Zelda – April 30

You know those melodramas where the villain threatens the heroine and then the hero appears to save her.  It’s good fiction, right? Well, supposing that really happened?  It might have.  Except Zelda had to save herself. 

 It happened long ago in 1933.  After the death of her mother, Zelda lived with her married sister.  Her father was abandoning the homestead that had provided a bare existence for his family. The farm had been mortgaged to buy medicine for his wife, and he had never been able to pay more than the interest each year. Ownership of the farm would revert back to the man who held the mortgage.

 Zelda told me this story.

“I was 15. We were poor.  I used to search the ground and wish I could just find a penny.  After my mother died, my father  went to live with my older brother.

The old man who sold Dad the farm came to me and said, ‘If you were a good girl, you’d marry me, and I’d let your father keep his farm.’  Zelda’s voice changed as she spoke the man’s words.  I could visualize this old man who spoke with a coarse domineering voice.

She continued her story.  “I lived with my older sister. Whenever I went to town, this old man would walk over to me and say, ‘If you were a good girl, you’d marry me, and I’d give your father his farm back.’  I was always watching in case he was around, and I would cross the street to avoid him.”

I admire Zelda’s character.  Not only did she courageously refuse to be pressured into making a bad decision, she took action to avoid being faced with that choice over and over again. 

My choices matter. Although I have never been faced with such a melodramatic choice, I know that the decisions I made earlier in my life have allowed me to be the person I am today.