If My Heart Had Wings: A World War II Love Story(3)

Grandma worked just as hard as Grandpa, although in different ways. In addition to doing the household chores and taking excellent care of the children, she established her own small business as a seamstress. Working at home, Grandma dressed entire wedding parties, including the bride, bridesmaids, mothers, flower girls, and ring bearers. Mom remembered that, as a small child, she liked to run her hands over the smooth, beautiful silks and satins that were always piled on the dining room table. The money Grandma made from her sewing business, coupled with her ability to pinch a penny until it screamed, helped ensure that the family was always well-fed, nicely dressed, and free of debt. She taught her children to be responsible, well-organized, practical, and, of course, frugal. And she passed on her love of anything that engaged the mind: reading, writing, history, arithmetic, games, puzzles, and diagramming sentences.

Ted, who had inherited his mother’s sharp mind and was way ahead of the rest of his class, graduated from high school at age sixteen. Nina didn’t skip any grades, but she was also bright, with an affinity for both words and numbers. Her well-developed imagination made her popular with the neighborhood kids who liked to loll beneath a tree on hot summer days and listen to the stories she made up. In those days, when everyone was poor and toys were scarce, storytelling skills were in high demand. Her stories had the added advantage of being ongoing. As she would say years later, “Somehow, I always seemed to be able to come up with another chapter, no matter how long the story lasted.” It was a gift.

The kids affectionately called Nina “Skinny Bones” because she was thinner than most, even during an era when just about everyone was lean. But by the time she reached high school, “Skinny Bones” had morphed into a slim, curvy brunette with a swan-like neck and the kind of pretty face that needed little makeup. When she wasn’t studying, Nina was surrounded by a gaggle of girlfriends and occasionally a few boys. Typical Saturday night fun consisted of squeezing into somebody’s old jalopy and heading off to a dance or the movies. Or they might gather around the piano for a singalong, sometimes at the Ostrom’s house, where Nina would play. There was no special guy for her during this time, or for most of her girlfriends; just platonic relationships with boys who were fun. And that was enough.

So, in spite of the Depression, life was pretty good for all of the Ostroms. Ted had even managed to put himself through college and land a job teaching high school math in northern Minnesota. But, just as the Depression was winding down in 1939, the remaining three Ostroms suddenly had a good reason to pull up stakes and leave South St. Paul for good. Nina was graduating from high school in June and wanted to go to college, and everyone in the family agreed that she had the brains and the discipline to make a success of it. Grandma was especially keen on the idea, seeing it as her daughter’s ticket to a career, something she herself had been denied. Just as important was the fact that a college campus was the perfect place for Nina to meet a nice, well-educated man to marry. No factory workers or farmers for her.

One problem was money, but that disappeared when Ted generously offered to pay his sister’s tuition. The other problem was that all of the universities were located in St. Paul proper, which was ninety minutes away by streetcar, plus walking—a long haul, especially during Minnesota’s grueling winters. This alone would probably preclude Nina’s participation in any campus activities. So, Grandma and Grandpa decided to bite the bullet and move to St. Paul, where they could all live somewhere close to campus. This, of course, meant that Grandpa would be the one to brave the ninety-minute commute to get to his job at Armour. But neither of my grandparents ever complained about their sacrifices. Setting up their daughter for a successful and happy life took precedence over everything.

Not many women went to college in those days. And even fewer opted for Nina’s choice of major: mathematics. Math was almost exclusively male territory. But Nina was blessed with a rational, exacting mind and excellent powers of concentration. She’d found that esoteric subjects like calculus and math analysis were well within her grasp, and what’s more, math was fun for her. All she needed was a set of rules or laws, plus a problem that needed solving, and she was in heaven. Math was a puzzle, and one she was quite confident she could solve.

The college of choice (probably Grandma’s choice) was Hamline University, the oldest university in St. Paul. It had plenty of things going for it: Hamline was small (only 690 students in 1939); it had an excellent reputation; and it was a Methodist university, the family’s religion. This meant that Nina would be meeting young men from the “right” faith. It sounded perfect.

She applied to Hamline, was accepted, and just a week after graduating from South St. Paul High, moved with her family to a small house just a few blocks away from the Hamline campus.

Two weeks after that, she met her husband-to-be.

––––––––





A LMOST THREE DECADES later, I fidgeted in front of a full-length mirror, pinned into a half-made dress, while Mom stood behind me with a mouthful of pins, tugging on one of my shoulder seams. It was the summer of 1968, I was fifteen years old, and Mom was in the midst of creating my school wardrobe for fall. Like her own mother, she was an accomplished seamstress who could whip up just about any kind of garment, including prom dresses, tailored jackets, and vinyl raincoats. And she could make them fit perfectly, but only after several try-ons and plenty of analysis. Believe me, it could get pretty annoying if you happened to be the one wearing the dress she was endlessly tugging this way and that.