A TRUE TEXAS LOVE STORY

A True Texas Love Story

My daddy’s oldest brother became blind as a very young man. The event happened many years before my birth, so of course, I only remember him as my blind uncle. He had married and had become a proud father. Something happened between his wife and him, and he found himself alone with no way to work because he could not see.
The only recourse open was to move back to the family home, a small farm in North Texas. As a child, I clearly remember driving there with my family to visit Granny and Papa and our uncle.
The house never had running water, but it did have electricity for the Kelvinator “icebox” and one bulb on a cord from the ceiling in each room. My uncle knew his way around every inch of the house, the yard, the garden, the orchard, and the outhouse. He used a cane to wave in front of him as he walked. He milked the cows, drew water from the well, and fed the calves.
Everyone loved our uncle, including my family and me. My little sister and I enticed him to play with us, hold us, and tell us stories. He had one glass eye, and he’d remove it and let us hold it and wash it with soap and water. We’d ask him the color of our dresses, and he’d finger the fabric and guess pink, blue, or yellow and say the correct one much of the time. Magic!
One day, the Lions Club in town approached him about the possibility of attending a school in Pennsylvania in order to learn Braille and get a seeing-eye dog. If he could accomplish this, the organization intended to give him a small newsstand in town.
My uncle accomplished all this and more. While he attended the boarding school for the blind in Pennsylvania, he not only mastered Braille, he received a wonderful German shepherd named Sam. And now…for the rest of the story…
He met a lovely woman at the school. I believe she attended classes to train with a new dog. Blind from birth, she had never seen the world as our uncle had. With his way of telling a story, he described, oh, a cow, for example, or a field of corn. She became enthralled with the tales, and yes, she fell in love with him. In return, she played the piano and sang to him.
My uncle returned to Texas to take up his new profession. Someone took him to town every day to work in his newsstand. I have no idea how long he did this. Back home at night, he wrote letters to his ladylove—in Braille. On one visit to our grandparents’ home, I leaned on my uncle’s worktable while he punched holes in the strips of paper. Knowing he was writing to his girlfriend, I asked, “What did you tell her then?” Patiently, he told me something, probably to appease me. And he showed me how to use the apparatus to write a few words.
Eventually, Uncle moved to Pennsylvania, married his sweetheart, and set up a home with her and her German shepherd seeing-eye dog, Lady. The Lion’s Club in Dubois, PA helped him obtain a newsstand in the neighborhood, close enough so he could walk to work. His sweet wife walked there at noon to take his lunch and eat with him.
Now, if that’s not a love story, I don’t know what is!
Celia