Our Life Together (part 2)

by Sylvia French Waack

That year there was quite a fad of wearing Tam O’Shanters, which was a new style of caps for girls.  Our group of girls, Vera, Eva, Edna and I, who ran around together, decided we would like to have some to wear on free days, but how were we going to get to town to buy them.  Oh, there was a young man with a big car by the name of Chester Waack, that could take me to town to buy them if I could get permission from Matron Rose.  So I gathered up my courage and went across to her room and asked, not knowing what the answer would be.  Quite to my surprise she agreed.  I ran back to my room and got my red trimmed white sweater on and my purse and came out my room door to look for Chester.  Lo and behold!  There he was at the bottom of the steps talking to a short, young man named, Wesley Morton.  I did not know till much l ater that at that particular time Wesley was telling Chester that I wanted to go with him to the picnic grounds.  I ran down the steps and grabbed Chester by the hand and said, “Come on, we can go.”  And off we ran leaving Wesley with his mouth hanging open.

It did not take us long to buy the Tam O’Shanters for the girls and we came back to the campus.  That was the beginning of Chester’s and my association.

When it came time to go to the picnic, we just kind of fell together walking and spent most of the time talking about our previous love affairs.  He and Marie had broken up before he came to school two years before and he had not gone with any one at school, but was kind of “Father Confessor” to all the girls.  If they had any problems, many came to Chester to talk it over.  He was the “vegetable man” in the school kitchen so came and went among the girls, cooks, etc., in the basement while the vegetables were being prepared, peeled, sliced, cooked and made ready to serve, Then he worked his way through school being a waiter in the dining room.  His jolly disposition made him quite a favorite.

Since Wesley Morton had been sick some time before Thanksgiving, he had to ride in a car and was not with the group walking to the picnic grounds.  After our lunch Chester asked Wesley to take our pictures.  Wesley agreed if Chester would take his picture with me.

That evening we had the big Thanksgiving Dinner in the dining room and our group rather got together again as it was free time and we did not have to sit at our assigned places at the tables.  There was lots of singing and fun after the dinner.  So it was a very enjoyable day.

Friday was “Campus Day,” cleaning the school grounds, and just general fun time with all our gang again working together.

Shortly after Thanksgiving, my little sister, Mary Alice French, took pneumonia and I went home to help Mother take care of her.  I was out of school until after the Christmas Holidays.

Several of the girls from our group were not going to get to go home for Christmas so Mother let me invite Vera Byrd, my closest chum, and Edna Storms to come spend the Christmas holidays with us.  Again came the problem of transportation, so again Chester with his car was the answer.  Since Kenneth Weigel, one of Chester’s roommates, was going with Edna by this time, it was only natural to invite him to come along with Chester so they could bring the girls to Tulsa.

Mother was a gracious hostess and had the house decorated so beautifully.  We all had such a lovely holiday together.  In the evenings we drove around the city in the snow, looking at all the beautifully decorated homes.  So the time went real fast and was soon time to go back to school.

As I quoted in the French Family History¹, Mother and I slept together during that week and every night she made some remarks about Chester not having a serious thought in his head and if we should marry, I would just have a bunch of tow-headed kids, running around, “quack, quack, quacking” all over the place, making fun of his name “Waack.”  I would reply, “Oh, Mother, I have no intention of marrying him.  It is just convenient because he has a car.”

By the time we returned to school, my room had been moved over to the girls’ side of the dormitory.  They had turned one of the lounges on the second floor into a room for three, giving us another roommate, Wilma Cooper.

I found I was quite behind in several classes from being gone so long.  Since I had had a nervous breakdown during my first year, the stress of trying to catch up was too much for me.  Again I was sick.  While I was in bed sick those days, the girls would bring me reports that Chester had asked for me and would even bring little things to me from him.  Maybe a piece of cake, or a flower, just some little thing from the dining room to let me know he was thinking of me and praying for me.

After I returned to classes and my hall duty early of a morning, the matron caught us talking one day at the foot of the stairs.  She called Chester to her office and in the scolding, she told him that he owed me an apology for breaking rules in talking to me without permission.  So he most graciously asked permission to apologize.  That gave us an hour together in her living room.  By this time he was wanting me to agree to having a date time, which he as a senior was allowed to have.  But I told him, “No, because the students would consider that as a sign that we were engaged” and I still had no intention of that.  However, I was spending many extra hours in prayer at night in the classrooms, talking to the Lord about the matter.  He felt called to Arabia as a missionary and my interest had always been in Africa.

¹The French Family History is not yet online.

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