Mince-meat and War Responsible for Family of Six!

Julia Anne was a leader in the YWCA supper club, in Columbia, MO back in 1942. This supper club was the tinder of the day — a space for selecting a future partner through proximity rather than swipes. All the cute boys, the jocks, the Ag boys, the nerds ate at this supper club.

“Everyone knows a church women can cook (especially the Methodists).” as my midwestern uncles would say.

Julia Anne was tasked with making desserts since she was a member of the home economics club at college. She wasn’t looking for a future spouse. Being a member of this supper club made her father happy. He had vowed to get his girl’s into college to find good men.

The supper club portions were generous, but it was 1942 and the great depressions had not given up its grip on the American economy. The “butter” was Oleo, a colorless margarine. The flour was a cheap red hard-wheat all purpose flour. Vanilla extract was replaced by maple syrup — today that would be considered culinary genius — but researching that fact explains why maple syrup wasn’t a part of our families’ life growing up (and why creamed chipped beef was).

One evening, as the story was told, a particularly full of himself boy in a letterman jacket, lets call him John Robert, took a slice of mince-meat pie from the serving window. He carried it back to his seat.

He took a bite of the pie and spit it out, “Damn, women you aren’t ever going to find a husband with this awful slice of @#$%”

Julia Anne was clearing dishes from a nearby row of tables. She turned as scarlet as her dark auburn hair. You could see the veins at her temple throbbing. She took long deep breaths trying not to burst into tears.

Walter, an almost tall, very thin young man, looking much older than his 23 years stood up.

He faced John Robert and in a deep resonate voice proclaimed, “Well if you bothered to pay enough to give her decent ingredients then you’d have good pie. You have better than you deserve now.”

Handsome Walter shamed John Robert and all who giggled.

It was in that declaration and act of standing up for the pie maker the possibility of me was born. My brother claims John Robert was a wing-man, that the insult was all an act so Dad could defend the lovely auburn haired Julia Anne and win her heart.

Julia Anne was in her junior year of college, a proud member of the Independent Women’s Club — the largest club at The University of Missouri in 1940s. Marriage was not on Julia Anne’s mind. She dreamed of working, earning her own way. Dependence on a man wasn’t her ambition. But that deep resonant voice rang through her dreams, drifted into her thoughts with every flaky pie crust she rolled out.

By 1943 the US was fully engaged in the European theater of WW2, Julia Anne and Walt both left college. Pies and studies seemed frivolous. Julia Anne went to work as a food process inspector in Iowa. Walter and John Robert enlisted, as did most of their male classmates.

Walt joined the Army Air corps ( which later became the US Air Force) and was sent to Nevada to train. Scaring on Walt’s lungs from syphoning gasoline back on the family farm grounded him. Instead of being a pilot, as he dreamed, he was taught welding. He learned to repair and patch the sheetmetal on airplanes. Walt received notice that he was to be deployed to India. That red head still on his mind, Walter proposed to her on the fourth of July, 1943.

Julia Anne did not say yes right away.

“Let’s get married when you get back.” she countered.

“No” he said “If you don’t want me now you won’t want me then. I need to know I have you to come home to.”

With that the deal was sealed. Julia Anne married Walter in September. Julia Anne kept working and waited for him to come home from war.

When Walt’s tour of duty was done, he came back to University of Missouri to finish his degree on the GI bill. Julia Anne also finished her degree (and watched over her little sister who was now in college as well). Baby #1 of 6 had arrived. Unlike today, in 1947, married women with babies didn’t participate in graduation ceremonies.

Mom always laughed when she said, “I watched myself graduate from the bleachers, but I wouldn’t change a thing, cause I have you.”

So it seems #5 of 6, her one and only daughter, owes her existence to a slice of not to tasty mince-meat pie and a world war.

The lovely Julia Anne would have been 100 today, she didn't quite make that goal. She remained in love with Dad all the days of her life despite losing him to a heart attack at the all too young age of 49. Happy Birthday MOM! Good news-all six of us are still ticking!

This story was originally published in Medium. com. It has been revised and edited for Vocal on the occasion of what would have been Mom's 100th birthday.