Exodus Trekkers: They're 90 and Should Write a Marriage Manual

By Robert R. Schwarz

( originally posted April 7, 2012 )

Kay is ninety and soon so will Bob, the man who built most of the home he and Kay moved into when married 56 years ago. A cornerstone at their front porch commemorates that event with: "House of McDermott established Oct. 2, 1954." Near it is an eighteen-inch statue of St. Francis. Above it flies an American flag. Inscribed on a doormat partially covered with snow on the day of this interview was the aphorism "Faith, Family, and Friends "—a fitting motto for each of the now seven McDermotts who have given much of their years to their St. James Catholic church two blocks away.

Touring their home, one observes a tasteful décor that gives no hint that this couple have lived here for almost six decades. "Bob literally built this house," said Kay, proudly mentioning her husband's handiwork work with the plumbing, bathroom tile, paint, and wallpaper—skills Bob learned from his father. "But I did all the interior finishing," she added. "We didn't have much money."

The living room's Colonial furniture included the usual coffee table; on it was a large Bible and a book of the saints. There was a rocking chair, Bob's gift to Kay on their first wedding anniversary, and over the fireplace, a large oil painting of the famed silversmith Paul Revere holding his self-crafted silver tea pot. The McDermotts' taste for fine art also showed on the walls with prints of oil paintings by Picasso, Mary Cassatt, Renoir, and Seurat.

Their kitchen was down to earth with antiques on the wall, a refrigerator door covered with family snapshots, and a box of Cheerios on the counter. Passing by Bob's office, I paused to glance at the desktop computer. Tongue in cheek, Kay turned to warn, "that room is verboten."

Secrets of a Long Marriage

It was time to talk about secrets of their long marriage. We pulled up chairs. Kay was in a lavender blouse with a gray sweater and black slacks, and she wore a necklace of multicolored beads and a brass bracelet on her right wrist. She is a petite woman with a kind of alertness in her hazel eyes that any younger senior would envy. Bob cheerfully put aside his walker and waited to share some memories. He sported khaki pants and a blue plaid shirt with a dark blue sweater. He would soon be undergoing spine surgery for compression fractures.

"When we were married," Bob began, "we got rid of the word 'mine'; it became 'our'. We've always referred to every material thing we have as 'ours'."

When asked if that included money, he said yes. (A pastor friend of mine with whom I later shared Bob's comments said he would use them during his upcoming marriage counseling talk. )

It was Kay's turn: "We agreed that whenever we had a disagreement, it would not be in front of the children. So, we'd wait until ten in the evening and put on a cup of coffee and discuss things."

"I don't think we ever really had a real fight, " Bob said.

His wife agreed. "If I made a decision in front of the children," Bob continued, "she'd back me up one-hundred percent. She may not have agreed with me, but in the bedroom that night she might say 'you made a bad call there.' Then I would have to find a way to get to the child and say 'I think I made a mistake yesterday.' "

At my mention of three bags of books in the hallway waiting for return to the public library, we switched the topic to the McDermott recreation. "We're readers," Kay said. Willa Cather is one of her favorite authors, and she likes autobiographies and mysteries. Her current read is Killing Lincoln. "I usually read the best seller list and then call the library."

Kay volunteers for parish work "quite a bit," loves to paint miniature oil paintings—some which now adorned the walls—and is interested in handwriting analysis.

"We enjoy being with people rather then going out," Kay continued. She and three other parish women rotate weekly afternoon meetings in their homes for high tea. Kay brings out her Waterford crystal and, she said ,"we chat, and one subject rolls into another. But no gossip—unless we hear someone is ill, and then we pray for them."

Bob's fun lies with his miniature train set in the basement, where, said his wife, "he left me enough room for the washer and dryer."

Both watch Fox News in the morning, "Jeopardy" in the afternoon, and British humor on PBS in the evening.

Their Challenge: Staying Healthy

Staying mobile and healthy is perhaps their biggest challenge, they admitted. Kay is on her fourth pacemaker and wears compression hose for bad circulation. A nurse neighbor, Gail Madden, [see the previous EXODUS TREKKERS of her interview] visits every morning to help Kay with the hose and to update her on neighborhood news. Bob, besides his compression fractures, has had two open heart surgeries and now has his second pacemaker. The house thermostat in winter is set at 76 degrees.

Kay shared some humor about the time a doctor was changing Bob's pacemaker. "You'll be very please to know, Mrs. McDermott," the doctor said, "that this new pacemaker is called a St. Jude." Kay replied, "Oh, doctor, I'm afraid you don't realize that St. Jude is the patron saint of hopeless cases." The doctor was Jewish.

Asked what makes him feel good, Bob didn't hesitate to say it's when he's "contributing to people's well-being." Ranking almost as high on his feeling-good list is his wife's smoked butt, cabbage, and potatoes. And what saddens him? "The constant bombardment of immorality on television. The looseness of sex."

With one word, Kay summed up her happiness: "Chocolate." Then she paused and added that "one of the advantages of being ninety is not worrying about gaining weight." People also make her happy, like " last summer when we celebrated my ninetieth birthday and we put a tent in the back yard for a 110 people." For sadness, Kay points out the pending mandatory contraceptive mandate for the nation, the "assault on marriage," and lack of respect for the Catholic faith.

Wit and Humor Got Them on Their First Date

Kay and Bob met on the telephone. She was living with her brother, whose employer at the Material Service Corporation in Chicago was Bob, who had called to talk with the brother. Kay answered, and a minute later asked her brother's boss if he had a penny, and if so, to see whose picture was on it. "Everybody knows it's Abraham Lincoln," Bob said. Kay, then teasingly implying that her brother worked for slave wages, reminded Bob that Lincoln freed the slaves. Her wit prompted Bob to ask for a date, and they soon had lunch in a Loop restaurant. That was October; they married a year later, honeymooning on Seal Island, Georgia.

Five children followed: Tom, now 56 , is an insurance claims agent near Arlington Heights; Mary Kay, 53, an assistant to the inspector general of the Illinois Dept. of Children and Family Services; Neal, 52, president of the McDermott Woodworking company in West Virginia; Sean, 50, director of policy with the Cook County Dept. of Health; and Juliann, 46, a Montessori teacher in Minneapolis. There are nine grandchildren.

'My Faith Has All the Answers'

Kay was raised on Chicago's Southside in a Catholic family of four boys and four girls. She attended St. Thomas Apostle High School and then St. Joseph college before becoming personal secretary in 1940 to attorney John S. Boyle, who kept Kay in his employ when he was elected in 1948 as state's attorney of Cook County.

Also raised by a Catholic family, Bob grew up with two brothers in St. Sylvester's parish, in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago and attended Loyola University. His father was a locomotive engineer for the Chicago Milwaukee Railroad; his mother was raised on an Indiana farm. From 1942 to 1945, Bob served in the army as an enlisted supply sergeant for ground crews for B-25 bombers on the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, and in the Philippines. "It was an adventure I'm glad I participated in, " he said. "I would have missed the world of fellowship and lessons about life without it . " Bob retired in 1987 after 38 years as a division manger for Material Services.

Volunteer church work through the decades have kept all the McDermotts busy. Listed on a seemingly endless service list for Bob is his formation of the Retired Men's Group and service on his parish council. Kay has served on three different parish school councils. What has his Catholic faith meant to Bob? "It's got all the answers for me—what we're here for and where we're headed." His eyes moistened when he recalled the death of his mother at age 58 and how an Army chaplain on a South Pacific island during World War II said mass for her using the hood of a jeep for an altar. Kay said her Catholic faith "is who I am."

Bob and Kay are devout viewers of Catholic television (EWTN) and daily watch its mass program. They also attend mass in the church whenever neighbor Gail Madden picks them up. They have reconciliation (which Kay labels "the lost sacrament") when a St. James priest visits their home. "We are also blessed," she added, "to have Deacon Pierce Sheehan call on us every day to bring us the Eucharist."

Kay McDermott in the rocking chair which Bob
gave her on their first wedding anniversary.

An important life lesson Bob has learned is that he is no longer judgmental of other people. "I look for the good in people, and it's not necessary to go beyond that," he said at the conclusion of our interview. " I just hope I can continue to help people out."

At their 50^th wedding anniversary, celebrated in the Embassy Suites hotel in Schaumburg, daughter Juliann had these remarks: "I believe no two people have modeled and demonstrated this unique ability to love others more than our mother and father. This love, coupled with their love of God and complete faith in Catholicism, is the hallmark of my parents."

comments welcome

rrschwarz7@wowway.com