So Long, Charles Eugene

My husband's Grandmother, Fran Jarrett, just celebrated her ninetieth birthday. She is one of the most well spoken and friendly grandparents that I have ever met. We've often talked about the events of the past, especially concerning her introduction to Bob "Grandpa" Jarrett.

Grandma and Grandpa met at University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana in March of 1941. In April, they were engaged, and in June they were married. They were married for 61 years, when Grandpa passed away in 2002. They had six children, and later, fourteen grandchildren. Bob Jarrett was the love of Fran's life. He was not, however, the first love in her life.

Well, let's see... I met Charles Eugene before I met Bob. I was, let's see, a junior in college, and he was a friend of, well... a girl in our house was going with a boy who was a friend of Charles Eugene. Does that make sense to you? And so, Charles Eugene came with him to the house a couple of times and we met, and then we out on a mass Coke date.

A "mass Coke date" simply meant that the whole house went to one of the Coke places and sat around and had Cokes, or after... well, not after study hall; it was about nine o'clock in the evening. Most of us had to be in by ten-thirty. We were still on that sort of a deal. Girls had to be in that time. I know that sounds antiquated, but it was true then.

So, we met at this mass Coke date, and then he called me up the next night, and we decided to go out. And from there out, we spent a good deal of time together. He lived... he did not live on campus. He lived in Mansfield, which is about fifteen miles... I think fifteen or twenty miles north of the campus. And so, he would drive in. He always had a car, which was a novelty as far as most of the people I went with, because we didn't have cars then. And he was allowed that because he lived off campus.

And so, let's see, we got started going together, and that summer, then... I don't know what time of the year that was. Must have been the spring that we started going together, and in the summer then, I invited him up to my home in Ashton. He came up and spent a weekend up there. My folks liked him very much. He was a nice... nice low-key sort of person, and they highly approved of him.

So, we continued to go together, and then he invited me to his… his mother invited me to their place in Mansfield, and so I went I went there and stayed... well, I can't remember how many days, but two or three days, probably. And they were very nice people. She was kind of a strange one. She was... Oh, I can't think what the... She didn't believe in doctors.

Oh... Christian Scientist?

Yeah, yeah, that's what I was trying to think of. Yeah, she was Christian Scientist, and let's see... but her husband was not. So when Charles Eugene was born, apparently, they were at home, but he was in some sort of respiratory problem. She simply was not going to do anything about it because she didn't believe in doctors, but Charles Eugene's father picked him up and took him in to see a doctor, because she simply wouldn't. Very very strange person. But he, as you can imagine, lived through that and several other episodes as I recall, that she simply wouldn't take him to a doctor at all. And Charles Eugene's father finally had him have his shots and everything like that because there too, she didn’t believe in it. But when I stayed there, they were very nice to me, and we had a good time.

As Charles Eugene would come by with his car and pick me up, and we’d go to class, and he picked me up after class and whatnot. But then I met Bob.

And I met him... He was a good friend of some girls that lived in my house... in my rooming house, and they were from the same town that Bob was from. And so, through them, I got acquainted with him, and we went... We had a couple of mass Coke dates, and... (between) his house and our house.

And so, on a Saturday morning then, he called me up and asked me if I'd like to love him for about fifteen minutes. And it was such an odd way of asking, yeah, I was intrigued by it. And I agreed, and we got together.

He had his car, which was very nice on campus, you know. We simply didn't have that opportunity very often, and... Well, no, wait a minute... Now I'm getting ahead of my story. Bob did not have a car. He didn't have a car at all.

And so, I was... Charles Eugene came to pick me up that morning, and I said, "Well, I need to go down to the Natural History Building." So, he drove me down there, and Bob was waiting there, because we had met the night before. Am I... am I getting ahead of my story?

Oh no, that makes sense. You're alright.

Yeah, and he had said, "I want to meet you on Saturday morning." Well, of course, I already had the arrangement with Charles Eugene, so I told Charles Eugene to take me down to the Natural History Building, which he did, and I simply got out of the car and said, "So long, Charles Eugene. I'll see you sometime," and walked over and met Bob, and we were together from there on.

Charles Eugene really made a good impression. I can't say that Bob did because Bob smoked, and that was simply something my folks could not... did not want to tolerate at all. And he... He made the mistake... We were visiting my grandfather, and Aunt Linda lived up the street from us, and Bob and I went up there to visit them. And he made the mistake of putting his ashtray on top of one of Grandpa's bibles, which was... I'll tell you that almost unsealed the whole deal. But somehow or other we got over that.

When you brought Grandpa home, was your family surprised that Charles Eugene wasn't there?

Well, I had told them that Charles Eugene… well, they, as I said, he was very much liked by my family, but I said, "Well, we have broken up and I’m bringing home another one." So, this time, they were prepared for the fact that it was not Charles Eugene, but I don’t think they ever quite got accustomed to Bob because he did not quite fit in to their idea of what he should be, because he smoked and he sometimes used a little bad language, which, my goodness, my folks just... they... with their Evangelical background, they... goodness sakes, that was simply something you didn't do.

But eventually, my mother came to like Bob. Now, I'm not sure whether my dad ever did or not. In a lot of ways, he didn't. He never really reconciled himself to it. But Mother finally did. Of course, as Winnie* will tell you, she's kind of… she was always kind of fond of men anyway. Not that she ever did anything about it that I know of, but she kind of preferred them to women in a lot of ways.

Now, what have I told you that you didn't already know before?

Several things, actually. I had never heard about the lack of approval from Grandma's family, nor did I know the tidbit at the end about Great Grandma Jennings being "fond of men." *Winnie, by the way, is Grandma's second youngest daughter, who I will have to call soon. I must hear more about this "fondness."

I believe I had heard before the part in which Charles Eugene actually drives Grandma to meet Grandpa, but in my mind I had always seen it sort of flip-flopped. I always envisioned Charles Eugene standing on the curb with a bouquet of wilted flowers as Grandma and Grandpa, smiling, fly away in Grandpa's car, much like the end of "Grease."

Grandma said that she really enjoyed having the opportunity to reminisce, so we're going to make a habit of scheduling phone calls and recording stories. I'm sure she has no idea how much I enjoy it as well.