by Ronnie Egerton

Created on: August 12, 2011   Last Updated: August 13, 2011

I have been married twice in my life. My first husband was, as it turned out, an odd duck. But considering the stock from whence he came, I guess no-one should have been surprised.

I can speak of this now, because all parties involved except for me, have now passed away.

Ralph, my father-in-law, was one of the sweetest, kindest men you would ever meet. I could never figure out how he got tied up with Bertie, my mother-in-law. She was the exact opposite  of him in every way. She was mean spirited and hateful and ran roughshod over her family for close to fifty years.

Ralph worked  at a full time job until he retired at sixty-five. During all that time, he did all the cooking for the family and paid a maid to do what he didn't have time for.

Bertie was the queen bee.She was active in social organizations and politics and even had a fund raiser for George Bush and Richard Nixon in her home. Occasionally, she would even play the role of doting mother, when it suited her purposes. She had two sons and a daughter. My husband was the oldest and her favorite. She used his notoriety as an artist to show him off to the local gentry. The next son, born four years later, was virtually ignored most of his life and a recluse that every one figured would become a serial killer. The daughter, born when Bertie was forty, was a mistake. At least that's what Bertie called her. The girl carried that notion until she died from dementia and heart failure at fifty-six years old.

She was fit to be tied when her son married me. I did not measure up to her social standards in any way. As it turned out, I was invited to join one of the service organizations she belonged to, much to her surprise. I did very well in the club and after a couple of years was nominated for president. I had been nominated by someone else, but Bertie was on the committee and told them that while I was qualified, she didn't  think that I had the home, money, or clothes to fulfill the duties of the club president and my name was withdrawn. I was quite hurt by her actions, though I never said anything about it. I did not want to cause a rift in the family.

My husband stayed tied to her apron strings the entire ten years that we were married and she under cut me every chance she got. She ruled them all with an iron fist and all suffered  from her over bearing, self serving ways. I eventually remarried a nice man  with a nice mother and lived a happy life, free of her tyranny.

One day I

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>