My father’s mother is one of 12 children in the Schaal family of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Like a lot of families in this area, they are of German descent. While the boys have normal names – John, Raymond – the girls’ names are far from ordinary. They are a splattering of old German and hybrid names like Anna Judea, Cunegonde, Addie Ocalla, Frankinetta (Frank and Netta), Dora Daring. The others are lost to time. Grandmother is the last child. Her parents are worn out with names. They ask the minister to name her and she is christened Ruth Naomi.
My grandmother, Ruth.
Ruth stands at five feet eleven inches, unusually tall for a woman of that time. She’s homely, but in time she’ll be a handsome older woman. She loves to tease the men who come into her brother John’s successful car garage, where she works as the receptionist and does the books. They enjoy it, too. She is well into spinsterhood territory when my grandfather, D. G. Pfoutz, walks into the garage. He is a prosperous businessman. He also owns a successful garage, gas stations, and oil storage facilities and is the sales representative for Cadillac, White, Franklin, and Studebaker automobiles. D.G. is a widower in his 50s with two children, a boy, John, and a girl, Emily.
John Schaal's automobile garage, quite clean by today's standards.
D.G. begins to court Ruth. She loves to tell the story of D.G. following her in a Cadillac as she walks along one side of the town square. She doesn’t notice him, but when she walks up the steep steps of the bank where she works, he drives up the steps right after her.
D.G. and Ruth marry, and she moves in with his family. Almost immediately sparks of friction fly between Ruth and Emily, who is in her early teens. When Ruth arrives, she seizes ownership of Emily’s mother’s jewelry and other fine family items. It doesn’t occur to D.G. that at least a few pieces should be set aside for Emily. This creates anger at and jealousy of Emily’s new stepmother.
Guy is born in 1920 and will be the only child Ruth and D.G. will have together.
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