Frank Norris Remembered

33. Bertha Rickoff

33 / Bertha Rickoff A self-­styled journalist—on the 1920 census she listed her occupation as “writer” for a “magazine”—Bertha Monroe Rickoff (1862–?) proved more a nemesis for Norris and at least one of his fraternity brothers, Harry M. Wright, than a friend (see Crisler 1986, 75–76). Her claim of confidante to Gertrude may indeed have been true, however, for in her interview with Walker she manifests a knowledge of rather private details concerning the Norris family; even so, Walker opted to use almost nothing of what she told him and over forty years later discounted her reliability entirely: “She did not seem to be a very trustworthy witness” (Walker to W. John Bauer, Sep­ tem­ ber [17], 1972). That Gertrude plumped for her as a possible wife for Norris prior to his courtship of Jeannette does in fact seem suspect , since Rickoff was nearly a decade older than Norris. Thus the information Rickoff imparts perhaps derives from one who despite the passage of many years still harbored the grudge of a woman scorned: tellingly, hers is the only wholly negative portrayal of Norris left by those who knew him. Source: Bertha Rickoff. Interview notes by Franklin D. Walker, May 29, 1930, Franklin Dickerson Walker Papers, BANC MSS C-­H 79, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berke­ ley. Miss Rickoff said that she knew Frank from the time that he came back from South Africa till he went East. Saw him at other times when he came west. She is the one who wrote the answer to “Zola as Romantic Writer” for The Wave;107 also referred to in Frank’s letter to Harry and [by] Jeannette.108 She says that she came of a very good family in the East, her father being president of National Education Association and put out the Applegate readers.109 She knew many literary fig­ures in the East and had written some for the North Ameri­can Review.110 When she came west she gave a paper before the Century Club on Zola and Hall Caine which appealed to Mrs. Norris and she took her up.111 She then continued to give lectures in the bay region on current literature, stressing the realistic movement. Many were scandalized at her treatment of Zola and Quo Vadis.112 152 / Frank Norris Remembered When she met them, Frank, Charles, and his mother were staying at the Pleasanton Hotel—they later moved back to the house on Sacramento Street. Frank was trying to console his mother for the divorce. His mother decided that Bertha was just the person of the proper literary background for Frank to marry and tried to encourage the match. Frank, however, struck her as a man of the world, quite fast, and she decided he was not for her. He was only interested in a woman in order to live with her. His attitude he had picked up when in Paris, according to his mother. There were several girls who were crazy about him and he used to go over and stay with one married woman in Sausalito. Frank had no manners at all and would do what he felt like doing at any time. He would never engage in small talk. Once he picked up a macaroon from the floor at a fine dinner at her house and ate it. Like his mother, if he liked a person he would be kind, otherwise quite brutal. Charles was really hopeless, much more like his father. Frank would do the unexpected but was never crude. As far as she knew he never did an unkind act so he was always liked. She was simply not his kind, and although the mother encouraged the match for three years nothing came of it. Frank was receiving money from his mother but was very bitter towards his father. Mrs. Norris had married while on the stage after being disappointed over another man. She never cared an awful lot for Mr. N. and was inclined to neglect him for the children and her nieces, whom she was putting into society on his money. He went around the world with a S.F. woman, and then the divorce followed , Mrs. N. getting the alimony. She was quite a free lance herself, although very orthodox and a strict church member. She loved life, however, and enjoyed specially the parts of Zola and Browning which were outspoken. She was quite a tartar and could express herself in very...