Becoming an Adult

Sometime during high school mom had a ruptured appendix.  In those days that was a two week stay after surgery and another week recuperating at home.  This was the first health issue visited upon her and the harbinger of things to come.  She graduated from Queen Anne High School and enrolled in the University of Washington.  The stories about her college experience are lost to history.  Depending on who tells the story six weeks or six months was the time spent on higher education. I do know she was taking secretarial courses. It was ithe mid 1920’s an era made for her.  Women were venturing into new territories and she was one of them. She went to work.   Sometime in her early 20’s she met Walter Shebig, a handsome young man who courted her until she said yes to his request of marriage.  Walt, as he was called, was approved of by her parents and life was humming along.  As it was the 1920’s mother welcomed the “Flapper” life style and loved the freedom that work and Walt created for her. She was a beautiful woman with black curly hair and a complexion which highlighted her beauty.  Any man would be proud to have this “flapper” on his arm.   She went to work for the US Bank sometime after her engagement to Walt.  It is not clear if she was working for the bank in Seattle but she subsequently ended up at the US Bank in downtown Portland.  She was walking through the office one day shortly after arriving in Portland, when the stack of papers she was transporting fell from her hands.  It was a very embarrassing situation as she had not been there long and did not know too many of her fellow employees. Papers were flying everywhere when along came a knight in shining armor who helped her pick up the papers. This was the entrance into her life of Emerson Wilkinson Haggerty, known as Mike to his friends.  She liked to tell this story which was contradicted a few times when she talked about the woman who introduced them.  Maybe the woman happened to be at the scene of the flying paper accident, unfortunately we will never know.  This was the beginning of what would become a 54 year relationship with E W “Mike” Haggerty and 52 years of it in marriage.  My favorite part of this story was when she told about breaking up with Walt Shebig.  Even though she and dad hadn’t really discussed marriage she knew that “Mike” was the man she wanted to marry and so she had to give the ring back to Walt. Back to Seattle she went to take care of this uncomfortable business.  Walt and she were walking in the park at Fort Lawton when she told him that she wanted to give the ring back.  He refused to take it and she had a heated discussion with him telling him it just wasn’t going to work out. He steadfastly refused and so like any normal frustrated woman who felt she had done everything she could to explain the situation to him, she threw the ring at him and walked away.  That was not the end of Walt.  He married her sister Ida!