By Cheryl Ross
The phone rang again and a police officer broke into Claire’s thoughts. He apologized for the fact that the media had called first. She assured him that the reporter had been nice. Then he told her Gus and Julia had drowned.
Her father, Steve Chulay, tried to organize unions wherever he worked, and his employers were not forgiving. He came home a couple of times during the Depression with his toolbox in hand–the sign he’d been fired. Julia wasn’t working either. A penny was “a big piece of change” in the Chulay house, and vegetables prospering in the backyard were reason for celebration.
In 1966 the Aggers moved to a two-story house in Northfield. A year later, 73-year-old Steve Chulay, who’d long been suffering from Hodgkin’s disease and arthritis, died of a heart attack at home.
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When Helen became ill she told her husband to remarry if she died. Specifically, family legend goes, she suggested he marry “someone like Julia Chulay.” The nature of the courtship varies with the teller. In a version told by her granddaughter Carol Peck, Julia pursued Gus and won his heart with her cooking. Julia’s granddaughter Catherine Gallagher says Gus did the pursuing, while Julia confided to her family that “all he wants is someone to do his laundry.” But she told Claire that she enjoyed dating Gus “because there are no skeletons in the closet–I’ve known him for so long.”
Julia wore a bluish green dress belted tight, her brown hair short and curled. She looked more like 50 than 68. Gus wore a navy blue suit with a white carnation in its lapel. “Julia and I have chosen to marry because we belong not only to each other but with each other,” he said. “We wish happiness for ourselves. I will be gentle, understanding, and loving. We have been blessed with much love, and the capacity to share it. All the joys of growing together await us in the years to come.”
Her body began to afflict her. Her back and knees ached. It became difficult to bend over, or to shampoo hair, or to get around. Eventually, staying on her feet for long became a challenge. Osteoporosis had moved in. In 1990 Julia’s salon, the block’s 55-year-old beacon of beauty, closed.
