Cheaper by the Dozen (8 page)

Dad believed in Sunday school, though, because he thought everyone should have some knowledge of the Bible.

"The successful man knows something about everything," he said.

He used to drive Mother and us to Sunday school and then sit outside in the car, reading
The New York Times
and ignoring the shocked glares of passing churchgoers.

"You at least might come in where it's warm," Mother told him. "You'll catch your death out here."

"No," Dad replied. "When I go to meet my Maker, I want to be able to tell Him that I did my praying on my own, halted by neither snow nor sleet nor icy stares, and without the aid of any black-frocked, collar-backwards cheerleader."

"You might at least park where they won't all see you."

"All the glares in Christendom won't force me to retreat," Dad said. "Besides, I'll bet I have half the town praying to save my soul."

Dad told Mother that the only church he'd even consider joining was the Catholic church.

"That's the only outfit that would give me some special credit for having such a large family," he said. "Besides, most priests whom I have known do not appear to be surreptitious pinchers."

"Like this," said Ernestine, pinching Anne where she sat down.

"You stop that," said Mother, shocked. And turning to Dad:

"You're really going to have to watch the stories you tell in front of the children. They don't miss a thing."

"The sooner they know what to expect from preachers, the better," said Dad. "Do you want to have them all eating off the mantelpiece?"

Although Mother always claimed that she liked church, she usually was ready to go home immediately after Sunday school.

"What's the matter, Lillie?" Dad would ask. "Stay around awhile. I'll take the children home and come back for you."

"No, I guess not this morning."

"You're not going to be able to get past St. Peter just on the strength of going to Sunday school, you know."

"Well, I'd be miserable up there anyway without you," Mother would smile. "Come on. Let's go home. I'll go to church next Sunday."

Mother did take an active part in the Sunday school work, though. She didn't teach a class, but she served on a number of committees. Once she called on a woman who had just moved to town, to ask her to serve on a fund-raising committee.

"I'd be glad to if I had the time," the woman said. "But I have three young sons and they keep me on the run. I'm sure if you have a boy of your own, you'll understand how much trouble three can be."

"Of course," said Mother. "That's quite all right. And I do understand."

"Have you any children, Mrs. Gilbreth?"

"Oh, yes."

"Any boys?"

"Yes, indeed."

"May I ask how many?"

"Certainly. I have six boys."

"Six boys!" gulped the woman. "Imagine a family of six!"

"Oh, there're more in the family than that. I have six girls, too."

"I surrender," whispered the newcomer. "When is the next meeting of the committee? I'll be there, Mrs. Gilbreth. I'll be there."

One teacher in the Sunday school, a Mrs. Bruce, had the next-to-largest family in Montclair. She had eight children, most of whom were older than we. Her husband was very successful in business, and they lived in a large house, about two miles from us. Mother and Mrs. Bruce became great friends.

About a year later, a New York woman connected with some sort of national birth control organization came to Montclair to form a local chapter. Her name was Mrs. Alice Mebane, or something like that. She inquired among her acquaintances as to who in Montclair might be sympathetic to the birth control movement. As a joke, someone referred her to Mrs. Bruce.

"I'd be delighted to cooperate," Mother's friend told Mrs. Mebane, "but you see I have several children myself."

"Oh, I had no idea," said Mrs. Mebane. "How many?"

"Several," Mrs. Bruce replied vaguely. "So I don't think I would be the one to head up any birth control movement in Montclair."

"I must say, I'm forced to agree. We should know where we're going, and practice what we preach."

"But I do know just the person for you," Mrs. Bruce continued. "And she has a big house that would be simply ideal for holding meetings."

"Just what we want," purred Mrs. Mebane. "What is her name?"

"Mrs. Frank Gilbreth. She's civic minded, and she's a career woman."

"Exactly what we want. Civic minded, career woman, and—most important of all—a large house. One other thing—I suppose it's too much to hope for— but is she by any chance an organizer? You know, one who can take things over and militantly drive ahead?"

"The description," gloated Mrs. Bruce, "fits her like a glove."

"It's almost too good to be true," said Mrs. Mebane, wringing her hands in ecstasy. "May I use your name and tell Mrs. Gilbreth you sent me?"

"By all means," said Mother's friend. "Please do. I shall be disappointed if you don't."

"And don't think that I disapprove of your having children," laughed Mrs. Mebane. "After all, many people do, you know."

"Careless of them," remarked Mrs. Bruce.

The afternoon that Mrs. Mebane arrived at our house, all of us children were, as usual, either upstairs in our rooms or playing in the back yard. Mrs. Mebane introduced herself to Mother.

"It's about birth control," she told Mother.

"What about it?" Mother asked, blushing.

"I was told you'd be interested."

"Me?"

"I've just talked to your friend, Mrs. Bruce, and she was certainly interested."

"Isn't it a little late for her to be interested?" Mother asked.

"I see what you mean, Mrs. Gilbreth. But better late than never, don't you think?"

"But she has eight children," said Mother.

Mrs. Mebane blanched, and clutched her head.

"My God," she said. "Not really."

Mother nodded.

"How perfectly frightful. She impressed me as quite normal. Not at all like an eight-child woman."

"She's kept her youth well," Mother conceded.

"Ah, there's work to be done, all right," Mrs. Mebane said. "Think of it, living right here within eighteen miles of our national birth control headquarters in New York City, and her having eight children. Yes, there's work to be done, Mrs. Gilbreth, and that's why I'm here."

"What sort of work?"

"We'd like you to be the moving spirit behind a Montclair birth control chapter."

Mother decided at this point that the situation was too ludicrous for Dad to miss, and that he'd never forgive her if she didn't deal him in.

"I'll have to ask my husband," she said. "Excuse me while I call him."

Mother stepped out and found Dad. She gave him a brief explanation and then led him into the parlor and introduced him.

"It's a pleasure to meet a woman in such a noble cause," said Dad.

"Thank you. And it's a pleasure to find a man who thinks of it as noble. In general, I find the husbands much less sympathetic with our aims than the wives. You'd be surprised at some of the terrible things men have said to me."

"I love surprises," Dad leered. "What do you say back to them?"

"If you had seen, as I have," said Mrs. Mebane, "relatively young women grown old before their time by the arrival of unwanted young ones. And population figures show... Why, Mr. Gilbreth, what are you doing?"

What Dad was doing was whistling assembly. On the first note, feet could be heard pounding on the floors above. Doors slammed, there was a landslide on the stairs, and we started skidding into the parlor.

"Nine seconds," said Dad, pocketing his stopwatch. "Three short of the all-time record."

"God's teeth," said Mrs. Mebane. "What is it? Tell me quickly. It is a school? No. Or is it...? For Lord's sakes. It is!"

"It is what?" asked Dad.

"It's your family. Don't try to deny it.They're the spit and image of you, and your wife, too."

"I was about to introduce you," said Dad. "Mrs. Mebane, let me introduce you to the family—or most of it. Seems to me like there should be some more of them around here someplace."

"God help us all."

"How many head of children do we have now, Lillie, would you say offhand?"

"Last time I counted, seems to me there was an even dozen of them," said Mother. "I might have missed one or two of them, but not many."

"I'd say twelve would be a pretty fair guess," Dad said.

"Shame on you! And within eighteen miles of national headquarters."

"Let's have tea," said Mother.

But Mrs. Mebane was putting on her coat. "You poor dear," she clucked to Mother. "You poor child." Then, turning to Dad: "It seems to me that the people of this town have pulled my leg on two different occasions today."

"How revolting," said Dad. "And within eighteen miles of national headquarters, too."

The day the United States entered the first World War, Dad sent President Wilson a telegram which read: "Arriving Washington 7:03 p.m. train. If you don't know how to use me, I'll tell you how."

Whether or not this heartening intelligence took some of the weight off Mr. Wilson's troubled shoulders, Dad never made entirely plain. But he was met at the train and taken over to the War Department. The next time we saw him, he was in uniform, assigned to motion study training in assembling and disassembling the Lewis machine gun and other automatic weapons. He had what probably was the most G.I. haircut in the entire armed forces, and when he walked into the parlor and shouted "Attention!" he wanted to hear our heels click.

Mother had been planning for several years to take all of us to California to visit her family. When Dad was ordered to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, the time seemed opportune.

Mother's family was genteel and well-to-do. She was the oldest of nine children, only three of whom were married. The other six, two brothers and four sisters, lived with their parents in a spacious house at 426 Twenty-ninth Street, in Oakland. The house was fringed with palm trees, magnificent gardens, and concealed but nonetheless imposing outbuildings in which the family indulged its various hobbies. There were a billiard hall, radio shack, greenhouse, pigeon roost, and a place where prize-winning guinea pigs were raised.

The Mollers had three Packards, a French chauffeur named Henriette, a gardener, Chinese cook, first-story maid, and second-story maid. The Mollers managed, somehow, in spite of their worldly goods, to live fairly simply. They were quiet, introverted, and conservative. They seldom raised their voices and referred to each other as "Dear Elinor, Dear Mable, Dear Gertrude," and so on. Mother was "Dear Lillie."

Mother was the only one in her family who had moved from California. Mother had left home after her marriage, as introverted and conservative, and possibly even more shy and bookish, than any of the others. In ten years, she had seven children. She was lecturing around the country. She was a career woman and her name kept bobbing up in the newspapers. Frankly, the Mollers didn't know exactly what to make of Dear Lillie. But they knew they loved her.

Even before we visited California, we knew all about the household at Oakland and its inhabitants, because Mother used to like to tell us about her girlhood. We knew the arrangement of the house, even down to the full-length mirror on the hall door, which Mother's younger sisters used to open at just the right angle so that they could watch Dad's courting technique.

Hearing Mother tell about the courtship, the sparking on the sofa, we used to wonder what Mother's parents had thought when Dad first came to call.

He had met Mother in Boston, about a year before, when she was on that well-chaperoned tour to Europe, with several other Oakland girls. The chaperone, who was Dad's cousin, had introduced him to all the girls, but he had selected Miss Lillie as the one on whom to shower his attention.

He took Mother for a ride in his first automobile, some early ancestor of Foolish Carriage. As Dad and Mother, dressed in dusters and wearing goggles, went scorching through the streets of Boston, bystanders tossed insults and ridicule in their direction.

"Get a horse, get a horse."

Dad started to shout back an answer, but thought better of it. He was already in love with Mother, and was anxious to make a good impression. Mother's shyness and ladylike demeanor had a quieting effect on him, and he was displaying his most genteel behavior.

"Get a horse. Twenty-three skiddoo."

It was almost more than Dad could bear, but he didn't answer.

"Say, Noah, what are you doing with that Ark?"

That did it. Dad slowed the car and cocked his checkered cap belligerently over one eye.

"Collecting animals like the good Lord told me," he screamed back. "All I need now is a jackass. Hop in."

After that, Dad decided he might as well be himself, and his breezy personality and quick laugh made Mother forget her shyness and reserve. Soon she found herself laughing almost as loud and as long at his jokes as he.

As was its custom, the automobile inevitably broke down, and crowds of children gathered around. Mother stopped them from breathing down Dad's neck by taking them aside and telling them stories. When the car was fixed and they were on their way again, Dad asked her how she had managed to hold the children's attention.

"I told them some stories from
Alice in Wonderland,"
Mother said. "You see, I have eight younger brothers and sisters, and I know what children like."

"Alice in Wonderland!"
Dad exclaimed. "You mean kids really like that? They must be raising different kinds of kids than when I was a boy. I never could get into it, myself."

"Of course they like it; they love it," Mother said. "You really should read it. I think everybody should. It's a classic."

"If you say so, Miss Lillie," said Dad, who had already made up his mind she was going to be Mrs. Gilbreth, "I'll read it."

Mother went on to Europe. After her return, Dad followed her out to the West Coast.

When he arrived at Oakland, he telephoned the Mollers' house.

"Hello," he said, "who do you think this is?"