At the onset of World War I, my Aunt Alice’s family in England sent her here, at age 15, to live with relatives to avoid the bombing and anticipated invasion of England by the Hun. Here she met and fell in love with my Uncle Rob Becker, a horse-and-wagon milkman and professional golfer who for a while was good enough to be on the tour with Bobby Jones. After they married, Uncle Rob entertained Aunt Alice inexpensively by bringing her on the tour to watch him play, something she wasn’t crazy about. After his golf game stopped earning a living, he went back on the milk wagon for the next 25 or 30 years.

Looking back, Aunt Alice was probably the most cultured woman I ever met. I think my Uncle Bert et al. thought she was putting on airs when she broke out the candelabra for Bert’s annual visit from Michigan (Bert would move it off the table “so we can all see better”), but she wasn’t being snooty, she was just being the way she was.

Alice Becker

During their marriage, Aunt Alice developed lung problems that brought her to the specialty hospital on High Street, where she was operated on. I stopped by to see her on my way home from school, and she was thrilled to have a visitor. Her operation had been a success and she was feeling fine. I later overheard one adult confiding to another that the “mass” in one lung had turned out to be an unfinished twin.

When Uncle Rob’s company eventually sold their dairy farm to real-estate developers, he retired and became a school-crossing guard. After a few accidents driving, his children forced him to give up his license. He said at the time “Well, that’s it, my life is over.” But it wasn’t.

Their son Robert Becker Jr., aka Bobby, also a milkman, was in the infantry during WWII but happily came home from  Europe unscathed. Upon his return, his much-hated-by-the-family wife Vera told him, in effect, “If you think I’m going to stay married to a milkman, you’re crazy.” So, Bobby went back to school, worked hard, got  rich and became a genuine big kahuna in the insurance industry. In fact, his portrait still hangs in the boardroom of the  insurance company he built. True story, kids. Stay in school.