Chapter 99

Hubert Bailey to Max Sutton, Jan. 19, 1939

I wish Elaine would stop treating me like a rat carrying the plague just because she thinks she should have my job. Mr. Hartley is right not to want her to drop out of high school to work at the garage full-time. She should get an education, and she makes decent money babysitting without having to work during the day. He's probably also right in saying that it would be almost impossible to find another garage owner who would hire a girl mechanic even part time.

However, he isn't making things any easier by telling her that sooner or later she'll give up her "hopeless dream of making a living out of cars and engines" and take up what he sees as a woman's only true career, marriage and children. Hearing that drives her wild, especially since he was the one who taught her how to fix engines so well. He says that he did it because he was proud that she was so interested in the family business, not so that she could follow him in it. Now, it's time for her to be serious about her future and start growing up.

Her younger brother Bert can follow in their dad's footsteps as a garage owner. Mr. Hartley considers Mom, Grandmother, and Aunt Grace exceptions to his belief that a woman's place is in the home. He sees them as having been forced by widowhood to earn their own livings. I don't know. Grandmother and Aunt Grace did paying work before they lost their husbands. Even Mom worked at Dad's hardware store when he was still alive.

Today, Elaine's older sister Harriet dropped by to add her two cents. She is married to the head of the furniture department at the Right House. That's the department store where she worked as a salesgirl after leaving high school. Her parents are proud of her for marrying such a successful man.

To be fair, Harriet's husband, Chet Walsh, seems to be a nice guy who dotes on her and their baby son Ian. He was friendly enough the two times he had supper with his in laws. Elaine spent both suppers looking daggers at her sister and speaking to her as little as possible. Given how casually Harriet dismissed her work as a mechanic as "an adolescent little hobby," I don't blame her a bit. Maisie has no idea how lucky she is to be part of a family that has always supported and respected her ambition to be a doctor.

Speaking of ambitions, I hope that Henry's to be a policeman isn't just another fad like wanting to be a chess grandmaster or a pilot, or just a way to impress Rebecca. My own to serve in the navy is doing very well. I and my fellow RCNVR volunteers are being put through our paces. We drill on Tuesdays and Thursdays at a three-story brick building on Stuart Street which used to be the Dominion Vinegar Works. Our commanding officer, Lieutenant John Cyril Hart, is very strict. God help anyone who doesn't show up on time and ready to give his best.

… I'm glad to hear that Mayor Poole is getting better. I know you are counting the days until you can step down as acting mayor. I am glad that your writing is going well. I agree with Mom that you should let Aunt Grace read your manuscript and make suggestions the way she used to do. After everything she's been through, she deserves to have something fun in her life for a change.

From the Journal of Elaine Hartley Jan. 19, 1939

My perfect sister visited again to rub my nose in her perfect life with her perfect husband and her perfect baby. At least she thinks Chet is the perfect husband. Never mind that he's twelve years older than her. He'll be 36 in a month. That's one step away from the old folks' home.

I'll say this for Chet. He doesn't mind when I tease him about it. When I greet him with "Hi, Pop, I see you didn't bring your cane," he always says "Hello, Toddler" in a good-natured way and jokes about how his rheumatism is feeling much better.

Naturally, Harriet had to be infuriating. She should know by now that I would rather be boiled alive than let her get me a salesgirl job at the Right House after I graduate from high school. I would rather babysit until I'm 65 than work alongside a bunch of simpering husband-hunters. During supper, I had the choice of talking to her on my right hand or cocky, self-satisfied Hub Bailey on my left. It burns me up to see how palsy-walsy he and Dad get always chatting about the garage or the fishing at LaSalle Pier. Dad and I used to be like that.

Grace Mainwaring to Sally Henry Jan. 20, 1939

My editorial and Mr. Cramp's in last Wednesday's edition of the Chronicle have stirred things up in New Bedford something fierce. So far, several different people have stopped me on the street or pulled me aside at social occasions to ask me how I can still believe that a war is coming when the Munich Peace has already endured for nearly four months. Surely, Hitler will keep his promises.

Of course, your friend and mine, Pearl Disher, was the worst and the one I have the hardest time forgiving. In that poisonously sweet way of hers she told me that she would be for war too if her family stood to make a fortune providing nickel for armaments production. I asked her through gritted teeth if she really believed that I wanted a war after losing Van to one. She just smiled smugly. "I'm sorry for your loss. Really, I am. Your husband was a brave man. However, you can't spend his courage at a swanky Toronto shop."

I know I shouldn't have, but may the Lord forgive me, I slapped her right there in front of Greeley's Grocery as hard as I could. She glared at me even after I apologized for losing my temper. Then she shook her head sadly as though she hadn't done everything in her power to provoke me. "That's what I get for trying to be sympathetic."

Harry got off his shift in the mine at the same time I left the mine office after a full day of working with George Murphy. The backlog of work, piled up from the two-and-a-half months that Mother and I were away, is shrinking slightly faster than the new work in preparation for the upcoming stockholders' meeting is coming in. I suppose that's progress.

Harry has read the latest Chronicle. He agrees with my opinion of Hitler and thinks that it is about time that Prime Minister King woke up to the danger he poses. However, he doesn't believe that Stalin, ruthless and autocratic as he can sometimes be, represents anything permanent. His regime is simply a temporary interlude between the collapse of capitalism in Russia and the inevitable withering of the state which will produce the workers' paradise.

I wish I could be so optimistic about the chances of any dictatorship voluntarily giving its power back to the people. "Don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those old mossbacks who believe that all communists are slavering fiends. If I were, we wouldn't be talking. I know you and many of your comrades are decent idealists who sincerely believe that you're helping to make a better world."

Harry took that with good natured amusement. "I'd say the same about many non-communists. I agree that Stalin is not a perfect leader. I don't care for some of his methods. However, he is facing a real threat in fascism and its capitalist supporters."

"I hope he realizes that."

"I don't see how he couldn't. Any reasonable person can see that Hitler wants to dominate Europe. His hatred of communism is clear. Stalin wouldn't dare do anything that would make him more of a threat to Soviet Russia."

At this point, a number of other miners just off the same shift as Harry were looking on with interest. Some of them were nodding agreement. No one there was going to like what I had to say next, including myself, but there was no choice. The cost of illusions in this day and age is just too high. "Stalin is a ruthless strongman, as you admit. Ruthless strongmen are more likely than most not to see the clear and obvious. The people around them are usually too frightened of them to tell it to them. I wouldn't put it past Stalin to delude himself that his gains from a deal with Hitler would outweigh anything he might give up in return."

Harry shook his head. "I can't believe that Stalin would be that two-faced or that stupid. He has to know who Hitler's next target will be if he stands aside and lets him smash the democracies."

Our listeners were suddenly very sober. One of them, Hal Lane, said, "I'm not as sure of Stalin as you are, Harry. What if Grace is right and there is a war?"

Harry's expression grew grim. "If Canada is in it, I'll probably join up and fight."

Everyone, including me, looked at him with astonishment. I voiced what we all were thinking.

"Why? You've been through so much with the International Brigades and Canada isn't even your country."

His eyes were filled with sadness and anger. "Spain could have been a country run by working men and women. The fascists are smashing that dream. I've already seen them turn Spain into a slaughterhouse so they can put their boots on the necks of the Spanish people. I'll be damned if I let them do that again to this country or any other."

Next Week: The hidebound set. Honey's dream. Unreasonable parents. "War and Rumors."