An article in the 13 May 1955 edition of Good Housekeeping magazine printed something called “The good wife’s guide.” The purpose of the article was to tell wives how to keep their husbands happy. My mother didn’t read Good Housekeeping. She was far too busy raising four boys and working in the community. Yet she managed to keep her husband happy.
Even without the magazine to guide her, she carried out some of the suggestions contained in the article. For example, she always had dinner ready when dad came home from work. When I was young, I listened to 15-minute radio serials in the afternoon. Dinner started just when “Captain Midnight” came on the air. And woe betide the boy who was late for dinner. So I rarely got to listen to “Captain Midnight.”
My mother greeted my father with a warm smile, as the article suggests, and was almost always cheerful. She also listened to him and was sympathetic to his problems at work.
Where the article’s advice begins to fall apart is when it talks about preparing the children for their father’s arrival. “They are little treasures and he would like to see them playing the part.” Four boys may be “little treasures,” but they are rarely quiet and rarely clean, especially after a day of school or play. It was all anybody could do to get us to the dinner table at one time, clean or dirty. Mother rarely tried to persuade us to change our clothes or comb our hair. And as for keeping us quiet… However, as I said, our family did eat dinner together and dinner consisted of a good, nourishing meal.
But where my mother’s beliefs radically diverged from the dictates of the magazine can be summed up in the last two bullets of the article.
“Don’t ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.”
The last bullet reads: “A good wife always knows her place.”
Maybe Mother was so strong because she grew up having to fend for herself. She was raised on an unprofitable farm, but graduated from high school at 15 and college at 20. She taught high school history for two years, but quit when the school board could only offer her a dollar for the third year. She lost her meager savings in a bank closure, but returned to college to earn a Master’s degree and a husband.
Mother knew her place and that was as an equal in the marriage. She and dad agreed on how to raise us. That was one reason we couldn’t get away with anything. My parents also agreed on financial matters and other major issues that come up in a marriage. We read a lot today about dysfunctional families. Our family was extremely functional.
Mother was an active member of the League of Women Voters. When we moved from one town near Buffalo to another, she helped to found a new chapter of the League and became its first president. She served another term as president over 30 years later.
When we boys were old enough to pretty much look after ourselves, Mother became a substitute teacher. She went back to school in middle age and earned a second Master’s degree, in English. She said she had never realized how bawdy Shakespeare was until her professor explained some of the passages in his plays. Then she taught Shakespeare at the community college level.
Mother could write, too. She wrote poetry and a short story that won a prize. She wrote about history, including the 150-year history of the church the family attended.
She also served on the local school board for nine years, most of that as vice president. She was named citizen of the year for our town, an honor you don’t receive for knowing your place.
My parents agreed on the importance of education. They supported educational institutions and set up scholarships. When my father started showing signs of dementia, Mother took over the family finances and acquitted herself well. She not only handled the investments, she continued to donate to worthy educational causes.
She took care of my father at home until nine months before he died, when she could no longer physically handle the job. Then she put him into a nursing home a few miles from their farm and went there every day to feed him lunch.
Mother spent her last 10 years living the good life in a retirement community in North Carolina. She had earned it.
