Leona! What a strange name!!! It fascinated me. I let it roll in soft waves around my tongue and when I said it aloud, it was like a soft melody floating in the breeze. She was the mother of my life long friend, Jean. I was fourteen and in my freshman year of high school when I met Jean and eventually Leona.
Accustomed as I was to my German mother and aunts, who still wore their long hair in braids wound on the top of their heads, describing Leona will be difficult. Tall and slender, with her hair bobbed in the latest fashion, manicured finger nails, fashionable clothes, to me, she was the epitome of the modern woman. She was like a delicate flower on a slender stalk, which might bow before a wind storm, but when it was over, rise again. Her personality was such that women as well as men were attracted to her.
As the story goes, when America entered World War I in 1917, she met a young army officer, had a whirlwind romance, married, and very soon he was sent overseas. Within a year she was a bride, widow and mother. My mother, working long hours in the family owned business, had very little personal time to spend with me. She had met Leona, liked her, and agreed to allow me to visit her and Jean often.
Leona worked in a boutique dress shop and had arranged her hours so that she would always be home when Jean arrived from school. With her gentle ways and persuasive suggestions, she guided us through those chaotic teenage years. One of her favorite beauty routines was the care of your hands. You had to have beautiful hands, fingernails filed to a becoming length and buffed every night to make them strong and attain a lovely natural sheen and always creamed at night. Did we not want beautiful hands so that in years to come we would be able to proudly show off our engagement and wedding rings?? Of course we did!
As we entered our second year of high school, boys became the prime topic of discussion and we came to Leona with our problems. How can you become friends with a boy who, to impress his peers, would make sexual advances when you showed an interest in them? She suggested that we gently but firmly rebuff the boy and ask him if he would rather be friends, to be able to talk about music, books, homework, school games and so much more. Jean and I at first laughed at this suggestion but were pleasantly surprised at how often it worked. Several boys admitted how good it was to be naturally friendly with girls and not have this sexual “must do” hovering over them. Without realizing it, we became the core of an ever-growing popular group of youngsters, enjoying each other, studying and playing, helping one another as we strove toward adulthood.
As we grew older and were preparing to go into the business world, Leona taught us that an extensive wardrobe was not necessary, but buying good quality clothing was. A wardrobe of basic skirts, blouses and jackets, to be interchanged and accessorized with a selection of scarves, sweaters and vests, was enough for any occasion.
At one time, I asked Jean if she missed having a father. “Not at all” she told me. “We have an extra room and sometimes mother would rent it to a boarder.” He would stay for a while, eating breakfast and dinner with them. She really enjoyed these times and told me they were like family because after dinner they would play cards or listen to the comedians and stories on the radio. This was Leona’s way of supplementing her meager salary. She quietly lived a lifestyle that today in the twenty-first century is, without the blink of an eye, acceptable — but in the 1930’s was scandalous.
Anne Humbach — Fall, 2008
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