Emily
Meg hated to leave me. She worried about whether I could survive. Frankly, I think I've survived better than she could have. I remember her saying, "I want to take care of you, but if you die first, then I have a gun." She'll be dead five years this April, and it's still hard.
She was very attractive when she was young. She was born in 1920, during the flapper era. She had her hair short but not masculine, and she had beautiful eyes. She looked a lot like Nelson Eddie. She was very, very affectionate. Well, I shouldn't say affectionate, but if she liked you, you knew it.
I met her through my sister. I was born in 1914, so I guess it was in 1935. After about a year or so, I realized there was something growing there. I thought, gee, she's rather nice, you know. I sensed someone I could care for, but I didn't want to be involved in anything like that. To me, it was taboo. Actually, at that time I was dating somebody else, but eventually, we did get involved. Of course, she was very open about her feelings. I hadn't been aware of those kinds of feelings inside myself before that, because I was into men, too, and I was concerned about society. Then, we became attached, more or less, but we didn't live together at that time. You see, you had to be awfully careful. It wasn't like it is now. You still have to be careful, but then, it was almost criminal.
Back in '36 or '37, I was working, and Meg was engaged in the family business. It was the Great Depression, and I worked for my uncle just for bus fare. I think I got five dollars a week for five and a half days. Then after a couple years, another lawyer needed a secretary, so my uncle encouraged me to try for it. I went, and I was hired for $12.50. That was wonderful. We could get chopped meat for a quarter, so it's all comparable.
I was there for a number of years. I don't remember when Meg moved in, but for a long time, she did everything but sleep with me. She ate with me; she was there all the time. She was very busy at the business, and it got to be too much for her to run back and forth between her house and mine, so she suggested she sell her place and I sell my house and we buy one house with a swimming pool and everything we wanted in it. I agreed, and we lived there until we moved up here in 1971. We had a ball.