How mom saved the world...

The true storyof how it happened in 1934

How Mom saved the world…

While Dad stayed home inventing Television.

 

 

Let me begin by making one thing perfectly clear…This is not a work of fiction.  This is not based on a true story.  This story is not a fictional account of actual events.  The names have not been changed to protect the innocent or the guilty either for that matter.  Occasionally, the name of a steward on a ship or a clerk at the hospital 60 or so years ago has been forgotten.  In that case an appropriate name will be used for the benefit of the story.  If an event’s exact date in 1934 was not recorded historically, but it is relevant to the story, an appropriate date will be used. But you can be assured that except for this little bit of fill in information, everything that I am about to tell you actually happened exactly as I am putting it down on paper.  Well, all most, I’m actually entering it into a computer and later the printer will put it down on the paper…

 

My mother’s usual occupation was listed on my birth certificate as Lieutenant, US Army.  I’ll bet that you had been thinking, from the title, that mom had been some kind of environmentalist out marching to save the planet on Earth Day while my dad stayed home tinkering with soldering irons and transistors in the garage.  Wrong on both counts!  You see, dad’s ‘Usual’ occupation was listed on my birth certificate as Housewife!  Oh, you say out of the other side of your mouth, it’s the other kind of iron he was using.  But how does that coincide with his inventing television some of you are thinking as you glance back up at the title.  She was in World War II and he was home taking care of the kids making a television out of a flat Iron?  Wrong again!  “Did they have Earth Day back then?”  You’re asking yourself.  (This is the point where all of you that think this is going nowhere can politely get up and leave.  I’ll give you a couple of minutes……….)

 

Well if you are still here, hopefully you are not one of the ones who was expecting to be spoon-fed a bunch of dribble while you sat back with your brain idling, and let me begin by making one thing perfectly clear…. Oops, I already said that part, so let’s get on to Dad...

As a young man, Dad was an aspiring writer and in 1938, one of his plays, Lady Charletons’ Pearls, was read on the Rudy Vallee radio show in New York.  He was paid $50.00 for the rights and David Niven was one of the actors reading a part.  After dad died in 1996 a letter from an advertising agency written in 1940 was discovered in a box of his papers in the attic and I quote from that letter…

 

“Dear Mr. Hayden:

 

…We are now doing some experimental work in television…and would like very much to re-adapt it (your play) and use it there.  …all the actors, writers, singers, musicians, etc., who are helping with the experiment are doing so without charge with the idea of learning something about the medium…

 

…There are less than 60 receiving sets in the area served by television station and if your story plays as well as we would expect it to, it would be logical to use it later, with a fee attached, when television becomes commercial…”

 

The letter is signed by a Virginia Spragle, 

J. Walter Thompson Company, 420 Lexington Ave, New York.

 

So, you see, my dad was instrumental in the invention of television, writing one of the earliest stories for the still experimental medium, and we all know what happened to television since.

 

But, let’s get back to the story of how Mom saved the world back while dad was writing that very play…

 

As I was saying, my birth certificate says that my mother was in the Army.  What really happened was that a clerk in the bureau of the census had typed the occupations in the wrong spaces for my parents.  I wasn’t there, being only a few days old, but I am sure that ‘Betty’ (Here’s one of those inserted names I told you about.) the clerk heard about the blunder from my mother.  For you and me, hey this would have been a simple mistake.  But for Mom, who suffered from what we used to call Manic Depression and today call Bi-Polar disorder, it would certainly have been the trigger for her to ‘go off’ as we kids would say when we were older.  I am just as sure that Betty’s great grandchildren to this day hear of the time she switched occupations on a birth certificate and the crazy mother who came in to pick it up.

 

“So how did mom save the world if she suffered a serious mental illness,” you just asked, didn’t you?  That was ten years earlier when she was just thirteen.  Mom was on a ship sailing to the orient when she met a woman about twenty years older than herself…

 

“Hello miss, isn’t this a pleasant trip we are having?”  The woman, whose name was Jean (this was her real name), properly said to my mother who by the way was named Helen.  The woman reminded Mom of her father’s secretary who was also with them on the ship and was about the same age as Jean.  There was another side of Mom, when she wasn’t ‘On a thing’ as we also called her mood swings.  She was the most captivating person you would ever meet in your entire life.  I have often tried to describe it in this way, almost like in the movie South Pacific with Some Enchanting Evening playing in the background.  When Mom walked into the room, everyone stopped and noticed.  She was pretty, but not exceptionally beautiful, but she controlled every conversation and situation for her entire life.

 

“Yes, it is beautiful looking at the water.”  Mom said to Jean.  And the two immediately became friends.  My Grandfather’s Secretary, who was named Ruth, was introduced to Jean by Mom and the three of them began enjoying each other’s company.  Mom was comfortable with two friends fifteen to twenty years her elder because she was really a 30 year old in a thirteen year old body.  “Shall we go and play Shuffleboard?”  Ruth suggested and the three stayed together for the rest of the day.

 

My Grandfather had an interesting relationship with his wife who was also named Helen.  She was a stern German with hair that ran down to the back of her legs, but she always wore it up in a bun.  Anyhow, it must have been ok with her for My Grandfather to travel all over the world with his young blonde secretary.  My Grandfather, Mr. John S. McDaniel, after whom I am named, was employed by the Hemp Institute in the Philippines and was traveling on the ship with his daughter Helen and secretary, Ruth.  I never found out when or where they had met, but my grandfather or ‘Pappy’ as we grandkids called him was already a friend of Gen. Douglas MacArthur who was also on the ship, and the most important person onboard as well.

 

The Philippines were critical for the United States in the 1930’s and of course there was no nylon in those days, so the hemp, which later on, people in my generation found a different use for, was critical for the rope that the Navy needed.  MacArthur was being assigned as Military advisor to the Philippine government for whom my Grandfather was employed.  Of course, by this time in the trip the two VIP’s had become well acquainted.  Not wanting you to start to think that this is some kind of Forest Gump story, I will remind you that all of the facts in this story are true.

 

As long as I knew Pappy as a kid, he smoked a pipe.  He had all kinds of pipe cleaning equipment and pipe reamers, and tobacco cans and we used to play with the pipe cleaners at his home in Stamford, CT making little pipe cleaner animals out of them.  But he wasn’t from Connecticut, he was from Kentucky or West Virginia and down there everybody smoked Corn Cob Pipes.  And so did Pappy, in addition to all the other types of pipes in his collection.  So by now, you probably guessed it.  “He’s going to tell me that Mr. McDaniel gave Gen. Douglas McArthur his first Corn Cob Pipe.”  You did guess it, and that’s exactly what happened.

 

“Why don’t you give the General one of your Corn Cob pipes daddy?” Is pretty much what my mother said to him one day as they walked along the deck.  Mom was a favorite of Pappy and pretty much got him to do whatever she wanted.  I think he called her ‘Piggy’ at that time.  “Ok Piggy, I think I will knowing he could ‘Expense’ the cost of a couple of cobs, and that evening the General was presented a boxed set of two Corn Cob pipes at the VIP dinner table.  Of course in our politically correct world, MacArthur might have had to refuse the gift and how intimidating would he have looked in all those famous pictures with a lucky strike sticking out of the corner of his mouth rather than a Corn Cob pipe held firmly in his teeth?

 

That very same night in the ballroom of the ship, my mother was asked to play the piano and as she prepared to play, Ruth and Jean, who had been invited to sit at their table probably by my mother, were engaging in conversation.  “What do you think about the situation in Austria, General,” Jean said to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower who was also on the ship and sitting directly across from her next to General MacArthur on his left.

 

“I think it’s high time we get over there and do something about that little rat with that silly looking moustache…”[1]  MacArthur quickly said, looking up from his soup, spoon in hand, and thinking that Jean had been speaking to him.  He hadn’t paid any attention to the petite young woman until that very moment as he finished the sentence and realized that she had been talking to Eisenhower.  “Oh, I’m sorry miss… er.”  He had wanted to say her name, but couldn’t recall it from the quick introduction earlier when he had paid no attention to her.”

 

“It’s Jean” she said, “Jean Faircloth.  It’s a pleasure to meet you again General.”

 

Well, you’ve probably figured it out by now.  There are some people who say that there is no such thing as love at first sight and there are just as many who say that there is no other way to fall in love.  I’m in the second group having met my own wife in the same fashion more than thirty years ago.  And MacArthur was in the same group, as was my grandfather I am sure.

 

Now it was time for the clincher.  My mother who passed away several years ago now, was obsessive-compulsive something or other and whatever she did, she had to be the best at it.  All of her life everything she did she excelled.  Building houses fixing cars, and playing the piano, which by the way was a grand piano that he father had given her to learn on.  Well all our lives growing up our family would hear mom playing pretty much the same thing… It was George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue from the musical An American in Paris.  At twelve years old, she had committed the entire solo piano piece to memory, all thirty one pages and she was still able to play the entire piece until the day she died.

 

So that was it, as thirteen year old Helen McDaniel, the one who I would call mom all my life walked out and took a seat at the piano as Douglas MacArthur and Jean Faircloth who would become lifelong partners in marriage were beginning to fall in love.  Mom, with the same flair as a Leonard Bernstein, touched a couple of notes and the entire audience was mesmerized for the just under ten minutes that the piece took.  And the two people, that mom had brought together that very day, fell completely in love during that short ten minutes.

 

So, my mom didn’t save the world you’re saying.  No, she wasn’t in the army as it says on my birth certificate and she never went to a save the whales rally or ran for Congress.  But what might have happened to the world if mom hadn’t have met Jean by the railing and introduced a supporting player to one of our finest Generals.   What if mom at age 13 hadn’t said to her father?  “Why don’t you give him one of your corn cob pipes daddy?”   What if she hit some sour notes on the piano that night, and what just by chance would have happened to the world if General Douglas MacArthur had never said, with a corn cob pipe stuck firmly in his teeth… “I shall return.”

 

© Donn McDaniel Hayden, 2007

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[1] Hitler had been  named chancellor of Germany in January of 1933

Reviews

[Chloe..Across the Unive..]

I enjoyed how you wrote this as if talking with us face to face.
Gave it a more personal feeling . It is so so interesting.
What and odd mix up on the birth certificate!
Rather amusing .. Your dad did sort of invent television and your mom did in her way save the world...What interesting parents you have and had... I would imagine your writing skills are part of your dad's genes. Did he see anything you wrote? I very much enjoyed this!
In fact, loved it.. so interesting !

Chloe

[Rory CJ Frankson]

************************************************************ Edit Area *******************************************
~ [ [1] Hitler had been named chancellor of Germany in January of 1933 ]... sir! This dealy bob pushed, just killed the review I was kindly submitting. I had point out the other one in Para.12 line 2 ~ [ moustache…”[1] MacArthur ] ~ when depressed......
( which I was when I lost my review ) it took me to my add page in edit. Might want to check that out. Also the spelling of ( ^mustache^ ) Ha ha ha, anyway one last edit tidbit, third to las Para. line 5 [ he father ] to read ( ^her^ Father )... dats dat
"ha ha ha... moustache"!
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************************************************************************************* All Stars ********************

You know, I thought this was a great story and really entertaining. I love your humor and some of the slick hidden comedic phrasing. As well the historic connections of family involved in key historical moments. I can relate to the deal with your Mom. Mine was the same way with people. In her day the get mixed up with dating John F Kennedy stationed in Bellingham Washington before going overseas. She got into The Civil Liberties movement on account of song writing and introduced to Martin Luther King by Sidney Portier. All that, and being Canadian.

But, this about your story...

I thought it was very well written and an ease to read and all very clearly stated. Well aside from the above box and problems stated with experiments dragging me off to where ever. Yes entertaining, good shoe old boy, and yes. Dance on...
I do recognize you as a writer!

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Romon in Review 05/30/10. 4:40am Quesnel BC CANADA Heart & Soul, Peace

[Gandré]

You wrote this in an amusing form.. I thought this has literary value; you wrote it with ease, interesting details. This made me feel well. How you speak about your parents, so funny, the thing with the birth certificate. This writing shows your talent quite clearly.