Recently I have begun to try and streamline my life by getting rid of things that I no longer need or want. In that light I have been going through my bookshelves. I am not getting rid of my grandfather’s memoirs or my beloved volumes of Jane Austen or the tattered volumes that belonged to my father with illustrations by N.C. Wyeth, father of Andrew Wyeth. But in my searching I found deep on a shelf a book given to me as a young bride married to a brand new Marine second lieutenant titled The Marine Corps Wife.
This book turned out to be a journey through a world that no longer exists. It was written by a contemporary of my grandmother and you must bear in mind that I am myself 80. I inhabited this world for a short time before the exigencies of the Vietnam War swept it all away. Yes, I had calling cards and made calls and return of calls. Meaning that after going to the commanding officer’s house with other members of the unit, that same commanding officer came to my first home with its base furniture and brick and board bookcases. He and his wife were stiffly entertained with a drink and horsd’euves and there was great relief when it was over.
This book instructed me on how to give a tea, to remember to stand when an older person entered the room, how to decorate a house encouraging me to “study the masculine point of view” and how to supply my desk with all the materials I would need for those previously instructed invitations and notes.
In short, I was told that the Marine wife must be a “financier, a culinary artist, an interior decorator, an expert in marketing and buying, the perfect hostess, a devoted wife and mother, a social success, and a woman who can make pay stretch to the nth degree without ever breaking.”
Did I really read this stuff? At this remove I cannot remember if I did or if I took it to heart. All I remember of those early years was the war that hung over every Marine wife in which there was no room for much more than holding on and surviving. However, what does come across in the book is the spirit of the Marine Corps in which, while we may not have traded calling cards, meant that you could call on a fellow Marine wife and she would help. For we were all in the same boat. A boat of which society at large had no inkling. The book is beyond dated, but the spirit is there. Should I keep it as a Victorian memory or pass in along to book oblivion? I have not decided. It turns out streamlining is harder than I thought.