Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1938)

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Ik QW MEXICO SHOP SANTA f£ — NEW MEXICO v AMONG PIANOS FOR YOUR HOME Petite and graceful in design, musically charming, a Gulbransen Console Piano has that indefinable, unmistakable something which sets it apart as a star among pianos. A Gulbransen Console Piano will enhance the beauty of your home; create for you an atmosphere of luxurious charm. Priced most moderately. Write for catalog. Gulbransen Co., 8 1 6 N. Kedzie Ave., Chicago mmm onicago j M Dear Ol' Mother-in-Law O' Mine (Continued jrom page 28) onsole Uianos fit her in with our friends. She just naturally fits. As for the children, I don't have to tell you how I feel about them. Yet I haven't the patience to carry on long conversations with Carol Ann, at the age of five. She and Nana talk to each other for hours on end, don't ask me what about. She never interferes, yet just her way of handling the youngsters shows us where we make our mistakes. We have all sorts of theories about bringing up children. She has no theories and does a better job of it. In a way, that sums her up. She has no theories about living either, but she makes a better job of it than anyone I've ever met." ABOUT thirty years ago the woman who draws this tribute was a bride, her husband a son of wealth. Disapproving of his marriage to a girl who had no money, his family turned its collective back on the couple. They didn't mind, they'd married for love. He found work where he could, and, if there was little money in the house, there was plenty of gaiety. When he brought her a pair of silk stockings instead of the bag of potatoes he'd gone out for, she didn't scold his impracticality but rejoiced in his tenderness and managed somehow without the potatoes. They were drawn closer by the birth of a baby, and closer still by her death at the age of six months. Then another baby was born, whom they called Betty Lou. Two years later the young husband caught cold, developed pneumonia and died. It was a ghastly blow, but there was a child to be fed and cared for. The girl pulled herself together, got hold of some money and started a tiny delicatessen shop. Her homemade sauerkraut brought the place a reputation, and, by the time she decided to move to California, she'd built it into a flourishing business which she sold for a handsome sum. At the Los Angeles high school she attended, Betty Lou met a boy named Bob Young. He was going through the gloomy phase of adolescence — a phase Betty never knew, thanks to her heritage. "What's she forever laughing at?" he'd grumble to himself, "Little flibbertigibbet." Yet he couldn't keep his eyes off her. She paid no attention to him till they were cast in a play together. After that they were always together. "But I was just part of the entourage," explains Bob. "Betty always had a string of swains trailing her, with one eye on her mother. They'd drop innocently by on Sunday afternoon to see if Betty was in. If she wasn't they'd stick around anyway. They knew there'd be pot roast and dumplings for the crowd, whether Betty came home to eat it with them or not." High school days ended, Betty and Bob saw less and less of each other. She went to college. He got a job and spent his evenings at the Pasadena Community Playhouse. He'd made up his mind he was going to be an actor. They became engaged, but not to each other — Betty to a boy at college, Bob to a girl in Pasadena. Bob and his girl discovered their engagement was a mistake and broke it. Then one night Betty phoned and asked Bob to come over. He hadn't seen her in months. "I've got to talk this out with somebody," she said. "I can't with Mom. She's too close to it. And next to her, I trust you most." She wasn't sure she loved the man she'd promise to marry. She was afraid of making a mistake. She felt this way about him. What did Bob think? "If you're not sure," said Bob, "then you don't love him." He was answering honestly. He wasn't paving the way for himself. It was only a little later that he clapped his hand to his head in the realization that Betty was the one girl he'd ever really wanted as his wife. When the matter had been settled between them, they broke the news to Mom— or thought that was what they were doing. "You're telling me," she commented. "I could have told you years ago, and saved you time." Bob wasn't earning much money in those days. Once or twice during their brief engagement, he was sent out of town on location. Before the first of these trips, Mom took him aside. "If you want to call Betty long distance, just reverse the charges — now, never mind that. If it was Betty, there'd be no talk about it. Well, you're my boy and you've got the same rights she's got." They were married in a neighboring town. For various reasons, Bob's family couldn't be present. "If your mother can't go," Mrs. Henderson decided, "it wouldn't be fair for me to go either." She helped her daughter dress. She kissed them both good-by. The smile she sent them off with was a straight smile, unmisted by tears. I HE sense of self-pity so many mothers develop when their children marry was absent from her make-up. She had no intention of living her life as an appendage to theirs. Her job as hostess in a tearoom, her numerous friends, kept her time pleasantly occupied. She didn't take to the habit of dropping in for meals, but waited like anyone else for an invitation. "Just because you're the mother," she observes, with her deep chuckle, "doesn't give you any special rights to make a nuisance of yourself." When she did see the young people, she'd entertain them with lovely accounts of her dates and her doings, not in a gallant effort to convince them that she was having a good time, but because she was having a good time. For one thing, she loved to dance. Bob will never forget the first time they went to a party together. He knew that Betty's mother danced, but he'd never danced with her. "As a dutiful son-in-law," he told himself, "I'll have to face this sooner or later. So it might as well be now." He started off with her in a kind of half walk, with the idea of saving Mom's face as well as her feet. After a minute of this, she looked up at him. "What's the matter, son? Tired? Well then, dance." He started tentatively on a more intricate step. Betty followed him no more easily than his mother-in-law. He raised his brows in amazement and admiration. She raised hers in mocking acknowledgment of the tribute. He led her through his entire repertoire. "Don't you know any fancy steps?" she gibed. When the dance was over, he was winded, she was fresh as a daisy. "Why didn't you tell me, Mom?" "Why didn't you ask me?" OHE proffers no advice unless she is asked for it. Or as she herself puts it, "I try to mind my own business. I tried to bring Betty up not to be green and dumb, then I let her go on her own. I'm always glad to tell them what I think is right, if they come to me for it. If not, I keep my mouth shut. With the babies, for instance — I idolize them, but 82