“I was dancing with my darling to the Tennessee Waltz
When an old friend I happened to see
Introduced her to my loved one and while they were dancing
My friend stole my sweetheart from me.”
a popular song in 1950 sung by Patti Page

Popular culture is a powerful force, often an unseen force, in the lives of both children and adults. My parents paid to send me to kindergarten because they believed five years old was a good time to start my formal education. It seems that part of that education was indoctrination into heterosexual culture. You can listen to the 1950 version of the Tennessee Waltz sung by Patti Page here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XCvfy6Huyc

“The Tennessee Waltz” was an immensely popular song at the time. At one of the kindergarten programs regularly presented for the parents, the two women who owned and operated the school choose to play the song in the background and have three students act the parts. Apparently they hired a photographer to record the event or these photos would not exist.

Perhaps I was chosen to be the girl in the group because the women knew my mother would make me a beautiful dress for the occasion. As you can see, even then I was tall for my age. Throughout my girlhood, I remember pulling out my photo book to look at this photo with pleasure.

Mother helped me to remember the details. The ribbon in my hair reached to the floor. The heart shaped locket inscribed “Paula” was a baby gift from mother’s family. I wore ballet slippers. The dress was mother’s dream of a dress for her little girl. It was cream color and all the rows of glitter on the skirt were worthy of a Hollywood fantasy. She designed it and sewed it for me. Obviously this was a important event for Marie too.

The socialization of girls into adopting “appropriate” sex-role behaviors may be one measure of successful mothering. Considering later conversations, I believe my mother held this view–it was her job to raise pretty and compliant girls. At the same time, I do believe, she wanted the “best” for me, my sisters and my brother.

Family plays a crucial and predominant role in socialization in the early childhood years. In “middle childhood”, meaning the years between the time when children enter school and the time they reach adolescence, “teachers, peers, coaches, and others outside the family have more contact with the child than in early childhood, and they exercise varying degrees of influence.”1

Sex-roles are taught at home and everywhere else! My kindergarten experience was infused with clear messages about the adult world’s expectations of me as a girl. Both positive reinforcement, like compliments and praise, as well as negative reinforcement including ridicule, criticism and punishment are common methods to ensure compliance. Each of these behavior modification tools remain effective in 2020.

My reason for talking about these realities, using examples from my own life, is to identify the undesirable consequences of restricting some behaviors and encouraging other behaviors based on a child’s sex. Doll, trains, stuffed toys, chemistry sets, camping gear are all useful toys and learning tools that do not need to be divided into pink and blue categories. Rational thought, empathy, and caring are all human characteristics.

Kindergarten was my first step into socialization beyond my family. Girls and boys are biologically different in a few specific ways. But all the efforts to make sure girls learn to be feminine (as defined by the culture) and boys learn to become masculine (as defined by the culture) are a social construction. Femininity and masculinity are sexist notions which limit the interests and behaviors of children into narrow pathways.

In December 2017 the Pew Research Center released a report on Social & Demographic Trends in this area.

“The public has very different views about what society values most in men and what it values in women. While many say that society values honesty, morality and professional success in men, the top qualities for women are physical attractiveness and being nurturing and empathetic.

When it comes to what society values most in women, traits associated with one’s physical appearance are among the most often mentioned: 35% volunteered something having to do with physical attractiveness or beauty. Three-in-ten say that society values being nurturing and empathetic most in women, including 11% who specifically mention being a parent or caregiver and 6% who mention traits like kindness or being helpful. By contrast, significantly smaller shares of Americans say that society values physical attractiveness or being nurturing or empathetic most for men (11% each).

In recent years, research looking at the messages boys and men get from society about what it means to “be a man” has received increased attention. The survey asked men how much pressure they think men in general face to do each of the following: be emotionally strong, be interested in sports, be willing to throw a punch if provoked, join in when other men are talking about women in a sexual way, and have many sexual partners.

Millennial men are far more likely than older men to say men face pressure to be willing to throw a punch, to join in when other men are talking about women in a sexual way and to have many sexual partners.”2

Popular culture is a powerful force both inside the family and outside the family. I was raised to be pretty and smart–in that order. I was a girl. If one child was to go to college, my dad believed it should be his son. This was seen as a normal attitude. My mother suggested that they take it one step at a time–not confronting him directly. As a girl child, my expectations were to be carefully shaped into helpmate material, preferably an attractive helpmate.

Our play clothes as children were sturdy and easy to wear-mostly short and shirts year round. Once school began I was dressed in dresses, skirts and blouses. My brother wore trousers and shirts. As a girl I was learning to dress “like a girl”. I was learning to concern myself with other people’s (both children and adults) opinion of me and of my appearance. As a tall girl I had already broken an important expectation that girls not be taller than boys. I soon realized that as a tall girl I would always be noticed. I would not “blend in” easily. This fact made be even more aware, at an early age, of what I wore and how I wore it. My family members were all tall–my parents encouraged each of us to not slouch–to stand up straight.

Idealized images of children, teens, women, men, families, couples, houses and more entered my consciousness when I was still a child–first from newspapers, television, movies, magazines and billboards.

My favorite comic strip from the Sunday newspaper was Brenda Starr, Reporter. I was drawn to her bold confidence, her adventures, and to her wide-ranging and stylish wardrobe. Television was a new phenomena in the 1950s and our family spent many hours watching–from situation comedies to sporting events and variety shows.

Since all television is educational television, I was receiving an advanced education in expectations about the role of women. Kathleen M. Barry informed us, “When a Miss America first received her crown on television in 1954, capturing half the viewing audience, the event became an all-in-one lesson for girls in the requirements of femininity. It was also an occasion for adults to take pride in the best of American womanhood in the making.”3 Our family often watched this pageant together and probably saw that 1954 event. In the early 1960s the pageants were the highest-rated programs on American television! Here is a one minute newsreel of the 1953 Miss America Pageant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbNbHnQ9v_Y

As a child and as a girl I was attracted to these idealized, carefully orchestrated visions of women in admired settings. As the oldest girl in a large family, I’d already encountered some of the responsibilities of caring for others. Did the girl who dressed for Halloween as Little Red Riding Hood, complete with red cape and red hood, have what it takes to escape the wolf’s threats and to rescue herself and her grandmother? Did these idealized women know how to help me do that? Perhaps embracing femininity was a survival skill I needed as a girl.

Notes

1 Eleanor E. Maccoby Chapter 5: Middle Childhood In The Context Of The Family https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK216771/

2 from Pew Research Center: Social & Demographic Trends
https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/12/05/americans-see-different-expectations-for-men-and-women/

3 Kathleen m. Barry, Femininity in Flight: A History of Flight Attendants p. 50 https://eh.net/book_reviews/femininity-in-flight-a-history-of-flight-attendants/

How my parents managed to create a nurturing and stable environment for us is a mystery to me. Both Marie and Paul were hard workers and took their parenting responsibilities seriously. It helped that they liked each other and worked together. Neither had experienced ideal parenting as children. Both seemed committed to creating family life that benefited each family member.

“Time is the miracle solution for most dilemmas of parenthood. Taken in minutes or hours, the time you spend with your kids gives you the opportunity to provide your kids all their essential needs — and much more.”1 This contemporary opinion suggests that all the time Marie and Paul spent with each of us was an enormous gift. I’m quick to add that all the time we kids had to spend, as we wished, in the safe outdoor environment of our neighborhood was another luxury we took for granted at the time. In addition to our parents, our Aunt Rosemary brought her own sense of humor and engaging mind to the family mix.

We, Neilsons, were an active family. We went to the beach occasionally, we picked strawberries, sometimes visited the zoo, explored the Tamiami Trail area of the Everglades where we saw Seminole Indians in their beautiful patchwork clothes and learned about their elevated living quarters called chickees. Later we took extended family camping trips. My dad had a single-lens reflex camera (SLR) which he used to take slide photos of our family adventures. Once in awhile we’d plan a slide show to review our activities. This “movie night” was accompanied by a huge bowl of hot buttered popcorn to share.

Creating a new life together

I’ve included all these candid photos of real 1949 and 1950s life for a white family in a sunny southern town because there is much misinformation about that time period. All the details seen in the backgrounds of the photos add detailed visuals when carefully studied. These two young adults, Paul and Marie, were adapting to life together, living in a new house, and caring for two infants. Our family of four soon became six! As a result, Dad then planned to build an addition to the house.

Marie had four pregnancies within five years. Only after her death did I learn that she had a miscarriage between the birth of Karl, born in September 1947 and Marsha, born in October 1950. This miscarriage is one of many things “that were not discussed” in our household. Decades later my father told my youngest sister that mother had some kind of “breakdown” after her third child, Marsha, was born. He said she went and stayed with women friends and played bridge for a full week. This too was a revelation to me.

Back story: at Marsha’s birth in 1950, Marie had approached her male doctor about obtaining a tubal ligation to prevent further pregnancies. That doctor, in a condescending and dismissive manner common in the 1950s, refused her request. One year later she found herself expecting another child. After our sister Lea was born in June 1952, Marie had the major responsibility for four children under the age of seven. After that birth she did have a tubal ligation which would prevent any further pregnancies–another piece of information unknown to me until recently.

Prior to that action, the concern about additional births must have been on their minds. Given the limited birth control options of the time period, I assume this concern about more births also affected their sexual intimacy which could easily affect other parts of their relationship.

Paul was a helpful parent, but was absent for most of the waking hours. It’s not surprising that I became “mother’s little helper”. Lea became known as Baby Lea by everyone in the neighborhood, until Mother finally said, “no, this has to stop–she can’t be Baby Lea all her life”. Perhaps she was thinking of her Aunt Anne who was known as Duckie all of her life. It took all of us awhile to change our habit of using Lea’s nickname.

When mother had been pregnant with me in 1944, her sexist Army doctor had decided mother’s breasts were too small for her to consider nursing her child. Denigration of breastfeeding was not unusual. “Breastfeeding in the Western world declined significantly from the late 1800s to the 1960s. By the 1950s, the predominant attitude to breastfeeding was that it was something practiced by the uneducated and those of lower classes. The practice was considered old-fashioned and “a little disgusting” for those who could not afford infant formula and was discouraged by medical practitioners and media of the time.”2

Marie had little time to recover from pregnancy, the birthing, and adjusting to life with a new baby, before she was again “with child”! In addition to coping with all the physical and emotional challenges, every week she had a hundred or so bottles to sterilize, and hundreds of diapers to wash and hang out to dry. This was Marie’s daily reality for about ten years.

Telling this story is a tribute to my mother. Her fortitude and endurance amaze me. Her personal situation was a direct result of the social, medical and legal attitudes of her time, that is, the political climate women inhabit in this male-dominated society.

My life story is rooted in my mother’s life story and to a lesser extent my father’s life story. As the oldest daughter of a large family, I believe I had a taste of what the multiple responsibilities of a mother would include. Few of my life choices have sent me in that direction.

A Wedding to Plan!
Aunt Rosemary, Paul’s youngest sister, was a vital part of our Neilson “clan”. She was the one relative involved continually with us for many years, as you can see in those photos of Marie and Rosemary hosing down the two toddlers on a hot Miami day. She spent holidays and fun times with us. Later I would spend weekends with her at her new house–fun for me and one less child at home. Paul seemed glad to have his youngest sister nearby and included in our family life. Both were transplants to the Miami area, and shared memories and experiences from their youth in Upstate New York. Both were glad to have escaped the long, cold winters!

In the mid 1950s Rosemary married Darryl Harrison in a simple wedding with the reception held at our house in Miami Springs. Her wedding was a family affair, not a catered event. Mother used her silver forks and bone china plates (from Duckie) carefully arranged on crisp white linens to honor the couple and their guests. The delicate green ferns surrounding the cake grew in our yard. Step back in time….

Postscript

Notes
1 from Dr. Rotbart at https://www.childrenscolorado.org/conditions-and-advice/parenting/parenting-articles/what-children-need/
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_and_culture_of_breastfeeding

Marie had grown up on “the Beach”, but it was too expensive for a young couple to buy a home on that island for their growing family. And the GI bill, which offered mortgage assistance, only applied to new housing. Marie’s high school friends, her church and her family (Aunt Duckie) were on Miami Beach. Dad had finished night school and had been hired as a land surveyor for the City of Miami Beach. Neither one wanted to leave the area. To buy a home of their own, they would have to leave.

While Paul and Marie were considering their options they celebrated their daughter’s first birthday on Miami Beach with friends and relatives. Generally Dad was the photographer so we’ll see fewer photos of him. Both my parents were anxious to take pictures of our family life together–that accounts for all these photos from 74 years ago.

Commuting in 1947 was not commonplace, but it probably seemed the solution to the situation. Miami Springs was ten miles away, about a 30-40 minute drive with no easy, direct route. It was on the western edge of the developed area. Beyond was the untamed Everglades, also known as “the River of Grass”. After 1945, the Miami Beach and Miami area experienced a post-war sprawl when “hundreds of thousands of GIs came to Miami to start a new life”.1

I’ve found a variety of ads by Miami Springs builders directed at veterans. Here is one: “Selling for $11,950, veterans require a down payment of $730 which includes closing costs. Monthly carrying charges come to approximately $75. Set on a minimum size lot measuring 75 by 125 feet.” Other builders emphasize hurricane-proof buildings. Another builder promised “atomic bomb protection” and no down payment for veterans. It seems like it might have been a “buyer beware” market for these young newlyweds! [Families in the United States had an average (median) income of $3,000 in 1947.]

In choosing Miami Springs as their new home, Paul and Marie either “did their homework” or made a lucky choice. In Miami Springs, “deed restrictions were rigid, and strict building and zoning guidelines called for masonry construction, tile roofs, proper set-backs and landscaping.”2

About Miami Springs in the 1940s
Miami Springs was a planned community built with a Circle Park surrounded by few small businesses. Westward Drive, a divided parkway, moved west to the residential sections. Famed aviator Glenn Curtiss and his partner James Bright had developed the area in the mid 1920s during the “Florida land boom”. They developed Hialeah, which was much larger and Country Club Estates where Curtiss built his own mansion. Country Club Estates was adjacent to the airport and later was renamed Miami Springs. The tiny community was a mere three square miles but supplied water for the entire metropolitan Miami area until the mid-1990s.

One historian described the post war growth. “In 1930 the name of Country Club Estates was changed to the town of Miami Springs in recognition of the natural spring of pure water that was located beneath the town. Miami Springs continued as a small, mostly residential community until after WWII. As the airline industry at the 36th Street Airport [now Miami International Airport] began to expand, many airline employees were transferred to the area and Miami Springs became a convenient location for them to live. A new “building boom” continued for many years. The airline industry was a major factor in the economic growth of the town.”

By early 1947 Marie was pregnant with their second child. The family of four would need that new home soon. When Marie and Paul decided to move to 336 Linwood Drive in Miami Springs there were few houses on that block. Marie would be stranded there all day with no neighbors and no transportation. I believe they had a phone since the house was built with a small nook in the hall by the bedrooms to hold the black rotary dial phone. This isolation would be an adjustment for her. The radio would be her companion.

Karl was born September 7th 1947 in the midst of a flood caused by Hurricane Vi–one of five storms that year! With this flooding did my parents wonder about their choice to live on the edge of the Everglades? Paul built a catwalk-like ramp to bring Marie and Karl into the house when they were released from the hospital after his birth. See above in the center photo with Paula on that ramp. Below are more photos of the Circle park, city hall and businesses during that ’47 flood. Karl was a happy baby and for the most part, I liked being a “big sister”.

Marie and Paul bought a two bedroom, one bath, stuccoed masonry house with a durable tile roof. Stucco is very affordable and is virtually maintenance-free. The compact living room served as an all-purpose family room. Both bedrooms were small, the dining room was actually a wide hall leading to the two back doors. The kitchen we used for the next twenty-five years was more like a galley. One tiny window was inadequate to keep the kitchen cool when it was hot–which was most of the time. No central heat or air conditioning. In one corner of the living room was a small gas ceramic heater. Later Dad built a mantel around the hearth-like heater so we could hang our Christmas stockings. When we did have cold nights, we slept under electric blankets.

With mild weather year round, all of us spent time outside in a variety of activities including hanging our daily loads of laundry to dry on the large clothesline–not one of my favorite chores. Later, as the family grew, my parents chose to build a large addition rather that leave our accustomed neighborhood. I’d guess the house was 800 to 1,000 square feet with no garage and a tiny hard-to-get-to attic. For many years we thrived in that house.

Norma and Sig Drury bought the house next door. Norma and Sig were high school friends of Marie and had been the attendants at Marie and Paul’s wedding in 1945. Their house was almost exactly like the basic house that my parents bought. They did not have children for the first few years. We were quite neighborly with them. The first dog I ever knew well was their dog Spicy, a gentle black and white mixed bred dog. They planted orange trees and grapefruit trees in their backyard. Once established, we enjoyed picking our own fresh fruit when they had extra.

Sometimes on a weekend we would drive over to Miami Beach to visit Duckie. At times I would spend days with her. We’d visit her Cabana club for my swimming lessons and ice cream. Here’s a description about the Cabana club of the late 1940s as mentioned in the ad below, “Patrons went to the bathing casino [cabana] to enjoy a day in the surf or to swim in the pool. Upon entering, guests would proceed to the lobby desk and rent a locker, wool bathing suit and a towel.”4 Of course I had my own bathing suit. I have vague memories of jumping into the pool as a toddler. Duckie doted on me as a child and I enjoyed her company.

Both my parents had a strong can-do attitude. Marie was a creative sewer and a resourceful homemaker as well as a constant reader. Paul gardened and taught himself carpentry and building. As soon as we were old enough we were playing games and sports–from kickball to ping-pong and basketball with him. Early on he planted a gardenia shrub since Marie loved that flower. Later he planted a key lime tree which thrived in our climate. We enjoyed those key limes almost year round–real key limes are yellow when ripe–not green. For special occasions, Mother would make us key lime pie–still one of my favorites.

Mother’s Aunt Duckie acted the proud grandmother with me and arranged this series of portraits. Mother designed and sewed each of the dresses–some were organdy, most were cotton. The one on the far right was light blue linen with white eyelet trim. Both Duckie and Marie enjoyed dressing me in the idealized image of a little girl–my training started early. I can see the contrast when compared to the earlier candid photos or my school photos. The staged portraits are a tiny slice from real life. For one thing–I’ve never had curly hair. Illusions….

Yet, it is all part of the story to be told.

Postscripts
One:

Two:
The Everglades, a unique treasure located in South Florida, is the largest remaining subtropical wilderness in the United States. It consists of 1.5 million acres of saw grass marshes, mangrove forests, and hardwood hammocks dominated by wetlands. It is home to endangered, rare, and exotic wildlife.

Origins of the Everglades
Water in South Florida once flowed from the Kissimmee River (in north central Florida) to Lake Okeechobee (the huge lake in south central Florida). The water then flowed southward over low-lying lands and hundreds of miles to Biscayne Bay (the 35 mile long bay between Miami and Miami Beach), the Ten Thousand Islands (a chain of islands and mangrove islets off the coast of southwest Florida), and Florida Bay (the southern tip of Florida). This shallow, slow-moving sheet of water created a mosaic of ponds, marshes, and forests. Over thousands of years this developed into a balanced ecosystem.

Wading birds such as great egrets, white ibis, herons, and wood storks were abundant. The Cape Sable seaside sparrow, Miami blackheaded snake, manatee, and Florida panther made the Everglades their home. Alligators and crocodiles existed side by side.

The Seminole and Miccosukee Indians settled in the Everglades. Although they battled with the alligators and crocodiles who live in the ‘Glades, they did not interfere with the overall balance of the ecosystem.

The Everglades Today
Today, 50% of South Florida’s original wetland areas no longer exist. The numbers of wading birds have been reduced by 90%. Entire populations of animals are in danger of disappearing. Exotic pest plants have invaded natural areas. Losses of seagrass beds in Florida Bay have been followed by losses of wildlife.

In Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s classic book published in 1947, The Everglades: River of Grass, she wrote, “Unless the people act . . . overdraining will go on. The soil will shrink and burn and be wasted and destroyed, in a continuing ruin.”

[Marjory Stoneman Douglas was the spirited writer and environmentalist who was known as the patron saint of the Florida Everglades due to her ceaseless campaign to preserve the fragile wetlands of south Florida.]

Douglas continued, in a hopeful vein, “There is a balance in man also, one which has set against his greed . . . Perhaps even in this last hour, in a new relation of usefulness and beauty, the vast, magnificent, subtle and unique region of the Everglades may not be utterly lost.”5 Read more here: https://fcit.usf.edu/FLORIDA/lessons/everglades/everglades.htm

Notes

1 Miami’s Historic Neighborhoods: A History of Community, editor Becky Roper Matkov, p.14 https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/62392097/miamis-historic-neighborhoods
2 Miami’s Historic Neighborhoods: A History of Community, p.67
3 Miami’s Historic Neighborhoods: A History of Community, p.68
4 https://www.miamiandbeaches.com/things-to-do/history-and-heritage/bathing-casinos-in-miami-beach
5 https://fcit.usf.edu/FLORIDA/lessons/everglades/everglades.htm

Once reunited, in January, 1946 it is not surprising that Paul and Marie dreamed of taking a trip together. Dad had just survived a world war and the years of discipline of being a soldier. Mother had survived childbirth and rationing and waiting. She understood that a clubfoot birth tends to run in families. Her concerns and fear that her child might also be born with a clubfoot were soothed.1 And her new husband had returned safely!

Because they had married during the war, neither had met their new relatives. It’s over 1,200 miles to upstate New York and 950 miles to Richmond, VA. Rail travel was the obvious choice. Since the early 1900s, railroad travel down the coast to south Florida had been extensively promoted. Rail lines moved millions of soldiers around during the war. However, a train trip from Miami Beach to upstate New York, where dad grew up, would involve long hours and many station changes to reach the village of Penn Yan.

In my imagination, the two talked for hours during those first months about their options. They talked about the cost, about the timing, and about the baby. Traveling with an infant less than a year old was another major consideration. Several airlines flew north, but each stopped many times before reaching New York City. And those planes were not pressurized, so the planes flew at low altitudes encountering much choppy weather. Some passengers would experience “altitude sickness” induced by the flying conditions. Additionally, at the time, there were no “coach” fares. All tickets were the same high price.

Marie and Paul continued to dream of the possibility of visiting their families “up north”, as we say, in south Florida. It is 470 miles to the Georgia border, so those of us who lived in south Florida consider much of the country “up north”–even Richmond, VA. Marie was an avid reader of the Miami Herald newspaper. I feel sure it was she who saw the splash of an announcement about National Airlines soon to be offering non-stop flights between Miami and New York! The paper proclaimed that National now had a long range aircraft, the Douglas DC-4, capable of flying nonstop to New York and it started February 14 that year! It would only be a five hour flight!2 (Today it is 2 ½ hours.)

Perhaps they could fly! The couple would still have to take a small aircraft to Ithaca, NY and then a bus up to Penn Yan. Paul and Marie began their planning! They would stop in Richmond on the way back to Miami Beach to visit Marie’s relatives there. From our carefully organized family camping trips a decade later, I know they began preparations for their trip with attention to detail and much enthusiasm. Each one could pack a forty pound suitcase which needed to include all the essentials for baby Paula. They could travel in spring. The weather would be mild. Paula would be ten months old.

I have clear evidence that Paul, Paula and Marie took this trip. Mother took care to record the basics of the trip in my baby book. She wrote this for me:

“I took my first trip when I was ten months old. I flew from Miami to Elmira, N.Y. From there I went by bus to Penn Yan to visit my grandmother Neilson. We stayed in Penn Yan two weeks leaving by train for Richmond, Va. to visit my other grandmother. Daddy brought me home and mother stayed in Richmond. A good time was had by all—Mother’s note”.

Taped alongside Marie’s hand-written entry is a brief notice cut from the Miami Beach newspaper about the couple’s excursion. It reads “Mr. and Mrs. Paul Neilson have completed a visit in New York. Mrs. Neilson stopped in Richmond, Va. for a visit but Mr Neilson has returned to his home at 1518 Drexell Ave.

In June, 1946 my intrepid parents boarded a DC-4 non-stop flight bound for New York. The National Airlines 46 passenger aeroplane was new, but it was still one of those early propeller aircraft. I assume our heroic couple, traveling with their offspring, knew of the difficulties since the DC-4 was not pressurized or heated and subject to almost constant turbulence since it could not fly fly higher than 10,00 feet due to lack of breathable oxygen. Did they carry their own Chiclets or did they depend on the National stewardesses to hand them out to help keep their ears from popping? Maybe both happened….

I was quite curious about the working conditions for the two stewardesses working that 1946 flight. I’ve found first hand descriptions of flying on the DC-4 planes written by retired National Airlines stewardesses. Here is their summary,

“One of the responsibilities of the senior stewardess was ‘showing the ropes’ to the junior stewardess. Working conditions were challenging, as the DC-4 was not pressurized. Flying at lower altitudes meant air turbulence, cold cabins in winter and sweltering conditions in summer. Passengers were uncomfortable and often suffered air sickness. ‘Burp bags’ and Chiclets were a must! The harsh conditions did not discourage employees or the flying public, as National continued to prosper. The public began to realize that air travel was the fastest and most convenient way to travel.”

The DC-4 was a pioneer introducing many to air travel—including my parents.

This was my first airplane trip! Once we finally arrived in Penn Yan the only evidence of our activities are snapshots and one other more formal photo of the family group. Possibly they had a late celebration with Dad’s family of their second wedding anniversary on June 10. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Paul and his two brothers shot baskets together or played touch football—they were active, young men. His youngest brother Roger was a junior in high school. Judging from the snapshots grandmother Edith enjoyed getting to hold the new baby. Paul’s sisters, Rosemary and Jean, were part of the celebration, too. Within a few years, Rosemary would join us in south Florida.

I did not have the chance to really know my paternal grandmother Edith since we lived so far distant. However, she let us know she was thinking about us as we grew up. As children, we each received a birthday card and a crisp dollar bill on our birthdays. At Christmas, we came to expect a brown paper-wrapped parcel full of her homemade Christmas cookies. Usually they were cut into shapes like bells or reindeer and covered in sweet, sweet icing. Edith had 13 grandchildren which means she put a lot of effort into sending each of us reminders of her affection.

After two weeks visiting in Penn Yan, our small family boarded a series of southbound trains for Richmond, Va. where Marie spent her early years. Can you imagine traveling with a 10 month old child on this trip—that’s why I describe Marie and Paul as intrepid adventurers.

On To Richmond, Virginia in late June, 1946

Marie’s girlhood is shrouded in mystery. When she left her parents, why her parents separated, and why she grew up in her mother’s older sister’s household is unclear. Her female relatives sent gifts for the birth of her first child with clear indications of interest and goodwill. Her mother, Mamie and the three aunts in Richmond showered her new baby with gifts. More presents arrived for the child four months later at Christmas. On the baby’s first birthday, Marie recorded a long list of gifts ranging from a silver rattle to handmade sweaters to nightgowns and booties. Of course, part of Marie’s reason for keeping an accurate list was to be able to send thank you notes for each one.

After a long train trip, Marie, Paul and the child arrived in Richmond to visit Marie’s family. Soon, Paul boarded a train to take Paula back home while Marie stayed a week to visit. Marie summed up the experience with “A good time was had by all”, so I am prepared to believe she enjoyed her stay.

Streetcars were a familiar sight here and in other large cities so transportation around the city would have been easy. Perhaps they visited the famous department store, Miller & Rhodes in downtown Richmond to have lunch and do some shopping—even window shopping. When traveling downtown, Marie and her friends could not miss seeing the imposing structure of Old City Hall built in 1894 of local gray granite in the Gothic Revival style.

The building occupies its own city block in downtown Richmond! The massive and ornamented nature of the design makes me want to visit it myself! Imagine this: the interior centers around a large skylit atrium surrounded by four levels of cloister-like arcades, linked by a grand staircase. The building housed city offices and courts until the late 1960s. It was restored in the early 1980s and is now used for offices and special events. Of course it is designated as a U.S. National Historic Landmark.

Other days they may have played bridge or canasta with friends. Marie had a chance to visit, to laugh and to enjoy the freedom rarely available to a new mom. While she was in Richmond, Paul had a chance to bond with his new daughter as the primary caretaker.

This would be the last time she was in Richmond. As I’ve mentioned, we later took numerous family camping trips, stopping in nearby states, but never did visit here. Add this to the list of mysteries.

Richmond was a bustling city with two major train stations. Both stations were referred to as union stations! Which of these elaborate train stations did my parents use in 1946? I enjoyed this sleuthing challenge. First I discovered that “union station” simply means that the station serves one or more rail lines which makes changing trains easier for passengers traveling on different lines. The two or more railroad companies using the station actually paid for the building of that station. In Richmond there were two union stations—one on Main Street downtown and one on Broad Street, as pictured above.

Further inquiry convinced me that Paul and Marie must have arrived at the huge Broad Street Station. Traveling from the north, they probably used the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, the principle line using that union station. Broad Street Station was built in 1917 in the neoclassical style featuring an elegant central dome and ten columns across the symmetrical facade—no clock tower here. This station is now the Science Museum of Virginia.

Departures: when they each boarded a train for home they left from the elaborate Main Street Station, in the downtown area, with its dominating clock tower as part of its Renaissance Revival architecture. This is an ornate six-story tower with four clock faces. Built in 1901 by two rail lines—one was the Seaboard Air Line Railroad which, as the name implies, served the eastern seaboard down to Key West.

From 1915 to 1958, this station was the principal departure point for all passengers heading south—passengers like Marie and Paul. It is quite a grand building—nothing like the Miami train station. Main Street Station and its train shed (an over-arching roof above the arriving and departing trains) is one of the last surviving train sheds of its type in the nation. Both were added to the National Register of Historic Places. Today the station serves Amtrak passengers.

Here’s another question. Were they traveling on a steam or diesel fueled locomotive train? In the 1940s, diesel locomotives began to be introduced on U.S. railroads in large numbers. Steam and diesel locomotives ran side by side for a brief time in the 1940s and early 1950s, but new diesel locomotives took over as they radically cut maintenance and operating expenses.3 Answer: probably both given the number of trains used on their trip.

More than likely on the train trip south, both adults would have been traveling in segregated rail cars! In my research, I found this photo of a rail car built in 1924 by the Pullman Company. “The car was built with a dividing wall in the middle of the passenger car denoting it as a segregated or “Jim Crow” car. The Central of Georgia Railroad used this car in regular service, relegating African-American passengers to a separate section complete with segregated restrooms until the end of that era on railroads in the 1950s.”4

Remember that during WWII the armed services of the U.S. were segregated! Not until the executive order by President Truman in July 1948, was discrimination “on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin” abolished in the United States Armed Forces. This executive order did not legally obligate public establishments such as lunch counters, stores, restaurants, and theaters to open to all on an equal basis. Civil rights advocates sought equal access to transportation. Prior to the 1960s, segregation on streetcars, buses, and railroad cars was consistently challenged by blacks and their allies, both in courts and through direct action including boycotts especially in the south.5

Home Sweet Home
Reunited for a second time this small family started making plans for another dream—a home of their own! Miami Beach was expensive and housing was limited since it was primarily a tourist town. They soon learned that to take advantage of the GI Bill’s mortgage loan assistance for veterans, one could only seek a loan for new housing. Mortgage loan assistance was not available for existing housing. This requirement limited their options.

Only this week did I find, in 1940 census records, that Marie had worked as a “saleslady” prior to WWII. In 1946, with an infant at home, her possibilities for bringing in a salary were non existent.

Paul was working and attending night school studying to be a land surveyor. Until he had a job, they would not be eligible for a loan to buy a house for their growing family. In January 1947, the couple could tell Paula she would have a sister or brother just after her second birthday. They needed that new house!

Transportation would be an essential part of the answer to where Marie and Paul would live. Today, while we are in the midst of this Covid pandemic, we can now see how our transportation options and choices affect each of us personally and as a society. Choosing to stay home is not an option for everyone.

Working for an airline, working for a transportation company, for 16 years brought benefits and complications to me personally. The thrill of flying captivates many people—for many different reasons. As I tell my story, I’m weaving the complex strands of the personal and political realities of a young woman coming of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s. All these tangents matter! Each is part of the whole.■

Postscript one:
I learned that Richmond had the first successful electrically powered street railway system in the United States. Designed by electric power pioneer, Frank J. Sprague, the trolley system opened its first line in January 1888. Richmond’s hills, long a transportation obstacle, were considered an ideal proving ground. The new technology soon replaced horsecars.

As part of a national trend, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the electrically powered street railway systems accelerated Richmond’s expansion. To generate traffic and fuel sales of property, amusement parks were created at the end of the lines at Lakeside Park and other spots.

After WWII ended in 1945, the network of trams was bought up by Virginia Transit Company to close it down, almost at once, and substitute it by a bus system. So, perhaps that streetcar trip was unavailable when Marie visited in 1946 depending on how quickly the transition happened.

As roads improved in the early 20th century with generous support from federal and state government funding, streetcars were unable to compete with automobiles and buses.

Postscript two:
Last week when I searched for a photo to illustrate the land surveying work done by my father on Miami’s highways, I found an aerial photo of the I-95 interchange built in the 1960s. When I read the article about the section of I-95 to be built in Miami, I was struck by the decisions of the federal, state and local officials who made the crass decision to run the interstate through the historical Overtown neighborhood thus destroying or dividing that historic African-American community.

This week I discovered the same tactic used in Richmond. In the 1950s the toll road, approved by the state of Virginia, led to the destruction of many historic locations, vistas and the built environment, including blocks of homes and businesses in Jackson Ward, Richmond’s oldest historically African-American community. This highway became I-95 which now has a raised highway a mere 75 feet away from Main Street Station. This is right at the level of the clock tower as you can see in the photo.

Notes
1 After Marie’s death, I found notes about the clubfoot exercises added to the card with the list of recommended Exercises for Infants she received from her doctor in 1945. That card indicates that she was doing clubfoot exercises on me as an infant! Those exercises were taken from the book Baby’s Daily Exercises by Dr. E.T. Wilkes
2 https://airlinefiles.com/virgin-america/81-national-regional-airlines/528-national-airlines-original-3
3 What Happened to the Railroads? https://americanhistory.si.edu/america-on-the-move/lives-railroad
4 Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum in Chattanooga, TN https://www.tvrail.com/about-us/equipment/passenger-cars
5 Looking Back on the Fight for Equal Access to Public Accommodations https://www.epi.org/publication/fight-equal-access-public-accommodations/

Often stories tell us more about a person than facts. In describing my father, Paul, I’m going to start with a true story. In early 1944, Paul and a few of his army buddies are walking down Lincoln Road, the well-to-do shopping area of Miami Beach. Paul notices something sparkling in the asphalt along the edge of the road. With his ever-present pocket knife, he carefully digs out an impressive ring with a large faceted stone. He and his friends gawk—one offers to buy it from him. Paul declines. Later he takes it to Marie and asks her opinion. She describes it as “too gaudy”. Then she volunteers to take it to her jeweler to get a professional opinion about its worth.

Marie is told that this good-size stone is, in fact, a diamond! The two decide to have the stone set in a simple, elegant platinum setting to be mother’s engagement ring! False pride did not deter them for taking advantage of this opportunity. They were willing to seize the moment! This is part of what I describe as a “can-do” attitude.Yet, Marie and Paul did not share this unbelievable story with just anybody.

Today my youngest sister has transformed that special diamond into a necklace she wears every day. She enjoys telling the story when asked about her unusual necklace.

William Paul Neilson grew up in a large family living in a beautiful area of farms and forest near a pristine glacial lake. These are the green rolling hills of western New York state long known for its vineyards. During the late 1800’s and through the mid-to-late 1900’s, Penn Yan and surrounding Yates County were home to a large number of dairy farms, many settled by Danish immigrants and their descendants—like the Neilson family.

Born in 1921, Paul was the oldest boy. He had two sisters and two brothers. In those early years they lived on a farm near Penn Yan, New York. Penn Yan is the village located at the northern end of Keuka Lake, the central lake of the eleven Finger Lakes. Once you’ve seen a map (see the map below) you’ll understand the name for this group of long, narrow lakes. More than 100 million years ago, glaciers moved south with the huge ice sheets gouging out deep crevices in the land. When the ice receded, the crevices became these pristine group of lakes. All the creeks and lake waters drain from south to north to Lake Ontario.

This area is known as part of “upstate New York”. I’ve learned that any part of the state not in New York City is upstate, with downstate referring only to the greater New York City area!

About age twelve (1933), their father left the family and would soon start another family. Paul’s mother, Edith, moved her family into the unheated attic of a house belonging to her brother. This must have been a desperate move for a woman—divorced during the Depression and struggling to support her five children. Her youngest was still a toddler. The move to the village of Penn Yan would have been difficult for the children after knowing the freedom of farm life.

Edith depended on child support payments from their father. Often the payment would be late or not arrive at all. Edith struggled to care for the children. The population of the small village of Penn Yan was 4,517 in 1920. It had only grown to 5,308 by 1940, so employment for the mother was difficult to find. Eventually Edith found work in a men’s clothing factory and worked there until she retired about 1955.

My Uncle Bob, dad’s younger brother told us all these details after my father’s death. He described being sent to the post office to get the support money, and then, the many times it was not there. As boys, he and his brothers had blamed their mother because they thought “she had pushed father away”. Bob described how the boys hunted along the railroad tracks searching for any coal that had bounced out of the coal trains in an effort to heat their rooms. As teens, he and Paul had worked as golf caddies—not great wages, but sometimes decent tips. Probably they made money shoveling snow in the long winters. Bob told me they also made money as “pinboys” setting up the tenpins by hand in the early bowling alleys.

During these conversations with Uncle Bob, he vividly remembered Paul giving him money for a movie and a soda so Bob could pay for a date with his best girl—who became my Aunt Jean. Bob graduated from high school just two months before Paul went into the army in 1942. Bob seemed to hold Paul in high regard. He and I had a good rapport in sharing memories about Paul. Since my dad talked little about his early life, I’m still appreciative of Bob’s willingness to tell us about those years. It’s helped me to understand Paul better.

During his high school years at Penn Yan Academy, the local public school, Paul was a “big man on campus” because of his athletic abilities. Paul captained the football and basketball teams, played baseball and ran track. One of the few stories we heard from him about these years was a love story. He was a kid from a poor family and his high school sweetheart was from a wealthy family who did not approve of their dating. After graduation in 1940, her parents sent her to an out-of-town college in an effort to break their connection. Both Paul and this young women asserted that the separation would not change their relationship. But, as Dad told the story, apparently it did. He did not share any more details of this story.

Uncle Bob was quite surprised that Paul had told me about this love story. Bob confirmed that it had been hard on Paul. Perhaps this episode came up because Aunt Rosemary mentioned it first. Rosemary was four years younger than Paul. She moved to the Miami area about 1950 and was the only relative I ever had living nearby while growing up. In some ways, Rosemary was the big sister I never had.

There is no way to know if that broken romance was part of the reason Paul moved to Rochester sometime after high school graduation. Rochester was the largest city in the region. When Paul was inducted into the army in July, 1942 the records show he was 6’1” and weighed 162 lbs. That same record indicated he was working at a hotel in Rochester in an unknown position. One likely clue: the records on his induction papers list his civilian occupation as “clerk, general office”. Three years later on my birth certificate in August 1945, Marie listed Paul’s occupation as “accountant”. Those years in the army before he was sent overseas are a blank for us now—except that we know he met Marie while training at Miami Beach.

In 1945 he served in the U.S. Army in the Philippines preparing to take part in a possible invasion of Japan. Paul had been promoted to Staff Sergeant. He was a hard worker and comfortable in the company of men. In the baby book Marie kept about me, she recorded that Paul brought a silk kimono home as a gift for me—and one for her. Paul understood that Marie was interested in beautiful fabrics. From notes in that same baby book, I learned that they lived in an apartment at 1518 Drexel Avenue, Miami Beach.

Those Drexell Avenue apartments are now part of the historic district of Miami Beach! The twenty-eight unit, two story building was built in 1926 in the Mediterranean Revival style popular in that period. After returning from the Philippines and being demobilized in January 1946, Marie, Paul and infant Paula began their life together. They had a number of things to figure out.

How to make a living in civilian life? We know Paul worked for a time at the Biscayne Kennel Club, a popular dog racing and gambling facility on Miami Beach that only recently closed. We know he went to night school to learn to be a land surveyor—a job necessary for the growing cities of south Florida. Paul like working outdoors and was good with numbers. He helped survey some of the early cloverleaf entrances and exits to the new highways of Miami. He spent most of his working years as a surveyor for the City of Miami Beach.

I-95-construction-in-1960s

“We are formed by the events that progress at our coming of age,” observed Robert Trout, news broadcaster for seven decades in a NPR interview. I thought about my father! By age twelve Paul had lived during the beginning of the Depression, saw his family split apart, moved from country to a village, struggled with poverty, became an admired high school athlete and shortly after school was drafted into the army and shipped 1500 miles away to train for war. Before being sent overseas he married and soon knew that his wife was pregnant. Each of these events did shape the father I grew up with. He wanted the best for his children, but we did not always agree on what was best for us.

Set for Adventure! Both my parents were interested in seeing our country. Once the youngest child reached five, we took family camping trips all across the U.S. However, their first adventure was aboard an airplane! Dad returned from WWII in January 1946. In June the small family boarded an airplane to visit his relatives in Penn Yan and her relatives in Richmond. Traveling with a ten-month old infant is always an adventure and a challenge–here is another example of their can-do approach This was my first airplane trip! And the last one they would take for almost twenty years.

Postscript

Of Note:
The Finger Lakes region is a central part of the Iroquois homeland. The Iroquois tribes are also known as The Haudenosaunee, or “people of the longhouse” which refers to their dwellings. The Iroquois confederacy includes the Seneca and Cayuga nations, for which the two largest Finger Lakes are named. Lake Keuka (pronounced KYOO-kah) is about 20 miles long and 187 feet deep at its deepest point. It is perhaps the Finger Lake that stands out most due to the Y-shaped channel at the north end, near Penn Yan, with a scenic bluff rising over 700 feet above the water level.

The unusual Y-shape contrasts with the long and narrow shapes of the other ten Finger Lakes. Formerly, Keuka Lake was referred to as Crooked Lake. Keuka means “canoe landing” in the Iroquois language and “lake with an elbow” in the Seneca language. Even today the crystal clear water water of Lake Keuka is used as the public water supply for Penn Yan, Hammondsport, Branchport, and Keuka College.

Nearby Seneca Falls was the site of the first women’s rights convention in the U.S. Attended by almost 200 women, the Seneca Falls Convention advertised itself as “a convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman”. The convention met July 19–20, 1848. It was organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, two abolitionists who met at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London.

The proposals put forth by the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, which was presented at the convention, reflect the strong association between Iroquois women and their culture and with the organizers of the Seneca Falls Convention. The positive influence is clear. Willow Michele Hagan writes more about this connection:
https://www.centerwest.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/iroquois_native_american_hagan.pdf