A Woman of Independent Means (2 page)

May 30, 1902
Honey Grove

Dear Rob,

Good news! Papa rented his downtown lot to a merry-go-round for the summer. I talked him into taking half the rent in tickets. I'll split my share with you, and we'll ride round and round till time to go back to school.

February 8, 1906
Honey Grove

Dear Rob,

This has been the longest winter of my life. I wish my parents would let you come up to my room when you bring my school-work, but everyone knows tuberculosis is contagious.

I am sad to think you will be a grade ahead of me in September. To think I am just fifteen and I have already lost a year of my life! Somehow I will make up for it and then I will never lose another day.

May 1, 1909
Mary Baldwin College
Staunton, Virginia

Dear Rob,

I have seen enough of the world—or at least the world without you. College is fine but just the beginning of all I want to know. I can continue on my own. Next month I am coming home to stay.

I will be in the front row for your graduation. Please don't accept any job offers until I get there.

Ever your

May 5, 1909
Staunton

Dearest Mama,

I will be home in a month, and Rob and I will be married this summer. Please don't say anything to him as I want to be the first to tell him.

I would like to be married in our front parlor. It is more splendid than any church in Honey Grove and I have been happier there. I imagine it will be many years before Rob and I can afford a house as fine, but I want him to know what is expected of him.

Your loving daughter,

May 20, 1909 Staunton

Dearest Papa,

Rest assured my education means even more to me than it does to you. I fully intend to
continue
it but since I never expect to
complete
it, why should I spend any more time at college?

I love Rob and I want to live my life at his side. I know his family has no money and he cannot afford to be married now, but my family does and I can. In the next few years he will be making decisions that will shape the rest of his life. If I plan to share that life—and I do—then I must share those decisions.

Your obedient daughter,

November 10, 1909
Dallas, Texas

Dearest Mama and Papa,

I miss you very much but even Rob now admits I was right in urging him to move here and go into real estate instead of following in his father's footsteps and teaching in Honey Grove.

Last week Rob sold a big block of property downtown and bought me a horse and surrey to celebrate. Sunday we are joining St. Matthew's Episcopal Cathedral. Please do not consider this decision any reflection on you. I enjoyed being a Methodist in Honey Grove but Dallas offers a wider choice in everything—even churches.

Your devoted daughter,

April 2, 1910
Dallas

Dearest Mama,

Please forgive this scribble but my hand is still shaking from a dream that seems more real than the daylight which has displaced it.

I was dead and had been for three days, but Rob continued to sit across from me at dinner, sleep beside me through the night, and kiss me good-bye in the morning—without even noticing I had ceased to breathe.

His indifference in the dream so paralyzed me that I pretended to be asleep when he left for the office this morning. He has begun encouraging me to sleep late—I suspect because he prefers breakfast alone with his newspaper. And the dream suggests that in my heart I suspect even more.

Dearest Mama, you asked me the night before my wedding if I had any questions. I didn't then. But now I am filled with them. I won't embarrass you with questions of a physical nature. In that area Rob has provided answers to questions I didn't even know enough to ask. Indeed nothing I had read or imagined prepared me for the physical passion marriage vows can unloose in previously chaste childhood sweethearts. Alone in the dark Rob and I are one—complete and perfect and inseparable—two equal halves of a whole.

It is daylight which disrupts the balance. My bad dreams begin at dawn when he arises for work, leaving me to sleep through the day if I choose. He asks nothing more of me than that I be waiting for his return each night. And I sometimes suspect he would not object if he found me still in bed. He is my whole life day and night, yet by day I become but a fraction of his.

Am I the only wife to feel so wasted, so unused, so alone? I would not put this question to anyone but you, dearest Mama. And indeed I would feel I were betraying Rob by even thinking it if my dreams had not already betrayed my doubts.

Please do not attempt to answer me on paper. I have decided to come for a visit next week so that we can talk at length—and in private. I cannot risk having Rob find out that, far from awakening Sleeping Beauty with his kiss, Prince Charming has put her back to sleep.

I love you and need you,

April 8, 1910
Honey Grove

Dear Heart,

I am sleeping in my old room where every night I dream you are with me and every morning I wake up alone, aching for you. But even though we are apart, there is a new heartbeat just below my own that joins me to you forever.

I pray my mother will live to see her first grandchild, but she seems to get weaker every day. She has not regained consciousness since I arrived. I must go to her now. If only I could make her understand how much I still need her.

Ever your

November 15, 1910
Dallas

Dearest Papa,

I just received your letter explaining the terms of Mama's will. I never realized she was a woman of independent means. I always attributed her sense of dignity and self-esteem to a more spiritual source.

Please do not give further thought to how I will handle such a large sum of money. My interest in the subject will compensate for my limited experience.