My Mother’s Secrets, Unrevealed

My parents went to Havana for their honeymoon in 1943, a popular destination at the time. But there are no photos. That seems odd, because my dad was an accomplished amateur photographer with his own darkroom.

They came home early. Something happened. They never talked about it to me or to anyone else.

There was vague talk in the family about my mom having some kind of emotional meltdown. She may have stayed with her parents on Long Island for a few weeks afterwards, while my dad waited patiently for her to return to their apartment in Newark. He had to get back to his job in the machine shop. 

Rose and Jules went on to a happy marriage with love letters and much affection exchanged and displayed over thirty-seven years.

The only other clue I have to ongoing personal problems is my mother’s mysterious month-long hospitalization. At seven or eight, my imagination ran wild. What were they doing to my mother? Did she do something wrong? When can I see her? Is she ever coming home?

As a child, I followed my mother around like a little puppy, fascinated by everything she did—cooking, washing dishes, doing laundry then hanging it up on the rotary clothesline, ironing, talking on the new telephone on the hallway desk. I watched her put on her Revlon lipstick or Evening in Paris cologne and brush her thick and wavy auburn hair, looking like a movie star—maybe RIta Hayworth. But my mom was prettier.

Children were not allowed to visit hospitals in the 1950s. If symptoms were vague for a female, the go-to diagnosis of “breakdown” or “nerves” was often applied. I can only imagine the isolation imposed and the treatment administered in those ignorant times. My mother had lost weight and in some photos, seems bony; I’ve speculated that she suffered from an eating disorder.

Mental health conditions, whether improperly, or even properly ascribed, were considered a shame for the family and in society in general. You sometimes heard about a reclusive second cousin, or a family down the block keeping a “strange” relative secluded in a room for years. 

My dad hired a housekeeper to cook meals and keep the house in order, an older woman whom my brother and I were instructed to address as “Mrs. K.” To both of us, she was the essence of evil—old, strict and humorless—but her greatest offense was that she stood over us in the place of our missing mother.

Everyday I walked home from school, I thought, “This is the day!” I cried into my pillow at night so no one would hear—until the day finally came. I came home to see my mom sitting in a corner of the living room couch, looking like a queen. Still seated, she held out her arms to me . . . .

Mrs. K packed up and departed immediately, most likely fed up with the ungrateful, sullen children at the dinner table, and the father who allowed them to leave even if they didn’t finish their spinach or canned peas.

I needed my mom back. I didn’t care why she was gone, or even that we had a stranger feeding us. Nothing else mattered, now that she was home.

I never did ask my mother what happened on her honeymoon . . . or at the hospital . . . maybe once or twice I did, but her answers were vague. No one else survives who would have any memory of those circumstances, even if information had somehow leaked out.

My mom wrote extensively in her “Rosie-grams” about family events and history, but there is no reference to any negative adult experiences or medical issues. She told detailed stories of her family of origin, then further expanded into wider relationship circles as the family multiplied. Rosie told everyone, “If you send an invitation, I’m coming. Don’t wait for an rsvp.” And she was true to her word.

My mom was a multimedia talent. Way back when a tape recorder with a cassette and a mic was the advanced technology, she roamed every table at every family event, holding up her microphone and interviewing the guests. She never prepared a list of questions. With her deep knowledge of family history and her drive to memorialize all of the generations for posterity, she travelled tirelessly around the room to engage every willing family member. She considered all of them celebrities. Why?—simply because they were family.

This was her gift to the family, appreciated especially now that the revered elders are gone, and the little nieces and nephews then, my cousins, are grandparents themselves. 

But her own personal memories remain largely unrecorded. By taking the initiative, she controlled the narrative. 

Who asked my mother for her own story?

For me, the daughter left to put the puzzle together, I strained to fit in some of the darker pieces that didn’t quite fit. 

I knew that my parents began to travel together each summer after my mom became a teacher at age fifty. In Kodacolor prints over fifteen years, until my father died in 1980, I see them enjoying cultural and scenic tours of Scandinavia, Denmark, Spain, and other beautiful places. 

The way they loved each other, I suppose you could call them “second honeymooners” on those trips. And this makes me happy too, easing the final pieces of their life together for my own sake.

I am satisfied that my parents lived life to the fullest after dealing with some tough times in their early marriage, as newlyweds and then as young parents. And they simply did not want to talk about it, ever again. 

I will write my own story. My mom closed the case on hers, exactly as she wished.