The Matrimonial Adventures of Uncle Jim and the Reed Sisters

Jim Ziemer fell in love with one of the seven lovely Reed sisters.  Lottie, the second oldest, returned Jim's romantic feelings and the two joined in marriage in 1923. This story involves the happy couple as well as two of Lottie's younger siblings. Nathalie was 12 at the time of the wedding and the baby, Vida, was only 8.  I know the story because Vida happened to be my grandmother.  By the time I came around everyone just called Ziemer "Uncle Jim".

Nathalie grew into her own beauty and love and married a fascinating character in 1932.  If there's one family-related wish I could be granted, it would be to have met and known Melchor August Shelthrop.  In his lifetime, Uncle Shell earned a physics degree, worked as a petroleum engineer, sang opera, and sat (so it's told) on the knee of Keiser Wilhelm.  Alas, that life was cut short in 1962. Well, by short I mean at the young age of 72.  Nathalie, however, being more than 20 years his junior, found herself a widow at the relatively young age of 51.

I can only surmise that Lottie not only felt close to Nathalie, but also harbored some amount of maternal instincts towards her younger siblings. As I understand it, My great-grandfather wasn't around for long, and from stories I've heard the older sisters took on the lioness share of raising the kiddos. I also knew Uncle Jim as a gregarious, caring man (if somewhat entertainingly cantankerous at times).  So whatever Aunt Lottie's motivation -- sisterly bonds or maternal instincts --  she and Uncle Jim took Aunt Nathalie into their home.

This all took place a good 5 years before my time. I grew up with Uncle Jim, Aunt Lottie, and Aunt Nathalie being a simple fact.  They existed as an inseparable trio of lovable characters all living together on their beautiful farm in Oklahoma. No one (least of all me at that age) considered anything "funny" or sexual in the relationship.  Nor did it strike anyone as odd, immoral, or unseemly when, after Lottie's passing in '77, Nathalie stayed on with Jim.  So for a time, when we went to visit the farm, we went to visit Uncle Jim and Aunt Nathalie.

I was a self-involved teenager when Nathalie and Jim came to Abilene to live with my grandmother, so I don't remember the exact year that transpired.  Jim must have been in his early 80's and Nathalie in her early 70's.  Mimo (introduced to you earlier as Vida) would have been a spry late-60s.  What I do remember is one of those snapshots of life we take and keep in our heads, frozen in time forever in our memories.  Dad probably doesn't even remember the conversation.  He and his best buddy at the time were discussing the decision to bring Nathalie and Jim down to live with Mimo.  Don did a Groucho Marks eyebrow raise and said something about the "lucky old dog living with two women".  That was the first time in my life it ever even occurred to me that Uncle Jim was no longer directly related in any way to Aunt Nathalie, the ipso-facto partner in his life.  

At some point in the early 80s, Nathalie's health began deteriorating rapidly.  She and Uncle Jim had lived together under the same roof for 20 years.  They had shared in the grief of losing Lottie.  They had faced life without Lottie together.  Jim was an integral part of her life and an established member of our family.  Yet when it came time for someone to take care of her as next-of-kin, Uncle Jim was legally just some guy that lived in the same house.

Now, don't get me wrong.  It was more than just a mere marriage of convenience when Nathalie and Jim wed in 1984.  They cared for one another and about one another. When Nathalie passed away almost exactly a year later, it devastated Uncle Jim. Losing a second Reed sisters whom he dearly loved, albeit differently, was the turning point in his own health and will to live. He hung on for 5 more years and joined Aunt Lottie and Aunt Nathalie in 1990.

I'm just saying that I've always felt it was a bit silly that Jim and Nathalie had to undergo the process of becoming "husband and wife" in order for Uncle Jim to stand in as Aunt Nathalie's "life partner". 

I share this story as we wind up 2013 and see more and more states address the question of same-sex marriages.  It seems to me that the real issue isn't about who should be allowed to enter into the state of holy matrimony.  In a nation committed to the separation of church and state, we shouldn't be asking the question about who, legally, can enter into a state of holy anything. 

Stop and think about it for just a few moments.  I mean, really, try to step outside of our culture for a minute and look at it objectively.  What does the government have to do with marriage? Marriage constitutes a union involving sex at the least and hopefully heartfelt romance.  It's an intensely personal agreement between (usually) two individuals.  Any religious rites or regulations surrounding that union should be completelywithin the realm of the church (if any) or the individuals involved.  Ask yourself this:  how in the world, in 21st century western civilization, do we allow the state to vest the power to make legally binding contracts in individuals based on the rites and policies of religious groups?  Doesn't that strike you as a little odd?  I hope it sends a shudder down your spine the next time you hear a minister speak the words "now with the power invested in me by the State of ..."

When we allow the state to empower the church to preside over legal contracts, we give the church power over our government and our daily lives.  We've married the religious concept of sanctifying sex to the legal rights, privileges, and obligations of the social contract.  No wonder we've found ourselves embroiled in a heated debate over what constitutes a "family" and who get's to cover whom with health insurance. 

It's time to divorce sex and religion from life partnering. The state can't (and shouldn't) tell religious groups or individuals what to believe about the moral questions of sex and cohabitation. The church needs to stop informing the state on questions of power of attorney, shared property, insurance coverage, and default beneficiaries. Imagine if we forgot completely about who was having sex with whom and what people were doing in their bedrooms.  Imagine a system in which any two people, regardless of whether or not they're schtooping each other, could come to the Justice of the Peace and register as life partners.

Call me weird, but when I consider the question of "same sex marriages", I often think of a classic institution found in British literature:  the two-bachelor household.  Consider Holmes and Watson, Ratty and Mole.  And in American entertainment there's good old Laurel and Hardy, Abbot and Costello, Bert and Ernie.  What about the iconic western duo?  Two gunslingers, the hero and the sidekick, making a life together on the dusty trail. We don't think about there being a sexual relationship between The Lone Ranger and Tonto any more than my family considered Aunt Nathalie and Uncle Jim to be "living in sin".

You see where I'm going with this? Most of us at some point find life too daunting to handle alone. Most of us find it convenient and pleasant to partner up with someone we also share a strong sexual bond with.  Some of us aren't that lucky, and some of us maybe don't have that bent.  What difference does it make whether two people are "pardners" or "life partners" when it comes to joining forces to face life's battles and share life's joys?

Here's an idea:  let's keep the government out of our bedrooms. It's high time we quenched the religious fire in the gay marriage debate.  Let's concede this point to the social conservatives: Duly elected or appointed government officials shouldn't be sanctioning same-gender sex. But let's take it to the next logical step: government officials shouldn't be sanctioning or sanctifying heterosexual sex, either.  What we do with our genitals and who we do it with (if anyone) should have absolutely nothing to do with who we designate as the person sharing our health care benefits or making financial and health decision on our behalf.

We can't go back in time and change things for Uncle Jim and Aunt Nathalie at this point.  They were put in a position, whether happily or grudgingly, of "playing house" in order to legally legitimize their (assumedly) non-romantic life partnership.  But hopefully we are in time for my children, and yours.  Let's stop fighting over the morality of sex and the appropriateness of same-sex marriage.  Let's instead take up the ever-raging American fight for liberty.  Let's fight for the freedom of all individuals to choose who they legally partner up with, and leave it to their private religious feelings whether or not to feel guilty if that partnership includes sex.