Wedding Anniversary

On Memorial Day

By coincidence the day for remembering our deceased veterans and decorating their resting places falls today on the 63rd anniversary of my wedding to the short and now deceased woman that Grampa Reilly dubbed "Lil Bit" when he first met her way back in 1943.

Like Hilly and Lone Duck did a few days ago in New York state, I visited Prairie Haven Cemetery on Mother's Day for the same purpose, cleaning up the resting place and cutting the grass.

There wasn't much to do. Because we've had no rain for months, no grass has grown. Because we have had high winds, any trash and the dead flowers had blown away.

Lil Bit was Loretta, a SWEET loving wife and the mother of CT, DP, Scrabblebuff, Yarntangler and Joey, who didn't live long enough - just a day - to get himself a nickname.

It was May 25, 1946 in Attleboro, Massachusetts, that Loretta Ida Ducharme added the surname Hoye. We left Attleboro and headed for Canada on our honeymoon, so much in a hurry that we forgot to take with us the huge package of eatables including fried chicken that our parents had so carefully and SWEETLY packed for us as the recepton ended.

We toured Montreal and made our way back into Massachusets through Maine. taking up residence in my birthplace home, sans the printing press that had stood at the foot of my bed (see an April blog describing that piece).

We had a SWEET life, and five SWEET children and were headed for a 50th anniversary when five heart attacks in 1990 and 1991 called a halt to our marriage of nearly 45 years, on February 5, 1991. May "Lil Bit" rest in peace.

This morning at the annual Memorial Day services in Veterans Cove at Prarie Haven Cemetery, I with CT planted an United States flag beside her nearby monument, honoring Loretta as a veteran even if she did have only one day in the U. S. Navy as a WAVE, her service cut short because the USN deemed her "too short" at four feet, eleven inches.

We hope you have paid tribute to your veterans or will before the day is done.

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