I shifted uncomfortably on the sofa as I read this, and while I didn’t yet know the outcome of what certainly was my mother’s teen-age pregnancy, I wanted to cry for her that she had been feeling guilty about this for all these years, sufficient to write it all out as a confessional. Not “stand you,” Mother, simply because you got pregnant? Come on, Mom.
Okay, so I gave up. The rotter Horst Gerhardt could still do nothing wrong in my mother’s blind eyes.
Against all odds, I kept hoping that maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t pregnant, but I was terrified to go to my family dr. & have him be privy to my situation. So I went to see Gentry Trappe, that dear old black man who lived in the tenant’s house on our property.
I felt very ashamed about my predicament, so I approached him gingerly, inquiring if there might be a “colored” dr. I could see, because it involved a “delicate” matter.
Notwithstanding how circumspect I was, I believe the old gentleman got my drift. Uneducated tho he might’ve been, Mr. Trappe was nobody’s fool. “Miss Trixie,” he said, trodding on very careful ground, “would this involve a, uh, woman’s thing?”
“Yes, in fact it would,” I replied, as if I was shocked he’d made such a good wild guess. Mr. Trappe suggested I might see a lady named Miss Victoria, who, altho not an actual MD, expertly handled these female matters which were ever such a mystery to men. I suppose she was a midwife.
The next day, Mr. Trappe insisted that he personally drive me to see Miss Victoria, because, of course, she resided in the black area of town, & he did not believe I should venture there on my own. He said, “Your father, God rest his soul, wanted me to live in the old house so’s to keep an eye on you & your mother, & Mr. Stringfellow would be upset w/ me if I didn’t escort you myself.”
So he took me there, &, of course, once I described my symptoms to Miss Victoria & she examined me, she immediately officially confirmed what I already knew, that I was, yes, as the expression goes, more than a little bit pregnant. I thought I was prepared for this news, but actually hearing the finality of the diagnosis was sufficient to cause me to break down.
Miss Victoria hugged me to her, rocking me some, as if I was more a baby than somebody having one. How especially comforting it was, in this 2nd worse moment of my life (the 1st being when I heard my father had been killed), that this stranger was so caring. We are so lucky sometimes that people who know us might succor us in distress, & here this nice lady, who had never set eyes on me before, was my angel of mercy—plus: we 2, of different races, different worlds. I’ve never forgotten that kindness after all these yrs.
I finally stopped sobbing. Miss Victoria had, of course, seen that no wedding ring adorned my finger, and w/o drawing attention to that, she simply said, “What are you gonna do now, child?”
I just shook my head and said, “I don’t know.”
“Well,” Miss Victoria said, “let the Good Lord guide you.” Which was probably the best advice anybody could have proferred at that particular moment.
I pulled myself together then, as best I could, all but forced a dollar upon Miss Victoria as fair payment for her services, & managed to put a brave face on things all the way home w/ Mr. Trappe. Since he had been the beneficiary of my father’s largesse—that made me think about Daddy & how disappointed he would be in me for being stupid or loose or both at the same time.
I went down to the dock & sat there, w/ my arms wrapped round my knees. There, I assessed my situation, & decided that I had 3 alternatives, which was whistling past the proverbial graveyard, because only 2 were valid. The one that wasn’t was getting Horst to marry me. Obviously, given where he was, that was entirely out of the question. I didn’t even see any sense in revealing my condition to him. So I actually had only 2 alternatives, & here they were: I could either tell my mother, then go discreetly away somewhere, have the baby & put it up for adoption. Or I could get an abortion.
When I got back to my room, I wrote Carter Kincaid at Towson St. Teachers, down near Baltimore, & told her I was “in trouble,” & maybe she could help me. Dear Carter! The instant she got my letter, she called me long distance, person-to-person, given the private nature of the matter, & told me that another girl in her dormitory had also found herself in the family way, as we referred to that circumstance then, & so she knew she could arrange for my predicament to be safely & expeditiously resolved.
When I told my mother that I was going to visit Carter for a few days she got a little cross at me. She said, “Trixie, you’ve been home 2 months, & as far as I know, for all your talk about going to live in N.Y. to practice with that swimming club, I haven’t heard boo from you recently on that subject.”
Well, obviously, finding myself pregnant had, shall we say, put everything else on the back burner. Nonetheless, I had received a letter from L. deB. Hadley, who always wrote his name that way. People in swimming even called him L. deB—you know, like: Eldeebee. He was the famous coach of the Women’s Swimming Assoc., often referred to as “the father of women’s swimming.” He had practically invented the freestyle stroke, or at least, the correct breathing part for it. In his letter, which he had carbon-copied to Eleanor Holm, L. deB. officially invited me to come to N.Y. & be a member of the WSA.
Normally, of course, that would have put me over the moon, but given my being great (or, shall I say: soon to be great) w/ child, it didn’t mean beans to me.
Nonetheless, I fished the letter out now & showed it to Mother. “Well,” she said, “the least you could’ve done was mentioned this to me.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. It’s just that everything had been so exciting, that I just had to calm down &, you know, find my bearings. So I thought I would put off N.Y. till the spring.”
“Well, that’s fine, honey, but I’m not having you just lollygagging around till the flowers bloom again.”
“Oh no, Mother, I understand that. I was going to talk to you about this.”
And I was. But now, the rubber had hit the road, so I broached my idea. That was: that I would work in the insurance office as what we used to call a “chief cook and bottle washer.” Or a Gal Friday, some would call it. A factotum, others.
“Well,” Mom said, “that’s fine w/ me.”
“I could practice my typing, too, which would help me get a better job in N.Y. And you wouldn’t have to pay me anything, Mom, just give me my old allowance.”
Instead, she said she would pay me $8 a week, plus dry cleaning money, inasmuch as I would have to look correct & neat every day in the office. We agreed that, #l, I would write L. deB. & fib a little, tell him that because of a family matter I’d be unable to come to N.Y. till the spring (that would be ’37) &, #2, that I would start working regularly at the insurance office as soon as I returned from visiting Carter. As I started to leave the room, however, Mother called back to me. “Yes, ma’am?”
She sat down on the sofa & patted the seat next to her. “Trixie, take a load off for a second.” When I was settled, she began: “Now this good-looking German boy . . .” And my heart sank, because I thought she must’ve somehow put 2 + 2 together, what with my a.m. sickness & general mopey attitude, but, happily, no. Instead, she said, “Listen, honey, we all know what it’s like to have your lst real romance. And, you know, somehow summer romances are the most, well . . . romantic. I met your father in Nov., but there was a boy named Mike Carey from Fairlee I’d fallen head over heels in love w/ the summer before that, & somehow that all seems so much more vivid—altho it was over by Labor Day, & I was married to your dear father for l8 wonderful yrs.
“But I can so remember the songs Mike Carey & I used to dance to & kiss to & whatnot. I can remember those better than the songs that were popular when your father & I really fell in love. Summer songs, Trixie. You remember them. That’s the way it is with summer romances.” She paused. “That, & it’s hot,” she added.
“Yes ma’am.”
“And to meet this boy on your lst trip abroad. A foreign boy in a foreign land. And, my gracious, that snapshot you showed me. Why, he would turn any girl’s head. Good nite, nurse, he’s an absolute dreamboat.”
“He’s awful nice too, Mom.”
“I’m sure he is. I’m sure you wouldn’t just fall for another pretty face, Trixie. But the point is, the summer is over & so is the romance, & given where he is, he might as well be the man on the moon, so it is absolutely over & done w/. I appreciate that your heart may be breaking, but you have got to stop mooning about & get on w/ things.”
“I know that, Mom.”
“To tell you the truth, Trixie, there’s been times you looked so peaked I thought that missing that boy had made you physically ill. I mean, honey, I know the poet wrote that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but that’s only to a point.”
“Mom, look: it wasn’t just a summer romance.”
She hugged me then. “Honey, we all think that the lst time we really fall in love. But he is w/ that awful Hitler man, & you’re here on the Shore, & it’s time to find someone new. Now, how ’bout that nice boy from Lancaster, Penn., at the college, who was your beau last yr?”
“Mom, he wasn’t my beau.”
“Well, he certainly could be.”
“I’m just not that interested in him, Mom.”
“Well, please, get interested. In someone. There must be one boy in the whole U.S. of Amer. who is up to your high standards.” She released me from her embrace then, her sympathy for me evolving into a bit of annoyance.
“I’m sure I’ll meet someone new,” I said. “Maybe Carter will introduce me to someone I like.”
“Well, Carter always has good taste. I thought sometimes she might be a little fast, but you’re a girl w/ your feet on the ground, Trixie, so I wouldn’t worry if she were to introduce you to some boy who presumed you were easy pickin’s.”
“Mom, please, Carter isn’t fast. She’s just sophisticated.”
“Well, I didn’t mean to demean her, & if she can find a nice young gentleman to take your mind off that good-looking German boy, she would forever be in my debt.”
“Yes ma’am.”
So, w/ what little $ I’d saved up, I took the train down to Balt. I borrowed the rest of the $ I needed from Carter, & she took me to the house where I got my abortion. You hear about coat hangers & so on & so forth, but this man was a regular MD. He just performed abortions in his house at nite in order to stay clear of John Law.
He was a nice older gentleman, w/ a little mustache, which was unusual on professional men at that time, & he was kind to me & happy to let Carter stay in the room w/ me during the operation (which we call a “procedure” now, altho God knows why). I appreciated that, & when it was all over & done w/ & I was leaving, he said (in the gentlest way), “I don’t want to see you back here, miss.”
And I said, “No sir, you won’t.”
He gave me an envelope then, altho w/o saying anything. When I opened it up later, it had some condoms in it. Of course, we didn’t say “condoms” then. We said “rubbers.” I didn’t mention it to Carter. I just put the rubbers in my pocketbook.
Carter took me back to her dorm room. I don’t remember crying, but I was just so terribly sad. We talked & talked, but every time I’d start to talk about Horst, she’d tell me to cut it out. “You have got to forget him, Trixie.”
I said, “You sound just like my mother.”
“Well, sometimes mothers know better than you think they do.”
That was the last thing I expected to hear from Carter Kincaid, so I told her about how I was going up to N.Y. in the spring. That impressed her mightily. But in the meantime, I went to work in the insurance office.
The letters would come from Horst like clockwork. It would take about 2 wks for a letter to go from C’town to Berlin & vice versa, so as soon as I got one from him I’d write him back & as soon as he got mine, he’d write me, so I could pretty much set my watch to it: once a month I would hear from Horst.
This served to completely inhibit any burgeoning interest I might’ve developed for other members of the opposite sex, especially including a nice young potential agent my mother had hired who really had his eyes on me. He was named Chipper, & he was studying for the state insurance test. I’d help him out, going over the materials w/ him—altho all too often I caught him glancing up from the books, trying to sneak a peek down my front. Since I was not likewise distracted, what is called “the result of unintended circumstances” occurred, & I learned more than he did about becoming an insurance salesman.
Horst’s letters were full of love. Besides that, he’d tell me all about his life at college, his friends, classes, etc. He’d teach me a little more German, too. His parents left for Tokyo in Nov., & so Liesl & her husband, Walter, the SS officer, moved into the Gerhardt house in Charlottenburg.
Pointedly, tho, Horst would never write about the political situation in Germany. However, when he’d visit home in Berlin, he wouldn’t make any bones about how he disliked his brother-in-law. I could certainly read between the lines there. I devoured all I could about Germany in the Balt. Sun & on the radio. You didn’t have to be an Einstein to get the drift that Hitler was up to no good. And here Horst was having to go into officer’s training for the navy after he graduated from Heidelberg.