She was born in Detroit, Michigan on New Year's Eve 1929 to Margaret and Hector Drouillard. They named her Evelyn for Margaret's sister who had died young and�an earlier child they had lost, but she was always called Evie with a short "e" at the beginning.
Second in a family of five children, she had a fairly normal childhood, if anyone can agree what that is.� They were lower middle income, but my grandfather was fortunate to have kept his job throughout the depression.� He was a�window dresser at Fensterwald's, a department store in Detroit.� Before and after the depression he was over a staff of two or three people, but during the depression, the department was reduced to one and he just had to do the work of three people. Grandma had been a typist in the personnel department of Crowley's department store for five years before her marriage at 22.� You could say Grandma was almost a flapper, regarding her clothes and music and dancing.� However, Grandma confided in me, she was never really wild like real flappers, guzzling gin and burning the candle at both ends. Actually, I think some times she was known to guzzle gin (or at least a beer), but she managed to avoid fiddling with candles.
Evie endured some serious health problems in� middle childhood, scarlet fever which became rheumatic fever. She always kept up with her class, though, even though she frequently changed schools.� Margaret and Hector rented flats in different areas of Detroit and Redford during her childhood.� She was a happy� and contented child according to my Grandma, affectionate and enthusiastic.� Always a good student, she preferred English to Math, but did well in all her classes.� The reason I chose this particular midi for Mom's page is because she told us the story of when she was a small child attending a catholic school with nuns as teachers. They asked the children if they knew any nice songs to get up and sing them (meaning children's songs evidently) so Mom raised her hand and belted out "Did You Ever Hear A Dream Walking?" which was a pop hit of the day. She was told to sit down and be quiet in no uncertain terms. Anyone who has attending a parochial school with nuns as teachers should relate to this. Mom's immediate family was very close-knit with a slew�of aunts, uncles and cousins on both sides.� My mother grew up fairly cosseted from the reality of other dysfunctional families, many of whom were suffering great deprivation during the thirties.� Even though a good student, she did not manifest any burning desire for a career, holding with the then conventional idea of becoming a wife and a mother.� By the time Evie was a teenager she was healthy and slim, and very mature looking for her age.�
After graduation from Mackenzie High in 1947, she was employed at Wayne State University Bookstore.� There she met my father, and was almost instantly smitten. She had looked forward to meeting lots of men at Wayne and "playing the field", but it was not to be. Only a few months after my mother met my dad, her own father, Hec, had a diabetic stroke. He passed away on Christmas Eve, leaving his wife with five children still at home. Evie counted on Lynn even more after her father's death and by 1948 they were engaged to be married. Evie changed employment to Lawyer's Title Insurance Co. where she met many new friends. Lynn would be getting his degree a few months after the wedding. Soon, Evie was enthralled in making plans for a fairly modest wedding ceremony. Her mother, Margaret, now married a family friend, Arthur Simon. Mom and her sisters and brothers were crazy about "Uncle Art", and he was the grandpa I knew as a child. When I learned, as I got older, that he was not really Mom's dad I was astounded because he was totally loving toward us grandchildren. A better grandfather I could not have had!
By 1949, the future was full of bright shining promise. It was the postwar boom and anything was possible for those willing to work for their dream...their further story is on "My Parents Together Page", but please take time first to look at the pictures below and read my father's page, then go to their life together. They did have a very interesting life together, many people have remarked, but then, I'm not unbiased.
|
