My mother seemed miscast in her role as a wife and mother. She was living in the wrong society and in the wrong part of the twentieth century. She tried to conform to her family’s and society’s expectations, but it never worked. She loved my father and wanted to be his wife, but she didn’t want to be a housewife. The societal expectation was that she should have children. If she didn’t have the obligatory two children and keep house, she wasn’t a real woman. So she had two children and set aside her dreams and aspirations so she could be with the man she loved. She did whatever it took, which meant defying her mother and numbing her feelings with alcohol. Finally, once the family stopped moving from place to place, she constructed a life that worked for her. It was a shame she could only enjoy it for four years.
Mom grew up in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Depending on who is telling the story, her father was an engineer and/or an executive. Her mother, Grandma Hattie, was a schoolteacher. Mom was an only child. Grandma Hattie was a very nasty person and very rigid. Grandpa, who apparently was an alcoholic, died before I was born. Family lore has it that he came home one night after spending the evening drinking and gambling. Grandma Hattie kept yelling at him. Finally, when he didn’t respond, she discovered he was dead. My father said Grandpa just had a heart attack. I prefer the first story because it seemed a good characterization of Grandma and what I perceived to be her marital relationship.
Mom was a very bright young lady. She wanted to learn math and science and went to the boy’s high school to study. When she graduated high school, she went to Antioch College, where several of her cousins went. She was pretty but overweight. One of her favorite activities was to challenge the soda jerk to make a sundae she couldn’t eat. I think she managed to eat them all. When she met my father, he didn’t like overweight women, so Mom lost weight. She was on a diet the rest of her life. That was the first of many concessions she would make to keep Pop.
When Pop graduated from college, he took a job in Washington, D.C. Mom was so in love with him that she transferred to Rider College to be close to him. That meant leaving the support of having her cousins nearby. It was during this time that Pop had his epiphany. He saw a movie where the hero would inherit a huge sum of money if he got married in twenty-four hours. That got Pop thinking. Who would he marry under the circumstances? The answer was Frances Elaine Miller. This was the story Pop told me. Knowing his lack of romance, it is believable.
They got married in the summer of 1939, and I think Mom immediately became a housewife. At the beginning of World War II, I was born. Shortly after that, the family moved from Arlington, Virginia, to Burlingame, California. It was there that my parents first exhibited their lack of parenting skills. They put me in a friend’s bedroom to sleep while they had a social evening. When someone finally looked in on me, they discovered that I had painted the furniture with nail polish. I am not sure of the outcome. It should have been a “teachable moment” for them and me. But they didn’t seem to take parenting seriously.
War fever was high at this time, and everyone wanted to get involved in the war effort. Pop wanted to join the Navy. He tried to enlist in Burlingame but failed the eye test. He memorized the eye chart and went to San Diego to enlist. That time he passed. He was stationed in Charlotte, North Carolina. It would be the second cross-country move for my mother in about three years. I think she was beginning to be overwhelmed because she started drinking. During the war, liquor was plentiful and there were many parties.
My folks embraced this party scene. Pop was very attractive to women. Mom was an introvert and drank to be more vivacious. Predictably, their parenting skills worsened in this environment. One time, much to the adults’ amusement, I fell in the toilet. Another time, I was bitten by a German shepherd dog and had to start the rabies shots. I was frequently taken to a firing range while my dad tested artillery shells. I got sent to an orphanage briefly. Pop flirted, and Mom drank, and they both should have been reading Dr. Spock. The results of all of this could be anticipated. Mom got pregnant with Brian, their second child.
Unfortunately, the pregnancy was unplanned and unwanted by Mom. Pop had a vasectomy in short order. Now, Mom should have gotten a bit more serious about mothering. I think she did, but she drank to make it bearable. For entertainment, I would sit in a chair in the living room with my Carmen Miranda doll and randomly dial numbers on the telephone. When someone answered, I would tell them that my name was Carolyn and I was four years old. I would ask them if they had any children. Usually I could engage them in a conversation. I wonder now how I would react if I got a phone call like that at work. From Mom’s perspective, random dialing beat a lot of other things I could be doing.
We moved twice in Charlotte and then went to McCook, Nebraska, to live with my paternal Grandmother, a farm wife who had moved to the city. She was great, a real grandma, all plump, cuddly, warm and loving. The war had ended and Pop got a job in public housing in Wichita, so we stayed with Grandma until he could find a place to live. He lasted less than a year in Wichita. He bought two alfalfa mills in Oklahoma, but they burned and he needed to declare bankruptcy. Grandma helped him out and he transferred to Wilmington, California. I am sure this was getting harder and harder for Mom. They moved across country again, this time with two kids. Plus, we moved into a public housing project that was largely Hispanic. I doubt she had anyone to talk to. After about a year, Pop was transferred to another housing project in Linda Vista, California.
Linda Vista was an improvement. The people were white and more middle class. They liked to party. Pop got involved with sailing and made friends at the yacht club. This is where he met Joe and Annette who had two kids the same age as my brother and me. Liquor flowed, and Mom was right in the middle of it. The moves, children, isolation and lack of meaningful work had taken their toll. Her downfall was clinched by the death of her mother.
Grandma Hattie died in 1948. She was only 61 and still working. Her death was totally unexpected. I remember Mom receiving the phone call and then breaking down in tears. I was devastated and started crying, too. I reached out to comfort Mom. My father stood some distance away and just glared at me.
He said, “Why are you crying? She didn’t even like you!”
I was shocked. I was crying because I was so upset over Mom’s obvious distress. I wanted to take away her pain. I knew Grandma hated me. She felt the same about my father. Grandma Hattie felt that Pop couldn’t provide for Mom. She was so critical that she gave Mom a new wedding ring set and expensive gifts, such as our silver tea service. I was like my father, so she heaped the same poison on me. In Grandma’s eyes, my brother, Brian, was wonderful. Grandma Hattie’s solution was for my mother to leave my father and me and take Brian with her. Obviously, Mom did not feel the same way so she stayed with us.
The scene with my father taught me a valuable lesson: I learned not to cry. I didn’t even cry when Mom died. In retrospect, I realize how alone my mother must have felt. She must have felt alone and insecure her whole life.
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