CHAPTER 6

CALIFORNIA HELPS ME GROW UP

My life was good until my late teens. In spite of the Depression and harrowing discrepancies of what we had to do without, it didn't occur to me to question my fate. I felt destined for something. I knew in my heart that God was in control of everything, that the rain would wash the smoke away; wellness would follow sickness; there would be a fire to warm ourselves after being out in the snow; and one would never starve because one had a family. Hurricanes and earthquakes, death and famine belonged to other places, other ages. And of course one would suddenly become "sweet sixteen", a handsome prince would appear, true love would follow with marriage and children in a happy sequence thereafter. Instead of coming out at 16 into this haze of popularity and romance, I found myself facing a new reality for which I was badly unprepared.

In 1930, I was 14 and a junior in high school. My older brother Paul was a junior at Yale; my sister a freshman at Oberlin. The Depression was taking its toll. It is still a little hard for me to understand just how the Depression settled in on our family. I remember my father's grave face at the time of the stock market crash. Then he lost his job with Linde and Griffith and went to work for another company, but that job petered out after a year.

I remember a frightful row I created at the time of my graduation from 8th grade. I was one of 6 or 7 students who had earned a "Palmer Method Certificate". This came from penmanship achievement over a period of years and much was made over it. Each of us was to bring 35 cents to pay for the certificate which would be presented on the night of graduation. When I asked my father for the money, his reaction was a flat "no"‑‑it was a silly and unnecessary expense. And my mother obviously agreed with him. It was impossible for me to explain to anyone at school that we were too poor. One wasn't allowed to think "too poor"‑‑one must hide behind a superiority of some kind. It was easier to make a row at home than for me to tell any teacher or heaven forbid any friend. So I remember tears and pleading and my father threatening to stay home from the graduation. At last I won the argument but it left a bad taste. Most things I simply didn't ask for. Many times when friends suggested going to the theatre or spending money frivolously I would simply say "my parents disapprove of that" or make up some other excuse.

And then the miracle happened. In October of 1930 Aunt Dot and Uncle Fred Chappell had come east from California after the death of my grandmother. I was in bed with tonsilitis when my mother and father came in to tell me that Dot and Fred had invited me to drive to California with them on their return trip. Since I was years ahead of myself in school, even if I took a year off, it would not be a disaster. A trip to the moon could not have been more heady in anticipation. Of course I wanted to go. As soon as I recovered I went to school to make the necessary arrangements. I had to sign out with each of my teach‑ hers. One of my best teachers was Miss Lessinger for biology. She ran a tight ship, demanded hard work, but made science live. She had faded skin, faded blonde hair and a rather bony appearance‑‑a typical old maid teacher.

I remember bolting into the science room at the remote corner of the 3rd floor at noontime to pick up my sign‑out slip. There stood Miss Lessinger in the embrace of a handsome, tall, dark‑haired man. Her face was rosy and wisps of hair flew around it in a frame as she pulled away, and all the magic I dreamed about "love" seemed to glow like a light in that room. I was only there a few minutes‑‑I think I was one of her favorites, and she was very kind in saying goodbye to me. In a way I was more transfixed than embarrassed. I wish she could know what a nice memory that still is for me. That's what all those movies of the '30s were about. The magic of love. I believed in it thoroughly, but it never seemed to happen to me.

All my childhood I had felt loved and approved of. I was slow to mature physically. Since I was ahead of myself in school, all my friends were older than I. As one after another got a boy‑friend, I felt more and more like an odd‑ball. This didn't really hit me fully until I returned from California at the end of the school year.

The trip to California took two weeks. We had to stop in Kentucky because Fred's family lived in Owensboro, and that deflected our route. Also we drove south through Texas to avoid the early winter storms. My Aunt Dot was 7 years younger than my mother, childless, rigid. I thought of her as much younger than my parents because she rode horseback and had a Stutz sport car when I first remember her. She was brilliant I suppose, graduated from Wellesley, full of creative games, charades, parties, published articles, entertained intellectual celebrities, and had many other accomplishments. She was also frustrated over being childless I discovered. Poor Dot. So desperate to have a child and yet so quick to push away any relationship that made her vulnerable. I can see her now as we were playing piano duets one day. Suddenly she flung her head down on the piano keys and wept, bitterly denouncing Don Menzel's wife for making a joke about her kittens being her children. The remark was probably intended harmlessly enough. (Don Menzel, whose young children I played with, later became an internationally known astronomer).

Dot had married Fred, the astronomical photographer at Lick Observatory, and become a part of that tight little community of 50 people who lived on the summit of Mount Hamilton‑‑all either astronomers or their families. I'm sure she was working out some of her frustrated maternal yearnings in bringing me with them on the trip. At the same time I don't think any human being could have adapted much better than I did to her absolute demands of comportment.

Fred was the diamond in the rough. If he didn't like what Dot did he would tell her so bluntly and then walk out. He was totally unlike my genial, affirming father. I felt basically unliked and rejected all the time I was with them; but I would never dare to have voiced this. I was so thrilled to "see the world"‑‑just driving across the country was a thrill in itself. I couldn't understand why my Aunt and Uncle NEVER turned off the highway for a sign that said "Caverns", or "World Famous Hot Springs", or any other tourist attractions. I kept my nose glued to the window and wrote down notes of new birds and plants along the way. I learned to like new foods. I had been known as a "finick" as a child, meaning a fussbudget who wouldn't eat new things, and I had tended to be underweight rather than overweight. But now I was in a fever of curiosity‑‑one list I kept was entitled "New Things I have had to eat." It included okra, catfish, "enchilladi" peppers, chicory, beef brains, sorghum molasses, abalone, Chinese noodles, etc.

I wanted to know about everything. California seemed almost like a paradise then‑‑clean air, open space. Living on top of the mountain was an adventure in beauty too. Watching the clouds roll up at our feet like a great ocean, feeding the deer, hiking wild trails. On very clear days one could see north to the lights of San Francisco and on stormy days a dusting of snow might turn our world into a fairyland.

But it was a lonesome time too. My aunt would not let me play with anyone unless she was invited along with me. There were only a couple of girls my own age who lived there, and her restrictions seem ludicrous in retrospect. But I didn't complain because I took her authority for granted. Every day we would play golf on an amateur course carved out of the side of the mountain. I knew nothing about golf and was either uncoordinated or unteachable, or both. But I never could seem to improve much. I'm sure the frozen atmosphere didn't help. After this had been going on for weeks, Aunt Dot asked Fred at breakfast one morning, "Don't you like playing golf with Carol?" Fred said, "No." That was the entire conversation. No smile, no joke. Just swallow your hurt.

When Fred was recovering from the flu and wanted to emerge from the bedroom in his bathrobe I was made to stay in my own bedroom as long as he was about. I got the clear impression that it would be immoral for me to be in the same room with a male attired in pajamas even if he was wrapped in a full length bathrobe besides.

Dot had worked at the observatory before her marriage and was obviously proud of her competence in astronomy. Yet as a housewife she organized her time around the arts. The morning might include a session of typing or piano and violin. She taught me to play Valse Triste by Sibelius on the piano. However, I never progressed far enough on the violin to be presentable. She had had office experience and she taught me what she could from her experience. The main thing I learned was never to ask questions. Her idea was that you could figure out things on your own and you made a better impression that way. It proved to be a valuable lesson in some ways; in other ways it was very dampening and rigidifying.

At that time the minimum driving age in California was 14, and one day Dot decided to teach me how to drive (without ever taking the car out of the garage). She slapped me hard on the knee when I started to shift the gear without the clutch in, and then told me a pious story about how Uncle Roy had taught her to drive and had given her a much harder blow to teach her the same lesson. Only I wasn't even driving‑‑I didn't have the motor on. Still I accepted the fact that that must be the proper way to teach.

I cooked a different thing every day. Dot loved new recipes and she was good about realizing that this would be a creative activity for me. She also made me clean up the kitchen completely every time I made anything, which I had not had to do as consistently at home.

One sparkling morning I remember we were hanging up clothes outdoors. From the leveled off shelf of land where the clothesline was set up we could look off to the distant hills, and the nearer chaparral sloping down to gullies below. I was feeling heady with the joy of being alive. I think I was singing or at least burbling about how happy I felt. She kept right on hanging up clothes as she gave me a lecture on not having mood swings. You mustn't be too happy or too sad. It didn't occur to me that I could argue with her, but I can still feel the stifling let‑down.

Dot's opinions were often challenging but sometimes abrasive and hurtful. During the previous year, my fatber had gone into a construction partnership with a man named Carter Harrison. One day Dot remarked airily, "I always disapproved of your father going into a business partnership because I believe the only true partnership in life should be between husband and wife."

All my passionate loyalty to my own family and especially my father seethed inside. But I didn't know how to answer back‑‑ from my observation Dot and Fred had a far more tense relationship than my parents. If Fred didn't like some remark Dot made he would harshly contradict her or simply stalk out of the room. One day at lunch he paused in the middle of eating and said flatly, "This isn't worth eating..." and simply left to go back "up top" where the telescopes were. Dot, who seemed so imperious to me, never challenged his laconic ill humour. I never saw that kind of coldness or tenseness between my parents‑‑ if one were upset the other tended to immediately become solicitous.

Each day was busy. My diary records a variety of activities including music, cooking, embroidery, hikes and working on their miniature golf course. The latter was Dot's invention, carved out of the rocky terrain rather ingeniously and requiring lots of digging and stone moving. Miniature Golf was a popular fad that was new and had swept clear across the country. Dot was great at capitalizing on a new trend in her own unique style. But there was a kind of "I can be cleverer than thou" spirit about it sometimes.

It was decreed that we should go to Aunt Alice Newhall's in Berkeley for Christmas and then I was to live with Alice's family. Alice had gone to some effort to get me admitted to the University High School in January. I don't remember looking forward to the event‑‑it was just a fact. The only tears I shed were in the privacy of my room on Christmas Eve, missing my family.

My recollection of that Christmas Day is of coming from cold darkness into bright sunshine‑‑a bright warm house with cousins and laughter and relaxation. I didn't realize how restricted I had been until I was let out of the cage. Uncle Luther was in the wholesale hardware business in San Francisco. Luther Jr. was one year older than I; David one year younger and Catherine 2 years younger still. There was always someone to play pinochle or chess or Chinese checkers with. They were kids and I felt immediately at home.

The Newhall family lived in a modest house on Piedmont Avenue a couple of blocks from the University of California campus. A smaller house set in the rear housed Luther's parents. Both houses were two story dwellings and many years later were made into 5 apartments. The garden was a riot of fuchsia and many other flowers that were new to me. Catherine and I shared her large room which had a sleeping porch covered with climbing roses.

My mother and father had always given me the impression that Uncle Luther was a little "simple". But I think that was just because he was always trying to be super‑polite when he went East with Alice. And he never tried to make sophisticated small talk or satirical humor. He was certainly a smart businessman and for the next 6 months I had a taste of what it was like to live in a comfortable middle‑class home. There were chores to be done, but everything was well done. The children had good clothes; there was plenty of recreation; delicious meals; a sense of budgeted living rather than having to skimp.

The Newhalls were among the leaders of St. John's Presby‑ terian Church and I of course became a part of the Sunday School and youth group called Sigma Iota or Christian Endeavor. Everything seemed vastly superior to anything I had known in my life before. I was enrolled at University High which meant purchasing the standard uniform for girls‑‑middie and blue serge pleated skirt. This is the only place where my aunt inadvertently let me down. Instead of buying the new fashionable uniform with a full skirt, I had to get the old‑fashioned kind. The rest of my clothes were a conglomeration of ugly colors, old fashioned hand‑ me‑downs. It didn't matter on the mountain, but as I look at pictures of myself from that year remembering my feelings‑‑my dowdy dress, my shoes that hurt, I feel pain.

The only shoes that fit me were intended for someone 50 years old. My dresses were equally unsuitable for a high school junior and yet I was thrown in with girls 2 years older than I in a new school and a new church. Immature, self‑conscious, badly dressed, with absolutely no help in fixing my hair‑‑these were bad enough. What was even worse, I began to "smell"‑‑I thought I was unique in having underarm perspiration. Nobody told me that I was normal. I began to menstruate on my 15th birthday. I had been told about menstruation, but I had thought it would be a few drops of blood. I was unprepared for staining right through the Kotex and all the layers of clothes and bed‑clothes. My aunt gave me Kotex, but I don't remember her saying anything to me.

Catherine was about as mature physically as I and much prettier and much better dressed. God knows Alice was doing enough for me without thinking of my clothes, but as I look back on it she would have saved money and helped me far more if she had given me something pretty to wear and fed me less. Overeating for the first time in my life became a problem. I had become a good cook and Alice was an excellent cook and all the sensual pleasures of life were connected with eating.

Luther Jr. had to drive me to the youth group every Sunday night or walk me there if it was at the church. He never managed to conceal his dislike for me. And the minute we arrived in any social group he would pretend not to know me. Another male rejection. David on the other hand had always been my favorite cousin. He was smart, funny, and gentle. I played endless games of chess and checkers with both David and Luther.

I had learned early in childhood not to try too hard to win if you wanted to be popular‑‑part of my desperate need for approval (unless of course I had a legitimate right to win as in playing any competition with my brother John or my cousin Catherine). But I remember it dawned on me that even if I tried it was very difficult to beat either Luther or David at chess. Catherine had good reason to be angry with me for usurping part of her position in the family and for being much more able to play games with her siblings than she was. Even though Luther treated me badly in social groups, he liked a good game partner at home. My relationship with Catherine eroded. Years later she would tell it as if she tormented me mercilessly. I think she exaggerates. I do remember her saying things like,"It's too bad your father smokes‑‑I'm glad my father never smokes." I would rise to the bait and we would have hot verbal battles which I think we both secretly enjoyed as tension releasers.

The Newhalls made a point of taking me on a number of won‑ derful explorations of museums, Chinatown, the flowered spring hillsides, the Missions, etc. They took me to see my first opera‑‑Die Walkerie, in San Francisco. And they took me to Yosemite for the first time. That May trip to the Yosemite, when the falls were at their peak, was an all‑time high for me. For years I dreamed about it periodically. I could never be grateful enough to this warm giving family who took me in and made me a part of them for such an extended time.

Grandmother Newhall took me on special trips too. Grandfather Newhall was quite an invalid and while I was there we had a big celebration for their 50th Wedding Anniversary. They were even more pious than my other relatives. He had travelled in the Holy Land, written hymns, and had a successful career in the ministry. Uncle Luther drove the car at 15 miles an hour and young Luther hated to go so slow. Looking back that seems symbolic of something that was amiss. Luther and Alice were always so apparently happy with being GOOD, being church pillars, driving slow. It was as if they never knew there was such a thing as speeding or sin.

I learned so much that precious year. University High School had an outstanding class in creative writing. The requirements to pass included obtaining a rejection slip from a magazine as well as writing one complete short story, one play and a series of poems. It was a far cry from the solid emphasis on grammar and structure in my Eastern high school. I won several prizes. I loved having P.E. outdoors everyday, and playing hockey (especially one glorious day when the field was deep in mud). And I never got over loving the Newhall family.