Part I told of my parents’ meeting at art school, their courtship, my mother’s initial hesitation about the relationship but eventually falling in love. It ended with them setting the wedding date.
Indeed, the wedding was planned for July 4. 1941 with a Shower on June 19.
Fri. July 4: This entry is outlined with wavy lines: “My wedding day. Something to remember all my life as the most wonderful day I’ll ever spend and having the most perfect husband.” My mother taught my father to play tennis and golf, which they also played on their week-long honeymoon.
They did not go on their honeymoon alone. My mother’s extended family went with them on an all-family vacation at a resort. (This is what my late wife, Sylvia, the therapist, would call “an embedded family.”) I remember hearing about this while growing up, and hearing the story that the relatives put pebbled stones in their bed the first night. My mother doesn’t mention this in the diary, but she does tell of a night they found their pajamas sewed up. To which she remarks: “We didn’t mind.” Did they therefore sleep in the nude?
With that question, I think this is a good place to mention the following: I did not find anything overtly salacious in my mother’s diary. This was not unexpected – she, having grown up in the 1930s. But I would, however, note this. There are several episodes in the diary, both before and after the marriage, in which they wash each other’s hair. To me this is a sensual act, and it reminds me of the scene in the movie Out of Africa, when Denys (Robert Redford) washes Karen’s (Meryl Streep’s) hair. I’ll leave it there.
Throughout the honeymoon week she mentions swimming, golf, tennis, bowling – and being in love and very happy.
End-of-month memo: “This month I became married to the most wonderful person. Treats me perfect and keeps me happy all the time!!!”
Then a month later, this:
Thurs. Aug. 5: “This night has been awful. Just little things Roy said hurt me. I wish I could pass these things up – I would feel better if I could.”
Otherwise, it’s a month of entries of everything being wonderful and she being happy. In the meantime, she quit her job and became a housewife. Occasionally there is a mild complaint about Roy’s moodiness. Nonetheless, the end-of-October Memo ends with: “I’m sublimely happy.”
Sat. Nov. 22: They spent the day at my father’s mother’s place, which was far from where they lived, somewhere outside of Pittsburgh. Thus, they stay overnight, and my mother remarks: “It was fun sleeping in a double bed!” This comment jumped off the page, for while growing up and remembering things since about the age of five or six – they always had a double bed. Yet, I guess at the start, they had twin beds – like in the movies at the time! But I do like the implications of my mother’s remark.
Wed. Dec. 31: “A very quiet New Years with the finest boy in the world – Roy!”
1942
Continues with her being happy and my father going to work and doing some art at home. This is a good place to mention that after graduating from High School, my father got a job in a steel company, a place where so many men and women in Pittsburgh worked at that time. He was 24, and he worked there the rest of his life. (Today all those “steelers” are gone – except for the football team.)
Mon. May 25: Mother at the doctor’s office. First mention of a possible baby. Can’t tell yet.
End-of-May memo: “Roy is classified as 3–A.” This is the draft classification for induction in the Army. At this point, therefore, he had a hardship deferment based on family duties. I have no idea how he got it.
End-of-June memo: She speaks of having morning sickness, “but it is OK ‘cause it’s for our baby.” So, I’m on the way.
End-of-October memo: They are still “in love & hoping for our little one – a girl.” So much for me!
December was her last month of pregnancy. She mentions being tired a lot and uncomfortable. But otherwise, it was an eventless nine months.
Tues. Dec. 29: “I look so fat and swollen. Oh well, soon it will be over.”
It was. I was born on January 1, 1943. But I was not in the running for the first baby in Pittsburgh because I was born around 6 pm. Since the human gestation period is 280 days, this means that I was conceived around March 26 or later. Knowing this and going back over the diary to March 26, I find this: an entry by my father!
Thurs. Mar. 26: “Dear Wife’s Diary: I am so very happy. Our evenings together can be such fun. I wouldn’t trade Alice for any thing in the world. Our happiness together must be forever.” I’m not sure what to make of this. The only other time in the diary where my father makes entries, is when I was born (as seen below). The coincidence of this March 26 note by my father and my calculation of my conception is too astonishing to pass up. But I don’t know what more to say.
Before continuing on this year of the diary – and thus the corresponding first year of my life – I want to notice two other entries back in April of 1942 that caught my attention, in light of my thinking about my conception.
Tues. Apr. 14: “Last night I felt like a bride. Gee I was scared, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. Getting nice and warm [warn?] out.” This looks like a typo. What does it mean? Was something different in their sex life here? One idea is that they had been using contraceptives, and this was the first time without them. Why do I say this? Because there is a very interesting entry back on March 9, 1939, where she mentions meeting a woman that she knew who “is against birth control. We almost had [an] argument.” So, my mother was for birth control, which will be important later, if I am reading her correctly. With respect to 1942: Did they stop using it, and that is why this night was different? But April 14 is rather late, since I was not premature, as far as I know. I think this is a mystery that I will never solve. The next one, gladly, I think I know.
Tues. Apr. 21: “I’m ashamed of myself. Roy is a perfect angel. He even missed [the radio show] Red Skelton just to go to bed early with me.” I’m pleased to know that my mother was making the sexual initiative, which was not the stereotype of that generation of women. Way to go, Mother!
Now, returning to the chronology and the first year of my life.
1943
My father makes the entries for January 1 to 5.
Fri. Jan. 1: “Our first baby was born 5:51 PM. A boy – He weighs 5 pounds 11 ounces. I am the proudest and happiest father in the world. God bless my wife.”
This is the complete entry. Interesting that he says the “first” – implying that there may be more. Perhaps because he was hoping for a girl. But who knows?
Sat. Jan.2: He worked that day and came to the hospital in the evening. My father calls me “little baby” and talks about his wife as “the most wonderful wife in the world.”
Sun. Jan. 3: Visited twice. On the first visit he took his mother. In the evening, he went alone.
Mon. Jan 4: Took my mother’s mother this time.
Tues, Jan 5: Went alone. The last visit mentioned and his last entry.
Wed. Jan. 6: My mother picks up her diary, even though she is still in the hospital.
“I feel so lonesome even when Roy is there [meaning here, in the hospital].” Not too sure I want to read too much into this, right now.
Thurs. Jan. 7: “… my thrill was burping the baby [for the first time?].”
And so it goes. She talks about the other mothers there, the nurses and walking for the first time since my birth. She comes home on Sunday. Everything is wonderful, Roy is perfect, but nothing of substance on me until:
Wed. Jan. 13: I have a name: David, although she calls me “Davy” or “Davey.” “Davy is so wonderful. He sleeps & eats on schedule but keeps me awake too much at night.” Welcome to being a mother, Mother.
Entries hereafter are predictable. She is busy with me. Oh, I’m so cute. People come to visit, they bring gifts, etc. Then there is the entry for Jan 26. The background to this is that my parents and I are living at this time with my maternal grandmother, in her home. Also in the house are my mother’s two brothers, one older and one younger than her. I don’t fully know why we lived there. I know that my father’s job at the steel company was not very well paid, and his family was basically poor. My grandmother was a widow. Perhaps my grandfather left her a decent life insurance policy. Anyway, we lived there until I was around age five or so, because I do have memories of that house. Indeed, my first memories are there.
So now to the entry.
Tues. Jan. 26: “Things aren’t just as I want them between [my] mother & Roy.” I suppose it would be giving too much away, but since this is not a novel, I don’t have to hold things back if I say that this lament from my mother is a portent for the future – an animosity between mother-in-law and son-in-law that only ended when my grandmother died. Clearly, there is more to follow on this topic.
*** Look for future segments of David’s story throughout the month. ***
11/19/24 – Part 3
11/26/24 – Part 4
