I'll never have another chance to beat
Terry Strader at Scrabble, though even if I did, my chances would be
about the same as winning the Powerball jackpot. She always won. But
the prospect of beating her wasn't the reason I looked forward to
those games at her dining room table in Davenport, Iowa. It was
Terry's calm, reassuring voice that told me things were going to be
all right, that Kathleen and I could get over the next hurdle.
Back in the fall of '72 I met a lovely
young woman at the University of Iowa's Currier Hall cafeteria and I
was smitten. Kathleen Crews and I were married in August of '73, in
the Rose Garden of Vander Veer Park in Davenport. We were deeply in
love, but that doesn't always fix everything. Things didn't always go
smoothly.
But beginning in August, 1975, we had a
support system. In the summer of that year we happened upon Terry
Chouteau on the St. Ambrose College campus, who warmly invited us to
her wedding to George Strader, a young man she had rescued from the
school's pre-seminary program. And perhaps because of his near-brush
with the celibate, priestly life, Terry and George were champions of
the institution of marriage. And that included ours.
Their wedding Christ the King Chapel on
the St. Ambrose campus was a wonderful affair, with children from the
Bethany Home in Moline, where both Terry and George worked, playing
roles in the ceremony.
And as the years went on, our visits to
the Straders were magical. There was “The Flame,” a winter
gathering at what was then Terry's grandmother's house on Newberry Street,
where a dozen or so of us sat around the fireplace on the rear
sleeping porch, talking and munching on snacks. The highlight of the
night was her brother Tom Chouteau's telling of “Nate the Snake,”
an interminably long tale with a groaner punchline, but at their
gathering, it just added to the magic.
More often it was just a visit, first
at their walk-up apartment on West Third, then at their little house
on West Fourth, and later at the Newberry Street house that became
their home. We'd feast on Harris Pizza and then settle down to a
friendly game of Scrabble, which Terry would inevitably win. But it
was her soft, even-toned voice that provided us the magic, the
unstated message that our marriage was more important than the
stresses that sometimes went with it. And when we decided to have
children, they supported us in every way they could, including
becoming godparents to all three of our children.
Terry and George had five children, and
they were all born by Caesarean section. She once joked that the
doctors should just install a zipper across her mid-section. Of
course, they were way ahead of us in the grandchild department.
Kathleen and I were both looking
forward to the time I could retire. We'd move to Davenport and see a
lot more of the Straders. Maybe they'd even have a Flame, with the
iconic retelling of Nate the Snake. But then, sometime in 2014,
Kathleen got the news that Terry had been diagnosed with Stage Four
ovarian cancer. It's one of those cancers that's rarely detected
early and has a pitifully small survival rate. But her daughter,
Jennifer Rakovsky, who had overcome her own battle with cancer, got
her into New York's Sloan Kettering Medical Center. And we got our
hopes up. Way up. Terry can do magic—surely the magic will rebound
on her.
And for a while it seemed to be
working. The rounds of chemotherapy had not only kept her alive, but
she recovered to the point where she was looking healthy. Last August
Terry and George they had a 40th wedding anniversary celebration at
St. Mary's Parish House. The magic returned. Terry looked radiant as
she and George were showered with love from friends and family. And
it was a time for friends and family to reconnect with each other, as
well. One magical moment came when Kathleen and her friend Dixie
Baker Lewis linked arms and sang “Show Me the Way to Go Home.”
Shortly after the celebration, Terry
and George went back to New York, where she was to receive some kind
of experimental treatment. We didn't hear anything for quite some
time. Then in November she came down with a high fever. After the
fever finally broke we learned that she would be evaluated—she'd
either go into rehabilitation therapy or hospice care. And a few days
later we learned she was going into rehab. Once again, our hopes were
up.
Flash forward to Saturday, January 9.
I'm on the phone with Kathleen, who's in Davenport to move her mother
from an independent living apartment to nursing home care. She's
under quite a bit of stress. So I'm in front of the computer with
Facebook open, and I see the line, “Terry is back home on Newberry
Street!” That exclamation point must mean good news. I was excited
enough to read the line to Kathleen. But longer Facebook posts have
that “See More” link you have to click on, and when I did, I
found the it was anything but good news. Terry and George had been
transported from New York to Davenport by private ambulance, where
she would receive hospice care. I wasn't ready for it. Neither was
Kathleen. The only good news was that she would die in her beloved
home surrounded by friends and family. The end came only a few hours
after I read the message.
Terry's gone, at least in body, but we
still have the magical spirit she passed on. She spent forty years
teaching all of us her brand of magic. I pray that we've learned
well.
