Chapter Twenty-Four
On the first Saturday in December, Hazel went to a holiday banquet held by the Royal Neighbors of America; it was one of the organizations she had joined after Aunt Hattie insisted that she needed to stop drinking. Lila didn’t know much about it, but she was grateful to make dinner in peace and quiet. Lila and Looy were the last two siblings living at home, and Lila was taking the brunt of her mother’s never-ending criticism. Look at this spot you missed when you were mopping. Why is the meat raw in the center? Why are you cleaning the windows with that filthy rag…didn’t I teach you better?
Between her paying job and doing the chores at home, Lila was exhausted. Her knees and shoulders ached like the joints of an old woman. Her hips were so sore at night that the constant pain often woke her up.
When Hazel entered the front door, John and Looy were sitting in the living room, and Lila was setting the table. You won’t believe the gossip I heard tonight: Lloyd was arrested again for burglary.
Lila dropped the pitcher of milk she was carrying. Hazel barked, What is wrong with you, Lila? You’re so careless these days.
Lila said nothing. She looked down at the broken pottery and the pool of milk spreading over the floor. Get a rag and clean that up.
As Lila got to work, her mother told the rest of the story. Lloyd’s picture had been all over the newspapers; he was running with a gang of three men, and they had stolen some liquor and cash from the labor temple. When is that fool going to learn his lesson about prison?
Lila felt like she had been kicked in the stomach, but there was nothing she could say or do.
The next day as they were doing laundry, her mother said, You know, Lila…when I was nineteen, I was already married with a child on the way. Men can wait to get married, but women don’t stay young forever.
Lila sighed. It was not the first time this topic had come up. Now that Veda was married, her mother was on a mission to get Lila married. But as much as she looked forward to getting out of the house, Lila had no real interest in marriage. Where was she supposed to find a potential husband? The usual way to meet someone was at school or at a party, but Lila was out of school, and she was rarely invited to parties. She didn’t have much time for anything besides work, chores, and spending time with Lloyd.
Aunt Hattie was trying to play matchmaker. It had worked for Theron, Izro, and Lyle. She had invited Lila to her house several times for tea, but Lila knew what that meant and kept refusing to accept. It was a quiet thrill to frustrate Aunt Hattie. Couldn’t the family just wait for a few years and let her figure things out on her own? Veda had found her own match.
A few days later, Hazel announced that she wanted to host a gathering for the Service Star Legion. After the shocking attack on Pearl Harbor, families with sons in the military could use their support. When Lila said that she would be willing to help cook and serve the food, her mother said, Wonderful, we can plan the menu together.
Lila and Hazel cleaned the house from top to bottom, and Aunt Hattie allowed them to borrow her good dishes and tea service. Lila expected that they would prepare a full dinner (and was already fantasizing about the different types of pies she could make), but her mother said that finger foods would be easier to make and serve. They settled on tiny sandwiches filled with cream cheese and ham, deviled eggs, Swedish meatballs, cubes of Jell-O, sugar cookies, and mulled cider. When it was too dark to play outside with his friends, Looy helped the effort by setting up a small Christmas tree and making strings of popcorn and paper chains to decorate the walls. When the table was full and they were waiting for the guests to arrive, Lila had to admit that the house smelled and looked wonderful. She felt proud to serve her patriotic duty.
Much to Lila’s surprise, her mother had given her a tube of lipstick that morning. She had often wished that she could have ruby lips like Scarlett O’Hara, but Hazel didn’t wear lipstick or any cosmetics at all; receiving such a gift was like suddenly discovering that your pet dog could dance the polka. Her mother had pressed the tube into Lila’s hand and walked away, giving her no opportunity to ask questions. The night before the party, Lila had carefully set her hair into a wave; wearing the lipstick and her best dress, she felt quite glamorous. Looy was going to help serve their guests; he had been ordered to take a bath and put on some clean clothes and to carry around trays of hors d’oeuvres. It was funny to see him dressed up like he was going to church; it was not Looy’s usual state of being.
Many of the guests lived in their neighborhood. Lila recognized some of the families of her classmates. Marius and Snorre Gronbeck had dropped out of school the year before to join the military; Marius was in Lila’s class. Their parents were Norwegian and spoke English with heavy accents. Lila wondered if they felt like they had to prove
themselves as Americans. It was not something she had considered when Marius announced that he was leaving. Most of the people who attended the party were parents, sisters, and younger siblings. There were also a few young men who were home on leave or getting ready to enlist. When Lila saw Earl Bright (who was a few years older; he had been one of Cecil’s classmates), she assumed that he fell into one of those categories; he said he was visiting from Illinois.
As they were talking, Aunt Hattie passed by with a smirk on her face. Earl asked if they could go for a walk, and Lila went to get her coat and mittens. It was a clear and very cold night. As they walked, Earl pointed to Orion, the north star, and the big and little dipper. Lila was not impressed; everyone knew those constellations. Earl said he was going to enlist in the Navy as soon as the holidays were over. His nose was turning progressively red from the cold. Lila was on the verge of laughing when he said, I guess we better turn back. I didn’t realize it would be so cold tonight!
He was so boring. That night, Lila fell asleep thinking of Lloyd. The last time he had walked her home from work, he told her a joke about a married couple:
A man tells his wife that he needs to go buy a pack of cigarettes. He goes to the bar at the end of the block, sees a beautiful woman, one thing leads to another, and they end up going to her place. As soon as the fun is over, he falls asleep. He wakes up and realizes,
Shit, I don’t even have cigarettes! What am I going to tell my wife?He leaps out of bed and runs outside to rub his shoes in the grass and mud. He goes home, and his wife is still awake.
Where have you been?she says furiously.The man says,
You won’t believe it, honey…I went to the bar to buy some cigarettes, but I saw a beautiful woman and we ended up going back to her place and having sex.The wife looks down at his shoes and says,
You lying bastard! You went fishing again!
It made her smile just thinking about Lloyd and his scandalous jokes. She wondered how long it would be until they could see one another again. Maybe he wouldn’t be sentenced to prison after all. Maybe the police had made a mistake. She pulled the scarf out from under her mattress and fell asleep with it pressed against her cheek.
The next day there was a knock on the door: it was Earl and his parents. Lila was in the kitchen washing the enormous stack of dishes from the party when she heard, Lila dear, please come out here.
Her mother never said dear.
She reluctantly dried her hands and walked to the living room, still carrying the dish towel. When Earl saw Lila, he dropped to one knee and said, Lila, I’ve come to ask for your hand in marriage.
He opened a tiny box with a ring inside—it had a thin band of gold with a square ruby and two tiny diamonds.
Lila’s heart dropped. She hardly knew Earl. What was the rush? As if reading her mind, her mother said, Earl wanted to propose before he leaves for the war.
Earl took the ring out of the box and slipped it onto her left hand. The band was a little too big, and the ruby drooped to the side; for months, the prongs would dig into her pinky finger, reminding her of that painful and awkward moment. As Lila stood there silently, the room erupted in happy chatter.
Earl is leaving for Illinois…
Lila can live with us…
I’ll send an announcement to the newspaper first thing in the morning.
Wasn’t she supposed to say yes, or no? Earl gave her a peck on the cheek and his parents began putting their coats back on. Lila was stunned. Aunt Hattie was the one who put the announcement in the newspaper.
Lila knew it was cruel, but she hoped that Earl would be killed in the war. Veda told her it was so exciting to marry a soldier going off to war! Just like a movie. But Lila didn’t want to plan a date for the wedding. A few weeks later, Lloyd was sentenced to serve up to five years in the state prison. Lila wondered what her life would be like in five years. Would she be married to Earl? Would she have children? It was gut-wrenching to think how quickly her life had turned for the worse. She had been happy with her life the way it was.
Notes
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the rate of engagements and marriages in the United States tripled as young couples rushed to formalize their relationships. Lila was approaching the average age for a first-time marriage in the 1940s (twenty-one for women, twenty-four for men), but I imagine that her parents also wanted to be done with the hard work of raising children.
Although I grew up in a later time (the 1980s and 1990s), I remember the confusing push-pull of becoming an adult. Don’t get pregnant! But also…get married and have children! I used yearbooks to find names of Lila’s actual classmates, then searched for them in the National Archives database to see who had served in the war.
I found Lila’s engagement announcement in the La Crosse Tribune. I was stunned because I had never heard of Earl Bright. He might have been a good catch
in the eyes of Lila’s family, but was he compatible? I have no idea what Earl was like; the contrast with Lloyd is striking.
The Internet is full of historical examples of jokes; I just adapted one that I thought was especially appropriate for Lloyd and Wisconsin.
For more information, see Beth L. Bailey1, Kenneth Rose2, and Carol Wyman3.