The Astronaut Wives Club: A True Story (31 page)

“That’s wonderful,” he said in disbelief. Soon after she arrived home, Annie looked around the bedroom and said, “John, I’ve wanted to tell you this for years: Pick up your socks.”

Louise Shepard was at the reunion, but Mother Marge had died in 1989. Her husband Deke’s heart murmur, which had kept him grounded for so long, finally got an override in 1975, clearing him to fly on the first joint U.S.-Soviet space mission, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.

“I enjoyed that nice cozy feeling that for the next nine days I would know exactly where my husband was,” Marge had said at the time. During the flight, her friends surprised her by showing up at her favorite local hangout, the drugstore in Friendswood, Texas, where they celebrated “Marge Slayton Day,” unfurling a banner with a picture of a steaming cup with a smiley face. It said,
MARGE
,
WE
LOVE
YA
!
YOUR
COFFEE
BUDDIES
.

Afterward, she went along with Deke on his hero’s tour to Russia. At a dinner of astronauts and cosmonauts and cosmonauts’ wives, Marge was asked to raise her glass and say a word. She said two: “To love!” The crowd cheered. Not long afterward, she and Deke divorced.

Like many of the wives, Marge just couldn’t take it anymore—the lying, the cheating, and the feeling that her husband had abandoned their home for that “harlot of a town,” the Cape. Chief Astronaut Al and Coordinator of Astronaut Activities Deke had basically given the boys the A-OK to keep a cookie on the side, as long it was understood that the Cape and Togethersville were separate bubble worlds and never the two would meet. As Gene Cernan put it, “The wives stayed in Texas, and Florida was an off-limits playground filled with Cape Cookies.”

After her divorce, Marge’s friends didn’t call so often, especially Louise, her partner in the A.W.C. They’d been so close, but Marge realized that Louise was still trying to maintain her own tenuous marriage. If she discussed Marge’s divorce, she’d just as soon admit that Alan had been running around like Deke. Despite Louise’s iciness on the subject, Marge was happy to share her feelings with other wives who might learn from her experience.

At the reunion, some of these matters were discussed in private rooms. Around the living room, it was obvious who was having a tough time of it. Harriet Eisele was way past tears. She’d cried rivers over the years, coping with issues of child support and making it as a single hardworking mom, although she sometimes still felt ashamed about having the first divorce in the community. The other women convinced her that not only was she a survivor, but she had given others the courage to do what they knew needed to be done.

After her divorce, Harriet rebooted her nursing career, first working at a hospital and then as a beloved school nurse for eighteen years. As she grew more confident at her job, seeing as many as 120 kids a day, she’d ask, “Is something bothering you besides your tummy?” More often than not an upset stomach signaled stress at home. So Harriet went back to school and studied psychology at the University of Houston–Clear Lake, earning a bachelor’s degree in behavioral science and a master’s in marriage and family therapy. When a professor in her women’s studies course asked the class to come up with possible research topics about people under stress, Harriet had a brilliant suggestion: astronauts’ wives. She would’ve liked to add in the astronaut kids, who she thought had also suffered. It was hard having a part-time dad who was considered a hero but who was hardly ever at home.

The astronauts’ wives pointed out that while their day-to-day lives were similar to the lives of other army wives, although more extreme, their problems weren’t all that different from women who are married to celebrities, sports stars, and politicians. While the wives faced the tough task of coping with a volume of stress nearly equal to that of their celebrated spouses, some of their famous husbands just couldn’t manage to keep their pants zipped.

Some blamed NASA for failing to take the wives into consideration, accusing them of “using” the wives and ignoring their needs; others were still very supportive of the agency. After his wife’s rehabilitation, Frank Borman publicly criticized NASA for not offering counseling and support for the wives. He especially resented any Dr. Feelgood whose remedy for the occasional Astrowife jitters and housewife headache was handing out tranquilizers like Life Savers. He was thankful that Susan had never gotten involved in any of that.

Jane Conrad was “grateful that NASA provided security and opportunity for the family to go to Mission Control, to have squawk boxes in our houses, give us trips and rides in the NASA Gulfstream. I didn’t have any beef with how we were treated.” She added, “Yes, some of us did ask our doctors for a tranquilizer for a limited time, just to handle all the barrage of reporters and the neighbors’ predictions that there would be accidents. It was nerve-wracking and I don’t mind admitting we needed a little help now and then. The phrase ‘pill popping’ today has a more sinister connotation and makes us sound like the
Valley of the Dolls
!”

At the reunion, the wives opened up for the first time and really started sharing together as a group. They realized how much in denial they once were. As Clare Whitfield put it, “We really felt this enormous loyalty to the guys. You just don’t see what you don’t want to see.” The press didn’t help matters. “They tried to make them look like perfect American boys. Well, in most respects they were, but they were human, too, just like the rest of us,” said Betty. She added, “Sometimes a wife is the last one to know.” Clare also observed, “Astronauts get along so well because they don’t talk.” Women, of course, have to talk. Not surprisingly, the wives have remained closer than the men.

At the reunion, a huge amount of pain was expressed and exorcised, and the friendship shared by the wives during their space program days in Houston was rekindled with a deeper intimacy and honesty, and continues today. That night, the women all gathered around in robes and pajamas and slippers, and talked until dawn. Pretty soon they got the giggles and started telling stories and laughing—about the men. Laughter had always buoyed them through the hardest parts of their missions. And it would continue to lift them in the years to come.

Even today, the wives continue to meet regularly for cruises and getaways, space anniversaries and events, and fervently hope that men and women will continue to explore space. They are fiercely patriotic and very protective of one another, and some have now been friends for more than fifty years. Although they once tried to outdo each other in perfection, if one of their own was ever threatened, as when Donn cast aside his wife to marry a Cape Cookie, they shut the hatch on the outside world. Some wear a golden whistle charm around their wrists as a symbol to keep in touch and call and come when needed. Their flower is the yellow rose of Texas and they wear “space bling,” diamond-encrusted gold jewelry featuring their mission numbers and emblems. But the most important things they carry with them are their memories.

During her interview for the book, Marilyn Lovell, with tears in her eyes, spoke for many of the wives when she said, “Those were the best years of my life.”

Beth Williams, the water-skier turned young space widow, pointed out, “These were women who were in the public eye and yet pushed to the background all the time. I just think they never got the credit they deserved. The whole thing ran smoothly because of them.”

Jan Evans, who wears her golden whistle on her charm bracelet, now maintains the astronaut wives’ roster, which she started in 1989 after the death of “our dear Marge Slayton.” Since the wives don’t have officers, don’t pay dues, and don’t hold meetings, they no longer consider themselves a club in the formal sense. The monthly coffees and teas at the Lakewood Yacht Club broke up long ago, soon after the first space divorce, which shook the entire community to its core. Still, the club had been important to the women, and they treasured their memories.

After Marge Slayton read in
The Right Stuff
Tom Wolfe’s take on the Astronaut Wives Club, she threw the book across the room. She’d read: “Marge organized a couple of coffees for all the wives, the First Seven and the New Nine, so they could all get to know each other. By the second time they met, they all realized without a word—no one had to say it—what this was. This was…the Officers Wives Club, such as existed at every base in the land.”

“It wasn’t that way at all,” explained Marge. “We were all finding our way through an experience that was a
first
—that of being astronaut wives and with the husbands away, we felt the need to support each other. So we began monthly coffees. The message was, ‘If you need us, come.’ I needed them so it was natural for me to be there. A few of the wives who arrived later were horrified at the loose structure of the group after coming from military lives. But we were now wives of civilians or military men on duty with NASA and not bound by our husbands’ service rules.” About the widows and divorced wives, she said, “We hugged them to us as tightly and as long as they permitted. We were a lifetime membership.”

At one recent reunion not far from Houston, still “Space City, U.S.A.,” Clare Whitfield played her ukulele and sang a song she’d written for the astronaut wives about their past adventures being married to spacemen, and how they’ve moved on, together.

I won’t be here to interrupt ya,

I won’t be here to contradict ya,

I won’t be here to steal your thunder,

You can be Macho Man on your own!

The others joined in on the chorus:

Oh, you can be right about the universe,

You can be right on your own!

Acknowledgments

I still find it amazing that there is more computing power in my iPhone than in the technology that took the astronauts to the Moon. More than that, I am astounded that this incredible group of women has never been written about before. When I asked Jo Schirra how that could be possible with authors like Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer coming through their homes and interviewing their husbands, she said, “We’d go hide!”

When I called Rene about the book, she advised, “There will be many times when it will just seem impossible.”

Betty asked, “You want to talk about naughty astronauts?” To this day, she remains unresolved about Gus’s death and is in a tug-of-war with NASA over the ownership of his silver space suit. “One way or another,” she said, contemplating the Moon, “I still think ole Gus was up there first.”

The remarkable Annie Glenn turned ninety in 2010 after fifty years in the spotlight. She chose not to be interviewed for the book, but her friends shared their memories of her. Jo said, “Annie is really a dream girl. If
she
had run for president, like he did, she would have won.” After serving twenty-four years in the Senate, and running for president in 1984, seventy-seven-year-old John lifted off for his second spaceflight, on space shuttle
Discovery
’s mission in 1998. He became the oldest person to go into space to study the effects of spaceflight on golden-agers. Annie didn’t want to let him “go up” again (“Over my dead body” were her words), but she relented and did their old “chewing gum” routine.

The book came into being thanks to all of the wives for telling their stories. Thanks to Jo Schirra, Betty Grissom, Rene Carpenter, and Jan Evans. Much heartfelt thanks to Marilyn Lovell and Jane Dreyfus for their warmth, kindness, and girls’ retreat in Texas. Jane wrote a memoir, which she sent to Jackie O when she was a book editor, and got “the most beautiful rejection letter.” The Most Dramatic Storytelling Award goes to Joan Aldrin; Jeannie Robinson for her laughter; Sue Bean for her sweetness and that great fur she wore to our first group dinner in Houston, arriving on the arm of her best friend, Barbara Cernan, to whom I owe a special thanks. She once said, “My name is not going to be in the history books but I know what I did.” Thanks to Martha Chaffee, who is flying free on the Wild Winds Ranch; Pat Collins (who imagined if they ever would “send a woman to the Moon—she would jump up and down and yell and weep”); superhero Harriet Eisele, Clare Whitfield, Beth Williams, and Gratia Lousma. Also Barbara Gordon, Loella Walker, Lurton Ahroon, Dotty Duke, Bernice McCandless, Kathleen Lind, Joan Glancy, Helen Garriott (a scientist-Astrowife and gifted sculptor who back in the day cooked up thousands of Moon Pots), and all of the other wives who were so generous with their time.

Thanks to the astronauts—who thought a book on the wives was a terrific idea, but who may have a hard time being upstaged. Thanks in particular to Jim “Houston, we have a problem” Lovell (who likes to remind people that Apollo 8 is the only crew with marriages that stuck together), Tom Stafford, Alan Bean (who paints with Moon dust), the last man on the Moon Gene Cernan (who thinks “all of these incredible wives should be in the history books”), and Buzz Aldrin for his general flair (and making
Dancing with the Stars
the wives’ favorite show).

Unfortunately, some of the old gang are no longer alive. Louise Shepard died in 1998, five weeks after Alan, up in the air on a commercial airline flight en route back to her home in Carmel, California, after visiting her daughter Laura in Colorado. She died at 5 p.m., the hour Alan used to call her to say, “Hello, I love you, I miss you.” Her and Alan’s ashes were strewn off the seventeenth green, Alan’s favorite, on Pebble Beach’s famous Cypress Point golf course. As the ashes and rose petals fell to the waves below, two seals came up on a rock and kissed. Louise’s girls, to this day, see their parents’ story as a love story.

Mother Marge is also gone, but, like others, was remembered through loving memories and notes she kept about her life and the A.W.C. Today you can sit on a bench the wives dedicated to her in Friendswood. She always wanted to make it to Mount Fuji, and perhaps one day she will, but her beloved son Kent sprinkled some of Marge into the Cape’s Banana River while watching the last shuttle flight,
Atlantis
, take off in 2011.