Oh, Beautiful: An American Family in the 20th Century by John Paul Godges Page B

recollected.
    Ida was aware that a few incredibly lucky women became airline stewardesses, teachers, nuns, or secretaries. She dreamed of becoming an airline stewardess, but she didn’t think she had the looks. She didn’t want to become a teacher, because teachers lost their jobs once they married. As a matter of fact, so did airline stewardesses. The prevailing wisdom of the day held that wives should work for their husbands and families at home rather than gallivanting around the world or educating other people’s children. Ida considered becoming a nun, but she assumed that only rich girls became nuns, because only rich girls went to Catholic schools. Of the limited career options she saw available to her, Ida ruled out everything but secretarial work—Mafalda’s line of work. “That kind of work could also get me to California to live with Mafalda.”
    For the first time in her life, Ida had a plan of her own.
    “ Then I really went to town!” she crowed. She gave up her violin lessons to prepare for her move to California. She taught herself how to type during the summer before the tenth grade. When school began, she typed 50 words per minute on an old clunky typewriter and once hit 70 words per minute, her fingers flying like bumblebees across the keyboard. She was the star, known not only for being fast but also for having the best rhythm. It was as if typing had become her way of playing the piano.
     
    Nothing prepared Ida for the outside world like her best friend through high school, Valletta Huckins. Ida and Valletta took the same typing, shorthand, and other “commercial” courses. They did their homework together in Ida’s bedroom, where Valletta’s eyes turned to tears as Serafino boiled his grapes and raisins in the basement—a sort of salty baptism into the innermost family circle.
    Serafino nicknamed Valletta “ Zappett’ ,” or “Little Hoe,” because of her sharply protruding two front teeth. She stood five feet tall, weighed 90 pounds, and “never ate enough,” according to Ida. Valletta came from a family that was poor in comparison with the Di Gregorios. They kept trying to feed her.
    In the seven years since moving from Lehigh Row into Mason City proper, Ida had never been invited into anyone else’s home. But Valletta’s family told Ida that she could drop by “any ol’ time.” They even invited Ida to spend the night. It was the first time in her 16 years of life that she spent a night away from home.
    Ida and Valletta dreamed about goodlooking boys. Ida still thought of herself as the ugly duckling, and Valletta was still the “little hoe” with her buckteeth, but the girls egged each other on nonetheless. They hung out at carefully selected street corners, hoping to run into carefully selected boys. “They didn’t know us from Adam,” Ida laughed. But she had never been so bold.
    Nor had Ida ever felt so affirmed by any other friend in town. “Valletta accepted me for what I am,” said Ida. “It didn’t mean anything to her that I was Italian or anything.” Valletta was White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, but she didn’t care that Ida was Olive Roman Catholic or had a mostly illiterate immigrant father who made wine in the basement.
    Nor had Ida ever met a family like the Huckins family. The parents were divorced, which was odd enough. But they were still friends, which was even odder. One of Valletta’s sisters became pregnant out of wedlock, but the parents didn’t crucify her for it. They sent her away to give birth to the baby, and then they brought her and the baby home and helped to raise him. The family made just one judgment about the baby boy: “He’s cute!” Valletta’s brother found himself attracted to men instead of women. Nobody talked about it much, but nobody pestered him about it, either. The family made just one judgment about the brother: “He’s so goodlookin’!” Ida had never experienced anything like this. She disapproved of divorce,