Carol

I met Carol in the winter of 1942, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.  We had rooms in Jordan Hall, the freshman dorm, but became friends the following summer when we had rooms in Stockwell Hall and regularly had dinner together.  It was very starchy food which made us fatter than we wanted to be.  We took walks in the Arboretum, across from our dorm.  Miles of tree-lined paths but very few people. We talked about our boyfriends and the stories of Thomas Mann.  I was reading The Magic Mountain at that time, since I was in love with a boy who was recovering from TB. After graduation we didn’t see each other for a while, but always kept in touch.  

When I was a student at the University of Chicago, in the spring of 1944, I received a letter from Carol saying that she had gotten married.  She and her husband planned to stop off in Chicago, en-route to somewhere.  She suggested that we have dinner together.  She enclosed a picture of herself in a big raccoon-skin coat, standing beside a tall, very handsome, dark-haired young man.  I knew, from the previous letter, she was in love with him and had become his “confidante.”  We had supper together at a small restaurant near the campus.  Carl was a pre-med student on the GI Bill of Rights, at the University of Wisconsin, where Carol was studying.  I thought he was very nice. 

Later, when I was married to Christian Bay, a Norwegian political scientist, and we were living at Brattle Inn across from Harvard Yard in Cambridge, MA, I received a letter from Carol.  She told me that Carl had been murdered.  He and her sister had been hitchhiking from the railroad station back to campus, since no buses were running so late at night.  Two young men, just out of a reformatory had picked them up, intending to rape Carol’s sister.  They shot Carl in the head, but she escaped.  Carol was left with a beautiful, fatherless, 11 month-old daughter, Carla. 

When I received Carol’s letter I immediately invited her to come to Cambridge, to visit us.  It was on Easter Sunday when she came.  I thought she would be devastated, but she looked slimmer and more beautiful than ever, in an off-white suit with lacy blouse, a big white picture hat, and high heels.  She told the story in detail, in a cool, matter-of-fact way.  I was amazed at her behavior.  She knew what she had to do, and she did it.  She got a Ph.D from The University of Wisconsin and eventually became a counselor at the University of California Counseling Center in Berkeley.  She bought a small house in Richmond Annex for herself and Carla.  She was a beacon of light for everyone who knew her.  At that time I happened to be in Berkeley with my Norwegian husband, so our old friendship was resumed.  

In the summer of 1956, after spending a very enjoyable year in Palo Alto with my husband Christian, who was a participant in a Rockefeller-endowed “think tank,” I found myself all alone in the world.  He returned to Norway without me.  I had hoped he would stay in California with me.  

I tried living alone in a small, rented apartment in Palo Alto, where I knew no one, since all of the “think tank” people had returned to their homes.  I had a complete breakdown. I drove to the apartment of a friend in SF.  He called up Carol and said, “Nancy is here.  May I send her to you?”  Carol said, “Yes.”  

She allowed me to rent her basement room, which had a big canopy bed and was nice and warm in the winter, being next to the furnace.  I had enough money for that from dividends,  which my mother had bought for me, but no more.  She treated me as one of the family, feeding me, taking me on Sunday drives with her, Carla and her boyfriend Pete, who later became her husband.  We once drove to Carmel and had a picnic on 17-mile drive.  She and her sister, Jan used to say laughingly that they would take me to the Jewish Temple with them, though they were not church-goers.  (I didn’t yet know that I had Jewish blood on my Mother’s and Father’s sides!)

Carla was 10 years old at that time, a very pretty, lively little person.  She spoke so fast that her Mother and Aunt Jan couldn’t understand her.  But, I did.  We became good friends and still are. 

I don’t know how long I lived with Carol in that little green house in Richmond Annex.  Perhaps six months?  One day when we were sitting on the rug in her little living room she said to me, “You have to get a job.”  I said, “I’m an heiress!”  She said, “Your dividends aren’t enough to live on.  You have to get a job.”  I had tried in vain to get a suitable job at Stanford University, doing social science research as I had done at the Institute in Norway.  I didn’t feel like trying any more.  But luckily, two Norwegian friends of mine found out that a Departmental Secretary would be needed in the Scandinavian Dept.  When I entered the Chairman’s office, Dr. Janzen asked me, “Would you like to work for me?”  I said, “Yes!”  I worked there for three years.  Though I earned very little, I was happy to help my Chairman and friend, Dr. Janzen. 

I continued to see Carol regularly though she now lived in El Cerrito with a magnificent Bay view. She had married Pete, a young lawyer working in a SF firm, whom she had been dating.   She had three more children.  

I had married André and was pregnant with Eva. When André was being difficult, she used to say, “You don’t need him!  You’re a force of nature!”  We took several trips to Carmel which were lots of fun.  On the first trip, she pulled off the highway to nurse her daughter, Julie.  After my return home,  my water broke.  Dr. Hoag induced labor the next day and our daughter Eva was born. 

In the spring of 1982, when I needed a place of my own in SF, but didn’t know how to find one, Carol said, “I’ll come with you.”   We visited real estate offices for two days, during which she answered all of the questions I didn’t understand.  I finally found a nice summer sublet on Buchanon Street, and eventually a condominium on top of Russian Hill. 

One day she told me had cancer.  She had a mastectomy, but it came back.  The last time I saw her was in a hospital in Oakland.  I heard her calling cheerfully, “I’m over here!”  She had made photo albums for all four of her children, but hadn’t been able to finish the one for Julie.  She asked me to finish it for her, which I did.  She died in 1985.

I feel it is a rare privilege to have had such a steadfast and devoted friend.  I have kept in touch with all of her children, attending birthday parties, etc.  She taught me how to live courageously and how to die courageously.