Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Talks about life meeting and being married to 1st Husband, Garrett

Two

            Garrett Lawson was the son of Gerald and Hannelore Lawson. He was born on October 1, 1915 in Detroit, Michigan. He had three older sisters and one younger brother. He was also a junior at Los Angeles High School.

            During my high school years, I never noticed Garrett before, but my junior year of high school, he was everywhere. In my Math, English, History, and Gym class, always there with his head held up high. He had beautiful brown eyes with short, wavy brown hair, and was about 5’7. He and I weren’t friends in the beginning, more like strangers. One day in History, my teacher, Mr. Grey was having a discussion with the class about the Great Depression and if anyone knew anybody who lost their jobs or home. The discussion for me was a bore; I never liked history, so I gained some rest. I was about to fall asleep when all of a sudden, I felt a crumbled paper ball hit my back. I got my head off my desk and looked behind me. It was Garrett. He was smiling at me. I smiled back. “You should stay awake,” he whispered. I replied back with saying, “I don’t need to hear history again.”

            After that happened, I felt a huge spark, and it was odd because I didn’t understand what it was, I was seventeen and developed, but then I remember something that my friend, Russia said about hormones. Hormones run your body crazy when you have a crush on someone. I did have a crush on Garrett; I didn’t even know him, which really made me think that I was a maniac.  My best friend Russia was the first one to know about this crush I had on Garrett. She said it was normal, but she was surprised that it was my first. She asked, “Have you ever liked somebody before?” I simply replied no. She said I was a late bloomer and many girls are at my age. She told me that I should ask him out on a date. I didn’t really know what to do on a date. There were a lot of things to do in Los Angeles, so now I’ll just have to ask Garrett to do one of those things with me.

            In June of 1933, before school was out for the summer, I got the courage to ask Garrett out. We hadn’t really talked since he threw a crumbled paper ball at me in history, so I wasn’t sure if he would remember me.  But I did it, I asked him out. I was waiting outside the school with my other friend, Michelle. I told Michelle I needed to ask Garrett something so I’d be back soon. She didn’t know I liked him, but I planned on telling her later on.

            I remember the conversation so clearly like it was yesterday.

            “Hello, Garrett.”

            “Hello, Susie.”

            “Are you busy this Friday?”

            “Nope, why do you have something in mind?”

            “Yeah, I was thinking we could go see a movie or something.”

            “Sure a movie would be mighty fine.”

            “Great can you pick me up at 45 Willow Street?”

            He got his notebook and wrote 45 Willow Street on the cover.

            “What time?”

            “Seven PM.”

            He wrote down seven PM and then he replied, “See yah there.”

            I couldn’t believe what I had just done. I asked out Garrett Lawson. I really had it out for this boy and I couldn’t wait for our date.

            Our date was very lovely. I was wearing a pink flapper skirt and a nice white blouse with cute pink heels. Garrett picked me up from my house and yes, he got the right address.  Garrett drove us a couple of miles to the nearest movie theatre. We entered the theatre and he paid for our tickets and refreshments. He was such a gentleman.  We saw The Gold Diggers of 1933 starring Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Joan Blondell, and Ginger Rogers, also directed by Mervyn LeRoy. The movie took place during the Great Depression and was about a composer taking unemployed Broadway people and makes a new play for them.  The movie was fantastic; I wish my parents could’ve been part of such an amazing movie. My parents were now doing theatre because they had trouble finding work on the screen.

            Garrett, like me, loved the movie and wanted to see it again. We talked coming out of the movie theatre, all giggling, and laughing like we were the best of friends. I learned so much about him during our conversations. He loved baseball and hoped to become a professional baseball player like Babe Ruth. His favorite subject was history and we loved having a great time.

            He said that I’d been the only girl that he’d ever gone out with and likewise, he was the first guy I’d ever gone out with. So as we were walking towards his car, we kissed passionately out of love. He told me that he knew I was special and he would stop by my home tomorrow to hang out. I passionately agreed upon our plans and he drove me home.

            When I arrived home, I couldn’t believe that I had an awesome boyfriend and that I learned so much about him in these three hours I was with him. It was amazing, I couldn’t ask for anything more.

            In June of 1934, I was ready to graduate high school and enter the real world out on my own. Garrett and I had been dating for a year. My friend Russia, had dropped out of school, and married one of Garrett’s best friends, Artie Washington. We were invited to their wedding and I was the maid of honor and Garrett was the best man.

            At the wedding, I realized something that I longed for, love. I’d never been in love, but the love I saw between Russia and Artie, I wanted so badly. Even though I liked Garrett as much more than a friend, I wanted that love. We had lots of chemistry, but where’s the love? We had been going out for a year and there’s still no love. But I decided to push the envelope a bit, and get all the love starting.

            Garrett and I danced at Russia and Artie’s wedding, like it was nobody’s business. We swayed and stepped our way out of the reception and outside into the night. We stopped dancing for a bit and walked around. Garrett and I talked about leaving high school and what we were going to do with our lives. In the midst of the conversation, Garrett stopped me and said the thing that made me love him. He asked me to marry him.

            Marriage! He wants me to marry him. I said yes without thinking and I put my engagement ring on my finger and was ecstatic. I will be married to Garrett and that love Russia and Artie have for each other, Garrett and I will have for each other.

            Our high school graduation was spectacular. We both graduated and had no plans for college. We were going to spend our summer, planning our winter wedding. The only problem was my parents and sister still didn’t know I was engaged. My parents didn’t even think Garrett and I were in a serious relationship. The night of our first date, my parents were in Puerto Rico on their anniversary vacation. My sister was still married to Greg Moller and she was expecting a baby. All of our friends knew and they supported us 100 percent.  Russia and Artie were the first to know since the engagement happened at their wedding reception.

            On the night of our high school graduation, Garrett and I moved into an apartment in Los Angeles where we would plan our wedding and start our new lives. Suddenly, I was looking at Garrett and thought that I must marry him as soon as possible. The fear of losing him came into my head. I didn’t want him to go, but that love between a husband and wife, was not really there. I loved him like a brother, but liked him like a husband. So I proposed to him that we get married right now. He and I made out and we rushed out of the apartment at eight at night to the nearest wedding chapel.

            My mother had a wedding dress that she sold at her old dress shop and she gave it to me when I got married someday. Luckily, I took it with me to my new apartment with Garrett, so I wore it. Garrett wore a tuxedo he bought with some money from his previous job as a grocery store clerk.

            We got married in the East Los Angeles Wedding Center at 9:14 PM. There were no witnesses present, but if we had our wedding when we were supposed to in the winter, Russia would’ve been the bride’s maid and Artie, the best man. The next day, we went over to Russia and Artie’s home and they signed the wedding papers. Since Garrett and I were eighteen, we didn’t need our parents’ permission, but I did need to tell mine of our marriage. So Garrett and I went to my parents’ home and announced that we had just gotten married. They were stunned. They hardly knew Garrett. He was almost a total stranger to them. My father felt like we didn’t know each other that long, after all, my parents dated for three years before they got married and I was dating Garrett for one.  My parents were nice enough to let us be married and said that since we were young, we should have our time. Garrett’s parents didn’t live in the area, but he promised that he’d tell them as soon as he could.

            Now that we were married, we needed to get jobs. I settled as a secretary for Universal Studios and Garrett worked as a salesman for Otterbein Foods.  We were hard workers and paid all our bills. We had a good life.

            On September 13, 1934, my sister Bethany gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, Richard Vincent Moller. I heard of the news from my parents since my sister moved to Florida with Greg. My parents told my sister of my marriage and she was happy for me.

            Three weeks after Richard was born, I felt sick, and I was throwing up all the time and felt nauseous. I went to the doctor and I discovered that I was pregnant. I had been sexually active with Garrett ever since we got married and I lost my virginity to him. I couldn’t believe that I was pregnant; I was going to be a mother. When I told Garrett the news, he was very happy. We decorated the nursery ever so plainly, so it could be suited for a boy or a girl.

            My husband and I worked hard to get the money in, so we could support the baby, but I was forced by my boss to go on maternity leave in March 1935, so Garrett was making the money and I was resting up for when the baby arrives.

            My parents called in one day in March to check up on me and Garrett and I announced to them that I was six months pregnant.  They sounded happy over the phone and couldn’t wait for their grandchild to enter the world.

            My pregnancy was unlike anything that I ever experienced before. I was huge. I had a huge belly where my baby was growing, I had to go to the doctor’s almost every three to four weeks, everything got sore, and I was hungry a lot. I ate healthy anyway, but I had a small body and having a child at nineteen wasn’t unusual, as long as you were married. Russia and Artie had been married longer than Garrett and I, but they still didn’t have any children.

            On June 6, 1935, I gave birth to a beautiful, six pound, three-ounce baby girl. I named her Nicole Russia Lawson. Nicole was the name of Garrett’s grandmother and Russia was the name of my best friend.  She looked just like me when I was a baby, chubby face, turquoise eyes, and blonde hair. Garrett didn’t see much of him in Nicole, but it was still too early to tell since she was just a baby.

            After giving birth to Nicole, I felt like weight was off me because I didn’t have a baby inside of me anymore. I was now a mother and I had to provide everything for this child, no matter what.

            When it was time for Nicole’s first birthday, we had a huge party at our apartment. My parents, my sister, and my aunts and uncles came over to celebrate. Nicole was turning a year old and she still looked like me. Garrett however wasn’t there. On April 13, 1936, Garrett and I divorced. He had a hard time believing that Nicole was his daughter. On the day of Nicole’s birth, he was always having doubts that Nicole wasn’t his child. I hadn’t slept with any other man but Garrett, so he was being very unreasonable.

            Back in January 1936, when Nicole was about seven months old, he started to dislike my parenting skills. I would leave Nicole by herself, on the floor playing, many times near big objects, such as our radio, that occasionally fell down. He thought I was endangering Nicole and not protecting her. He hated that. I wasn’t trying to upset him, but I did. He and I weren’t getting along. One morning, we were talking about how our relationship emerged throughout the years. He admitted to me that he was never deeply in love with me and he wanted to marry me to compete with Artie. I told him that I only married him for love, but never got it. Yet we had a child, but I forced the love to happen. I idolized Russia and Artie when it came to marriage, they knew how to love, and they did. Here I was with Garrett, I liked him enough to marry him, but we both knew that love was nonexistent.

            When our divorce was finalized, I got custody of Nicole and Garrett left to try to make it big in baseball. I told him that if he ever did, I’d be at his games cheering him on. Our friendship, however, is there. We’re best suited as friends, but nothing more.

            My family wasn’t shocked about the divorce. My parents said I married too young and should’ve waited longer to make sure that Garrett was the one. I really think I needed to search harder for the perfect man, but that wasn’t my concern, all that I cared about was the love.

            My sister was still happily married and was expecting another child with Greg. Her son, Richard and Nicole were about the same age, so over the summer of 1936, I vacationed in Florida with my sister. I hadn’t seen her since their wedding and it was great to see them all again.

            Richard and Nicole got along great, after all they were cousins. I was going to try to make my life as a single mom work. I was young, only twenty and divorced. I will always remember Garrett as my first love, but love wasn’t there, sometimes, I think it was just a label. Garrett didn’t make me happy, knowing that we had no love, but I guess that I was searching for love to make me happy.

            After the divorce, I was receiving child support from Garrett. I didn’t know where he lived until he sent me his first payment of child support for Nicole. I was surprised that he followed the court’s orders.

            I took off from work during and after the divorce, but I needed money to support Nicole and I, so I sold the apartment, quit my job, and we roomed with a man in his rented home in Pasadena.  We moved in during September of 1936 and I agreed to pay half of the rent of the house in order to live there.  The man we were living with worked on a ranch part time. He gave me one bedroom and Nicole the other. He was respectful of me and my daughter, so therefore I considered him a nice man. His name was Tucker Davis.