My Mom The Flapper in the 1920's

My Mother, the Flapper:

I was born at the end of the 19-teens. My life can be conveniently divided in the decades of the twentieth century (and hopefully extended to the twenty-first). The first ten years of my life were with my mother, father, and a sister (I didn’t like, but that’s another tale) under very pleasant conditions. Prohibition of liquor was in force, so my father, the bootlegger, became very wealthy. We had a Pierce Arrow (with chauffeur), an apartment house (with elevator) named after me (with my cousin, Irving), a pony (with a wicker basket cart) kept at a house on the seashore of New Jersey, made trips to Atlantic City (including one despite my bout of mumps), and many outings to the circus when it was in New York City.

My mother was tall and cut a very nice figure. In keeping with her times, she was a flapper of the twenties. Her skirts were cut on the bias and her right knee, clad in the finest silk stocking, was visible. She walked with an I-don=t-care attitude. She had bobbed hair and at times wore the felt cloche hats that were the style. She had her group of cronies, all cut from the same cloth, basically formed as a bridge playing group of well-to-do young ladies. I remember seeing a particular photograph of them all lined up in order of height (my mom the tallest), each hiking up their skirts to show some thigh as well as kneecap. And all bearing a naughty (Clara Bow) smile that said, “Here we are, take us, love us, or leave us”

Bridge day was special for our house when it was her turn to be hostess. Mom always ordered individual bridge score cards with colored tassels on them and a souvenir pencil stub. Bridge tables were arranged in the living room and the dining room table was moved aside for one more bridge table. Her best bridge day recipe for the ladies was her own made creamed mushrooms that she poured into very buttery pastry shells. She ordered the pastry shells from a local bakery on Jackson Avenue, about four blocks from our house. I know, because I was lassoed away from some street ball game to go fetch them. Why the maid didn’t have to do that, I don’t know. I suppose, in my own rotten way I was what my (older, and thank God the only) sister said I was, AA spoiled brat.

There was always champagne and strawberries and brown sugar for the bridge parties. We had a black Steinway Baby Grand in the living room. My sister took classical music lessons, but I was given jazz piano lessons. I had absolutely no ear for music of any kind, but this didn’t stop Mom from enlisting me to jazz up the party. I know I felt embarrassed, but the ladies would lean over the piano with champagne glasses and ebony cigarette holders and sing along. They either didn’t know anything about jazz or they were very polite. But they smiled a lot.

There was a black, fringed, silk throw over the piano. It had an embroidered red rose with green leaves in the center. I mention this, because one of my fondest memories of my mother is the time I got out of bed in the middle of the night because the music and laughter coming from the living room was very loud. I went down the hallway and opened the glass door and peeked in. A lot of guests were there for a Saturday night party (that usually lasted until dawn). There was my mom in her silk chemise with the silk piano throw around her shoulders and she was doing the Charleston Hop. She was laughing with her bright red lipstick smile and all the guys and ladies were cheering her on. It’s nice to have that memory, because by the end of the nineteen-twenties she was dead, age 36.

My mother had gotten a form of heart disease (rheumatic heart) that is easily cured with today’s medicines such as a sulpha drug. She was told, after my sister was born, not to try to have any more children because of her condition. Then, sometime before Armistice Day in 1918, I was conceived. She laughed off all those nutty doctors. This was her body and she wanted me a lot. I, for one, am glad.