Chapter 10

Grace Mainwaring to Sally Henry, January 14, 1937

I am still at Mother's house even though the holidays ended two weeks ago. At first, I wasn't sure about the idea. However, I was surprised to find that I didn't feel trapped and lonely as I did when I lived here before. Mother is more patient and less demanding these days. With Juanita and Maisie around, I never lack for company. Maisie, in particular, lifts my spirits with her cheerful, enthusiastic attitude. When we sit in my room listening to Billie Holliday or James Johnson on the phonograph and shooting the breeze, I can forget everything for a while.

Remember when we were Maisie's age and our most immediate problems were passing Mr. White's algebra test and persuading our mothers to let us bob our hair? Even with the war going on, we did have some carefree times. I wish mother weren't so Victorian about Maisie playing jazz in her parlor. It doesn't help that Juanita agrees with her. You would think that a Negro would love a form of music that her people invented. Instead, she cares mostly for church music and considers jazz worldly and tawdry. I love a good hymn myself, but you can hear the voices of the angels just as clearly in a Louis Armstrong trumpet solo or an Eddie Lang guitar riff. God bless Van for fully opening my eyes to such glory.

… I absolutely love the Elgin watch Van had Lionel send me for my birthday. The gold and enamel design is so elegant and stylish that it just takes my breath away. I frequently take it off to look at our initials and the words "Love Forever" engraved on the back in fine flowing cursive. I even put it to my ear sometimes. The soft, steady ticking calms me. Still, I can't help wishing that I were listening to the beat of Van's heart instead. ….

Vanaver Mainwaring to Grace Mainwaring January 20, 1937

. . . Our group arrived in Albacete just in time to join the rest of the Canadian and American volunteers being transported by truck to our training camp at a down-at-the-heels hamlet called Villanueva de Jara. Along the way we were informed that someone above us had made the decision, ratified by the men, that our unit was to be called the Abraham Lincoln Battalion. On arrival we found a cluster of mud-daubed houses, filthy alleys and narrow dirt lanes. The only buildings of any size were a convent, a church, and a chocolate factory, all abandoned. We are billeted in the convent and drill daily. I try as best I can to remember my old ROTC training from Groton. I hated my father at the time for insisting on it, but it's sure coming in handy now.

. . . Harry has a way with the village children. He gives them rides on his shoulders and teaches them Negro folk songs learned from his mother and his Uncle Zeke and German folk songs learned from his father. They were wary of him at first but warmed up after it became obvious that he wasn't one of Franco's Moors from Morocco come to rape their mothers and sisters and murder their fathers and brothers.

Mackie isn't bad with them either, but with five brothers and sisters and even more nephews and nieces he's used to having lots of children around. Johnny wishes he had his father's talent with the fiddle. Instead, when he can find someone from the village to act as interpreter, he has to settle for telling the kids some of the tall tales he's regaled us with since New York. I've noticed that he's cleaned up a couple of the saltier ones considerably.

Grace Mainwaring to Sally Henry, January 21, 1937

. . . I have astonishing news today. I wish I could share it with Van, but until he writes me from Spain, I won't know where to send a letter. I haven't heard from him since I received his letter from Le Havre. That was a week ago. He must be in Spain by now. When I think that every passing day brings him and his comrades closer to the battlefield I want to scream.

Fortunately, Mother has arranged for some distraction from my worries. I wasn't sure about her idea at first, but once she explained it to me it made sense. Mother has talked before about getting a private secretary to help ease her workload. Until yesterday, I had no idea that she had me in mind for the position. I couldn't understand why. I'm only a passable typist and I have no shorthand. Mother quickly disposed of both objections.

"I don't need a speed demon," she told me, "and you won't need shorthand to operate a dictaphone."

I was still a bit reluctant. Even if I could do the job, there was no shortage of qualified women who could do it better. Then Mother told me her real reason for wanting me for the position. "I need your help. Thanks to you and Maisie and Juanita, I'm recovering from my stroke. However, we must face the fact that my health is still far from ideal. I need someone to follow me as President of the Silverdome Mining Company. For a long time, I had hoped that someone would be Hub. However, even if he dedicated his every effort to the task starting today, He would need to finish high school and college and do graduate work to become a mining engineer. Afterwards, he would still need a few years of experience in the mining business before I could safely hand the reins over to him. My health won't last that long."

"You aren't asking me to be your successor, are you?"

"No. Even if I were sure you were up to it, I know it's hard for you to make plans with Van away at war."

I was grateful for her consideration. "Thank you. What do you intend to do?"

"There's no choice." She grimaced. "We have to bring in an outsider, someone with experience in the mining industry. We'll take a few months first to make sure that the company stays on its feet now that we've modernized our equipment. Then we'll start to look around. Our choice will begin as vice president and familiarize himself with the workings of the company."

"Where do I come in?"

"Even if you aren't ready to take my place permanently, you've kept well abreast of the state of the business all these years. You've been attending board meetings since 1915. Except for this past summer, I don't think you've missed one since 1921. Not to mention your brief time as company president. By the time you finish working as my secretary, you'll know even more about the company. I need someone I can trust by my side during this process, someone who can see it through if my health fails again."

"It won't fail. Dr. Barlow says that you're making a wonderful recovery."

"If that's his diagnosis, I'll probably be dead in a week. Nonetheless, there is one more reason why I need you to be my secretary. When my successor takes over, someone will have to keep an eye on him and the company on behalf of the family. There is no one I would trust more with this responsibility. Even if you leave New Bedford to make a new life with Van, I don't think I'm asking anything of which you are not capable. Will you do this for me and for the family?"

I detected a glimmer of anxiety in her eyes. Suddenly, she seemed frail and uncertain, not at all the forceful, commanding woman I had known for most of my life. I thought of the burdens she had shouldered by herself all these years for our family and our community. I knew how hard it was for her to swallow her pride and ask for help. I simply couldn't bring myself to refuse her.

Robert Bailey to May Bailey, January 26, 1937

. . . I don't know what to tell Grace in my letters to her to ease her worries. I want to be encouraging about Van's chances, but I know all too well what he's in for. There are no guarantees for him and his comrades any more than there were for me and mine at Ypres or Passchendaele. Care and experience can improve the odds, but I've seen the most careless newcomers survive battles that killed old hands in droves. I never thought that I'd be hoping for a Communist-led fighting force to be disciplined and well-organized, but I never expected my sister's husband to be part of one. Nor did I imagine that the militarism and autocracy my generation thought we'd beaten in the Great War would come back in such a virulent form as fascism.

It is a tremendous relief to be free of all ties to Hugo Gerrard, for Luc Gerrard even more than for me. Neither of us were happy that Hugo was on such good terms with Eugene Berthiaume, owner of L'Illustration Nouvelle, the paper that employed self-styled Canadian Fuhrer Adrian Arcand as an editor. Supposedly, he and Berthiaume had done business together when they were both bootleggers exporting liquor to the United States during that country's experiment with prohibition.

It wasn't until a week ago that Luc told me that his father had admitted to providing Adrien Arcand with a trickle of financial support. He did this not because he believed in Arcand's anti-Semitism, but in order to stay on his good side should the tide turn in his favor. His exact words were, "fascism is a rising tide. We need to be prepared to let it carry us forward."

I've rarely seen anyone as ashamed and disgusted as poor Luc was when he spoke of his father's opportunism. I don't blame him. I can hardly believe that I once called Hugo Gerrard's habitual crooked dealings "good business." True, I was blinded by my gratitude to him for giving me a new start and resentment at you for seemingly never letting me feel that anything I accomplished was good enough. However, the more I try to make a place of my own in the business world the more I see the worth of the lessons about honesty and self-respect which you and Father tried so hard to teach me.

Having Diana as my wife helps. Her kindness and good heartedness make me want to be a better man. When we start our new family, I want our children to have the kind of father they can look up to and respect. Luc and I are taking a chance starting our own company, especially with only one modestly producing mine and two prospects, but at least we can look ourselves in the face in the morning.

Vanaver Mainwaring to Grace Mainwaring, January 28, 1937

Still waiting for word from you. The mail here is disgustingly slow. . . A band of Irish volunteers was transferred into the Abraham Lincoln Battalion a few days ago from the British Battalion. Most of them are toughs from the Irish Republican Army who seem determined to uphold the Irish reputation for hard drinking and hard brawling. However, their experience of actual combat in their country's revolution against the British and in the civil war that followed could be very useful.

There are a handful of intellectuals and idealists in the Irish contingent. One of them came up to me the other day, a slight, brown-haired kid not much older than Will. I was reading Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. He offered his opinion that it was a magnificent book. I agreed and mentioned that I had brought it with me when I left New York. It was something by which I could remember America. The kid paid Whitman the compliment of saying that his poetry was one of the things by which everyone would remember America. Then he introduced himself as Charlie Donnelly, from Dublin by way of London.

We shot the breeze for a while and it came out that Charlie was a former undergraduate at University College Dublin turned author, poet, and lecturer for radical causes. When I was his age, I was like most of my contemporaries. The only cause I believed in was fattening my bank account. It's hard to believe the world and I have changed so much in only a decade. Our different generations aside, Charlie and I do have a couple of things in common. We both have strained relations with our fathers, although his seems to be far less unforgiving than mine. He also has a sweetheart at home who he loves and misses terribly. When I think of you, darling, I remember a quatrain from one of his poems that he recited for me. "For hate must die and fear must die/And sorrow is not in the sky/But tho' God crack eternity/ Love lives on."

I'm sure Will would like to have a sweetheart, the way he's always making sheep's eyes at the local girls. Harry and I tell him that he could easily find one willing to take an evening walk with him, if only he wouldn't be so bashful. He's a likable enough kid. He just needs to speak up. Harry already has a girl to keep him company, a young widow. It frustrates him that her mother accompanies them whenever they are together.

May Bailey to Robert Bailey January 29, 1937

. . . I am not cheered by your estimation of Van's chances in this war . . . or surprised. Please, don't breathe a word of it to Grace. She needs our encouragement during this time, not our forebodings. I have lost track of the number of times I have seen her gazing at Van's photograph, her thoughts far across the ocean with the man she loves. I hope that Van is worthy of such devotion. He would be utterly exasperating if his determination to atone for the wrongs he has done wasn't so admirable.

I hope that you and Diana are doing the right thing in moving to Toronto. I know that someone has to look after your company's business interests there and Luc Gerrard's experience and connections with the Montreal business community are too valuable for him to be spared. However, it remains to be seen if the scandal caused by the breakup of your previous marriage has died down enough to be overcome. Hopefully, the fact that your new father-in law's friends, the Langton's, are willing to break the ice for you and Diana socially and even sponsor Doris in her upcoming debutante season will be sufficient.

Grace Mainwaring to Vanaver Mainwaring February 9, 1937

Congratulations on your corporal's stripe. . . Honey is still cool towards me, but at least we are speaking. . . . Maisie is doing well in her Junior Red Cross courses and in her volunteer work at New Bedford Hospital. As my cooking student she has more enthusiasm than skill. Does your Lincoln Battalion enlist girls like the Republic militias? Based on her performance in the kitchen, Maisie may have some talent with explosives, especially incendiaries. . .

I am glad your Ross rifles were replaced with something that doesn't jam after one shot. They certainly deserve Mackie's disdain. I won't repeat the language my brother Jack used to describe them when he didn't realize that I was in earshot. Not that I blamed him. I don't care for cursing as a rule, but anyone who saw a good friend like Ted Whitney killed because his rifle jammed was entitled to say anything he liked about it.

Vanaver Mainwaring to Grace Mainwaring February 17, 1937

We are holding a section of the line at the Jarama front now. Harry is downcast at having to leave his young widow. Johnny has been transferred from our company to the Tom Mooney Company, the machine gun section. How he was overlooked until now is beyond me as nearly all the merchant mariners of the battalion have already found their way there. He is to feed the ammunition belt into a Maxim gun.

Next Post in two weeks: A strained friendship. Volunteers at war.