-
2. Women’s Work and Leisure
- University of Washington Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
27 CHAPTER 2 Women’s Work and Leisure MOST OF THE WOMEN IN ELEANOR PRAY’S PREREVOLUTIONARY circle—merchant wives in Old Vladivostok—had no professional training nor salaried positions in commercial enterprises. They were wives and mothers , homemakers and hostesses, and their customary freedom from financial hardship allowed them to volunteer in charitable organizations or spend their time leisurely. It is tempting to consider these women frivolous, their lives seemingly so carefree. Imagine calendars chock-full of tea parties, formal dinners, and intricate menus that you simply order from your kitchen staff. Servants keep your rooms clean and cozy, and you always wear white in the summer. Imagine never fetching the water for your bath, and almost never washing your own dishes, bedding, or impressively designed clothes. The sleeves and the skirts of your dresses expand and contract according to fashion, and you go nowhere without a hat. But now also realize that this picture is poignant only by its selectivity, for it reflects neither Mrs. Pray’s and her friends’ variable reality before World War I, nor their far more complex existence in Soviet times. By the late teens and early 1920s, their easy “antebellum” comforts had been drastically reduced.1 The tea party was these women’s central meeting place. Started as a social gathering of foreign ladies, Marie Dattan’s particular group thrived in the 1890s and early 1900s, and by June 1901 its members decided to memorialize their friendship, as well as their pretty gowns, in a photo. Arranged elegantly before a professional photographer are Mrs. Dattan, her sister Anna Cornehls, Wilhelmina (Minni) Langschwadt, and Sophie Wohlfahrt (all connected with the German trading house of Kunst and Albers, or K&A);2 Eleonora 28 ✴ Chapter 2 Hansen (wife of the director of the Danish Telegraph);3 and Sarah Smith and Eleanor Pray (from the American Store). Russian ladies were also invited, including Mrs. Bushueva (wife of Ivan Bushuev, a public prosecutor and member of the circuit court), and Tullie Tyrtova (née Lindholm, wife of Konstantin Tyrtov of the cruiser Russia). They drank tea, coffee, or hot chocolate and ate light refreshments—pastries, slices of cake, or small open-faced sandwiches—while discussing diverse topics, such as city news (with its inevitable gossip) and recent art events. Not infrequently, they also helped each other overcome the human anguish that monetary security does not control and cannot soothe: that children often ail and sometimes die, that friends suffer, that violence may strike in our midst. The Wohlfahrts lost several babies during these years; Paul Dattan (born in 1891) was chronically ill; Minni Langschwadt died from diphtheria in November 1902; and Mr. Bushuev was murdered on the Isle of Askold in 1897.4 The tea circle thus served as a support group, its moods ranging from light-hearted and giggly to somberly compassionate, its philosophy neatly illustrating Horace’s idea of mixing dulce et utile, the pleasing and the useful. The “pleasing” part was the atmosphere of comfort and care in the members’ homes, contrasted with the often unsettling conditions outside: “It was a stormy day and I strayed into [Sarah’s] house and we talked of home as we worked all the afternoon. The storm was something terrible, fine snow, accompanied by a whirling wind. One could not see ten steps ahead” (2 February 1895 to Mildred). The “useful” part was the empathy of trusting friendships , as well as a more tangible contribution: the women’s work. Trotting off to their meetings, they took along basketfuls of assorted sewing jobs, from small to voluminous. Sewing proficiency was expected of all married women, its products benefitting both their families and others. “Allegri,” charity bazaars, were held regularly, serving worthy causes often sponsored by the local Philanthropic Society. During the political upheavals that started in 1914 and continued through the mid-1920s, most of the foreigners left Vladivostok, and those who stayed, including Eleanor Pray, were uprooted from their former mode of living. Forced by the necessity of survival, her final decision in the fall of 1930 to join her family in Shanghai led to much bureaucratic wrangling, and, mitigated by sweet nostalgia, put into bright focus the rise and fall of her economic fortunes as reflected in her clothes: “As I neared the [visa] place, I wondered what hitch there would be, but couldn’t even guess—I soon found out. They had no blanks—please come again tomorrow! . . . Outside I sat on a curb Women’s Work...