Hi so this is my second part of the seven part series I'm doing on the Walton Children and their relationship with their father John-John Walton is one of my all time favourite characters and I really wanted to explore the relationship he has with each of his children. Part 1 is called 'Volatile' which is about Ben Walton. The third instalment will be either about Jason or John-Boy.
Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.
Please Read and Review.
Stronger-
Second Part of my in-depth piece on the Walton Children and the relationship between them and their father John-John Walton reflects on the relationship between him and his eldest daughter Mary-Ellen, the strongest daughter, the child that gave him his first grandchild, the strongest child he had ever known and his first girl.
Olivia drops the news that he is to be a father for the third time in the aftermath of him coming home from France. The scent and the feel of peace is in the air-the locals coming home from France and the other places the war had taken them. The knowledge that they were safe.
John had finally gotten the chance to deal with his brother's death. He had forgotten the details of John-Boy and Jason's faces. In the trenches of France and the mud and the dirt the images of his perfect boys little faces had been marred by the death and the horror surrounded by him.
So when he had got back whole and in one piece when so many people-including his brother hadn't he had felt lucky. He would now devote every waking second to his family. To his wife and his two little boys and his parents.
And then Livy tells him that she's pregnant again. The first time had been before France, the second time during the war when he had managed to gain a furlough and the third after France-she tells him in the room that John-Boy and Jason are sharing-telling him that he needs to clean out the spare bedroom and maybe the sewing room because 'if this baby is a girl it needs a separate bedroom'
It takes him a while to understand what she means and when he does finally understand what his wife is trying to tell him he prides himself on not swinging her into his arms and jumping for joy.
His parents are down the hall and his kids are in the room after all.
The baby grows healthy and strong. It seems to develop an attraction for kicking at all hours and more than once Olivia's woken him up so that he can rest his hand against her belly and calm her down. He calls the baby a 'her' even though all he wants is for the baby to come out happy and healthy.
But still-a little girl would be nice.
When the baby comes out he's in town with his Pa. He takes the boys out to the barn and teaches them how to feed and pet the cows and then suddenly his mother is at his shoulder telling him he is the father of a little healthy screamer of a baby girl.
The baby is a pretty thing with Livy's eyes and her shock of strawberry blonde hair. It's his first daughter-it's the boy's first sister. Everything seems perfect.
Mary-Ellen grows up to be a hell raising tomboy. She doesn't waste her time-she makes sure that she keeps up with her brothers running behind them playing with the mud and the animals and barefoot in the heat. She doesn't seem to want to play with dresses or dolls and after supper she curls up on John's lap and wants to hear stories about Paris and what it's like. He dumbs it down-doesn't tell her stories of the broken city that was a beacon for a destroyed army so relieved and desperate that they were prepared to do anything.
Livy tells him to stop-tells him he's making Mary-Ellen a dreamer and in an economy that's booming a dreamer is too good to be true.
But Mary-Ellen looks at him with her big blue eyes and her wide trusting smile and John just tells her more and more stories about far of distant lands and doesn't really think of the consequences.
Mary-Ellen is the first of his daughters to come home with a boyfriend-if you can call G.W Haines a boyfriend and John certainly doesn't-but he's been mauled by a bear, watched his son being directly in the line of fire, and faced down John-Boys insecurities-she's also the first to prance around on top of the roof in a dress John had seen a certain type of lady wear in France.
And when Cora and Ham's boy comes along John feels utterly put out that Mary-Ellen is in the barn in a short skirt practically in the idiots lap-it takes a bigger gulp of the secret bottle of recipe that nobody knows he has before he can come into dinner and not want to punch the boy's face in.
Mary-Ellen isn't the first child to run away-John Boy and Jason have beat her on numerous occasions-but she if the first one to pull a fast one and leave with a boy…hell he's not a boy he's a man.
That's the thing that keeps him up at night. He raised no fool-his daughter is a strong capable woman and can easily take care of herself-it's the thought of her with that man that keeps him awake throughout the whole night-the thought of him touching or God forbid forcing himself on Mary-Ellen and despite her being tough not being tough enough to fight back is terrifying.
And if he has to blink back the wetness in his eyes when he presses his face to her shoulder and hugs John-Boy for finding her-then that's nobody's business but his own.
Naturally it gets worse-nobody said having a daughter was easy and Mary-Ellen has to be the toughest daughter he's ever had. She readily engages in bartering with men three times her age, dates men older than he would have liked and then becomes a nurse.
Naturally she's the first that's married-and to think-when she was a kid John always imagined her being the last.
Curt is a nice man, a little rough round the edges but still-maybe he can tame that wildness in Mary-Ellen that's one day gonna burn her to the ground. They smooth out the edges.
And then she's pregnant.
John's had seven children. He's not naïve-he knows how a baby is made. He just prefers not to think about his daughter in that position. The last thing the family need is him going of a heart attack.
And when John-Curtis is born John hopes that the eight hours he's heard his daughter scream herself horse and had to sit there (going against every parental instinct imaginable) has all been worth it.
Grandpa. Him. Imagine.
The war is coming, Livy and his Ma can stick their heads in the sand all they want but John has been in a war, has listened to the men as they die and bleed and knows the smoke signs-Hitler has to be stopped and Europe is struggling.
The Japanese attack takes them all by surprise.
And he knows Curt is dead as the days drag on-the same way he knew Ben was dead.
And by the look on his daughter's face she knows she's a widow to a fatherless child as well.
Mary-Ellen doesn't let it cripple her. She keeps her head held high and raises her son completely dependent on nobody but herself. It's that same grim determination that makes it so easy for people to forget that a young girl's heart is breaking.
John doesn't forget, and he doesn't forgive.
The old Mary-Ellen would have jumped at the chance to travel to a war-torn country and be a real life heroine (and he doesn't say it but he thinks it-wet dream) to the soldiers of the USA. But the new Mary-Ellen-the mother stays at home to help the people of Walton's Mountain.
With four sons all in the military and a son-in-law dead John will take what he can get with a pinch of salt when all three of his girls stay home.
When Livy leaves it's cruel and cold. They've been two half's of the same whole for a long time and John doesn't know how to do it without her even with Rose taking over.
It's Mary-Ellen who keeps Serena and Jeffery in line and Elizabeth from compromising herself with Drew (and yes he knew all about that), it's his daughter that keeps Cindy from falling to pieces when she's faced with the promise of also being a single mother to a fatherless child.
Virginia is even younger that John-Curtis when his father died.
When Jonesy comes along John tries not to like him-the guy is restless, impulsive, reckless and downright dangerous-he's also the man that he saw Mary-Ellen with years ago.
And then Curt turns up.
Mary-Ellen comes back from Florida with a divorce and the story that Curt died in Pearl Harbour. John never mentions it again.
When Mary-Ellen is told she couldn't have children she doesn't break-though it's hard John can tell. When she has Clay three years after the accident John smiles to himself-when she has Katie a year after that John knows that someone is looking down on them and grinning.
He has another grandson and another granddaughter-he's not complaining.
When he later looks back-he has to think of his daughter-he thinks of the strongest woman alive-he thinks of his daughter-and he knows that everything is going to be alright.
Now if only the other two were that easy.
But that's a story for another time.
And let me know what you think.