My Own Two Feet (18 page)

Authors: Beverly Cleary

BOOK: My Own Two Feet

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One day a couple of weeks later I received a telegram at work. Expecting news of someone's death, I opened it with shaking hands and read,
COME BY AIRLINER STOP WILL WIRE AIRFARE STOP CLARENCE
. I had worked my year, and Clarence had been reluctant to see me leave after my vacation. I knew Mother and Dad would never give me a wedding. Suddenly I was angry and weary of trying to appease them. Why not get married now? Life was fragile; Virginia, the happy bride, had died so suddenly. Why should Clarence and I wait any longer?

I consulted Miss Remsberg, who advised me to go ahead because my parents would not change their feelings until after we were married. She
gave me an extra day off, but cautioned me that our marriage must be kept secret in Yakima because Berneita was getting married the same week and “Yakima will not stand for two married women on the staff.”

Miss Remsberg also said that she did not understand why the children had liked me so much; I treated them the same way I treated adults. Of course. That was the way I had wanted to be treated as a child.

I pulled myself together and flew to Sacramento, where Clarence met me. We drove in his mother's car to Reno, where, with his younger brother and sister-in-law as witnesses, we were married at the Church of Our Lady of the Snows. The next day I flew back to Yakima wondering how I was going to break the news to my family.

As it turned out, I didn't have to break the news. A couple of evenings later, when I was alone in the house, the telephone rang so persistently that I answered, although I did not usually do so. It was Mother. “We see you and Clarence are married,” she said.

How on earthâ¦? “Yes,” I answered. “How did you know?”

“We read it in the
Journal
,” she said. “And now people will think the worst.”

I recall very little of the conversation except
that I said, “How did you expect us to get married? You wouldn't give us a wedding.”

Mother answered, “A priest wouldn't come to our house, and we could never go to a Catholic church. I dread what people will say.” Mother never forgot the neighbors. If neighbors counted months on their fingers, they were mistaken. It was fifteen years before we had children, twins to make up for lost time.

But how did news of our marriage get into Portland's
Journal?
We had both given fictitious residences. Soon two letters arrived. Mother wrote scathingly of two people trying to hide in a town “the whole world has its eyes on.” She also enclosed a three-line newspaper clipping date-lined Reno announcing the divorce of someone from Portland and our marriage with my last name given as Dunn. Mother said I had killed her. As it turned out, no one in Portland recognized our names in the paper. Dad wrote that I need not stop in Portland when I moved to Sacramento.

Worn-out with years of controversy, I responded with a brief note agreeing it was best I not stop in Portland. Mother, in need of saving face, then wrote that I should stop in Portland for an announcement party. This was the last thing I wanted, but I reluctantly agreed to help
save my parents embarrassment. I then got on with my work at the library and having neglected dental work done so that I would not burden my new husband with the expense.

Why hadn't I rebelled sooner? Because I felt sorry for my parents, trapped as they were by the Depression, struggling to give me an education. I appreciated all they had done for me and felt indebted to them, but now, at the age of twenty-four, I felt I had a right to make my own decisions.

When Mother was in her eighties, she told one of my cousins, “I wanted Beverly, and Clarence wanted her, and I finally had to let her go.” She never did let me go, not really.

In those last months in Yakima, war was on everyone's mind. The young men at the boardinghouse registered for the draft, an event I recall by the seats of their pants as they leaned over the dining room table searching for their draft numbers in the newspaper. Clarence wrote that he had drawn a high numberâwhat a relief! At least we would have some time together before he had to go off to warâif the United States became involved in war. Somehow, it seemed hard to believe.

My last weeks as Yakima's children's librarian went quickly. Berneita and I constructed a gin
gerbread house for the children's room, and I told Christmas stories. I was sad about leaving the staff and the work I enjoyed. As the day of my departure grew closer, the men in the boardinghouse surprised me one evening at dinner by giving me a set of linen dish towels and several pieces of silver in the pattern I had chosen.

Berneita felt I should have some sort of celebration, so she gave me an announcement party in the new home her husband had provided. She was proud of showing off her silver and Spode, and when dessert, wedding bells of ice cream, was served, each supported a catalog card announcing our marriage. The heading, in proper library form, read:

Cleary, Beverly Atlee (Bunn), 1916â

I don't recall the title we gave the book, but I do recall hoping that someday there would be author cards with the same heading in the catalogs of schools and libraries.

My second announcement party, in Portland, was a sad little affair held on a wild, stormy night. Not all the guests could come in such weather. Clarence sent Mother and me corsages, but Mother resisted wearing hers because “it wouldn't do for me to be too dressed up in my
own home.” Dad and I were tense, but nervous, exhausted Mother managed to smile and tell everyone what a fine young man Clarence was and how pleased she and Dad were over our marriage. It was a difficult evening, but Mother had saved face with the neighbors.

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