Love, Ellen: A Mother/Daughter Journey (5 page)

A few years ago he sent Ellen a cartoon he’d drawn of geese sitting in church. The minister, also a goose, was saying, “Honk if you love Jesus.” Elliot was good at playing up the obvious and the absurd, something Vance and Ellen herself would take to new heights.

While Elliott didn’t sweep me off my feet, our courtship was a happy time in my life. The only other fellow I dated was so aggressive that he scared me. Elliott was such a contrast—kind, thoughtful, and respectful. Most of all, he made me feel safe. And probably, on a certain level, he was saving me from my feelings of failure over my short-lived first marriage. Deep down I may have felt that if I could succeed in my relationship with Elliott, I could redeem myself.

Was I in love with him? Not with the passion that I had felt about my first boyfriend in high school. Not with the romantic, storybook feelings I had when I got married the first time. But I was growing to love Elliott. He was a wonderful friend. Our tastes and interests were similar, and we enjoyed going to the symphony and to Broadway plays when they came to New Orleans.

Elliott was a wonderful person. He was of French descent on his father’s side and English descent on his mother’s, and he seemed to have a strong work ethic. With his deep rich voice, he had a background in radio announcing and, although he had not been to college, he had plans to attend night classes at Tulane. And I liked the fact that he was a devoted Christian Scientist. When Elliott proposed, I considered all these fine qualities and said yes.

We were married on November 7, 1952, in a little room at St. Luke’s Methodist Church at 6:30 in the evening. Our wedding party consisted of us, Mother, Daddy, Elliott’s mother Ruth, and “Auntie”—his mother’s older sister. After the wedding, we drove home to Mother and Daddy’s house on Nelson Street, where our families were waiting for us, and had a small but very warm and loving reception.

It was there, amidst the well-wishing and unwrapping of a few thoughtful, useful wedding presents from family members, that Elliott gave me a beautiful silver bracelet. It had an inscription on the back that read, “To the loveliest woman in the world.”

Later that night, after the reception, we said our goodbyes. And, under the dark sky, we left in Elliott’s big, old, blue, two-door DeSoto for a honeymoon in the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee.

Our first stop was a motel in Mississippi. When we left the next morning, the owner put a bumper sticker on our car that said: “We slept well at Hill’s Motel.” This was entirely true, because nothing else happened. That was somewhat upsetting, but I chalked it up to exhaustion and nerves. We had talked candidly about sex during our courtship and while Elliott was honest about the fact that he was still a virgin, he definitely let me know how much he was looking forward to the physical part of our relationship. I figured a good night’s rest was all he needed.

When we checked into our motel in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, we were shown to the honeymoon suite. It had a big picture window overlooking a beautiful stream rushing over rocks and down through the mountains. We settled in for a while, and then I said demurely, “Elliott, I think I’ll take a shower.”

“Good enough,” he replied and picked up his drawing pad, telling me he was going to head outside and draw a picture of the brook.

I finished my shower and, in my lacy new lingerie, waited with great expectation for him to come back inside. As I remember it, he never did. I just gave up, dressed, and we played tennis. In fact, the marriage wasn’t consummated on the honeymoon at all. At one opportune moment, Elliott announced that he really had to get a letter off to his mother.

“Really?” I asked.

“Of course,” he explained. “She’s at Auntie’s. You know she won’t stay by herself. A letter will make her feel good.”

Naturally, our lack of intimacy made me feel bewildered and let down, almost panicky. I had to wonder, in my efforts to be “safe” and respectable, what kind of turn was my life taking? When we got home and still nothing had happened, I remember thinking, “I could get an annulment.” But of course I didn’t want to admit that I had made another mistake, so I did not act on that impulse. Thank goodness!

Within another week or so, Elliott overcame whatever the hindrance had been and we consummated our marriage. Nonetheless, this was not the passion that I had dreamed of, and sex was never a frequent occurrence in our marriage.

Where was Dr. Ruth when I needed her? Nowhere to be found back in the prim and proper 1950s.

Sadly, my sex education at that point was equivalent to zero. I couldn’t talk about my concerns with Elliott, not with my expertise at avoiding confrontation. I eventually came to believe Elliott was so spiritual that material and physical needs just weren’t very important to him; he simply wasn’t a very sexual person. After all, to serious Christian Scientists like us, sex is considered a material desire, and we are taught to try and overcome those.

I didn’t even talk about any of this with Mother or Helen or Audrey—we all had too much training in not talking about personal things.

Mother couldn’t even handle the words “sin” and “lie.” Hearing the word “sex” would have made her faint.

S
EX WAS ONE
problem. There was also a second problem, which contributed to the first—Elliott’s mother, who lived with us. When we began out married life, I moved into their already established tiny apartment. At first, the notion of living as newlyweds with an in-law did not seem unreasonable. I assumed we would move out once we had the means, within a few months, perhaps.

Wrong. What I didn’t know yet was how dependent Ruth DeGeneres was on her only child. Elliott didn’t just support her financially; he took her everywhere she went. Mom, as I called her, rarely left the house, and never without us. As Elliott had reminded me on our honeymoon, she truly refused to be alone. So whenever we went out, we had to make arrangements to drop her off at a friend’s or relative’s and pick her up again on our way home.

From the beginning, our lack of privacy bothered me. And then Ruth had a tendency to make offhand critical remarks. Not a good mix with my extrasensitive side. But I tried to understand how difficult her life had been and why she was so dependent on Elliott. I knew they had survived a turbulent home life and that her alcoholic husband had eventually abandoned wife and son. So I couldn’t bring myself to complain about Mom or our cramped quarters. Instead, in my optimistic way, I tried to look on the bright side and see all the good in her.

“Oh, Mom,” I would tell her whenever she dressed up to go to church, “your hair looks lovely.” A very neat person, she usually presented a nice appearance, and she did have wonderful curly gray hair, which she cut herself.

“You think so?” she’d say, proud to remind me that people used to tell her she looked like the actress Billie Burke.

And then there was her excellent cooking, which was her contribution to the household, since Elliott and I both worked full-time.

On the other hand, if she happened to need an ingredient that wasn’t in the cupboard, she wouldn’t walk around the corner and pick it up herself. She’d call us to pick it up on our way home from work. That wasn’t so bad, but it had better be the brand she asked for or we’d hear about it all evening.

I didn’t know how much my patience was being tested until Mardi Gras, the first that Elliott and I had celebrated together. He and I really enjoyed putting together costumes for masquerades. At one party before we were married, we went as a prizefighter and trainer—he wore a robe with “The Horizontal Kid” printed on the back and I wore a turtleneck sweater and slacks and carried a bucket, towel, and sponge.

On Mardi Gras day, we really got into the spirit. Elliott dressed as a cowboy and I went as Bugs Bunny, in a costume I bought at a local five-and-ten, complete with big tall ears, a face mask, and bunch of carrots.

We set off in a happy, carefree mood—Elliott driving, with me at his side and Ruth in back. We wanted to arrive in plenty of time to find a parking place as close as possible to St. Charles Avenue, where the Rex Parade would pass by. Apparently, so did the rest of New Orleans.

There was no parking space to be found.

“I told you we should have left earlier,” Mom said angrily.

“Well, you were right,” I agreed, diplomatically.

Elliott drove a block further, calmly assuring us that he’d find a space.

Mom wasn’t assured. And with each block we drove away from the Avenue, she became angrier, finally accusing us both of not finding a parking space on purpose, just to upset her and make her walk. She wasn’t used to walking; she was used to being dropped off.

By the time we parked, though it was only a walk of five or six blocks, her ill-humor had all but ruined the day for me. Thank goodness for that silly, smiling Bugs Bunny mask because behind it my eyes were brimming with tears.

When I think of my life then, I see myself as wearing a mask most of the time—keeping my feelings to myself while staying busy and playing the happy, cheerful role that was expected of me.

Work took up most of our time. Elliott would soon get started in the life insurance business, and I was still working full-time at Hardware Mutuals. Aside from work, our lives centered on the church. It wasn’t long before we decided to take an intensive two-week course of religious instruction, a step most serious Christian Scientists take. There are church-qualified teachers all over the United States, and our class was given in Houston, Texas. Some teachers, such as the one we had, recommend abstaining not only from alcohol and tobacco but also from any stimulant containing caffeine, such as coffee, tea, and cola drinks. We followed the recommendations precisely. Prayer took precedence in our lives, with Bible study every day without fail.

O
N
S
EPTEMBER
2, 1954, at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, my prayers were of gratitude when, to my great joy, I gave birth to Vance Elliott DeGeneres—the most beautiful, perfect little being I had ever laid eyes on. There is no feeling that even comes close to the awe and adoration a mother feels when she first holds her newborn. I was in love.

It had not been an easy birth, and my labor had been long. But at seven pounds eight ounces, Vance was healthy and fine. As was I. Over the next day, my family and friends excitedly stopped in to admire him. At one point when I was alone in my room with my mother-in-law, the nurse brought Vance to me for a feeding—only he was more interested in sleeping than eating.

“We’ll just wake him up,” the nurse said, as if returning later wasn’t convenient for her schedule; and she proceeded to do just that, by thumping her finger on the bottom of Vance’s tiny foot.

She might as well have slapped me hard across the face. I said nothing, but tears sprang to my eyes.

Seeing me upset, the nurse laughed and said, “That doesn’t hurt him.” And she did it again.

Now openly crying, I said, “Could you please leave?”

Ruth looked appalled. “I don’t know what’s wrong,” she said to the nurse. “She’s not usually like this. She’s really easy to get along with.”

The two of them gave me disapproving nods, seemingly unaware that I thought my baby was being hurt.

Thankfully, I survived that trauma and soon we proudly brought Vance home to our little apartment. Now we were a family of four living with just one bedroom. I was still trying to nurse—the healthy, natural way—but he cried a lot. Being a new, nervous mother, I worried about disturbing the neighbors. And then there was the day that a friend of Mom’s came to visit while I was nursing, and the friend saw fit to scoff loudly, “Well, how does it feel to be a cow?”

That did it for me. I put him on the bottle after that.

Aside from those upsetting incidents, with the onset of young motherhood I found a happiness I had never known—a sense and meaning to my life that seemed to have been lacking before. Vance was a very beautiful, good-natured baby and toddler. Early on, he had a keen ear for music and seemed to have a genuine sense of humor. Naturally, I thought his every utterance was brilliant. There was a catchphrase in those years when Elliott and I were voting for Eisenhower, the Republican presidential candidate: “I Like Ike.” Little Vance’s version was, “Ike, Ike, Ike.” We thought that was adorable.

I immersed myself in taking care of Vance and in part-time self-employment which included being an Avon Lady and an encyclopedia salesperson. Later, I did part-time office work for a wholesale grocer. Between church and my usual array of hobbies (oil painting, knitting, and sewing—at that time) I was busy and thriving.

T
HOUGH THEY WERE
not acknowledged, my marital problems hadn’t gone away. Our sex life had yet to improve and Mom—or Mumsy, as the kids would call her—was still very much on the scene.

Elliott seemed to be in denial. And I enabled that denial by not talking about it. In Christian Science we worked quietly, talking only to a practitioner, while waiting for things to “work out.” I don’t remember talking about this to anyone else or even admitting that things weren’t perfect. Whenever I had feelings of doubt, I avoided them, resolving to stick it out with Elliott and to pray more sincerely for some improvement.

That came soon when, thanks to help from Mother and Daddy, we were able to buy our first house—a two-bedroom, one-bath house in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans. Elliott and I still didn’t have much privacy, but at least we had a bit more space in which not to have it.

Later, Mother and Daddy helped us afford an add-on. As it happened, home improvement was one of my budding interests and something in which I would become expert, given our frequent moves. In 1955, I entered a nationwide essay contest sponsored by the National Home Improvement Council. There were more than 80,000 contestants, who were asked to write an essay on “Why Americans Want to Improve Their Homes.” To my surprise, my essay won, and I received a prize of one hundred dollars. A picture of me and another local winner, along with Mayor deLesseps S. Morrison, appeared in the New Orleans paper, the
Times Picayune.