2.35 With Open Arms 1958

Tony Duchi, Air Force

1958 • Whittier, Southern Californa ~ On February 1, 1958, Betty married Tony Duchi, the handsome admirer she’d met at Kinney Shoes the prior summer. The first time she laid eyes on him she fell in love with this man who was her measure, who adored her, and who would protect her.

Tony with his parents and younger brother Bobby

Dropping out of Whittier High at seventeen, Tony enlisted in the Air Force. After a year or so was medically discharged because of a bad case of hives; smoking pot affected him that way. When he and Betty met, he was nineteen-years-old and back living at home with his family in Whittier with a job selling shoes.

Our dad didn’t go to his daughter’s wedding. It was an affront to Betty and an insult to Tony, who is still mad about it to this day. Tony had some explaining to do to his Italian family about why his fiancée’s parents weren’t there, why her brother was the one giving her away, why only Larry and Marian, Carleen, Debbie, Aunt Elizabeth and her lifelong friend Betty Rose were there (Claudia, Mom, and I were in Hawaii). Tony’s older sister Julie lent Betty the wedding gown that she’d worn when she married two years before. Tony’s family paid for the wedding and reception and welcomed Betty with open arms. His mother was thrilled; she loved Betty.

Betty and Tony, Feb 1, 1958

Who knows why Dad didn’t attend? Perhaps Irene, who pretended our father didn’t have a family and did her best to discourage him from us, kept him from giving his daughter away. Perhaps it was because he was still hurt by Betty trying to run away when she lived with him. Perhaps it was because Tony, in Dad’s eyes, was Eye-talian. Perhaps he thought it didn’t matter if he came. Perhaps my father was an idiot.

Whatever his reason, it was a big mistake, and it hurt Betty as much as when he denied what happened to her in Sonora when she was thirteen.

Betty (Clemens) Duchi

to be continued…

© 2018. Catherine Sevenau.
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