From the Relief Society Magazine, June 1947 –

It’s Up to the Women

By Norma Wrathall

Maria Frances Jennings Ware had risen even earlier than usual that morning because this May Sunday, she was celebrating her eighty-fifth birthday. She had crept from her feather bed just as the stars were fading, and had stood at the window of the upstairs bedroom in her granddaughter’s house and watched the first rays of approaching day spread over the Wasatch Mountains. She clutched a little shawl over the shoulders of her long-sleeved nightgown, but her shivering was from excitement, not from early morning air. As a special treat for the day, she was to attend the Tabernacle Choir coast-to-coast broadcast.

Maria Frances J. Ware sighed happily, looking out over her waking world, beautiful Salt Lake City. She was thinking of the days when it had not been a city at all, but just the beginnings, lacking the verdure of green trees, the spires of the Temple, the wide streets upon which early buses were starting to hum. She could close her eyes, even now, and see the groups of immigrant pioneers, of whom her father had been one, camped upon the Eighth Ward Square where the Eagle Gate now arches. Some had slept in covered wagons or tents, but others, like her father’s family, had lain on the ground with only a blanket for cover.

She dressed quietly, being careful not to wake her great-granddaughter, Mary Frances, whose bedroom was just under her own. Time and time again, Mary Frances had offered to trade, so that great-grandmother would not have to climb the stairs. But great-grandmother was not one to pamper herself in her declining years. She said she was spry enough for a few steps yet; besides, she liked to get a good long view from the upstairs window each morning; it sort of strengthened her for the day.

Poor Mary Frances, she was thinking, so young, with a baby, and working besides, and her husband Joe with the army of occupation in Japan. Mary Frances was very young and delicate looking, though she was seldom sick. But girls nowadays were under such a strain, dashing here and there, trying to do so many things. Lately, both her mother and great-grandmother had been worried. it was not that Mary Frances and Joe had married in haste. But he had been away so much since their few weeks of married life that the marriage had become shadowy, the baby, a tedious care to the girl. Only two days before she had told her mother, “Gee! Mom, I’m not getting anywhere, just plugging away as a steno. Today, Mr. Spindler offered me a job as his private secretary. Only he’s being transferred to Denver.”

She had watched her mother’s face carefully. “Uh – do you think you and Gran could manage the baby for a while? Of course, I’d send the money for him. It’d be a great chance for me to get ahead, and really make something of myself.” Her cheeks had been flushed and her eyes shining with suppressed excitement.

Mary Stevens, reporting this conversation to gran, had said flatly, “– and I don’t like it. It isn’t as if we couldn’t manage the baby. We’ve been doing most of it lately, anyhow. But if she goes away like that – well, it just doesn’t seem right. She’d get to going out with a young crowd. And Joe wouldn’t like that! It would just lead to trouble.”

Gran had answered, “You’re right, Mary. And not only that, she’d grow away from her child. It’s time some of these young mothers forgot about ‘getting ahead’ as they call it!”

Mary sighed, “I tried to show her where her real responsibilities lie. But she wants more money, so she can get more things and go out more – oh, dear!” Mary spread her hands in a gesture of despair. “Gran, see if you can’t think of some argument that will convince her. I’m at; my wit’s end. Please!”

“Well – I’ll try, but I doubt if argument will do it. Mary Frances has a stubborn streak. You know that, Mary.”

Great-grandmother’s only daughter, who would be Mary Frances’ grandmother, had died giving birth to Mary, and so Maria Frances Ware had reared her, along with her own large family of younger boys. Now the boys were grown up and moved away. Great-grandmother and Mary Stevens had the old home. And Mary Frances had stayed right on with them through her brief marriage to Joe. When the baby was born, Mary Stevens had helped her daughter with the expense and care, though she herself, a widow for many years, worked in a store. So now Mary Frances felt that she must take a job to help pay back what her mother had given her. And, with both of them working, it fell to great-grandmother to care for the baby.

Gran chuckled, thinking of how the other two women in the house fretted over the fact. Once, she had overheard Mary Frances saying, “Golly, Mom, it seems terrible, leaving great-grandmother with the baby like this. She’s so old. She looks so frail and wispy, a breath might blow her away. When I see her, tottering around, dangling him on one hip while she fixes his bottle –!”

Mary Stevens had answered, in her quick, hurrying voice, “Yes, it is too much for Gran, but we can’t do anything else. Even if you could hire a girl – which you can’t – she’d want almost as much pay as you’re making yourself. We’re just plain lucky to have Gran, although it does seem a shame –” And they had both sighed quickly and dashed away to their respective jobs.

But Gran reflected that, lately, Mary Frances hadn’t worried so much about it.

As she stood before the mirror of her large, old-fashioned oak dresser, and ran a comb through her wispy white hair, Gran remembered how she’d made it a point to tell them that, while she might look frail, being small and wrinkled as an autumn leaf, she was really as tough as hickory – of good pioneer stock, she had reminded them. She speared some hairpins into the small knot of hair. Usually, she just gathered her locks at the back, but today she had her front hair waved, having put it up on kid curlers the night before. She prided herself upon the fact that no one had ever had to help her comb her hair, like that helpless old Mrs. Wickers who was only seventy-nine.

Now, having finished dressing in her good black silk, Gran went quietly down the stairs, thinking that maybe she had promised more than she could do, agreeing to “talk to” Mary Frances. She turned on the lawn sprinklers, and sat on the porch to wait for the paper boy to come. Maybe she would be able to think of something in the peace and quiet of the Sabbath morning.

Presently, she heard an alarm clock ring distantly, which meant that Mary would soon be racing through the house, getting the work done before breakfast. Always, Mary Stevens rose very early on week days, went through the downstairs one morning, the upstairs the next, her hair protected by a bandana. Then, she would prepare breakfast, which they ate at breakneck speed, so Mary could finish up before she and Mary Frances caught the seven-thirty bus for town. Mary Frances, meantime, well schooled by her mother, would be putting the baby’s laundry on the line, her light brown hair secure under a net, her face a mask of cold cream. And the two of them would hurl snatches of orders for the day at Gran, as she stood drying the dishes and listening for the baby’s waking cry. Often, she hardly listened to the orders; one would never suppose, to hear them, that she had reared nine boys and a girl of her own, to say nothing of Mary herself, and Mary Frances.

But things would move more slowly today, because it was Sunday. They would take time to eat decently. Mary Frances would take over the baby, sitting upstairs in Gran’s room to talk while he took his bottle. And today, being her birthday, Gran would not even be expected to dry the dishes. She smoothed her silken lap and glanced down the block toward the house of a neighbor, Mr. Burbridge, who was bishop’s counselor in the ward. He had offered to drive her and Mary to the Tabernacle for the broadcast. Then, in the afternoon, friends would call to visit and offer congratulations. It would be very pleasant.

After breakfast, as she and Mary Fran sat upstairs, the baby peacefully taking his bottle, Great-grandmother rummaged through a burnt-wood box of clippings and keepsakes. “I like to look at these things once in a while – reminds me of people I used to know –” she murmured, holding a sheaf of clippings.

Mary Frances, on a low stool, was gazing out the window. “Well, at least, I won’t have to wonder all day if I’ll get a letter. There can’t be one on Sunday.” Her expression was a little peevish.

Gran answered crisply, “Double chance tomorrow, being Monday. Don’t worry, you’ll hear soon. Maybe Joe’s moved to a different place. Or maybe he’s missed getting his letters off on the boat. Anyhow, he never was much of a hand at writing, was he?”

“Oh, he could write I guess, if he wanted to,” grumbled Mary Frances. “Sometimes, it makes me tired when people say how lonely it is for the soldiers, so far from home, and all that. But they forget about the ones waiting at home. It’s no fun, either, just moping around home every evening. I might as well be sixty!”

Gran peered over her glasses. “There’re different kinds of loneliness, dear. One kind, like Joe’s, means being lonely for everything, even your own home soil to stand on. The other kind, like yours, is heart loneliness. It takes courage to stand either kind.”

Mary Frances moved restlessly on the stool. “They talk so much about the courage of pioneer women. But I don’t know! Women today have to bear just as much, in a different way.”

“Exactly.” Gran leaned forward in her rocker. “What is needed today is that good old pioneer spirit, applied to things now. And the women are the ones who have to have it. Men get discouraged.”

Mary Frances said nothing, but moved the baby to a more comfortable position on her arm.

Gran rocked thoughtfully for a few minutes. “Women complain so much nowadays about shortages. But it’s been my experience that there’s hardly been a time when there wasn’t a shortage of something. Reminds me of how people were told to store wheat in the early days. Brigham Young knew there would be a shortage of food, so he told the farmers of Utah to raise more wheat than they needed and turn the rest to be stored by the Church.”

“And I suppose they stored lots of it? In those days, people were more obedient than now, weren’t they?”

“Human nature worked then, same as now. The men put off planting this extra wheat. Some of them didn’t see any need of it. A tour of the territory by Church Authorities showed that very little wheat was being raised. So, what do you suppose President Young did?”

“Golly, I don’t know, Gran. What did he do?” Mary Frances was preoccupied, her mind on her own problems.

“Called on the women, of course!” Gran asserted triumphantly. “You mark my word, Mary Frances, whenever men put over a big job, or say they do, the women are really back of it. Now, you take the present time, even, with boys like your Joe, out in foreign countries. The war’s over, and lots of people have forgotten that many of our boys are still away in some far-off place. But their wives and sweethearts haven’t forgotten. Where would this country be without women to carry on at home?”

Mary Frances started, her face coloring, but as she opened her lips to speak, Gran continued swiftly. “But, to get on with my story, President Young called on the women of the Relief Society to see that this extra wheat was raised and stored. And he put the Relief Society president, Emmeline B. Wells, in charge of the whole thing. And the women did it.” Gran’s blue eyes shone behind her glasses.

Mary Frances asked, “How could they? Women didn’t plant the crops, did they?’ She began to be interested in spite of herself.

“No, but they organized a drive to increase the acreage, and bought wheat, raising a fund for it in different ways. And, of course, the women who lived in the country kept after their husbands.” Gran’s faded blue eyes were misted in reminiscence. “Your great-grandfather and I were just newly married; we lived in the country then. One thing that was done by the women of our town was to save the Sunday eggs, sell them, and turn the money to the wheat fund.”

Mary Frances stood up, and put the baby over her shoulder, patting his back gently.

“You handle that baby very well, my dear. Couldn’t do better myself,” approved Gran, “but I was telling you … everybody was interested in watching the wheat fund grow. Oh, we had entertainments, auctioned off quilts we’d made – things like that, to raise money. Well, that fall, our ward gave a harvest ball. The admission per couple was a bushel of wheat.

“Pa and I were a little late getting to the dance, because he hadn’t sacked up the wheat until the last minute. I was in a dither, wanting to get there and show off my new dress. As we came to the door of the dance hall, we could hear the dance going in full swing. They had fine music, too – there were some mighty good players in our ward. I could hear the clomping of the men’s cowboy boots on the pine floor, dancing the quadrille. I tried to push past the ticket taker, to see if my friend Romania was there yet, and what her dress was like. Just as he lifted Pa’s wheat, I bumped into him. The sack slid from his hands. The string around the top came undone, and that bushel of wheat spilled all over the floor! Your great-grandfather’s face turned crimson, and he swore at me!”

“Gran, he didn’t!” Mary Frances exclaimed in mock horror, laughing as Gran went on.

“Rowen James was standing in the middle of the hall, calling out the dance in his sing-song chant. At sight of what happened, he sang out, ‘Everybody down on the floor – Gather up wheat ‘till there ain’t no more!’ and they all fell to, gathering it, laughing and shouting. My face was red as a beet. I didn’t dare look at Pa, he hated so to be made conspicuous. I hurried like mad, scooping up the wheat into my full skirt. Then, as I partly stooped to pour the wheat from my lap into a basket someone had brought, my hoops flipped up around my waist. There I stood, in my petticoats and white pantalettes. I pulled with all my might, but my skirt wouldn’t come down. Everyone was laughing fit to kill, and someone started to clap. I’ll never know how I ran from that hall, jerking at my skirt, my feet slipping and sliding on the wheat.” Gran wiped tears of laughter from her eyes. “It took me years to live it down.”

After a moment of giggling, Mary Fran asked, “How did the wheat fund turn out?”

“Oh, fine. We went way over the quota for our ward. Pa sent another bushel of wheat down to the bishop for fear that the other hadn’t all been gathered up.”

There was a moment of silence during which Gran and the girl looked each to her own dreams.

Presently, Gran spoke gently, “Remember, dear, it’s up to the women, after all is said and done. Sometimes, the hardest part of all is just staying at home and keeping things going, little, everyday things that don’t have much glory to them. I guess it would be nice to be out in front and have people saying you were prominent and wonderful, and all. It isn’t very exciting to stay at home on the same old job when so many opportunities are calling – but, goodness me, here I am, gabbing away. What I really wanted, when you came in, Mary Fran, was to ask your advice.” Gran began rocking briskly.

“My advice! Whatever for, Gran?” Mary Frances spoke carefully over the shoulder of the sleeping baby.

“Well, it’s about this staying home, or going on to a better job. When you get to be my age, you’ve got a right to get a mite restless with the same old grind.”

“Why, Gran …”

“I’ve been thinking of applying for a job.”

“A job? Gee! At your age?”

“Why not? They’re thinking of opening up the Child Center again. This is confidential, so keep it to yourself …”

“Oh, I won’t breathe it to a soul.”

“Fine. Now, I happened to hear that they’d need kind of an elderly woman, to help tend the children. And I figure I’ve had plenty of experience, having raised three families, as you might say. Good pay, too. But your mother’s dead set against it.”

“She is?” Mary Frances asked faintly.

“Yes, she thinks my place is here, taking care of your baby. I hate to say this, but I think your mother’s just a bit old fashioned. But after she told me you were thinking of taking a job in Denver, I said to her, ‘And leave me here to take care of her child, when I might get a job myself? I guess not,’ I said. Now, of course, I knew you wouldn’t really expect me to do that, when you wouldn’t even be here to help with him at all. But your mother’s fit to be tied! I told her, you can put the baby in a nursery school, or something …” Gran waved a hand vaguely, as if the baby’s problem were the least of her concern. She leaned forward confidentially, “And now, tell me, my dear, frankly, what do you think I should do?”

Mary Frances could only stare in speechless surprise, the hot color rising over her neck and face. Suddenly, Gran could not look into that astonished face, flushed and quivering with conflicting emotions. She rose and went hastily to the dresser, put away the burnt-wood box of keepsakes, and began putting on her hat.

Mary Frances stood still, cradling the baby in her thin young arms. She looked down into his rosy, sleeping face, and didn’t dare look up, for fear the sudden tears that scalded her eyelids would spill over. At last she said slowly, “But Gran, how could I leave him with anyone but you? Gee! I just couldn’t …”

“Why not?”

Fran looked up, her eyes filling. “Because I just couldn’t! Something – something might happen to him. And he’s all I’ve got – and if anything did, Joe would –” She gulped. “I guess Joe would just about die, because every letter, he says, ‘take care of our boy’ – and – Gran, couldn’t you – I mean, really, I didn’t intend to go to Denver, I guess. I mean, of course I couldn’t pay you as much as the Child Center. But if I stay on, I might get a raise. And I know now I haven’t really appreciated all you’ve done. You must think me pretty stupid …”

Gran looked steadily into the mirror, unnecessarily adjusting the little hat, which she’d had so long she’d often said she could put it on in the dark. She longed to put her arms around the troubled girl, but she knew she mustn’t make it too easy for her, yet. “Well, I haven’t decided definitely, either – we’ll talk it over again in the morning. Now, remember, not a word of this to your mother. I don’t want her bossing me on my birthday. Sounds as if she’s coming upstairs now. Where’s my gloves? I never did see such a woman for getting things done as your mother. Your father used to say that he despaired of ever getting her out of the house to go anywhere until the work was all done. He said once that chances are, when her final call comes, if it should happen to be in the forenoon, the good Saint Peter would have to wait, keeping the pearly gates ajar, while Mary finished her dusting …” Gran rattled on, leaving Mary Frances to her own feelings.

Mary Stevens put her head in at the door. Her face was a little flushed, and she was panting, but every hair was in place, and she was dressed in a trim blue suit. “What have you two been talking about so long? Ready, Gran? I just saw Mr. Burbridge drive up.”

Mary Frances went slowly on downstairs to put the baby in his bed, and Gran whispered to Mary, “I think she’ll be all right now. Don’t’ worry, Mary. Like I’ve always said, ‘take each day as it comes. Don’t look too long at tomorrow.’”

They went out, across the lawn, toward the waiting car. “My, it’s a beautiful day for a birthday,” sighed Gran ecstatically. And indeed it was, with happiness everywhere, sparkling in the early spring sunshine, dancing in the spray of the lawn sprinklers, and smiling in the blue eyes of the little old lady whose good black silk rustled in anticipation.

“So very good of you to call for us,” she murmured to Mr. Burbridge, as she settled into the back seat.

Mary leaned forward, talking briskly to Mr. Burbridge. But Maria Frances Jennings Ware was too excited to pay attention to them. She was enjoying the fresh, dressed-up look of the people on their way to church, and the Sunday appearance of the children, walking sedately with their elders. She had always wanted to see a broadcast. Would the choir and organ sound as well as they did over the radio? And how did they go at it, anyway?