The Sixties

 

I believe this photo may have been taken at the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego. She’s holding the very best thing that happened to all of us in the 60s, my youngest brother, Bill. The rest of the words here are all mom’s…

If the 50s were the ‘Leave it to Beaver’ years for the ideal, average American family on TV, the Sixties were the ‘Mad Men’ years, though that show was many years away. The producers have done such a good job of describing it, I can barely stand to watch it. It seems ironic that when my husband climbed up the ladder to finally reach the Ivory Tower and I got to shop in Beverly Hills, wear designer clothes, attend the Emmy Awards and take first class vacations and put the boys in top schools that it would turn out to be the hardest period of our lives. I would not want to relive it but I am grateful to have had the experience.

We had been transferred to Los Angeles where we rented a large house in an ultraconservative neighborhood and as soon as we got moved in we drove down to Newport for a week’s vacation. We came home to find that someone had entered the house through a broken window and stolen all the boys swimming trophies. It must have been some neighborhood kid who had watched us pack our car.

We had to keep the Japanese gardener on which was just fine since neither of us wanted the job. He was very nice and gave me boxes of rice paper candy which I loved.

We were informed that we should hire a protective service which turned out to be a neighborhood spy system to keep us all in line. Twice a night a uniformed man would walk around the house checking the doors. There were nights my husband would be out of town and I would be watching TV with my two year old and a door would open and the guard would walk in to remind me to lock the door. He was nice enough but it was disconcerting. We had a ballroom on the third floor. The house had been built during prohibition so the entry to that upstairs was thru a bedroom closet. It was a great room but I never had a party large enough to make use of it.

My son Greg formed a band with two black brothers and a Mexican boy. They would practice in the ballroom.  I decided to invite the parents to dinner one night to hear the boys play. It was all very pleasant but when they were leaving I saw the guard standing on our curb leaning against a palm tree. He stayed there staring at me after they left. I got the message. I told him what was happening and never, ever did it again. That was when I realized why I had had to hire him. Many neighbors were John Birchers.

Through my Junior League connections I was able to get Billy into the ‘right’ nursery school. The one that led to the “right’ grade school and the ‘right’ high school and the ‘right’ college. Greg was invited to join the ‘right’ cotillion but didn’t know anyone and quickly dropped out.  I resumed my volunteer work but this time in a bigger pond. Paul was head of the timber division of an international company. He had to oversee plants in Canada and Oregon so was gone three weeks out of four. I found a great baby sitter for Bill. To be a member of Junior League in those days it was expected that you could afford help so you could carry out your volunteer activities. I always volunteered to do the projects that required hands-on work. That was considered déclassé. The superior ones were the ones where you dressed up and went to meetings and planned things.

My good china, silver, crystal and linen were correct but I had to make sure the silver was polished, the linen perfectly ironed, the china and crystal sparkling, the wine glasses correct for the correct type of wine chosen, window sills in the bedrooms were dusted and the flatware was lined up exactly one inch from the edge of the dining table before entertaining. I needed a cleaning woman to help with the big house. Big houses are much easier to clean than small ones because there is a place for everything, like out of sight.  But they are still big. Goldia was the cousin of the cleaning woman of a Junior League friend. This happened right after the Watts riots and, although I had never had anything but friendly associations with Blacks, I was terrified I might say or do the wrong thing. Blacks had begun to demand equal rights and in no uncertain terms. Goldia and I sat down at the breakfast room table to plan the scope of her job. I said “What time do you like to stop for lunch?” She said “I won’t stop unless you eat with me.”  “All right” I said meekly.  She was not young and she had to take two buses to come to my house from - guess where? - Watts. The first day I fixed soup, a sandwich, coffee and dessert. I was positively tongue tied. But I learned her husband was a retired train porter.  At one time I had taken the train a lot and I had never met a porter I didn’t like. They were always so nice and so much fun. Goldia said she had once sang in a choir that was quite famous and sometimes appeared in movies. She said she came from the South and Los Angeles was as close to heaven as she ever expected to get. As the days went by I began to relax. I could tell her my problems and she had the most common sense advice I ever received. I felt sorry she had to take such a long trip to come to my house so I offered to take her home. I was terrified driving into Watts and she said maybe I shouldn’t do it. After that I drove her to her second bus. It helped a little. She told her cousin she didn’t like me when she first came but I had become one of her favorite people. And she certainly was mine. Just before we moved away I invited to just come for lunch. She came all dressed up in a fancy wig and we ate in the dining room and then sat in the living room and talked. I hated to say goodbye. I had a large stack of stuff to give away and her husband came with a truck to haul it away for their church bazaar. He came in a suit and tie and a hat and was just like the train porters I remembered.

My relatives were all in the TV business one way or another which got us into the Emmys, the studios and shows like Johnny Carson and Dean Martin. We met a lot of producers, sound men, directors and even some stars. Eventually I could find a movie star anytime, day or night. A tip: look in the small bars and restaurants near the studios. When friends came for a visit and wanted to see them I would take them to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. I said “If I nudge you while we are walking down the street start looking at the person approaching us. They do not glitter. They look very ordinary.

My favorite thing to do was go to Beverly Hills auctions. Besides movie stars, there was so much interesting stuff to bid on. I would look at all the beautiful antiques, knowing they came from big houses where the owners once led the good life. Now some newly rich wife was going to buy it and keep it until they died or their fortunes changed.

After we had lived there about a month, I went to the salon at the Elizabeth Arden Red Door salon. I said to the young man, “make me look like Beverly Hills“.  He said “You are putting me on lady.” I said no. I was tired of always being asked  where I was from“. He fixed my hair exactly like I had worn it in Eugene Oregon. A year later I realized no one was asking me that any more. My hair and my clothes hadn’t changed but I had adapted a certain attitude. Local people can always tell out-of-towners. I have used this knowledge since, in different locations.

While my husband was fighting in the very competitive world of big business, I found the competition among women in the social world was also stressful and highly competitive Hence the “Mad Men” connection. One night, after we had been there a few years, my husband was out of town and I was lying in bed wondering “Is this all there is?” At first I didn’t know why I even asked the question since we had achieved our dream. It was then I realized you always had to have a dream or a challenge to be truly happy and we didn‘t have a new one. Little did we know that the owner of the company wanted to retire and was quietly selling off the different divisions of the company. Paul was soon out of a job and we moved back to Seattle. We had had the opportunity to do every good thing Los Angeles and Hollywood had to offer but I was not unhappy to leave. We had a new challenge.

 

-Jean Clarice Walsh