“As you see from the typed petition before you,” the President intoned, “Professor Hansen and Professor Bellafiori request the Board to grant an exception of the anti-nepotism policies of Harrington College so that they may marry without one of them having to resign. You will recall that at our last meeting, the Board voted unanimously to promote Professor Hansen to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure. Professor Bellafiori, on the other hand, was promoted from the rank of Instructor to Assistant Professor without tenure one year ago. Dean Woodrow has recommended that the petition be denied. Professors Hansen and Bellafiori have asked to address the Board in person. Professor Hansen?”
Before speaking, Emma looked briefly at each of the faces before her. She hoped her own face conveyed both respect and calm, intense determination, but not her fear. If their petition failed, she and Joe faced bleak choices: one of them would have to leave Harrington College and seek employment elsewhere—a grim prospect during the ongoing Depression—and they would be forced to live apart. Or they could both leave, presumably have to abandon their academic careers and try to build a new life together somewhere else. Did the Board understand the cruelty, the waste of this?
“Thank you, President Thomas. Lady and gentlemen of the Board of Trustees, Professor Bellafiori and I thank you for granting us the opportunity to plead our case before you. Let me begin by saying that we fully appreciate the reasons for the College to adopt an anti-nepotism rule. Pressures from faculty members to hire spouses or favoritism shown to the spouses of employees would be wrong and potentially harmful to the college. I’m sure we all agree that hiring and promotion should be based on merit alone. Marital status or sex should have nothing to do with it.” Emma glanced at Miss Harrington. Was there a glint of agreement in her eyes? She couldn’t tell. Did the others even agree that marital status or sex had no role to play? Ohio and many other states required that female elementary school teachers be single and to resign when they married, but did such Victorian rules make sense at a co-educational college?
“Not long ago you reviewed my performance during the six years I have served on the faculty of Harrington College, and you voted to promote me to Associate Professor with tenure. I was overjoyed with your decision, because I have come to love this college and I wish to devote my career to it. You have given me the opportunity to share my knowledge and excitement about biology with your students and to initiate a productive research program that I believe brings professional respect to the college and new avenues for introducing our undergraduates to biological research. I wish with all my heart to continue to do these things and to do them even better.”
Did the Trustees really value original research as she and Joe did? Even some of their colleagues seemed to resent it more than respect them for pursuing it.
Here Emma took a gamble. She turned to Dean Woodrow. “Dean Woodrow, didn’t you agree that my performance has been outstanding and merited promotion?”
“I did,” he said, “but—”
“You are concerned about the consequences of breaking the anti-nepotism rule, correct?” Emma interrupted.
“Yes. If the Board does so, I expect many further requests for exceptions to this important policy. This is not a question of your qualifications. Or Professor Bellafiori’s. It is a matter of principle.”
“Good,” Emma continued. “I’m glad that you agree that our fitness to serve on the Harrington faculty is not in question. Now let me tell the Board why I do not think they need fear the consequences of granting an exception. Professor Bellafiori had already been hired in the Chemistry Department when we first met. I had nothing to do with his hiring; I had been appointed some three years before he was. No favoritism or special considerations of any kind were involved.”
Emma again locked eyes with Miss Harrington. Here goes. “Who can account for the workings of the heart? Even I, who aspires to be a rational scientist, cannot. Professor Bellafiori and I began working together purely as scientific collaborators. I had been studying the genetics of pigment formation in a fungus, mostly as a way of developing a convenient experimental system for obtaining a better understanding of the science of heredity. Professor Bellafiori is a talented and well-trained chemist who agreed to work on solving the chemical structures of the fungal pigments accumulated in my mutant strains. He has made excellent progress in his work. It has been a productive collaboration.” Emma turned both palms upward in appeal. “We didn’t plan on it. We didn’t expect it. It was inconvenient and now it threatens our professional careers, the research we have built together. We fell in love. We want to marry. We want to live in the same city. And we both want to continue serving Harrington College. I believe we both have a great deal to offer. No nepotism was involved in our hiring.” Emma turned to Dean Woodrow. “When Professor Bellafiori is considered for promotion and tenure, I expect the decision to be made on the basis of merit alone, the quality of his teaching and his research. I will not interfere and I will accept the judgment of the College. We are asking the Board to grant an exception to the anti-nepotism rule in this special case, not to abandon the rule as it is intended to be applied. Thank you.”
Emma sat down. Was it enough? Had they been listening and seriously considering her case, or had they already made up their minds? Even if Miss Harrington supported her, would she be able to persuade the others?
“Professor Bellafiori, do you wish to address the Board?”
Joe stood, tense and serious in his dark suit, white shirt, and tie, the only good suit he owned. His cheeks glowed with unusually high color. I am risking my entire, hard-won career for this handsome young man, Emma thought.
He nodded and seemed to relax. “I won’t repeat the arguments, the compelling arguments, that Emma . . . Professor Hansen . . . my fiancé,” he turned to her and smiled, “has made. If you decide in our favor, we’ll make the College proud. I know it. If you decide against us, I will resign. There is no way on earth that the College should lose such a fine teacher and scientist as Professor Hansen because of this policy. You have already decided to grant her tenure. I will leave. Find another job. I don’t know if she will stay or follow me. We don’t know.” He gazed around the room, his eyes hot with fury, looking so intently at each trustee that they looked away—all except Miss Harrington. He raised a finger. “But, by God, we will marry. Please don’t force us to live apart.”
Joe sat down. Emma bit her lip, fought tears. She didn’t dare look at him. His intention to abandon his career in favor of hers if the Board turned them down moved her deeply. He had not told her of that decision.
“Um, very well,” President Thomas said, after a long silence. “If that concludes your . . . uh . . . remarks to the Board, would you please retire to my office down the hall while the Board deliberates?”
Alone in the President’s office, Joe and Emma embraced and settled in for an agonizing wait.
“Joe, would you really resign if they turn us down?”
“Yes, I’ve thought about it a lot. You’ve got a tenured position doing what you love, and you’d have a hell of a time getting another. You know that. I can find another job.”
“Maybe at Ohio State? Then we could continue our project. I’d hate living apart though.”
“I called the Head of Chemistry there. They’re not hiring. The whole University. Maybe I could get a job doing chemical analyses at one of the rubber companies in Akron.”
“Oh, God, that would be such a waste of your talents.” Emma took Joe’s hand and pressed it warmly. “Thank you,” she whispered. “No one has ever loved me as much as you do.”
Two hours passed while they fidgeted nervously, rarely speaking. What more was there to say? They’d been over and over it. From time to time Joe jumped up from his chair and strode out of the office, down the hall and back. What was taking so long? Were they arguing? Had they gone on to other business?
Finally, they heard voices, sounds of the meeting breaking up. President Thomas came into his
secretary’s office, his face expressionless, and waved Emma and Joe into his private office and closed the door.
“Well. It was quite a discussion. We even got into the Epistles of St. Paul on the proper role of women in society.” He shook his head. “But you prevailed. The Board has granted an exception, just in your case, with the explicit statement that it does not set a precedent.”
“Oh, what a relief. Thank you,” Joe exclaimed.
Emma was unable to speak.
“I feel it was the right decision,” President Thomas said. “But I should warn you, in confidence of course, that Dean Woodrow does not. I would do my best not to antagonize him further, if I were you.”
“No, sir, certainly not,” Joe replied.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you this, but you have an . . . uh . . . effective ally on the Board. Miss Harrington.” For the first time President Thomas smiled. “She was . . . ah . . . most persuasive.”
Emma finally found words. “Thank you, sir. And thank the Board for us. Thank Miss Harrington. Privately, of course.”
The President took each of them by the hand. “You’re welcome. Now then, when’s the wedding?”
CHAPTER 16
1935-1936
“JOE, I’M GOING to have a baby. I’ve just been to the doctor and he confirmed it,” Emma blurted as soon as she had caught her breath from climbing the stairs and pulled off her winter coat.
She had moved into Joe’s second-floor apartment after their marriage in the summer of 1934. It was very crowded, but she had imposed orderliness over Joe’s chaos. They planned to accumulate funds to purchase a small house near the Harrington campus, but that looked to be a year or two in the future. Joe stood in the kitchen stirring a fragrant sauce for spaghetti. He dropped the spoon and spun around to embrace Emma.
“Oh, that’s wonderful. I’m going to be a daddy. Oh, sweetheart.”
Emma’s face crumpled and tears rolled down her cheeks. “Oh, no, it’s not. Don’t you see? How in the name of God can we manage if I have a baby?”
“Aw, you don’t want this baby?”
“It doesn’t matter if I want it or not. I’m stuck with it.” Then seeing the hurt and confusion in Joe’s face, Emma softened. “Oh, I know you’re happy about it, and I’m proud to bear your child, but don’t you see? It’s too soon. The burden all falls on me. Teaching all my classes while I’m pregnant. And then, what happens after, after he . . . she . . . is born? How can I take care of a child and do everything I’m doing now? I won’t give it all up. All I’ve fought for. I won’t give it up to stay home with a baby. Teaching, our research? I won’t.”
“Sweetheart, you’re overwrought. We’ll figure it out so you don’t have to give up your work. Let’s take it a step at a time. When is the baby due?”
“October, the doctor said.”
“So, can you get through the spring semester OK? I mean, doing what you’re doing already? The teaching, anyway?”
“I guess so. I’ve been feeling sick in the mornings, but the doctor said that would get better. It won’t show much until summer.”
“I thought you were acting funny lately. Oh, my love, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know. I guess I was trying to pretend it wasn’t happening. Then I had to be sure.” Emma calmed herself, laid her head on Joe’s shoulder. The tears began again. “It’s next year I’m worried about. And the years after that. I’ll be obviously pregnant in the fall and then when the baby comes . . . I can’t teach then. I’ll need to take care of the baby. And, Joe, we have to get a bigger place.”
“Can’t you get a year off next year?”
“You’re joking. Can you imagine me asking the Dean for that? I can just hear the pompous ‘I told you so; this is what comes of hiring female faculty’ lecture. The Dean was furious with us when we went over his head and appealed to the President and got the Board of Trustees to grant an exception to the nepotism rule, you know that. If I do manage to get the year off, I won’t get any salary. How can we get by on just your salary?”
Joe held a sobbing Emma and repeated over and over, ”We’ll get through this. We’ll get through this.”
It was the first serious crisis of their young married life, although the very act of getting married had proved more troublesome than either of them expected. They planned to marry after the end of the spring semester in 1934 when they were free of teaching duties and before Joe had to leave for his six weeks of military training.
Emma decided that they would not return to Stanton Mills for the ceremony. Her connections to her family there were tenuous, she had no involvement with a local church, and arranging even a simple wedding would impose awkward obligations on her family. Joe suggested marrying in his home parish in Chicago, but learned by correspondence that the priest would not marry them unless Emma adopted the Catholic faith, which she refused to do. In the end, they abandoned the idea of a religious ceremony or including family members and were married by a cheerful old justice of the peace in Harrington with two friends from the college faculty as witnesses. Because they were so concerned about accumulating funds to buy a house, they did not take a wedding trip.
“We’ve had our honeymoon already,” Emma joked.
“And we’re gonna keep having it,” Joe replied.
News of their marriage did not surprise anyone who knew them at Harrington College, and they settled into domestic life. There were questions and complaints behind their backs about how they had escaped the nepotism rule and some clucking about Emma’s declaration that she would continue to be known as Emma Hansen, not as Emma Bellafiori. Their fall teaching schedule was intense, and they made little progress on their research projects.
And now this. Before marriage, Joe and Emma had been careful to use the newly available latex condoms, but after the wedding that they had occasionally been careless. They had agreed that they wanted children “someday,” and they were vaguely aware that, at thirty-four, Emma’s years of fertility were limited, but they had not decided on a time to start a family—except “not yet.”
“It’s a good thing you have nine months to get used to the idea,” Emma said after she had regained calmness.
Her students were not aware of her pregnancy during the remainder of the spring term, but she and Joe made preparations. They pooled their savings, took out a frightening mortgage, bought a small house five blocks from the campus and moved in at the start of summer. It was much smaller and shabbier than the house they had dreamed of, and it was very sparsely furnished.
Emma and Joe persuaded the other two professors of biology to join her in petitioning the Dean to reduce her teaching obligations to a half-time load (and salary) by dropping two course offerings for a year and accepting modest increases in the teaching her two colleagues took on. The Dean adamantly refused the request.
“Mrs. Bellafiori, a lady ought to have the decency to go into confinement when she is, ah, in the family way. We cannot have the scandalous parading of a . . . uh . . . gravid . . . woman in front of classes of impressionable students. It’s simply not done. You must take a leave without pay for the coming year. Indeed, if you intend to care properly for a child, you should resign, just as I said you should last year. This was all foreseeable when the Board of Trustees foolishly overruled the nepotism policy.”
“Well, I think it is a shortsighted and puritanical policy,” Emma retorted. “Pregnancy and childbirth are perfectly natural, normal events, not some shameful disgrace to be hidden from view. For a professor of biology to lead a class through the science of human reproduction while experiencing it herself is a unique educational opportunity.”
“Outrageous. Next thing you’ll be inviting your class to witness the birth itself. Have you no sense of propriety, Mrs. Bellafiori? No, no, and no.”
FOR SOME TIME Emma was troubled by her conflicted feelings. She did not share Joe’s joy in the prospect of having a child. Did she lack normal maternal instincts? She was aware of whispers
around the college that she was an unnatural woman. Was this true? Why could she not feel greater happiness in the coming blessed event? Did other women share her feelings when they learned of their pregnancies? There was no one whom she could ask. Even Joe didn’t fully understand.
Over the course of the spring and summer, however, Emma came to see her pregnancy less as an unexpected inconvenience and more as a fascinating biological phenomenon, a phenomenon going on in her own body. She studied textbooks of physiology and embryology to gain a deeper understanding of the remarkable, but invisible events occurring under her slowly swelling belly.
“Here, this is what our baby—Fetus Bellafiori—looks like about now,” she said to Joe as she pointed to a colored drawing in the embryology text. “Such a big head and tiny little hands.”
When she first felt the tiny fluttering of quickening, she was thrilled, and the first feelings of tenderness toward the little creature growing inside her uterus awoke. By the end of summer Emma was visibly expecting. Her abdomen enlarged and her belly button inverted. The baby’s movements became more frequent and vigorous. She called Joe over to feel them, which delighted him. If the movements occurred while they were in bed together, she bared her great round tummy so they could see little disturbances moving her skin.
“Fetus is active tonight.” Emma giggled. “Sometimes he stands on my bladder and I suddenly have to go pee.”
When the students returned to campus in September of 1935, Emma was very obviously in the family way. She was not permitted to teach, but she refused to go into hiding. She continued to spend a few hours each weekday in her office. She posted a sign on her office door:
Professor Hansen is on leave during the 1935-36 academic year and will not teach her usual classes. She is expecting a child to be born this fall. However, she will be pleased to meet students privately and answer questions, including questions about pregnancy and childbirth. Each week’s office hours will be posted below.
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