A Chip Off the Old Bloch:
An Interview with Sally Francy
By Leigh Blackmore
An Interview with Sally Francy
By Leigh Blackmore
The following is the full interview (copyright 2016) conducted with Sally Francy, for which a truncated version appeared in Cemetery Dance magazine #77 in 2019).
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Q. You were born Sally Ann Bloch via caesarean on July 28 (the birthday of your paternal grandmother, Stella Loeb Bloch), 1943. This was in Milwaukee, wasn’t it?
A. Yes. Q. Do you have any memories of your parents’ apartment at 1018 East Brady St? A. No, I have no memories of the Brady Street apartment. I was an infant when we lived there. |
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Q. Your mother Marion had tuberculosis, eventually diagnosed as tuberculosis of the bone, didn’t she? Do you think her condition made it difficult for her to look after you? Your Dad writes in his ‘unauthorised autobiography’ ONCE AROUND THE BLOCH that was she was a very devoted mother.
A. My mother had tuberculosis of the bone when she was nine years old, as I recall her telling me, and she was not able to go to school until she was 12 because of it. She did not have surgery to remove the diseased section of bone (the head of the femur bone) until an aunt and uncle financed her surgery when she was 19 years old. From then on, she wore a built-up shoe which allowed her to walk, albeit, with a limp. She was ill much of the time when I was very young, and my father spent a great deal of time helping take care of me when my mother was unable to, and he took care of us both when my mother was having health issues.
Q. What other memories do you have of your mother?
A. I remember playing hide-and-seek with my parents when I was very young, with my mother suggesting places where I might hide and my father searching for me. My mother came up with some clever hiding places for me. Once she sent me across the hall to the neighbors’ apartment and I snuck back into our apartment after Dad had searched for me everywhere in our own apartment. Another time, my mother cleaned out a lower kitchen cabinet and put all the pots and pans onto the counter top above it and I crawled into the empty cupboard. It took Dad quite a while to finally look for me there. My mother thought that was quite a triumph. I guess I did too; I still giggle at the memory of it.
My mother would have been wonderful at volunteer work, working with children or adults, or a variety of animals. Because she spent so much of her early life in pain, she always seemed to know intuitively exactly what to do if someone was not feeling well. She was empathetic and good with me when I had Rheumatic Fever as a young child, and she actually diagnosed my condition before the doctor finally conceded that I did, in fact, have Rheumatic Fever. She would have been a good nurse.
My father was good with children and animals too; he was so kind and gentle and soft-spoken that animals were comforted by his demeanor, and he never talked down to children in the condescending or patronizing way adults so often are guilty of doing. He answered questions simply and honestly. I’ve always wondered how a child could ever respect or trust parents who, for example, told their children that chocolate milk came from brown cows and white milk came from white cows, as one friend’s parents did! If children can’t trust their parents to give them truthful information, who can they trust? What does it do to a child’s faith in humanity if parents lie to them about something as simple as where white and chocolate milk comes from? It may seem entertaining to an adult, but a child who has no frame of reference is relying upon them to answer truthfully and even if they did understand the concept of a “joke”, they still want to know the honest answer. Without that, they aren’t in on the joke, they become the joke. It’s unkind.
I knew I could always get my questions answered truthfully by my father, whatever they might be, and if my mother was uncomfortable answering questions for me or didn’t know the answers, she would say, “Ask your father.” When I didn’t understand the meaning of a word, my Dad would often tell me to look the word up in the dictionary. He would tell me how to spell it and ask me to tell him what it meant, so I learned how to use the dictionary, learned to spell it and learned the various meanings and origins of the word, and as a bonus, I felt that I was also enlightening my Dad, which was really quite clever of him. I still enjoy perusing the dictionary and prefer the actual dictionary to today’s “virtual” dictionaries, which are far less comprehensive than the material dictionaries of “days of yore.” Call me old-fashioned.
My mother was an excellent cook and loved to garden and she had a “green thumb,” which sadly, I can’t say I inherited. She could grow just about anything. When we lived in Wisconsin, she had a large indoor collection of beautiful African violets and begonias. At one point we also had a big outdoor garden and a sizable raspberry patch.
She was practical by nature and had good common sense. She had a very close relationship with her family. She was one of six children, four girls and two boys. After we moved to be closer to her family in Weyauwega, Wisconsin, we lived a block away from my mother’s parents, so I saw them daily and I lived with my grandparents for a year while my mother was in a Tuberculosis Sanatorium when I was about twelve or thirteen. One of my mother’s sisters lived across the street from my grandparents, so I saw that aunt, uncle and cousins almost daily, too.
When we lived in Milwaukee, my father’s father lived in Chicago, as did Dad’s sister and her husband and children, but we did not own a car, so I don’t remember visiting them more than a time or two while we lived in Milwaukee. Dad’s mother died when I was two years old and I have no memory of her, but felt like I knew her because my parents told me so much about her. I know she got to see me before her death, but sadly, I don’t remember those times myself.
Dad’s father was in a wheelchair with an undiagnosed medical condition which deprived him of the use of his legs for the little time I knew him before he died, and Dad’s sister developed Multiple Sclerosis at a fairly young age and she, too, spent many years in a wheelchair.
Q. By the time you were a toddler, walking and talking (this was around the end of World War II), your Dad was broadcasting the radio show he wrote, Stay Tuned for Terror, which sadly appears to have no surviving recordings. You would have been very young, but do you happen to remember hearing episodes of it? Did your mother tune into it on the radio?
A. Though I was very young, I remember us sitting around the radio listening to Stay Tuned for Terror. I don’t recall whether I understood that Dad had written the stories at that time; most likely not, but I knew we enjoyed listening to it on the radio in our Maryland Avenue apartment and there was an air of excitement about it which I picked up on from my parents’ deportment.
Q. When the war ended, your family moved to the more desirable East Side environs of Maryland Avenue, again in a second-floor flat. What do you recall about your infant years there?
A. The apartment we rented was one of four apartments in the home, two of which were occupied by the daughters (and their husbands and children) of the elderly owners of the home. The third and fourth apartments were owned by non-relatives of the owner, one being my family. We rented the fourth apartment, on the second floor.
The children of the families who lived there were close to me in age, and we played together as children and I am still in touch with two of them to this day. The third child (a cousin of the other two) was a boy who was my first case of “puppy love” (unrequited, I might add) when I was around 7 years old. I occasionally hear of his whereabouts from his two cousins. The last I heard, he’s married and is a physicist living in New Mexico.
The four of us had great fun playing together when we were children, and we all walked the several blocks to Maryland Avenue School together, where I went to school until we moved to from Milwaukee when I was in the second grade. I don’t remember very much about that school, but on a trip back to Wisconsin while visiting from California as an adult, I drove past the school and was shocked at how small it was – not at all like my larger-than-life recollection. Likewise, the apartment we lived in on Maryland Avenue was much smaller than I remembered it to be. I was also able to visit our old Maryland Avenue apartment because the father of the physicist (who was a prominent Milwaukee artist – Schomer Lichtner) still lived there, and he used our former apartment to store some of his art work, primarily in the room that had been my bedroom when we lived in the house. When we lived there, Schomer and his wife, Ruth Grotenrath, lived in a downstairs apartment.
It was a strange feeling to go back in time, but over all I would agree with Thomas Wolfe, that “You can’t go home again”. It’s just never quite as one remembered it to be, but the desire to try to recapture those moments in time is strong, nevertheless.
Q. Marion kept a cage of budgerigars in the kitchen when she went into business herself for a while, and kept a cockatiel as a pet? Do you remember it? Did you have any other pets in the family home while growing up?
A. I remember that at one point we had many cages of parakeets lining one wall in our kitchen. I recall one night when we sat down to dinner and Dad held his knife upright in one hand and his fork in the other, fists firmly planted on either side of his plate, and said something like, “Which one is for dinner?” I thought it was hysterically funny, but my mother somehow missed the hilarity of the moment, or perhaps she was feigning indignation. It makes me chuckle to think of it, even now.
And yes, I remember our Cockatiel. I had the honor of choosing its name. I named it “Topper” after Hop-along Cassidy’s horse, which made perfect sense to me as a young child, never mind that Topper was a horse and I was naming a bird. Hop-along Cassidy (William Boyd) was a popular radio and television cowboy star of the time, and I was quite enamoured of all the popular cowboys’ horses. Topper was a lovely bird, very tame and friendly. When he whistled, he sounded just like a person. I don’t remember what became of him. We must have given him away when we moved to Weyauwega, because he did not make the move with us.
When I was 5 or 6 years old, Dad took me to see Gene Autry in person at a Convention Center appearance in Milwaukee and I got to “meet” Autry’s horse, Champion. I was thrilled! Poor Mr. Autry was probably insulted that I was not the least bit impressed with him, but I dearly loved his horse.
After we moved to California when I was 17, I also got to meet Roy Rogers’ horse, Trigger, along with several of Trigger’s “doubles”. Dad’s friend from high school, Milt Gelman, knew someone from one of the film studios and took me to see the horses. That was more exciting to me than meeting Roy Rogers would have been! My first horse was a palomino, like Trigger, though that was coincidental, but I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for palomino-colored horses.
My very first pet was a little turtle, who wandered off our second-story apartment’s porch in a spectacular nose-dive and was never seen again. My next pet was a very small white rat that I named Susie. Susie got loose in our house in Weyauwega and was not seen again either, at least not by me. I do hope she found happiness in the great outdoors, as I suspect she did not meet her demise inside the house or we would surely have detected her presence or “essence” one way or another. (The phrase, “I smell a rat,” comes to mind.)
For a few years we had a very small, somewhat annoying yappy little Toy Manchester terrier dog. She was very protective of my mother and only tolerated me and my Dad, begrudgingly. After we moved to California we acquired a cat, which I believe came with the house we were renting, and not long after that, we got a lovely little black Manx cat, named Zita. And not to be forgotten, was the acquisition of a lovely, large parrot (I think it was a Scarlet Macaw) for a brief period of time, who quickly treated us to its surprising vocabulary of vulgar words in its loud, shrieking voice. It was returned to the pet shop where it was purchased soon after demonstrating its vocal prowess and impressive array of offensive words.
Q. You had rheumatic fever as a child. Do you remember that?
A. I remember Rheumatic Fever well. I missed many months of school and was very sick. I still remember vividly, one of the hallucinations I had during one high fever episode. I remember the swollen joints and aching muscles and the heart arrhythmia. It was extremely debilitating. I suffered temporary unexplained paralysis of my legs, which came on suddenly and disappeared equally suddenly a day or so later. That was terrifying. I wondered if I would ever feel well again.
I was not allowed to take physical education classes in school for fear that it would over-tax my heart. I had frightening palpitations through my teenage years, and when I tried to learn to play tennis, I had to discontinue my efforts because of the heart irregularity.
Interestingly, (or perhaps coincidentally) when I had Lyme Disease in the late 1980s, the symptoms were identical to those I had experienced with Rheumatic Fever as a child. The Rheumatologist who treated me (who at that time, was the preeminent Lyme Disease specialist on the West Coast – Paul E. Lavoie) felt there was a connection between the two conditions, because he had many patients who, like me, had a history of Rheumatic Fever as a child and who hailed from the Midwest, where Lyme Disease (and Rheumatic Fever) are (or were) endemic.
When I was in my twenties, I began vigorous horseback riding after I got my own horse, frequently riding 8-12 hours in a day, both in competitive events and just trail riding for pleasure. Today, I am still more active than many of my peers, both with riding and walking, perhaps because my earlier conditioning necessary for the rigors of “distance riding” made me quite fit and increased my stamina. Fortunately, Rheumatic Fever did not prevent me from having an active life indefinitely. I can thank my horses for that!
Q. Your Dad wrote that Marion made you many character dolls dressed in national costumes. Did you have any favourites?
A. The “character dolls” my Dad remembered were not dolls that my mother made for me, though she did make me several dolls. He was thinking of dolls that the wife of his close friend, Harold Gauer, (Alice) bought and gave me for birthday and Christmas gifts. My mother made me a very cute little monkey, sock-doll when I was very young, and a life-sized doll that was a real work of art, when I was about 5 or 6 years old. The doll (which I named Penny) was as tall as I was, and I wish my mother had not given it away when I got older and lost interest dolls. I would love to have it now! My mother was artistic and creative in many areas. She was an excellent seamstress and she could sew and knit and crochet. I didn’t get that gene, either, darn it! (No pun intended.)
Q. You grew up loving horses and riding. What first led to this passion? What was the first horse you rode? The first horse you owned?
A. Before I ever saw my first live horse or pony, when I was perhaps 4 or 5 years old, I used to dream that I owned a pony that I took with me on the bus in Milwaukee. I had no frame of reference for country living or how or where horses lived, so it seemed perfectly rational to me that a pony could accompany me on a bus, inasmuch as we took a bus or a taxi cab if we went anywhere.
Little girls and ponies seem to have some sort of intrinsic spiritual connection. As nearly as I can determine, my passion for horses may have originated when the little girl who lived in the apartment across the hall from us in the Maryland Avenue four-family house used to go to her grandparents’ farm and come home and tell me tales of riding her grandparents’ draft horses. I admired Kathy, and anything she did, I wanted to do too, though I was never invited to join her to see or ride her grandparents’ horses. Ironically, she out-grew her interest in horses quickly as she got older, but by then I knew wanted one, even before I ever saw a live horse face-to-face. I was thoroughly in love with the idea of loving horses. Though I credit the initial inspiration to Kathy, I think the seed was perhaps planted long before that, with that first little mechanical coin-operated horse my father put me on in front of a department store, which was a popular attraction for little children for quite a few years back when I was probably two or three years old. For a nickel, the horses “galloped” as you “rode” them. It was very exciting, and a “cowgirl” was born!
When I was old enough to ride a live pony, Dad took me to the local County Fair and let me ride real ponies at the pony ride concession. He would chat with the people operating the rides and I got extra long rides while they were talking, or when there were no other children lined up waiting to ride the ponies. I was in Horse (pony) Heaven.
The first full-sized horse I rode was a horse belonging to my cousin, Jane, when we lived in Weyauwega and I was around 10 years old. “Babe” was a kind, tolerant old mare. I did not get a horse of my own until I was 19 years old, when my mother’s, sister’s, sister-and-brother-in-law gave me one of their horses they were having difficulty selling. It was very a high-strung mare, who for some reason behaved well for me. I owned that horse for 10 years, and I’ve had horses ever since. She was a palomino Quarter Horse/Morgan mare named Sheila.
A. My mother had tuberculosis of the bone when she was nine years old, as I recall her telling me, and she was not able to go to school until she was 12 because of it. She did not have surgery to remove the diseased section of bone (the head of the femur bone) until an aunt and uncle financed her surgery when she was 19 years old. From then on, she wore a built-up shoe which allowed her to walk, albeit, with a limp. She was ill much of the time when I was very young, and my father spent a great deal of time helping take care of me when my mother was unable to, and he took care of us both when my mother was having health issues.
Q. What other memories do you have of your mother?
A. I remember playing hide-and-seek with my parents when I was very young, with my mother suggesting places where I might hide and my father searching for me. My mother came up with some clever hiding places for me. Once she sent me across the hall to the neighbors’ apartment and I snuck back into our apartment after Dad had searched for me everywhere in our own apartment. Another time, my mother cleaned out a lower kitchen cabinet and put all the pots and pans onto the counter top above it and I crawled into the empty cupboard. It took Dad quite a while to finally look for me there. My mother thought that was quite a triumph. I guess I did too; I still giggle at the memory of it.
My mother would have been wonderful at volunteer work, working with children or adults, or a variety of animals. Because she spent so much of her early life in pain, she always seemed to know intuitively exactly what to do if someone was not feeling well. She was empathetic and good with me when I had Rheumatic Fever as a young child, and she actually diagnosed my condition before the doctor finally conceded that I did, in fact, have Rheumatic Fever. She would have been a good nurse.
My father was good with children and animals too; he was so kind and gentle and soft-spoken that animals were comforted by his demeanor, and he never talked down to children in the condescending or patronizing way adults so often are guilty of doing. He answered questions simply and honestly. I’ve always wondered how a child could ever respect or trust parents who, for example, told their children that chocolate milk came from brown cows and white milk came from white cows, as one friend’s parents did! If children can’t trust their parents to give them truthful information, who can they trust? What does it do to a child’s faith in humanity if parents lie to them about something as simple as where white and chocolate milk comes from? It may seem entertaining to an adult, but a child who has no frame of reference is relying upon them to answer truthfully and even if they did understand the concept of a “joke”, they still want to know the honest answer. Without that, they aren’t in on the joke, they become the joke. It’s unkind.
I knew I could always get my questions answered truthfully by my father, whatever they might be, and if my mother was uncomfortable answering questions for me or didn’t know the answers, she would say, “Ask your father.” When I didn’t understand the meaning of a word, my Dad would often tell me to look the word up in the dictionary. He would tell me how to spell it and ask me to tell him what it meant, so I learned how to use the dictionary, learned to spell it and learned the various meanings and origins of the word, and as a bonus, I felt that I was also enlightening my Dad, which was really quite clever of him. I still enjoy perusing the dictionary and prefer the actual dictionary to today’s “virtual” dictionaries, which are far less comprehensive than the material dictionaries of “days of yore.” Call me old-fashioned.
My mother was an excellent cook and loved to garden and she had a “green thumb,” which sadly, I can’t say I inherited. She could grow just about anything. When we lived in Wisconsin, she had a large indoor collection of beautiful African violets and begonias. At one point we also had a big outdoor garden and a sizable raspberry patch.
She was practical by nature and had good common sense. She had a very close relationship with her family. She was one of six children, four girls and two boys. After we moved to be closer to her family in Weyauwega, Wisconsin, we lived a block away from my mother’s parents, so I saw them daily and I lived with my grandparents for a year while my mother was in a Tuberculosis Sanatorium when I was about twelve or thirteen. One of my mother’s sisters lived across the street from my grandparents, so I saw that aunt, uncle and cousins almost daily, too.
When we lived in Milwaukee, my father’s father lived in Chicago, as did Dad’s sister and her husband and children, but we did not own a car, so I don’t remember visiting them more than a time or two while we lived in Milwaukee. Dad’s mother died when I was two years old and I have no memory of her, but felt like I knew her because my parents told me so much about her. I know she got to see me before her death, but sadly, I don’t remember those times myself.
Dad’s father was in a wheelchair with an undiagnosed medical condition which deprived him of the use of his legs for the little time I knew him before he died, and Dad’s sister developed Multiple Sclerosis at a fairly young age and she, too, spent many years in a wheelchair.
Q. By the time you were a toddler, walking and talking (this was around the end of World War II), your Dad was broadcasting the radio show he wrote, Stay Tuned for Terror, which sadly appears to have no surviving recordings. You would have been very young, but do you happen to remember hearing episodes of it? Did your mother tune into it on the radio?
A. Though I was very young, I remember us sitting around the radio listening to Stay Tuned for Terror. I don’t recall whether I understood that Dad had written the stories at that time; most likely not, but I knew we enjoyed listening to it on the radio in our Maryland Avenue apartment and there was an air of excitement about it which I picked up on from my parents’ deportment.
Q. When the war ended, your family moved to the more desirable East Side environs of Maryland Avenue, again in a second-floor flat. What do you recall about your infant years there?
A. The apartment we rented was one of four apartments in the home, two of which were occupied by the daughters (and their husbands and children) of the elderly owners of the home. The third and fourth apartments were owned by non-relatives of the owner, one being my family. We rented the fourth apartment, on the second floor.
The children of the families who lived there were close to me in age, and we played together as children and I am still in touch with two of them to this day. The third child (a cousin of the other two) was a boy who was my first case of “puppy love” (unrequited, I might add) when I was around 7 years old. I occasionally hear of his whereabouts from his two cousins. The last I heard, he’s married and is a physicist living in New Mexico.
The four of us had great fun playing together when we were children, and we all walked the several blocks to Maryland Avenue School together, where I went to school until we moved to from Milwaukee when I was in the second grade. I don’t remember very much about that school, but on a trip back to Wisconsin while visiting from California as an adult, I drove past the school and was shocked at how small it was – not at all like my larger-than-life recollection. Likewise, the apartment we lived in on Maryland Avenue was much smaller than I remembered it to be. I was also able to visit our old Maryland Avenue apartment because the father of the physicist (who was a prominent Milwaukee artist – Schomer Lichtner) still lived there, and he used our former apartment to store some of his art work, primarily in the room that had been my bedroom when we lived in the house. When we lived there, Schomer and his wife, Ruth Grotenrath, lived in a downstairs apartment.
It was a strange feeling to go back in time, but over all I would agree with Thomas Wolfe, that “You can’t go home again”. It’s just never quite as one remembered it to be, but the desire to try to recapture those moments in time is strong, nevertheless.
Q. Marion kept a cage of budgerigars in the kitchen when she went into business herself for a while, and kept a cockatiel as a pet? Do you remember it? Did you have any other pets in the family home while growing up?
A. I remember that at one point we had many cages of parakeets lining one wall in our kitchen. I recall one night when we sat down to dinner and Dad held his knife upright in one hand and his fork in the other, fists firmly planted on either side of his plate, and said something like, “Which one is for dinner?” I thought it was hysterically funny, but my mother somehow missed the hilarity of the moment, or perhaps she was feigning indignation. It makes me chuckle to think of it, even now.
And yes, I remember our Cockatiel. I had the honor of choosing its name. I named it “Topper” after Hop-along Cassidy’s horse, which made perfect sense to me as a young child, never mind that Topper was a horse and I was naming a bird. Hop-along Cassidy (William Boyd) was a popular radio and television cowboy star of the time, and I was quite enamoured of all the popular cowboys’ horses. Topper was a lovely bird, very tame and friendly. When he whistled, he sounded just like a person. I don’t remember what became of him. We must have given him away when we moved to Weyauwega, because he did not make the move with us.
When I was 5 or 6 years old, Dad took me to see Gene Autry in person at a Convention Center appearance in Milwaukee and I got to “meet” Autry’s horse, Champion. I was thrilled! Poor Mr. Autry was probably insulted that I was not the least bit impressed with him, but I dearly loved his horse.
After we moved to California when I was 17, I also got to meet Roy Rogers’ horse, Trigger, along with several of Trigger’s “doubles”. Dad’s friend from high school, Milt Gelman, knew someone from one of the film studios and took me to see the horses. That was more exciting to me than meeting Roy Rogers would have been! My first horse was a palomino, like Trigger, though that was coincidental, but I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for palomino-colored horses.
My very first pet was a little turtle, who wandered off our second-story apartment’s porch in a spectacular nose-dive and was never seen again. My next pet was a very small white rat that I named Susie. Susie got loose in our house in Weyauwega and was not seen again either, at least not by me. I do hope she found happiness in the great outdoors, as I suspect she did not meet her demise inside the house or we would surely have detected her presence or “essence” one way or another. (The phrase, “I smell a rat,” comes to mind.)
For a few years we had a very small, somewhat annoying yappy little Toy Manchester terrier dog. She was very protective of my mother and only tolerated me and my Dad, begrudgingly. After we moved to California we acquired a cat, which I believe came with the house we were renting, and not long after that, we got a lovely little black Manx cat, named Zita. And not to be forgotten, was the acquisition of a lovely, large parrot (I think it was a Scarlet Macaw) for a brief period of time, who quickly treated us to its surprising vocabulary of vulgar words in its loud, shrieking voice. It was returned to the pet shop where it was purchased soon after demonstrating its vocal prowess and impressive array of offensive words.
Q. You had rheumatic fever as a child. Do you remember that?
A. I remember Rheumatic Fever well. I missed many months of school and was very sick. I still remember vividly, one of the hallucinations I had during one high fever episode. I remember the swollen joints and aching muscles and the heart arrhythmia. It was extremely debilitating. I suffered temporary unexplained paralysis of my legs, which came on suddenly and disappeared equally suddenly a day or so later. That was terrifying. I wondered if I would ever feel well again.
I was not allowed to take physical education classes in school for fear that it would over-tax my heart. I had frightening palpitations through my teenage years, and when I tried to learn to play tennis, I had to discontinue my efforts because of the heart irregularity.
Interestingly, (or perhaps coincidentally) when I had Lyme Disease in the late 1980s, the symptoms were identical to those I had experienced with Rheumatic Fever as a child. The Rheumatologist who treated me (who at that time, was the preeminent Lyme Disease specialist on the West Coast – Paul E. Lavoie) felt there was a connection between the two conditions, because he had many patients who, like me, had a history of Rheumatic Fever as a child and who hailed from the Midwest, where Lyme Disease (and Rheumatic Fever) are (or were) endemic.
When I was in my twenties, I began vigorous horseback riding after I got my own horse, frequently riding 8-12 hours in a day, both in competitive events and just trail riding for pleasure. Today, I am still more active than many of my peers, both with riding and walking, perhaps because my earlier conditioning necessary for the rigors of “distance riding” made me quite fit and increased my stamina. Fortunately, Rheumatic Fever did not prevent me from having an active life indefinitely. I can thank my horses for that!
Q. Your Dad wrote that Marion made you many character dolls dressed in national costumes. Did you have any favourites?
A. The “character dolls” my Dad remembered were not dolls that my mother made for me, though she did make me several dolls. He was thinking of dolls that the wife of his close friend, Harold Gauer, (Alice) bought and gave me for birthday and Christmas gifts. My mother made me a very cute little monkey, sock-doll when I was very young, and a life-sized doll that was a real work of art, when I was about 5 or 6 years old. The doll (which I named Penny) was as tall as I was, and I wish my mother had not given it away when I got older and lost interest dolls. I would love to have it now! My mother was artistic and creative in many areas. She was an excellent seamstress and she could sew and knit and crochet. I didn’t get that gene, either, darn it! (No pun intended.)
Q. You grew up loving horses and riding. What first led to this passion? What was the first horse you rode? The first horse you owned?
A. Before I ever saw my first live horse or pony, when I was perhaps 4 or 5 years old, I used to dream that I owned a pony that I took with me on the bus in Milwaukee. I had no frame of reference for country living or how or where horses lived, so it seemed perfectly rational to me that a pony could accompany me on a bus, inasmuch as we took a bus or a taxi cab if we went anywhere.
Little girls and ponies seem to have some sort of intrinsic spiritual connection. As nearly as I can determine, my passion for horses may have originated when the little girl who lived in the apartment across the hall from us in the Maryland Avenue four-family house used to go to her grandparents’ farm and come home and tell me tales of riding her grandparents’ draft horses. I admired Kathy, and anything she did, I wanted to do too, though I was never invited to join her to see or ride her grandparents’ horses. Ironically, she out-grew her interest in horses quickly as she got older, but by then I knew wanted one, even before I ever saw a live horse face-to-face. I was thoroughly in love with the idea of loving horses. Though I credit the initial inspiration to Kathy, I think the seed was perhaps planted long before that, with that first little mechanical coin-operated horse my father put me on in front of a department store, which was a popular attraction for little children for quite a few years back when I was probably two or three years old. For a nickel, the horses “galloped” as you “rode” them. It was very exciting, and a “cowgirl” was born!
When I was old enough to ride a live pony, Dad took me to the local County Fair and let me ride real ponies at the pony ride concession. He would chat with the people operating the rides and I got extra long rides while they were talking, or when there were no other children lined up waiting to ride the ponies. I was in Horse (pony) Heaven.
The first full-sized horse I rode was a horse belonging to my cousin, Jane, when we lived in Weyauwega and I was around 10 years old. “Babe” was a kind, tolerant old mare. I did not get a horse of my own until I was 19 years old, when my mother’s, sister’s, sister-and-brother-in-law gave me one of their horses they were having difficulty selling. It was very a high-strung mare, who for some reason behaved well for me. I owned that horse for 10 years, and I’ve had horses ever since. She was a palomino Quarter Horse/Morgan mare named Sheila.
I can’t imagine my life without a horse in it. I’ve had nine horses of my own over the years, a variety of breeds: Quarter horses, a Morgan, Arabians, and several cross-breeds -- Peruvian Paso/American Saddlebred, Arab/Standardbred, a Morgan/Quarter cross, and about twenty-five “interim” horses while I was between horses of my own. People generously let me ride their horses while I was shopping for my next horse because I rode every day, which kept their animals in good condition, and it kept me happy, so it was a win-win situation. I learned a great deal from the different breeds and temperaments and I progressed from pleasure and trail riding to competitive-trail and endurance riding. I regret that I never learned to jump when I was young enough to safely risk it, and it’s a bit too late for that now, since I’m definitely more fragile and “breakable” at this stage of my life. The only jumping I did when I was younger was of my horse’s choosing, sailing over small logs, ditches, or creeks that were narrow enough that the horse could leap across, and I was lucky enough to have stayed on board.
Recently, during the last 7 or 8 years, I’ve begun taking dressage lessons, as I have always been awed by the art of dressage. I wish I had begun that discipline decades ago, but it is still enormously rewarding and challenging. It’s a “bucket list” thing for me. Starting this late in life, I will never be more than a lower-level rider, but it’s rewarding and gratifying, all the same, and I thoroughly enjoy it. That’s one equestrian sport that both riders and horses can do (especially at the lower levels) well into their geriatric years; it’s rather like Pilates or exercises which strengthen the muscles and help the body to maintain flexibility and prolong more strenuous levels of activity for as long as possible before the Geriatric Gods getcha.
Q. In 1953, your family moved to a house in the rural community of Weyauwega. You were then ten years of age. What are your early memories of your schools and schooling?
A. Weyauwega was a town of about 1,200 people when we lived there and it isn’t much larger now – only at a 1,900 head-count as of 2016. When I was growing up, there were two schools in town, a German Lutheran school (kindergarten through 8th grade), and the public school, which was kindergarten through 12th grade. The majority of the population of Weyauwega at that time was German Lutheran, though there were two other churches in town – the Presbyterian church and a tiny, quaint Catholic church.
I began attending the public school when we moved to Weyauwega when I was in the 4th grade and went there until we moved to California when I was about to enter the 12th grade. From the 4th through 8th grades, there were 6 students in total who went through those grades together – four boys and another girl and me. My then-rather-elderly teacher for the 8th grade had also been my mother’s teacher when she was in school!
In high school, the kids from the Lutheran school and all the kids from the surrounding farming communities were bussed into town, bringing each grade to an approximate total of 60-70 kids in each of the 9th through 12th grades.
You can only imagine the culture-shock when we moved to California for my last year of high school, into a 12th-grade graduating class of 450 students in that class alone! That was more kids than there were in the entire kindergarten-through-12th- grade in the Weyauwega School! (I believe the combined school population of the 10th through 12th grades of Ulysses S. Grant High School which I graduated from in California, was about 1,500 students.) It was quite an adjustment for me, for sure, since there were more kids in that school than there were in the entire town I lived in, in Wisconsin! Heck, that’s nearly as large as the current population of the entire town of Weyauwega itself, today.
I attended Los Angeles Valley College, a two-year Junior College, where I got my A.A. degree in English Literature, and I had intended to go on from there to a 4-year college, but “life got in the way”. (More on that later.)
Q. When did you become aware that your Dad was a writer, novelist and author of screenplays? Did he show you his published works?
A. It wasn’t until we moved to Weyauwega that Dad got a typewriter and had his own office in our house. When we lived in Milwaukee, I was oblivious to what Dad did for a living, though I remember going to his office at Gus Marx’s advertising agency a time or two when I was very young, on the weekends.
After we moved from Milwaukee and he was working from home, I understood that he wrote stories and books. I don’t remember my mother reading Dad’s stories, although she probably did, and when I reached my pre-teen and teenage years I began to read quite a few things Dad had written.
Q. Your Dad’s work was widely published in Weird Tales magazine. Can you remember copies of the magazine being in the family home? Did your Dad keep a collection of this and other magazines where his stories had appeared?
A. Yes, my dad kept a collection of the magazines and books in which his stories appeared. He had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in our house in Weyauwega and also after we moved to California.
Q. RB’s first book, the short story collection The Opener of the Way, was published in 1945 by Arkham House. Did he show it you, and did you ever read it?
A. Yes, I read The Opener Of The Way, and have several copies of it, one of which is autographed to me. It goes without saying, I didn’t read it in 1945, however, as I was only two years old at that time.
Q. Were your school friends aware that your Dad was a writer? What did they think of this occupation?
A. My friends were aware that my Dad was a writer, but they didn’t consider that an “occupation.” However, he was very popular with my friends, one in particular, whose relationship with her parents left a lot to be desired, and Dad was very kind to her and she was envious of the great relationship I had with my father, as she had a terrible relationship with hers. Dad always joked with her and made her laugh, which was so unlike her own parents, and I think it made a difference in her life as she was growing up. We are still close friends to this day and she has fond recollections of my Dad.
Q. Did he spend long hours at the typewriter in addition to his full-time work at the Gustav Marx Advertising Agency?
A. No. After we moved away from Milwaukee, Dad’s full-time work was done from home, so from then on he did spend much of his time at work in his office.
Q. What memories do you have of being taken out on weekends by your parents as you were growing up?
A. When we lived on the second story of the 4-family apartment house in Milwaukee, my mother was on crutches for a long time, which kept her house-bound. (Perhaps it wasn’t as long as it felt like to my young psyche, but it was certainly months, if not a year or more.) Even when she was no longer using crutches, it was difficult for her to negotiate the two flights of stairs. Since we did not own a car, she would have to walk to the corner to catch a bus, which she did on some occasions when I was ill as a child, but back then doctors often made house calls, so she did not have to take me out to see a doctor often, as he came to the house. She was not able to do much “recreationally” on ‘weekends,’ however. (Dad and I both got our first cars at the same time, after we moved to California, when I was 18 years old. He was 44.)
My father took me to the zoo and museums and to parks when I was little and occasionally friends and relatives would drive us places. I remember going to one circus that my mother was able to attend when I was quite small. My father took me to other circuses when my mother was not able to join us, and we always went to see the elephants before the performance. He loved elephants and also the “big cats,” especially tigers. I liked the elephants and tigers too, but my favorite animals were the horses, of course.
When we lived in Weyauwega, we occasionally went to “the beach,” which was the Waupaca River, and we had friends who had row-boats or motor boats and we used to row on the lakes occasionally in their boats. We had some friends from Milwaukee who owned a cottage along the lake for a while, and they used to come pick us up so my mother could go too.
My parents had a large group of friends when we still lived in Milwaukee, who used to get together often to play cards, and they also used to have costume parties which I have years’ worth of photos of. I don’t remember if they were Halloween parties or New Year’s Eve parties, or just an excuse to dress up in amusing costumes. They had a lot of fun, and between Dad’s friend, Harold Gauer, and his boss (and friend), Gus Marx, both of whom were very competent photographers, these events were documented with plentiful photos over the years. They enjoyed staging silly or ridiculous scenes and photographing them as if they were “real” events, such as Dad in a dentist’s chair, for example. Harold Gauer kept a “history” of their times from high school days, which he later published in three separate volumes, complete with most of the photos he had taken over the years. They are quite entertaining. Dad and Harold and their buddies were a bunch of characters and were all very funny when they got together. Those costume events were “grown up” parties, so the children only shared in the fun vicariously, by looking at the pictures of their shenanigans after-the-fact.
We played a lot of Scrabble or card games (or board games when I was very young) at our house, or at the homes of relatives. My mother’s family got together frequently, which was always fun for me, although my dad didn’t have much in common with most of my mother’s relatives, who were hunters and fishermen and sports fans. He was out of his element among them, so I’m sure it was difficult for him during the years we lived in Weyauwega, though he liked them and they liked him; they just lacked mutual common interests. His sense of humor was appreciated by them, as it was by everyone who knew him, so that helped to bridge the divide.
Q. Did you miss not having siblings? Who were your friends as a teenager? Did you have hobbies other than horse-riding (music or movies for instance?)
A. My mother loved young children, particularly babies, and small animals. She would have liked to have had more children, but because pregnancy can cause Tuberculosis to recur and her doctor did not feel she could carry a child to term (which is why I was born via Caesarean section), the doctor tied her fallopian tubes after I was born. My parents considered adopting another child when I was around five years old. They asked me what I thought of the idea and I didn’t much like it. I would have liked a little brother, but they had a little sister in mind. In hindsight, I wish I had siblings, and it was sad for my mother especially, that they deprived themselves of a larger family, although it’s very possible (and highly likely) that adoption agencies took into account my mother’s handicap with misgivings, and the decision was simply out of their hands.
I had several very close friends when I was growing up, since six of us went through the lower grades in school together, and in high school as a teenager a bunch of us hung out together. We were a wholesome group and had a lot of fun roller skating, ice skating, bowling, going to the beach, and to school functions. I really didn’t miss not having siblings at the time. I spent a lot of time at the homes of two friends, and doing things with their families. I am still friends with three of my closest friends from high school, one of whom I went to school with from the 4th grade and the other two, from high school, and they are all like sisters to me.
I was an avid reader and liked to go to movies, but my biggest passion was horses. I desperately wanted a horse from an early age, but we could not afford one when I was growing up, nor did we live where it would be possible to keep a horse at home. In the meantime, I rode friends’ horses and took care of two horses occasionally in exchange for opportunities to ride them when possible. At one point while we still lived in Weyauwega, my parents were going to lease a horse for me, but another friend’s parents beat them to it, though I was able to ride that horse occasionally while my friend was leasing it, before I finally got my first horse at the age of nineteen.
I liked to draw (mostly horses) and I enjoyed writing. At one point I thought perhaps I would like to write and illustrate pre-teens’ horse books. My Dad, while no doubt pleased that I was thinking of writing as a profession, stressed to me the discipline necessary and pointed out the difficulty of dealing with both the rejections that go along with the vocation, and the competitive aspect of the teenage book market, in particular. He was always good at “reality checks” and putting things into perspective. I think he realized that I likely would not have been up for the rejection inherent in the profession and I probably did not have sufficient drive (or talent!), and he knew first-hand how passionately one must want to be a writer to persevere to succeed. Even if one has all those necessary qualities, the element of luck comes into play to an extent, as well. Obviously, I didn’t pursue it, so it’s a moot point.
I grew up listening mostly to classical music, though Dad’s and my preferences differed a bit; I liked some classical music from earlier periods (Handel and Haydn, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn, and Renaissance music and Gregorian chants) and he was fond of some composers that I did not care for as much, (Stravinsky, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Shostakovich) but we did like several composers in common: Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Vivaldi, Rachmaninoff, Liszt, and Rimsky-Korsakov, and more recent composers of our time, such as Gershwin. Neither of us liked opera, especially sopranos.
Of course, I also went through the rock ‘n roll and folk era in the 50s and 60s and drove my parents crazy listening to that! Dad used to mock some of the songs that were popular at the time, pointing out that some of the lyrics intended to be rhyming were not actually rhymes, and making fun of some of the silly lyrics (Oo-wha, Oo-wha, or Sha-boom, Sha-boom, come readily to mind) and I have to admit that I did see his point, even then. Besides, he always made me laugh with his mock renditions.
Q. In 1959, when you were aged 16, your Dad moved to Hollywood to write for television and movies. Do you recall seeing any of the shows he wrote for, such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents? What was your experience of his protracted absences?
A. For the year + that Dad was in Hollywood writing for television and movies, my mother and I missed him terribly. My mother had her family close by and kept busy. I did too, but we wrote letters and he called often. We watched Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and after we moved out to California, we watched everything we could that he wrote for television: Thriller, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, I Spy, Star Trek, Night Gallery, Tales from the Dark Side, and some of his movies: Psycho, The Couch, Strait-Jacket. I don’t remember seeing The House That That Dripped Blood or Torture Garden or Asylum, for whatever reason.
Recently, during the last 7 or 8 years, I’ve begun taking dressage lessons, as I have always been awed by the art of dressage. I wish I had begun that discipline decades ago, but it is still enormously rewarding and challenging. It’s a “bucket list” thing for me. Starting this late in life, I will never be more than a lower-level rider, but it’s rewarding and gratifying, all the same, and I thoroughly enjoy it. That’s one equestrian sport that both riders and horses can do (especially at the lower levels) well into their geriatric years; it’s rather like Pilates or exercises which strengthen the muscles and help the body to maintain flexibility and prolong more strenuous levels of activity for as long as possible before the Geriatric Gods getcha.
Q. In 1953, your family moved to a house in the rural community of Weyauwega. You were then ten years of age. What are your early memories of your schools and schooling?
A. Weyauwega was a town of about 1,200 people when we lived there and it isn’t much larger now – only at a 1,900 head-count as of 2016. When I was growing up, there were two schools in town, a German Lutheran school (kindergarten through 8th grade), and the public school, which was kindergarten through 12th grade. The majority of the population of Weyauwega at that time was German Lutheran, though there were two other churches in town – the Presbyterian church and a tiny, quaint Catholic church.
I began attending the public school when we moved to Weyauwega when I was in the 4th grade and went there until we moved to California when I was about to enter the 12th grade. From the 4th through 8th grades, there were 6 students in total who went through those grades together – four boys and another girl and me. My then-rather-elderly teacher for the 8th grade had also been my mother’s teacher when she was in school!
In high school, the kids from the Lutheran school and all the kids from the surrounding farming communities were bussed into town, bringing each grade to an approximate total of 60-70 kids in each of the 9th through 12th grades.
You can only imagine the culture-shock when we moved to California for my last year of high school, into a 12th-grade graduating class of 450 students in that class alone! That was more kids than there were in the entire kindergarten-through-12th- grade in the Weyauwega School! (I believe the combined school population of the 10th through 12th grades of Ulysses S. Grant High School which I graduated from in California, was about 1,500 students.) It was quite an adjustment for me, for sure, since there were more kids in that school than there were in the entire town I lived in, in Wisconsin! Heck, that’s nearly as large as the current population of the entire town of Weyauwega itself, today.
I attended Los Angeles Valley College, a two-year Junior College, where I got my A.A. degree in English Literature, and I had intended to go on from there to a 4-year college, but “life got in the way”. (More on that later.)
Q. When did you become aware that your Dad was a writer, novelist and author of screenplays? Did he show you his published works?
A. It wasn’t until we moved to Weyauwega that Dad got a typewriter and had his own office in our house. When we lived in Milwaukee, I was oblivious to what Dad did for a living, though I remember going to his office at Gus Marx’s advertising agency a time or two when I was very young, on the weekends.
After we moved from Milwaukee and he was working from home, I understood that he wrote stories and books. I don’t remember my mother reading Dad’s stories, although she probably did, and when I reached my pre-teen and teenage years I began to read quite a few things Dad had written.
Q. Your Dad’s work was widely published in Weird Tales magazine. Can you remember copies of the magazine being in the family home? Did your Dad keep a collection of this and other magazines where his stories had appeared?
A. Yes, my dad kept a collection of the magazines and books in which his stories appeared. He had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in our house in Weyauwega and also after we moved to California.
Q. RB’s first book, the short story collection The Opener of the Way, was published in 1945 by Arkham House. Did he show it you, and did you ever read it?
A. Yes, I read The Opener Of The Way, and have several copies of it, one of which is autographed to me. It goes without saying, I didn’t read it in 1945, however, as I was only two years old at that time.
Q. Were your school friends aware that your Dad was a writer? What did they think of this occupation?
A. My friends were aware that my Dad was a writer, but they didn’t consider that an “occupation.” However, he was very popular with my friends, one in particular, whose relationship with her parents left a lot to be desired, and Dad was very kind to her and she was envious of the great relationship I had with my father, as she had a terrible relationship with hers. Dad always joked with her and made her laugh, which was so unlike her own parents, and I think it made a difference in her life as she was growing up. We are still close friends to this day and she has fond recollections of my Dad.
Q. Did he spend long hours at the typewriter in addition to his full-time work at the Gustav Marx Advertising Agency?
A. No. After we moved away from Milwaukee, Dad’s full-time work was done from home, so from then on he did spend much of his time at work in his office.
Q. What memories do you have of being taken out on weekends by your parents as you were growing up?
A. When we lived on the second story of the 4-family apartment house in Milwaukee, my mother was on crutches for a long time, which kept her house-bound. (Perhaps it wasn’t as long as it felt like to my young psyche, but it was certainly months, if not a year or more.) Even when she was no longer using crutches, it was difficult for her to negotiate the two flights of stairs. Since we did not own a car, she would have to walk to the corner to catch a bus, which she did on some occasions when I was ill as a child, but back then doctors often made house calls, so she did not have to take me out to see a doctor often, as he came to the house. She was not able to do much “recreationally” on ‘weekends,’ however. (Dad and I both got our first cars at the same time, after we moved to California, when I was 18 years old. He was 44.)
My father took me to the zoo and museums and to parks when I was little and occasionally friends and relatives would drive us places. I remember going to one circus that my mother was able to attend when I was quite small. My father took me to other circuses when my mother was not able to join us, and we always went to see the elephants before the performance. He loved elephants and also the “big cats,” especially tigers. I liked the elephants and tigers too, but my favorite animals were the horses, of course.
When we lived in Weyauwega, we occasionally went to “the beach,” which was the Waupaca River, and we had friends who had row-boats or motor boats and we used to row on the lakes occasionally in their boats. We had some friends from Milwaukee who owned a cottage along the lake for a while, and they used to come pick us up so my mother could go too.
My parents had a large group of friends when we still lived in Milwaukee, who used to get together often to play cards, and they also used to have costume parties which I have years’ worth of photos of. I don’t remember if they were Halloween parties or New Year’s Eve parties, or just an excuse to dress up in amusing costumes. They had a lot of fun, and between Dad’s friend, Harold Gauer, and his boss (and friend), Gus Marx, both of whom were very competent photographers, these events were documented with plentiful photos over the years. They enjoyed staging silly or ridiculous scenes and photographing them as if they were “real” events, such as Dad in a dentist’s chair, for example. Harold Gauer kept a “history” of their times from high school days, which he later published in three separate volumes, complete with most of the photos he had taken over the years. They are quite entertaining. Dad and Harold and their buddies were a bunch of characters and were all very funny when they got together. Those costume events were “grown up” parties, so the children only shared in the fun vicariously, by looking at the pictures of their shenanigans after-the-fact.
We played a lot of Scrabble or card games (or board games when I was very young) at our house, or at the homes of relatives. My mother’s family got together frequently, which was always fun for me, although my dad didn’t have much in common with most of my mother’s relatives, who were hunters and fishermen and sports fans. He was out of his element among them, so I’m sure it was difficult for him during the years we lived in Weyauwega, though he liked them and they liked him; they just lacked mutual common interests. His sense of humor was appreciated by them, as it was by everyone who knew him, so that helped to bridge the divide.
Q. Did you miss not having siblings? Who were your friends as a teenager? Did you have hobbies other than horse-riding (music or movies for instance?)
A. My mother loved young children, particularly babies, and small animals. She would have liked to have had more children, but because pregnancy can cause Tuberculosis to recur and her doctor did not feel she could carry a child to term (which is why I was born via Caesarean section), the doctor tied her fallopian tubes after I was born. My parents considered adopting another child when I was around five years old. They asked me what I thought of the idea and I didn’t much like it. I would have liked a little brother, but they had a little sister in mind. In hindsight, I wish I had siblings, and it was sad for my mother especially, that they deprived themselves of a larger family, although it’s very possible (and highly likely) that adoption agencies took into account my mother’s handicap with misgivings, and the decision was simply out of their hands.
I had several very close friends when I was growing up, since six of us went through the lower grades in school together, and in high school as a teenager a bunch of us hung out together. We were a wholesome group and had a lot of fun roller skating, ice skating, bowling, going to the beach, and to school functions. I really didn’t miss not having siblings at the time. I spent a lot of time at the homes of two friends, and doing things with their families. I am still friends with three of my closest friends from high school, one of whom I went to school with from the 4th grade and the other two, from high school, and they are all like sisters to me.
I was an avid reader and liked to go to movies, but my biggest passion was horses. I desperately wanted a horse from an early age, but we could not afford one when I was growing up, nor did we live where it would be possible to keep a horse at home. In the meantime, I rode friends’ horses and took care of two horses occasionally in exchange for opportunities to ride them when possible. At one point while we still lived in Weyauwega, my parents were going to lease a horse for me, but another friend’s parents beat them to it, though I was able to ride that horse occasionally while my friend was leasing it, before I finally got my first horse at the age of nineteen.
I liked to draw (mostly horses) and I enjoyed writing. At one point I thought perhaps I would like to write and illustrate pre-teens’ horse books. My Dad, while no doubt pleased that I was thinking of writing as a profession, stressed to me the discipline necessary and pointed out the difficulty of dealing with both the rejections that go along with the vocation, and the competitive aspect of the teenage book market, in particular. He was always good at “reality checks” and putting things into perspective. I think he realized that I likely would not have been up for the rejection inherent in the profession and I probably did not have sufficient drive (or talent!), and he knew first-hand how passionately one must want to be a writer to persevere to succeed. Even if one has all those necessary qualities, the element of luck comes into play to an extent, as well. Obviously, I didn’t pursue it, so it’s a moot point.
I grew up listening mostly to classical music, though Dad’s and my preferences differed a bit; I liked some classical music from earlier periods (Handel and Haydn, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn, and Renaissance music and Gregorian chants) and he was fond of some composers that I did not care for as much, (Stravinsky, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Shostakovich) but we did like several composers in common: Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Vivaldi, Rachmaninoff, Liszt, and Rimsky-Korsakov, and more recent composers of our time, such as Gershwin. Neither of us liked opera, especially sopranos.
Of course, I also went through the rock ‘n roll and folk era in the 50s and 60s and drove my parents crazy listening to that! Dad used to mock some of the songs that were popular at the time, pointing out that some of the lyrics intended to be rhyming were not actually rhymes, and making fun of some of the silly lyrics (Oo-wha, Oo-wha, or Sha-boom, Sha-boom, come readily to mind) and I have to admit that I did see his point, even then. Besides, he always made me laugh with his mock renditions.
Q. In 1959, when you were aged 16, your Dad moved to Hollywood to write for television and movies. Do you recall seeing any of the shows he wrote for, such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents? What was your experience of his protracted absences?
A. For the year + that Dad was in Hollywood writing for television and movies, my mother and I missed him terribly. My mother had her family close by and kept busy. I did too, but we wrote letters and he called often. We watched Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and after we moved out to California, we watched everything we could that he wrote for television: Thriller, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, I Spy, Star Trek, Night Gallery, Tales from the Dark Side, and some of his movies: Psycho, The Couch, Strait-Jacket. I don’t remember seeing The House That That Dripped Blood or Torture Garden or Asylum, for whatever reason.
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Q. Sometime later your family moved out to Valley Vista in Sherman Oaks, CA. How was it for you leaving your school and friends in Weyauwega? Did you have boyfriends at that time?
A. I hated leaving Wisconsin to move to California for my last year of high school. It was a difficult adjustment, but my parents let me go back to Wisconsin for the first summer after we moved to California, and that was fun for me. |
While living in Wisconsin, I dated several boys, mostly going to school functions – dances and sporting events, double-dating with my closest friend. We had a lot of fun.
The high school I attended for my last year of high school when we moved to California was a brand new school as of that year, so all of the 12th grade students had been pulled out of other schools in the district to attend that school so we were all graduating from a school other than those from which we had anticipated spending our last year of high school. There was not much “school spirit” in our class as a result, and I don’t think they ever had a class reunion for our graduating class. I went back to the 25th class reunion of the class in Weyauwega that I would have graduated from, had we not moved, and I still consider that to be my “real” graduating class and they seemed as glad to see me as I was to see them.
Q. This was around the time that Hitchcock’s film of Psycho was released. Did you see it? If so, what were your feelings at seeing a movie based on a book that your Dad had written?
A. We went to the screening of Psycho and sat right behind Janet Leigh. I was very excited about that, and of course, proud of my dad. Janet Leigh was very nice and she later sent me an autographed picture.
Dad was pleased that the movie so closely followed the book . It’s too bad that he was contractually obligated on another project when Hitchcock was looking for a screenwriter for the movie, but Dad was not unhappy with what Joe Stefano did with it. Though Dad was not monetarily compensated for the movie rights as fairly as he should have been, he was always grateful for what the movie’s popularity did for his name recognition and his career going forward.
Dad and I went to lunch with Joan Crawford when Crawford was working on Strait-Jacket. People kept coming over to our table asking for her autograph. She was a very tiny woman, but her persona was huge, and I was intimidated by her.
Later, when we went to the screening of Strait-Jacket, I mostly remember people congratulating Diane Baker afterwards, who was in the movie with Crawford, and I’ve always felt bad that I was so shy and star-struck that I did not chime in with everyone else to tell her what a good job she did. I can still remember her looking at me, looking so insecure, not realizing that I was too shy to offer praise. I felt like I was “just a kid,” but she was only about five years older than I was. I’ve always regretted not having had the courage to speak up, because she definitely did a great job, though I’m sure she was not permanently wounded by my lack of ‘endorsement.’ She quickly went on to well-deserved acclaim during the course of her career. It’s just one of those moments in one’s life that I wish I could “do over.” Perhaps on the plus side, I never hesitate to compliment or encourage deserving people as a result of that experience, so without knowing it, Diane Baker helped me with my growth.
Q. Who were your close friends in Sherman Oaks? What school did you attend there? Was it Valley High? What about College? What subjects were your favourites or specialties?
A. My closest friend from Sherman Oaks was a neighbor who lived just up the road from us. She was two years younger than I, but we rode the school bus to school together. We have remained friends and we are still close today.
As mentioned earlier in this interview, my last year of high school was at the brand new, Ulysses S. Grant High School, and I received my Associate Arts Degree from Los Angeles Valley College in Van Nuys, California, (the names of which my father no longer accurately remembered by the time he got around to writing his autobiography).
My favorite subject in school was English Literature. I always enjoyed reading and writing, and my father naturally encouraged both endeavors. I also liked to draw, although I could hardly be mistaken for an “artist.” I did take an art class in high school, which made that fact abundantly clear to me. There were some very talented kids in my art class, but my drawing was mediocre; though I enjoyed drawing, it wasn’t my “true calling.”
Q. What are your memories of the stable near Griffin Park where you rode regularly? Your first horse was a gift from a friend of your mother’s sister in Oregon. What was the horse like and how long did you have him/her?
A. When I rode horses in Griffith Park at the horse rental string there, I rented a horse for an hour or two occasionally between classes when I was attending the 2-year college. I only did that a few times before I was given my first horse by my mother’s sister’s in-laws, when I was 19 years old. I boarded my horse in the San Fernando Valley, first in Chatsworth, then Woodland Hills, and then in Hidden Hills, where I later rented a small guest house on the same property where I kept my horse. That horse was Sheila, the horse referred to earlier in this interview. I owned her for ten years and sold her several years after my husband and I moved to the Bay Area, where we still live today.
Q. It seems you preferred outdoors activities to indoor ones, is that right?
A. No, not particularly, though I’ve always enjoyed Nature. I like to walk and hike and I love to ride horses. I enjoy reading, which I can do indoors or outdoors. I enjoy cooking and working in the yard. I like being physically active. I’m not one to sit around doing nothing. Labels such as A.D.D. or A.D.H.D. did not exist when I was a kid, but I would describe myself as somewhat “hyper” and I probably would qualify for one or more of those labels today. As a child I was “quiet” and quite shy, but was always as active as I was allowed to be, except for the early years with Rheumatic Fever, when I was prevented from exerting myself physically. I have definitely made up for lost time in the years since then.
Q. Your mother was unhappy in Hollywood. Were you also unhappy, or did it suit you?
A. Coming from a little farming community into “the big city” was difficult for me but much more so for my mother. She was not confident meeting the “Hollywood” business people my father’s work put us in contact with socially. She never really did adjust to it, and she began using alcohol as a coping mechanism not too long after we moved to California. She really missed her family back in Wisconsin.
For our first year in “Hollywood” I missed my Wisconsin friends terribly, but I made friends quickly and I was not unhappy. However, it was a very difficult time for my mother.
Q. It seems there was a growing tension between your parents at that time, leading to their eventual divorce. How aware were you of this tension?
A. I was very aware of the fact that my mother felt lost without the support of her family, with whom she had always been very close, and she began drinking more and more, and that was difficult for my father and for me. She was not a “happy drunk.”
Q. Your Dad bought you and Marion a new house, then broke the news that he would not be moving in? Did the pain of this situation affect your studies? Did you feel torn between your mother and your father at that time?
A. I was not aware of the fact that he was planning to leave my mother initially, and I complicated the situation when I became pregnant at the age of 18. Out-of-wedlock pregnancies were considered a family disgrace back then. Today, such situations are almost taken for granted or at least don’t carry the same stigma they did at that time. With my mother’s drinking and my dad divorcing her, it would not have been conducive to a healthy situation for any of us if I had tried to be a “single parent” when I was still so immature myself, and I was not ready to be married. For the record, I was not promiscuous. I was just naïve and a bit stupid, and innocently fell for what is (or was) the oldest line in the books, that being that the father of my child was “sterile.” (I would beg to disagree!) Perhaps it would be amusing in a sad way, in hindsight, if it weren’t so unfortunate in its repercussions. I was raised to be honest and I believed everybody else was honest, too. Such a lack of honesty shocked and angered me, and is the primary reason I felt I could never make a go of a marriage to him, under those circumstances. Marriage should be based on honesty and respect, and how could I ever trust someone who had assured me that I would not/could not get pregnant? The last thing I ever would have wanted to do was disgrace my family and it upset me terribly that I found myself in the position of doing exactly that. It was treated as a “family secret” and I spent decades believing that nobody knew about it, but was shocked to discover well into my adult years, that while it was a “skeleton in our closet,” it was more widely known than I realized; it just was never discussed in my presence.
In the 60s, there seemed to be a major push to give up “illegitimate” children for adoption. It was almost like it was a “public service” drive! As an adult, I have met so many women with situations similar to mine, who gave up their children for adoption in that same era, when adoption was being touted as “the right thing to do.” Don’t get me wrong; often adoption is the best for all concerned, and it seemed the best choice in my situation. Even so, I can attest to the fact that regardless of the specific circumstances, it is an emotional, traumatic, gut-wrenching experience and not something that likely comes “easily” to any pregnant girl or woman. When I gave my baby up for adoption, my life felt terribly destabilized. It was an unspeakably difficult decision, and my mother wanted me to keep my baby so she could raise him, which I did not want to inflict upon either my child or myself. My Dad felt the decision should be mine, and he supported my decision as being a mature one that took into account everyone concerned. He was compassionate and understanding and never pressured me or tried to influence my decision.
My mother seemed very conflicted about the situation, but she apparently believed my doctor when the doctor told her that I was very fragile emotionally and it would behoove my mother not to put me in the position of second-guessing my decision. I definitely was “fragile” emotionally. I don’t think I could have endured my mother doing a “guilt trip” on me, and whatever the doctor said to my mother obviously made a believer out of her. (God bless my doctor!)
Under the circumstances, the unanticipated complication of my pregnancy having been thrown into the mix of Dad’s decision to leave my mother must have caused my father enormous additional distress. Those were not happy times in our household, which is understatement in the extreme. It’s difficult to say which one of us was the most stressed over the situation. When Dad took me aside and told me he was leaving my mother and he wanted her to have a house that she chose herself, and liked, before he told her of his intention to divorce her, he also told me he would stay until after I delivered my baby.
He said he would be getting an apartment with two bedrooms in case I wanted to move in with him, so I knew I had a choice. He told me emphatically that my life was mine to live, and I should not let my mother make me feel guilty; “Life moves forward,” he said. He did not want my mother making me feel responsible for her care and he wanted me to move on with my own life. I am grateful to him for that. My mother was good at making people feel that she was disadvantaged, which she really wasn’t; she did very well and was quite capable, despite her handicap.
I was very close to my father, but not nearly as close to my mother. I always felt as though my mother would have been much happier if babies stayed babies; she was not pleased that babies grew up. That is not to say she didn’t love me, but she much preferred me before I became a teenager. Of course, given the circumstances, perhaps she was justified in thinking that! We did become close again after we were finally able to have adult-adult conversations, but it was years in the making.
Q. Ultimately you moved in with your Dad, keeping house for him while continuing school. How old were you then, and how long did it continue?
A. When my mother’s drinking began impacting my life soon after Dad left and before Mom moved into her new house, I took his advice to heart and moved in with him for a period of time, though I helped my mother with her move. Between Dad’s work and his time spent dating Elly, (Eleanor Alexander, whom he would later marry) and my activities with my horse and getting a job, which was originally intended to be a summer job before going on to finish college, I ultimately ended up keeping my secretarial job and not returning to school for those last two years. I felt the only thing my school major was truly preparing me for was to become an English teacher, and that didn’t appeal to me. I enjoyed my secretarial job and liked the people I worked with, and besides, I had horse board to pay.
With our busy schedules, Dad and I saw each other mostly in passing. I didn’t “keep house” for him – he and I were both very tidy and we kept our own areas neat. I did the laundry and cooked if we were both there, but it wasn’t very long before he and Elly married and I moved in with them briefly before getting an apartment of my own. I was about 20 at that time.
I continued to help my mother out with grocery shopping and errands, and leaving her to her own devices turned out to be a benefit for her in the long run; she had to learn to drive, of necessity, and she was an excellent driver. She became much more self-sufficient and self-reliant. Not too long after moving into her new house, she sold it and moved to Desert Hot Springs near the Palm Springs area of California, where she enjoyed the niche she carved out for herself down there. She made friends in that area and she even dated several nice fellows. She lived there for quite a few years before deciding to move back to Weyauwega, to her home town.
Q. You have always been a good cook – in later years, I believe, a gourmet cook. What are your favourite dishes to prepare?
A. I don’t know where you got your information about my cooking, but it’s very flattering. Elly referred to me as a “gourmet” cook. She was definitely a gourmet cook. My best recipes were those I got from her! I do enjoy cooking, and the first year after I got married, I did not make the same evening meal twice. I know, because I was going through cookbooks, checking off recipes that sounded good and trying them. My husband, Jim, bragged about that for a very long time. However, I would like to set the record straight: a “gourmet” cook is over-statement. I’m a decent cook. I did make my own bread for twelve years, and used to make ice cream and various and sundry “homey” things that were probably carry-overs from the influence of my maternal grandmother, who was a wonderful cook, but as for me being a gourmet cook? Not so much.
Elly was a superb cook and my mother was also a good cook, but Dad was a picky eater. I don’t think broccoli or cauliflower ever crossed his lips, nor did mushrooms. He disliked spicy foods, and hated garlic with a passion befitting a vampire! He loved Chinese food and Oolong and Lapsang Souchong teas, shrimp and lobster, steak, and some fish (halibut and salmon), but no “fishy” fish, like herring or sardines or anchovies. He loved chocolate and chocolate malts with chocolate ice cream. Every year since his passing, I have a chocolate malt with chocolate ice cream “for him” on the anniversary of his death and on his birthday.
Elly limited her cooking to things Dad liked, but my mother used to cook a greater variety, since not doing so would have deprived her (and me) of the other foods we liked. We often went out to Chinese restaurants when I was growing up, as those were Dad’s favorites. The first restaurant I can remember going to as a child when we still lived in Milwaukee was a Chinese restaurant, which would have been before I was 7 years old. Actually, that’s the only restaurant I recall going to when I was very young, though there probably were others.
Dad also admired Chinese art in the form of carved figurines, and we had some beautifully carved figurines in mahogany or teak and ivory, which my mother took in the divorce, some of which I still have. I don’t know where the interest in Chinese art and food originated from, but it was significant.
Q. In what sense did horseback riding provide an escape for you from everyday concerns?
A. Horses are wonderful animals, healing in many ways, widely used therapeutically with handicapped and mentally-challenged and autistic children. If you ask any “horse-crazy” person why they love horses, they will likely be hard-pressed to tell you exactly what it is about horses that is so fulfilling, but it tends to be an “affliction” from which no true horse lover ever “recovers,” and thankfully so! When the day comes that I can no longer ride horses or keep them, I hope some kind soul will just shoot me and put me out of my horse-deprived misery. I may need to get a “mini” horse or a chair with a saddle for its seat, or perhaps a rocking horse. (Cats are wonderful too, but you can’t ride ‘em!”)
Horses probably saved my sanity after I gave up my son for adoption, which, though it seemed like the best choice for all concerned given the circumstances at the time, in hindsight is my greatest regret. Though it was likely the most advantageous choice for my son, it was very difficult for me throughout my life until I found him after he was an adult. I thought about him and wondered where and how he was whenever I saw boys of whatever age he would have been at that time, and his birthday was a difficult day for me every year.
I decided to search for him in the early ‘90s, before my father passed away. Dad, Elly, and my mother were all in favor of my search and were very supportive. Back then, and perhaps still, reuniting adoptive parents and children was very difficult. I didn’t know where to begin to look, and my good friend, Karel Waugh, who was herself adopted, had located her birth mother when her birth mother was 76 years old, and Karel was extremely helpful to me in sending me down the same path that she had taken to locate her mother.
When my Dad began writing his autobiography, he asked me whether I wanted any mention made of my son in the book, and as I had not located my son yet, I decided I would rather no mention be made, since I didn’t know whether I would ever succeed in finding him.
It took several years, but ultimately I found my son, though sadly, not until four years after Dad had passed away. It’s such a pity that they did not have an opportunity to meet one another, because they would have enjoyed one another very much. Elly was able to meet my son and she also agreed that Dad and Joe would have really enjoyed one another.
When I found Joe, he was 35 years old. He was not yet married, but was about to become engaged, and I learned about his bride-to-be before his adoptive mother did. He and I corresponded and talked on the phone and emailed for almost a year before he came out to California (from the East Coast) to meet me.
In the meantime, I tracked down his birth father (whom I had not seen since before my son was born) to tell him I had reconnected with our son, and the following year I was grateful to be a part of their reunion. Finding Joe has filled a huge hole in my heart and soul, and I now have a teenage grandson, who is also a terrific young man.
My son and I are so alike. It’s amazing the number of things that are genetic, as opposed to environmentally influenced; many more traits than I would have imagined.
I visited them every year until recently, when caring for my husband, who has significant health issues, makes travel unrealistic for me at this point in time. I wish we lived closer, but with today’s technology, it’s easy to keep in touch.
When Dad was near death, I asked him to let me know if there was life after death (or “life after life,” as I prefer to call it) if, indeed, it was possible to do so somehow. Dad promised me that he would, if he could. At the risk of being mocked, dismissed as delusional, or sounding like a certifiable nut-job, I will recount an inexplicable occurrence after I found my son, four years after Dad passed away.
The circumstances of locating my son were full of odd twists and strange “coincidences” and I felt as though I was being somehow “guided” through a series of highly unlikely events that ultimately led me to my tracking down my son, but it was not until after I had actually found him that the truly unexplainable thing happened.
One evening, as my husband and I were watching television, the initials of my son’s biological father and the year of my son’s birth appeared on our TV screen, over the picture on the screen. My husband and I didn’t know what to make of it. (He accused me of tampering with the TV somehow!) I was flabbergasted and couldn’t make sense of the unexplainable occurrence, anymore than he could. The only explanation I could come up with then or yet, is that it was Dad’s way of letting me know with certainty that there is “life after death” and communication is possible insofar as giving “signs” of their presence and their awareness of what is happening in our lives, and that he was aware of the fact that I had found my son and was letting me know, as he had promised he would, in a way that I could not refute or doubt. I have no explanation for the how’s or why’s of the event, all I can do is say what happened.
I told my son about the experience after considerable thought, with reservations and trepidation, at the risk and fear of alienating him, because I thought he should know about it, since it was about him. I know that he does not share my belief system, so I am not entirely certain that he didn’t think me a wee bit nutty, and we’ve never discussed it again, but I thought he should know about it regardless of whether he believes it or not. Dad always taught me to “give people the benefit of the doubt,” so I could only hope that my son would do likewise with me, and since we are still in contact, I conclude that he has done that. Either that, or if he thinks I’m whacky, he has chosen to give me a pass and just not discuss it.
I believe such things are possible, as my father, my step-mother, Elly, and my mother also believed, but I have not discussed the incident with many people for fear of the eye-rolling and disbelief it will likely result in more often than not. All I can say is, “It is what it is.” It gives me some comfort to know (or believe) that my Dad is aware that I found Joe, and I truly do feel he helped me along the way as I was searching for him. Above and beyond that, it is (to me, at least), proof-positive that our spirit or “soul essence” – whatever one wishes to call it – survives after it leaves our physical body, and it comforts me to think that my son will one day know his biological grandfather, after he, too, leaves his physical being.
I also like to think that things happen as they are “supposed to” whether the reasons are clear to us or not. I am infinitely grateful to have been reunited with my son, and to have an on-going relationship with him that means more to me than anything, but I believe his adoptive parents were “supposed” to raise him. In hindsight, I wish that I could have raised him myself, but he had a good childhood and wonderful parents, and I think he had a better life than I could have given him at the time, for so many reasons. The idea of “karma” appeals to me as a religious concept. Perhaps it was my karma. In any case, there’s no changing the past; all we can do is the best we can do with the information and intuition we have at the time, right or wrong. I am incredibly grateful that he is a part of my life now. I so wish he could have appeared on the scene while Dad was still alive, but it would seem that Dad knows all about it, and he kept his promise to let me know he knew. (Thanks, Dad!)
Q. Were you surprised when your Dad took up with Elly (Eleanor Alexander) reasonably soon after his separation from your mother? This was around 1964 – you were then aged 21 – and you would move in with Elly to the new home all three of you would share. What are some of your memories of the home where you lived with Bob and Elly?
A. No, I wasn’t surprised when my Dad “took up” with Elly. I was happy for him. I was quite jealous of Elly at first, being the “Daddy’s girl” that I was, and Dad was quick to let me know that he would always love me and I would always be his ”little girl” but Elly was his first allegiance after they got married, as mine would be to my husband whenever I married. They both urged me to come live with them until I could find a place of my own. By then I was working, and riding my horse in my free time. My horse was boarded at a stable quite a long way from where Dad and Elly lived and after a few months with them, I got my own apartment closer to where my horse was boarded.
Elly bent over backwards to be a mother to me and in many ways, she was more interested in my welfare than my mother was. Elly taught me a lot by example about how to conduct myself socially, but it took me quite a while to truly appreciate her generous nature. Poor Elly; she really wanted a daughter, and instead, she got me. Elly adored Dad and she treated him so well, and that made me happy, because if anyone ever deserved to be happy and treated well, it was my father! I did love her for how lovingly she treated Dad, and in time, I became fond of her for the very good person she was.
While Dad was ill, he made us both promise that we would help one another and be kind to each other, and we became very close after Dad’s passing, initially probably to honor Dad’s request, but ultimately because we truly did develop a close bond and we both loved and missed Dad so much.
After Elly moved back to Canada to be with her nieces and nephews long after Dad passed, I visited her numerous times and still have an on-going friendship with two of her nieces since Elly’s passing and I miss Elly, too.
Q. What memories do you have of Marion, your mother, in her later years? Do you think she became happier and more in control of her own life after the separation from Bob?
A. I think my mother continued to love my father even after they divorced, but she did date several men and seemed to be happy in Desert Hot Springs, where she lived until moving back to her home town in Wisconsin after quite a few years in Southern California. It was good for her to go back to Weyauwega where she had grown up, and though she out-lived all of her siblings, she had lots of nieces and nephews who still lived in Weyauwega.
Q. Did you attend Bob and Elly’s wedding, which was held at the home of film director William Castle’s associate producer Dona Holloway? How did you get on with Elly?
A. Yes, I did attend Dad and Elly’s wedding. It was intimate and lovely. (See the preceding question as to how Elly and I got on.)
Q. By 1967, aged 24, you lived in your own apartment and became secretary for an electronics firm. This is where you met and married Jim, an engineer and consultant for the company. You’ve now been married for almost fifty years. What was it that drew you together?
A. Actually, I got my own apartment when I was 20 or 21 and my husband and I got married in 1967 when I was 23 (before my birthday that year) and both my husband and I worked for the company where we met, for several years. Initially, I was secretary to Jim’s boss and 13 other engineers. Later, I was promoted to secretary to the Treasurer of that company.
Jim was very handsome and charming and I had heard that he never dated women he worked with. That sounded like a challenge to me. We had our first date from a company get-together, and though he did not like horses, which almost kept me from accepting a second date, I liked him well enough to overlook that “shortcoming.” He is 12 years older than I, and he thought I was closer to his age and he told me later that if he had realized I was so much younger than he was, he probably would not have asked me out.
Q. Did you continue to work once you and Jim married? If so, what were your occupations? If not, what have been your main pursuits and preoccupations in life?
A. Company policy normally did not allow two married people from the company to continue working there together, but we were both assets to the company and since we did not spend time chatting together on company time, our bosses were happy. I don’t remember when I decided to look for secretarial work elsewhere, but I left and worked in a secretarial capacity at three more companies -- as secretary to the president of a start-up company, then as secretary to the head of Sales at one company, and then to the Vice President of a company closer to home, before we moved out of the area to where we currently live.
We had several mutual friends from the company where we worked originally, and we took ski trips with them and saw them socially and are still in touch with one of them. Our former (mutual) boss from that company just passed away earlier this year. We kept in touch all these years with him and his wife and they visited us many times, even after they moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I visited them there once, as well.
Jim and I continued to work until after we moved to the area where we now live, which is some 400+ miles north of Southern California. Jim was offered a job in this area which was too good to turn down. I got a job up here as well, but the company I worked for was a New Jersey-based company which had a single sales office on the West Coast and it quickly closed, as it was not profitable to keep it open as a two-person office.
Jim said he would tell me when he wanted me to go back to work, and he has yet to tell me, so I took up a life of leisure when in my late 20s and have enjoyed riding my horse(s) ever since. Jim retired early, in his 50s, but continued to take jobs that interested him when companies contacted him as an outside consultant for several years after he officially quit the rat-race as a “captive” employee.
Jim and I used to ride our bicycles on the weekends, but where we currently live it’s hilly and mountainous, so that went by the wayside many years ago, as it was too strenuous except for competitive bicycle riders training for racing, or those who are a bit masochistic. For a while, Jim thought perhaps he would like to take up horseback riding, but after a few saddle-sores he changed his mind. We agreed that he didn’t have to ride horses with me if I didn’t have to ski with him, after I had knocked myself unconscious, falling on the ice at Heavenly Valley during one ski trip vacation. I didn’t find skiing too “heavenly” after that. It seemed a fair deal to both of us, as I would never be able to keep up with him on skis, nor would he with me, on horseback.
Q. Did your Dad really have ‘the heart of a small boy… in a jar on his desk’? Of course he didn’t, but it was one of his great lines, along with ”I haven’t had so much fun since the rats ate my baby sister.” How would Bob’s humour express itself in your daily life together? Did you like his sense of humour, which could often be blackly comical?
A. My Dad kept me in hysterics throughout his life. I understood his humor and had a similar sense of humor (as does my son, it turns out) and I could generally anticipate what he was about to say before he finished his thought. My mother used to say, “You’re just like your father!” Frankly, nobody can say anything nicer than that to me. I can’t imagine having a better father than the one I was fortunate enough to have. I loved it when he called me “a chip off the old Bloch,” or when he referred to me as “his best work.”
Q. It seems your Dad wrote letters to you only from around 1972, when you would have been aged around 30. His letters to you continued up until he passed away in 1994. Was there some reason he was not in the habit of writing you more often while you were in your twenties?
A. He did not write to me when I was in my 20s because we lived in Southern California very close to where Dad and Elly lived, and saw them frequently when we were there. When we moved north, (when I was 28) we began writing frequently (as well as phoning), and they came to visit us, and we went down there to visit them, but it was a long drive (4-5 hours) so we did not go back and forth as much as we all would have liked.
Q. You and Jim later took up residence in the Santa Cruz mountains. When was this? What led you to that area? Did you see much of Bob and Elly over the years?
A. We moved to the Santa Cruz mountains above Los Gatos in 1972, when Jim was offered a job by a start-up company in Woodside. We didn’t even have to discuss the situation – the offer was absolutely one “we couldn’t refuse.” It was so good it didn’t even merit discussion. When Jim originally came up here to interview with the president of the company, somebody he sat next to on the airplane looked down as they were flying over the Santa Cruz mountains and said, “That’s the place you want to look for a house!” so Jim sent me off checking out real estate in the area above Los Gatos. I happened to drive by a house literally as the owner was pounding a “For Sale” sign into the ground! The place had a corral and shelter for a horse, and we bought it that very day! (What more could one ask for? I felt I had my priorities in the correct order.) We are still in the same house and I still have a horse in the corral, though a tree fell down in a storm and took out the original shelter in the early 80s, but Jim re-built me a better one. Needless to say, the current horse is not the “original” horse; there have been a lengthy succession of equines since the first.
The high school I attended for my last year of high school when we moved to California was a brand new school as of that year, so all of the 12th grade students had been pulled out of other schools in the district to attend that school so we were all graduating from a school other than those from which we had anticipated spending our last year of high school. There was not much “school spirit” in our class as a result, and I don’t think they ever had a class reunion for our graduating class. I went back to the 25th class reunion of the class in Weyauwega that I would have graduated from, had we not moved, and I still consider that to be my “real” graduating class and they seemed as glad to see me as I was to see them.
Q. This was around the time that Hitchcock’s film of Psycho was released. Did you see it? If so, what were your feelings at seeing a movie based on a book that your Dad had written?
A. We went to the screening of Psycho and sat right behind Janet Leigh. I was very excited about that, and of course, proud of my dad. Janet Leigh was very nice and she later sent me an autographed picture.
Dad was pleased that the movie so closely followed the book . It’s too bad that he was contractually obligated on another project when Hitchcock was looking for a screenwriter for the movie, but Dad was not unhappy with what Joe Stefano did with it. Though Dad was not monetarily compensated for the movie rights as fairly as he should have been, he was always grateful for what the movie’s popularity did for his name recognition and his career going forward.
Dad and I went to lunch with Joan Crawford when Crawford was working on Strait-Jacket. People kept coming over to our table asking for her autograph. She was a very tiny woman, but her persona was huge, and I was intimidated by her.
Later, when we went to the screening of Strait-Jacket, I mostly remember people congratulating Diane Baker afterwards, who was in the movie with Crawford, and I’ve always felt bad that I was so shy and star-struck that I did not chime in with everyone else to tell her what a good job she did. I can still remember her looking at me, looking so insecure, not realizing that I was too shy to offer praise. I felt like I was “just a kid,” but she was only about five years older than I was. I’ve always regretted not having had the courage to speak up, because she definitely did a great job, though I’m sure she was not permanently wounded by my lack of ‘endorsement.’ She quickly went on to well-deserved acclaim during the course of her career. It’s just one of those moments in one’s life that I wish I could “do over.” Perhaps on the plus side, I never hesitate to compliment or encourage deserving people as a result of that experience, so without knowing it, Diane Baker helped me with my growth.
Q. Who were your close friends in Sherman Oaks? What school did you attend there? Was it Valley High? What about College? What subjects were your favourites or specialties?
A. My closest friend from Sherman Oaks was a neighbor who lived just up the road from us. She was two years younger than I, but we rode the school bus to school together. We have remained friends and we are still close today.
As mentioned earlier in this interview, my last year of high school was at the brand new, Ulysses S. Grant High School, and I received my Associate Arts Degree from Los Angeles Valley College in Van Nuys, California, (the names of which my father no longer accurately remembered by the time he got around to writing his autobiography).
My favorite subject in school was English Literature. I always enjoyed reading and writing, and my father naturally encouraged both endeavors. I also liked to draw, although I could hardly be mistaken for an “artist.” I did take an art class in high school, which made that fact abundantly clear to me. There were some very talented kids in my art class, but my drawing was mediocre; though I enjoyed drawing, it wasn’t my “true calling.”
Q. What are your memories of the stable near Griffin Park where you rode regularly? Your first horse was a gift from a friend of your mother’s sister in Oregon. What was the horse like and how long did you have him/her?
A. When I rode horses in Griffith Park at the horse rental string there, I rented a horse for an hour or two occasionally between classes when I was attending the 2-year college. I only did that a few times before I was given my first horse by my mother’s sister’s in-laws, when I was 19 years old. I boarded my horse in the San Fernando Valley, first in Chatsworth, then Woodland Hills, and then in Hidden Hills, where I later rented a small guest house on the same property where I kept my horse. That horse was Sheila, the horse referred to earlier in this interview. I owned her for ten years and sold her several years after my husband and I moved to the Bay Area, where we still live today.
Q. It seems you preferred outdoors activities to indoor ones, is that right?
A. No, not particularly, though I’ve always enjoyed Nature. I like to walk and hike and I love to ride horses. I enjoy reading, which I can do indoors or outdoors. I enjoy cooking and working in the yard. I like being physically active. I’m not one to sit around doing nothing. Labels such as A.D.D. or A.D.H.D. did not exist when I was a kid, but I would describe myself as somewhat “hyper” and I probably would qualify for one or more of those labels today. As a child I was “quiet” and quite shy, but was always as active as I was allowed to be, except for the early years with Rheumatic Fever, when I was prevented from exerting myself physically. I have definitely made up for lost time in the years since then.
Q. Your mother was unhappy in Hollywood. Were you also unhappy, or did it suit you?
A. Coming from a little farming community into “the big city” was difficult for me but much more so for my mother. She was not confident meeting the “Hollywood” business people my father’s work put us in contact with socially. She never really did adjust to it, and she began using alcohol as a coping mechanism not too long after we moved to California. She really missed her family back in Wisconsin.
For our first year in “Hollywood” I missed my Wisconsin friends terribly, but I made friends quickly and I was not unhappy. However, it was a very difficult time for my mother.
Q. It seems there was a growing tension between your parents at that time, leading to their eventual divorce. How aware were you of this tension?
A. I was very aware of the fact that my mother felt lost without the support of her family, with whom she had always been very close, and she began drinking more and more, and that was difficult for my father and for me. She was not a “happy drunk.”
Q. Your Dad bought you and Marion a new house, then broke the news that he would not be moving in? Did the pain of this situation affect your studies? Did you feel torn between your mother and your father at that time?
A. I was not aware of the fact that he was planning to leave my mother initially, and I complicated the situation when I became pregnant at the age of 18. Out-of-wedlock pregnancies were considered a family disgrace back then. Today, such situations are almost taken for granted or at least don’t carry the same stigma they did at that time. With my mother’s drinking and my dad divorcing her, it would not have been conducive to a healthy situation for any of us if I had tried to be a “single parent” when I was still so immature myself, and I was not ready to be married. For the record, I was not promiscuous. I was just naïve and a bit stupid, and innocently fell for what is (or was) the oldest line in the books, that being that the father of my child was “sterile.” (I would beg to disagree!) Perhaps it would be amusing in a sad way, in hindsight, if it weren’t so unfortunate in its repercussions. I was raised to be honest and I believed everybody else was honest, too. Such a lack of honesty shocked and angered me, and is the primary reason I felt I could never make a go of a marriage to him, under those circumstances. Marriage should be based on honesty and respect, and how could I ever trust someone who had assured me that I would not/could not get pregnant? The last thing I ever would have wanted to do was disgrace my family and it upset me terribly that I found myself in the position of doing exactly that. It was treated as a “family secret” and I spent decades believing that nobody knew about it, but was shocked to discover well into my adult years, that while it was a “skeleton in our closet,” it was more widely known than I realized; it just was never discussed in my presence.
In the 60s, there seemed to be a major push to give up “illegitimate” children for adoption. It was almost like it was a “public service” drive! As an adult, I have met so many women with situations similar to mine, who gave up their children for adoption in that same era, when adoption was being touted as “the right thing to do.” Don’t get me wrong; often adoption is the best for all concerned, and it seemed the best choice in my situation. Even so, I can attest to the fact that regardless of the specific circumstances, it is an emotional, traumatic, gut-wrenching experience and not something that likely comes “easily” to any pregnant girl or woman. When I gave my baby up for adoption, my life felt terribly destabilized. It was an unspeakably difficult decision, and my mother wanted me to keep my baby so she could raise him, which I did not want to inflict upon either my child or myself. My Dad felt the decision should be mine, and he supported my decision as being a mature one that took into account everyone concerned. He was compassionate and understanding and never pressured me or tried to influence my decision.
My mother seemed very conflicted about the situation, but she apparently believed my doctor when the doctor told her that I was very fragile emotionally and it would behoove my mother not to put me in the position of second-guessing my decision. I definitely was “fragile” emotionally. I don’t think I could have endured my mother doing a “guilt trip” on me, and whatever the doctor said to my mother obviously made a believer out of her. (God bless my doctor!)
Under the circumstances, the unanticipated complication of my pregnancy having been thrown into the mix of Dad’s decision to leave my mother must have caused my father enormous additional distress. Those were not happy times in our household, which is understatement in the extreme. It’s difficult to say which one of us was the most stressed over the situation. When Dad took me aside and told me he was leaving my mother and he wanted her to have a house that she chose herself, and liked, before he told her of his intention to divorce her, he also told me he would stay until after I delivered my baby.
He said he would be getting an apartment with two bedrooms in case I wanted to move in with him, so I knew I had a choice. He told me emphatically that my life was mine to live, and I should not let my mother make me feel guilty; “Life moves forward,” he said. He did not want my mother making me feel responsible for her care and he wanted me to move on with my own life. I am grateful to him for that. My mother was good at making people feel that she was disadvantaged, which she really wasn’t; she did very well and was quite capable, despite her handicap.
I was very close to my father, but not nearly as close to my mother. I always felt as though my mother would have been much happier if babies stayed babies; she was not pleased that babies grew up. That is not to say she didn’t love me, but she much preferred me before I became a teenager. Of course, given the circumstances, perhaps she was justified in thinking that! We did become close again after we were finally able to have adult-adult conversations, but it was years in the making.
Q. Ultimately you moved in with your Dad, keeping house for him while continuing school. How old were you then, and how long did it continue?
A. When my mother’s drinking began impacting my life soon after Dad left and before Mom moved into her new house, I took his advice to heart and moved in with him for a period of time, though I helped my mother with her move. Between Dad’s work and his time spent dating Elly, (Eleanor Alexander, whom he would later marry) and my activities with my horse and getting a job, which was originally intended to be a summer job before going on to finish college, I ultimately ended up keeping my secretarial job and not returning to school for those last two years. I felt the only thing my school major was truly preparing me for was to become an English teacher, and that didn’t appeal to me. I enjoyed my secretarial job and liked the people I worked with, and besides, I had horse board to pay.
With our busy schedules, Dad and I saw each other mostly in passing. I didn’t “keep house” for him – he and I were both very tidy and we kept our own areas neat. I did the laundry and cooked if we were both there, but it wasn’t very long before he and Elly married and I moved in with them briefly before getting an apartment of my own. I was about 20 at that time.
I continued to help my mother out with grocery shopping and errands, and leaving her to her own devices turned out to be a benefit for her in the long run; she had to learn to drive, of necessity, and she was an excellent driver. She became much more self-sufficient and self-reliant. Not too long after moving into her new house, she sold it and moved to Desert Hot Springs near the Palm Springs area of California, where she enjoyed the niche she carved out for herself down there. She made friends in that area and she even dated several nice fellows. She lived there for quite a few years before deciding to move back to Weyauwega, to her home town.
Q. You have always been a good cook – in later years, I believe, a gourmet cook. What are your favourite dishes to prepare?
A. I don’t know where you got your information about my cooking, but it’s very flattering. Elly referred to me as a “gourmet” cook. She was definitely a gourmet cook. My best recipes were those I got from her! I do enjoy cooking, and the first year after I got married, I did not make the same evening meal twice. I know, because I was going through cookbooks, checking off recipes that sounded good and trying them. My husband, Jim, bragged about that for a very long time. However, I would like to set the record straight: a “gourmet” cook is over-statement. I’m a decent cook. I did make my own bread for twelve years, and used to make ice cream and various and sundry “homey” things that were probably carry-overs from the influence of my maternal grandmother, who was a wonderful cook, but as for me being a gourmet cook? Not so much.
Elly was a superb cook and my mother was also a good cook, but Dad was a picky eater. I don’t think broccoli or cauliflower ever crossed his lips, nor did mushrooms. He disliked spicy foods, and hated garlic with a passion befitting a vampire! He loved Chinese food and Oolong and Lapsang Souchong teas, shrimp and lobster, steak, and some fish (halibut and salmon), but no “fishy” fish, like herring or sardines or anchovies. He loved chocolate and chocolate malts with chocolate ice cream. Every year since his passing, I have a chocolate malt with chocolate ice cream “for him” on the anniversary of his death and on his birthday.
Elly limited her cooking to things Dad liked, but my mother used to cook a greater variety, since not doing so would have deprived her (and me) of the other foods we liked. We often went out to Chinese restaurants when I was growing up, as those were Dad’s favorites. The first restaurant I can remember going to as a child when we still lived in Milwaukee was a Chinese restaurant, which would have been before I was 7 years old. Actually, that’s the only restaurant I recall going to when I was very young, though there probably were others.
Dad also admired Chinese art in the form of carved figurines, and we had some beautifully carved figurines in mahogany or teak and ivory, which my mother took in the divorce, some of which I still have. I don’t know where the interest in Chinese art and food originated from, but it was significant.
Q. In what sense did horseback riding provide an escape for you from everyday concerns?
A. Horses are wonderful animals, healing in many ways, widely used therapeutically with handicapped and mentally-challenged and autistic children. If you ask any “horse-crazy” person why they love horses, they will likely be hard-pressed to tell you exactly what it is about horses that is so fulfilling, but it tends to be an “affliction” from which no true horse lover ever “recovers,” and thankfully so! When the day comes that I can no longer ride horses or keep them, I hope some kind soul will just shoot me and put me out of my horse-deprived misery. I may need to get a “mini” horse or a chair with a saddle for its seat, or perhaps a rocking horse. (Cats are wonderful too, but you can’t ride ‘em!”)
Horses probably saved my sanity after I gave up my son for adoption, which, though it seemed like the best choice for all concerned given the circumstances at the time, in hindsight is my greatest regret. Though it was likely the most advantageous choice for my son, it was very difficult for me throughout my life until I found him after he was an adult. I thought about him and wondered where and how he was whenever I saw boys of whatever age he would have been at that time, and his birthday was a difficult day for me every year.
I decided to search for him in the early ‘90s, before my father passed away. Dad, Elly, and my mother were all in favor of my search and were very supportive. Back then, and perhaps still, reuniting adoptive parents and children was very difficult. I didn’t know where to begin to look, and my good friend, Karel Waugh, who was herself adopted, had located her birth mother when her birth mother was 76 years old, and Karel was extremely helpful to me in sending me down the same path that she had taken to locate her mother.
When my Dad began writing his autobiography, he asked me whether I wanted any mention made of my son in the book, and as I had not located my son yet, I decided I would rather no mention be made, since I didn’t know whether I would ever succeed in finding him.
It took several years, but ultimately I found my son, though sadly, not until four years after Dad had passed away. It’s such a pity that they did not have an opportunity to meet one another, because they would have enjoyed one another very much. Elly was able to meet my son and she also agreed that Dad and Joe would have really enjoyed one another.
When I found Joe, he was 35 years old. He was not yet married, but was about to become engaged, and I learned about his bride-to-be before his adoptive mother did. He and I corresponded and talked on the phone and emailed for almost a year before he came out to California (from the East Coast) to meet me.
In the meantime, I tracked down his birth father (whom I had not seen since before my son was born) to tell him I had reconnected with our son, and the following year I was grateful to be a part of their reunion. Finding Joe has filled a huge hole in my heart and soul, and I now have a teenage grandson, who is also a terrific young man.
My son and I are so alike. It’s amazing the number of things that are genetic, as opposed to environmentally influenced; many more traits than I would have imagined.
I visited them every year until recently, when caring for my husband, who has significant health issues, makes travel unrealistic for me at this point in time. I wish we lived closer, but with today’s technology, it’s easy to keep in touch.
When Dad was near death, I asked him to let me know if there was life after death (or “life after life,” as I prefer to call it) if, indeed, it was possible to do so somehow. Dad promised me that he would, if he could. At the risk of being mocked, dismissed as delusional, or sounding like a certifiable nut-job, I will recount an inexplicable occurrence after I found my son, four years after Dad passed away.
The circumstances of locating my son were full of odd twists and strange “coincidences” and I felt as though I was being somehow “guided” through a series of highly unlikely events that ultimately led me to my tracking down my son, but it was not until after I had actually found him that the truly unexplainable thing happened.
One evening, as my husband and I were watching television, the initials of my son’s biological father and the year of my son’s birth appeared on our TV screen, over the picture on the screen. My husband and I didn’t know what to make of it. (He accused me of tampering with the TV somehow!) I was flabbergasted and couldn’t make sense of the unexplainable occurrence, anymore than he could. The only explanation I could come up with then or yet, is that it was Dad’s way of letting me know with certainty that there is “life after death” and communication is possible insofar as giving “signs” of their presence and their awareness of what is happening in our lives, and that he was aware of the fact that I had found my son and was letting me know, as he had promised he would, in a way that I could not refute or doubt. I have no explanation for the how’s or why’s of the event, all I can do is say what happened.
I told my son about the experience after considerable thought, with reservations and trepidation, at the risk and fear of alienating him, because I thought he should know about it, since it was about him. I know that he does not share my belief system, so I am not entirely certain that he didn’t think me a wee bit nutty, and we’ve never discussed it again, but I thought he should know about it regardless of whether he believes it or not. Dad always taught me to “give people the benefit of the doubt,” so I could only hope that my son would do likewise with me, and since we are still in contact, I conclude that he has done that. Either that, or if he thinks I’m whacky, he has chosen to give me a pass and just not discuss it.
I believe such things are possible, as my father, my step-mother, Elly, and my mother also believed, but I have not discussed the incident with many people for fear of the eye-rolling and disbelief it will likely result in more often than not. All I can say is, “It is what it is.” It gives me some comfort to know (or believe) that my Dad is aware that I found Joe, and I truly do feel he helped me along the way as I was searching for him. Above and beyond that, it is (to me, at least), proof-positive that our spirit or “soul essence” – whatever one wishes to call it – survives after it leaves our physical body, and it comforts me to think that my son will one day know his biological grandfather, after he, too, leaves his physical being.
I also like to think that things happen as they are “supposed to” whether the reasons are clear to us or not. I am infinitely grateful to have been reunited with my son, and to have an on-going relationship with him that means more to me than anything, but I believe his adoptive parents were “supposed” to raise him. In hindsight, I wish that I could have raised him myself, but he had a good childhood and wonderful parents, and I think he had a better life than I could have given him at the time, for so many reasons. The idea of “karma” appeals to me as a religious concept. Perhaps it was my karma. In any case, there’s no changing the past; all we can do is the best we can do with the information and intuition we have at the time, right or wrong. I am incredibly grateful that he is a part of my life now. I so wish he could have appeared on the scene while Dad was still alive, but it would seem that Dad knows all about it, and he kept his promise to let me know he knew. (Thanks, Dad!)
Q. Were you surprised when your Dad took up with Elly (Eleanor Alexander) reasonably soon after his separation from your mother? This was around 1964 – you were then aged 21 – and you would move in with Elly to the new home all three of you would share. What are some of your memories of the home where you lived with Bob and Elly?
A. No, I wasn’t surprised when my Dad “took up” with Elly. I was happy for him. I was quite jealous of Elly at first, being the “Daddy’s girl” that I was, and Dad was quick to let me know that he would always love me and I would always be his ”little girl” but Elly was his first allegiance after they got married, as mine would be to my husband whenever I married. They both urged me to come live with them until I could find a place of my own. By then I was working, and riding my horse in my free time. My horse was boarded at a stable quite a long way from where Dad and Elly lived and after a few months with them, I got my own apartment closer to where my horse was boarded.
Elly bent over backwards to be a mother to me and in many ways, she was more interested in my welfare than my mother was. Elly taught me a lot by example about how to conduct myself socially, but it took me quite a while to truly appreciate her generous nature. Poor Elly; she really wanted a daughter, and instead, she got me. Elly adored Dad and she treated him so well, and that made me happy, because if anyone ever deserved to be happy and treated well, it was my father! I did love her for how lovingly she treated Dad, and in time, I became fond of her for the very good person she was.
While Dad was ill, he made us both promise that we would help one another and be kind to each other, and we became very close after Dad’s passing, initially probably to honor Dad’s request, but ultimately because we truly did develop a close bond and we both loved and missed Dad so much.
After Elly moved back to Canada to be with her nieces and nephews long after Dad passed, I visited her numerous times and still have an on-going friendship with two of her nieces since Elly’s passing and I miss Elly, too.
Q. What memories do you have of Marion, your mother, in her later years? Do you think she became happier and more in control of her own life after the separation from Bob?
A. I think my mother continued to love my father even after they divorced, but she did date several men and seemed to be happy in Desert Hot Springs, where she lived until moving back to her home town in Wisconsin after quite a few years in Southern California. It was good for her to go back to Weyauwega where she had grown up, and though she out-lived all of her siblings, she had lots of nieces and nephews who still lived in Weyauwega.
Q. Did you attend Bob and Elly’s wedding, which was held at the home of film director William Castle’s associate producer Dona Holloway? How did you get on with Elly?
A. Yes, I did attend Dad and Elly’s wedding. It was intimate and lovely. (See the preceding question as to how Elly and I got on.)
Q. By 1967, aged 24, you lived in your own apartment and became secretary for an electronics firm. This is where you met and married Jim, an engineer and consultant for the company. You’ve now been married for almost fifty years. What was it that drew you together?
A. Actually, I got my own apartment when I was 20 or 21 and my husband and I got married in 1967 when I was 23 (before my birthday that year) and both my husband and I worked for the company where we met, for several years. Initially, I was secretary to Jim’s boss and 13 other engineers. Later, I was promoted to secretary to the Treasurer of that company.
Jim was very handsome and charming and I had heard that he never dated women he worked with. That sounded like a challenge to me. We had our first date from a company get-together, and though he did not like horses, which almost kept me from accepting a second date, I liked him well enough to overlook that “shortcoming.” He is 12 years older than I, and he thought I was closer to his age and he told me later that if he had realized I was so much younger than he was, he probably would not have asked me out.
Q. Did you continue to work once you and Jim married? If so, what were your occupations? If not, what have been your main pursuits and preoccupations in life?
A. Company policy normally did not allow two married people from the company to continue working there together, but we were both assets to the company and since we did not spend time chatting together on company time, our bosses were happy. I don’t remember when I decided to look for secretarial work elsewhere, but I left and worked in a secretarial capacity at three more companies -- as secretary to the president of a start-up company, then as secretary to the head of Sales at one company, and then to the Vice President of a company closer to home, before we moved out of the area to where we currently live.
We had several mutual friends from the company where we worked originally, and we took ski trips with them and saw them socially and are still in touch with one of them. Our former (mutual) boss from that company just passed away earlier this year. We kept in touch all these years with him and his wife and they visited us many times, even after they moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I visited them there once, as well.
Jim and I continued to work until after we moved to the area where we now live, which is some 400+ miles north of Southern California. Jim was offered a job in this area which was too good to turn down. I got a job up here as well, but the company I worked for was a New Jersey-based company which had a single sales office on the West Coast and it quickly closed, as it was not profitable to keep it open as a two-person office.
Jim said he would tell me when he wanted me to go back to work, and he has yet to tell me, so I took up a life of leisure when in my late 20s and have enjoyed riding my horse(s) ever since. Jim retired early, in his 50s, but continued to take jobs that interested him when companies contacted him as an outside consultant for several years after he officially quit the rat-race as a “captive” employee.
Jim and I used to ride our bicycles on the weekends, but where we currently live it’s hilly and mountainous, so that went by the wayside many years ago, as it was too strenuous except for competitive bicycle riders training for racing, or those who are a bit masochistic. For a while, Jim thought perhaps he would like to take up horseback riding, but after a few saddle-sores he changed his mind. We agreed that he didn’t have to ride horses with me if I didn’t have to ski with him, after I had knocked myself unconscious, falling on the ice at Heavenly Valley during one ski trip vacation. I didn’t find skiing too “heavenly” after that. It seemed a fair deal to both of us, as I would never be able to keep up with him on skis, nor would he with me, on horseback.
Q. Did your Dad really have ‘the heart of a small boy… in a jar on his desk’? Of course he didn’t, but it was one of his great lines, along with ”I haven’t had so much fun since the rats ate my baby sister.” How would Bob’s humour express itself in your daily life together? Did you like his sense of humour, which could often be blackly comical?
A. My Dad kept me in hysterics throughout his life. I understood his humor and had a similar sense of humor (as does my son, it turns out) and I could generally anticipate what he was about to say before he finished his thought. My mother used to say, “You’re just like your father!” Frankly, nobody can say anything nicer than that to me. I can’t imagine having a better father than the one I was fortunate enough to have. I loved it when he called me “a chip off the old Bloch,” or when he referred to me as “his best work.”
Q. It seems your Dad wrote letters to you only from around 1972, when you would have been aged around 30. His letters to you continued up until he passed away in 1994. Was there some reason he was not in the habit of writing you more often while you were in your twenties?
A. He did not write to me when I was in my 20s because we lived in Southern California very close to where Dad and Elly lived, and saw them frequently when we were there. When we moved north, (when I was 28) we began writing frequently (as well as phoning), and they came to visit us, and we went down there to visit them, but it was a long drive (4-5 hours) so we did not go back and forth as much as we all would have liked.
Q. You and Jim later took up residence in the Santa Cruz mountains. When was this? What led you to that area? Did you see much of Bob and Elly over the years?
A. We moved to the Santa Cruz mountains above Los Gatos in 1972, when Jim was offered a job by a start-up company in Woodside. We didn’t even have to discuss the situation – the offer was absolutely one “we couldn’t refuse.” It was so good it didn’t even merit discussion. When Jim originally came up here to interview with the president of the company, somebody he sat next to on the airplane looked down as they were flying over the Santa Cruz mountains and said, “That’s the place you want to look for a house!” so Jim sent me off checking out real estate in the area above Los Gatos. I happened to drive by a house literally as the owner was pounding a “For Sale” sign into the ground! The place had a corral and shelter for a horse, and we bought it that very day! (What more could one ask for? I felt I had my priorities in the correct order.) We are still in the same house and I still have a horse in the corral, though a tree fell down in a storm and took out the original shelter in the early 80s, but Jim re-built me a better one. Needless to say, the current horse is not the “original” horse; there have been a lengthy succession of equines since the first.
Q. Have you read all of your Dad’s work, either before or since his passing in 1994? If so, what are your favourites amongst his novels and stories? Or do you prefer not to read the sort of stories he wrote?
A. I have not read all of my Dad’s work, but I’ve read much of it. I have to confess that I like everything he wrote, but then, I’m a bit biased. His sense of humor always makes me laugh at his plays on words or punch lines. He was an entertaining man and his quiet, dry wit made his humor all the more unexpected to those who didn’t know him. He was so funny. I miss him.
Q. You edited the Summit Riders Horsemen’s Association newsletter (The Rider’s Newsletter) for over eleven years didn’t you? Are you still the editor? Tell us about your experiences with Association and the newsletter.
A. I have belonged to the Summit Riders Horsemen’s Association since 1972, and after eleven + years as the Rider’s Review newsletter editor in the late 80s to about 2000, I thought it was time to turn over the reins (so to speak) to someone else. The present editor has bettered my time by a several years, now.
It’s a lovely club, dedicated to providing family-oriented horse activities and horse shows for people who may just want their young children to experience the fun of riding without taking it too seriously or costing them a fortune. The kids who want to go on to “real” horse shows ultimately do so, but for many, it’s purely a low-key, fun place where they can enjoy their horses in shows or play-days. The Club also promotes safe behavior practices around horses and educates horse owners on a variety of horse related subjects. Other activities include campouts and they used to put on lots of local trail rides, back when there were still many trails throughout the mountains that could be accessed via the local roads. Over the years, however, homes have been built on most of the land that once provided trails, so nearly all riding now is in County and State Parks, of which there are fortunately many, relatively locally, but the nature of the experience has changed somewhat. Many of the original “old-timers” are still members, often long after their children and grandchildren have married and left the area, or people may no longer own horses, but they still enjoy the social aspect of getting together with their fellow horse-loving folks. And of course, there is always a new crop of young families with horse-crazy children, so the club continues to be a viable and appreciated entity in the community.
Q. You’ve penned several articles about horse-riding which may be found online, such as “The Late Blooming Dressage Rider,” “Summit Riders Horsemen’s Association: A Brief History“ and “Summit Riders Horsemen’s Association: A Previous History” (with Karel Waugh). Do you enjoy writing such pieces as much as you do the actual riding of the horses?
A. I enjoy writing, and I enjoy riding. If I could find a way to write while riding, it would be the best of both worlds, but given a choice between one or the other, as long as I am able to ride, you will find me riding, not writing! (We don’t want to encourage “distracted riding,” do we?)
Q. Do you have many fans of Robert Bloch and his writings contacting you? Or you do you prefer enquiries to go to his literary and film agents? Do you oversee new deals on his work yourself?
A. Quite a few fans have contacted me over the past few years. I do refer some inquiries to his literary and film agents, but I have the final say in new deals, though I rely on my agents to give me the benefit of their judgement.
Q. Do many of your Dad’s old literary colleagues keep in touch with you?
A. Many of Dad’s literary colleagues have passed on and are perhaps once again enjoying one another’s company, maybe collaborating on one last hoped-for Best Seller, “beyond the ‘veil’ “ – a “ghost” story perhaps?
As for those still among us, I babysat for Richard Matheson’s kids and rode horseback with their older daughter before I got married, when I boarded my horse and rented a small cottage in the same development where Matheson’s lived (and Ruth still does, as far as I know).
I am in occasional contact with Harlan and Susan Ellison. I remember Harlan coming to visit us when we still lived in Weyauwega. He was just a kid, then (as was I.) Harlan was helpful to me when Dad was ill and after, as was Rich Matheson.
I established a friendship with Chelsea Quinn Yarbro when Dad put us in touch with one another when Quinn had a horse, some years ago. We enjoyed getting together for lunch on occasion and she drove down to Los Angeles with me when Dad was ill, to see him before he passed.
I have enjoyed getting to know Randall D. Larson, one of Dad’s bibliographers, since Dad’s passing. We’ve had several visits together here, in person, as he has worked on updating Dad’s bibliography, and I am very grateful to him for what he has done, and beyond that, he’s a very nice guy. I know my Dad was very fond of him and grateful for his work, as well.
Q. There must be some amongst your acquaintances and friends who know you mainly as “the daughter of the man who wrote Psycho.” Have you ever wished to distance yourself from the association with your Dad’s fame and simply be recognised for who you are and for your own achievements?
A. I’m very proud of my Dad and I don’t ever wish to distance myself from the association with him in any way. I could not have asked for a better father and I hope I can keep his legacy alive for as long as I am alive and hopefully beyond.
My own “achievements” are not particularly worthy of recognition. I consider myself truly fortunate to have had “the man who wrote Psycho” as my father, and it has been fun to flush out a broader picture of him for those fans who might be interested in his day-to-day life from his daughter’s perspective. It’s curious to me that we still think of ourselves in parent/child roles, regardless of our chronological ages. I’m not too far from the age my father was when he passed away, yet I still feel like his “little girl.” It seems such a strange dynamic, but at the same time, it’s probably a universal one.
I look forward to reading Leigh Blackmore’s book compilation of letters to-and-from my father, between Dad’s peers and colleagues, to gain insight into his relationships with his friends and fellow writers. Though I saw Dad interacting with his friends, it isn’t the same as being privy to someone’s thoughts as expressed in writing, especially in the intimacy of letters.
Thank you for this opportunity. I’ve enjoyed doing it, and I hope Dad’s fans enjoy reading it and seeing other sides of “The Author of Psycho” to let them see that truly, like Norman, the now famous character we all know, “he wouldn’t even harm a fly.”
A. I have not read all of my Dad’s work, but I’ve read much of it. I have to confess that I like everything he wrote, but then, I’m a bit biased. His sense of humor always makes me laugh at his plays on words or punch lines. He was an entertaining man and his quiet, dry wit made his humor all the more unexpected to those who didn’t know him. He was so funny. I miss him.
Q. You edited the Summit Riders Horsemen’s Association newsletter (The Rider’s Newsletter) for over eleven years didn’t you? Are you still the editor? Tell us about your experiences with Association and the newsletter.
A. I have belonged to the Summit Riders Horsemen’s Association since 1972, and after eleven + years as the Rider’s Review newsletter editor in the late 80s to about 2000, I thought it was time to turn over the reins (so to speak) to someone else. The present editor has bettered my time by a several years, now.
It’s a lovely club, dedicated to providing family-oriented horse activities and horse shows for people who may just want their young children to experience the fun of riding without taking it too seriously or costing them a fortune. The kids who want to go on to “real” horse shows ultimately do so, but for many, it’s purely a low-key, fun place where they can enjoy their horses in shows or play-days. The Club also promotes safe behavior practices around horses and educates horse owners on a variety of horse related subjects. Other activities include campouts and they used to put on lots of local trail rides, back when there were still many trails throughout the mountains that could be accessed via the local roads. Over the years, however, homes have been built on most of the land that once provided trails, so nearly all riding now is in County and State Parks, of which there are fortunately many, relatively locally, but the nature of the experience has changed somewhat. Many of the original “old-timers” are still members, often long after their children and grandchildren have married and left the area, or people may no longer own horses, but they still enjoy the social aspect of getting together with their fellow horse-loving folks. And of course, there is always a new crop of young families with horse-crazy children, so the club continues to be a viable and appreciated entity in the community.
Q. You’ve penned several articles about horse-riding which may be found online, such as “The Late Blooming Dressage Rider,” “Summit Riders Horsemen’s Association: A Brief History“ and “Summit Riders Horsemen’s Association: A Previous History” (with Karel Waugh). Do you enjoy writing such pieces as much as you do the actual riding of the horses?
A. I enjoy writing, and I enjoy riding. If I could find a way to write while riding, it would be the best of both worlds, but given a choice between one or the other, as long as I am able to ride, you will find me riding, not writing! (We don’t want to encourage “distracted riding,” do we?)
Q. Do you have many fans of Robert Bloch and his writings contacting you? Or you do you prefer enquiries to go to his literary and film agents? Do you oversee new deals on his work yourself?
A. Quite a few fans have contacted me over the past few years. I do refer some inquiries to his literary and film agents, but I have the final say in new deals, though I rely on my agents to give me the benefit of their judgement.
Q. Do many of your Dad’s old literary colleagues keep in touch with you?
A. Many of Dad’s literary colleagues have passed on and are perhaps once again enjoying one another’s company, maybe collaborating on one last hoped-for Best Seller, “beyond the ‘veil’ “ – a “ghost” story perhaps?
As for those still among us, I babysat for Richard Matheson’s kids and rode horseback with their older daughter before I got married, when I boarded my horse and rented a small cottage in the same development where Matheson’s lived (and Ruth still does, as far as I know).
I am in occasional contact with Harlan and Susan Ellison. I remember Harlan coming to visit us when we still lived in Weyauwega. He was just a kid, then (as was I.) Harlan was helpful to me when Dad was ill and after, as was Rich Matheson.
I established a friendship with Chelsea Quinn Yarbro when Dad put us in touch with one another when Quinn had a horse, some years ago. We enjoyed getting together for lunch on occasion and she drove down to Los Angeles with me when Dad was ill, to see him before he passed.
I have enjoyed getting to know Randall D. Larson, one of Dad’s bibliographers, since Dad’s passing. We’ve had several visits together here, in person, as he has worked on updating Dad’s bibliography, and I am very grateful to him for what he has done, and beyond that, he’s a very nice guy. I know my Dad was very fond of him and grateful for his work, as well.
Q. There must be some amongst your acquaintances and friends who know you mainly as “the daughter of the man who wrote Psycho.” Have you ever wished to distance yourself from the association with your Dad’s fame and simply be recognised for who you are and for your own achievements?
A. I’m very proud of my Dad and I don’t ever wish to distance myself from the association with him in any way. I could not have asked for a better father and I hope I can keep his legacy alive for as long as I am alive and hopefully beyond.
My own “achievements” are not particularly worthy of recognition. I consider myself truly fortunate to have had “the man who wrote Psycho” as my father, and it has been fun to flush out a broader picture of him for those fans who might be interested in his day-to-day life from his daughter’s perspective. It’s curious to me that we still think of ourselves in parent/child roles, regardless of our chronological ages. I’m not too far from the age my father was when he passed away, yet I still feel like his “little girl.” It seems such a strange dynamic, but at the same time, it’s probably a universal one.
I look forward to reading Leigh Blackmore’s book compilation of letters to-and-from my father, between Dad’s peers and colleagues, to gain insight into his relationships with his friends and fellow writers. Though I saw Dad interacting with his friends, it isn’t the same as being privy to someone’s thoughts as expressed in writing, especially in the intimacy of letters.
Thank you for this opportunity. I’ve enjoyed doing it, and I hope Dad’s fans enjoy reading it and seeing other sides of “The Author of Psycho” to let them see that truly, like Norman, the now famous character we all know, “he wouldn’t even harm a fly.”
The Robert Bloch Official Website is extremely grateful to the interviewer, Leigh Blackmore, for providing this interview (copyright 2016) and permission for its use.