Love at the Lincoln - by Janie DeVos

     

     (From left to right: Author's aunt, Jane Tarilton, Weldon Lewis, and author's grandmother, Nell     Tarilton, at Jane and Weldon's engagement party on Miami Beach, circa 1948).

     My interest in love and romance-oriented anything started at a young age.  First, it started with romance magazines in the 1960’s, then I poured myself into Kathleen E. Woodiwiss’ romance novels, and continued with the likes of Judith McNaught, Julie Garwood, and on and on, until an odd little thing happened one day, I began writing historical fiction romance novels, not just reading them.

I’m a sucker for a good love story, and I find myself sighing, tearing up, or mumbling in irritation while both reading and writing them.  Yes, my characters come alive to me, and when I finally have to end the book, there’s a part of me that feels as though I’ve ended a relationship and I go through a mini-version of mourning.  I know that sounds overly dramatic, but, hey, that’s how much I get into my stories, while praying that the readers feel that same sense of loss when they turn the last page.  But as much as I love conjuring up fictional characters, scenes and situations, there’s nothing better than a true love story; one that was just meant to be, written in the stars, kismet.  And one of those stories that easily comes to mind is my aunt and uncle’s.

My mother and aunt were born and raised in Miami, Florida, and my uncle-to-be lived in West Palm Beach, which is about 70 miles north of Miami.  However, he was frequently in Miami, especially on Saturdays, when the Lincoln Road theatre, on Miami Beach, ran a kid-friendly double feature.  As was typical in those days, there was more than just a double feature to fill up a child’s sacred Saturday, and in the case of the Lincoln Road theatre, that extra something was a little talent show between the two films.

In the mid-1930’s, Shirley Temple was all the rage, and one of her songs, “On the Good Ship Lollipop”, was sung by countless children, and adults alike, all across the nation, including at the Lincoln Road theatre’s talent show one Saturday afternoon by Jane (my aunt), and Joyce (my mother) Tarilton.  The little girls were about nine and seven, respectively. 

Onto the stage they pranced, singing at the top of their lungs, and doing all of their practiced moves in not-quite-perfect unison, and as they kicked and dipped and twirled their way between the two purple velvet curtains framing each side of the stage, a young fourteen-year-old boy, who was sitting close enough to the stage to get a good look at the singing sisters, was absolutely taken by the nine-year-old blonde beauty standing in the spotlight singing about a lollipop ship and bon-bons.  And though he’d never laid eyes on her before, he leaned over to his friend sitting next to him and whispered, “I’m going to marry the older one some day.” 

Fast forward ten years, and that fourteen-year-old boy had become an engineering student at the University of Miami, while my aunt was a student at F.S.U.  It was the weekend, and kids from the area rendezvoused at a popular bar just a couple of miles from the U. of M.  Among the crowd was the engineering student and the girl from F.S.U., who happened to be home on break, and at some point in the evening, they met and began to talk; just small talk at first, like where they grew up and what they did for fun, and then the engineering student just happened to mention the Lincoln Road Theatre’s Sat. double feature, and the F.S.U. girl nodded knowingly, and said that, yes, she and her sister used to go all the time, and added, almost as an afterthought, that at one of those matinees, she and her sister had sung “On the Good Ship Lollipop”. 

Undoubtedly, my uncle-to-be was rendered speechless by the remark, and, again undoubtedly, took a deep pull on whatever cocktail he was drinking (I always knew him to be a whiskey man).  As to whether or not he admitted to the little blonde gal from F.S.U. at the time that he remembered her well, and that he’d mentioned something quite prophetic to his friend sitting next to him during her song, I cannot say.  But I do know that they did, indeed, marry a year later, and that their love story continued on for over fifty years, until my uncle took that Good Ship Lollipop to his heavenly home.  And that, as Paul Harvey used to say, “…is the rest of the story.”

Somehow, I think that Paul would have liked this particular one a lot.  After all, who doesn’t like a good old-fashioned, kismet-kissed love story—especially one that begins without both parties knowing that it has.

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!