Toughing It Out: From Silver Slippers to Combat Boots

By Claire Reed

She was the pampered daughter of a wealthy manufacturer, then the bored wife of the man who took over the business, lost in suburbia, drifting through the days until she found politics. Claire Reed always believed in helping others, but it wasn't until she began working with Women Strike for Peace, an early antinuclear proliferation organization, that she saw she could actually change the world. She went on to work with one of the the icons of modern feminism, Bella Abzug, and with civil rights groups. Her story is the story of an era when women could, at last, shed the feminine mystique and become the woman they had buried inside themselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY
• Release date: Jan 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781558618367

Claire Reed

Claire Reed is the conservator at Southend Museums Service, and previously worked as a theatrical costumier and seamstress. She also spent several years working as a self-employed wedding dressmaker.

Book preview

ONE

RIDING THE BROADWAY SUBWAY TO 116TH STREET to attend the first class of a literature course on Virginia Woolf, I felt a stirring in anticipation of the pleasure I would have rereading novels I loved and hadn’t read in years. When the train pulled into the station and I started up the stairs to the street, something about the agent’s booth, the stairs, the smell in the air, slowly began to affect me. It all was familiar and yet strange. When I reached the main entrance, stood at the huge iron gates leading to the campus of Columbia University and stepped onto the brick path, time stopped. Nothing was different. The buildings, the colors, the space, the students, exactly, I thought, as it was sixty years before. Slowly, very slowly, I walked through the gates, pausing every few steps to absorb the flush of emotions rising up within.

I stopped in front of the library remembering the shy and diffident seventeen-year-old who stood in this same place, feeling her body shrinking, losing feet and inches, until she thought she was insect-size against the scale of the library, which loomed over the campus. How long did that girl stay frozen I wondered, embarrassed and unable to ask where Professor John Lyon’s Shakespeare class was meeting? It probably was no more than ten minutes, but at the time I thought it was forever. I felt like I would never find Hamilton Hall and, losing courage, I was ready to escape, run back to the subway and home. But somehow I managed to stay until a student showed me where to go.

HOME? YES, HOME. That was where a girl never advanced to woman until she married. There was no ambiguity in the messages given to boys and girls growing up in middle-class society in the Brooklyn I knew. Boys were to go to college and have professional or business careers; girls were to graduate high school and marry. My mother thought education for a girl was wasted time.

My best friend Muriel Stein’s parents owned a house in Miami Beach where they spent Christmas through the New Year, and I was always an invited guest. I was a freshman in high school when Muriel’s family decided to spend the entire winter in Florida and again, I was asked to come and stay with them. They enrolled Muriel in a private school, but my mother thought it would be fine for me to do nothing. Only under duress did she agree to let me go to school with Muriel to finish the winter term. But I was not allowed to enroll for the spring semester, even though we stayed in Florida long past the beginning of the semester. When I came home in April, I could go back to school, my mother said. Her plan for me: sleep late, get lots of rest, and gain weight. She conceded that I needed some exercise and agreed to a bike ride each morning to the beach. Once there, I lay in the sun, reading, writing poetry, and dreaming—and got up only to swim. I hoped this lazy life would make me blossom into a round, curvaceous, seductive young woman, an identical model of my mother’s favorite Frans Hals paintings. Mother showed no concern that I would miss three months of school, nor that I would have to face regents’ exams two months after we returned. I gained weight that winter, and she was so pleased that the following winter she insisted I go to Florida with Muriel’s family again. Muriel’s parents were wealthy—so wealthy they had several servants. I’d been there for a few weeks when the housekeeper asked Muriel, Your friend came here to gain weight? Muriel nodded yes. Well, said the housekeeper, tell her she’s gained enough. The sides of her clothes are splitting. Still, each time on my return, Mother came to meet me at Penn Station, and as we kissed, I could feel her hands pressing my hip bones. Inevitably, she’d remark, in a disappointed tone, that she could still feel my bones and that I hadn’t gained enough. Often, I would hum a popular Fats Domino tune, What’s the Reason I Ain’t Pleasin’ You?

My mother’s total disregard for my education first reared its head when I was eight or nine years old and my close friend and classmate, Edith Malina, broke her arm jumping off the slide. On doctor’s orders, she stayed home from school for several days and I stayed home with her. There was no fuss. I told mother I had to stay with Edith; she offered no objections.

My senior year of high school I was off to Florida again, this time with Edith’s family. Her oldest brother had developed tuberculosis and at the doctor’s recommendation, the family decided to spend the winter at the Helene Hotel in Miami, across from the beach. My mother asked Mrs. Malina if I could stay with them. They assured her they would be delighted to have company for their daughter, and my mother pulled me out of school. I didn’t return until two or three months before graduation. In Florida each morning, Edith and I took a school bus to a private school where classes were held on the beach. Who wouldn’t want to go to a school where there were no more than two or three students in a class and we sat under a beach umbrella watching waves, pretending to focus on the teacher’s lessons? I recall a history class where Edith and I were the only students. One morning feeling rather bored, I asked the teacher, Can’t we break and go bike riding? To my astonishment, she agreed. Education was not exactly a priority in that school. When I had finished the first term of my senior year in Florida, my mother decided that was enough. You can finish the next term, she argued, when you return home. This meant I had about two months to catch up on material the rest of the class had spent four months studying. It never concerned Mother. She cared only that I look attractive enough to catch a man. Here was a woman, a caring mother, who in her actions and by implications, seemed to believe her daughter’s intelligence was limited, and yet assumed that same daughter could miss half a term of schoolwork, still pass required tests, and graduate. I still don’t understand it, and I don’t know how to explain it. My mother’s attitude to my education had an unstated but implied meaning for me, one I’ve never lost: none too bright, even downright dumb, was the message drilled into my mind.

I confess I hadn’t fought too hard to return home and to school. I loved the beach and loved Edith’s family, although the strongest pull to stay on was Fred, Edith’s tubercular older brother. I had a heavy crush on Fred. He was ten years our senior but—more than his poise, more than his savoir faire—Fred’s appeal was that he was part of a world to which I yearned to belong. He was one of a group of top writers for some of the best-known comedians of the era. I was a seventeen-year-old, but I was a child, emotionally just about going on thirteen. I fantasized about being an actress, a star of the silver screen and stage, celebrated in magazines and newspapers across the country. Fred was glamorous and, could be my entré to the stage, I thought.

I have never been able to bury the memory of what an introverted, shy, unconfident teen can do when passion overcomes all judgment. At the Helene Hotel, each evening after dinner, guests would gather in the garden for tea, coffee, and dessert, while an orchestra and singer entertained. One evening, my craving for Fred’s attention crested to such a peak, it took over logic and common sense. This scared, shy, unassertive girl spoke to the orchestra leader, requesting they play a song I wanted to sing to the hotel’s guests. The orchestra had no recourse; I was a guest. So stood on the stage, looked directly at Fred and sang to him with heart and soul these lines from a Cole Porter song, You’d be so nice to come home to, you’d be so easy to love, when the moon on high, sings a lullaby, you’d be all that I would desire. Ah, to once again be a young romantic dreamer wearing her heart on her sleeve.

I CAUGHT MY MOTHER’S disdain for education early on. My attitude was as casual and indifferent as hers. If I wasn’t in the mood to attend classes, I stayed home. If there was a movie in the neighborhood I hungered to see, I satisfied that hunger. Missing class didn’t trouble me. If I could spend a winter without schooling, I reasoned, what was the big deal if I cut a few classes? I had started to write lyrics by the time I entered the teen years. We owned a Victrola, an early record player, which was housed in our basement. You had to turn a handle to wind up the machine. I’d put a record on the turntable, take the arm holding a needle and place it on the record, start cranking and voilà—music. I loved and played all the popular songs from Broadway musical shows of the time. Often, I stayed home from school to sit all day in the basement, listening hour after hour. I dreamed of having my lyrics published and was on constant watch for someone who could compose music to my lyrics. One day, I put a notice on the bulletin board at school. A girl in one of my classes answered. Her name was Frances. Immediately, Frances and I were a team. The only problem was that Frances’s mother, in contrast to mine, thought education important. She would not let Frances stay home to work with me so we met after school at my house or hers. Sometimes I wrote to her music; mostly, she wrote her music to my lyrics. We thought our songs equal to those on Broadway; I burned with ambition to have them published. It took me a week or more to convince Frances to act on what I thought was one of my more brilliant ideas.

The Brill Building on Broadway, in what Brooklyn people called The City, was where all the music publishers had offices. My plan: we cut classes for a few days, take the subway to the Brill Building, hang out in the lobby until a publisher, noticing us, would invite us to his office. Once there, we would play our songs to him. Very soon after, we would be rich and famous. Frances, terrified of missing classes but lost in the fantasy, went along with me. We stood unnoticed for two days. Then, on the third day, we struck gold. A short, round, fat man, stopped in front of us. Why do you two girls stand here every day? he asked. I see you each time I enter and leave the lobby. We told him we were songwriters and hoped he would listen to our music. He looked a bit amused and then in a rather brusque manner said, Okay, come along. We couldn’t believe our luck. When he entered his office, he pointed us to a small couch, told us to sit, and disappeared into another room. We were in the waiting room with his receptionist who ignored us. On the front door a sign read Willinstein Publishers. The receptionist was in and out of his office several times while we sat quietly, anxiously, waiting for a signal from the big man. We sat there for the rest of the day. It wasn’t until the receptionist started to close her desk and reached for her coat and hat that we got the message. We left, a bit discouraged, but not totally. I persuaded Frances to cut another day of classes and go back to his office, sure that this time he would call us inside. So there we were the following day sitting, once again, in the same office, on the same couch, waiting for a call. At the end of that day the publisher, emerging from his secret room, dressed in his coat, carrying a hat, suddenly stopped when he saw us. You still here? he asked in a disbelieving voice. I jumped up and told him he’d promised to listen to our songs. I heard my voice sounding near tears. He stood still, uncertain how to answer. Then he turned and, in a resigned, gruff voice said, Alright follow me. Stomachs filled with butterflies, we stepped without hesitation into his office and over to the grand piano. Frances began playing; I sang the song we had decided was our best. As soon as I finished, Mr. Willinstein smiled encouragingly then joined us at the piano. Very nice, he said, patting both our shoulders. Now, go home, go to school, do your homework, and be good girls. We were heart-broken but not dissuaded. We continued writing, sure our talents would one day soon be discovered. We were a team, certain to be the next Rodgers and Hammerstein.

After graduating from high school, I hungered to learn more about poetry, the history of literature, and the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century novelists. Because I’d missed so many classes in each school semester, my final high school grades were low. I doubted I would be admitted to either NYU or Columbia University, the places I longed to attend. When I read that Columbia had a non-matriculated program, I set my heart on going there. When I expressed a desire to go to college, my mother argued against it. I should, she said, spend the time looking for a man to marry. It was the summer and Mother proposed we spend the summer months at resorts where, she said, young men worked at summer jobs. In the fall we would travel in search of other places where we might find that right future husband for me. When I refused to listen, my mother turned to my older brother, hoping he could persuade me. My brother, never my supporter, answered, Don’t worry. Let her go to college. She’ll quit soon enough. She never follows through on anything.

Mother was a contradiction. She was a strong woman who, after graduating high school, went to work to help support her parents. She attended school to learn secretarial skills, bookkeeping and typing. When she married, Mother worked with my father, selling men’s clothing in their store. Later, when Father opened an office to manufacture men’s clothing, she was office manager, in charge of all financial affairs. She worked full time even though she had two small children. Mother hired a Polish woman to care for us. She spent so little time at home that my brother’s and my first words were Polish. When our parents came home at night, we had a frustrating time trying to understand each other. Only with the birth of my younger brother did Mother stop working and take on the conventional role of homemaker and mother. It now seems clear to me, she obviously resented those years she spent working. I suppose she transferred her early frustrations. I was to marry well, have many servants, stay home, be a full time mother, and play a rich grand lady.

And now, all these years later, I am amused when I realize how little the difference was between Mother’s plans and mine. I would go to college, study literature, poetry, and drama, but never consider a degree or contemplate pursuing a career. College would be just a stop on the trip to marriage. I inherited mother’s abilities and strength—and many of her dreams. I wanted to be wife and mother as she wished, but had little knowledge or understanding of what that meant. Mother believed it to be every woman’s goal. But even though I came to share her expectations, surrounded as I was by aunts and girlfriends who also bought into the vision, I kept thinking that there must be other possibilities. In a hazy, vague way, I also wanted to be active in the outside world. I fantasized: actor, poet, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. I clearly remember reading the Stanton story and thinking, Maybe I can marry, have children, and still do other interesting things in life. But I didn’t really believe that would happen.

THE TIME WAS the 1930s; the country was in the middle of the Great Depression. We lived in a very middle-class area. All my friends and classmates were white and relatively well-off. My father encouraged us to think about the plight of the many people less fortunate than us. Whenever we were out walking together and passed a beggar, inevitably Father dropped coins in the cup. Many folks, he would say, will tell you not to give money to a beggar. They believe he’ll buy alcohol with the money. But you must always share what you have. So if that person is hungry, you give him or her money to buy food. Whatever else he or she does with it is not your concern. Your concern is that you helped someone hungry, someone less fortunate than you. That lesson was repeated many times and it’s one I’ve never forgotten. It has lain in my heart all these years and directed the paths I sought to follow. It certainly was a force for an early interest in the political realm, beginning with my membership in the League of Women Voters, and propelled me into all the causes and organizations I worked for and supported through the following years.

My two brothers and I were born in Manhattan and we lived in the city until Mother stopped working. I must have been close to age five, my older brother eight, and my younger brother a little over a year, when Mother stopped working and decided to move the family to a more country-like area. She chose the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn. Our street, Bedford Avenue, contained one-family houses of two stories and outside open porches. We lived in a two-family house, the only one on the block. We were renters who remained there for only about two years, when my parents purchased a one-family house. This house, too, was on Bedford Avenue, but several blocks south, close to Kings Highway. We moved in 1928, shortly before the collapse of the stock market and the country’s economic collapse. I lived in that house until after the death of both of my parents, both my brothers’ marriages, and my own.

The neighborhood public schools I attended were PS 197 and James Madison High, both new at the time. The community and our neighborhood were an all-white area; it was as closed and insular a community as a gated one. I don’t remember seeing a