The GI Bride

by Simantel, Iris Jones

  I was supposed to be due before Christmas of 1955 and everyone thought that, since I was now enormous and, believe me, I was it might be sooner rather than later, but Christmas came and went with only slight twinges that we thought might be labour pains but were not. Then we hoped the baby would at least have the decency to arrive before midnight on New Year’s Eve so that we would have the benefit of the 1955 tax deduction. With this in mind, dear Dr Crown sent me to hospital to have labour induced. The contractions started, but then they stopped again and the doctor sent me home, feeling very disappointed. New Year’s Eve came and went, and by now I was so uncomfortable I had to sleep sitting up. I had gained at least fifty pounds, perhaps partly because my mother kept telling me to remember I was eating for two. After six months’ morning sickness, I had really begun to enjoy my food, especially ice cream, and looked as though I’d been eating for four.

  By 4 January I was still showing no sign of going into labour, so the next day Dr Crown sent me back to Columbus Hospital (on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago) to be induced again. This time it worked. Oh, boy, it certainly did. I thought it would never end. A strange thing happened while I was in the labour room: a man I guessed he was medical staff came in to examine me. All he did was fondle my breasts, and when he heard someone coming, he covered me and left. I was sure he had touched me inappropriately he might have been housekeeping staff even but I was in too much pain to think any more of it. When I mentioned it to Bob, he told me I was crazy.

  When I was taken into the delivery room, Dr Crown hadn’t arrived, so they gave me some kind of gas to slow things down. I could hear myself singing, apparently quite loudly, between contractions, and the nurses imploring me to be quiet. My doctor had asked them to slow the contractions because he didn’t want to miss the big event, and he did not. I later learned that he had been concerned about the birth because of the size of the baby and my apparently immature pelvic measurement. It was a difficult delivery and I was sure I was going to die. What a relief it was, at last, to hear one of the nurses announce, ‘You have a healthy baby boy.’

  ‘You call that ox a baby!’ was Dr Crown’s response.

  Phew! I’d done it. I had a son and he was perfect … If only my family was with me to share my joy and if only I felt less lonely …

  Bob sent Mum and Dad a telegram announcing the birth of our baby and we received one back, congratulating us and telling us they were overjoyed. Later, when Mum heard that I’d had an episiotomy, she was horrified. Apparently, they were only performed in England when the life of the mother or baby was in danger. In some small way, I was pleased to hear that my mum was worried about me, but it made me miss her more than ever.

  That dear Dr Crown: several months later, we realized we had never received a bill from him, and when I called his office to ask about it, I was told there was nothing to pay. I was reduced to tears by his kindness.

  Bob was ecstatic that we had produced a boy; he cried as he thanked me for giving him a son. However, we did not give in to family pressure to name him Robert Henry Irvine III. Bob was a ‘junior’ but we thought that was as far as it should go. We named our son Wayne Robert: Wayne because it was an all-American name and Robert after his daddy, his paternal grandfather and my younger brother. They’d just have to get used to our break with tradition.

  Foolishly, I was anxious to leave the hospital and get home to take care of the baby myself. I was still uncomfortable after the episiotomy, and shuffled along like an old woman. My friend Joan Morris lectured when she visited me in the hospital: ‘Don’t be in such a hurry! It’ll be the last rest you have for years, believe me.’

  Later I wished I’d listened to her. She was so right, and why wouldn’t she be? She had recently given birth to her fourth child.

  We left the comfort of the hospital three days after Wayne’s birth, and then another nightmare began. I tried desperately to nurse him but it just didn’t work. My breasts and nipples were extremely painful and he was not getting enough to eat. Consequently we were both crying a lot. In fact, the baby was screaming blue murder. By now, Bob was at his wit’s end, frustrated because he didn’t know what to do for either of us and short-tempered from lack of sleep.

  ‘Maybe your mom could come over to help,’ I suggested.

  ‘I hinted about it last time I talked to her but she didn’t offer. I don’t think she can get away from Dad and Roberta or she thinks they can’t manage without her,’ he said.

  I kept my mouth shut. I was sure she didn’t care enough, but that was nothing new to me.

  I felt inadequate as a mother. Each day I wished my mother was with me, to give advice and support. She and I had never been close, but I knew that now she would have taken care of the baby and me, without hesitation.

  The next blow to my confidence came when the baby’s paediatrician told me I must stop trying to breastfeed Wayne and give him a bottle. I followed his orders but was terribly disappointed at my perceived failure. However, Wayne was at last a happy baby and we all began to get some sleep.

  Our respite was short-lived. A new problem arose. I developed mastitis. I was in agony with inflamed, engorged breasts, and bleeding, cracked nipples. I also had a raging fever and was delirious at times. I knew that I looked like an ugly, bloated cow, which made me feel even worse; I just wanted to die. Bob had been able to take only a few days off after we came home from the hospital and was already back at work, leaving me alone and in a dreadful state. Again, we thought Bob’s mother might come to help when she heard how ill I was, but we were wrong. She came by bus, just once, and that was to drop off some homemade soup for Bob. For me, there was no one, and once again, I felt utterly alone and worthless. Yes, I was extremely sorry for myself.

  I’m ashamed to say that, in those days, I was not a very good mother or wife. I just didn’t know how to cope. What a blessing it was that Wayne had settled and was now such a contented child. He was a joy, but I still had great difficulty in keeping up with the housekeeping and other ‘wifely duties’. Bob had insisted on having sex before I had completely healed down below and intercourse was excruciating. I later learned that a couple of the episiotomy stitches had torn loose; no wonder it had been painful. Saying no to my once gentle, patient husband was out of the question.

  For a long time, I didn’t want to get out of bed in the mornings, often staying there until midday. I would get up to feed and change the baby but then would take him into bed with me and we would go back to sleep. I was realizing that I was very much alone and that I couldn’t expect Bob’s family to replace my own, and perhaps I was experiencing what is now recognized as post-natal depression. My depression deepened, and it was as much as I could do to function from day to day. Bob offered little comfort or support because, basically, he didn’t know how. We were both frightened and I’m sure I wasn’t alone in praying for an answer, and the answer came.

  When we heard that my brother Peter was to be married in August 1956, Bob decided that perhaps it would be good for me to go home to show off our son and attend the wedding. To finance the trip, and against his parents’ advice and wishes, he cashed in some of the savings bonds they had bought for him. Now, with me having new hope and energy, we made plans. In my secret heart I wasn’t sure if I would come back to America but I desperately needed to go, and soon. At that time, plane fares cost a small fortune, but we decided that if I didn’t go, the consequences might be far more costly.

  Wayne was about seven months old and I had been away for almost eighteen when we made that first trip back to the UK. I felt as though I had lived another entire lifetime since Valentine’s Day of the previous year. Now, buoyed by excitement, I had nothing but ove
rwhelming gratitude to Bob for having found a way to make the journey possible. I believe he knew how much it meant to me and how much it might help me to be with my family for a while. Even as we prepared for the trip, my depression had begun to lift.

  The journey was torturous. Carrying a heavy baby plus all his equipment was difficult enough, but back then there was no such thing as a direct flight from Chicago to London: we had to change planes in New York, where there was a long layover. It was difficult changing and feeding the baby, as well as taking care of luggage at the airport terminal. When we began our journey, we looked very smart, but by the time we got on that second plane, we were a sodden mess.

  For the overnight segment of our journey, I had arranged to have a portable crib for Wayne to sleep in, but I had not counted on having to hold it on my lap; it made it almost impossible for me to move, especially when I had to use the toilet. The whole journey took twenty-four hours, whereas today it takes seven or eight. What a difference!

  Dawn was breaking as our plane began its descent over England, and I wept uncontrollably to see the patchwork quilt of fields below. The sun was shining on my beloved homeland; it looked like heaven to me. All I could think was that I would soon see the faces of my own dear family, the family I had missed so much, and I could hardly wait. I was bursting with excitement.

  An eternity seemed to pass before we staggered through the final gate after retrieving our baggage and clearing Customs. I scanned the waiting crowds. Then I saw them. My whole family was standing there, beaming from ear to ear. We fell into each other’s arms, Mum took her grandson from me, and we wept with joy. I was home.

  After the initial torrent of tears and repeated hugs, Dad was most anxious to tell me about the transport he had borrowed from friends to take us home.

  ‘Come on, Iris, just wait till you see the lovely carriage that awaits you,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, you won’t half feel posh,’ chimed in Mum.

  Mum and Dad still had no car and, of course, I hadn’t even thought of that small detail. What a laugh I had when I saw that they’d come to meet us in Knight’s the greengrocer’s van, which was used for fetching produce from the London market to the shop in South Oxhey; it was the only vehicle large enough to hold all of us and the luggage. We piled happily, if not stylishly, into the back of the grubby van; we had to sit on produce boxes, and baby Wayne travelled comfortably inside an orange crate, as we headed for home. It was not exactly a triumphal entry, but definitely far more fun.

  When I walked into Mum’s kitchen and she put the kettle on for a cup of tea, it was as if I had never left. I walked around the house just looking at and touching everything. It was wonderful to be home and I couldn’t get enough of it. Mum took over with Wayne, and after I’d had ‘a lovely cup of tea’, I crawled into bed for a nap that lasted about sixteen hours. I was completely exhausted.

  My first few days in England were filled with eating all the foods I had missed, talking for hours on end about my experiences in America and what was happening in my life, visits to family and friends, plus preparing for Peter’s wedding. The greatest gift of all was the laughter. Oh, how I had missed it. Stupid jokes, my brothers and I teasing Mum to get her laughing and hearing her old refrain, ‘Stop muckin’ about, you lot,’ and recalling funny incidents. My life in America had been devoid of such shared humour and lightheartedness, and I decided I had to find a way to bring it into my life there. I didn’t know how I’d do it, but I knew it was what I needed.

  A feature story appeared in the local newspaper, the Watford Observer, announcing, ‘So Iris Will Be Home for the Wedding’. When Bob and I had got married two years earlier, it had published an article about our own wedding, probably because I was only sixteen. Now that I had returned home after just a year and half, I was newsworthy again: not many of the local girls who had married Americans had made return visits or none that had received any publicity. I never did learn who had told the newspaper about my visit. It might have been Peter and Brenda when they were giving the details of their wedding to one of its journalists, as was usual back then, but it might also have been my father, who loved being in the limelight.

  I felt quite the celebrity, and certainly all the attention and affection I was getting from family and friends was just what I needed to pull me out of the deep depression I had been experiencing.

  The wedding was beautiful, and my reunion with our entire extended family and so many friends was wonderful. There are no words to describe how it felt to be back with my own people and to feel somehow reconnected with the world. All the time I’d been away, I had felt disconnected, like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle that doesn’t seem to fit anywhere.

  While Wayne and I were away, Bob wrote to me regularly, telling me how much he was missing us. He tugged at my heartstrings, but as the date of our departure neared, I began having panic attacks. Repeatedly, through torrents of uncontrollable tears, I told Mum and Dad that I was terrified to go back, that I didn’t think I could do it again. Dad would also cry, but they both kept telling me that I had to return to America and try to make my life work there. They stressed that Wayne and I could have a much better life in America with Bob than we could ever hope to have in England, and that I owed it to my son to accept responsibility for the decision I had made when I’d married his father. Talking to Mum one afternoon, I heard things I didn’t want to hear.

  ‘You wouldn’t want to end up here living in a council flat,’ she said.

  ‘Why would I have to live in a council flat?’ I asked. ‘I want to come home, Mum.’

  ‘Where would everyone sleep? There isn’t room now that you have the baby, Iris. You’d have to have the bigger bedroom and the two boys [my younger brothers] would be stuck in the box room.’

  I didn’t want to hear any more. I didn’t want to accept that there was no longer room for me in what I still considered my home. In my heart, I knew she was right but the thought of leaving home and family again was tearing me apart and I was scared to death about the future.

  After six weeks of nourishment to both body and soul, and after painful goodbyes, my little son and I flew back to Bob and another attempt at making a good marriage and a success of my life in America.

  8: Back in the USA Family, Friends and Independence

  Arriving in Chicago, to an anxious, excited husband, I found that Bob had arranged for Wayne to stay with his parents so that he and I could go away by ourselves for a long weekend, a kind of second honeymoon. As I looked at him and saw the love in his eyes for both Wayne and me, I knew I had to give our relationship, and America, another chance, but this time I’d have to make an even greater effort.

  Going home to England had been both a gift and a curse. I had loved being in familiar surroundings with my own people. The first time I’d left home and family I’d been filled with excitement and dreams, but this time I knew what awaited me. Now I had to face the harsh reality of the life I had chosen in spite of everyone’s warnings.

  ‘I can’t wait to have you all to myself for a little while,’ he said, as he drew our son and me into his arms.

  ‘Uh-oh! Does that mean I don’t need to pack anything for the trip except my nightie?’ I laughed nervously.

  ‘Well, who knows? Maybe you won’t even need that,’ he said, which was a bit bold for my usually shy husband. ‘But I might give you time off for good behaviour,’ he added. I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but we laughed at our own slightly naughty thoughts.

  I’m sure we must have gone home to our own apartment first, but I honestly don’t remember much about it, perhaps because I was tired after the long flight from England. All I recall is the unpacking and
repacking, first to get Wayne ready and dropped off with his grandparents, and then to organize ourselves. We were going to get to know each other again. I think we were both a little apprehensive: it was almost like going on a first date.

  We stayed in a beautiful rustic lodge in Starved Rock State Park, which is near North Utica, Illinois, and is a very romantic setting. Holding hands, we took long walks along the river and through rocky canyons; we saw waterfalls, rode horses, slept late and generally enjoyed our time together. At first, we were a little shy and nervous, just as we had been on our honeymoon, but we whispered our love and slept in each other’s arms. It was wonderful and I wanted our holiday never to end.

  We were shy with each other throughout our marriage, perhaps because of our age, lack of worldliness, or because we had grown up in households in which outward displays of affection were rare. I was always amused that even as adults we could not call our sex organs by their anatomical names. Bob always referred to mine as ‘Janey and her sisters’, and even that sounded rude to me back then.

  When we returned to our apartment, life was a little easier for me and I found myself better able to cope. I was healthier, physically and mentally, and couldn’t have wished for a more perfect or contented child.

  One of the first things I did after I’d got back was to call my British friend Bobby McCarthy. ‘I’m back,’ I said, ‘ready to face the music again. I wish you lived closer, though. I need you to keep me sane.’

  She laughed. ‘Don’t worry, Iris, I’ve found something that you’ll love. It’s a sort of club for British women and they meet once a month, downtown in Chicago. Most of the women were GI brides and they’ve all been through the same things that we have. I’ve only been to one meeting but it was great fun. We even had tea and English biscuits.’