Matriarch Tales Part 8: Grace Elizabeth – by Saga
Grace Elizabeth at 16
These tales are the stories I remember about my maternal
ancestors: my great-grandmother, grandmother, aunts and mother. The stories may
or may not be accurate; family stories seldom are. But they have influenced me,
often without my knowing. I set them
down here to remember and to honor these unsung women. To refer to blogs about other
generations of the matriarchs, please go to https://consortiumofseven.blogspot.com/p/c7-posts.html
and scroll down to Wednesday’s list.
Grace Elizabeth was born in 1919 when her mother Bertha
Rachel was 39. Her sister, Dorothy
Alice, was 16 and remembers hearing the conversation when Bertha told her
husband she was pregnant. “Good,” he said, “now I’ve got you where I want you.” Alice believed he knew that Bertha was going
to leave him. This would have meant scandal and social approbation in 1919, so
it was a bold step for Bertha to contemplate, but W.W. was a mean-tempered and
often physical violent man.
One day, when Grace was about three months old, W.W. came
home to find her crying in her crib. In a fury, W.W. threw the baby against a
wall. Bertha had finally had enough. She packed in secret in the attic. Alice
remembered seventy years later that Bertha filled a trunk and cedar chest with
the pretty things she treasured. Among them was the Haviland china her mother,
Nancy Alice, had saved from the burning house years earlier. [See the post from
September 27, 2019.] W.W. came home one
evening expecting dinner only to find his wife and daughters gone.
Bertha had taken Alice and baby Grace on the interurban
railroad north to Indianapolis and then west to Terre Haute, and gone home to
her parents. Bertha’s father was not happy to see her; how her mother reacted
was never mentioned. In any case, eventually Bertha’s father sold a parcel of
his land, gave her the money as an early inheritance, and told his youngest
daughter to leave and never come back.
Bertha went to Indianapolis and purchased a large house with
her inheritance. The neighbors, including the prominent Vonnegut family, were
not pleased when she turned it into a boarding house. Grace, who knew early in her life that she
was not a wanted child, was often neglected while Bertha tended to the cleaning
and cooking required to keep the boarders fed and happy. Grace often talked
about how hungry she was as a child and how Bertha kept the cupboards and even
the icebox chained and locked. She remembered going to visit a school friend
where the family had fresh lettuce salad at dinner. When she asked Bertha if
they could have such a delicacy, she was scolded for asking. When disposable
handkerchiefs appeared, Grace wanted to carry them like the other children at
school instead of the cotton one she ironed for her mother every week. But
plain old tissue paper had to suffice and the other children made fun of her,
an injury she remembered long after dementia claimed the rest of her memory.
Perhaps her greatest treasure in her childhood
was her friendship with Betty. They met when Grace was six and Betty was five
and remained friends through marriages, motherhood, and beyond.
Grace, age 6 on the left with Betty, age 5 third from left
When the great depression hit in 1932, Grace would have been
about 13 and Bertha even more worried about how to keep the boarding house
going. Meanwhile, there were also appearances to worry about. Most women who
were divorced at that time moved to a place where no one knew them and claimed
to be widowed. Bertha loved pretty clothes and had been accustomed to having plenty
of “spending money”. She dressed in the
latest fashions and bought and re-made suits and dresses in order to wear them
many times and to appear more affluent than she was. She remade hats as well
but needed to buy shoes. Grace noticed how
Bertha focused on her own wishes and neglected her child. Her sister Alice was the source of affection and comfort
for her. The sisters would remain close for more than 85 years. They looked
after each other, celebrated one another’s joys, comforted one another through
widowhood, and annoyed one another as only sisters can.
One day when Grace was about 19, she was with old family friends along with Alice and her husband, Bert. Bertha was not present and apparently the conversation
turned to topics forbidden in Bertha’s presence. A guest asked, “Where is W.W. now? Is he still
in New Albany?” Alice looked alarmed and responded, “We’ll talk about that
later.” Grace was immediately suspicious
and intrigued. Could her father be alive? She sent a letter to the county clerk in New
Albany and asked for the date of his death.
The letter came back with a note on the back, “W.W. Brooks lives at [a
street address], Elgin, Illinois.” Although she never mentioned being angry
with her mother for lying about it, I wonder what her feelings were at that
moment. When she told me this story in
her seventies her face still registered her shock at the revelation. She remembered asking Bert and Alice to take
her to visit her father and that he was not at all happy to see her. She never
attempted to contact him again and, though she kept few momentoes, still had the
letter when she died. It was my turn to
be shocked when I discovered that in his later years W.W. had lived near our
family home.
One of the gifts of being Bertha’s daughter was that Grace learned
to appreciate music and the arts. .
Grace loved concerts and plays and to paint landscapes in watercolor. She
must have been given lessons, because she played the grand piano in the front
parlor of the boarding house. Many years later Bertha would claim that Grace
could have had a career as a concert pianist. At some point, Grace stopped
playing and would not even attempt to play again until she was in her sixties.
This claim was intended to insult my father in some way, a statement of what
might have been had he not come into Grace’s life. Somehow the money was found
for Grace to attend Butler University, where her intelligence was appreciated
and she thrived, even while living at home.
Garnet was a new boarder and Bertha was giving him a tour when
he saw Grace’s photo on the piano. He remarked on her beauty and Bertha told
him, “If I ever catch you paying any attention to my daughter, I will throw you
out!” It was not an idle threat. Garnet
most certainly paid attention to Grace and she most certainly welcomed it. When
Bertha caught them kissing in that parlor, she sent Garnet packing that very
evening. He simply walked around the corner to another boarding house. From his
new room, he could see into Grace’s room and the screened second-story porch where
she often slept. They were married in 1940 when Grace was 20.
The photo on the piano that Garnet noticed
Garnet had changed his name to George just over a month earlier;
his new name conformed with that of the family who had fostered him as a child.
By the time of his name change, he was working for that family, but whatever
the reason for the change, it was never discussed. (More about Garnet/George in future blog
posts.)
George and Grace were passionately in love and remained so until
his death in 1968 at age 51. The newlyweds rented an apartment and delighted in
each other’s company. The following year
they discovered they were pregnant.
Everything changed with the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December, 1941.
George had registered for the draft, but his status was 4F and he could not
serve in the military. He took a job in a defense plant, which meant long
trolley rides to and from work. In January, 1942,
Grace went into labor a month early and I was born. Life for Grace turned from honeymoon bliss to
worry and sorrow. She told me when I was
a teen-ager, “You were an accident, but we wanted your brother.” With the
perspective granted by time, I now understand why my birth was such a
disappointment to my mother. Not only had my arrival interrupted their happy
marriage, but I was very sick and required care that was beyond their means. George
worked double shifts at the defense plant, but it became impossible to pay the
hospital bills for my birth and subsequent care.
The first six weeks of my life, I was violently ill with
projectile vomiting. Grace voiced her resentment about it even until shortly before she died at age 95. The vomiting was relentless, and I became so
malnourished that at age 6 weeks I weighed 5 pounds. (Premature babies were
hospitalized until they weighed at least 5 and a half pounds.) Grace was
terrified that I would die. Only when my
father held me could I digest the baby formula. If he held me in just the right
position, the formula stayed down. He would come home from the defense plant
double shift to feed me, usually sleeping on the long trolley ride. Grace would
watch so that if he fell asleep while holding me, she could wake him. Many
years later she remembered that he always woke himself the instant his head
dropped in sleep. “You were so precious to him,” she said. The doctor was
puzzled because I had some of the symptoms of a condition that only boy babies
had. Eventually, Grace and George had to
make a decision: surgery might cure the condition and it might kill their weak
and malnourished newborn.
The surgery did save my life, but it cost my mother dearly. Not
only did she have to share her beloved husband with the baby girl he adored,
but the bills forced them to move to Rachel’s boarding house. There was Grace,
with an infant she didn’t want and living with the mother she had no affection
for. It must have been a terrible blow. She talked about that time very little. One story survived, however. It seems the
local department store where they had purchased my crib on credit threatened to
repossess it because the payments were late. Grace’s older brother, a
successful businessman, offered to pay for the crib, but George’s pride would
not allow such a thing and he forbade Grace to shop at that store for the rest
of his life.
In 1944, Grace gave birth to a boy, John, whose arrival
meant that Grace could leave her mother’s house and set up housekeeping in a
rented double. The family would live there for 12 years in a neighborhood of
young parents, many children, leafy trees and a space for Grace to plant
flowers.
She was mystified by me because I was a very sensitive
child. I was afraid of everything, she recalled. I clearly remember a day when I was terrified
of the dandelions that had gone to seed in the grassy strip that ran down the
length of the driveway beside our house. I was enthralled by the fairy tales my
parents read to me and Grace made one up on the spot. She told me that if I
could blow all the fuzz off a dandelion, I would make a wish come true. “Make a wish!” she said, as she sat in the
grass picking one fuzzy dandelion after another and blowing off the seeds. She
was wearing a print housedress and the grass must have been uncomfortable. I slowly
scooted across the concrete of the tiny porch, then down one step at a time
until I joined her in the grass. Finally, we could take the walk with baby John
in his buggy.
How Grace managed to mother her children is a wonder; she had
been treated as a nuisance by her own mother. Her sister Alice was the source
of love and care for Grace and must have taught her by example how to care of
John and me.
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