Wrapped in the Flag (4 page)

I was not invited into the chats, but I picked up on words and phrases that I later understood as right-wing buzzwords. It seemed to me, at the time, that everyone was talking about tyranny, brainwashing in schools, Communists and socialists, Jews and money, Negro problems, gun rights, and taxes. Sometimes I wanted to put my hands over my ears, but I was a Conner girl and I’d never be rude in front of adults.

Around nine, the grown-ups staggered out for dinner at the Gloucester House, leaving behind dirty glasses and smelly cigarette butts. It took the kids, under Ollie’s direction, a couple of hours to set the place to rights. Cleanup was our favorite part of the whole operation. When Ollie wasn’t looking, we ate the leftover crackers and cheese while sipping dregs from the cocktails. Once, my brother lit one of the half-smoked cigarettes and handed it to me. One puff was enough—I swore off Lucky Strikes.

The next morning, Harry and my parents dissected the evening. Before long, the same words were flying around the breakfast table. My mother jumped on the brainwashing in schools while my father embraced the Communist, socialist lines. Uncle Harry made a bouillabaisse of Negroes, guns, and Jews with a dash of taxes on top.

For whatever reason, these conversations usually degenerated into arguments. The minute voices were raised, I ducked out the back door to the yard where a big, wet, lovable red flash greeted me with licks and drool. While I scratched the Irish setter’s ears, I mulled the ruckus in the kitchen. “They’re yelling, again,” I told the dog. Pal looked at me and tilted his head. “Good boy,” I said as I hugged him. “Let’s play catch.”

In August of 1956, rainy weather trapped us kids in the house for a string of long days. We were all getting restless.

One afternoon, I heard Aunt Nellie, Uncle Harry’s sister, on the steps. “Hello,” she called. She poked her head in. “How about a movie?”

Nellie volunteered to take us to town, as long as our parents agreed. Before I knew it, I was the spokesperson. “No one will say no to you,” my brother said.

I asked my father. “If it’s okay with your mother, it’s fine with me,” he said.

I asked my mother. She agreed it was fine, as long as the Captain agreed. “It’s your uncle’s house and you’re taking his children. You have to ask him.”

I found my uncle in the kitchen, under the Captain’s Word notice. Without any preliminaries, I asked if we could ride into town with Aunt Nellie to see the afternoon matinee. Harry put his coffee cup down and asked, “What’s the movie?”

“It’s
Black Beauty
,” I said. “I loved the book so much. Black Beauty is a horse who tells his life story.”

Harry jumped out of his chair. His face turned red, and he raised his hand, to me, his favorite niece. I stepped back. “I know about the goddamn story and its goddamn horse,” he screamed. “You are not taking my children to a Commie movie made by a Commie kike director. Get out of my sight.”
²
Uncle Harry’s bellowing followed me up the stairs. I fell down on my bed and pulled the pillow over my ears. When I stopped shaking, I imagined Black Beauty kicking Uncle Harry’s backside. That was before I knew the word ass.

When I came downstairs for dinner, my father said nothing. My mother said nothing. My Aunt Ever said nothing. Nellie, who had floated the movie plan in the first place, said nothing. I knew they’d heard the uproar; everyone in the house had. Heck, anyone on Eastern Point could have heard it.

Just before I fell asleep, Aunt Ever leaned over and kissed my check. “He can be gruff, but he’s a good man,” she told me.

“It was about a horse,” I said. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Honey,” she answered, “you have to trust your uncle. He knows the Reds have taken over Hollywood. They use movies like
Black Beauty
to brainwash little children.”

“I hate it when he yells,” I said.

“I know, but he’s trying to protect you from bad men.”

My aunt did not explain that uncovering and naming Reds in the entertainment industry had become a right-wing obsession. One popular pamphlet,
Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influences in Radio and Television
, contained a list of 151 persons linked with a variety of “Communist causes.” Called “the Bible of Madison Avenue,”
Red Channels
held sway in hiring and firing decisions. Political screening and loyalty oaths became the norm in
movies and theatre, and the blacklisting of actors, screenwriters, and directors continued until the late 1960s.
³

I never found proof that the director of
Black Beauty
, Max Nossek, was named in any of the investigations, but he did leave the country in 1950 and return to his native Germany. Uncle Harry was correct about one fact: Max Nossek was Jewish.

It would be many years before I understood what Pulitzer Prize–winning author David Halberstam said of the ’50s: “It was a mean time. The nation was ready for witch-hunts.”
⁴

Shortly after the
Black Beauty
uproar, my aunt and uncle hosted the last soiree of the season—a farewell event for my parents. Among the guests was a man new to the Curtis parties, a retired candy manufacturer from the Boston suburb of Belmont who was summering just down the road. My parents were so drawn to this man that they spent the entire evening talking with him. The next morning, Dad announced that our trip home would be delayed a few days so that he and my mother could spend time with their new friend at his Belmont home.

That was the very first time I heard the name: Robert Welch.

Welch had made his fortune in the candy business and, since his retirement, had become a fierce anti-Communist. From their first meeting, my father was devoted to Welch. “Bob is the most brilliant man I’ve ever met,” he said.

Mother was equally enthralled. “Bob understands everything that’s happening.”

In a short time, it became apparent that my parents were willing to go wherever Bob Welch led. More than once, my father said, “I’d follow Bob to the depths of hell.”

For years, my father’s unbreakable bond with Robert Welch puzzled me. Dad was a loyal man, for sure, but this intensity had a mysterious quality to it. Five years after my father met him, the first pieces of the puzzle fell into place for me. I learned, quite by accident, that Welch had entrusted to my father a copy of a book Welch had written in which he named Dwight Eisenhower, the president of the United States, as a Communist. This secret book, which my father hid somewhere in our home or his office, ultimately cost my dad his reputation, most of his friends, and a large part of his business.
⁵

Uncle Harry did not share my parents’ enthusiasm for Welch. Over the years, Harry became downright hostile about the man my parents so admired. More than once, I heard my uncle shout, “Robert Welch, ha! That man is too goddamn
liberal
for my taste.”

Franco is undeniably one of the great villains of Spanish history. His fascist forces not only plunged Spain into Civil War from 1936–39, but resulted in a harsh and violent dictatorship that lasted until his death in 1975. When he died, it was allegedly impossible to buy a bottle of champagne in Spain: They were all sold out
.

—H
ELENE
Z
UBER
¹

Early in January of 1957, I awakened in the middle of the night. After a few minutes of staring at the ceiling, I crawled out of bed. I crossed the hall and heard something in the kitchen. I turned and saw my mother, silhouetted against the pale wallpaper. She braced one hand on the back of a chair; the other she held to her mouth. A pale stream of light touched her face. She was crying. I knew this was none of my business, but I couldn’t look away.

Slowly, she turned her head toward me. Neither one of us spoke.

The next day, Mother called me into her room. “I have something to tell you, Claire,” she said. “Our family is growing. As the eldest girl, I expect your help.”

I tried to hug her, but she pushed me away. “Go do your chores and check on your little brother.”

At the door, I turned. “I saw you crying last night. I’m sorry.”

“What are you talking about, young lady?” she said. “I was not crying, not at all.” Her eyes looked tired. She clenched a tissue in her hand. “Off with you. I’m going to take a short nap.”

Mother stretched out on the bed still wearing her brown leather pumps. Without a word, I walked to her, slipped off her shoes, and covered her with a corner of the bedspread. I bent over and kissed her cheek. “It’ll be all right,” I whispered. She turned away.

As tough as the next months had to be for her, no one could tell. From all appearances, my forty-four-year-old mother breezed through her fifth
pregnancy. She went so far as to deny even a twinge of a labor pain. “I slept through the whole thing,” she said. Many years later, I learned that Mother had also suffered three miscarriages, making this her eighth pregnancy.

The baby was over a week old when Mother came home from the hospital. Jay R., Janet, Larry, and I got a brief glance at our new sister, Mary Elizabeth, before Mother dashed off to the bedroom. “We have to rest now,” she explained.

Several days later, I interrupted my mother rocking the baby. Mother quickly covered herself but not before I realized Mary was sucking on a breast. “I’m feeding her,” Mother explained. “It’s better for the baby.”

I didn’t understand, but I was too embarrassed to ask what she meant. I closed the door and went back to my book.

I know how crazy this must sound now, but in 1957, when I was eleven, I’d never seen a woman nursing a baby. I was only seven when my brother Larry was born, and though I loved him to pieces, I never thought about how he got his food. The idea that his milk came from inside Mother’s body was beyond my imagination. And, believe it or not, as little as I knew about feeding babies, I knew even less about how babies came to be. In the next few years, some of those blanks were filled in, not always accurately, by my girlfriends.

When I’m tempted to castigate my mother for leaving me in the dark about babies and sex, I remind myself that she was born in 1913, only twelve years after the death of England’s Queen Victoria. Mother, a cradle Catholic, embraced all the teachings of “Holy Mother Church,” including a strong emphasis on purity. I remember her teaching me that the greatest gift I could give my husband on my wedding day was my chastity.
²

Talking about sex or, horrors, about birth control was an “occasion of sin,” an “external circumstance that enticed or encouraged immoral action.”
³
My mother would never put my soul or hers at risk talking about sexual matters.

Mother bore that unplanned pregnancy as she bore every trial she faced in her life. “I offer it all up,” she always said, “for the forgiveness of sins and the redemption of souls.” Laurene Conner was first and always a staunch daughter of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. No emotion, no fear, no sorrow would deter her from her responsibility to Jesus Christ and his Church.