Chapter 98

From the Journal of Honey Sutton Jan. 17, 1939

… Grace seemed surprisingly cheerful for someone who had buried her husband only three days earlier. Only a slight redness of the eyes gave any indication of what I knew from my own experience of widowhood lay beneath the surface. It was a long time after Jack's death before I could manage two or three nights of sound sleep in a row. Even now, I have a nightmare once in a while about the terrible day I lost him.

Nonetheless, even when the loss was still raw, sitting and talking with friends was a welcome distraction. Fortunately, I knew the perfect subject to distract Grace. "So how is life as an expectant mother?"

"The pregnancy is going very well," Grace said lightly. "Mother is taking it completely in her stride."

"I suppose it helps that someone else is doing all the hard work. How are you taking it?"

"Not too badly, I suppose." Grace looked doubtfully at her chicken salad and soup. "At least my stomach will hold a light lunch-every other day. To hear Mother tell it, she had morning, noon, and night sickness right up until the time my brothers and I were born."

I could imagine it. "But of course, she stoutly soldiered on."

"Of course. You should hear her talk about how easy modern mothers have it with vitamins, doctor visits, and hospital births. Apparently, my brothers and I came into the world in a cave on a bearskin."

I couldn't help smiling. "She doesn't mean any harm by it. A mother never stops feeling that she has to give her little girl or her little boy the benefit of her experience. Of course, you'll be finding that out for yourself soon enough."

Grace smiled back ruefully. "I suppose so, and it's reassuring to know she cares. However, from the way she fusses over whether I'm eating right and whether I'm dressed warmly enough, you'd think I was a child instead of just going to have one."

"If your child is a girl, you'll be the same way when it's her turn to have babies."

Grace put her hand to her mouth and her eyes widened. "Good heavens! I hadn't thought of grandchildren before. I must be getting older. The idea doesn't seem bizarre to me."

The subject turned to Mother Bailey's choice of an eventual successor as president of the Silverdome Mining Company. I supposed that between the trip to Spain and her pneumonia, she hadn't had much time make up her mind.

Grace looked at me with a mixture of amusement and exasperation. "Oh, she's made up her mind alright. She just won't tell me if she's chosen Howard Dowling or Glenn Sinclair. She'll only say that both are worthy candidates, and she's chosen the person she believes is best suited to the responsibilities of the position." Grace groaned in frustration. "It could be either of them. Sinclair would be a steady hand. Dowling is very forward thinking."

"Not to mention very handsome and still not married," I teased.

I should have expected Grace's shocked reaction. "What kind of merry widow do you think I am? I only just buried my husband."

I apologized for my insensitivity and hastened to explain. "I married Max before Jack was dead a year and I've never regretted it. All I'm asking is that you don't rule out the possibility of another marriage."

"I won't," Grace reluctantly agreed, "but you had three children to support. I'm not saying that you didn't love Max, but you weren't in a position to reject any reasonable proposal out of hand. Van left me adequately provided for and my job as an executive secretary is safe."

"It is?"

"I asked Mother. She told me that when she resigns as company president, I won't have to worry about being unemployed."

From the Journal of Grace Bailey - vol. 4, 1918/Jan.-Feb., 1939. Jan. 17, 1939

After paying the bill and saying goodbye to Honey, I left the tearoom. Before I was halfway across the lobby, Mr. Cramp stopped me and asked me how I was doing. I told him that I was doing as well as could be expected. He informed me that he intended to give Van's funeral an extensive and very respectful write up. "I can't say that I agreed with all of your husband's politics. However, what Will Lane and Harry Schmitz told me about him when I interviewed them only confirms my own impression of him. He was a decent and brave man who fought for honorable reasons. As a former soldier myself, I can say that he was the kind of soldier with whom I would have been honored to serve.

"Thank you, Mr. Cramp." My eyes misted over. "He wasn't a bad husband either."

Of course, the tears I can't seem to hold back these days when something moves me or frustrates me even a little began to flow. Mr. Cramp awkwardly offered me his handkerchief. I accepted gratefully and dried my eyes. Mr. Cramp gave me a little time to compose myself. Then he said something that surprised me more than a little. "Grace's Corner is still yours if you want to continue with it."

"You haven't found a replacement for me yet?"

Mr. Cramp eyed me nervously. "Yes and no."

I stood there expectantly.

"I let Mrs. Cramp have a crack at it," Mr. Cramp confessed.

My eyes must have widened until they were on the verge of bulging. "And …"

"Now she won't hear of anyone but her writing it."

I repressed my instinctive dread and kept my tone friendly. "How is she doing?"

"She thinks she's the next Walter Winchell. Her columns are so full of scurrilous gossip and innuendo that even without names named, I couldn't print them. I'd be taking both our lives into my hands."

"It can't be a bad as all that."

He gave me the pitying look he reserves for poor, naïve souls who simply don't understand how dire the situation is. "Come with me to the newspaper office and see for yourself."

My curiosity was piqued. I came. I saw. I was conquered by utter disbelief. The item about "a certain slightly addled spinster," who was obviously Reenie Bigelow, getting tipsy on sherry at a New Bedford Garden Club meeting was particularly insensitive. "This is awful. Walter Winchell might get away with it, but New York is a big city. In a small town like New Bedford there aren't as many places to hide."

Mr. Cramp winced. "Then you see what a pickle I'm in. If I print this, the first thing our neighbors will do will be to run Callie and me out of town on a rail."

"I wouldn't say that" I disagreed. It was unfair of me to pause long enough to let him breathe a sigh of relief, but I needed a moment to assure myself that I was actually reading what I thought I was reading. Just as he started to relax, I continued calmly. "They'll sharpen their pitchforks and light their torches first. Then they'll run you out of town on a rail."

Mr. Cramp groaned. Then, he begged. "You have to come back. Callie won't see reason, but even she can't refuse to step aside for a war widow with a child on the way. I'm sorry if that's cynical, but I'm desperate."

"It is cynical, but I accept your apology." I shrugged my shoulders. "I suppose I have no choice. I do have a civic duty to prevent mob violence."

I have rarely seen Mr. Cramp looking so relieved. "Thank you, Grace. I can't tell you how grateful I am, and not just because I get to keep my skin. You really are a good writer, and I would hate for the paper to lose you."

I was flattered by the compliment and relieved that I could continue doing something that brought me a great deal of enjoyment and satisfaction.

From the Journal of Maisie McGinty Jan. 17, 1939

After dinner, Mrs. Bailey asked Grace if she was ready to come back to work as her executive secretary. She hated to ask so soon after the funeral, but there is a lot of work piled up back at the mine office. There are also preparations to make now that Canada is rearming and will need nickel for defense production. They need to be on the ball. Grace understood and agreed to start back the next morning. It's hard to call anything normal around here with Van gone, but we are all starting to fall back into something like the old routine.

From Alden Cramp, "Acting in Haste," from the New Bedford Chronicle Jan. 18, 1939

In his speech before Parliament on Monday, the Prime Minister was both heedless and irresponsible. His statement that if England goes to war, Canada will join her is a grave danger to the peace which thoughtful statesmen have worked so long to build and so hard to maintain. Hitler's military adventurism is alarming and his persecution of German and Austrian Jews is repulsive. However, his actions are no threat to the safety and peace of Canada. Neither we nor our British kinsmen have any reason to become involved in the quarrels and intrigues of Europe.

From Grace Mainwaring, "Awake at Last," from the New Bedford Chronicle, Jan. 18, 1939

Prime Minister King deserves congratulations for his speech before Parliament on rearmament and on Canada's position should England become embroiled in another European war. Contrary to what his critics would have you believe, there was nothing dangerous or irresponsible about it. He simply recognized that war with the fascist powers cannot be avoided and, probably, never could. He took long overdue first steps to prepare the Canadian people for the inevitable.

Why is it inevitable? Hitler is currently carrying out a program of conquest and subjugation that dates back to his earliest days as fuehrer of the Nazi Party. The blueprint is laid out in Mein Kampf or My Battle in the English language translation. … . Hitler has already carried out much of it. … I have seen in Spain what Hitler and his allies are willing to do to countries which they have marked for conquest.

… Spain has been a bulwark against fascism, but that bulwark is about to be lost. Without the need to support the Spanish Republic, how long can Stalin be expected to serve as a deterrent to Hitler elsewhere. Especially if Hitler agrees to let him swallow up the Baltic states and, perhaps, a share of Poland in exchange for a free hand in the rest of Eastern Europe. Would this be treacherous? Yes. However, Stalin is the same person whose secret police and prison camps are a standing betrayal of his and communism's promises of a worker's paradise. So are the efforts of his agents to employ repressive measures against the Communist Party's political opponents in Spain.

Don't misunderstand the situation in the Republic. The communists are an influential faction within it, but only a faction-not the whole or even the greater part of it. The Republic, deeply flawed as it is, is still better than Franco's bloodthirsty regime. The Republic is more or less a democracy. With its land reform, unions, public schools, and voting rights for women, it offers at least some small hope of a better life for the Spanish people. Franco offers nothing but naked tyranny.

Refusing to aid the Spanish Republic in its struggle against fascism was a crime. For it, the democracies are about to pay in the blood of their youth. The only thing standing between them and another European war is time. Canada and its allies must use that time to rearm, to build economic strength, and to educate their peoples as to the nature and seriousness of the fascist threat. Many of the defenders of the Spanish Republic, including my husband, died to buy us that time. The price they paid was dear. It is up to us to see that it was not paid in vain. "Fascism shall be destroyed." [Motto of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. Ed.]

Next Week: Hartley family troubles. False sympathy. Grace and the workers of the world.