Broad Is the Way: Stories from Mayerthorpe

2 Holy Matrimony

two Holy Matrimony Years passed, and now, as a young married woman, I became aware that my suitability as the minister’s wife was in some question. I had not only been overdressed at my first appearance but had taken down the green plastic curtains on our bedroom windows, which horrified the secretary of the Ladies’ Aid, who noticed the bare windows on her way to the post office and spread the news. There was no one across the road from us to see in, except for a few cows. But, as she pointedly told everyone, the Catholic priest lived on the other side of the road only a block down. Having apparently scandalized the Ladies’ Aid, I found myself wondering what people thought about Jim’s car when he drove into town from Peace River to become their new minister. Buying a car was an almost insurmountable obstacle for most young ministers starting out on their first charge, and Jim’s car was unlike any that had been seen in Mayerthorpe for twelve or fifteen years. Jim’s father had offered to buy a car for him when he went on his mission field to Peace River. It was nearing the end of the war, when new cars were difficult to get and only a few good second-hand ones were available. His father said he’d pay for whatever Jim wanted, but Jim, not wishing to spend too much of his father’s money, got the cheapest one he could find—a 1928 Model A Victoria Coupe, for which he paid $500. It was a two-seater, high off the ground, with a rumble seat at the back. When his father saw it, he was obviously disappointed that Jim hadn’t got a more recent model, but all he said was “Huh!” So from then on Jim called the car Huh! By the time I arrived, however, whatever may have been said or thought about Huh! had probably run its course. The editor and sole reporter of the Mayerthorpe Review felt he would be expected to write something about the minister’s wedding. Without consulting us, he wrote a note about it in what was popularly 8 called his “Hatches, Matches and Dispatches” column. He said the minister and his wife had enjoyed a couple of weeks in Niagara Falls for their honeymoon. I hoped no one would ask me any details about the Falls. Not being a good liar, I’d have felt obliged to say that we hadn’t gone to the Falls, but had gone camping in Algonquin Park— a honeymoon destination probably inexplicable to people whose parents still had memories of the hardships of living in tents while they wrestled their farms out of virgin forest. A few days after we arrived in Mayerthorpe, I was sitting out on the front porch in the middle of the morning, reading a thick book related to my thesis, when a parishioner came by and said, “Here’s the new bride, looking up a recipe.” I quickly put my hand over the title, closed the book and said, “Oh, I was just doing a little reading,” knowing that was not what any self-respecting housewife should be doing at that hour of the morning. I couldn’t tell her I was looking up references for my thesis, which I had been working on when Jim and I decided to get married. At the time we made the decision, Jim was serving his first year as minister in Mayerthorpe, and I was in Toronto, halfway through my MA in sociology at the University of Toronto. Jim had not figured in my plans when I began the program, and I was determined to finish Holy Matrimony 9 Jim and Huh! it. We had gone to university together, but neither of us had seen the other as a possible marriage partner or even as a date. We had often gone to dances in the same group of friends, but we’d always been with someone else. We’d worked on some of the same committees, and in my last year we jointly ran a major student organization. We’d had fun working together and had initiated several new programs, including the establishment of the first International Students’ Organization , a group that aimed to support students from other countries. After graduation we went our separate ways. Jim had a...