By Richard Mabey Jr.

My mom, Janet Kemmerer Mabey, was the ninth of Edmund and Lydia’s nine children. It is only recently that I have come to realize that by the time my mom was 14, that she was essentially an only child. For when Mom reached the age of 14, all of her brothers and sisters had married and moved away from the old Kemmerer Homestead on Boonton Avenue in Boonton.

Mom’s parents were older when Mom began high school. Basically, when Mom was in high school, she would only see her brothers and sisters, when they came to visit on Saturday afternoon. And, then Mom would only see them for a couple of hours.

My grandmother, Lydia Capwell Kemmerer, once told me that Mom would read two to three books a week, during her high school years. Grandma also told me that the public library was one of Mom’s favorite places to visit after school. It was sitting upon the stone wall, that proudly stood in front of the Kemmerer Homestead, where Mom read most of her library books.

As if the odds were a million to one, my Uncle Earl and Aunt Eleanor lived directly across the street from the Kemmerer Homestead. Uncle Earl was one of my dad’s older brothers. Uncle Earl was named after his uncle who was killed in battle, in France, during World War I.

There was a tall, towering maple tree that stood on the front yard of Uncle Earl’s home. On Dad’s last day of furlough, from having completed his basic training at Fort McClellan in Anniston, Alabama, Dad visited his brother Earl, to have lunch with Uncle Earl and Aunt Eleanor. After lunch, Dad and Uncle Earl took a walk in the front yard of Uncle Earl’s home. There, Dad saw Mom for the first time, sitting upon the stone wall and reading a book.

Dad often said that he fell in love with Mom at that very moment in time. Dad often told the story of how he asked his brother, Earl, who was the pretty girl sitting on the stone wall, reading a book. Dad’s brother simply replied that she was the youngest of the Kemmerer girls. Dad then replied to his brother that he was going to marry her.

Destiny was to bring Dad to Hawaii, to be a part of the Seventh Army Corps at Hickam Air Field. It was my Aunt Eleanor who invited Mom over to her home to bake cookies for Dad, who was doing his patriotic duty of helping in the clean-up of Hickam Air Field, from the horrific Japanese air attack.

I often wonder where I would be, if Mom was not reading a book upon the stone wall, when Dad took that fateful walk, with his brother, and stood beneath the towering maple and gazed upon the pretty Kemmerer girl. Is there a destiny, a fate, a Divine steering in our lives, that guides us to be at the right place at the right time? Are there really coincidences? Or, are the moments of our lives, guided by a Divine One, placing us in just the right place where we need to be at a very specific moment in time? Could it be, that there are no coincidences at all?

Love is the most powerful force in the universe. It can heal emotional wounds. It can bring inner peace to a struggling heart. It can change lives. It knows no boundaries, no limitations, and it is yet to be fully understood by the psychologists, the professors, the religious leaders, and the people who awaken every morning to get ready to work hard for their respective jobs.

On an early Spring Day in 1942, a young man clothed in an Army Air Corps uniform, stood beneath a tall, towering maple tree in Boonton, New Jersey. And, there beneath that maple tree, first laid eyes upon the pretty girl to whom he would eventually marry and have two children with. It would be in less than 24 hours from that moment in time, that this young airman would find himself upon an airplane destined to carry him to a place of devastation and destruction. Only to show him, first-hand, the darkest evils of man’s inhumanity to man. From which, my father would never be the same.

Richard Mabey Jr. is a freelance writer. He can be reached at richardmabeyjr@hotmail.com. Please put on the subject line: I Remember Mom.