My Teddy Bear Written by Gloria Salavarria I used to call my husband, “My Teddy Bear! My Short, Dark & Handsome!” Yes, Joe was 6 inches shorter than I in height, but he was taller than I was in years of experience and far more knowledgeable in the fine art of getting others to like him a lot. Joe came from a culture and a career that was the exact opposite of mine, and he was 21 years my senior. He was an exceptionally good salesman and in his many years of working for Libbey Glass, a division of Owens-Illinois, he became the sales manager in charge of all Libbey Glass sales in Canada, Spain and all Latin American countries south of the U.S. border. (Not only was he charming, but he also was fluent in Spanish and French, thanks to his Basque-Mexican heritage.) However, because of my engineering career and my assignment every 2½ years to the next Owens-Illinois plant that was in trouble, Joe decided to take early retirement at the age of 56 and follow me around in all those job transfers, and so we moved six times in the course of 16 years. Joe was a very tolerant husband, and a great asset to me whenever I would invite my guys from the plant to come over to our house to “get away from the stresses of the job.” Joe was very good at getting my guys to relax, have a good time and then, when they went back to work on Monday, they were in a much better mood to solve the problems we faced and thus we were better able to turn the plant back into being a good “profit center” once more. 16 inMiddlebury Magazine | APRIL 2021
Within our household, though, I was the one who handled the money; and Joe, with his charm and social talents, handled the fun. Still, Joe was a congenital homebody; but I always dragged him out of his “comfort zone” and showed José Salvador Salavarría y him the surrounding Iñiguez (also known as Joe countryside. I took Salavarria) him to places that he had never imagined existed but nevertheless, found fascinating. We were a partnership of opposites. He was strong in areas where I was weak; and I was strong in areas where he was “more than happy to let me handle it!” I learned a lot from him. He did, at one point, offer to father a child with me, but I reminded him that he’d be the primary caregiver of this child and just to be sure, I let him “babysit” his 3-yearold granddaughter for a whole day. That was enough to convince him that his already having six children by his previous wife was enough! No need to go for Salavarria child #7!
