Page 5 of A Mind of Her Own
Alex’s tour of New York included every landmark the driver could think of that he thought she would enjoy. Tucked away hidden gardens, tall buildings, statues, views. They drove past beautiful homes and around Washington Square, and up Fifth Avenue. She walked into Saint Patrick’s Cathedral to say a prayer and light candles for her parents, her grandmother, and Julien. The driver took her to two beautiful stores, where she bought a handbag, a silk blouse, and a pair of very stylish shoes that she wasn’t sure would go over well in Beardstown, but she loved them and she had fun.
She went back to the hotel at the end of the day to change, and the driver took her to P.J. Clarke’s for dinner, where they gave her a table at the back of the restaurant on her own. It was the first time she’d ever had a meal in a restaurant alone. The next morning he took her to a church in Brooklyn, where he said they had the best gospel choir in New York. It was the most exciting twenty-four hours of her life, and she made the train just in time, after lunch at the Grand Central Oyster Bar. It was an adventure from beginning to end. She gave her driver a very large tip with the fare for all his kindness to her, and he was touched, and told her to be sure and get in touch with him if she came back to New York. He wished her luck in Illinois. In the course of their day together she had told him she had lost her family to the war and the Spanish flu.
It took three porters to get all her boxes and trunks onto the train, and she settled into the compartment her grandfather had reserved for her on the 20th Century Limited. It was an overnight trip to Chicago, and there was a bed the porter would drop down for her. She remembered a compartment like it when she went to Illinois with her mother when she was six. But the 20th Century Limited was far more luxurious, and she was in awe of how her grandfather had spoiled her. It was an express passenger train. She had walked down a red carpet to board the train, where a conductor had handed her and all female passengers a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of perfume as a gift. The men got carnations for their lapels. The train had its own post office, barber shop, manicurists, masseuses, secretaries, typists, and stenographers for businessmen. It was pure luxury in every way.
Once she was in her compartment, she watched the countryside slide by during the afternoon, eventually becoming more wide-open spaces and farms. She had dinner in the dining car, and then went back to her compartment, wrote in her journal about the experience, and went to sleep. She felt like a baby being rocked by the movement of the train.
The conductor woke her at the time she had requested, so she could look presentable when her grandfather met her at La Salle Street Station in Chicago to take her home. She was excited to see him after so long. Her memory was a little vague after eight years, when he last visited them in Paris, when she was ten years old.
The train slowed as it entered the city, and followed a maze of tracks to the station, and at last they stopped. The trip had taken twenty hours from New York.
There were redcaps lined up along the platform, and she knew she would need several of them as she had in New York.
She’d had a quick early breakfast, and she was wearing her beret perched on her mane of blond curls, and a serious-looking black suit, as she stepped down from the train. She looked very French and she didn’t see her grandfather at first. Then she saw a tall man peering at each car and the people getting off. He had changed very little, with his full head of snow-white hair, his broad shoulders, and long gait. When he saw her, he looked shocked as he hurried toward her and took her in his arms in a powerful hug. She clung to him, feeling like a child in his arms. He was the only family she had now. He was her whole world.
“You’re all grown up,” he said in a choked voice. He was stunned by how much she looked like her mother, but he didn’t say it. He loved her for herself, not just because she was his late daughter’s child. He thought she looked very stylish as they left the station, three porters following them with all of her belongings piled on their carts. He had driven to Chicago in his own car, and had one of the newspaper trucks, a driver, and extra men to follow them. They filled the truck with her boxes and trunks, and a little while later, they were ready to take off.
“Are you hungry?” he asked her, as they drove away from the station.
“No, thank you. I had breakfast on the train,” she said politely. She felt faintly uncomfortable with him, after his exuberant greeting. She hadn’t seen him in so long, and he had already done so much for her before she had even arrived. She thanked him profusely for the train and told him all about her day in New York, and he was delighted she’d had so much fun. He thought she richly deserved it after everything she’d been through. He wanted to make up to her for all her losses and the pain she’d had. It wasn’t fair for someone so young to have suffered so much loss. He had had his own losses, both his daughter and his wife, but he was older and could withstand it. Alex was barely more than a child when she lost her parents, and now her grandmother. But she was a strong young woman and had the resilience of youth.
The drive to Beardstown took almost six hours, with the newspaper truck following them. They stopped at one of the farms that had a small restaurant for sandwiches and tall glasses of cold milk. She felt out of place in her black suit and her beret. She was going to have to figure out what to wear, probably some of her old school clothes, although the skirts were too short now that she was grown-up. Respectable women’s hems were worn a few inches above the ankle in Paris and no shorter. But she had no idea what women wore in rural Illinois. Her mother had always said that women in Chicago were stylish, as much so as they were in New York, but in the farmland around Beardstown, Alex had no idea what to wear, and she had no woman to advise her.
It was late afternoon when they got to her grandfather’s house, and two men from his newspaper came to help unload the truck. They stacked the boxes in the hall so she could go through them when she wanted to, and set her trunks down in her bedroom.
Paul had put her in her mother’s room, which was still beautiful years after she’d left. It was all done in pale pink silks, and was surprisingly sophisticated for a young girl. Their grandmother Miriam had decorated it with the inspiration of homes she’d seen in Vogue and Victoria had loved it. Her mother had made a beautiful home for them, which was still lovely now. Miriam had been gone for nearly twenty years, and Paul hadn’t changed a thing in their home. Their bedroom still looked like a shrine to her, and her dressing gown was still on the back of the bathroom door, which Alex wasn’t aware of as she settled into her room. She loved it, and Paul wanted her to be happy there.
There was a housekeeper who cooked dinner for them, chicken fresh from a neighboring farm, some early vegetables from his own garden, and apple pie for dessert, with homemade ice cream. There were orchards on his property that provided fruit in the spring and summer. There was land all around their home, with orchards, trees, and gardens. It was an idyllic setting. He told her some of the history of the town during dinner and she listened raptly.
After dinner, he looked at Alex and his eyes lit up.
“Do you want to come and see the paper?” He usually went back to his office after dinner, and stayed until they put the paper to bed. He had no reason to rush home at night since he lived alone. She knew from his letters how proud of the paper he was, and she readily agreed to see it with him. Her last memory of the paper was from when she was six years old on her last visit. And the memories were vague.
It was a short walk down the road to the building which housed the Courier. It was concealed by trees now, so she hadn’t noticed it when she drove in. And as they drove behind the trees, she was shocked.
The Beardstown Courier was housed in a large building now. There were ramps where they loaded the papers into trucks. There was a row of them behind the building. When Alex stepped inside, it was all modern efficiency, state-of-the-art printing machines, the most up-to-date equipment. It was almost futuristic, it was so contemporary. Paul had bought the most efficient machines from anywhere in the world, and everything in the building was impeccable. There were still people in their offices, and the building was still teeming with activity, as they put the finishing touches on the paper. He grabbed a copy and handed it to Alex. She glanced at the front-page stories and saw that they were all interesting. He had a knack for choosing the right topics that fascinated his readers. She continued reading, engrossed in the stories, and he laughed.
“You can take it home if you like. Introductory offer, first one free,” he said, and she laughed.
“You always pick such great stories to write, Grampa,” she said admiringly. He was truly talented at what he did. He made the paper exciting, and inspired people to want to read it. He was still writing his editorial column, which was a huge success, and got great reader reaction and comments. His newspaper was a jewel, and he nurtured it like a child.
“You can come and work for me this summer, if you like,” he said warmly as they walked back to the house. “But first we need to talk about your plans for school,” he said seriously. “Did you bring the information I asked you to get?”
“I did,” she said, still impressed by what she’d seen. It was an impressive operation and had grown exponentially from what she remembered a dozen years before. The paper had been in operation for forty-five years.
—
Alex slept in her mother’s childhood bed that night. It was an odd feeling, knowing that when she looked up at the molding on the ceiling, her mother had seen it too, long ago, and when she looked out the window in the morning, it was the same view her mother had seen every day when she got up, before she went to school. She felt as though she was following in her mother’s footsteps in reverse. Her mother had left from here for her studies in Europe. And Alex had come here from Europe to have a new life, wherever it would lead her.
But school was the first step for her, and her grandfather got down to business after breakfast. He had already spoken to the headmistress of the local school, and the head of the school district. They were going to treat her as a casualty of war, a war orphan in fact. With the papers her grandfather had told her to bring with her, they were going to submit her to an exit exam on all the subjects they covered, in order to graduate. And if she passed the exam they would give her a diploma, which would allow her to attend college in the United States. She could go anywhere she wanted that accepted women. The choices were limited but some of the colleges that accepted women were excellent.
“I picked up the books they used this year in school for the high school seniors, so you can review what they’ve been doing. They’ll administer the exam in a week. You don’t have to go to class here, Alex. I’m sure you’ll do fine at the exam, and get your diploma, and then you can decide where you want to apply for college.” She was stunned by how much he had already done for her. He really was like her mother, who had been the most organized, productive person she knew. Her mother had learned it all from him. It was in her genes. Victoria’s mother had never had that same energy—Victoria had inherited it all from her father, Paul, and Alex had it in her blood too. She just hadn’t had a chance to use it yet, but Paul knew she would at the right time. He could see that she was an enterprising girl with a mind of her own.
She glanced at the schoolbooks he had picked up for her, when she went to bed that night. Two of them, science and geography, were almost identical to what she had studied in France that year. The history book was American, not French, which was unfamiliar to her. But in literature, she was far, far ahead. In addition, she had studied philosophy and had taken five years of Latin, was fluent in two languages, and spoke two more adequately. Math was not her strongest subject, but in her school in Paris, they were further advanced too. Her conclusion after looking through the books was that she had to work on her math skills and learn the American history, and the rest would be a piece of cake. Classes were more advanced in her French school. She reported that to her grandfather at breakfast, and he said he wasn’t surprised. French schools had seemed more academic to him when he was there, and students went to school six days a week in France. The kids in Beardstown had to work on their farms too, and do hours of chores every day, and had less time to study.
He felt sure that Alex would do well at the exam. He took her to work with him that day, and she worked on the math problems in the book, refreshing her knowledge of algebra and geometry, and memorized some of the American history, about the American Revolution to free themselves of the British. And she studied the Constitution, which was the cornerstone of American government to the present.
She worked on it every day for the next week, and was ready for the exam at the local school. Her grandfather went with her the day she took it. The school was bigger than she expected. Several grades were grouped together in large rooms, with boys and girls together, of different ages. Many of the children on the farms were home-schooled. It was very different from her private girls’ school in Paris, with both lay teachers and nuns. But this seemed friendlier and more relaxed.
They put Alex in a separate room on her own to take the exam. Three teachers had created the exam for her on five different subjects, each with equal value to compute her grade. Three of them were essay questions. One was about the Constitution and what it meant, and the second asked how the history of a country affected how it functioned today. The last was an essay about the book she’d read that had affected her the most, and about herself. And there was a math section. The questions weren’t easy.
She completed the whole exam in just under four hours and turned it in. She wasn’t sure how she had done, because she was used to subjects being more academic and less subjective, but the topics they had chosen allowed her to express herself. She wasn’t sure if she had gotten the math problems right. This was the same weak spot she’d had in France, but she had done her best. They promised to give her the results in a week, and her grade. Her grandfather gave her some jobs to do at the paper that kept her busy all week, and she forgot about the exam.
She had dinner with her grandfather at night, and they talked about interesting subjects. He told her that the Spanish flu was racing through the world and had become a pandemic, and was getting worse every day.
She still missed Mamie-Thérèse and sometimes she cried for her at night. Her grandfather was being so kind to her, and couldn’t do enough for her, but it still wasn’t the same. Mamie-Thérèse had been like a comfortable blanket that kept her warm. Her grandfather challenged her mind and made her think and stretch, which she enjoyed. And she liked working at the Courier . Paul had already told Alex that if she didn’t pass the school exam, she would have to work with a tutor and take it again. She could get nowhere without a high school diploma, so for now that was her only goal.
The director of the school district called Paul at the Courier and asked them both to come in. Paul asked how Alex had done and the director said coolly that she preferred to discuss it in person. Paul was concerned that Alex hadn’t done well, which surprised him because she was so intelligent, and adult to talk to. He was finding her to be great company in their nightly discussions. She was well-informed about current events in Europe, and well-read in the French classics, which weren’t part of the exam.
Two days later, they met the headmistress and district supervisor at the school, in the head’s office. They smiled when Paul and Alex walked in. They said she had the highest grade of any student in the school. She had scored ninety-eight overall in the exam and a hundred on the personal essay, which had everyone who read it in tears. They praised her for her writing. Her lowest grade was in math, an eighty-nine. Due to the circumstances of her arrival in Beardstown as a war orphan, and her academic excellence, they were giving her the diploma with Honorable Mention. They assured Paul that she would have no problem getting into any university with that exam result to add to her application, and her file of grades from France. And they said that with her history of why she was there, Alex would have the pick of any school she wanted that included women in their student body.
They shook hands all around, and Paul and Alex were both beaming when they left the school. He looked at her when he put the truck in gear. “Now we have to get serious, Alex. You have to pick the colleges you want, and apply. We’re a little late, but under the circumstances I think they’ll give you a break on the timing. I have a list of schools for you to pick from.”
“Near here?” she asked, looking worried. She had just gotten there, and wasn’t ready to leave yet.
“Some are near here, and some aren’t. Some colleges still won’t accept women, which is stupid of them. We had the same problem for your mother. She loved the University of Chicago,” he said noncommittally. He liked the idea of keeping her close to him now that she was here. He didn’t want to lose her so soon, and she didn’t want to lose him either. He was all she had now.
“She went to nursing school,” Alex reminded him. “I want to study journalism.” He looked pleased when she said it. “Then I can work for you.”
“You can work for me anyway,” he said gruffly, with a lump in his throat. He was very proud of her for the exam. She reminded him so much of her mother.
They got down to serious business that night after dinner. He had been researching appropriate schools ever since she arrived. He had wanted to see her first and get a sense of what she was capable of. In women’s schools, he had Barnard College in New York City on his list, as well as Connecticut College, and St. Joseph’s College for Women in Brooklyn, which had opened two years before. Rutgers University had just opened the New Jersey College for Women, and their first class would be open in the fall. Saint Clara’s College in River Forest, Illinois, was well established, had existed for seventeen years, and was the closest.
Their other options were men’s colleges that had become co-ed, which was an interesting possibility. Syracuse, Cornell, and the University of Pennsylvania, all great schools. And New York University had allowed two women to receive BA degrees in the last three years. The University of Chicago was the closest to what was now home, on that list.
“I really liked New York when I was there, Grampa, it’s exciting,” she said, her eyes dancing, and he frowned.
“You might want to save ‘exciting’ for after you graduate,” he said seriously. “New York can be very distracting, and I’m not crazy about a young woman alone in New York at your age. It can be a dangerous city. Maybe you should save that for a job after you graduate and you’re a little older. I’m sure you can handle it, but I’d worry about you.” She nodded and wondered if he was right. Visiting for a day with a car and driver was different from living there, even in a dormitory.
They debated for several days, and finally settled on five schools to apply to. The University of Chicago, Saint Clara’s College for its proximity, Barnard in New York, Cornell, and Syracuse. Each of them had advantages and disadvantages, and they decided to wait and see where she got accepted and narrow it down after that. Academically, Barnard was her first choice, and Paul agreed. She liked the idea of the University of Chicago because it was a good school, close enough to come home when she wanted to. Everyone seemed to love Chicago, and said it was a smaller, more manageable New York, and her mother had gone there.
She went to work at her grandfather’s newspaper after that as an intern, helping out where she was needed. And a month later, she got the answers from the colleges she had applied to. Barnard said she had applied too late, and suggested that she wait a year and apply for the following year, which she didn’t want to do. Cornell accepted her, and Syracuse put her on a waiting list. Saint Clara said their enrollment was full but they would love to have her next year. And the University of Chicago accepted her, which meant that the real yeses she had were from the University of Chicago and Cornell. She wasn’t excited about Cornell, but she was about the University of Chicago. She accepted the day she got their answer. They had a department of journalism. Her grandfather said that if she didn’t like it, she could always apply to Barnard for next year, since they had suggested it, and they had an important department of journalism. Privately, he was relieved that she wasn’t going to New York. In his opinion, she was too young at eighteen to tackle New York. It would eat her alive. He was delighted with her choice of the University of Chicago. He could visit her there, and she could come home easily. And Alex was delighted too.
Things were moving fast in her life. She had been in Beardstown for six weeks, she had a summer job she loved at her grandfather’s newspaper, and she was heading for college in Chicago in September. It was the best news she’d had in a long time, and she put her arms around her grandfather’s neck, and kissed him. He hadn’t been this happy since his wife and daughter were both alive. He was discovering that having a granddaughter was just as good. He enjoyed telling Alex about all the mischief her mother had gotten into when she was a little bit younger than Alex. Alex loved hearing the stories. It brought her mother alive for her again, and she loved having her girlhood bedroom.
The only cloud in the sky was that the Spanish flu was running rampant in the United States and Europe. It hadn’t made it as far as Beardstown yet, but there were cases in Chicago. People were getting desperately sick and dying, while others only had mild cases, like Alex had had, but most cases were more like Marie-Thérèse had experienced, and thousands of people were dying.