My father was a romantic. He proposed to my mother via trans-Atlantic phone call from London, where he was working for his great-uncle at a paper mill. She was living in Westfield, NJ and he sailed home for their wedding, a civil ceremony in her parents’ living room. I always wondered why such a simple wedding when she was Catholic and her parents were fairly well off. My grandfather was in the grocery business during the Depression.
I didn’t learn until my own marriage, that my father wasn’t her first husband. She would hardly tell me anything about that marriage. “A mistake,” was all she would say.
My parents sailed back to London for their honeymoon. Letters my mother wrote while sitting in a deckchair described how happy she was. She thanked her father for buying her clothes for her new life. She and my grandmother had gone on shopping trips to the City. Elaborate trousseaus were a sign of wealth and social standing during the Victorian era, before she was born:
"The society woman must have one or two velvet dresses which cannot cost less than $500 each. She must possess thousands of dollars worth of laces, in the shape of flounces, to loop up over the skirts of dresses... Walking dresses cost from $50 to $300; ball dresses are frequently imported from Paris at a cost of from $500 to $1,000... There must be traveling dresses in black silk, in pongee, in pique, that range in price from $75 to $175... Evening robes in Swiss muslin, robes in linen for the garden and croquet, dresses for horse races and yacht races, dresses for breakfast and for dinner, dresses for receptions and parties..." from "Lights and Shadows of New York" by James McCabe, 1872.
"A visiting and reception dress was of maroon velvet, trimmed with wide bands of cocks' feathers of the same shade. A second rich costume was of black brocaded silk and plain silk …" -- from "Miss Vanderbilt's Trousseau," Harper's Bazar, December 15, 1877
My mother’s trousseau was not nearly as grand as during Victorian times, but I’m sure it was very elegant.
My father had managed to find them a flat in Dolphin Square before he left London for his wedding. Dolphin Square is a block of private apartments built near the River Thames in London. It was completed the year they were married, 1937. A.P. Herbert, 'Dolphin Square', 1935, described the Square as 'a city of 1250 flats, each enjoying at the same time most of the advantages of the separate house and the big communal dwelling place'; the provision of a restaurant made him fear that 'fortunate wives will not have enough to do. A little drudgery is good for wives, perhaps. The Dolphin lady may be spoiled'. This booklet was produced as a promotional puff for the firm that owned and built the complex. On purchasing the site, Richard Rylandes Costain remarked to a colleague: ‘in two or three years we'll either drive up to this spot in a Rolls-Royce, or we'll be standing here selling matches.’
They were very happy at Dolphin Square. It wasn’t long before my mother announced to my father she wanted either a baby or a dog. They named their black cocker spaniel Dixie and my mother dressed in one of her many new outfits, complete with a feathered hat, to walk Dixie around the manicured gardens.
They would have stayed in London if the war hadn’t intervened. Soon, nerve-jarring air raids and impassioned pleas in telegrams from my grandparents convinced them to sell their possessions and book a spot on the last peacetime journey of the Queen Mary to New York City before it was converted to a troopship. They left England on Aug. 30 and by the time they landed, the Second World War had started.
Bob Hope and his new wife were also on that voyage, which had a military escort. An impromptu show was arranged in one of the lounges to calm the jittery passengers. Hope and his wife, Dolores, were scared to death on the trip home because the Germans had started torpedoing English ships. He debuted his signature song ‘Thanks for the Memories’ that night.
I don’t think my mother ever got over the loss of that life she left behind. My father became a partner in a corrugated shipping container company in the Midwest. She negotiated for three children and was a housewife in a small town far from her family. She donated her evening gowns to the Salvation Army. She suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized in her 40s but recovered with the help of electric shock therapy, a popular treatment at the time. My mother didn’t talk much about her days in London but I always loved it when she asked me to “post a letter” for her.
When she died, I found a menu from the cruise on the Queen Mary and a photo of my mother at dinner, wearing one of her glamorous gowns with a fur stole. She was smiling, imagining her future.
