Mother was pleased when I carried such compliments back to her. (If my friends had
actually said “mom," I doubt if I repeated it, for Mother had long ago trained me to
call her “Mother.")
In spite of tensions between my mother and me, I liked her and generally
enjoyed being around her. I would often sit in the wild cherry tree in Henderson’s lot
across the street from our house and wait for her to come home in the evening. When
I saw that trim, blond-haired lady walking at her snappy pace up Fayette Street, I
would wave and call to her and she would give me a big Hi, Honey. Now don’t fall!
Come on down and wash your hands for supper. Then I would climb down and go
in and see if she had brought me anything from town.
About 1933, Hunter D. Fox entered the life of Kathryn Wallace Rohrer. A s
a traveling salesman from Richmond, Virginia, he came to Cumberland periodically
to sell brake shoes to automobile dealers and parts stores. He somehow met
Kathryn and, taken by her attractiveness and her sweet, somewhat reserved manner,
began dating her. Foxie, probably in his late forties, was tall, slender, with thinning
black hair and pointed features, not handsome but immaculately dressed and
groomed. He apparently made good money. He often came to see Mother and they
would talk in the living room or go to dinner or a movie. Occasionally he took her
with him on business trips. The Wallaces liked him. He had good Southern
manners and a certain charm. Once in a while Grandma invited him for dinner, to
his great delight, for he genuinely appreciated good home cooking. Even Pop
seemed to approve of “Fox," as he called him, in spite of the fact that his daughter
Kathryn was still a married woman in the eyes of the Catholic church. I resented
Foxie at first but eventually warmed up to him and looked forward to his
Cumberland visits. He gave me several nice gifts. Sometime after my father died,
in August 1935, Foxie gave Mother a diamond ring. It was never clear to me
whether it was an engagement ring or not, but his intentions were apparently
serious for he took Mother to Richmond to meet his mother.
Returning to Kathryn’s career: After Star Clothing, in about 1936, she went to
Public Service on the other side of Baltimore Street. This was the big new-concept
(self-service) department store that had been brought to Cumberland not long before
by two enterprising businessmen (Mr. Sachs and Mr. Ossip) from Johnstown,
Pennsylvania. Kathryn’s job was in cigars, cigarettes and sundries. One of the
sundries was bay rum (an after-shave lotion) which, contrary to conscience, Mother
had to sell to destitute bums who somehow extracted its alcoholic content, or drank
it straight for all I know. Remember, these were the hard-time Thirties, when there
were thousands of unemployed men who had simply “gone to the dogs" and often
tried to benumb their brains with cheap booze. Some environment for meek little
Kathryn! It was a job, though.
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