Years after his passing, man finds a way to help his wife

“I have epilepsy, so there’s a lot of stuff I don’t remember,” she said.

“I have holes in my memory.”

But she remembers her sister, who suffered from cerebral palsy and how their mother made certain she live a normal life.

“She insisted that she go to public schools,” Chappie said. “She was treated the same as everybody else.”

Chappie of Miami Twp. calls Doris “my best friend,” and said anyone who didn’t accept her, “didn’t accept me.”

When she met her husband-to-be, Chappie was visiting her first cousin — as was Ralph.

“I married my first cousin’s first cousin,” Chappie laughed.

Those days were different when people rode the railroad, a safer time when Ralph visited his aunt. Chappie noticed Ralph at once.

“I thought, hmm, he sounds like a nice guy.”

Six years older, Ralph had just gotten out of the service.

The couple married in 1962.

At first, Chappie was a traditional housewife. The couple had four boys — Mike, Dave, Tony and Robert.

Ralph worked for General Motors, then he was diagnosed with diabetes. Before he got sick, Chappie had opened two bridal salons — one in Versailles, the other in Troy.

As Ralph’s illness progressed, Chappie would be forced to close both salons.

When he lost his legs, she decided that was enough. The Versailles location had been open about 20 years, while the Troy shop was open for 10 years.

Even now, Chappie, 66, can’t quite get the bridal business out of her mind.

“I still have dreams that I’m in business and I’m trying to satisfy a customer, and I can’t. I’m trying all sorts of things.”

Chappie also operated a Dairy Queen in Versailles, when her children were young. It was not only a job for her, but for her sons.

“At first, we told the boys we would pay them like any personnel,” she said.

“And the second year, they decided they didn’t want to do that — it was inconvenient. So the third year, they decided they wanted it again,” she said.

“I remember once coming home, and I was so tired that I had put boxes in the Dairy Queen and laid down,” she said. “I was so tired in between customers, I could sleep.”

Eventually, the couple got out of the ice cream business.

Chappie remembers the hard years of selling bridal gowns.

She remembers “hundreds and hundreds” of brides, but her husband, who kept the books, remarking that she wasn’t making any money.

“I was so naive,” she said. “I believed that.”

When Ralph died in 2001, Chappie found that he had been investing money. Chappie lost a husband but had unexpected money to finance the rest of her life.

“I think he wanted to do something for me,” she said.