The Boston Girl (22 page)

I still miss him like crazy.

Your grandfather and I went to New Mexico twice. The first time was when the girls were twelve and fourteen. It was our first big family trip.

We went horseback riding and hiking, and Filomena took us to the Pueblo village where her teacher lived. Virginia was pretty frail by then, but she lit up when she saw Filomena. We were all invited inside to eat.

One night, Filomena kept the girls at her place for a sleepover. They camped outside and she woke them up in the middle of the night to watch a meteor shower. Your mother and your aunt Sylvia didn’t stop talking about it all the way back on the train.

Aaron and I made a second trip when the girls were in college. It was just the two of us that time. We got a sleeper car and drank wine in the dining car. It was like a second honeymoon.

We stayed with Filomena, who was living in a big house with her husband. I bet you weren’t expecting that. She got married when she was almost sixty and always said she was more surprised than anyone.

Saul Cohen was an art collector from Philadelphia who fell in love with Filomena’s pottery on a visit to Taos and bought everything she had to sell. Four weeks after they met, I got a telegram that started “Sit down.” It’s in the box with all her postcards.

They lived in Taos most of the year but Saul came back East a lot to see his children and grandchildren. Filomena came with him, so I got to see her pretty often. She was here for Miss Green’s funeral and for the fiftieth reunion of all the Saturday Club girls.

When Aaron died, she flew from New Mexico for the funeral and stayed with me for a whole month.

I still miss him like crazy. You should only have my luck in that department. Not that he was perfect. Your grandpa snored like a buzz saw and I never saw him eat a piece of fresh fruit. How can you not like apples or watermelon or even raspberries? It drove me nuts and I’m sure I drove him nuts hocking him about it.

As he got older, Aaron got set in his ways about a lot of things. He hated television—wouldn’t even watch PBS with me. To him, all popular music written after 1945 was garbage, and he thought I was only pretending to like the Beatles so my students would think I was cool.

But he did like trying new things: bread baking, guitar lessons, fishing. When we started renting the cottage in Gloucester, he read everything he could find about Cape Ann and asked the old Sicilians at the coffee shop on Main Street for stories. They adopted him and taught him how to swear in Italian and drink sambuca.

But after he found out that they were going to vote for Ronald Reagan, he took his newspaper to Dunkin’ Donuts and never talked to them again. He hated Reagan. I always thought that election had something to do with his getting sick.

—

Your grandfather was a peach. If he’d been at my birthday party, he would have made a speech so schmaltzy there wouldn’t have been a dry eye in the house. It’s a shame he wasn’t there, but it’s worse that he missed being at your sister’s wedding and at your graduation from Harvard. He would have been so proud. Harvard.

Like I said, I miss him like crazy. But life goes on.

| 
1985
 |

Now there’s something to look forward to.

My birthday party was wonderful, wasn’t it? So many people: the family, colleagues from Simmons and B.U., my graduate students, and my friends. Irene turns eighty-five next month, and Gussie with her walker but still going strong. Of course, I thought about everyone who wasn’t there, too: Miss Chevalier, Helen, Katherine, Betty and her Herman.

Filomena felt bad that she couldn’t make it, but her hip didn’t heal fast enough for her to travel. I’m thinking about flying out to see her. Don’t tell your mother, okay? She worries about me taking trips alone. Of course, I’d much rather be going with your grandfather.

But maybe you’d like to come with me? It’s such a beautiful part of the country and you’ve never been. You’re not going to have time for a real vacation once school starts and it would be my treat. Just you and me. As much as your Brian loves me, he’s not going to want to go on vacation with his grandmother-in-law.
If
you get married, that is.

Oh no. Maybe I am becoming a yenta after all!

But think about it anyway.

—

It was a little uncomfortable, all those birthday speeches about what an amazing human being I am. But hearing your mother and aunt say how lucky they are to have me as their mother? That’s a level of naches everyone should know.

Still, I have to tell you, it was a little like being at my own funeral. Which reminds me, I want you to make sure there is just as much joking and laughing when I die. You were the funniest of all: I can’t believe you told them that we smoked pot on my eightieth birthday.

Maybe you’ll put that in when you do the eulogy. And please,
you
do it. It would be too hard for your mother or your aunt, and it’s always so moving when a grandchild speaks.

Don’t look at me that way. I’m fine. The doctor said she only hopes she’s as healthy as me when she’s eighty-five. And anyway, there is no way I’m dying before I get to hear someone call you Rabbi Ava Miller.

I keep trying to imagine what my father would say about his great-granddaughter becoming a rabbi. I think his head would explode.

Rabbinical school is five years, right? So I’ll be ninety when you graduate. Oh, excuse me, when you’re
ordained
.

Now there’s something to look forward to.

Acknowledgments

Grateful thanks to the staff of the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University, who rearranged their schedule to catalog more than fifty boxes of papers related to Rockport Lodge for my use: Susan Earle, Kathryn Allamong Jacob, and Sarah M. Hutcheon.

Thanks for their generous assistance to Bridget Carr, Boston Symphony Orchestra; Katherine Devine, Boston Public Library; Susan Herron, Sandy Bay Historical Society; Jane Matlaw, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; Maureen Melton, Museum of Fine Arts Boston; Ethel Shepard, Crittenton Women’s Union; Ellen Smith, Brandeis University; Donna Webber, Simmons College.

Chris Czernik, Rosalyn Kramer, Deb Theodore, and Pattie Chase shared memories of Rockport Lodge. Dexter Blumenthal and Joe Mueller provided early research assistance. Thanks to Ellyn Harmon, Amy Fleming, Joyce Friedman, and Marilyn Okonow for their support and suggestions, and to Denise Finard, Ben Loeterman, Harry Marten, Nancy Schön, Sondra Stein, Jonathan Strong, and Ande Zellman for being there when I needed you.

Thanks to Amanda Urban at ICM and the Scribner team, Roz Lippel, Susan Moldow, and Nan Graham: I so appreciate your belief in me.

My longtime, wise, and gentle writing group partners, Amy Hoffman and Stephen McCauley, were on this long march with me every step. Janet Buchwald provided fresh eyes when they were sorely needed.

My family endured more than the usual mishegas from me. Thanks to my mother, Helene Diamant, brother Harry Diamant, daughter Emilia Diamant, and especially my husband, Jim Ball, who bore the brunt and never lost faith.

Bob Wyatt talked me off the ledge half a dozen times. Without his help, you wouldn’t be holding this book in your hands.

Addie Baum is born in Boston in 1900 to immigrant Jewish parents who live very modest lives. She is the youngest of three daughters and the only one born in the United States. Her father and sister Celia work in factories; Addie’s mother opposes worldly American values; and her eldest sister, Betty, lives independently and works in a downtown department store. Growing up in the North End is challenging for Addie. She longs for a high school and college education. When a local library club gives her the chance to learn and spend a week at the summer inn Rockport Lodge, Addie encounters a diverse group of girls united by their ambitions to be free young women. The friendships she forges at Rockport Lodge last a lifetime and help her through many difficult periods. As Addie grows into adulthood, she discovers the cruelty of illness and the untoward intentions of young men alongside the excitement of social changes taking place in America and new professional opportunities available to women.

1. Early on it is clear that Addie has a rebellious streak, joining the library group and running away to Rockport Lodge. Is Addie right to disobey her parents? Where does she get her courage?

2. Addie’s mother refuses to see Celia’s death as anything but an accident, and Addie comments that “
whenever I heard my mother’s version of what happened, I felt sick to my stomach
.” Did Celia commit suicide? How might the guilt that Addie feels differ from the guilt her mother feels?

3. When Addie tries on pants for the first time, she feels emotionally as well as physically liberated, and confesses that she would like to go to college (
page 108
). How does the social significance of clothing and hairstyle differ for Addie, Gussie, and Filomena in the book?

4. Diamant fills her narrative with a number of historical events and figures, from the psychological effects of World War I and the pandemic outbreak of influenza in 1918 to child labor laws to the cultural impact of Betty Friedan. How do real-life people and events affect how we read Addie’s fictional story?

5. Gussie is one of the most forward-thinking characters in the novel; however, despite her law degree she has trouble finding a job as an attorney because “
no one would hire a lady lawyer
.” What other limitations do Addie and her friends face in the workforce? What limitations do women and minorities face today?

6. After distancing herself from Ernie when he suffers a nervous episode brought on by combat stress, Addie sees a community of war veterans come forward to assist him (
page 155
). What does the remorse that Addie later feels suggest about the challenges American soldiers face as they reintegrate into society? Do you think soldiers today face similar challenges?

7. Addie notices that the Rockport locals seem related to one another, and the cook Mrs. Morse confides in her sister that, although she is usually suspicious of immigrant boarders, “
some of them are nicer than Americans
.” How does tolerance of the immigrant population vary between city and town in the novel? For whom might Mrs. Morse reserve the term
Americans?

8. Addie is initially drawn to Tessa Thorndike because she is a Boston Brahmin who isn’t afraid to poke fun at her own class on the women’s page of the newspaper. What strengths and weaknesses does Tessa’s character represent for educated women of the time? How does Addie’s description of Tessa bring her reliability into question?

9. Addie’s parents frequently admonish her for being ungrateful, but Addie feels she has earned her freedom to move into a boardinghouse when her parents move to Roxbury, in part because she contributed to the family income (
page 185
). How does the Baum family’s move to Roxbury show the ways Betty and Addie think differently from their parents about household roles? Why does their father take such offense at Herman Levine’s offer to house the family?

10. The last meaningful conversation between Addie and her mother turns out to be an apology her mother meant for Celia, and for a moment during her mother’s funeral Addie thinks, “
She won’t be able to make me feel like there’s something wrong with me anymore
.” Does Addie find any closure from her mother’s death?

11. Filomena draws a distinction between love and marriage when she spends time catching up with Addie before her wedding, but Addie disagrees with the assertion that “
you only get one great love in a lifetime
.” In what ways do the different romantic experiences of each woman inform the ideas each has about love?

12. Filomena and Addie share a deep friendship. Addie tells Ada that “
sometimes friends grow apart. . . . But sometimes, it doesn’t matter how far apart you live or how little you talk—it’s still there
.” What qualities do you think friends must share in order to have that kind of connection? Discuss your relationship with a best friend.

1. Want to see what all the fuss was about? Read some of Margaret Sanger’s works, such as
What Every Mother Should Know
from 1911 and
What Every Girl Should Know
from 1916, and discuss their impact.

2. Filomena’s pottery instructor, Miss Green, is said to work in the Arts and Crafts style of William Morris. Check out the William Morris Society online at
www.morrissociety.org
to explore this style in book design and furniture as well as in the decorative arts. With that inspiration in mind, try a class at a local pottery.

3. Rockport Lodge was a real place, a three-story white clapboard farmhouse in Rockport, Massachusetts, founded in the early 1900s to provide inexpensive chaperoned holidays to girls of modest means. Diamant visited Rockport Lodge and consulted the Rockport Lodge archives at the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America to research the book. Take a look at the Schlesinger archives online,
www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library
, for more on the American experience for women, and share some of your findings.

Mark Ostow

Anita Diamant is the bestselling author of the novels
The Red Tent, Good Harbor,
The Last Days of Dogtown
, and
Day After Night
, and the collection of essays,
Pitching My Tent.
An award-winning journalist whose work appeared in
The Boston Globe Magazine
and
Parenting,
she is the author of six nonfiction guides to contemporary Jewish life. She lives in Massachusetts. Visit her website at AnitaDiamant.com.