From This Day Forward

by Cokie Roberts

  Inclusion is almost always “the best way to go,” but some situations are more stressful than others. Take the friend of Steve’s who wrote, “My son is getting married and is planning a wedding ceremony. He is half Jewish and half Protestant. His wife’s family lives in the United Arab Emirates. Her father is Syrian-Jordanian; her mother is Palestinian. My wife and I had them at our house for a long lunch. They are nice people but hate Israel. This should be an interesting wedding to plan.” It sure should. Maybe afterward they can hire out as Middle East peace negotiators.

  A nun from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, told us that a priest had cancelled out on a Jewish-Catholic wedding only three weeks before the ceremony. So she had stepped in as a replacement: “Rabbi Weinstein and I stood together with the couple under the chuppah. I stood toe-to-toe with the groom and was very grateful that his aim when he smashed the glass was right on target. Comments from the wedding party and their guests were very positive about the inclusion, not only of both religious traditions but also of both genders. As far as I know it was a first, at least in conservative Baton Rouge.” That’s a shrewd comment. Including both genders in any ceremony can be as useful as including both religions. And bravo on the groom’s aim. A relative of ours once kicked the glass across the floor trying to smash it.

  A woman from Dublin, Ohio, gave a copy of our book to her daughter just before her wedding, but then went one better. “We chose five couples from our guest list who exemplify in their marriages the qualities, virtues, and ‘seasoning’ that you write about,” she said. “To these five couples we sent a copy of From This Day Forward with a cover letter thanking them for their admirable marriages and honorable role modeling for our daughter.” At the ceremony she was planning to get all five couples together with the bride and groom for a photograph. “We hope this little fraternity will be a source of support and encouragement to the newlyweds,” she wrote. What a great idea. It embodies something we believe strongly: marriage is a communal act, not just a private one. In the middle of a storm, older friends and relatives can hold an umbrella over a young family and help keep them dry.

  A new neighbor of ours in Bethesda said that moving here from Savannah, Georgia, was made easier by our story. “My twelve-year-old has moved ten times,” she wrote. “Needless to say all the ‘conversations’ on moving, emotions of children, settling, and uprooting really hit home. Ha! We are again unsettled but knowing someone else went through it too is a comfort.” Our own move to Bethesda happened long ago, in 1977, and Cokie’s family originally bought our house forty-eight years ago. But our children, now living in London and San Francisco, are going through those same decisions about “settling and uprooting,” so we know what she’s talking about.

  A “thirty-nine-year-old Jewish female attorney” living on the East Coast wrote about falling in love with a “thirty-four-year-old Mexican American from Southern California who lives in the Grand Canyon” as a park ranger. She admits to being “very gun-shy about seriously giving this relationship the chance it deserves.” But reading our book, she says, “has inspired me at least to try and I am certain that many of the lessons you passed along will surely help.” We’re reluctant to give advice, because every relationship is so different. But she’s right about one thing: the relationship does deserve a chance. We admire her courage and wish her luck.

  A woman in Michigan said she listened to the book on tape and then gave it to her lesbian partner. They were particularly interested in our story about inviting a gay couple to our annual Chanukah party: “I believe it is important for you, as two professionals who make a living analyzing and shaping public policy and culture, to hear that both of your books are relevant to same-sex couples and their families.” We’re pleased to hear that. While we’re uncomfortable with gay marriage we strongly support the sort of “civil union” adopted by Vermont earlier this year. As we wrote in our newspaper column: “Conservatives say civil union reflects the ‘moral rot’ in society but the very reverse is true. In our own circle of friends and family, we’ve known a number of gay couples who simply want what every heterosexual couple wants—intimacy, understanding, constancy. Partners who want to make a life together should be shored up not shut out, respected not rejected.”

  To all our readers, a grateful thank you. To those of you reading this book for the first time, we hope some of you will share your own thoughts and stories with us.

  Suggested Reading

  Akers, Charles W. Abigail Adams: An American Woman. Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1980.

  Andrews, William L., and Henry Louis Gates Jr. The Civitas Anthology of African American Slave Narratives. Washington, DC: Civitas/Counterpoint, 1999.

  Antin, Mary. The Promised Land: The Autobiography of a Russian Immigrant. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1911.

  Baskin, Judith R., editor. Jewish Women: Historical Perspective. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991.

  Battle, Kemp. Hearts of Fire: Great Women of American Lore and Legend. New York: Harmony Books, 1997.

  Bennett Jr., Lerone. Before the Mayflower: The History of Black America. New York: Penguin Books, 1961.

  Berlin, Ira. Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998.

  Blassingame, John W. Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews and Autobiographies. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1977.

  Burrows, Edwin G., and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

  Butterfield, L. H., Marc Friedlaender, and Mary-Jo Kline, editors. The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family 1762–1784. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975.

  Coan, Peter Morton. Ellis Island: Interviews in Their Own Words. New York: Checkmark Books, 1997.

  Crichton, Judy. America 1900: The Turning Point. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1998.

  Daniels, Roger. Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1990.

  Faragher, John Mark. Women and Men on the Overland Trail. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1979.

  Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth. Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1988.

  Franklin, John Hope, and Loren Schweninger. Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

  Gates Jr., Henry Louis, and William L. Andrews. The Pioneers of the Black Atlantic: Five Slave Narratives from the Enlightenment, 1772–1815. Washington, DC: Civitas/Counterpoint, 1998.

  Goldberg, Michael. Breaking New Ground: American Women 1800–1848. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

  Hine, Darlene Clark, and Kathleen Thompson. A Shining Thread of Hope: History of Black Women in America. New York: Broadway Books, 1998.

  Holmes, Kenneth L., editor. Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails. Omaha, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1989.

  Horowitz, Joy. Tessie and Pearlie: A Granddaughter’s Story. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.

  Howe, Irving. World of Our Fathers: The Journey of the East European Jews to America and the Life They Found and Made. New York: Schocken Books, 1976.

  Johnson, Charles, and Patricia Smith, WGBH Series Research Team. Africans in America: America’s Journey Through Slavery. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1998.

  Joselit, Jenna Weissman. The Wonders of America: Reinventing Jewish Culture 1880–1950. New York: Hill & Wang, 1994.

  Karp, Abraham J. A History of Jews in America. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, Inc., 1997.

  Kass, Leon R. “The End of Courtship.” The Public Interest, Winter 1997.

  Kazin, Alfred. A Walker in the City. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1951.

  Kivisto, Peter, and Dag Blanck. American Immigrants and Their Generations: Studies and Commentaries of the Hansen Thesis A
fter Fifty Years. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1990.

  Levin, Phyllis Lee. Abigail Adams: A Biography. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987.

  Luchetti, Cathy, and Carol Olwell. Women of the West. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1982.

  Nagel, Paul C. The Adams Women: Abigail and Louisa Adams, Their Sisters and Daughters. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987.

  ———. Descent from Glory: Four Generations of the John Adams Family. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983.

  Norton, Mary Beth. Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women 1750–1800. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996.

  Patterson, Orlando. Rituals of Blood: Consequences of Slavery in Two American Centuries. Washington, DC: Civitas/Counterpoint, 1998.

  Popenoe, David, and Barbara DaFoe Whitehead. The State of Our Unions. National Marriage Project, Rutgers University, 1999.

  Rowbotham, Sheila. A Century of Women: The History of Women in Britain and the United States. New York: Viking, 1997.

  Schlissel, Lillian. Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey. New York: Schocken Books, 1982.

  Simon, Kate. Bronx Primitive: Portraits in a Childhood. New York: Penguin Books, 1982.

  Simons, Henry. Jewish Times: Voices of the American Jewish Experience. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1988.

  Sorin, Gerald. The Jewish People in America: A Time for Building—the Third Migration 1880–1920. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.

  Stampp, Kenneth M. The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South. New York: Vintage Books, 1956.

  Stratton, Joanna L. Pioneer Women: Voices from the Kansas Frontier. New York: Touchstone Books, 1981.

  Takai, Ronald. A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1993.

  Umansky, Ellen M., and Diane Ashton, editors. Four Centuries of Jewish Women’s Spirituality—A Sourcebook. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992.

  Withey, Lynne. Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams. New York: The Free Press, 1981.

  Acknowledgments

  When we sat down to write a whole book together about marriage, it was with some trepidation. We’d written together for years, but never undertaken a project this big or this personal. So only half-jokingly we agreed that we would give back the publisher’s advance if the book started to endanger the relationship. In reality, it was surprisingly smooth sailing, mainly because we had a lot of help along the way. Some wonderful people aided us in the actual writing of the book—our editor, Claire Wachtel, came up with the idea of a joint effort and guided us through it, nobly assisted by the industrious and delightful Jennifer Pooley. Ann Charnley, a friend of many decades, provided invaluable historical research; Colleen Connors, a former student of Steve’s, shepherded us through the telling of our own story and brought her estimable daughter, Molly Rose Opinsky, along to entertain us; Jan Vulevich, who keeps track of our lives, transcribed and transmitted all of this material, while giving us a running review. Mike Silverstein at ABC Radio first told us the story of Lilly Friedman, and Suzy Snyder at the Holocaust Museum filled in some details. Jane Friedman and Cathy Hemming welcomed us warmly to HarperCollins, and Laura Leonard’s telling the world about this book, along with our colleague Su Lin Nichols at ABC News.

  Taking on a project like this meant that we had to ask our friends at work for consideration and understanding, and they provided both in abundance. Robin Sproul, the bureau chief, and everyone else at ABC News in Washington, especially the folks who work with Cokie at This Week and with Steve at ABC Radio, have been cheerleaders and handholders. We’d also like to thank Steve’s colleagues at George Washington University, particularly Jean Folkerts, director of the School of Media and Public Affairs, and his producers at CNN’s Late Edition, PBS’s Washington Week in Review, and NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show. Cokie’s colleagues at National Public Radio, especially Ellen McDonnell, executive producer of Morning Edition, have been thoughtful and supportive as always. In our joint enterprises, Bob Laird, op-ed-page editor at the New York Daily News, Marcia Bullard, publisher of USA Weekend, and the people at United Media encouraged us along the way. Our dear friend Bob Barnett, lawyer extraordinaire, can always be counted on for good advice, and Kim Roellig keeps body and soul together for us on the homefront. We’d also like to say thanks to the Workman family of Charlotte, North Carolina. Their house at Pawleys Island, South Carolina, has been a place of renewal and refreshment for more than twenty years and it’s where we started writing this book. A final word of gratitude to all the “old marrieds”—particularly our moviegoing and beach-walking buddies, Linda and Fred Wertheimer—who continue to inspire us with their devotion to each other.

  About the Authors

  COKIE ROBERTS is a political commentator for ABC News and a senior news analyst for National Public Radio. From 1996 to 2002, she and Sam Donaldson coanchored the weekly ABC interview program This Week.

  In addition to broadcasting, Roberts, along with her husband, Steven V. Roberts, writes a weekly column syndicated in newspapers around the country by United Media. Both are also contributing editors to USA Weekend, and together they wrote From This Day Forward, an account of their now more than forty-year marriage and other marriages in American history. The book immediately went onto the New York Times bestseller list. Roberts is also the author of the bestsellers Founding Mothers and its companion volume Ladies of Liberty. A mother of two and grandmother of six, she lives with her husband in Bethesda, Maryland.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Also by Cokie Roberts

  We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters

  ALSO BY STEVEN V. ROBERTS

  Eureka!

  Copyright

  FROM THIS DAY FORWARD. Copyright © 2000, 2001 by Cokie and Steven V. Roberts. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition March 2009 ISBN 9780061867521

  Version 03142014

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