Chapter 12. Grace Musché, the Love of My Life

One of my fans was Grace Musche! Grace was a Library Assistant in the Branch Department Office located on the fourth floor of the Main Library. She had come into my life one summer evening in 1939 in the Sociology Division of the Main Library. I had been in my position there as a Junior Reference Assistant Librarian for about a year. I recall that On that particular evening, I was stationed at the central reference desk. I had just finished answering a telephone reference question when she appeared before me with a list of reference books. She explained that she was taking a library course in reference work and needed directions to the book stacks where the reference books might be found. To use a trite phrase, “it was love at first sight.” There before me was the most beautiful girl in the world! I was so taken by her beauty, friendly smile and breezy manner that I found myself after what appeared to be minutes finally able to mumble, “I’ll be happy to help you.” I took her to the section where the books she sought were to be found, acknowledged her “thank you,” and hastily and self-consciously retreated to my desk. I did not see her the rest of that evening because I became very busy with others needing reference assistance. From that night on, I was not able to get her out of my mind. I kept seeing in my mind’s eye, that lovely, slender, brunette, dressed in a summery print, whose bright, green eyes danced, whose cupid bow lips wore a friendly, honest and genuine smile that made me feel warm.

From that summer evening in 1939 until the day I left home for military service in 1943, I saw Grace from time to time as our paths crossed in the Library when we would greet one another in a friendly way, however, that is as far as it went. Much as I wanted to, I never had the courage to ask her for a date. I must admit, I was afraid that she’d refuse. Our friendship began when I finally got the courage to write to her from my first Army post Gulfport Airfield, Gulfport, Mississippi. Her reply gave me more courage. The wrote that she and other staff members had come to see me off at the train station, but had missed me by only a few minutes. Grace became a real pen pal and wrote to me regularly throughout my entire tour of duty in the states and abroad. Friendship blossomed into romance through our war-time correspondence. By- the time that I returned to civilian life in 1946, I felt ready, willing and able to begin a serious courtship. Now that I was settled in my job as the Branch Librarian at the Fleet Branch Library and earning $3,420 a year, I felt I was also even ready to ask Grace to marry me! I did not have the nerve as yet. We dated exclusively as often as we were able, making sure that our social life did not interfere with our work. We had decided that we had to be very careful in this regard because we not only worked in the same department of the Library, but also for the same supervisor. Grace worked in the office of the Supervisor of Branch Libraries, and I as a Branch Librarian reported to that same supervisor! In December of 1946, I finally worked up enough courage to ask Grace to marry me. She accepted! Our engagement came as a complete surprise to our supervisor and all of our coworkers!

I chose to give Grace her engagement ring on Christmas Eve of 1946 because her birthday was on Christmas Day. It proved to be the most appropriate time. I had been invited by Adeline Musche, Grace’s widowed mother to join the Musch4 family for dinner and to help trim their tree. After enjoying one of Grace’s mother’s delicious German dinners, which included her famous potato pancakes, Grace and I, joined her mother, her younger sister Edna, and brother Paul, to trim the tree. When the last ornament had been placed on the tree, I fished the ring box from my pocket and nervously handed it to Grace. Heart pounding, I waited for the reaction from Grace, her mother and from her brother Paul, because they had no previous warning. Edna alone had known before hand that I had planned to give Grace the ring on that evening. Edna had been my coconspirator. In fact, weeks before, I had enlisted her help in getting Grace’s finger size for me from one of her rings. Edna also without alerting Grace had somehow gotten Grace to indicate her preference in engagement rings when window shopping at Beattie’s Jewelry Shoppe earlier. Edna had then taken me to Beattie’s and shown me the ring called the Orange Blossom, which had been Grace’s choice. It was exactly what I suspected Grace might have chosen. Grace disliked ostentation. So it was just like her to have picked out the Orange Blossom which was petite in size and simple. It’s slender, gold band was capped by a middle sized, genuine, nicely cut diamond that gave off a rainbow of colors every time a ray of light kissed it. Two smaller diamonds that also seemed to shimmer with rainbow hues, were artistically placed on the band to the right and left of the main diamond. I waited for Grace’s reaction as she opened the box. On seeing the ring, she gave an excited whoop, and gave me my first real big hug and a kiss. I have never forgotten that moment. When the rest of the family embraced us amid laughter and tears, I knew that I had made the grade!

When Grace returned to work on the Monday after Christmas, her coworkers on seeing her engagement ring asked who it was that she had kept secret so long. They were all surprised that it was their own Ed D’Alessandro. However, when our boss, the supervisor of Branches came in later and asked Grace, “Who is the lucky young man?” She was thunderstruck when Grace, replied, “Mr. D’Alessandro.” Grace and I never knew whether our supervisor approved or not. We wondered afterward whether she might have been angry because we had not taken her into our confidence and advised her of our intentions before hand. While we intentionally had been very secretive about our relationship as far as our supervisor and coworkers were concerned, both families had been in on it from the start because there was one very important obstacle that we had to surmount. Grace was Lutheran and strong in her faith and I was Catholic! Early on, Grace and I had consulted with her mother and had received her blessing even though Grace had agreed to be married in the Catholic Church. I had expected real problems with my parents, however, my parents surprised me and gave us their blessing. We were married on November 29, 1947 at St. Rocco’s Church.

Since neither of our families had the means for a large church wedding and all the usual trimmings, we were married with only the immediate families in attendance. Brother Arthur was my Best Man and Grace’s sister, Edna was the Maid of Honor. Grace wore a tailored jacket and skirt of golden hue, a small corsage of violets, a dark blue hat, with small face veil, and blue pumps. She was beautiful! I wore a tailored, double-breasted, dark green, pin stripe suit, white shirt with print tie, white breast pocket handkerchief, and a white carnation in my lapel.

Grace and I went to Washington, D.C. for our honeymoon. The train fare for both of us and seven days at D.C.’s newest Statler Hotel were a wedding gift from Walter Horn of the Horn and Norris Lithograph Company and Brother Sol’s boss, for whom I had worked one summer, before I got my first job as a page at Brownell School Junior High School Library. Without Mr. Horn’s generous gift we would not have had a honeymoon because neither Grace nor I felt we could afford to furnish the small apartment we had rented and have a honeymoon as well. Mr. Horn has had a special place in our lives over the years. Needless to say, Grace and I had a wonderful time in the Nation’s Capital for those seven memorable days in 1947.

Following our honeymoon, Grace and I returned to our little three room apartment which was located on the second floor over a florist shop in a two story office building across the street from Saint Ignatius Catholic Church, at the corner of West Boulevard and Lorain Avenue. Although we had started to look for apartments shortly after we were engaged in December 1946, we had been lucky to find this one because those war veterans who had gotten home before me had gobbled up practically all of the housing that was available in our price range at the time. Brother Nick had come to our aid. He had contacted a medical friend who was willing to sublet the apartment he and his family had occupied adjacent to his medical office, when he had recently vacated and moved into a large home on West Boulevard. Grace and I had quickly negotiated and secured the apartment at forty dollars per month from the good doctor and had gotten it furnished as simply and economically as possible shortly before our marriage. So we were indeed fortunate to have our own cozy, little first home to come back to after our honeymoon! Although modest, it was to be our home from the end of 1947 until the end of January 1950 when we were able to purchase our first home with that wonderful GI Loan that made it possible for World War II Veterans to assume home loans at an interest rate of only 4 percent.

The years we spent in that little apartment were years of adjustment for both of us. We resumed our careers at the Library. Grace continued in her job as a Library Assistant in the Branch Department Office and I as Branch Librarian at Fleet Branch Library. Our apartment not only became the quiet haven to which we retreated at the end of our busy work days, but also the place where we developed as husband and wife, learned the meaning of give and take, of sharing, of cooperation, of forgiveness, of trust, of the kind of love that transcends the sexual. We both learned that marriage was hard work, and we both worked hard at making it work, and we fell more in love as a result. On October 9, 1948, we became a family in that apartment when our first son, Edward Rocco, was born.

Grace’s lively personality made that apartment a warm and fun place. It’s location also made it a fun place. The hallway that led to our bathroom dead ended at a locked door that led into the doctor’s treatment room, apparently arranged that way for his convenience when he lived in the apartment. There was no way that we could escape hearing what went on in that treatment room when we used our bathroom. There were times when we could not help hearing some very interesting and sometimes some sad as well as some happy conversations. One evening, I was astounded to hear the doctor prescribing a glass of red wine before dinner to a patient with heart disease. This was 1948. I had never heard a doctor giving that kind of advice to a heart patient in that day and age! I, as a heart patient, am now having a glass of red wine every evening before dinner on doctor’s orders. That doctor was years ahead of his time.