The Love Story of Dick Skorupski and Shirley Edwards

The photo above was just found by my uncle, my mother’s brother, of their parents. The picture is over sixty years old. These two people, if they were still alive, would be celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary this month.

February is a very important month in my family.

The marriage of Dick Skorupski and Shirley Edwards was a second marriage for both. They were married on February 18th 1950. Dick, my grandfather, would have been 99 years old this past February 1st and my grandmother, Shirley would have been 88 years old on February 14th, Valentine’s day. This month is also the 13th anniversary of my grandmother Shirley’s death.

I never had the pleasure of meeting my grandfather because he died three years before I was born. His first marriage was a happy one to a woman, who I’ve heard, was very sweet and nice. Unfortunately, they never had any children between them. She ended up having six miscarriages and then died of cancer. My grandfather Dick loved children and assumed he would die a lonely bachelor with no children to carry on his family name. But then one night while he was working behind the bar at his cousin’s bar, he met my grandmother.

My grandmother Shirley Edwards married soon after high school. She had three boys with her first husband, who was run over by a trolley car and was killed. This woman had to take care of three boys, all under the age of three, on her own The night she decided to go out for a bit of fun, she went to the bar my grandfather, her future husband worked at. Shirley didn’t think much of Dick because he was older than her by eleven years, but they become friends. Sometimes when Shirley would go out with her girlfriends, he would come over and babysit her three boys. Soon that friendship turned to love and they married.

From Dick and Shirley’s union, they had two children, a girl and a boy. The girl was my mother. Dick loved little girls and my mother was a true daddy’s girl. When I was born, three years after my grandfather’s death, my grandmother and mother felt I was a present from my grandfather because he was a redhead and I was the first redhead ever to be born from a Skorupski.

My grandmother and mother would tell me the most wonderful stories about my grandfather Dick, where I swore he was watching over me from above. In turn, my grandmother was my protector and so very proud of everything I did. By the time my grandmother turned 75, she was a very weak and fragile woman who could barely walk, lost all bladder capability and lost her appetite. Her will to live was close to gone.

But then something amazing happened one night. My grandmother’s 75th birthday on February 14, 1997 was when I was a junior in college. I was upset because my mother and my sister planned to take my grandmother out for her birthday. At this time my spring break started a week after her birthday. I was upset because I wouldn’t be able to celebrate with her. The Friday I came home to start my spring break is where I saw my grandmother sitting in my mother’s car. She waited for me to come home so she would celebrate her 75th birthday with me, my sister and my mother. That night is still so very dear to me. Not only did my grandmother eat like she hadn’t in years, she had a great burst of energy and was so full of life and joy.

The day before I left to go back to school, I called her to tell her how much I had fun with her that night and told her how much I loved her. My grandmother was not a very vocal person when it came to telling someone she loved them, but the last thing she said before we got off the phone, was that she loved me.

Less than a week later my grandmother Shirley had died. I truly believe that my grandmother waited for me to come home to celebrate her final birthday together before she decided it was her time to go on to a better place.

The month of February has brought forth life, love, marriage and death for Dick, Shirley and me. From this circle of life, these two found each other and made a family. And because of that, they created me.

I honor these two wonderful people who brought so much into this world the short time they were alive.