Although Elizabeth was closer to her mother, it would be unfair to ignore her father as an influence in her life. Some describe him as a typical accountant, immersed in his work and distant from his family, but correspondence between Elizabeth and her father reveals his active and specific interest in her doings, her education and her friends. He offered her names and introductions to people he thought she would be interested in meeting or who could help her. His financial training was probably a blessing, as the family struggled, particularly during the war, to maintain their comfortable middle-class lifestyle, which included the summer home in Dorset and the ability to support two children through college. Her father agonized over the smallest details of their finances. A letter to his wife in 1942 reveals his concerns: “Have spent hours more on our budget and, after chiseling away here and whittling away there, I think I have at last produced something for us to follow.”
Even as a young girl, Elizabeth felt fortunate to be born into a family that was reasonably well-to-do. But upon reflection, she thinks she may not have fully understood the hardships her parents endured to ensure her comfort and a good education.
While in high school, she took particular pleasure in grammar bees: “I was a hot shot.” Always the competitor, she soon learned that when the teacher distributed the bits of paper with the questions, it was best to avoid the long pieces of paper because those questions were harder! One of her high-school teachers asked the class what they wanted to do when they finished school. Elizabeth retorted that she didn’t know, but she knew one thing she didn’t want to be: somebody’s secretary. And she purposely did not take shorthand or typing, disdaining that stereotypical female role. Years later, a newsletter was prepared for her 60th high-school reunion (which she did not attend) to update everyone on various classmates’ activities. One of her schoolmates wrote, “Elizabeth has some sort of job where she interviews all the climbers who attempt to scale Mount Everest and other tall mountains in Nepal.” She had delivered on her promise to avoid being somebody’s secretary.
In 1941 Elizabeth enrolled in the University of Michigan. More than 60 years later, as she recounted stories about those formative years, the personalities, classes and incidents floated to the surface with clarity and focus, as though it happened yesterday.
She soon became completely immersed in classes, starting with political science, English, zoology and history. She was particular about choosing her professors, and the biggest coup of all was landing Professor Slosson for history. He was a well-known – almost revered – professor, and it was Elizabeth’s determination that landed her in his much-coveted class.
Orientation week included a number of tests. Elizabeth did well, scoring in the 96th percentile in English and the 93rd percentile in aptitude. The other big event early in her first semester was sorority rushing. She received open-house invitations to 14 sororities and was pleased when several asked her back after the initial meetings. She settled on Alpha Xi Delta as the most interesting. Phones rang off the hooks as the girls in the dorm scrambled to get the best possible sorority membership. But there was to be no sorority for Elizabeth – not one invited her to join. In the end, she was relieved. She couldn’t imagine living in a house full of “chummy” girls, expected to participate in all kinds of social activities together. Although her mother didn’t care whether she joined a sorority, her grandmother was disappointed and let her feelings be known.
By October there were a number of extracurricular lecture and concert series to attend, and Elizabeth showed an eclectic curiosity in her choices: from British labour law to the war in Europe to the symphony. But she was disappointed in her fellow classmates and didn’t mince words in a letter to her mother, in which she observed that most of the students seemed to be leading an “awfully artificial life here. They don’t read the papers; they don’t know what’s going on in the world and they aren’t the least bit interested. It’s like moving to a different planet where there is no war.” She recalled several students in her dormitory asking her about the location of Pearl Harbor when the U.S. Pacific Fleet was sunk there by Japanese warplanes later that year.
College wasn’t all books and exams, however. Elizabeth’s years there revealed an early, wicked sense of humour. In one letter, she described her social plans to her mother: “Well, hand out the flag and ring all the bells: I’m going to a dance next Saturday.… The gentleman in question is a sophomore, would-be constitutional lawyer, from Rochester, Indiana. He isn’t too wonderful but he might have a roommate.” And lest she be perceived as too bookish, she was as concerned as many other young university students about important issues like her waist size (which apparently changed by three-quarters of an inch from before to after dinner) and her need for a yellow pullover sweater, black spectator pumps with toes, and a full plaid skirt, as well as the recently published Secret History of the American Revolution by Carl Van Doren. Her mother bought all her clothes for her in New York, so Elizabeth kept her updated on her precise measurements. As always, Elizabeth was exact: “waist – 27½", hips – 35½", bust – 33".”
Her first mid-semester exams yielded B’s in zoology, political science and history. She was madly in love with her history course, less so with political science, and she detested zoology. By the semester’s end, she had maintained these grades and was relieved to have moved her history grade up to an A. Her father even received a congratulatory letter from the University of Michigan registrar lauding her efforts and expressing the hope that she would continue to be as successful.
With barely a moment to catch her breath, she now had to begin arranging courses for the next semester. As in any big university with thousands of students and few popular professors, it was difficult to get the courses she wanted: “Tomorrow I go forth to do battle with the most cold-blooded members of the darned institution I’ve ever known – the University of Michigan – in other words I am going to register.” In a revealing self-analysis, she adds, “It will be interesting to see what happens when an indestructible force meets an immovable object!”
Curious about unknown places, Elizabeth decided to attend a lecture and film screening about India. She was disappointed, commenting to her mother that it was “superficial, silly and misleading, if not altogether insulting.” Even more disappointing was the reaction of her friends, who thought the evening interesting. Elizabeth was brutal in her evaluation: “Interesting, hell! That was supposed to be an educational lecture, not an ignorant travelogue.” Famous in later life for her impatience and sharp tongue, those habits were developing even now, as her standards were very high.
In fact, her standards were rarely met, but when they were, as with her favourite professor Dr. Slosson, she exuded enthusiasm. He was charmed by her as well, and he and his wife included her in social gatherings where they enjoyed intense discussions about the war, education, the economy, government or whatever they chose.
She describes his lectures as masterpieces in form and content, perfect combinations of history and metaphysics, of the particular and the general. It was easy to learn from him. He made it interesting. He made it come alive. She admits to having had a crush on him and cherishing the informal evenings in his home, where he proved he was not only incredibly smart but also good, kind and even funny. She was friendly with Mrs. Slosson for a time, but they eventually drifted apart. She had little respect for Mrs. Slosson’s intellect and thought she took up “air space with idle chatter.” The trait that rankled Elizabeth the most was that Mrs. Slosson was a domineering woman, and Elizabeth didn’t like (other) domineering women. “That poor man!” she exclaimed in a letter to her mother.
Many of the informal discussions and formal debates at the university were about the ongoing war, and Slosson surely influenced her thinking on this topic. He was not an either–or kind of person but took the historian’s perspective of relativity. No matter who won the war, he felt sure that civilization would not be lost. He was equally sure a pure state of democracy would
not be the result – it was a matter of degree. Others disagreed with him, and Elizabeth relished the debates as stimulation for her ever more curious mind.
Elizabeth’s interests moved beyond the borders of the United States. Partly because of the people (primarily professors) she surrounded herself with, partly because of the lectures and debates she attended and partly because of the war, she found herself just as keenly interested in international affairs as national. She sympathized with Britain’s stand against Germany and didn’t agree with the isolationist views of many Americans who wanted no part of a “foreign” war.
She became fascinated with social philosophy, the meaning of freedom, and the materialistic conceptions of history, democracy, fascism and socialism. It began to dawn on her that she was leaning toward an honours history program, but for this she needed to be recommended by one of her professors. As much as history interested her, she wondered what she would do with this knowledge. “Is teaching the only answer?” Sensibly, she decided, at age 19, that she could be patient; her future might yet reveal itself. It’s doubtful she could have imagined what form it would take.
Although there were few students with whom she shared her increasingly awakened consciousness, she and her mother communicated constantly about ideas, giving Elizabeth an outlet for her thoughts and imagination. It was a healthy outlet, since, as she pointed out to Florelle, the university experience, stimulating though it was, relied on input from her professors: “I don’t have the time I would like for thoughts of my own, but it is fascinating gathering those of others.” In letters to her mother, she began to develop – and test – her own theories of a moral order within the reality of a world at war. And although she missed her family, New York and the Green Mountains at Dorset, she admitted, “I really wouldn’t trade places for anything.”
Discussions with her father were more challenging, as he tried to steer her academic program into a more practical vein, namely math and calculus. She humoured him for a while but eventually made her own choices, and they didn’t include calculus. Her father was disappointed; calling her “selfish and unpatriotic” while pointing out that calculus and other practical courses would prepare her for factory work where she could make a real contribution to the war effort. But she held her own in an acrimonious argument that stretched over a period of months, responding that devoting herself to current history would better prepare her to “win the peace.” Her parting shot was, “If this be treason, make the most of it.”
Her social life continued, but the men she met did not impress her. “A graduate student who was half bald, a Frenchman who got me smoking a cigarette, and a very nice architect who walked me home,” was how she described them. Eventually she began to see a young man named Fred. They attended movies and dances and went for long walks together. She appreciated his company and his intelligence, but didn’t find him especially exciting or attractive and disliked his conservative political views. She recalls that when they were feeling particularly “dangerous” they might sip a little wine. Fred eventually pressed her to marry him, but she was not in the mood for marriage, particularly not to Fred. They continued to see each other, however.
Unlike her brother, she wasn’t interested in sports, although she attended all home football games. After a particularly conclusive win against her mother’s alma mater she wrote, “But one might ask, so what?”
She began to involve herself with the Post-War Council, a student organization that coordinated a series of extracurricular lectures and events. Their wide-ranging program included philosopher Bertrand Russell and the Beethoven scholar and pianist Artur Schnabel. She was also instrumental in organizing a regular series of student–faculty discussions that resulted in good debates on topics such as hate, particularly in relation to the war. One point of view suggested that more organized hate was required in order to win the war. Elizabeth discounted the idea, but she didn’t view Churchill as a solution either. “Churchill just doesn’t seem to be able to see beyond his nose in regard to planning for the future.” She concluded that “the British simply muddle their way through things and tend to shy away from people with too many brains.”
The Post-War Council provided her with an opportunity to learn about organizational structure and process and how she could influence that process. An opening came up on the executive committee, so she offered her services on a temporary basis. Thinking strategically, she realized the role would put her in close proximity to professors, campus advisors and other decision makers at the university, a place she enjoyed being. By spring, she had been elected council chairman, and not long after she was asked to be president of her dormitory – the largest one on campus. As she moaned to her mother, “I’m sure only Mrs. Roosevelt is as busy a woman as I am.”
But Elizabeth’s tendency to speak her mind landed her in trouble with the Post-War Council – a messy situation ensued that resulted in her being “relieved” of her job as chairman. She was strongly criticized because she had supported a policy decision that no member of the council could appear on stage with guest speakers – and then she broke that rule. She was subsequently viewed as a self-promoter, asked to step down and then offered the position of executive secretary-treasurer as consolation. Disappointed and humiliated, she confided to her mother that the process “left your little daughter a much sadder and wiser person.” She was soon demoted again, this time to program chair. Nevertheless, she continued to pour energy into the organization because she believed its work had value.
Elizabeth relied on her mother not only for intellectual sparring but also for practical needs. In addition to continuing to buy her clothes for her in New York, her mother was also in charge of mending them, which in January 1943 happened to be a sock. Elizabeth’s quirky sense of humour was in evidence as she sent a single green sock home and begged her mother to mend it because it was “vital” to her wardrobe. Her mother teased her about this attachment to a sock, but Elizabeth defended herself, explaining that her mother obviously didn’t know her socks: “I have them so well trained that when I whistle one tune the green ones come out, and when I whistle a different tune another colour comes out.” And she constantly pleaded with her mother to send her care packages of food: “It would be grand if some day a box of lemon cookies or some fudge or something came for no apparent reason except that you acted like a normal parent with her child away in school and sent her something extra to eat!” She wasn’t afraid to ask for what she wanted.
Elizabeth was elated in February 1943 when the academic committee approved her plan to do honours work in history. They took her grades into consideration as well as her considerable efforts in producing a term paper on the causes of war. Elizabeth was pleased with the paper, as it proved to her that she could work independently, do her own research and come to her own coherent conclusions. In this case, it was a complicated subject for a 19-year-old to tackle, but she did it well, digging beyond the superficial to argue that the psychological state of people’s minds made them willing to fight, thereby facilitating war. She concluded that, in order to prevent war, it wasn’t the incidents that needed to be prevented, but rather the state-of-mind factors that should be eliminated.
Her mother challenged her, maintaining that if people could learn to live under law and order and regard war as taboo, peace would be achieved. But Elizabeth insisted that this was a restrictive point of view, that more could be achieved by concentrating on the “spirit of brotherhood” where people worked toward the same goal: peace. She agreed that law and order were necessary, but achieving real peace required something more creative and dynamic than simply obeying rules.
It was during this time that she began to formulate her thoughts about the role of an historian, an interesting foreshadowing of her future work. It started with an article in the New York Times on whether American history should be required study at universities. Elizabeth felt that its required inclusion was irrelevant if it wasn’t taught correctly, citing her high-sc
hool American history courses, where she had learned facts but not their relative importance or proper perspective. She had learned about the trees, but not the forest. She was beginning to understand that facts were important, but something was needed on which to hang them. She equated the learning of facts to the work of an antiquarian, while the understanding of context was the sign of a true historian. Little did she know that 50 years later many in the mountaineering community would debate these same issues around her life’s work documenting the history of Himalayan climbing.
A new man entered her life in the form of Harold Sokwitne, secretary of the Post-War Council. They had many opportunities to work together and they now began seeing each other socially. A tall redhead from Hillsdale, Michigan, he came from a religious background and had intended to follow that line of work himself but had rebelled. The liveliness and conversational abilities of the 20-year-old freshman attracted Elizabeth. She also continued to see Fred, recognizing good points in each of the two strikingly different personalities. Fred was pleasant to be with, but was too complimentary: “He likes my eyes, he thinks I’m brilliant, he thinks I have great ability.” It was all too much for Elizabeth. Harold (nicknamed Sok), on the other hand, didn’t have Fred’s polished manners, and he didn’t compliment her at all – he was perfectly aware of her faults. But in August 1943 Sok was called for induction into the Naval Air Corps. They had one last wonderful evening together in Detroit and he was off.
By November Elizabeth was paying her own way with an assistant position in the history department. Taking attendance and correcting papers brought her a grand total of $250 per semester. She was proud of herself, partly because of the money, but mostly because of the recognition. In addition to her work for the history department, she was beginning to get speaking opportunities, often arranged by Slosson (whom she now called by his first name, Preston). The local Business and Professional Women’s Club, Rotary Clubs and high schools all had the benefit of her keen interest in, and growing knowledge of, international affairs.
Keeper Of The Mountains Page 4