Authors: Donna Mabry
I read in the paper about the wars in Europe and
Asia. It was horrible, so many being killed. I
remembered the young men coming home from the
last war, with limbs missing and hearts broken. I also
remembered the awful flu they brought home with
them that took my little girl away from me.
I was glad America wasn’t fighting. I gave
thanks that it had nothing to do with me and my family,
and I asked God to bring it to an end and put Hitler out
of business. I didn’t pray for him to die, that wouldn’t
be Christian, but that he would somehow be stopped.
It didn’t seem that my prayers were having much
effect. Every day the news grew worse.
The government put out a lot of orders for goods,
and Gene had no trouble finding work. He was hired
on at a small factory the first day he went looking.
George had met the foreman through John and wrote
Gene a note of recommendation. When the foreman
read that Gene was George’s son, he slapped him on
the back and put him to work. Just like in Missouri,
everyone liked George, and as time went on, I realized
that Gene had inherited his father’s charm. Everyone
seemed to like Gene, too. I was glad that he had his
father’s way with people, but not Bud’s wild streak. I
felt proud he’d inherited my own habit of hard work.
A favorite saying in my family was that the Lord loves
a working man. I often wondered how the Lord felt
about George.
Gene brought home his first week’s pay
envelope, counted out the bills at the kitchen table, and
handed half to me. When I didn’t reach out to take it,
he pressed it in my hand. He said, “I’m a grown man,
Mom, almost twenty years old. I have to pay my own
way.”
I felt my throat close up, and a tear ran down my
cheek. We’d just barely been getting by on George’s
pay and what money came home from Gene’s pay in
the CCC. Some weeks we ate a lot of beans.
“I didn’t expect you to do this,” I said.
“I know you didn’t, but I eat more than anyone,
and I use the lights, and you do my clothes. I’m just
giving you what I owe you. What else am I going to
do with it?”
“Go down to the bank and open a savings
account. Put a little aside every week. You never know
when you’ll need some money.”
“That’s a good idea. I wanted to save up for
something special anyway. I guess the banks will be
all right now. I haven’t heard about one going under
for a long time.”
“What are you saving for, Gene?”
“You’ll see,” he smiled.
He went to the bank the next day. They gave him
a little passbook, and every week he made a deposit.
He liked watching the teller write in the amount, total
it up, and stamp the line in the book.
I thought about the box in the bottom of my
sewing box where I was still saving what money I
could and wondered if I should start my own account.
George wasn’t one to snoop, but Paul was into
everything. What if he found my money and told
George about it? I went to the bank and opened my
own account and hid my passbook inside my Bible.
That was the one place where I could be sure Paul
wouldn’t bother it.
On my fifty-seventh birthday, in 1941, I found
out what he was saving up to buy. No one had made
much of a fuss of my birthday since James died.
Bessie baked me a special cake, and they lit the
candles and everyone sang to me. Maxine gave me a
blue headscarf. Betty Sue used baby-sitting money and
bought me a pretty housecoat. Even Paul made me a
card. George ate two pieces of the cake and gave me a
smile and a wish for a happy day. Then they all looked
at Gene, who smiled at me and nodded his head at
John. They both went out of the house. I didn’t know
if I should be upset or curious.
A minute later, John’s truck backed up the
driveway all the way to the back porch, and he and
Gene lifted off an electric washing machine and
carried it down to the basement.
They put a chair where I could sit and watch
while they hooked it up and gave me a demonstration.
It was amazing. They ran hot water through a hose into
it. It had come with a box of powdered soap. No more
cutting up a bar of Fels-Naptha. They measured out the
soap, poured it in, and added some clothes. When they
turned it on, a shaft in the center of the tub churned
back and forth for a while, then they turned it off, took
the clothes out one at a time and ran them through a
wringer on the top. Gene waggled a finger at me and
warmed me, “Now, you’ve got to be careful when you
do the wringing so you don’t stick your fingers right
through the rollers and mash them all up.”
The clean, wrung-out clothes came out the other
side of the rollers and fell into the wash sink, which
Gene had filled with cold water for the rinse. He
swished them around with his hand and then ran them
back through the wringer. “Ta-da, all ready for the
clothesline.”
Then he showed me how to empty the machine.
It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Bessie
already had one that I was too proud to ask to use. I’d
been secretly looking at the electric washers at Sears
Roebuck. I even thought about spending my little
secret savings if I ever got that much built up, but
didn’t dare dream I might have a washing machine so
soon.
I sat and cried. I’d washed clothes on a
washboard since I was eight years old, sometimes for
six people. I hauled the water from the well to fill the
tubs, and when I was finished, hauled the water out in
the yard to pour on the plants in the garden to kill the
bugs and water the crop. Gene had a tear in his own
eye. I could see that he understood how much this
meant to me.
I gave special thanks for him that night, for the
best son any woman had ever been blessed to have.
I hadn’t been so happy since before James died.
My children were happy. For all his nonsense, Bud
liked being in the army. Gene had a good job, seemed
to have recovered from his fall, and his kidneys gave
him no trouble. Betty Sue loved her friends and was
doing well in school. George and Gene were working
steady and bringing home enough money between
them to pay the bills and buy all the groceries we
needed. I loved my modern home, with running water,
an inside toilet, a gas stove, and now, an electric
washing machine.
The only worries I had were for Paul. He was a
moody boy who refused to go to school and sat and
stared out the window for hours at a time. He didn’t
have a single friend. Whenever I tried to force him to
go to church or to school, George would just tell me to
leave him be, and I mostly did.
Gene worked first shift at his factory, getting up
at five in the morning and coming home at three in the
afternoon, the same time Betty Sue got home from
school. I would make them a snack to tide them over
until supper, and they would sit in the kitchen and talk
about their day. Except for her occasional temper
tantrums that always made me think about her
grandmother, Betty Sue was a happy girl with her own
share of her father’s charm, making friends easily,
excited about school and her lessons.
In the summer of 1941, President Roosevelt brought
back the draft. At the prime age of twenty, Gene hadn’t
been called. I held my breath when the first rounds of
numbers came out. Several of the neighbors’ sons had
to report. The thought of my precious boy going into
the army was awful to me. Bud was already serving,
and I felt that was enough.
I read about the war in Europe every day. The
President was sending all kinds of help to Britain and
he loaned them a billion dollars. I couldn’t even
imagine how much money that was, but they were
supposed to pay it back when the war was over. I loved
President Roosevelt and knew he had to be doing the
right thing. Wasn’t it better to help fight Hitler this way
than to send our boys over there like we did before?
I hoped the money and supplies America sent
overseas would be enough. If Gene had to go away
from home again, I thought, it would upset my whole
life. What I didn’t know then, was that the thing I had
to fear the most wasn’t across the ocean at all.
Gene came home from work one day and sat at
the table while I cut some slices off a ham to make him
a sandwich. Sixteen-year-old Betty Sue came
bouncing into the room, followed by the most
beautiful human being I’d ever seen. She was prettier
than any of the movie stars in those books Betty Sue
was always reading. Betty Sue grabbed the girl’s hand
and pulled her into the kitchen. “Mom, this is my
friend, Evelyn, she’s in my class at school. Evelyn, this
is my mom and my brother Gene.”
“Hi,” the girl said, smiling almost shyly, with her
head down.
“Hello, Evelyn,” I said. “Can I make you
something to eat?”
“No, thank you, Mrs. Foley, I’m fine. I can only
stay for a minute. I have to get home and help my
mother with the other kids.”
I realized I was staring. Evelyn was about fivefeet-four inches tall and large busted for a girl so slim.
She had slightly rounded hips, and a tiny waist. Her
chestnut hair had deep red lights where the sun hit it,
and it curled almost down to her waist in the back. Her
eyes were the deepest blue I’d ever seen, and her
lashes were long and thick. She had an oval face, with
a small, full-lipped mouth and a perfectly shaped nose.
I had to force myself to look away, and when I did, I
saw something that scared me.
Gene stared at Evelyn with a look on his face like
he’d gone into some kind of a trance.
After that, Betty Sue brought Evelyn home with her
once or twice a week, and Gene hung around her like
a puppy. He tried to talk, but could barely put two
words together. I could tell it was hard for him to hide
his feelings. By the end of a month, he was hopelessly
in love.
As the months went by and Gene fell more and
more in love, I made sure they were never alone for a
minute, keeping them in the kitchen or on the porch.
Maybe I was jealous. I told myself that they were both
too young.
The only hope I had was that Evelyn didn’t seem
to see how he felt. She came to our house to spend time
with Betty Sue, to read their movie star magazines or
sit on the porch and laugh and whisper teen-age
gibberish to one another. Gene would hang around as
much as he could without Betty Sue complaining that
she never had any privacy. Paul was in love with her,
too, and would stand at the kitchen window, staring at
the girls outside on the porch.
Sometimes Evelyn would stay in Betty Sue’s
room with her, experimenting with different hairstyles.
Neither girl was allowed to wear makeup yet, but they
would pin up each other’s hair, like Joan Crawford or
Merle Oberon, and come downstairs to the kitchen to
show it off for me. I would tell them they were as
beautiful as the stars, and Evelyn really was. No one
in Hollywood was more beautiful, and without so
much as a bit of lipstick.
When the girls were upstairs, Gene would sit on
the porch and wait for them. I found small comfort in
the fact that Evelyn was only sixteen, the same as
Betty Sue, and that she must get a lot of attention from
boys. I hoped one of them would draw her away from
Gene. After a while, one of them did.
Evelyn began dating a senior at the high school
where she and Betty Sue were in the eleventh grade,
and she didn’t spend so much time at our house. Gene
sat at the table with a disappointed look on his face
every day. It had been few weeks since Evelyn had
been to the house before he finally brought up the
subject with his sister. “Why don’t you bring Evelyn
home with you anymore?”
Betty Sue finished chewing a bite of her
sandwich before she answered him. “She’s been
meeting Bobby Hudson at the sweet shop almost every
day. They’re an item.”
I could see that Gene was heartbroken. Even
though I hated his pain, I couldn’t help but feel my
own heart leap with relief. Maybe the girl was out of
our lives. I continued my cooking without comment.
Gene left the sandwich I’d made for him, stood and
went out to the back porch.
Through the window, I could see him sitting in
the swing, absolutely still, staring out into space. Paul
guffawed loudly, spitting pieces of his food out onto
the table. “He thought he had plenty of time, now he’s
out in the cold.”
I stared at him. Maybe the boy was smarter than
I thought.
George didn’t come home from work until
almost six in the evening and had never met Evelyn.
He was totally unaware that his second son had lost his
heart, but after a few days of Gene moping around the
house, even George noticed that something was
wrong. He waited until we’d gone to bed one night
before he asked me about it.
“What’s wrong with Gene? He’s been dragging
around here for weeks, and he won’t even talk to me
about it.”
“He’s in love with some girl, and she’s going out
with someone else.”
“What girl? I never heard him say one word
about any girl.”
“Evelyn Mayse, that friend of Betty Sue’s.”
“I never met her. If she’s a friend of Betty Sue’s,
why don’t I know her?”
“She only stayed here for a little while after
school when she came over. She always said she had
to go home and help her mother with the other children
in the house. She was always gone before you came
home.”
“Well, if she’s seeing someone else, he’ll just
have to get over it. There’s plenty of fish in the sea.
He’s smart and good-looking and he’s got a good job.
How long could it take?”
I rolled over and turned my back to him. “I don’t
know, George, I don’t know.”
I remember every second of the afternoon of
December 7
th
, 1941, a Sunday. Bessie and I were in the
living room, making plans for Christmas. Betty Sue
and Maxine were upstairs in Betty Sue’s room with a
new
Silver Screen
magazine. George and Paul were
napping. Gene was reading in his room.