Monumental Dreams: The Life and Sculpture of Ann Norton

11. Marriage and a New Life

103 11 Marriage and a New Life Ralph Norton proposed to Ann on the afternoon of April 11, 1948. Almost immediately afterward, she rushed over to the Hunters’ house to tell them. “She was white as a sheet,” Robert Hunter remembered. “I told her, ‘Say yes quickly before he changes his mind!’” Ann did not take his advice. The momentousness of Ralph’s proposal was too overwhelming for any such rush to judgment. She started running a fever. She could not sleep. She began praying to God. She summoned her mother from Selma to come to her side as soon as she could. Ann’s whole world had taken an astonishing turn, and she would need all the advice and support she could get to make the decision asked of her. Ann was not quite forty-three years old when Ralph proposed. He was seventy-two, almost exactly thirty years older. That, however, was the least of her worries. After he asked her to marry him, Ralph left almost immediately for his home in Chicago. As soon as he arrived, he wrote her a letter that replayed some of their conversation on the afternoon of the proposal. This letter is one of many that he and Ann wrote to each other during the whirlwind courtship, a poignant and fascinating documentation of a remarkable couple struggling to come together. He admitted his own impetuosity. “I really was not definite about it in my own mind till a day or so before I left. When I realized how I felt toward you, and have come to the conclusion that we could make each other happy, I just could not wait to tell you about it. And then we had that wonderful afternoon together.” Portrait of Ann at the time of her engagement to Ralph Norton, c. 1948. Photo courtesy of ANSG. Marriage and a New Life · 105 Ralph goes on to remind her of the telephone call she made to him after he had left, reassuring him that she was very happy and “don’t worry, it is going to be all right.” But Ann at this point was not at all sure that it was going to be all right. Although she had surely seen the way the wind was blowing in the previous two years, with his constant attentions, his purchases of her work, and his generous support, the idea of marriage was probably far from her mind, and marriage to him almost too remote to contemplate. She wanted more time before she made a definite commitment. She wanted advice from her mother, and, consistent with her religious history, she wanted guidance from “the Lord.” Ralph’s response to her resistance was characteristically practical and brisk: “Under the new tax law, if you marry me, it will save us about twenty thousand dollars a year in taxes. You are doubtless a good mathematician and if you get out your pencil you will find that every day we don’t get married costs us about sixty dollars. Under the circumstances, perhaps you and the Lord would be willing to put in a little overtime on the job.” At the end he wonders whether he has been writing her a love letter. “It might seem so. I haven’t done that for a long time and am a little out of practice.” Ralph had no doubts about his decision. He was completely infatuated by Ann and wanted to have the marriage as soon as possible. He wrote again from Chicago: “You told me you loved me, and once you said, ‘I adore you.’ I suppose that is a little stronger word. What you said reminded me of the couplet in French: ‘Je vous aime—je vous adore, Que voulez-vous encore?’ And if you were asking me that question, the answer would be, nothing, nothing at all!” For Ann, the struggle was only just beginning. She responded that same night: My dearest, you told me not to write unless I had reached a definite decision and I am disobeying. It is all so stupendous and completely unforeseen (certainly no lead-up on your part). I have hardly slept or eaten at all since you left (and will probably be so thin and haggard when you return that you will hasten to call the whole thing off!) In fact I’ve been running a little fever too which however has acted...