BETTY: The Story of Betty MacDonald, Author of The Egg and I

by Anne Wellman

  Betty found this sudden swelling a ‘bitter thing’ and tried various diets but to no avail. She also started getting taller, eventually growing to a height of nearly 5’ 7”, although she was to return to being painfully thin at other stages in her life. Meanwhile, Mary got all the boys and Betty got the high marks.

  It was not all adolescent angst. Betty’s new public school was Lincoln High, where in 1921 she twice appeared on the school’s honor roll. At Lincoln she made a good friend, Blanche Hamilton, who remained close to Betty and the Bard family throughout Betty’s life. As Blanche Caffiere she wrote ‘Much Laughter, A Few Tears’, an account of their schooldays and longstanding friendship. Blanche was fascinated by Betty from the first moment she saw her. Betsy, as she was still known at that point, had reddish-brown hair, hazel eyes, and gold braces on her teeth at a time when braces were unusual, Blanche wrote. She wore a round comb in her hair which she constantly played with when she wasn’t waving her hand in the air during Miss Taggart’s Latin class. She often wore a blue chambray dress, Norfolk-style (pleated and belted), with a black patent leather belt laced through panels. Betty confided to Blanche that this was her uniform from her former private school St. Nicholas. Money was no doubt too short for new clothes. Blanche noted that Betty wasn’t the sporting type – she never turned out for games at Lincoln High and couldn’t hold a bat to save her life.

  The two girls were assigned lockers next to each other and Blanche began to enjoy Betty’s company when they met at the lockers between classes. One day as they were putting their books away a girl with disheveled brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses stopped by and made a remark. The remark was not meant to be funny, but that and the girl’s appearance amused them both in the same way and they could hardly wait for the girl to pass by before bursting into giggles. Betty said, ‘You know, don’t you, that she combs her hair with an egg beater?’ Instantly Betty and Blanche discovered that they laughed at exactly the same things and the friendship was sealed. They continued allies throughout their high school years, sometimes getting into trouble because of their shared sense of humor. Everything Betty said struck Blanche as funny, and Betty seemed to feel the same about Blanche.

  Even as a young girl Betty was always interested in the minutiae of people’s lives and right from the start she wanted to know every detail about Blanche and her family. Hearing that Blanche’s brother Ralph had a knack of getting into trouble, she immediately wanted to know what kind of trouble, and listened eagerly to Blanche telling about his escapades. Finally, one day coming up to Halloween, Betty told Blanche that her mother would love to hear the stories about Ralph and asked Blanche to come home with her – the first of Blanche’s many visits to the eccentric Bard family, whom the adolescent Blanche recognized as special from the very first. All through high school she was to consider an invitation to the Bards’ house an assurance of a good time.

  Writing her memoir at the age of eighty-five, Blanche remembered that first visit so well that she could give a detailed account. The girls took the Wallingford streetcar, transferring to the Laurelhurst bus at 45th and University Way. Then, as now, Laurelhurst was a ‘posh’ place to live and Blanche felt she was being socially upgraded just by riding on the bus. The vehicle wound around the Laurelhurst hills until it reached the end of the line. Here there were no paved streets, only open fields and the Bards’ cow tied to a stake and grazing underneath knobby fruit trees. On a little knoll stood the family’s white Victorian house. Mrs Bard – or Sydney, as she asked both young and old to call her – met them at the door: tall and thin, with patrician features, smartly plain in dress and extremely warm and charming to her young guest. In the big country kitchen reigned Betty’s grandmother Gammy, wearing a white apron with a limp bottom ruffle, and the little white boudoir cap which some women wore in those days to save combing out their long hair early in the morning. The door to Gammy’s small bedroom was open, showing the rumpled bed with all her treasures strewn about just as Betty was later to describe in her books.

  In the spacious dining room Blanche was enchanted to see an enormous oval dining table set with a sizable Halloween favor at each place – jack-o’-lanterns, witches on broomsticks, owls, and black cats. These came from Augustine and Kyers, a pricey upmarket Seattle grocery store located at 1st and Cherry downtown (although perhaps the favors were left over from better times). At the meal Sydney sat at the head of the table and used an ornate carving set to serve up a delicious meal of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy off beautiful Wedgwood platters. On that first visit of Blanche’s Mary arrived a little late with an unexpected friend in tow, but another place was soon set and the guest made welcome. Gammy ate in the kitchen on the breadboard because, she claimed, it was more peaceful. There was a great deal of talking and laughing round the table and Betty got Blanche to tell everyone her stories about her brother.

  Immediately after dinner some boys arrived for Mary and her friend, which made both Betty and Blanche feel a little crestfallen and overwhelmed by Mary’s popularity; rather than pins from boys (a dating custom at the time), all they had were their Honor Society pins from school. But Betty resumed her role as genial hostess and invited Blanche upstairs to see the contents of her big sister’s wardrobe. She pulled open the sliding doors of the closet to reveal an array of long party dresses in a variety of colors; taking a pink one off the hanger, she urged her friend to try it on. Blanche had never worn a formal before, and she quickly slipped out of her navy blue school clothes and slithered into the shimmering satin garment. Betty chose a yellow one for herself and the two girls preened about in front of the full-length mirror, their heavy school shoes poking out underneath the dresses. Caught up in the party mood, Betty suggested phoning a boy whose father let him drive their car and who could bring along a friend. Blanche, who had never had a date, let alone one dressed in a pink formal, stood in utter amazement as these plans for a real date actually materialized. In a few minutes a big Franklin car stopped at the house and Betty and Blanche got into the back seat while in the front, completely oblivious to the girls’ gorgeous gowns under their school coats, the two boys discussed the various instruments on the dashboard. The four headed to the University District and drove up and down University Way, or the ‘Ave’, as it was called, after its initial incarnation as 14th Avenue. Daringly, Betty suggested a drive to a dinner-dancing roadhouse a few miles north of the city limits. Here Ted, the young driver, confined himself to cruising into the roadhouse’s circular drive and then straight back out onto the main highway, but technically they had been to a roadhouse and Blanche was thrilled.

  Blanche stayed the night on that first visit and later, as the two lay trying to get to sleep in ivory-painted twin beds, in burst Mary. Bright-eyed and glowing, her copper-colored hair falling onto her shoulders, she announced that she had just been kissed. Blanche remembered feeling some shock at this admission, unusual for the times, but also that she admired Mary’s openness. Betty became so exhilarated over the progress of Mary’s romance that she declared she wasn’t one bit sleepy and wanted to go downstairs to make a batch of fudge. There really were no limits to the entertainment her friend was providing, Blanche thought – formals, boys, a car, a roadhouse, and now midnight fudge. As they were rattling pans and getting out the milk from the icebox, Gammy appeared in her nightie, not to complain, as Blanche first feared, but to help out. The girls took the fudge up to bed and finally fell asleep sticky-fingered and saturated with sugar.

  After only a few hours of sleep Betty shook Blanche awake so that they would make the school bus. The girls had a hurried breakfast, picked up their untouched schoolbooks and flew out to the waiting bus. When Blanche timidly asked what about their homework, Betty replied lightly that they’d do it right there and then. Concentrating with difficulty, and comparing answers, Blanche managed to finish one task by the time they had to transfer to the streetcar. Once on the wooden seats of the Wallingford car the girls began on their Latin assignment, bu
t Betty blithely told Blanche not to bother writing her translations down: they could keep it in their heads and raise their hands a lot for what they knew, and then they wouldn’t get called on for what they didn’t. Blanche began to understand why Betty’s hand was raised so much right at the start of every class.

  Another of Blanche’s visits to the Bards saw the girls taking a nude midnight swim in the lake – and getting surprised by some boys whom Betty deflected with the suggestion that the boys go home to fetch their swimwear, thus enabling the girls to make their escape. Blanche thought Betty wouldn’t mention the lack of swimsuits to Sydney on their return, but she did, to which Sydney simply replied: ‘Of course I thought you would do that, so much more fun.’ She served them a warming feast of hot chocolate with marshmallows and waffles with maple syrup, everything homemade, and then little Dede and Alison made an appearance in long white nighties with their little toes peeking out from under the bottom ruffle. Blanche recalled that Dede at this point had round, shiny gray eyes, smooth ivory skin and dark brown hair; tiny Alty, a little over two years old, had reddish hair, beautiful amber-colored eyes and the same lovely satin skin as Dede. The little girls each sang a song before toddling back upstairs to bed. Betty was always to love tiny children and on a return visit to Blanche’s family she told stories to Blanche’s nieces and nephews, making up her own tales for them with a fine sense of just what would amuse each age – a harbinger of the success of the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and Nancy and Plum stories she would later write for children.

  When Lincoln High School became crowded, a new school, Roosevelt High, was built just north of the University District. When Roosevelt opened in 1922-23, Blanche and Betty moved to the new school as juniors and once again they shared some of the same classes. Their botany teacher, Miss Tomlinson, had a roly-poly figure and long black hair piled high on top of her head – a model for Betty’s character Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Blanche often thought in later years. Both Betty and Mary were totally unafraid of the teachers and principal and everyone admired the way they spoke up when they didn’t like something. Blanche recalled Betty telling a teacher that an algebra assignment he had handed out was too long for springtime, and to everyone’s surprise the teacher agreed and shortened the assignment. The class clapped and Betty was the heroine of the hour.

  During her high school years Betty shone academically, although her favorite subject was art. Her creativity at this point expressed itself mostly in this way, though she did write a few juvenile stories. She continued to hate sport but became a reasonable ballet dancer and took part in a number of class recitals, despite having ‘stiff and unpliable’ bones and what seemed like fewer joints than everyone else. Both she and Mary attended the Cornish School of Music (later renamed just the Cornish School, and now Cornish College of the Arts). Founded by Nellie Centennial Cornish, known affectionately to her pupils as Miss Aunt Nellie, the school offered music, drama, the visual arts and dance. Mary and Betty both studied under the famous ballerina Mary Ann Wells, many of whose pupils went on to major national and international careers. Mary became very proficient and took part in a number of public performances, including a ‘Ballet Artistic’ at the Metropolitan Theater in 1919, which the Cornish School asked to have judged by professional standards. She was also the Pied Piper of Hamelin in a pageant on Laurelhurst Golf Links in 1920 (Dede played one of the following children) and an Amazon in a Lincoln High School musical in 1922. Betty wrote that Mary dragged her along to perform whenever she could, although Betty’s name does not appear on cast lists with the same regularity as Mary’s. She remembered once stepping out from a giant grandfather clock to do a scarf dance and another time appearing in the dancing chorus of an opera.

  Mary certainly got plenty out of life. She was not only a talented dancer but also a winner of piano competitions, and very active in school business: as Chairman of Lincoln High’s committee in charge of club social affairs she took part in bake sales for charity and was a delegate to a High Schools conference. At home she did more work for charities, and lots of socializing – in 1921 she was reported in the Seattle Times as hosting a ‘beach supper and dance’ at her Laurelhurst home for a friend. Betty seems to have been far less outgoing, less involved in extra-curricular activities and by her own later admission far more of a homebody.

  In her graduating class picture in Roosevelt’s 1924 yearbook, Betty is smiling and attractive, her face framed by her characteristic bangs. Her nickname was ‘Bard’ (her friend Blanche’s was ‘Botch’). As a member of the Senior Dance, Vaudeville and Freshman Entertainment Committees and the Glee Club, Betty at Roosevelt appears to have been more interested in performance than academic achievement, despite her former appearances on the honor roll at Lincoln High. Elsewhere in the yearbook Blanche appears as a member of the Roosevelt News business staff and as one of a select few on the Senior Honor Roll; Betty appears only as understudy for a role in the school’s production of a farce in the winter of 1923. She is not listed among the aspiring journalists on the Roosevelt News, nor among the student artists contributing to the designing and coloring of Christmas cards and illustrations for the yearbook. Her stated ambition in the yearbook, nevertheless, was to be an illustrator (or a wallpaper designer, she also told her family).

  High school days were over.

  §

  In the fall of that same year Betty started at the University of Washington, majoring in art, which according to Betty consisted solely of drawing plaster casts. It was at this point, when she entered college, that she changed her nickname Betsy to Betty, as she thought it sounded more adult. Later she told Blanche she wished she hadn’t. Mary too had attended the University of Washington, before reluctantly withdrawing to help support the family: for the Bards, money was still a problem.

  During their college years Mary and Betty used to perform an unnerving double act when driving a car. Mary was near-sighted but liked to drive, whereas Betty loathed it, so both would sit in the front seat with Mary at the wheel operating the brake and the gearshift while Betty acted as her eyes and warned of approaching pedestrians and traffic signals.

  Round about this time Sydney started a business, a tearoom called ‘The Mandarin’ in a large colonial building at 4311 15th Avenue NE, located in the University District on what in later years became the parking lot of the University Bookstore. Sydney being such a wonderful cook the food was excellent, and for a time the tearoom did very well. But Sydney had been the generous hostess in her own home for too long and was no businesswoman. Too often she would refuse to take any money from the many friends and acquaintances or friends of the children who came to eat there.

  ‘Oh Joe,’ she would say, ‘let’s make this one on me.’ The tearoom stopped paying, and following some zoning difficulties and a forced relocation, ‘The Mandarin’ had to close down after about a year.

  But then, only a few months after the failure of the tearoom business, a new venture beckoned. In 1926 the Bards came across a picturesque farm while driving around the Olympic Peninsula, the scenic region which faces Seattle across Puget Sound. They were all much taken with the place, which was on Beaver Valley Road on the side of the peninsula opposite the city. Betty’s brother Cleve, now tall, red-haired and restless, loved animals and everything about the outdoors. Although only seventeen and with no experience of farming, he rather romantically thought farm life would be wonderful, and appears to have been the driving force behind the Bards’ decision to buy the land and try their hand at farming. Possibly trading their big Victorian house in exchange, the whole family including Gammy moved from Laurelhurst to the new property. By this time Betty had given up on university, most probably for financial reasons. She had left after the fall semester of 1925, and now started working the farm along with the others.

  The farm comprised some 650 acres. There was a large herd of cows, a team of horses, flocks of chickens, and goats and pigs. The Bards, animal-lovers all, found they enjoyed both the farming and the hordes of
friends who came over every weekend to enjoy all the cream, butter and eggs they produced. When not entertaining their many guests they all worked hard at the new venture, although Dede and Alison were still young and attended a local school. Occasionally Sydney would stop and find the time to produce beautiful, serene paintings of the surrounding countryside.

  Then things started to go wrong with this second attempt at making money. At the time of purchase they had been assured that their herd of cows had all been tested for tuberculosis and were disease-free, but when a government agent visited the farm it transpired that the cows had not been tested at all. Checks revealed that fourteen of their best milkers seemed to have the disease and would have to be destroyed. On top of this blow came news of a drainage-ditch tax which would cripple the family budget. They salvaged what they could, and made a move to a smaller farm on Center Valley Road which had an old-fashioned farmhouse with only an outhouse for sanitation. Here their income had to depend chiefly on the produce of a flock of about 250 chickens. To supplement this Mary started a children’s dancing class in nearby Port Townsend, using what she could recall of her own studies under her famous ballet mistress Mary Ann Wells at the Cornish School in Seattle.

  Betty usually made a joke of everything when recounting the trials of life to her friends, but not when the government shot the cows. Betty’s old school friend Blanche commented that this was one occasion when Betty wasn’t laughing. In fact it was discovered that a mistake had been made in condemning the cows and reparations were made, but in the end the farming venture failed; the Bards acknowledged defeat and some time after April 1930 they gave up and returned to Seattle to a new house on 15th Avenue. Mary had already gone back to the city to sell mail advertising and was living in rented accommodation.