Ignacio Ismael Ruiz was born in early 1945 to Isaac and Josefina Ruiz.  Isaac had been home from WWII about a year.  It was not something he liked to talk about, except to Josefina.  He felt she deserved to know what he went through so she could understand him.  Josefina started writing down his stories so she could review them and know when all the dates of the worst memories were, along with some of the best ones.

His parents were more culturally Catholic than practicing.  They passed along the traditions they learned as kids and he participated in a lot of the childhood rituals, but preferred to teach him about all of the different beliefs, figuring he’d make up his mind one day.  He thought Catholicism was okay, but only the parts where Jesus talked about loving everyone.

When he was 8, he met my Godmother Anne when she moved into the neighborhood.  They often walked to and from school together.  Everyone used to tease them far too young about “liking each other.”  Anne said she wanted to go to college instead of having a baby.  

When he was 12, his parents had another baby, Mina.  He liked having a little sister, even though she seemed to need more attention than a normal baby requires.  He was often to co-babysit Mina with Anne.  Anne would cook and clean and Iggy (as Anne started calling him) would do the hands-on care. 

Iggy and Anne decided to join the church choir as pianists for their 9th grade year.  It was there they met and befriended the choir director’s daughter.  Early on in 11th grade, they realized that they were all in love with each other.  Their friendship slowly developed into a romantic relationship.  (I’m not getting into details on that one.  I am talking about my parents, after all.)

When it was time for Iggy to register with the selective service, his parents sat him down for a talk.  His Mom handed him the notebooks where she’d written down all of her husband’s war stories.  “We don’t want you to serve.  We will do what we can to make them grant you an exception.  If you want to know why we want to keep you from serving, read these notebooks.  We do not want our son to know war.”

They all decided to attend the local public school senior year so they could all have that experience together.  Iggy’s parents weren’t thrilled about it, but they agreed.   The trio skipped Prom and drove up to Yosemite to go camping.  

Anne left for Stanford later that summer, leaving Iggy and Arch alone.  They hated to see her go, but they couldn’t stop her from doing what she wanted with her life.  They’d often meet somewhere halfway on the train.  During the second semester visits, Anne started bringing Harold with her.  He was the guy she dated at school, and knew all about Arch and Iggy.  The four of them got along quite well.  Arch particularly took an interest in Harold, as they had a few things in common that she didn’t share with Anne and Iggy.  

True to their word, His parents decided to retire on paper for “health reasons” so Iggy could claim that he needed to support his family.  He got the exception.  

Iggy kept writing to all of his friends who were drafted.  He’d help their families send care packages.  He said he attended far too many funerals.  He looked after his friends that survived when they came home.  All of them told Iggy that he was fortunate that he didn’t go.  As his mother did, he kept notebooks of those stories so they wouldn’t be forgotten.  Iggy’s Mom also talked to a lot of the wives of his friends, so they could talk to someone who went through the exact same thing they were going through 20 years earlier.

Iggy married Arch in 1973, when they decided that they wanted to start a family.  They were going to adopt Mina’s daughter, but then they found I was on the way.  Iggy became Nora’s Godfather and was an active part of her upbringing.  In essence, they had two daughters, so they decided not to have any other kids.  When Anne and Harold got married, he stood by Anne as her Man of Honor. 

Iggy ended up expanding the family business.  He ended up buying a building in 1980 that would house all the things the family did to earn a living–the upholstery business, the small business mechanic, and a new side business making kid’s furniture that employed a lot of his Veteran friends whenever they needed a job.  A few stayed on to help run all of the businesses.  He slowly built a great leadership structure for the business and he found a local investor to buy the business a couple years ago when he decided to retire.