Coming of Age

by Deborah Beatriz Blum

  Clearly, Edward was smitten.

  By the time the Sapirs arrived in New York City in January of 1923 to consult with Dr. Lilienthal, Edward and Florence had been married for twelve years. Florence was thirty-two years old, and had already waged an eight-year battle with chronic lung disease. She no longer had the physical stamina to walk the length of even one block, nor was she able to mother their three children. Understandably, her protracted struggle to regain her health had upended her emotional stability.

  As it was on most days, the waiting room of Dr. Lilienthal’s Lexington Avenue office was full. As chief of Thoracic Surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital, the doctor’s services were constantly in demand. Lung ailments topped the list of the era’s chronic, often fatal infections and Lilienthal could claim responsibility for several significant breakthroughs in the field. In 1910, he had performed the first operation under the use of endotracheal anesthesia and in 1914 he claimed the first successful pulmonary resection for suppurative lung disease.

  After a two-hour wait, Edward and Florence were ushered into Lilienthal’s office. The doctor was sitting behind his polished mahogany desk, reading Florence’s file.

  “The good news,” Lilienthal told them, “is that the laboratory results show no evidence of the tubercle bacilli in the sputum, only local bacterial flora.”

  Switching on a light behind the view boxes, X-rays of Florence’s lungs were illuminated.

  Lilienthal contemplated the white shapes and dark shadows.

  “Right here,” he said, wielding a long pointer to indicate a shape, “this is a well-localized cavity filled with fluid. This is where Mrs. Sapir’s body has tried to wall off an infection.

  “The well-circumscribed character of the lesion,” Lilienthal explained, “makes Mrs. Sapir the perfect candidate for drainage.”

  He told them that the way he would treat a lung abscess like Florence’s was surgically. He would make an exploratory puncture with a needle and use a syringe to drain the abscess. If necessary, he would make an incision down to the ribs, and remove sections of the ribs to make the pleural cavity more accessible.

  Edward looked at Florence and saw that she was fighting back tears.

  “If you feel you’re not ready,” said Lilienthal, “there are less extreme measures you can try.”

  Pausing for a moment he asked, “How are your teeth?”

  Edward was puzzled, and could see that Florence was, too.

  “Tooth decay is the cause of many infections,” said the doctor, “including those in the lungs.”

  Florence was embarrassed. Like the children of many immigrants, dental hygiene had not been part of her upbringing. Many of her teeth were rotted by decay.

  “Something to consider,” said Lilienthal, “is to have your teeth extracted.”

  “The ones with cavities?” asked Florence.

  “No,” said Lilienthal, “all of them. Every last one. It’s something we often recommend.”

  6

  A GLASS FULL OF CYANIDE

  She thought it took courage to die and she wanted to prove that here at last was one thing she could do.

  —MARGARET MEAD

  January 1923

  It was late January 1923, and Margaret was in the midst of finals for the fall semester of her senior year. Earlier that day she’d written to her mother to report, “I still have two more exams and I’ve gotten one mark, the only A in Mental Measurements.”

  Tomorrow was the most important final of all, the one in Anthropology.

  It was an essay test, scheduled to last three hours, and Margaret intended to fill a stack of blue books with what she knew. Around Barnard she was known as the girl who took in a full bottle of ink when she sat for an exam, and took out an empty bottle when she was done.

  Margaret’s need to excel, which never abated, was not without consequences. Her mother blamed it for causing all of her physical symptoms. The most serious of these were the shrieking pains in her arms. Recently diagnosed as neuritis, an inflammation of the nerves, the doctor had told her there was nothing she could do beyond supporting the aching limb in a sling. And while Emily Mead may have attributed her daughter’s condition to stress, some of the Ash Can Cats saw it differently. One girl, upon hearing that Margaret had been in a chaste relationship for five years, exclaimed, “No wonder your arm hurts!”

  Over the course of the semester, Anthropology had emerged as Margaret’s favorite class. Not only was Dr. Boas the most profound thinker she’d ever encountered, but his teaching assistant, Mrs. Benedict, continued to astonish with her thoughtful and provocative comments. Once Margaret had gotten past the woman’s drab attire, she’d realized that Mrs. Benedict was a well-bred, subtly elegant lady. If pressed, Margaret might even admit to harboring a schoolgirl crush.

  Always looking for ways to outperform her classmates, Margaret endeavored to impress Mrs. Benedict. Writing home she said, “The rest of the section is so dumb that I talk to her and walk with her. And having read the ‘Men of the Old Stone Age’ I shone when we gazed at Paleolithic remains.” When she learned that Mrs. Benedict was in the habit of walking from Columbia down to the museum, Margaret plotted to intercept her, convincing her friend and classmate Marie Bloomfield to come along.

  But poor Marie! Marie had not been able to complete her classwork, nor was she going to sit for tomorrow’s exam. For the last three weeks she’d been sick with the measles and quarantined in the school infirmary.

  A quiet, dark-haired Jewish girl with sensitive brown eyes and amorphous facial features that merged together like cookie dough, Marie was “awkward … intellectually eager but stiff and unresponsive to any kind of physical affection.” Moved by the girl’s loneliness, Margaret had decided to take Marie under her wing. When she learned that Marie was an orphan, and that her closest relative was an older brother, seventeen years her senior, Margaret had become even more protective.

  Over time Margaret heard stories from Marie about her childhood, stories that would be boring if they weren’t so sad. Marie had come from the town of Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, where her parents had run the Hotel Schwartz, a rambling white clapboard establishment built around a communal dining hall. When Marie turned sixteen her parents sent her off to the Downer Seminary in Milwaukee, ostensibly so she would get a better education. What they didn’t tell her was that they were too ill to care for her. Before Marie’s eighteenth birthday both her mother and father were dead. Leonard, her older brother, was named her legal guardian, and it was he who had arranged for Marie to attend Columbia.

  Leonard Bloomfield, it turned out, was an anthropology professor himself, one of Dr. Boas’s earliest disciples. Margaret found Marie’s stories about this eccentric older brother to be quite entertaining. One family legend had to do with the time that Leonard, then a young scholar in his twenties, had come home for the High Holidays. Rather than converse with his relatives, he had disappeared into the hotel basement to shampoo his parents’ Irish setter. The family upstairs could hear him through the floorboards, talking to the animal, saying, “You are a dummkopf. You are not a bit of use and a great botheration,” all of which he intoned in a lyrical and tender voice. The sound of the “dog’s tail thumping in repeated blows like thunder,” wild with joy, could be heard as well.

  Now Marie was sick and Margaret had been forced to go to the library with another classmate. There would be no Marie at the test tomorrow. Marie always seemed to have rotten luck.

  Right before going to bed, Margaret wrote to her parents to say, “I’ve never studied so much for an exam in my life. Eleanor Phillips and I had the whole library out … and we read each other extracts from each volume.”

  * * *

  On the day of the final, the lecture hall was filled to near capacity. At the front of the room, Margaret could see Mrs. Benedict and the two other teaching assistants huddled around the white-haired Professor Boas.

  The Anthropology Department had only one full-time faculty member and that w
as Dr. Boas. Old, German, and exacting, with a wiry physique that practically gave off sparks, Boas was profoundly intimidating. Standing before a full lecture hall, “occasionally he would look around and ask a rhetorical question which no one would venture to answer.” Margaret “got into the habit of writing down the answers to these questions and then showing them to Marie when she turned out to be right.”

  Margaret had heard fantastic stories about the old man. He had “a visage seamed and scarred from numerous rapier slashes,” which people said he’d acquired as an undergraduate in Heidelberg. According to one source, Boas had been taunted by anti-Semitic insults and had challenged his attackers to a duel. Now, forty years later, he was known to be a pacifist, but no less confrontational. During the Great War his controversial antiwar sentiments had put him at odds with many of his colleagues. The resulting hard feelings were said to linger.

  Suddenly Margaret felt a gentle tap on her shoulder. She turned. Mrs. Benedict was standing behind her.

  Mrs. Benedict leaned down and whispered, “You’re excused from the exam.”

  Uncomprehendingly, Margaret continued to look up at her.

  Mrs. Benedict whispered again, “You’re excused.”

  When Margaret still said nothing, Mrs. Benedict added, “Dr. Boas excused you. For your helpful participation in class discussions.” Inclining her head in the direction of the exit doors she said, “You’re free to go.”

  Margaret began to collect her belongings. When she looked again at Mrs. Benedict, she could swear she saw her teacher give her a wink. Walking out the door of Schermerhorn Hall into the bright and frosty sunlight, she felt dazed. Although she’d received many academic accolades, none had been so unexpected.

  The person she really wanted to tell was Marie. Only Marie would understand the enormity of this honor. Marie, however, was confined to the infirmary and wouldn’t be released for days. Margaret would have to settle for reporting the news to her parents:

  This morning was the Anthropology exam and Boas excused three people from the class of fifty, from the exam in recognition of their helpful participation in class discussion. I was one of them.… I’m really very thrilled because I admire Boas so much and also it helps my arm out to be saved from a three hour exam.

  * * *

  A few days later Miss Abbott, the assistant dean, informed Margaret that there was no one to bring Marie back from the infirmary. Margaret realized that she had to offer “to take some responsibility for her.”

  Miss Abbott told Margaret to go over late in the morning, reminding her that Marie would have a big suitcase, one that was too heavy for the girls to manage alone.

  With Luther in tow, Margaret arrived at Brooks Hall. It wasn’t long before the elevator door opened to reveal a haggard Marie.

  Luther jumped up from his chair. “I’m sure you’re ready to leave this place,” he said, reaching for her suitcase.

  As they walked back to the dorm, neither Marie nor Luther spoke. Margaret filled the vacuum by telling stories about mutual friends and the stress finals were putting them through. One named Lee Newton had become “hysterically blind” while taking her physics exam and was waiting for a visit from Margaret.

  Marie seemed to have little interest.

  Unable to contain herself, Margaret said, “I was excused from the Anthropology final.”

  Marie looked at her.

  “Dr. Boas said it was in recognition of my helpful participation in class discussions.”

  Margaret was about to elaborate on exactly how Mrs. Benedict had relayed the news when she felt Luther’s hand on her arm, stopping her.

  Once in the dorm room, Margaret and Luther helped Marie unpack her clothes. Promising to check on her later that weekend, they said their good-byes.

  Margaret was to learn what happened next from Louise Rosenblatt.

  * * *

  A few days later, on Sunday morning, Louise Rosenblatt headed down to brunch. Sunday was the morning the Barnard cafeteria served freshly baked cinnamon rolls and she wanted to get one before they disappeared.

  The daughter of Jewish socialists from Atlantic City, Louise had become close with Margaret ever since the two girls had discovered they held the same left-wing political sentiments. Now a member of the Ash Can Cat’s extended family, Louise socialized with many of the girls in Margaret’s circle.

  Carrying her tray into the dining hall, Louise looked around for where to sit. The other Ash Can Cats had not yet returned from semester break save for Marie Eichelberger, the girl Margaret referred to as “the little freshman,” and others called “Margaret’s slave.” Louise made her way to Eichelberger’s table.

  During the course of their conversation Eichelberger mentioned that Marie Bloomfield had recovered from the measles and was back from the infirmary. Deciding to pay Marie a visit, the girls bused their dishes and headed over to the dorm.

  Louise knocked on Marie’s door. When there was no answer, she knocked again. “It’s early,” said Louise. “I doubt she’s gone anywhere.”

  Louise knocked again and then tried to open the door. It was locked.

  Alarmed, Louise banged on the door. The girl who lived next to Marie came outside. She told them there was a connecting door between her room and Marie’s.

  The three girls entered Marie’s room. The shades were down, the curtains drawn. The dark room was stuffy with heat.

  There, in bed, lay Marie.

  Louise edged closer. Marie’s face was white with a slight blue cast. Her lips were parted in a stiff grimace and were dotted with flecks of dried spittle. Her skin was stiff and cold.

  It was obvious that she was dead.

  On the bedside table was a book that was opened and turned upside down as if to mark a page. It was The Journal of a Disappointed Man, by a young Englishman named W. N. P. Barbellion, who had four years earlier, with a theatrical flourish, taken his own life. Before his death Barbellion had written, “To me the honour is sufficient of belonging to the universe—such a great universe—and so grand a scheme of things. Not even Death can rob me of that honour.”

  On February 8, The New York Times ran Marie’s obituary:

  Honor Student at Barnard, Takes Poison in Brooks Hall. Marie Bloomfield, 18 years old … was found dead in bed last night, dressed in nightgown and bathrobe. A glass half-filled with liquid that looked like water stood on a table beside her bed.

  The next day Margaret heard that Marie had killed herself and that the police had identified the liquid in the glass by her bedside as cyanide.

  That night she wrote to her mother:

  Poor little lonely thing! I was the best friend she had in college and I never loved her enough. She was just one of the group of younger girls and often I did not have time for her. This last weekend however—I went down and brought her home from the hospital. She left the “Little Book of Modern Verse” which I gave her for Christmas all marked up—showing quite clearly her purpose.… She was so inextricably bound up with our lives that it’s very hard to go on without her.

  Although Margaret had not been the one to discover Marie’s body, in the aftermath of the tragedy she took charge as if she had. When Marie’s brother, Leonard, came to Barnard to collect Marie’s belongings, it was Margaret who met him at the dorm and filled him in about the last days of his sister’s life.

  * * *

  In the aftermath of the suicide, it wasn’t only Leonard Bloomfield who wanted to talk to Margaret. She also received a summons from Virginia Gildersleeve, Barnard’s imposing dean.

  Dean Gildersleeve was known around campus as a champion of women’s rights. Margaret—who knew how to curry the favor of administrators of this ilk—expected a warm reception.

  When Margaret entered the office she found the dean sitting behind her desk reading a typed report. Gildersleeve removed her spectacles, placed them on her desk, and studied Margaret. “How are you holding up?”

  “It was such a shock,” said Margaret. “I loved her
very dearly and I miss her frightfully, more and more every day.”

  “Yes, I’m sure that’s true,” said the dean, putting her glasses back on and returning to the report that lay open on her desk.

  “Marie’s death is spread all over the papers,” said Margaret. “Her face stares up at me from trampled newspapers on the subway floor.”

  Gildersleeve looked up and grimaced, her lips settling into a tight seam that bisected her face. “I understand that Marie was a melancholy girl, perhaps not emotionally stable.”

  “She could never be convinced that she was not totally inadequate and doomed to failure,” said Margaret.

  Gildersleeve stared at her.

  “She thought it took courage to die.”

  A look of disapproval spread over the dean’s face. “When a young lady does something like this,” said Gildersleeve, “it’s not normal.”

  Margaret stared back at her. It was starting to dawn on her that the dean may have already formed an opinion that had little to do with the real Marie. She might even expect a response from Margaret that she could not give.

  By the time Margaret rose from her chair to leave, she’d resolved not to give in to Gildersleeve’s unspoken demand that she characterize Marie’s suicide as the act of a deranged girl.

  In the days to come Margaret was overcome by uncontrollable crying fits.

  Her grief was punctuated by the arrival of a small envelope of very fine paper stock of an indistinct ecru color. The back was embossed with “R F B,” initials that belonged to Ruth Fulton Benedict.

  She slit it open, pulling out the card that was inside.

  “My dear Margaret” it said,

  You will be needed by the other girls to the limit of your strength, and if there is anything in the world I can do to leave you freer, send me word, or if you can get away come yourself. I’ve nothing all day that can’t be put off. I shall be thinking of you today—and wishing people could be of more use to each other in difficult times.

  Mrs. Benedict wanted to see her. She held up the card, felt its texture between her fingertips. Folding it back up, she tucked it into her handkerchief box for safekeeping.