Some brief background:
My Grandmother came from a town now so polluted by mining that it no longer exists, it was forcibly shut down as no one could live there any longer. Moved away from home to a nearby town, rented a room from a hairdresser, then went to work for the same. Owned one dress, and washed it often to keep it clean for work. This was at 15.
Over time, she gained experience after becoming the youngest graduate of beauty school in the state at that time. Slowly but surely she built herself up, surviving the 30's and becoming an independent young woman into the 40's. She married my grandfather after he saw her before joining the service and heading overseas.
When they returned from his duty (she joined him at his post-war base in Pyote, TX, another town that no longer exists), they moved to a bigger town, Ponca City in Oklahoma. As he grandfather grew in success as a car salesman, they eventually moved to Tulsa, quite the metropolis in the 50's. This was the big town - big newspapers, society, the arts.
She took to it like a duck to water - her desire in life was to be a part of polite society. The house, built to specification by my grandfather in a lovely postwar neighborhood, overflowed with Ethan Allen furniture and Emily Post books. In a way, a happy female version of Dick Whitman, she escaped an unhappy childhood to rise into "the big time". Her time was occupied with become a genteel person - writing notes to those she loved, sending flowers when appropriate, getting stationery, putting social notices in the paper and entertaining people in parties at home for husband's business.
Her pride in life was not what she had, although she loved her furniture (I have it still), but in her place in society and being a responsible, respectable person. In those days, you had to have learning and education to know when to send a note, what you should do for any occasion from the birth of children to attending the Ballet.
She taught me all she could, having had my father reject it. She died 3-4 years ago, and I think her great disappointment in the end of life was that her generation was vanishing with the "society" she prized. Not a "high society" of monied elites, but of educated, decent people. Doctors, lawyers, housewives and car salesmen. People who separated themselves from riff-raff by knowing what loving, kind people did for one another.
I think I'm drawn to the FL because I feel a man out of time, 32 years old in a world where I think in 1955 at most. I don't think I've ever seen any discussion on the decline of the middle classes manners and society before, but it sort of haunts me, as if I've seen the death of a society I really didn't get to participate in, as it vanished before my adulthood.
My Grandmother came from a town now so polluted by mining that it no longer exists, it was forcibly shut down as no one could live there any longer. Moved away from home to a nearby town, rented a room from a hairdresser, then went to work for the same. Owned one dress, and washed it often to keep it clean for work. This was at 15.
Over time, she gained experience after becoming the youngest graduate of beauty school in the state at that time. Slowly but surely she built herself up, surviving the 30's and becoming an independent young woman into the 40's. She married my grandfather after he saw her before joining the service and heading overseas.
When they returned from his duty (she joined him at his post-war base in Pyote, TX, another town that no longer exists), they moved to a bigger town, Ponca City in Oklahoma. As he grandfather grew in success as a car salesman, they eventually moved to Tulsa, quite the metropolis in the 50's. This was the big town - big newspapers, society, the arts.
She took to it like a duck to water - her desire in life was to be a part of polite society. The house, built to specification by my grandfather in a lovely postwar neighborhood, overflowed with Ethan Allen furniture and Emily Post books. In a way, a happy female version of Dick Whitman, she escaped an unhappy childhood to rise into "the big time". Her time was occupied with become a genteel person - writing notes to those she loved, sending flowers when appropriate, getting stationery, putting social notices in the paper and entertaining people in parties at home for husband's business.
Her pride in life was not what she had, although she loved her furniture (I have it still), but in her place in society and being a responsible, respectable person. In those days, you had to have learning and education to know when to send a note, what you should do for any occasion from the birth of children to attending the Ballet.
She taught me all she could, having had my father reject it. She died 3-4 years ago, and I think her great disappointment in the end of life was that her generation was vanishing with the "society" she prized. Not a "high society" of monied elites, but of educated, decent people. Doctors, lawyers, housewives and car salesmen. People who separated themselves from riff-raff by knowing what loving, kind people did for one another.
I think I'm drawn to the FL because I feel a man out of time, 32 years old in a world where I think in 1955 at most. I don't think I've ever seen any discussion on the decline of the middle classes manners and society before, but it sort of haunts me, as if I've seen the death of a society I really didn't get to participate in, as it vanished before my adulthood.
