The Merry Widow, Part 2

Welcome back. Today’s blog post concludes last Friday’s guest post by Miriam Biskin on her thoughts of widows and widowhood. 

My Husband’s Death

After my husband passed away, I signed the thank-you notes with both our names. “You aren’t facing reality,” said a well-meaning friend, to which I responded, “The man never signed his name to a thank you. I am just continuing the job I’ve had for 63 years.”

At the Social Security office, the clerk questioned the name on my birth certificate as being different from that on my Social Security application. I had to assure him that I wasn’t born married

Example of a traditional ketubah,
the Jewish marriage contract.
(from www.ketubah.cz)

When I was asked for a copy of our marriage license by Veterans Affairs, all I could find was our ketubah, the traditional Jewish marriage contract. The VA did not appreciate a document written in Aramaic, though it was eventually cleared by an army chaplain.

The date on my husband’s birth certificate was different from that on his discharge papers, so I had to get notarized statements from his siblings as proof that he was born in July and not May. I now have two different birthdays for my file.

One of my husband’s notions was that very few people would attend his funeral, but he was wrong. The crowd would have brought a smile to his face.

More About “Widow”
 
Widow, a word meaning a woman who has not remarried after her husband has died, dates from the 9th century and was spelled in various ways, such as wudowe, widu, vedo and wydow.

Although there have been wealthy widows in literature, many Bible passages ask help for fatherless children and widows. In a French play, translated as The Widow of St. Pierre, the word veuve (widow) literally means guillotine, maker of widows. Somewhat akin, the Germans called the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter aircraft a witwenacher, which is also a term for a grenade launcher.

The widow of the House of Clicquot’s
founder’s son, with her great-grand-
daughter. (multiple websites)

For champagne lovers, there is the story of the House of Clicquot, taken over by the founder’s son’s widow in the early 19th century. She shipped wines under the label Veuve Cliquot throughout Europe during the Napoleonic wars. In the 19th century, a British author spoke of a “good luncheon and a pint of widow to wash it down.”

We find the term widow’s walk in the title of a British mystery movie, and the term is also used to describe a fenced-in spot on the roofs of seamen’s cottages, where the seamen’s wives could watch for their husbands’ return from sea voyages.

There are lethal black widow spiders, black widow murderesses and the Avengers’ Black Widow, all equally dangerous. Before Scarlett O’Hara married Rhett, she wore very elegant black widow’s weeds. She also had a delightful widow’s peak in her hairline, a triangular bit to enhance her beauty. The widow’s peak was deemed very charming and even affected by such screen heroes as Robert Taylor and Cary Grant, Chris Noth of TV’s Sex in the City and the losing vice presidential candidate, Paul Ryan.

And there is also a time-worn joke of the man who married a widow, then stood at her former husband’s gravesite, sobbing, “Oh, why did you die?”


Thanks for stopping by. Your comments here or via email about The Merry Widow posts would be greatly appreciated. I’ll certainly pass them to the author.

The Merry Widow, Part 1

Last September, we were treated to a two-part guest blog post by Miriam Biskin on her years as a public school teacher. Miriam recently celebrated her 90-something birthday and I asked if she would prepare another guest post. She offered this delightful treatise on widows and widowhood, which, because of its length, I’ll split between today and next Tuesday.

As I watched the 1934 movie of Jeanette McDonald and Maurice Chevalier waltzing together across the screen in The Merry Widow, I was envious and a bit annoyed by the thought of how ancient they would be if they were still alive and how ancient I myself am. However, the lilting music of Franz Lehár transported me back through the years into my beloved’s arms--a delicious memory.

Sometime later, at a party, I watched some of my peers tapping their feet in time to the tunes of a three-piece orchestra, and a few who were even tempted to trip the light fantastic. If the ones on walkers had formed a line, they might have replicated that famed show-stopping chorus scene from The Producers. The moving tableau of those dancing white-haired ladies and balding gentlemen had a sheer bravado, reminiscent of Hawthorne’s short story, Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment, with its Fountain of Youth water.

Widows in History

Historically, widows are interesting. There was Ruth in the Bible whose “Whither thy goest, I will go” promise to her mother-in-law is an example of loving loyalty. The story of Bathsheba describes an adulterous female who seduced King David who then obligingly arranged for her widowhood. 

The Wife of Bath (Courtesy of Florida
Center for Instructional Technology
http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/)

Memorable, of course, was Chaucer’s raunchy Wife of Bath whose multiple marriages made her an expert on men. Shakespeare never gives Caesar’s Calpurnia the chance to say , “I told you so,” while Hamlet’s mother could have served her husband’s funeral feast at her quickie wedding to Uncle Claudius. 

Shakespeare’s widowers are interesting, too, with King Lear fixated on his daughters and Othello lamenting that loving not wisely but too well (or was it vice-versa?).

In American history, Martha Washington was a wealthy widow when she married and then outlived George, as did Mary Todd Lincoln outlive Abraham. In more modern days, Eleanor, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s cousin-wife, continued her daily newspaper column. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy found sanctuary with Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis, who probably would have looked taller standing on his money.

My Personal Widow History
 
My own mother was a young widow, actively being pursued by an overeager gentleman who had a great opinion of himself. She finally quelled his ardor by saying, “Mein mann in kaver is scheiner fin der,” which translates, “My husband in his tomb is more attractive than you.”

The author’s mother, early 1900s.

Nothing is funny about death, of course, but for years, my brother-in-law gave me many final instructions, particularly no limousines, to which my husband replied, “Okay, she can try UPS.”

One of my husband’s own comic reminders was to ask for a senior citizen’s discount. When I actually made the request of the tombstone seller, he laughed or perhaps it was a sneer. At a neighborhood card party, I mentioned that I was stone shopping and was immediately surrounded by several ladies. Were they on commission?

To be continued next Tuesday. Thanks for stopping by.