Well, it may have been, but at least Mother thought that it may have been
leading to something more profitable, I don't know. But it wasn't very
expensive. You see, the rich girls had big rich balls that cost hundreds
of dollars, but I never had any like that. I think that Mother had maybe
a buffet supper for me, but that was all. We couldn't afford any big
parties. The only funny instance that happened that year that I can
remember so well, I had a dear friend named Tinsley Harrison who was a
perfectly brilliant boy. He was from Birmingham and he had been at the
Peter Bent Brigham Hospital as an intern. He graduated from high school
when he was fourteen
Page 138 and he graduated from
college when he was eighteen, I suppose and he had gotten into medical
school and there he was at Peter Bent Brigham as an intern and he was
known to be one of the most brilliant young doctors. He is today, he is
one of the most famous heart men in the world, I reckon. So, you see,
the boys fell for all this stuff if you know what I mean, all this sweet
talk and acting like we might fall in love with them. Everybody had what
they called a line. The idea was to keep as many boys chasing you as you
could without ever knocking one of them off or marrying one of them
until you got ready to marry one. It was really a game that we were
playing on both sides. But the boys fell for it too, they must have had
pretty hard licks themselves, because these girls would seem to be just
on the brink of falling in love with them and then they didn't really
mean a word of it. So, it was a game that was played back and forth. But
this boy, Tinsley Harrison was short, he wasn't a handsome boy, but he
was a brilliant fellow and I was devoted to him, he was a great friend,
we read books and he would lend me books and we would go on picnics and
his mother and father were lovely people. So, he was friendly with my
friend Virginia Jemison and me. I was very devoted to him. When I was at
Wellesley, I used to go over to Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and have tea
with him and meet all of his friends. They had no money, they didn't pay
the interns then and they could hardly ever come out to see us or take
us out. At that time, interns didn't get anything. So, that winter that
I made my debut, I began to get this series of letters from this boy and
you never read such fervent love letters in your life. They were works
of art, page after page about how he had loved me ever since he knew me
and I was the ideal of his life and when he went to sleep at night, he
could see me on the ceiling and on and on. Just absolutely marvelous
letters. I was just terrified. I read them to Mother and Mother got so
concerned because she was devoted to his mother and father and his
Page 139 father was our doctor, ear, eye nose and throat
man. Oh my God, we were terribly concerned. Mother said, "Oh my
goodness, that poor boy, his heart will be broken." Oh, I began to write
him letters about how much I appreciated this and what it meant to me,
but I thought that after all we were just dear friends and oh . . .
anyway, he had evidently written his mother and father that he had
become a suitor. So, they called me up and said that they were going up
when he graduated from Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and would I go as
their guest. Well, I was going to Wellesley to see my roommate then and
go on to Buffalo. So, I said that I could do that and I would see them
and I would go to his graduation. So, when I got to Boston, they met me
and took me over to the hospital, they introduced me as Tinsley's friend
and they made it very plain that I was his intended and he had the same
attitude, in spite of the letters that I had written to him. I was
introduced to everybody as Tinsley's "friend" whom he had known so long
and so on and so forth. I went to his graduation and I went to the
reception and I kept telling my roommate . . . I had come to see my
roommate and see my friends at Wellesley and go on to Buffalo to visit
her. I kept telling my roommate that I was just absolutely overcome that
they kept introducing me like I was going to marry him and I wasn't. She
knew that I had been in love with Bill Winston and that he had jilted
me, I suppose . . . anyway, he had disappeared from the scene. So, I
said, "I am just in a state of panic. What am I going to do?" She said,
"Now Jenxie, you've got to be honest with him. You cannot fool him,
you've got to be honest with him." I said, "I will really be honest with
him." So, the night after he had graduated his mother and father took us
out to dinner. Everything was through and he was a doctor now. They
said, "Now Virginia, it's up to you what Tinsley does. He can go to
Vienna and study or go [unknown] someplace else and study,
but it is up to you to decide." He
Page 140 had evidently
fooled his mother and father. They thought that he was madly in love
with me and that I was thinking about marrying him. So, I was terribly
embarassed about that. He took me home out to Wellesley. I said,
"Tinsley, we have got to have a heart to heart talk. You know that I am
devoted to you and you are one of my best friends and I have been a good
friend of yours for years, but I am not in love with you and I never
will be and I am in love with Bill Winston" whom I was still suffering
from, I suppose. And oh, it was the most tearful, painful, honest talk.
I thought that he took it rather calmly and from those letters that he
had written me, I thought that he would immediately say, "Well, I'll
just go and drown myself in the lake."
[Laughter]
I thought that he would just throw himself over in the lake or
kill himself. Those letters of his, I wish that I had kept them, you
have never read such beautiful letters in your life. So, I thought that
he took it fairly calmly and he understood and that was the painful
ending and he went off. So, I went on to visit my roommate in Buffalo
and I got home about the middle of July, I reckon. I hadn't walked in
the house before the telephone rang and a friend of mine called and
said, "Jinxie, I'm having a tea party this afternoon for Tinsley's wife
and I wanted you to come." I said, "You are having a tea party for
Tinsley's wife?" "Yes, Tinsley is visiting his mother and father and his
wife is here with him." I said, "When did he get married?" "Oh, he has
been married a year or two." I said, "He's been married a year or two?"
"Oh, yes, they've been married a year or two."
[Laughter] Well, you could have knocked me down with a
feather. So, I went to the tea party and here was this very nice looking
girl, Mrs. Tinsley Harrison and she blushed and laughed and said that
she had been a nurse in the hospital and they had been married for a
year or so. And everybody was congratulating her and all. Then somebody
gave them a
Page 141 dinner and I went to the dinner
party and there was Tinsley. So he danced with me, and I said, "Now
Tinsley, I really think that you owe me an explanation, don't you?" He
said, "Yes, I do." I said, "Well, let's come out and get this settled."
He said, "Well Jinxie, you see, the thing is that I met Betty and we did
get married and the rule was in the hospital that if a nurse married an
intern, we were both fired, thrown out of the hospital immediately. We
kept it secret for quite awhile and then I was afraid that people were
getting suspicious, so I just had to do something to throw them off the
track." I said, "Do you mean that those letters that you wrote to me
were not your letters." He said, "Well actually, they were joint
efforts. We all got together and the interns would write a page and we
all tried to outdo each other in love letters." I said, "Then there
wasn't a word that was true." He said, "Jinxie, I am fond of you, but
you know that you never did care a thing for me and I knew that you
never would and you couldn't fool me." I said, "Well Tinsley, I never
tried to fool you, did I?" "No, you never did." I said, "Why did you
pick on me instead of somebody else." "I thought that you had a sense of
humor and I was desperate. I had to throw some sort of a screen around
our marriage." It was like . . . do you remember Emma? You know, Jane
Austen? They were secretly engaged and this young man threw a screen
around their engagement by courting Emma. Well, it was the same thing,
he used me in the same way. Well, the thing was that he was the only boy
that I ever went with that wasn't fooled by this southern sweet talk, if
you know what I mean. He realized that there was nothing to it.