Page 8 - Senior Link Magazine Winter 2018- Online Magazine

Joe Eleanor Blackwood
A Lot of Grace

by Jane Bromley
worked as a switchman on the
railroad in Dallas. He held this job
ove stories are as unique and for a few months until he landed
beautiful as the individual a job teaching and coaching in
Lcharacters who write them Galveston, TX.
with their lives. This one is about
two people who admit they are not Eleanor was born in Uxbridge,
perfect, but the truth is, they are Massachusetts in 1934, the youngest
perfect together. of five children. Her father died she didn’t seem interested, “he just
when she was only 12, kept coming.” Their first kiss was on
Joe Blackwood and her mother had great Christmas Eve, 1958, and they were
was born difficulty dealing with the married the following May. “Joe
September 11, harsh new reality of caring saved my life,” Ellie says of their
1934, in Groveton, for her children alone. She marriage. She had been longing for
Texas, a Piney moved the family often, stability for years.
Woods town in prompting Ellie to use the
southeast Texas. word “gypsy” to describe The young couple soon welcomed
His family did the new normal. Ellie had their first child, Debbie. Joe was
more of their three brothers and a dear concerned about supporting
growing up in sister, Mary, whom she his family on a teacher’s salary.
Ennis, a small described as “an angel One day, over a meal at Jack Tar
town 30 miles who looked after me”. Restaurant in Galveston, he had
south of Dallas. After graduating from a conversation with a man who
His father was a high school at the age worked for Traveler’s Insurance.
locomotive engineer of 16, she worked in a He was invited to come to Dallas
on the Southern fabric mill for two years. where he was offered a job in the
Pacific railroad. Joe One of her brothers, who Fire/Marine Department. During
attended St. John had moved to Galveston, the Dallas years, their son Paul was
Catholic School invited his mother and born, deeply loved, but severely
through seven Eleanor to come and live retarded.
grades in this Czech with him and his wife. She
community. He was 17 when she moved Travelers transferred the family
then went to public from Massachusetts to to Roanoke, Virginia. Daughter
school in order to Texas and got a job in Pam was born in 1964, but the
play football, and banking. It was 1952. Blackwoods were getting homesick
upon graduation for Texas. When a position opened
in 1953 he accepted an athletic She thrived in her newfound in Lubbock, they jumped at the
scholarship to the Rice Institute. In independence and wasn’t interested opportunity to return “home”.
his sophomore year Joe transferred in dating. She did like to go out In 1966, a young boy was left on
to East Texas State Teacher College with girlfriends, however. Soon, the doorstep of a local Catholic
in Commerce, Texas. He was she met a handsome young football church. He was taken to Amarillo
drafted into the military services coach at a party. Joe Blackwood was because Lubbock did not have its
just days after graduation. Upon immediately attracted to the “good- own diocese yet. The Blackwoods
returning from the military, he looking Italian girl”. Even though were asked if they might want to

8 Lubbock Senior Link