Even as child I could see there was an age difference between Fred and Ethel and wondered about it, years later, watching a Lucy marathon while recuperating I imagined a backstory:
Fred Mertz, a dashing, young soldier is eager to return home from WWI and his wife and young child. Their reunion is short lived and the wife and child succumbed to the Spanish Influenza shortly upon his return. Grieved at the loss, Fred goes on the road as a vaudeville entertainer. He uses his life on the road to mask his grief, drinking and gambling when he's not on stage. Though not tall or conventionally handsome he had a certain charm and he was quite talented, able to sing, dance, do skits and by chance when the show pulled into Albuquerque he was seen by a star struck young girl, Ethel Mae Louise Potter. Ethel had always wanted to be in show business and this was her chance not only to realize her stage dreams but her girlish dream of true love. Ethel was lovely then, golden hair, peaches and cream skin and the voice of an angel. Ethel always looked mature for her age and had blossomed 2 years before her peers so it was easy for her to lie about her age to the show manger and off she went. Fred never thought he could ever love again but here was another chance for a family and for Ethel here was a man, not a boy like the ones in town, but a real man with lush hair and twinkling eyes. They fell hard and fast but the toll of life on the road and Fred's refusal to give up his drinking, gambling and womanizing pushed Ethel to the brink and she was going to leave him. They separated briefly but eventually reconciled, quit showbiz and bought an apartment building with their savings, they lived in the best apartment for awhile, hoping to fill it with children but they never came, eventually they gave it up and moved to the smallest apartment, each silently blaming themselves for the lack of children and despite the bickering grateful that they will have someone to grow old with. The first wife and their child are buried in upstate NY and Fred visits their graves a few times a year
Have you ever made up a backstory for fictional characters? Let's hear some if you have