Pt 4: A Complex Life of Family, Faith and Unending Love

The Story of Louis J. Corbo (my grandfather)

Reminder: This is the story of my grandfather, told with his (and only his) perspective. At times - and in particular with this portion of the story - some information about my grandmother is revealed. In a future series of posts I will tell her story and we will understand her perspective.

In part 3, Louis served several years in the Navy, most of which was apart from Vivian and baby David. But once he was stationed in Boston, she was able to visit. When he was honorably discharged in October of 1945, the couple had been married three and half years, but hadn’t spent more than a total of 30 days together. 

If you missed the previous installments, you can catch up: Part 3, Part 2, Part 1

New car, new baby, and a new reality

While in the Navy, Louis was earning money which he dutifully sent home to Vivian with the agreement that the money would be saved to help with a down payment on a home when he returned. Probably because of growing up poor and moving from apartment to apartment to dodge past due rent, there is nothing Vivian wanted more than her own home. In fact, if you asked her, she might have said she was willing to compromise on anything else, but not this. As important as it was for her though, taking care of her mother was more important. For most of her life she and her siblings had taken jobs to contribute to the household. Vivian had five siblings and no father. The family had grown up on Welfare. Two of her younger siblings were still at home. So, as it turned out, the majority of Louis’ Navy salary went to Vivian’s mother for rent, food and other basic life necessities.

Like many women during the war, Vivian worked at her own job. She was a riveter in a factory earning top pay at 75¢ an hour. Having sworn that her kids would never grow up the way she had, the money she earned at her job went towards the “extras” she desired — all the good things that she herself never had. In her mind, it made sense that she would work to pay for the extras and Louis’ money would be for necessities.

Needless to say, when Louis returned in late 1945, the couple was not able to make a downpayment on a home. Instead, they rented the upper level of an 1884 home in St. Paul, amounting to about 900 square feet. It wasn’t long before Viv was pregnant with their second child. Louis’ railroad job was steady and secure and while it wasn’t high paying, he was sufficiently paid. So, he committed to resaving for a down payment and Vivian spent all her free time looking at homes for sale with her older sister Mabel, imagining what it would be like to have some permanence in her life. 

Baby Kathleen Harriet arrived just before Christmas in 1946. Louis was 25 years old and Vivian was 21. Though they had been married almost five years, the past year since Louis had returned from the war was arguably the first extended time they were spending together in the same space and now they had two children. As with many couples, the little idiosyncrasies that drew them together became the most irritable and she often yelled at him to “speak better English!” Everyone that knew them agrees that they were a passionate couple. Arguing one minute, affectionate the next. Son David later reflected, “She was very much in love with my Dad, and he with her. This sounds like an oxymoron as they fought day and night. Nevertheless, there was affection toward each other.”

Over time and perhaps because of the ongoing fighting, Louis developed a position about owning — or not owning — a home. In his mind, they’d be able to raise the children just as he had been raised: surrounded by loving parents and lots of cousins, if not by “things.” By this time, it seemed that Louis may have been growing suspicious of Viv's charming and flirtatious behavior, and rumors that she may have been having an affair.

Louis had a friend who was a loan officer at the local bank that told him “You don't want a house. You'll have taxes, you'll have to maintain it, it'll just cost you money and then you'll get kicked out of it.” With his buddy affirming his thoughts (and seemingly foreshadowing a split), it became Louis’ firm position that they’d never take on a mortgage.

This was not ideal for Vivian. And this potential new reality of losing his family that was just beginning to take shape was not ideal for Louis.

Vivian, 

Once we love each other very much. What happen?

I don’t know.

Love is wonderful. 

I know we lost ours.

I wish I could fint away to love each other again. You know Viv, I lost you and I know some day soon you will leave me. But I’ll try to keep our marriage together.

I wish I could talk to you about us, but I can’t because everytime I try to talk to you, you get mad and it makes it worst. I don’t know what to do. Always remember I love you, maybe I am not much to love, but my love is real. Maybe if I write this to you maybe you will understand me.I just don’t know what to do. What is wrong Viv. Tell me, maybe we could fix our trouble, and things could be different. What do you say. Try to tell me.

Love you always.

Love Louis

(Letter transcribed as written 18 Feb 1948)

The end is always the worst part, or it wouldn’t be the end. Between the years 1950-1958 the fighting became more and more frequent. At times, the anger would be directed towards others including David. Louis began to spend more time away from the home. A lot of his time was spent at the Pin Up Bar among friends who understood and spoke Italian and didn’t judge him for it. One time, Vivian sent David down to the bar to get Louis. As he approached the door, it barreled open and a man came rolling out at high speed, clearly having been hit by someone. Then Louis came out right after the guy, fists ready. What this man had said or done is unknown. If not cheating at cards, some type of verbal assault on Louis’ family life may have been his offense. Defending his family — even one that was crumbling before his own eyes, and one that he himself was avoiding — is something about which Louis would fight to the death.

More often than not, the unspoken expectations that come along with relationships cause trouble and heartache. Vivian clearly had expressed a desire to own a home, but she probably never explained why. Maybe she didn’t even realize why the desire was so deep herself. In Louis’ observations (who had grown up in a rented home or two, but with two loving parents) love was easy and wasn’t dependent on owning a home.

As a point of pride, in 1956 Louis earned his high school equivalency. Education, he was realizing, was critical to society’s acceptance. And maybe, he believed, this would make him worthy of Vivian’s love. But Vivian was seeking attention elsewhere. She had found, in the most cliche of situations,  someone that puffed her ego on a daily basis— the mailman. Flirting escalated and soon after she literally ran away with him, taking her car and not saying goodbye to Louis or the kids. No one can recall exactly how long she was gone, but it was likely somewhere between 2-4 years. While Vivian was gone, Louis parented the children with a bit of help from both his and Vivian’s family. In fact, Vivian’s niece Patricia was attending college at the time and she would stay with the kids after school until Louis returned from work the next morning. Louis was working the night shift, and would come home in the morning to get breakfast for the kids and see them off to school before he would go to sleep. Then he’d wake up in the afternoon, Patricia would come over after her classes and he’d go off to work again.

It was in about 1961 or 1962 that Vivian called from California to confess she was pregnant and had been abandoned by her lover upon hearing of the news. She was forlorn and asked to come home. Louis agreed, but on the condition that she would go to a home for “unwed mothers” until the baby was born. She delivered a baby boy in Minnesota and he was put up for adoption. Vivian then moved into the house with her children, David and Kathy, and Louis moved out. But he remained involved with the kids and worried about them so much that when Vivian would go to her graveyard shift, he would sneak inside to make sure they were ok. He would then sneak out before she got home and neither she nor the kids ever knew. 

In May of 1962, Louis and Vivian divorced. For years, David and Kathy had no idea they had a baby brother and to this day, his identity has remained a mystery.

In August of 1962, Louis and his daughter traveled to California to visit Vivian’s sister Donna. While there, it seems as if he was able to validate his decision to agree to a divorce — despite his love for her — because he jotted on the back of a chalk drawing about his trip being “one of my happiness moment of my life”. 

Chalk drawing of Louis. August 1962.

Later in his life, Louis was asked if he had ever considered an annulment. He and Viv were obviously incredibly young when they married, caught up in the sweeping chaos and panic of the attack on Pearl Harbor — did they even realize what they were doing at the time? He was “taken aback and astonished” at the idea. He believed that they both understood the sacrament when they entered into it. Further, he felt that they were still married in the eyes of God, but only living apart under civil law. In his view, seeking an annulment would be a purposeful sin against God.

In part 5, Louis’ life changes as a newly single man and a grandfather.