The GI Bride (20 page)

Another friend, June Hegedus, told me
she’d been so unhappy in America that her husband had rejoined the air force in
the hope of being stationed back in the UK. She
said they’d had
two other postings, one in the US and one in France, before finally getting to the
UK.

Yet another GI bride friend, June Gradley
Armstrong, said it had been seven or more years before she’d made the trip home.
She told me that if she had gone during the first few years, she wasn’t sure she
would have returned to America. That she couldn’t go back forced her to adjust and
settle into American life. June’s mother and mine had been neighbours in England,
and June and I were old friends from the South Oxhey council estate.

There were so many stories like that and it
certainly put mine into perspective. I felt especially sorry for the unsuspecting girls
who had married African Americans. They wouldn’t have had a clue what lay ahead.
Thankfully, things are different now, but back then, a white girl married to a black man
was ostracized by the black and white populations alike; they would have been labelled
white trash. I can’t imagine what they went through. I wondered what, if any,
support they had received, and was relatively sure they wouldn’t have had anything
like the TBPA or DBE to turn to. I considered myself fortunate to have such a valuable
support system. In addition, if it hadn’t been for the TBPA, I’m sure my
parents could not have afforded to visit me in the States, or I to visit them.

The person who began organizing charter
flights for us in Chicago was a Scot, George Hudson. We also had him to thank for
starting up a business importing British food products. We used to flock to his little
shop when we learned he’d had a new shipment of goodies. The prices were high
because of shipping charges, but we all thought we deserved a little splurge after
giving up so much for so
long. At last we had real British tea, Irish
sausages, lean back bacon, Cadbury’s chocolate and Marmite. We could even buy a
new tea-cosy, and tapes of our favourite British music.

A Welsh couple opened a fish and chip shop;
I believe it was the first ever in Chicago. Again, the prices were a bit steep after
all, they’d had to import the deep-fat fryers, not to mention the malt vinegar. As
I’d approach their shop, the smell of fried fish and malt vinegar invaded my
senses and I’d be salivating before I even got there. I loved that aroma. It had
everything to do with memories of home. That smell still has power over me, and if it
wasn’t for all the health warnings, I’d probably be eating dinner out of
newspaper on a regular basis. I can close my eyes and smell it now.

The owners did a roaring trade and worked so
hard that it ended up wrecking their marriage and, alas, our fish and chip shop closed.
We were devastated. Someone else eventually bought the equipment and reopened at a
different location, but it was never the same without our Welsh friends.

I became very involved with the TBPA, and
because of my knowledge of the convention business and the connections available to me
through Palmer, I was instrumental in bringing one of the first TBPA conventions to
Chicago. The organization sent me to Columbus, Ohio, to put in a bid.

Bobby McCarthy, Pat Connolly (another GI
bride) and I set off for Columbus. We were all lucky enough to have friends or family to
take care of our children for the long weekend. Pat had offered to drive us there. Her
car was a new white convertible, and off we went, top down, just like
Thelma and Louise, plus one. It was a glorious day, and we sang as we whizzed through
the countryside. Suddenly smoke started coming out from under the car’s hood. We
pulled off the road as soon as it was safe to do so. Pat went around to the front of the
car and threw the hood up. Flames shot into the air. She screamed, we screamed, and as
fast as we could, we got away from the car. I don’t know how it happened but soon
a fire truck came barrelling towards us, sirens wailing. The flames were soon
extinguished. A tow truck took us to the nearest town where the car was repaired.
Finally, in Pat’s brand new now-scorched car, we resumed our journey. Pat was
distraught but at last we reached our destination in the wee hours of the morning. Thank
God, we still had one free day to recuperate before the convention’s general
meeting began.

That evening, as we congregated in the lobby
and bar of the hotel, we found ourselves surrounded by gorgeous young men. We soon
learned that they were members of a baseball team. I tired eventually of the banter and,
since I still had to practise my speech for the next day, retired to my room early.
Exhausted after the excitement of the day, I climbed into bed and, since I’d had a
few drinks, was soon sound asleep. Bobby shared the room with me, and I thought I heard
her come in later. When I woke up the next morning, I looked at her and had the shock of
my life: one of the baseball players was in bed with her. I coughed loudly. Bobby sat
bolt upright. She was naked, with makeup smeared all over her face and her hair sticking
out in every direction. I’m not sure if she looked more like a raccoon or a
porcupine. She stared at me, then turned. I will never forget her reaction.

‘Good heavens,’ she said.
‘How did he get here?’ Bobby’s language reflected her background and
her choice of words was quite different from what mine would have been. I made a dash
for the bathroom. When I emerged some time later, Mr Gorgeous was gone, and there sat
Bobby, a sheet wrapped around her.

‘I’d prefer that we don’t
speak of this again, ever,’ she said, somewhat sheepishly. I couldn’t answer
her: I was laughing too hard.

I’m sure that my bid to win the next
convention was successful because of the coaching and advice I’d received from
Convention Bureau staff. I made the most professional presentation of the day and they
selected Chicago unanimously for their next national meeting. When I returned with the
good news, my home group elected me to organize and chair the convention. Oh, Lord, I
thought. Now look what I’ve got myself into.

After we’d chosen a committee to help
with planning the convention, word about our coming event went out to all the Chicago
hotels. We immediately began to receive proposals and invitations to tour the possible
city venues. My committee and I were wined and dined by hotel sales teams, and you
wouldn’t believe the bribes we were offered. They came mostly in the form of
monetary kickbacks, but although Palmer and I were always broke and up to our eyes in
debt, I could never have accepted a bribe: I was too afraid of being discovered. Palmer
had warned me that it might and probably would happen, and I wondered how he resisted
the temptation but, of course, he never had to pay for meals or drinks at the Chicago
hotels: they relied on him to bring them business. We girls had a
grand time and, although we never succumbed to financial bribery, we took full
advantage of the benefits. The fact was that I was playing Palmer’s game, and
enjoying the attention.

The committee and I had plenty of laughs at
some of the menus included in various hotel proposal packages. In an effort to appeal to
the British tastes of our organization, selections like cock-a-leekie soup and trifle
appeared on several offerings.

‘Blimey,’ said one of the girls.
‘Next thing you know they’ll be suggesting toad-in-the-hole or even spotted
dick!’ We roared at that idea. We really lost it, though, when one catering
manager told us he had done his homework thoroughly.

‘Ah,’ he said, with a knowing
wink, ‘not many people would know you Brits like to have a prune in your
cock-a-leekie.’ I almost choked on that one. None of us had ever heard of putting
prunes in cock-a-leekie soup, but when I checked it later, I discovered that the
original recipe did have prunes, or pieces of prune, in it. We certainly had learned
something new, and from a Chicago hotel sales rep!

Besides choosing the hotel for the
convention, there were many other things to arrange, but again, the Convention Bureau
supplied me with printed lists of things to do and schedules that outlined when we
should do them. We had to establish the size and number of meeting rooms we needed,
choose a band for the grand ball, sort out entertainment, door prizes and guest
speakers. There was more to do than we could ever have imagined, but we did it, and we
did it well. Everything went smoothly, even
the speech I had to give
before the dinner and dance. The British consul general was our keynote speaker, and
officers from the British TBPA came to Chicago. Besides making speeches, they praised
our convention as the best there had ever been. Perhaps I’ve missed my calling, I
thought, but no: having to do all that work on a regular basis would have taken the fun
out of it.

During the convention planning, the
meetings, the visits to hotels and such, we had to leave our children with baby-sitters
or tolerant husbands. Occasionally Palmer was at home and willing to care for Wayne, but
other than that, I had to rely on my friends in the apartment building. Everyone loved
my little son, especially Mary and John Nicholson, who then had no children of their
own. I never had to worry about him, although I’m sure, as with any child,
he’d rather have had his mother at home, but it was only the occasional afternoon
or evening that I had to be away during the year that led up to the convention.

One thing stands out in my mind from that
convention. After I’d made my speech and introduced the keynote speaker, I sat
down at the table on the platform and looked out over the sea of happy faces that were
gazing up at us. All of them, like me, had been GI brides; all of them had left family
and home to make a new life in the United States with their American husbands. I
wondered how they had coped and what each of their stories might be. How many of them
paralleled my own? I was sure each of them had suffered in one way or another, from
loneliness, homesickness and alienation. For now, though, they seemed happy simply being
together, sisters related by
experience rather than blood. At that
moment, I loved them all. They had become my family.

The Chicago Convention Bureau had assigned
Palmer to work full time as liaison with the Non-Partisan Fund Raising Committee for the
National Republican Convention to take place in Chicago in July 1960. The person he
worked most closely with, and whose right-hand man he became, was Fred Gurley, chairman
of the board of the Santa Fe railroad. Through Fred Gurley, Palmer was now meeting more
and more famous and moneyed people, which meant more dinners and parties, all involving
alcohol. The problem was that Palmer could not control his drinking and I learned that
he was visiting my ex-employer, Dr H., regularly to get help. He was also spending a lot
of time and money at the steam baths, trying to sober up, so that he would be physically
and mentally able to attend the growing number of functions required for this major
convention planning and fund raising. I didn’t always know the extent of what was
going on as the people he worked with did a good job of covering up for him to avoid
embarrassment in political circles. There was no question at that point of replacing
him: he was far too deeply involved with the convention and its organizers.

I didn’t see much of him during the
lead-up to the convention, but I had begun to dread him coming home. He was always
drunk, and always stank of booze. Even after he had showered, the smell seeped out
through his pores and he would perspire so much that his clothes were permeated with the
acrid smell of sweat and alcohol. He didn’t own many suits, so instead of having
them cleaned
between wearings, he would take them off at the
dry-cleaner’s and wait while they pressed them. He and his clothes made me feel
sick and I could hardly bear having him near me; he often repulsed me.

‘You should buy a couple of seersucker
suits,’ I told him. Seersucker was popular at the time: it was much cooler to
wear, especially in Chicago’s hot, humid weather. ‘I could wash and iron
them myself and we could save a lot on dry-cleaning bills.’

‘Good idea,’ he said.
‘I’ll sneak it in on my expense account.’ I must have looked puzzled.
‘Well, after all, it is work-related, or I’d just be wearing sweat pants,
wouldn’t I?’ How appropriate, I thought. They don’t call them sweat
pants for nothing.

Finally, the convention started, one big
round of parties and meetings, and not only for Palmer: sometimes my presence was
required. It was one of the most exciting times of my life, being involved at such close
quarters with American politics, politicians, the media and people from the
entertainment world. During the convention, we had a room on the same floor as the media
in the convention headquarters hotel, then known as the Pick Congress, on Michigan
Avenue. The media person I remember best was Mike Wallace, who was in the next room to
us I remember how surprised I was by his pock-marked face. There were so many famous
people floating around in the hallways and the hospitality rooms that it was hard not to
stand and stare.

One night we had attended a huge affair in
the grand ballroom of the hotel. The party, hosted by the Hawaiian delegation to the
convention, was a typical Hawaiian
luau
.
Everyone was dressed
in the bright colours of the tropical islands, with orchid leis around their necks,
flown in especially for the occasion. I had never seen such an extravagant production,
except perhaps in movies. As I was leaving the function, I stepped into the elevator,
followed by Senator Thruston B. Morton, who had also just left the party after giving a
speech. Senator Morton was one of America’s most senior and respected politicians
at the time. He greeted me and said what a nice party it had been and something to the
effect that he was going to take a nap. He then took off his orchid lei and placed it
around my neck as he got out of the elevator. I still have that lei pressed in my
scrapbook, and for many years I delighted in telling people that I’d been
‘leid’ by Senator Thruston B. Morton in the elevator at the Pick Congress
Hotel.