Girl with a Camera

by Carolyn Meyer

  “Now go home and start packing,” Mr. Henry instructed. “A bank account is being established for you in Ann Arbor. We know you’ll use it wisely. It will be replenished when necessary. We’ve also taken the liberty of buying you a train ticket. You are to leave within a fortnight. I’ve sent a letter to Dr. Ruthven, recommending you. Look him up as soon as you get there and sign up for his courses.”

  I hugged my benefactors—I’d never done that before—and thanked them over and over, not knowing how to express my gratitude adequately. Then I rushed home to tell Mother the news. She was as amazed as I was at the Mungers’ offer. “Are you sure?” she asked. I said I was sure I understood it all, but I was as shocked as she was. “It’s a loan, of course,” Mother said firmly. “I hope you assured them that we’ll pay back every penny.”

  “That’s exactly what I told them,” I said, and repeated what the Mungers had said about helping another needy student in the future. “Miss Jessie also said I should buy some new clothes, and that I should not skimp but get whatever I need.”

  Mother harrumphed. “Then you must keep track of whatever you spend on clothes, although I frankly can’t see that it’s at all necessary,” she said. “What you already have is perfectly serviceable. One or two new dresses, perhaps, but certainly no more. It’s that much less you will owe the Mungers.”

  That night I wrote to Madge, explaining that I would not be returning to school and describing the exciting news. “I’m just sorry that we won’t be roommates.”

  I thought of Tubby and Sara Jane and wondered how they were getting along. I’d tried to reach them, to tell them how Miss Fowler’s reading of my head was actually starting to work out. But they had both worked as waitresses in Ocean City all summer and then gone away with their parents for family vacations, and there was never time to get together before they left for college.

  Two weeks later I boarded a train bound for Michigan, my money problems miraculously solved, and my future emerging as mysteriously as a photographic negative in the developing bath.

  9

  Michigan—1922

  I’D BEEN ASSIGNED A ROOM IN BETSY BARBOUR HOUSE. My single room on the third floor of “Betsy’s” was cramped and dark, but the two parlors downstairs were bright and elegant, one with a grand piano and a fireplace, the other with windows looking out on the lush green lawn.

  There were far more men than women at the university, and the telephone on the third floor hall rang constantly for other girls. It was clear from the first that I would not fit in here any better than I had at Barnard. Most of the girls on my floor were not particularly friendly. They thought I was odd, peculiar even, for keeping snakes in glass terrariums next to my bed. In my first week at Betsy’s, Oscar, a handsomely banded milk snake, escaped and slithered down the hall, terrifying an unsuspecting girl who assumed he must be poisonous. I explained that Oscar was quite benign. “Red on yellow, deadly fellow, red on black, venom lack,” I told her helpfully, but she screamed, “I don’t care! I don’t care! Get that thing away from me! Why do you even have it here?”

  “But why should I not have snakes? I’m going to be a herpetologist!”

  It was not a good beginning. I heard one girl refer to me as “the snake charmer in 307,” and I didn’t think it was meant as a compliment.

  Florence was an exception. She liked to come around to watch when I was feeding the snakes, dropping mice into their cages. “You’re not odd,” she said, “but you are definitely eccentric.”

  No one had ever told me I was eccentric. “Is that good or bad?” I asked.

  She shrugged, watching Oscar go for the mouse. “Depends. But you certainly get noticed.”

  I had been in Ann Arbor for about a month when Florence suggested we go to a dance at a nearby church. I dreaded another dance like those in high school, but I said yes.

  I had used the Mungers’ money to buy a dress of knit crepe in the soft rose color Miss Jessie had recommended, the most expensive dress I’d ever owned, and I wore it to the dance. It must have caught the eye of every male in the dingy basement. I danced every dance.

  “See? I told you you’d get noticed,” Florence said enviously as we were walking back to Betsy’s. After that, she still came to my room to look at the snakes, but she never again suggested going to the church dances.

  So I went alone. I met more boys and danced a lot, but I soon learned not to talk about my plan to travel to exotic places and take pictures. “You can’t be serious, Peggy,” one boy said, laughing, and another told me, “That’s not what girls do.” If I wanted to be popular, it was better to talk about their dreams, not mine. I did, and it worked. I was invited to lots of parties, as long as I didn’t let any boy know who I really was.

  I had enrolled in the zoology department and registered for two of Professor Ruthven’s classes in herpetology—most of his research was on garter snakes. I studied hard and generally pulled good grades in all my classes, and I might have had straight A’s if I had not become so caught up with photography. I roamed the campus and the town with my camera, always alert for the next possible shot. I loved the old buildings with their steeply pitched gables and arched windows, and I was fascinated by trains, from the enormous locomotives to the abstract patterns of their small mechanical parts. I’d always had a variety of interests, but this was different. Suddenly I had a passion, and it was all-consuming.

  Frank Howarth, a new acquaintance who was studying business administration and cultivating a thin mustache, invited me to go for a walk on a golden autumn Sunday afternoon and asked where I’d like to go.

  “To the railroad station.”

  Frank raised an eyebrow, but he agreed.

  He stood by patiently while I focused on a locomotive taking on coal and water. I moved in close and set up my shot. “Isn’t this exciting, Frank?” I shouted over the racket of the steam-bellowing monster. I couldn’t hear his reply.

  “You’re certainly not like other girls,” Frank said after an hour or two of being ignored while I took pictures. “Shall we stop for a bite to eat?”

  He chose a tearoom near the campus. Ravenous after an afternoon of photographing pistons and wheels, I gobbled up a plate of dainty sandwiches. Frank mostly watched. “I’m the business manager for The Michiganensian,” he said. “The student yearbook. You should come by and meet the editor. I think he’d be interested in some of the photographs you took this afternoon.”

  A few days later I found the office of the ’Ensian and introduced myself to the editor, Harold Martin. “I’m Peggy White, and I’m a photographer.”

  “Is that so?” Martin drawled and smiled mockingly. “Bring in some samples of your work. I can use some good pictures of campus buildings, if you have any.”

  I took it as a challenge. Two weeks later I was back in Martin’s office with a portfolio of prints. He spread them out on a table and studied each one. The mocking smile was gone. “I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like these before. They’re like paintings. Somehow you’ve captured the personality in each building.”

  “I’ve studied with Clarence White,” I explained.

  He glanced up at the mention of White’s name. “He taught you well. As of now, you’re a staff photographer.”

  From then on I was out taking pictures whenever I could spare time from my studies and my busy social life. I’d always wanted to be popular, and now, suddenly, I was. I seemed to be making up for lost time.

  One of my admirers was Joe Vlack, also a photographer for the ’Ensian. Joe was twenty-two, tall and thin with unruly hair, rumpled clothes, and a long, narrow face that made him look older. “I have an idea for some pictures,” he’d say, and we would go off on another photographic adventure.

  Joe suggested photographing the clock tower in the Engineering Shops Building. “The best view is from the men’s toilet on the fourth floor,” Joe said. “You can get a great angle from there, but I don’t know if—”

  “I’m game,” I sa
id.

  We waited until classes were over and climbed to the fourth floor. Joe made sure the coast was clear, and we shut ourselves into the toilet and latched the door. I balanced on the seat and rested my camera on the window ledge above it. I was setting up the shot when someone knocked. Joe called out, “Sorry—occupied! Come back later!”

  The building grew quiet. I worked until Joe remembered that the janitor always locked up the building as soon as the clock struck six. “Just one more shot,” I said, and then I grabbed my camera and we fled.

  Some of Joe’s ideas were frightening. “There’s a magnificent view from the roof of Engineering Shops,” he said. “I know how to get us out there, if you’re not afraid.”

  “Afraid?” I responded scornfully. “Let’s do it.”

  “Wear trousers and shoes with rubber soles. Gloves would be a good idea. Fasten your camera to your belt. You’ll need to have both hands free.”

  The next evening, dressed like a mountaineer, I signed out of the dormitory “to study in the library” and returned to the engineering building. Joe had persuaded the janitor to leave a side door unlocked and was waiting for me. He had already climbed out through a classroom window on the fourth floor, fastened one end of a rope to a cleat, tossed the rest of the rope over the ridgeline, and anchored the other end on the opposite side. I was supposed to use the rope to haul myself up the steep slope of the roof. My stomach lurched and my hands started to sweat.

  “I’ll be right behind you,” he promised, “in case you start to slide back.”

  I was glad I’d worked on strength in my arms in gym class. If I was going to be part of scientific expeditions and take photographs in difficult places, I needed to be physically strong.

  My throat tight with fear, I scrambled up the side of the roof, planting one foot ahead of the other and hanging onto the rope. Joe was right; the view of the campus was magnificent. I got the pictures I wanted, sure that no one had ever done anything like this before—the knowledge of that was intoxicating.

  A few nights later, sitting across from me at the Royal Cafe, Joe stirred a third spoonful of sugar into his coffee and laid out another idea: descending into the tunnels that ran beneath the streets of Ann Arbor.

  “Let’s go,” I said, and we left as soon as he’d gulped the rest of his coffee.

  He lifted off a heavy manhole cover and plunged into the darkness, calling up to me, “Hand me your camera, Peg. And watch your step on the ladder. It’s pretty slippery.”

  I crawled down one rung at a time, clinging to the rung above me. It was dank and fetid and I was not eager to stay long, but I was able to photograph some valves and pipes. When we saw the prints, Joe pronounced the photographs first rate.

  Whenever some new machine was assembled in his class in the Engineering Shops, Joe called me. “You’ll love this thing,” he’d say, and I’d race over and we’d study it together. Joe had a knack for thinking of the most interesting angles for me to photograph.

  Still, I fretted that my photographs weren’t turning out as well as I wanted. I had Clarence White’s pictures as the standard I aimed for, and I tried to use his methods, like stretching one of my precious silk stockings over the lens to soften the edges of the image. But the composition was not elegant enough, my use of natural light never achieved the subtle effect I wanted. I knew I had a long way to go to become as accomplished as Mr. White.

  Joe disagreed. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Peggy. Your pictures are really works of art. You’re going to be famous—I’m positive of that. In fact, I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.”

  Sometimes I was too tired to meet him, but he refused to take no for an answer. “This is for your future, Peg,” he’d argue. And I’d give in on the chance that the new piece of machinery he insisted I photograph was worth the exhaustion the next day.

  Joe Vlack was the only one I knew who believed in me as much as I believed in myself. Maybe even more.

  Toward the end of the semester, Dr. Ruthven called me to his office. I was nervous about this interview. Maybe he’d heard about my picture-taking and thought I wasn’t concentrating enough on my coursework.

  The professor’s desk was piled high with stacks of papers, publications, and reference books. Framed certificates and award plaques hung haphazardly on the wall. It had been snowing heavily, and his galoshes sat in a spreading puddle of water. Dr. Ruthven leaned back in a swivel chair, lit a pipe, and puffed on it. The scent of cherry-flavored tobacco filled the crowded office. I perched on the edge of my seat, nervously tucking my fingers beneath my thighs to keep my hands from shaking.

  Clarence White’s dreamy photographs influenced Margaret’s early work.

  “Miss White, you are enrolled as a student of zoology, and you’re doing well in my classes. Now I’d like you to tell me, if you will, what your plans might be for the future.”

  “I’m studying to be a herpetologist,” I replied, knowing that’s what I was expected to say.

  “And may I ask what has led you to that particular field of study?”

  I explained that ever since childhood I’d had an interest in living creatures of all kinds. I described my collection of caterpillars and my observations of the moment a butterfly emerged. I told him about encountering the hognose snake with my father, marveling at the snake’s behavior, and bringing the snake home. I talked about Oscar and the other snakes I kept in my room.

  The professor listened, prodding me along occasionally, gesturing with the stem of his pipe. “I understand that you have other interests as well. I’ve heard many favorable comments about your photographs.”

  Maybe this was the time to speak honestly about my passion for photography. So I described my classes with Clarence White, but I omitted any mention of my escapades with Joe Vlack, which probably violated all sorts of university policies.

  Dr. Ruthven knocked the ash from his pipe and refilled it, tamped the tobacco, struck a match, and puffed while I anxiously waited. “Tell me what you wish to accomplish in the world,” he said.

  “herps,” but I no longer saw them as my main focus. I enjoyed writing, and I knew I was good at it—my papers were always graded A-plus—but I believed my life was heading in a new and challenging direction.

  Looking the distinguished scientist boldly in the eye, I admitted, “I want to become a photographer.”

  He blew a perfect smoke ring. “I assume you mean that you wish to concentrate on scientific subjects,” he said. “And not, I trust, to snap pictures of babies for their parents to display on the mantelpiece.” His tone made it clear that was not an acceptable choice.

  “I like to take pictures and I like to write, too. I hope to become a news photographer and reporter.” Then I added, “I intend to work hard to be a very good one.”

  “Well put, Miss White!” Dr. Ruthven exclaimed. “Now let me think about how I may be able to help you along in this interesting trajectory you envision. We’ll talk again.”

  I sailed out of Dr. Ruthven’s smoky office and headed straight for the ’Ensian, in search of Joe Vlack. Joe grinned when I told him about my conversation with the professor. “You’re on your way, Peg. There’ll be no stopping you.”

  10

  Successes—1922

  THE ’ENSIAN ACCEPTED A DOZEN OF MY PHOTOGRAPHS. Harold Martin was particularly struck by a nighttime picture of a building, lights glowing in every window. “I’m not sure how you did that,” the editor said admiringly. There were photographs of a building’s harsh lines muffled in snow, a classical column shown in its geometric simplicity, the dome of the observatory cloaked in shadow. Harold wanted them all. Each would be published as a full page, in a special section.

  Suddenly everything seemed to be going my way, but I still had not been kissed. Philip Cole, the president of the photography club, was alone with me in the darkroom, working on prints for the ’Ensian, and I’d just taken a set of prints from the fixative when Philip clasped my wrist. “Peg,” he sa
id, “you’re the most interesting, the most beautiful, the most desirable girl I’ve ever met.” He hesitated and then stammered, “And I want very much to kiss you.”

  He bent closer. It was about to happen! But I hesitated. I liked Philip, but I wasn’t crazy about him. And I wanted to be crazy about the first boy who kissed me. Otherwise, it wouldn’t mean anything. That was my theory.

  “No, Philip,” I said, “I think that would be a mistake. I’m afraid it would spoil our professional relationship.”

  He sighed. “I don’t agree, but I do understand.” We went back to making prints.

  There were others. Before everyone left for the Christmas holidays, Fritz Snyder, a senior and the president of the men’s glee club, invited me to a party at the Sigma Chi fraternity house. I wore another of my new dresses, this one “Parrish blue,” for Maxfield Parrish, an artist noted for his brilliant colors. I had also taken the bold step of cutting my hair and wore it in a smooth bob. I felt extremely stylish, and I knew I was making a much better impression than I had with snakes wrapped around my arms.

  At the height of the party Fritz rounded up three of his fraternity brothers and announced, “This is dedicated to our own sweetheart, Peg White.” The quartet serenaded me with their famous song, “The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi.” I was the center of attention, and I loved it.

  Joe Vlack was one of my favorite escorts. He kept his rivals at bay by proposing intriguing photographic projects, but to me he was just a good pal, sure to be there when I needed him, always cheering me on.

  A few days after the Sigma Chi party I made the long trip home for the holidays. Mother was disturbed by the changes she saw in me, beginning with my shockingly bobbed hair. “I’m afraid you’re becoming superficial, Margaret,” she said sternly.

  Ruth was still wearing drab and dreary dresses like those we’d worn in high school, the same thick cotton stockings and clumsy shoes. She looked like an old maid, and I wondered if she would end up as one. She seemed sad—had she always? I loved Ruth, but I felt I had less in common with my sister than I did with the girls who lived on my hall. Roger had grown an inch or two since last summer, and somehow I felt more comfortable with my little brother than I did with Mother or Ruth.