The Lone Arranger

excerpted from a Sunday lay sermon by Madge Richardson Walsh

...I daresay many of us have known other women who played significant roles in our lives. It’s too bad that there isn’t a day for special aunts, or even mothers-in-law—Ruth Walsh, my husband Bert’s mother, was wonderful to me. But the stereotype prevails, and [...] I can see that a tribute to the woman who became my mother-in-law has to be a special one. She was to be a role model for me, though I don’t think I will ever be able to match her kindness, her patience, or her serenity—she was absolutely unflappable, even though with Bert as her son she was tested many times.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, Ruth happened to be a dear friend of my Aunt Marjorie, who was the aunt who played a particularly significant role in my life. Aunt Marjorie had no daughters, so her nieces had to do. The older niece, my cousin Jean, was working for Pan American Airlines and dating pilots; Aunt Marjorie considered “flyboys” poor husband material and tried to introduce Jean to more appropriate young men. Jean did not cooperate, however (she never did marry); and so Auntie turned her attention to me. I was showing no signs of settling down with any suitable boyfriend (one of the latest ones was a very talented artist, but you know how unreliable & irresponsible artists can be!) Since my parents had so far failed to marry me off, Aunt Marjorie decided she had better do something about it. 

Aunt Marjorie knew that Ruth Walsh had an “eligible” son, and of course Ruth knew of Marjorie’s niece. Ruth appeared to be an innocent bystander, perfectly willing to go along with Marjorie’s arrangement of what appeared to be a spontaneous meeting. My parents were conveniently out of town, and I was “batching” it, so when Auntie invited me for dinner I was happy to accept, even though she was not much of a cook. Ruth was attending a meeting at my aunt’s house that afternoon, and Bert was to pick her up there, so it was natural for Marjorie to have both of them stay for the meal. 

Believe it or not, this seemingly casual but carefully contrived meeting actually “took.” Bert and I joke that we have an “arranged” marriage—we affectionately refer to Aunt Marjorie as the “Lone Arranger.” We like to remember both Ruth and Marjorie--and their meddling—with fondness and love. They cared what happened to us. 

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What's fun about this little essay is that my father Bert's recollection is a tad different: he had just came from a hard day of work, and Madge had come straight from an archeological dig, all hot and dusty. For years, he would wait until Madge had told her story, and then he would wryly smile and say, “I like sweaty women!”