Belles on Their Toes (22 page)

They asked her what she meant.

“The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court bows to you, the President and his wife hold up a receiving line to chat with you, and you make friends with policemen all the way from Montclair to Washington. I’m certainly lucky to have such fine sons.”

The boys had the good grace to think there was a slight possibility Mother might be prejudiced.

19.
Mother Was There First

T
HOSE OF US WHO
were away at college usually saw Mother three or four times a semester, as her lectures and business engagements took her across the country.

Sometimes she’d be delivering a speech at the college itself, and would arrange her schedule so she’d have a free day to visit. Sometimes her speech would be at a city near one of the colleges, and it was possible to cut classes, hear her lecture, and then visit with her at her hotel.

Mother knew most of the presidents and many of the professors at the various colleges we attended. Usually, too, she knew the location of all the campus buildings, their nicknames, and the geography of the town.

It was somewhat disillusioning for a wide-eyed freshman, importantly taking his female parent on a sight-seeing tour of an institution which he was sure would overwhelm her with its unique traditions and maze of modern complexities, to discover that she knew more about his university than he did.

The home economics building? The “Home Ec” building certainly was one of the most modern in the country, Mother would agree. And it would develop that she had made a speech in the building last year, and had been on the program the year before when they dedicated it.

The stadium? “Old Horseshoe” was mighty impressive, she would nod. Under cross-questioning, she might point out that she had received an honorary degree in ceremonies in the stadium a few years before.

We chose our own colleges, but in most cases Mother had preceded us in the commencement parade.

She had degrees from a dozen or more institutions, including Michigan, where Anne, Frank and Jane were graduated; Smith, Ernestine and Lillian; Rutgers, the male half of Martha’s college, New Jersey State College for Women; Purdue, Bill; and Brown, Fred.

To finish calling the roll, Dan received his diploma from the University of Pennsylvania, Jack from Princeton, and Bob from the University of North Carolina.

Mother never sent tuition checks directly to our colleges. At the start of each year she’d turn over to us, in one lump sum, enough money for our tuition and all other expenses. When you took out your own checkbook and paid the college registrar your tuition, you realized you were supposed to get something for your money. All of us did all right in college.

Mother spoke most often at Purdue, in West Lafayette, Indiana, where Bill was enrolled. Purdue was opening a motion study laboratory, and Mother was going to become a professor of management there. She intended to take the new job in addition to all her old ones, and to commute from Montclair to the campus once a month, for a week or so of teaching.

On one occasion when Mother was at Purdue, she was asked unexpectedly to speak before a large lecture class in which Bill was enrolled. Bill didn’t know about the invitation. It was an eight o’clock class, and he picked that particular morning to oversleep.

Bill’s professor told the students they were fortunate in having a distinguished engineer in their midst. She was Dr. Lillian Gilbreth, and it was gratifying to him that one of Dr. Gilbreth’s sons was a member of that very class, and doubtless intended some day to follow in his mother’s footsteps.

He cleared his throat and started to call the roll. All the way from the “A’s” down to the “G’s,” Mother’s eyes roved the auditorium, searching for Bill. She was sitting on a platform, in a chair next to the professor’s table.

“Gibbes,” said the professor.

“Here.”

“Gilbert.”

“Here.”

“Gilbreth.”

There was an awkward pause, while Mother blushed and stopped searching. The professor looked up, cleared his throat again, this time with disapproval, and repeated loudly, “Gilbreth?”

A number of Bill’s friends sensed the situation simultaneously, and thought they had better come to the rescue.

“Here,” a dozen voices answered from all corners of the room.

The professor put down his roll book and looked bleakly at Mother. He didn’t say so, but she gathered the look was intended to convey that he had to put up with a great deal, not the least of which was having Bill as a student.

He glared at his audience, seeking to find the offenders who had answered to Bill’s name.

“There seems to be,” he said sarcastically, “a good many Gilbreths here today.”

“The whole family,” Mother announced brightly, regaining her poise and favoring him with her warmest smile. “That’s nice.”

The professor, who hadn’t seen as much of Bill that semester as he thought he should have, didn’t think it was nice at all. He licked his pencil and made a show of marking a large zero in his grade book, opposite Bill’s name.

“Goldsmith,” he said precisely, continuing the roll.

Bill spent the afternoon and night with Mother, so he didn’t see any members of the class during the remainder of the day. Mother didn’t mention to him that she had spoken to his group, or that she knew he had cut the class. She thought he was old enough to make his own decisions, and that it wouldn’t give him a sense of responsibility if she seemed to be checking up on him.

She did spend a good deal of time, though, telling him how she was studying the motions of physically disabled persons, so as to help them find jobs in industry. Bill was interested, and he and Mother looked over her notes and her photographs and diagrams of the project.

Bill was a little late, but present, for the lecture class the next morning. He slid into his seat just as the professor finished calling the “C’s” in the roll book, and he was well settled by the time the professor reached the “G’s” and finally Bill’s name.

When the professor had run through the list, he told the class he was going to give a written quiz.

“I’m sure all of you must have learned a great deal from our visitor of yesterday,” he said. “So today I’m going to ask you to write a little summary giving the high points of the talk.”

Bill squirmed uncomfortably, and wished he had cut class again. He nudged the boy sitting next to him.

“Who,” Bill asked out of the corner of his mouth, “did the old fool drag over here yesterday?”

“Are you kidding?”

“No, I wasn’t here yesterday. I overslept.”

“You overslept,” the boy mimicked. “It was your own mother, you stupid jackass.”

“Awk,” Bill grunted, sinking down in his chair and wishing he could continue through the floor.

Everyone else in the room was writing. You could hear the pens scratching and papers rustling as pages were turned. Bill hoped no one would notice that he alone was sitting there doing nothing.

He nudged his neighbor again.

“Would you mind telling this stupid jackass,” Bill apologized, “what my mother talked about?”

“Motion study of the disabled.”

“Thanks,” Bill grinned. He started writing, too.

20.
Pygmalion

A
LMOST EVERY YEAR THERE
was a graduation from high school, a graduation from college, and a wedding. By the middle 1930s, all us through Lillian were married and had homes of our own. Most of the married ones had children.

Fred and Dan were in college, Jack and Bob were in high school, and Jane was about to enter the tenth grade—the first year of high school under the system then standard in Montclair.

There was a New Deal in the country, and a New Deal at our house, where Jack was in charge when Mother was away.

The New Deal at home was brought about principally by Tom’s absence. He was in a hospital, suffering from a heart ailment, and the warmth and excitement had evaporated from the kitchen. All rules about feeding and playing with Sixteen, his current cat, and about keeping out of the kitchen, except on Tom’s special invitation, had been suspended.

An energetic colored woman now did the cooking, and as much of the housework and dishes as Mother would allow.

Mother always has been convinced that anyone who works for her is terribly imposed upon. So much so that sometimes it is difficult to tell who is working for whom.

As a result, it was a race between Mother and the energetic maid to see who could make the beds first and sweep the upstairs in the mornings. Since both were early risers, the race often ended in a dead heat, with Mother handling one side, and the maid the other, of a bed that was still warm.

“You have enough to do without making the beds,” Mother would say when the maid urged her to sit down and relax for a few minutes. “This leaning over is just what I need. I like to get a little exercise before I leave for the city.”

At supper time, Mother would whisk away a dish as soon as one of the children had taken his last mouthful, and carry it out to the butler’s pantry to wash and dry it, while the maid was finishing her meal in the kitchen. When the child would go to put his fork down, there wouldn’t be any place to put it except the table cloth, so he’d have to hold it in his hand until Mother came back.

“The maid may want to go to a movie or something,” Mother would explain, while she collected the silverware. Between the colored woman and Mother, the children were relieved of all the chores that the rest of us had had to do in the past.

Now that there were no young children in the house, there was no need for a system under which each child was responsible for a younger one, or for the process charts in the bathrooms. The German and French language records had worn out or been broken, and Mother never replaced them.

When the married members of the family dropped in to visit, they didn’t hesitate to tell Mother that they never had had things that easy when they were growing up, and that the three youngest ones were being spoiled.

But Mother, bouncing a grandchild on her knee and playing peekaboo, would reply that she wasn’t sure this little fellow was being raised just right, either. He had on too many clothes, for one thing, and she didn’t think she liked his color. Those new formulas might be all right, but …

We knew it was an act, because Mother herself always laughed at meddling grandmothers, and she really believed that the new formulas were resulting in bigger, stronger babies. But she managed to get across her point.

We began to suspect, while watching how Mother was raising her three youngest, that she never had entirely approved of many of Dad’s systems of regimentation. Some of them had been necessary because the family was so large. Perhaps she had allowed the others to remain in effect, until they stopped of their own accord, because she didn’t want to overrule Dad.

Mother seemed, if possible, to grow closer than ever to her three youngest children. But we thought the house must seem empty of children to her. She was bound to realize that Jane would be away at college in a little more than three years, and that after that there would be no one left at home.

We wondered what she’d do in the big, drafty house that held so many memories. She couldn’t stay there by herself, of course. Yet we felt sure she’d never be willing to sell it. And she had said repeatedly that she wouldn’t live in anyone else’s home—even the home of one of her children.

Frankly, we were worried about Mother.

THE FOUR YOUNGEST BOYS
wanted to be sure Jane would be a social success when she entered high school. The last of the Gilbreths, they thought, should set a record for popularity that would stand at least until the grandchildren came along.

The bobby sox era was making its debut, after a decade of formal afternoon dresses, spike-heels and kinky permanent waves. The hepcat and the square were about to take their places at opposite ends of the terpsichorean scale, and it was possible to cut a rug without having either carpet or scissors.

The boys wanted to be sure that Jane was among the first on the bandwagon.

In many respects, Jane was Martha all over again. She was tall for her age, didn’t realize she had developed a figure, and was content to wear Lillian’s hand-me-down dresses and shoes. Also she had a habit of flopping untidily into chairs and spreading her knees as wide as a chestnut tree.

But she was beginning to be interested in boys, and she listened willingly to the suggestions of Fred, Dan, Jack and Bob.

Fred and Dan, who as college men spoke with some authority, were the first to start grooming Jane for high school. During the summer, they began telling her what sort of clothes she should buy for her fall wardrobe.

“Those things you wear are all out of date,” Fred said. “Only sad apples wear them any more. You want to get saddle shoes, sweaters and skirts, and those socks that just come to your ankles.”

“I’m not going to dress like a little girl,” Jane complained. “I can dress up more than that when I go to high school, can’t I, Mother?”

“The boys usually know what they’re talking about,” Mother said doubtfully.

“Lillian has a silk dress she said I can have, and I thought I’d get some others like that,” Jane pouted.

“You listen to what we’re telling you,” Dan ordered. “Those silk dresses are out. The college girls are wearing what Fred says, and you want to be one of the first in high school to dress that way.”

“The first impression you make in high school decides whether you’re popular,” Jack agreed. “The boys from the upper classes come down by the front door and give the new girls the once-over.”

Jane also was to let her blonde hair grow and fix it page-boy. She was to stop that business of flopping into chairs as if she were playing a game of statues, and she wasn’t to use any make up except lipstick.

Fred studied her face critically.

“Dark red lipstick,” he said. “That’s the color for you. Right, Dan?”

“Dark red,” Dan agreed. “Not too much of it.”