my mom’s side of the family, like this and this and this.  This, though, is the story of a couple young people on my dad’s side of the family, his Uncle Don and Aunt Evelyn.  Important to note, my dad was born a bit late to my grandparents.  My grandfather was late within his family, so it isn’t too many generations between me and their initial arrival in the US around 1848 (only 4-5 generations actually).  Thus, this story takes place around in the fall of 1911 in Walcott, Iowa.

Walcott now is a suburb of Davenport and the Quad Cities, but back 100 years ago, it was a small farm community out in the middle of nowhere.  That meant it had just a single schoolhouse for everyone.  My Uncle Don (we never referred to them as ‘great’ relatives) was in third grade then.  One day that fall, he had a friend from school come up to him and say–hey, my parents went in to Davenport and they left the brand new Model T.  My brother (who was probably 14-15) is going to take it out and take me driving…want to come along?   What 8 year old wouldn’t want to do that?

So they went out driving–and then it happened.  A stupid teenage mistake.  The older kid, the driver, decided he could race a train and beat it to a rail crossing with the blazing speed of a Model T.  He didn’t make it.  The two siblings were killed in the crash.  My Uncle Don survived, but was pretty messed up–and worse, there were no doctors in Walcott–it was a small farm town.  That meant it was the town veterinarian who fixed him up.  He had some broken bones and after the crash, he would up having his lip/palate, etc reconstructed–always had a scar there.  It was a serious enough accident that he missed the remainder of the school year and had to be held back a year.

When he returned to school the following year, 1912, he was still in 3rd grade.  One of the kids who had been behind him a grade but was now in the same grade with him kept picking on him now–called him stupid, the whole gamut of 3rd grade insults.  Uncle Don took this for quite a while.  One day during recess outside, the teacher headed back in to the building…after all, how much trouble could there be?  Uncle Don’s tormentor chose that moment to add another insult, but that was one too many.  Uncle Don slugged the tormentor in the gut.  His victim immediately fell to the ground crying.  He wasn’t picked on again.

And actually, from that moment on, Uncle Don and his bully, a girl by the name of Evelyn Golinghorst, became friends.  By 1919, they were dating, and in 1927, they married.  They stayed married until Aunt Evelyn died back in ’88–61 years.  Uncle Don lived long enough for him to see our oldest son named for him (it’s Erick’s middle name).  He died back in 2002 at age 98.

More than 61 years of happiness that all started with a bully and a punch to the gut during recess.  Love comes from some weird places sometimes, but the sort that lasts forever–it’s special no matter what.