Brian, and certified by Dr Rumsey. Then a month later Dr Rumsey filed a birth
certificate with the county clerk, with the false date.
Easy to do – Nancy was born at home; all my babies were born at home until the
middle thirties. So there were no hospital records to confuse the issue. On 8
January I wrote the happy news (false date) to several people in Thebes and sent an
announcement to the Lyle County Leader.
Why such a silly hooraw to fuzz the date of birth of a baby? Because the customs of
those times were cruel, cruel, harshly cruel. Mrs Grundy would have counted on her
fingers and whispered that we had to get married to give our sinful bastard a name
she shouldn’t bear. Yes. It was all part of the nastiness of the grim age of
Bowdler, Comstock, and Grundy, the vultures that corrupted what could have been a
civilisation.
Near the end of that century single women openly gave birth to babies whose fathers
might or might not be around. But this was not the behaviour of a truly free
culture; it was the other swing of the pendulum and not easy for mother or child.
The old rules were being broken but no workable new code had as yet evolved.
Our expedient kept everyone in Thebes County from knowing that sweet little Nancy
was a `bastard’. Of course Mother knew the date was false… but Mother was not in
Thebes; she was in St Louis with Grandpa and Grandma Pfeiffer. And Father had gone
back into the Army.
I still don’t know how to look at this. A girl should not pass judgement on her
parents… and I shan’t.
The Spanish-American War had brought me closer to Mother. Her worry and grief made
me decide that she really did love Father; they just kept it private from the
children.
Then, on the day of my wedding, while Mother was dressing me, she gave me that
motherly advice that traditionally the brides mother gives the bride to ensure
matrimonial tranquillity.
Can you guess what she told me? Better sit down to hear this.
She told me that I must be prepared to endure without resentment submission to my
husband for `family duties’. It was the Lord’s plan, explained in Genesis, and was
the price that women must pay for the privilege of having children… and if I would
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just look at it that way, I could submit cheerfully. But I must realise also that
men have needs different from ours; you must expect to meet his needs. Don’t think
of it as animal, or ugly – just remember your dear children.
I said, ‘Yes, Mother. I will remember.’
So what happened? Did Mother cut Father off? Whereupon he went back into the Army?
Or did he tell her that he wanted to get out of that little town, so deep in the
gumbo mud, and try a second career in the Army?
I don’t know. I don’t need to know; it’s not my business. Father did go back into
the Army, so quickly after my wedding that I feel sure he had it planned before
then. His letters showed that he was in Tampa for a while, then Guantanamo in
Cuba… then clear out in the Philippines, in Mindanao, where the Muslim Moms were
killing more of our soldiers than the Spaniards had ever managed… and then he was
in China.
After the Boxer Rebellion I thought my father was dead, for I did not hear for a
long time. Then at last he was at the Presidio in San Francisco and his letter from
there referred to other letters I had never received.
He left the Army in 1912. He was sixty that year – was he retired on age? I don’t
know. Father always told you what he wanted you to know; if you crowded him, he
might treat you to some creative fiction… or he might tell you to go straight to
hell.
He came to Kansas City. Brian invited him to come live with us, but Father had
already found himself a flat and settled into it before he let us know that he was