Is it true that we understand ourselves better by working hard at understanding others?
That’s true in certain spots for me as I wrote this essay about my mother.
It was August, 1952, I was seven, and my family had just moved from Huntington Park, in southeastern Los Angeles to Long Beach, California, about 18 miles away.
Huntington Park was a white working class neighborhood with a strong manufacturing base. It was obvious to me from early on, my mother didn’t fit the mold of working class. She had divorced my father in 1946, when I was two years old. She owned a white Spanish Mission style home, with a multiple-dwelling apartment house, condominium, and free land behind it. How she was able to obtain so much real estate I’m not sure, other than telling me when I was older that she asked for no child support or alimony in the break up with my father. She was 36 years old at the time of the divorce.
I was about four years old when I realized my mother was different from others on the manor. She was the owner, they were the renters. Her wavy red hair (though she was a natural blond) didn’t quite reach her shoulder line. She was a fashionable dresser compared to others around her. She wore beautiful flared slacks, suits, vests, and blouses. She also wore shorts, halter tops, and hair scarfs. She was 5’7”, but appeared taller. Her legs were slender; her skin was a creamy color which tanned to a golden hue during the summer; her upper torso was shapely.
I can remember thinking when I was very young that she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was a second generation Dane, and had the traditional Danish qualities of friendliness and straightforwardness.
Being the youngest of twelve children, in her early twenties, she made her way to Los Angeles at the height of the Great Depression from rural Utah. She secured jobs as a secretary, because she knew shorthand and could type. She made a good wage, and traveled frequently: Hawaii was one of her favorite spots – so much for the poverty of the Depression.
From 23 to 28 years of age she was single and enjoyed her lifestyle. For her it was a modified version of the roaring twenties, except it was the Depression ridden thirties.
The bridge of her nose was straight, her complexion was, as I said before, a creamy color. Her eyebrows were shaped to have a thin straight arch to them. She had nice pearl colored teeth. Her eyes were aqua blue. She didn’t wear a lot of makeup, but enough to draw out an attractive quality. Scandinavians have a natural look to them without appearing Hollywood-like. That was my mother. She had an attractive, unpretentious air about herself. However, before I was born she worked to have a Carol Lombard look. At least that’s how it struck me as I occasionally thumbed through her scrap books.
None of her clothes were dark, not even her suits. They were light blues, pale greens, beiges. Her shoes were stylish no matter what decade she lived in. All this went well with her Scandinavian complexion.
Until I was four, it was just my mother and me. I wanted a dad, so she produced one. My stepfather was eleven years younger than my mother. That speaks volumes – just what a twenty six year old WW2 navy veteran might be attracted to: a single 38 year old woman who had money, made her living off of her real estate, was physically appealing, and invited friends and their friends into her home for parties. The liquor flowed.
My mother was thirty four years old when she had me. She was twenty eight when she married my biological father. That was late for a woman in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. I have always wondered why. Did she enjoy living it up? And how was it she had accumulated all those material possessions during the Great Depression? My guess is my father made a sizable salary as supervisor over 500 workers at the Studebaker plant near their home. He was a dapper dresser, and with my mother, must have purchased all that property. When they divorced, he probably thought that giving her the real estate in return for keeping all his salary was a good trade off. It wasn’t to be. Six years later, in 1952, my mother sold her properties for a boatload of cash, and moved to a beach community; while my father lost his job, was an alcoholic, and died at age 48. I vaguely remember seeing my father in the hospital. That was it. At age 36 my mother was shrewd in seeing the long game economically. She was never without money.
She had a complex mixture of personality qualities. She didn’t brag about herself. She didn’t have to be the center of attention. I can’t remember ever being spanked by her. She played the piano. She sang alto in the church choir. There were people who asked to borrow money from her. She was diplomatic about saying no.
She had strong opinions on certain subjects. She was a staunch Democrat, and next to Lincoln, she thought that Franklin Roosevelt was the greatest president in history. She had a blunt quality to her that way.
My stepfather and I learned that my mother had a flash of temper if you mentioned a subject that set her off. Best you step away until she cooled off.
As I think about it, I’m not so sure she was happy selling her property and moving into a tract home, even though Long Beach was a beach city. I think she felt a loss of independence as a business owner. She even had a bout of depression once. She had taken a step down in stature in becoming a Stepford wife. She was too free wheeling for that kind of role.
Also, I think she became disappointed with my blue collar stepfather. He was fifteen years younger than my biological father. He didn’t make the money my father did, thus rendering my mother a manager of a small budget.
She broke out of that cycle by purchasing another apartment complex, which she eventually sold. She had a pool installed, drove nothing but Cadillacs, and ended up building on to our home. She started investing in the stock market and did well in a variety of mutual funds like Keystone S4 in the mid 1950’s.
I think by the 1960’s she started settling down. She wore beautiful sundresses. She was just about to turn fifty, and realized she had done well for herself. She had a reputation, in our small neighborhood community, for being a good business person who managed money well. She started settling into life after that. She enjoyed and even loved my stepfather, who by this time had become a successful government inspector of ordinance (big weapons) on naval warships.
She went back to her natural blond hair. Up until she passed away at age 57 in 1968 from lymphatic cancer, she maintained that healthy Danish look.
And what did I learn about myself in writing about her? Some interesting things, but I’ve run out of space. Maybe next time . . . .