my siblings. Maybe four. Looking back on it, I can’t sec that he made himself more
available to me than he did to any of my brothers and sisters. But it certainly
worked out that I spent more time with my father.
Two ground-floor rooms in our house were Father’s clinic and surgery; I spent a lot
of my free time there as I was fascinated by his books. Mother did not think I
should read them, medical books being filled with things that ladies simply should
not delve into. Unladylike. Immodest.
Father said to her, ‘Mrs Johnson, the few errors in those books I will point out to
Maureen. As for the far more numerous and much more important truths, I am pleased
that Maureen wants to learn them. “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make
you free.” John, eight, verse thirty two.’
Mother set her mouth in a grim line and did not answer. For her the Bible was the
final word… whereas Father was a freethinker, a fact he did not admit even to me
at that time. But Father knew the Bible more thoroughly than Mother did and could
always quote a verse to refute her – a most unfair way to argue, it seems to me, but
an advantage he needed in dealing with her. Mother was strong-willed.
They disagreed on many things But they had rules that let them live together without
bloodshed. Not only live together but share a bed and have baby after baby together.
A miracle.
I think Father set most of the rules. At that time and place it was taken for
granted that a husband was head of his household and must be obeyed. You may not
believe this but the wedding ceremony in those days required the bride to promise to
obey her husband – in everything and forever.
If I know my mother (I don’t, really), she didn’t keep that promise more than thirty
minutes.
But they worked out practical compromises.
Mother bossed the household. Father’s domain was his clinic and surgery, and the
barn and outbuildings and matters pertaining thereto. Father controlled all money
matters. Each month he gave Mother a household allowance that she spent as she saw
fit. But he required her to keep a record of how she spent it, bookkeeping that
Father examined each month.
Breakfast was at seven, dinner at noon, supper at six; if Father’s medical practice
caused him to need to eat at other times, he notified mother – ahead of time if
possible. But the family sat down on time.
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If Father was present, he held Mother’s chair for her; she thanked him, he then sat
down and the rest of us followed. He said grace, morning, noon, and night. In
Father’s absence my brother Edward seated Mother and she said grace. Or she might
direct one of us to return thanks, for practice. Then we ate, and misbehaviour at
the table was only one notch below high treason. But a child did not have to sit and
squirm and wait for the grown-ups after he was through eating; he could ask to be
excused, then leave the table. He could not return even if he discovered that he had
made a horrible mistake such as forgetting that it was a dessert night. (But Mother
would relent and allow that child to eat dessert in the kitchen… if he had not
teased or whined.)
The day my eldest sister Audrey entered high school Father added to the protocol: he
held Mother’s chair as usual. Once she was seated Mother said, ‘Thank you, Doctor.’
Then Edward, two years older than Audrey, held her chair for her and seated her just
after Mother was seated: Mother said, ‘What do you say, Audrey?’
‘I did say it, Mama:
‘Yes, she did, Mother.’
‘I did not hear it.’
‘Thank you, Eddie.’
‘You’re welcome, Aud.’
Then the rest of us sat down.
Thereafter, as each girl entered high school, the senior available boy was
conscripted into the ceremony.
On Sundays, dinner was at one because everyone but Father went to Sunday School and