Matriarch Tales, Part 6: Dorothy Alice

Matriarch Tales #6: Dorothy Alice - by Saga

I never heard my Aunt Alice say a sharp or unkind word from the time I was born until she died 65 years later.  She was a saving grace in my life, and her kindness and wisdom are still with me. Her sense of humor was delightful and her perseverance through blindness and widowhood, not once but twice, was remarkable. She simply kept going and made a new life for herself. I adored her. She loved pretty things and happy endings and would often wrap her memories in a rose-colored-glasses glow that didn’t match anyone else’s perceptions. It must have served her well, for she sustained a level of serenity and generosity of spirit until she died at age 103.

I knew her as Alice, though she had been named Dorothy Alice when she was born in 1904. She talked very little about her girlhood but did reminisce briefly for an interview recorded by family when she was 94.  Her life was disrupted when she was about 17 and her mother, Bertha, made a stealthy escape from a violent husband. Alice told the story with a remarkable lack of resentment or self-pity, saying simply that she finished high school in a new city in three years and began to study at the state Normal College. Normal colleges were intended to train teachers, usually women.  When Alice was offered a scholarship to DePauw University, Bertha cautioned her that the nice clothes and a sorority membership that Alice would want were beyond their means, so Alice went to work over the summer to save money.  

A friend of Bertha’s, a Mr.  Sabin, offered her a job in Indianapolis.  In an interview by family members when she was in her 90s, she remembered meeting a nice young man named Daryl who worked across the hall. She “went with him” for three years and remembered that she and Daryl went to visit Alice’s brother and his wife.  She recalled that when he saw their beautiful home, he told Alice, “We can’t start out like that when we get married.” She thought, “Here we go. We can’t do this and we can’t do that.”  That seems to have been the end of the relationship, but the interview tape transcription stops because the tape ended.  Did Daryl’s cautions about what they could afford when they married really cause Alice to end the relationship?

  Alice married Bert in 1932

Alice later met a man known as Bert.  Looking at a photograph of him long after his death, she said, “Look at that beautiful suit.  I think I married him because the fabric of those trousers was just wonderful.” She made a gesture familiar to me – as if she were feeling the yard goods on a bolt. Despite her giggle at the thought, I dared not ask how she knew so much about the feel of Bert’s trousers.  They were married in June, 1932.  He was a mild sort of  curmudgeon at times and had a tremor in his arms and hands. I never heard Alice be impatient with him, nor did I ever hear her comment on his moods, even long after his death. My parents explained that both his occasional curtness and his tremor were the result of his experiences in the war.  Ancestry.com reveals that he was in the Marine Corps, but although he was physically strong, he certainly didn’t fit the Marine stereotype of tough and burly.

The couple soon bought a home with a winding walk from the porch to the street. Bert planted petunias along both sides of the walk every year and tended to the flowers, watering and deadheading the blossoms every night through the spring and summer. People would drive past the house and slow down to admire the flowers and neighbors waited for the annual spring planting. Bert was a refrigeration engineer and developed elaborate cooling systems for local dairies and meat processing plants.  I remember him coming to our home bearing glass gallon jugs of cream, from which he would pour out a quart  for us. Ice cream, a big treat to other children, was nothing particularly special to us, thanks to his dairy clients.  Now and then he would bring us slabs of bacon or a ham from Stumpf Brothers butchers, another client.

When my mother was hospitalized for a week after giving birth to my brother, normal practice at the time, I stayed with Bert and Alice.  My mother kept the letters I “wrote” and sent to her.  Pretending to be me, Alice wrote about what I did each day, what a good appetite I had, how well behaved I was.  They are full of tenderness and care for me and for my mother.  Alice’s kindness was unfailing and steadfast.

1950 

Dinners at Aunt Alice and Uncle Bert's were a balm to me because the house had a quiet gentleness and was always orderly.  There were always hot rolls with rich butter that Alice had churned in her big mixer.  As I grew, I was allowed in the kitchen to help and the first time I was assigned to stir the milk gravy for fried chicken was a milestone I remember clearly.  Alice and my mother would spell certain words in their conversation until the day I commented on something they had spelled. I was delighted in myself because they were both tickled and a bit rueful that I could now decipher what they were saying.


I also remember the coziness of family dinners at our tiny house. While my mother and Aunt Alice put dinner on the table, Uncle Bert would read me Uncle Wiggly in the evening newspaper.  No doubt Alice and Bert were watching over my mother and, by extension, her husband and children.  My mother explained that they could not have children and hinted that Alice was quite sad about it, but Alice never mentioned it to me.  I often wished that I was their daughter and by some strange occurrence had been given to my parents to raise. 

Alice often talked about how much she had longed for a baby sister and how thrilled she was to learn her mother was pregnant in 1919.  Her mother, however, was not at all happy.  Alice, the youngest, was 16, Bertha was 40. The pregnancy must have been a shock and Alice thought later that Bertha may have been threatening to return to her parents now that their youngest child was about to leave the nest. When he learned Bertha was pregnant, her husband said, “Good, now I’ve got you where I want you.”  But Alice, who sometimes remembered the past in a rosy glow of happiness despite the facts recalled by others, was eagerly anticipating a little sister.  She remembered some 88 years later that she came home from high school one day and her mother was in bed with a nurse or midwife nearby.  Bertha said, “Will you be awfully disappointed if it’s a boy?” Alice gulped and answered, “No.”  Bertha then said, “Well, go look in the crib.” Alice remembered her complete joy at seeing the baby all wrapped in pink and looking at her baby sister with awe.  She said she had looked forward to dressing her baby sister like a little doll. The focus on beautiful clothes had clearly been passed along from Bertha to Alice.

Indeed, Alice became a skilled and talented seamstress. During her marriage to Bert and long after she was widowed, she made and altered clothing for ladies who came to her home for fittings and consultations. One of her many wealthy and prominent clients wanted Alice to sew pockets inside her coats and suit jackets. A friend had to convince the unsuspecting seamstress that the woman was a known shoplifter who was married to such a prominent man that the department stores just looked the other way.  Clinging fiercely to her naivete, Alice could not believe it. But her conscience wouldn’t let her participate in theft in any way, so she had to turn the client away.

She made me all sorts of clothes and as I got older, I would open a beautifully wrapped package on my birthday or a holiday to find a piece of yard goods, some trim, a spool of thread, and a pattern for the garment she hadn’t had time to make. She was full of apologies, but I was thrilled because I would need to spend time with her for fittings.  She made me formals for school dances, encouraging me to help design them. The first one, a yellow confection with rows and rows of little ruffles in the underskirt, required several fittings.  As she made sure the ruffles were perfect, she said, “Now if your date gets close enough to see these, slap him!”  She laughed, but her warning was clear.  It must have been a little frightening to watch her niece grow into adolescence.  While my mother often cautioned me against sex and getting pregnant, Alice’s warnings were subtle – and just as effective.

How I loved those fittings because they meant time alone with her.  I can still hear her telling me to stand nice and straight, to smile at myself in the mirror, to hold still so she wouldn’t poke me with pins.  What a gift to tell a girl to smile at herself in the mirror, especially a girl who knew she wasn’t pretty, who was self-conscious about her smile and her crooked teeth. She never made me feel ugly even when she corrected my posture or suggested I try a new hairstyle. She loved me with such joy, and I was grateful to her even at a very young age.

I remember her talking about how important it was to be a lady, which seemed to mean being polite, modest, and nicely dressed. One day I was alone in the car with her as we drove downtown, perhaps for a rare trip to Ayres Tea Room. She saw a friend at a bus stop and went around the block to offer the woman a ride.  I clamored into the back seat and listened to their small talk. When we dropped the woman off at her destination, Aunt Alice pointed out all the ways the woman was a lady.  She was wearing spotless white gloves and a beautiful suit even though she didn’t have much money. The spotless gloves seemed to be very important. But then came the real lesson. The woman was always interested in other people and talked about herself very little. She listened carefully to what friends said to her and responded with kindness. “And that,” said Aunt Alice, “is a real lady.”

She also taught me by example about what it means to be a strong woman.  She and Bert had been married almost thirty years when he had a stroke and died a few hours later.  It would not have been a surprise; Bert’s high blood pressure was often a source of concern. But it was a terrible shock. I watched Alice literally square her shoulders and get through the days of funeral arrangements, greeting callers at the mortuary, and burying her husband.  She was clearly grieving but continued to be attentive to her mother and sister, and to my brother and me. A few months after Bert’s death, Alice fainted while shopping and, at my mother’s insistence, came to stay with us for a few days until the doctor could figure out what was wrong. The doctor recommended having smelling salts on hand just in case.

The first night, from another room my mother heard Alice cough and realized that she had not stirred the way most people do after coughing in bed.  Clearly, my mother was being especially vigilant, as her sister had always been for her.  Alice was unconscious and when smelling salts brought her around, she began vomiting blood and lost consciousness again.  My brother and I, teen-agers at the time, watched the ambulance crew take her away and our parents leave for the hospital.  We sat up all night together, barely talking, each of us staring into space. Losing her was unthinkable to both of us. In the morning, we learned she had a bleeding ulcer. After a few days in the hospital, and after she giggled to me about how she had a purple bottom from the iron shots, Alice was better.

A few months later, my brother saw his friend, Sid, who had been with the ambulance crew as a trainee. Sid expressed his condolences and apologized for not coming to Alice’s funeral.  “Oh no,” said my brother, “she didn’t die! She’s touring Europe right now.”  Sid was stunned, he and the crew were convinced she had died.

Alice was, indeed, touring Europe with her friend Charlotte. She came home with photographs and great stories. She showed me a program from Paris with pictures of glamorous drag queens and taught me how to recognize a man in women’s clothing.  “They know to hide their Adam’s apples, of course. But always look at their calves. The legs will tell you every time.” And then, “Now look at these gowns, aren’t they beautiful?”

Beauty of all kinds was essential to Aunt Alice. A table setting, the autumn woods, a well-made dress, fine fabric, an elaborate décor, any ballet or opera, a pretty woman or a handsome man – she appreciated it all.  She would often say, “Now isn’t that a pretty little minute!” 

Like many smart women of her era, Alice learned to hide behind girlish innocence and a kind of helplessness, usually feigned, that encouraged men to help her in whatever way she wished.  Her younger sister, whose life was very different, was often annoyed at Alice’s coyness. "She gets that look in her eye and bats those eyelashes and people will do anything for her!" my mother complained often. In her widowhood Alice was courted by several men, one after another. She wasn’t all that special, she said, she was a woman who could cook and keep house and that was what they wanted.

Next week:  Alice after age 60.

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