The first time I met my mother-in-law I was overwhelmed by how unlike she was from anyone I had ever before met. She was barely five feet tall but did not come across as a tiny woman. The long lovely fingers on her hands that she used much like a graceful dancer seemed to belong to someone taller, more statuesque. She spoke with a commanding confidence using her eyes to let people know that she was in command of the situation. She spent the duration of the dinner that we shared being kind, but also telegraphing to me that she was intent on getting to know if I was worthy of her son, her only child.
Mary Isabel Fisk Gonzalez had grown up on a street filled with her relatives just north of downtown Houston. Her father’s family had been in the Republic of Texas before statehood. Her mother’s family had immigrated from Newcastle on Tyne, England. Like her son would be, she was the only child of doting parents and the apple of the eyes of her aunts and uncles and grandparents. She was a bright girl who would become an insightful woman, but it took her several tries to become the confident person that I met on that evening.
Mary graduated from high school at the age of seventeen and attended Rice University with the young girl dreams of majoring in languages and working in Washington D.C. with diplomats and lawmakers. Sadly she met an unexpected challenge with a required Calculus course, failing the exams along with the only other girl in the class. Crestfallen she left the university without knowing that the professor had a habit of failing the women the first time around, but pushing them through if they had the courage to return for another try. Both her days at Rice and her thoughts of an exciting career gave way to practicality.
While she was attempting to come to grips about the future direction of her life she began dating an older man who worked at her family’s electric company as an electrician. In spite of the concerns of her father she soon married Robert Burnett and even began caring for his daughter from a previous marriage. She also became pregnant which sent a shockwave through her family because she had been born with a congenital heart defect that made carrying a baby to term a very dangerous prospect.
Her entire pregnancy would be intensely monitored by her doctors who worried that the stress on her heart might lead to her death. When she had carried her unborn child long enough she was put into a state of slumber and the child was removed by Caesarian section. While she remained sedated her very healthy boy, who would one day be my husband, brought great joy to the extended family.
Sadly, Mary’s marriage to Robert did not last, but the love of her son would be enduring. She was still in her early twenties and feeling more and more confident that she had a future beyond the traditions of the nineteen fifties when it came to the roles of women. She enrolled at the University of Houston for a second effort to earn a college degree. She had sown her wild oats and seemed ready to get serious about life. That’s about the time when she met a man from Puerto Rico three years her junior while relaxing with friends in the university’s Cougar Den.
The two of them had an instant attraction and continued talking long after everyone else had left, sometimes in English, sometimes in Spanish. Julio Gonzalez had only recently been fighting in Korea. He had found his way to the University of Houston by mistake. He had planned to meet a friend who was already attending college, but the buddy had only told him that he was at U of H. Thinking that Houston must be that place where he would find his friend Julio set his sights on a grand reunion only to find that his acquaintance was in Hawaii.
The romance between Mary and Julio was a whirlwind that quickly led to marriage. Julio practiced improving his English and found a job with Hormel whose plant and offices were only ten minutes from the house where he and marry and five year old Mike lived. Mary’s parents were next door, a grandmother was across the street, cousins were all around her. When she needed to take her daily naps there was always someone to watch her young son, most often her mother. In fact, Mike would spend as much time with his grandmother as with his parents.
Mary ultimately withdrew from college and worked for the family business which was housed in a back room of her parents’ home. It was an ideal situation for her because she was able to leave during the day to rest and her mother would be watch over Mike much of the time. Meanwhile she channeled her curious intellect into reading. She became a master of differing philosophies as she explored the great thinkers of history. She also willingly assumed the traditional role of a housewife devoting herself to her husband.
I would eventually get to know Mary quite well. She was definitely an enigmatic woman who pleasantly played her role as woman willing to set aside her own dreams for those of her husband. She adhered to the ways of her time, but deep inside her was an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. She knew that she was as capable and bright as any man and quietly revealed to me her longing for the formal education that I and my mother had achieved. She admired my refusal to be typecast as anything but an equal to her son. Over tea and cookies she would encourage me to be unafraid to assert myself and make my voice heard in the world. I loved that she recognized me as a strong woman and saw my mother as an icon of courage. We would have many conversations that only two women might understand. With her as a cheerleader I would find the determination to be myself in a time when many still insisted that females had a place that commanded a kind of submissiveness that I was unwilling to accept. Mary told me to go for it!
All It Takes Is A Little Love 