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{handwritten} AL-68 {handwritten} Mrs. Ellen R. Blanchard (White) Adelaide Rogers 409 High Street Montgomery County Montgomery, Alabama (Housekeeper) {handwritten} Dreadful {handwritten}
MRS. BLANCHARD, PROFESSIONAL MOTHER
"Well... if you think you'll be contented here with me and the children and our pets, I'll he glad to rent you the room, at ten dollars a month, I believe - all things considered - that's a fair price. The room is nice and light and is convenient to the bath; it has a fireplace, as you saw, and a large closet. And as there is nobody here during the day but me, you won't be disturbed while you ar e writing. When I am not at my mother's, I usually sit in here and sew or read, until the children come in a little after five. My daughter, Frances works at the Capital, and my son is with an insurance company,
"No, I haven't a job now. My children say its my turn to stay at home and rest and enjoy myself, while they work and take care of me. I did have a job though, as assistant housekeeper at the Ashley Hotel, I was there fifteen years. Before that I was a stenographer in the Department of Public Welfare, when Mrs. Bush was its Director.
"Girls didn't take business courses when I was young as they do now. So I didn't learn typing and stenography until after I had been married for some time. In fact I have never attempted much of anything until I got married. That marked a turning point in my life. Oh must you go? I thought maybe you would sit awhile and talk. People do live in the same house ought to know each other real well. And there's nothing like a good long talk for getting acquainted with somebody. Oh you will stay for awhile? That's fine! I get awfully lonesome sometimes, staying so much by myself. I'm the sort that likes company. I like to see folks happy too, and comfortable.
"You are not close enough to the fire. Try this slumber-chair with
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the cushions. My son gave me that on my birthday. He is the sweetest boy in the world to his mother. I declare! I do believe I have the best children in the world. Sometimes I think the Lord blessed me that way particularly, to make up for other things. You know I am not with my husband. We separated when the children were quite small. I live entirely for them. And outside of my home I have little interest.
"I didn't go to college. My father was well-to-do, but after I graduated from High School, I decided I'd just stay at home and help my mother with the housekeeping. In that way I'd learn how to manage a home of my own, and be more certain of making a success of marriage.
"Somehow I never had any doubt that I would marry. I had too many beaux for one thing, to stay single. You can ask anybody who knew me in those days if Ellen Weaver wasn't the prettiest and most popular girl in her crowd. I was a nice girl, too, and to this day I haven't any patience with those who say a girl can't be popular and decent at the same time.
"Other popular girls sometimes wondered if they would ever marry, but I never had any doubts on that subject. I just felt within myself that I was cut out to be happily married. I felt too, that while a few 'happy marriages' might be made in Heaven, the majority were planned for and attained, just like any other successful achievement. So I made up my mind that when I did fall in love, I'd use my head as well as my heart. 'No rich, pampered, society idlers for me,' I said to myself. And my father encouraged me in the idea.
"We thought that money was synonymous with dissipation, and that rich men's sons were invariably worthless. And since my family repeatedly cautioned me against the folly of marrying an attractive ne'er-do-well, I never permitted myself to become deeply interested in any of the frivolously fashionable young gentlemen of my acquaintance.
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"I realize now that when I met Mr. Fenton, I was already prepared to fall in love with him.
"He wore overalls, and as he stood surveying an old brick wall, into which he meant to blast an opening for the building of his repair shop, I thought him the handsomest , most manly, and most fascinating person I had ever seen.
"Through inquiries, I learned that Tommy Fenton was not merely a mechanic, who wielded a pick. He was a wizard with machinery, and an inventor of sundry articles indispensable to the operating of numerous factories and plants throughout the country. In short he was a genius, who would go places, or 'amount to something' as we said in those days when every diamond in the rough was expected to 'make a mark in the world.'
"Well, Mr. Fenton was in the rough all right, but the diamond side turned out to be phoney. It was such a good imitation however, that I didn't discover its falseness for a long time. Strange to say, no one else did either. Everybody liked Mr. Fenton and believed in him. And since many of his friends were mine also, an introduction (which was then a necessary formality) was easily arranged, and almost before I realized what was taking place, a whirlwind courtship was in progress.
"For six months Mr. Fenton treated me like a queen.
"At home, nothing was too good for 'Cissie,' as I was called by my family, and Mr. Fenton made us all believe this consideration would continue. Only my father was a little suspicious; a little doubtful that Mr. Fenton's flamboyant plans would ever materialize.
"'Cissie,' he said to me a day or so before the wedding. 'I don't exactly dislike Mr. Fenton, but somehow he is just too good to be true.
"'He is just a little too pleased with himself. Those inventions of his strike me as being a little too marvelous. And his plans for you are a shade too perfect. That fellow is entirely too, too, too. I hate to
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say it Cissie, but I distrust Mr. Fenton. Suppose you postpone the wedding, and I'll give you a nice little trip to New York, or Milwaukee, or maybe take you to visit your Aunt Millie in Dallas.'
"It was Sunday morning and my father and I, after a late breakfast, were loitering at the table in our big, old fashioned dining-room, where a fire crackled and glowed on the hearth, and a canary-bird chirped so loud and incessantly that we could hardly hear outselves speak.
"Though it happened so long ago, I remember perfectly the ~~expectant~~ hopeful look on his face as he waited for my reply.
"I told him I loved Mr. Fenton, because he was a man who did things. And that I would marry him at the time we had agreed upon, and go with him to the ends of the earth.
"For an instant my father seemed on the verge of weeping; but after a moment or two, he made some casual comment and then left the room.
"I stayed on, I remember, to finish a second waffle. And about eleven o'clock, Mr. Fenton and I went to a service at the old Court Street Methodist Church, where we heard a sermon on the rapidly increasing evil of divorce, which would eventually, if it remained unchecked, shatter the stability of the American home.
"When the sermon ended, we sang 'How Firm a Foundation', and as the strains of the inspiring old hymn died away, I felt certain of only one thing in all the universe, and that was the permanency of my happiness with Thomas Fenton. Other homes might be broken ... other couples estranged by the rising tide of too easy divorce. But Mr. Fenton was so different from the average man, that I had no fears on his account. I knew our union would be indissoluble.
"We were married the following Thursday at four o'clock in the afternoon. My dress was Alice-blue silk, and I carried a bouquet of pink rosebuds and lilies-of-the-valley.
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"An improvised altar had been arranged in the group of bay windows in our living room, and here the double ring ceremony was performed. My sister was the only attendant. She wore a fawn colored - I mean beige - silk dress, and looked better, I thought, than anyone else at the wedding. My mother wore black taffeta, and cried softly throughout the ceremony. None of Mr. Fenton's people were there.
"As soon as the minister concluded the benediction, the company surged forward to kiss the bride. And amid such banal queries as 'Well, Mrs. Fenton, how do you think you will like being married?' we drifted into the dining room. There, our old Negro servant and her nephew (who had been borrowed for the occasion) served us a supper of chicken salad and beaten biscuit, fruit compote, charlotte russe with lady-fingers, salted almonds, and wine.
"On the table, that was covered with a lace cloth, was the bride's cake, and my grandmother's silver candle-sticks with lighted pink tapers. Pink candles shed their light from the mantel too, and the large oak sideboard, while every available space was banked with pink asters and maidenhair ferns. But only white flowers, and white tapers formed the decorations in the living-room.
"Everybody said they had never seen a prettier home wedding. I know I have never been so happy since. No incident arose to mar any detail. It all moved smoothly - without a hitch. And I am glad it was so, because that was the last time I was ever to be singled out for adulation and attention.
"About an hour after the ceremony, some boys came to serenade us. While they were singing, I slipped upstairs to change into my going-away suit of Oxford gray.
"At a quarter to six, the cab came to take us to the Railway station where we were to board the train for Oklahoma City.
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