After Art and I were married, we lived in Massachusetts. In Reading we rented a room from the Jones’. She ran a nursery downstairs with older children, and I ran an upstairs nursery with younger children (4 years or so). I remember that we all went out the playground together during the day. We had dinner together every night, usually very nice – they did the cooking and groceries (part of our deal with them).
During this time, we celebrated Thanksgiving one time with the Jones’ parents in Cambridge. We were floored when we were met at the door by their liveried butler with a sherry for each of us. Our host wore a top hat and a waist coat. Dinner started with a half grapefruit and a cherry. We had wine with dinner and after dinner the men went off together.
On a Christmas we were traveling from Reading to Elgin to visit. As he chatted, the fellow with the car stated that he would go into medicine to make some real money (and ultimately, he did). We drove hard on the trip, and I recall being very apprehensive as the snow on the surrounding fields looked like water that would swallow up our car. Finally, we did stop for a couple hours to rest, but when we continued early in the morning, we ended up in the ditch anyway. But our crew was able to get the car out so we could continue to Elgin. This was the time I had a cold that progressed to pneumonia and I ended up in the hospital in Elgin for a couple of weeks.
At the time I was singing quite a bit and one night she invited the Powell family (Powell flutes) to visit and I sang for them. One thing I sang at the time was Queen of the Night’s Vengeance – Mozart. It was great to meet this musical couple. (Years later in the mid 50’s I traveled to Philadelpha to take voice lessons. One time I stayed at the Y, and another I stayed with Jane Ellis. On one trip we went to New York, to visit her voice teacher – a significant opera singer who was also married to a well-known conductor.)
From Reading we moved to Cambridge to an upstairs apartment right on the street car line. Art walked to school at the Harvard Business school. I worked at the HBR coop bookstore where I was in charge of the necktie department. One time a person who would become very famous in the movie business (you would recognize the name, now) came in and shoplifted a small package (was it luggage tags that came in a pack of 12, and he only wanted a couple?).
We didn’t have much money in those days, so we didn’t get out to concerts and such. I tried to get a job teaching, but they said “we don’t believe in Bachelor’s of Music here, only Bachelor of Arts”. I was short only one class (history) from my BA. It turns out that my brothers took it before me and the teacher Aggie Larson was a bear. They got A’s, but I didn’t take the class. But I promised my father I would get the BA degree. I completed the history class by correspondence (and a psych class too), and St. Olaf ultimately granted my BA degree.