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that in
the company of the Irvines or their friends I wouldn’t make acomplete fool of myself by inadvertently saying something dreadful.
    My in-laws, who were first-generation German
immigrants, obviously thought that their new European daughter-in-law would fit their
preconceived notion of
Hausfrau
because among the gifts I received were several
‘housedresses’ in size sixteen! They were unbelievably ugly. In large pastel
plaids and floral designs, they zipped up the front and had two large patch pockets. I
weighed just over six stone and wore size six, so those dresses would have gone around
me twice, if I had ever worn them. I modelled one for Bob, and fortunately, he saw the
funny side of it and we had a good laugh about them.
    ‘That’s what you get for
marrying into a German family,’ he said. I soon discovered it was just the tip of
the iceberg.

5: A World of Contrasts
    During the next few weeks, things went
reasonably well. The Irvines took me out in the car to see some of the sights and
familiarize me with the area. On the first trip I was introduced to supermarket grocery
shopping. I had never seen such huge stores or such a variety of goods. There was aisle
after aisle of shelves and refrigerated units containing merchandise stacked almost to
the ceiling. I was used to little British shops in which everything was lined up on
shelves behind the counter and the assistant handed you what you wanted. Alternatively
you could give them your shopping list. Then they would gather the items on your list
for you and place them on the counter. American supermarkets also sold meat, vegetables
and fruit; in the UK, those items came from separate shops, such as the greengrocery or
the butcher’s. I wondered what my mother would have thought of such a
‘super’ shop she’d probably have got lost and had a nervous breakdown
trying to find what she wanted. Oh, and the shock of having someone actually pack your
purchases in large brown paper bags, then offer to carry them to the car for you! Mum
always shopped at the customer-owned Co-op shops because you got points for what you
bought. I can still remember her Co-op number because it was important: it paid
dividends.
    Still on the subject of groceries, I was
amazed by theIrvines’ vast stockpile of food and household
necessities. When shown around their house, I saw shelves in the basement laden with
canned goods, paper goods, laundry and cleaning products. Stacked up the edge of the
attic stairway were staples such as sugar, flour and boxes of cereal. In the attic
itself, which used to be Bob’s bedroom (his desk and bed were still there), there
were still more household supplies. Did they think there might be another depression or
war? Struck by the extreme contrast to home life in England, I pictured Mum’s
pantry in which you would usually find a small bag each of flour and sugar, perhaps a
tin of corned beef for emergencies, a bag of soda crystals for use in the bath and
laundry, salt and pepper, a sack of potatoes and little else. Mum went to the shops
every day, to buy the food for that day’s meal. There was no money for extras and,
of course, you could only buy what you could carry home in your shopping bag or basket
since hardly anyone we knew had a car. My goodness, I thought, life is certainly
different here in America, and it was going to take some getting used to.
    The next important visit was to the family
burial plots. At first I thought the Irvines took us there for Bob to pay his respects
to his deceased relatives because he’d been away for two years but, no, it was for
a far more (pardon the pun) cryptic reason. They went to check the ‘grave
blankets’, which were rectangles of woven pine branches to keep the graves warm in
the winter, I supposed. To me, that was just plain weird. I couldn’t conjure the
image of a dead person or ghost shivering with cold and reaching out for a blanket.
Later, when I researched the strange custom, I