To Sail Beyond the Sunset

  Selling our house when we did was part of the gamble. It was a hard-nosed decision as it involved what came to be known as “block busting.” We lived in an all-white neighborhood, but Darktown was just north of us, not far away, and had been growing steadily closer in the twenty-odd years we had owned that house. (Dear, sweet house!—stuffed with happy memories.)

  Brian had been approached by a white real estate agent who said he had an offer from an undisclosed client: How much did Brian want for his house?

  “Darling, I did not ask about his client…because, if I had asked, it would turn out that the client was a white lawyer who, if pushed, would be acting for a client in Denver or Boston. In this sort of a deal the cover-up is about six levels deep…and the neighbors are not supposed to find out the color of the new owner’s skin until the new owner moves in.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him, ‘Certainly I’m willing to sell my house if the price is right. But the price would have to be attractive, as we are comfortable where we are and moving is always expensive in time and in money. What price does your client offer? In cash, I mean—not a down payment and take back a mortgage. If I am going to have to find another house for my large family—eleven of us—I’ll need cash to work with. I may have to build, rather than buy—not too many houses can handle big families today; I probably would have to build. If I do this. So the price would have to be attractive and it would have to be in cash.

  “This false face points out that any bank would discount the paper on such a property; a mortgage is as good as cash. ‘Not to me, it isn’t,’ I told him. ‘Let your client arrange the mortgage directly with his bank and bring the cash up front. My dear sir, I’m not anxious to sell. Give me a cash figure and, if it’s big enough, we’ll go straight to escrow. If it’s not, I’ll tell you No just as quickly.’

  “He said that escrow would not be necessary, as they were satisfied that I could grant good title. Mo’, that told me more than the words he said. It means that they have already run a title search on us…and probably on every house in our block. It means to me that this is probably the only house in this block that does not have a mortgage against it…or some other legal matter that would have to be cleared in escrow, such as lifetime tenancy under a will, or the property is currently in probate, or involved in a pending divorce, or there is a lien against it, or a judgment, or something. A man trying to put together this sort of a deal doesn’t like escrow, because it is during that waiting period that the ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ sort of people can find out what is going on, and move in to stop it…often with the connivance of a sympathetic judge.”

  “Briney, maybe you had better explain ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ to me. I don’t recall it from that course in commercial law we took.”

  “You would not have heard of it there because it is extralegal. Not against the law, just not covered by law. There is no covenant in your deed to this house that forbids you to sell to anyone you wish to, black, white, or green polka dots…and it might not stand up in court if there were. But, if you were to ask our neighbors, I guarantee that they would assure you that there is indeed a gentlemen’s agreement binding you not to sell your house in this block to a Negro.”

  I was puzzled. “Have we ever agreed to anything of the sort?” My husband made all sorts of commitments, rarely told me. He simply assumed that I would back him up. And I always did. Marriage is not a sometime thing; it’s whole hawg or you’re not married.

  “Never.”

  “Are you going to ask our neighbors what they think about this?”

  “Mo’, do you want me to? It’s your house.”

  I don’t think I hesitated as long as two seconds. But it was a new idea and I did have to decide. “Briney, several houses in this block have changed hands since we moved in here, uh, twenty-two years ago. I don’t recall that we were ever asked our opinion about any of those transactions.”

  “That’s right. We never were.”

  “I don’t think it is any of their business to decide what a Negro can or can’t buy. Or to tell us. What they do with their property is their business; what we do with ours is our business—as long as we obey the laws and abide by any open covenants that run with the land. That twenty-five-foot setback rule, for example. I can think of just one way they can legitimately keep us from selling this house to anyone who wants to buy it.”

  “What way is that, Mo’?”

  “By coming to us before we are committed with the same sort of offer that Mr. False Face has made but with more money. If they buy this house from us, they can do with it as they wish.”

  “I’m glad you see it that way, my love. A year from now every house in this block will be occupied by a Negro family. Mo’, I could see it coming. Population pressure works much like a rising river. You can put up dikes or levees, but the day comes when the river has to go somewhere. Kansas City’s Darktown is terribly crowded. If the whites don’t want to live next door to Negroes, then the whites must back off and give them room. I’m not especially concerned about Negro problems; I’ve got problems of my own. But I don’t fight the weather and I don’t bang my head against a stone wall. You and I will see the day when Darktown will run south all the way to Thirty-ninth Street. There is no use fussing about it; it is going to happen.”

  Briney did get a good price for our old house. After figuring in the rise in prices from 1907 to 1929 there was only a modest profit, but Briney did get the price in cash—gold certificates, not a check; the recorded price was “ten dollars and other valuable considerations”—and Briney put the money straight into the stock market. “Sweetheart, if Theodore’s predictions are correct, in a year or so we’ll be able to take our pick of big houses in the Country Club district at about a third of the going prices today…because it will turn out that Black Tuesday will leave about half of the nominal owners unable to meet their mortgage payments. In the meantime try to stay happy in this old farmhouse; Justin and I have to go to New York.”

  I did not have any trouble staying happy in that farmhouse; it reminded me of my girlhood. I told Father so, and he agreed. “But put that second bathroom in. Do you remember why we had two outhouses? You can’t afford to encourage piles and constipation.”

  Father was not formally living with us—he got his mail elsewhere—but, since 1916 and Plattsburg, Brian had insisted that we always keep a room for Father. When Brian went to New York to stay closer to his stock-market gambling, Father did agree to sleep (usually) at our house, just as he had when Brian was away in France. But by then I had that second bath installed and a washroom downstairs and the outhouse out back limed and filled.

  My children readjusted to the change with little fret. Even our resident cat, Chargé d’Affaires, accepted it. He fretted on the long trip there, but he did seem to understand that the moving vans meant that home was no longer home. Ethel and Teddy kept him fairly well soothed during the move—I was driving that load; Woodrow had the rest of the family in his jalopy. Chargé looked over our land as soon as we got there, then came back, got me, took me with him while he went all the way around the inside of the fence. He sprayed all four corner posts, so I knew that he had accepted the change and his new responsibilities.

  It was from Woodrow that I had expected the most fuss as he was due to enter his senior year at Central High School in September 1929 and was a likely candidate for cadet commander of the ROTC battalion at Central, especially as both Brian Junior and George had commanded the cadet battalion each in his senior year.

  But Woodrow did not even insist on finishing out the second semester; he transferred in midterm to Westport High School—somewhat to my dismay, as I had counted on him to drive Dick and Ethel to Central, one in junior high there, the other just entering senior high. So, willy-nilly, they had to transfer in midterm, too, as I did not have time to drive them and it was an impossible trip by streetcar. Teddy and Peggy I put in Country Day School, an excellent private school,
as Eleanor suggested that she could handle two more in her car along with the three she had in that school.

  It was several years before I realized that Woodrow’s willingness to switch schools abruptly had to do with a renovated cow pasture still farther south that had a sign on it: ACE HARDY’S FLYING SCHOOL. Woodrow had acquired (I think that is the right word) his unlikely automobile in the summer of 1928, and after that we had seen little of him other than at meals. But I learned later that Woodrow had learned to fly while still in high school.

  As everyone knows, Black Tuesday arrived on the dot. Briney called me long distance a week later. “Frau Doktor Krausmeyer?”

  “Elmer!”

  “Children okay?”

  “Everyone is fine but they miss their papa. As do I. Hurry home, dear; I’m honing to see you.”

  “Didn’t that hired man work out?”

  “No staying power. I let him go. I decided to wait for you.”

  “But I’m not coming home.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t you want to know why?”

  (Yes, Briney, I do want to know why. And someday I’m going to put itch powder into your jock strap for these guessing games.) “Buffalo Bill, you’ll tell me when it suits you and whatever suits you.”

  “Rangy Lil, how would you like to go to Paris? And to Switzerland?”

  “Hadn’t you better make it South America? Some country where there is no extradition?” (Damn you, Briney! Quit teasing me.)

  “I want you to leave tomorrow. Take the C and A to Chicago, then the Pennsy to New York. I’ll meet your train and take you to our hotel. We sail for Cherbourg on Saturday.”

  “Yes, sir.” (Oh, that man!) “About our children—Seven, I believe. Are you interested in the arrangements I make for them? Or shall I just use my judgment?” (What arrangements can I make with Eleanor?)

  “Use your judgment. But if Ira is there, I’d like to speak to him.”

  “To hear is to obey, Effendi.”

  After Brian spoke to him, Father said to me, “I told Brian not to worry, as Ethel is a competent cook. If she needs help, I will hire help. So, Maureen, you two run along and have fun; the youngsters will be safe. Don’t pack more than two bags, because—” The phone rang again.

  “Maureen? Your big sister, dear. Did you hear from Brian?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I have the train schedules and the Pullman reservations; Justin arranged them from New York. Frank will drive us to the station. You must be ready by ten tomorrow morning. Can you manage it?”

  “I’ll have to manage it. I may be barefooted and my hair in a bath knot—”

  I became addicted to travel in a luxury liner in nothing flat. The Île de France was a wonderful shock to little Maureen Johnson whose idea of luxury was enough bathrooms for seven—usually seven; it varied—children and enough hot water. Briney had taken me to the Grand Canyon two years earlier and that was wonderful…but this was another sort of wonderful. A concierge who seemed anxious to swim back and fetch anything Madame wishes. A maid who spoke English but understood my French and did not laugh at my accent. A full orchestra at dinner, a chamber music trio for tea, dancing to live music every night. Breakfast in bed. A masseuse on call. A living room for our suite bigger and much fancier than Eleanor’s at home, and two master bedrooms. “Justin, why are we at the captain’s table?”

  “I don’t know. Because we have this suite, maybe.”

  “And why do we have this suite? Everything in first class looks luxurious; I would not have complained if we had been in second class. But this is gilding the lily. Isn’t it?”

  “Maureen my sweet, I ordered two outside double staterooms, first class, which were confirmed and we paid for them. Then two days before sailing the agent telephoned and offered me this suite at the price we had paid plus a nominal surcharge, one hundred dollars. Seems the man who had reserved this suite had not been able to sail. I asked why he had canceled. Instead of answering he cut the surcharge to fifty dollars. I asked who had died in that suite and was it contagious. Again instead of answering he offered to eliminate the surcharge if we would just let the New York Times and L’Illustration photograph us in our suite—which they did, you remember.”

  “And was it contagious?”

  “Not really. The poor fellow jumped out a twenty-story window—the day after Black Tuesday.”

  “Oh! I should keep my mouth shut.”

  “Mau darling, this suite was not his home, he was never in it in his life, it is not haunted. He was just one of many thousands of chumps who became paper wealthy gambling on margin. If it will make you feel any better, I can assure you that both Brian and I made no secret of our intention of getting out of the market when we did because we expected the market to collapse before the end of October. Nobody would listen.” Justin shook his head, shrugged.

  Brian added, “I almost had to strangle one broker to get him to execute my orders. He seemed to think it was immoral and possibly illegal to sell when the market was going steadily up. ‘Wait till it tops,’ he said. ‘Then see. You’re crazy to quit at this point.’ I told him that my old grandmother had read the tea leaves and told me that now was the time to unload. He again said that I was crazy. I told him to execute those orders at once…or I was going straight to the governors of the Exchange and have him investigated for bucket shop operations. That really got him angry, so he sold me out…and then got still angrier when I insisted on a certified check. I took the check and cashed it at once. And changed the cash to gold…as I recalled all too clearly that Ted said that banks would start to go boom.”

  I wanted to ask where that gold was now. But I did not.

  Zurich is a lovely city, prettier than any I had seen in the United States. The language there is alleged to be German but it is not the German spoken by my neighbor from Munich. But I got along fine once I realized that almost everyone spoke English. Our men were busy; Eleanor and I had a wonderful time being tourists.

  Then one day they took us with them and I found myself the surprised owner of a numbered bank account, for 155,515 grams of fine gold (which I had no trouble interpreting as one hundred thousand dollars, but it was not called such). Then I found myself signing powers of attorney over “my” bank account to Brian and to Justin, while Eleanor did the same with a similar account. And a limited power of attorney to someone I had never heard of in Winnipeg, Canada.

  We were not placed in that fancy suite because we were high society; we were not. But the purser was carrying in his safe I do not know how many ounces of gold, most of which belonged to the Ira Howard Foundation, and some of which belonged personally to Brian, and to Justin, and to my father. That gold was moved by the Bank of France from Cherbourg to Zurich, and we rode with it.

  In Zurich Brian and Justin, as witnesses and trustees for the Foundation, saw the shipment opened, saw it counted and weighed, and then deposited with a consortium of three banks. For the Foundation had taken very seriously Theodore’s warning that Mr. Roosevelt would devalue the dollar, then make it illegal for American citizens to own or possess gold.

  “Justin,” I asked, “what happens if Governor Roosevelt does not run for the presidency? Or does but is not elected?”

  “Nothing. The Foundation would be no worse off. But have you lost confidence in Ted? On his advice we rode the market up, and then cashed out before it crashed, and now the Foundation is about six times as wealthy as it was a year ago, all through depending on Ted’s predictions.”

  “Oh, I believe in Theodore! I was just wondering.”

  Mr. Roosevelt was elected and he did indeed devalue the dollar and made it illegal for Americans to possess gold. But the assets of the Foundation had been placed out of reach of this confiscation. As was my own numbered bank account. I never touched it but Briney told me that it was not simply lying idle; he was using “my” money to make more money.

  Brian was now a trustee of the Foundation, vice Mr. Chapman, who had been remo
ved from the board for having lost his own money in the stock market. A trustee of the Foundation had to be himself qualified for Howard benefits (four living grandparents at time of marriage) and had to be himself a money-maker. If there were other requirements, I do not know what they were.

  Justin was now chairman of the board and chief executive, vice Judge Sperling, who was still a trustee but was past ninety and had elected not to work quite so hard. When we got back to Kansas City, Justin and Brian set up offices in the Scarritt Building as “Weatheral and Smith, Investments” while “Brian Smith Associates” took an office on the same floor.

  We never again had money worries but the decade of the Depression was not a time when it was fun to be rich. We strove to avoid the appearance of being rich. Instead of buying a fancy house in the Country Club district we bought that farmhouse at a bargain price, then rebuilt it into a more satisfactory structure. It was a period when skilled craftsmen were eager to get work at wages they would have sneered at in 1929.

  The nation’s economy was stuck on dead center and no one seemed to know why and everyone from bootblack to banker had a solution he wanted to see tried. Mr. Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933 and, yes, the banks did close but the Smiths and the Weatherals had cash under the mattress and groceries squirreled away; the bank holiday did us no harm. The country seemed invigorated by the energetic actions of “The New Deal,” the new president’s name for a series of nostrums that came pouring out of Washington.

  In retrospect it seemed that the “reforms” that constituted the New Deal did nothing to correct the economy—yet it is hard to fault emergency measures that put food into the mouths of the destitute. The WPA and the PWA and the CCC and the NRA and the endless make-work programs did not cure the economy and may well have done damage…but in Kansas City in the 1930s they almost certainly served to avoid food riots by desperate people.