Zenith City: Stories from Duluth

Cousin Jean

i was twenty-five years old before I first met my mother’s cousin Jean in April , but I had long been aware of her mythic status among Duluth relatives. She had left home years before and had made her mark in New York, counting that city’s movers and shakers among her friends and acquaintances. I had journeyed to New York specifically to see Jean. Several months before I would graduate with an MA degree in broadcast journalism from Kent State University, my mother reminded me that her cousin had many important connections in New York and might be willing to help me arrange interviews at major networks. When I phoned from Ohio, Jean said she’d be delighted to have me visit. We met in her masculine oak-paneled office with dark leather chairs and sofas on the Avenue of the Americas, where she was vice president of a large public relations firm. “You remind me of your mother,” Jean said, extending her hand. “When I was a little girl I thought she was beautiful. She should have gone to Hollywood.” She paused to light a cigarette, exhaled, and smiled. “But then, of course, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now, would I?” She sat behind her desk, and began a strange and rambling reminiscence about her long-ago Minnesota days, recounting her first affair with a young Minneapolis newspaper reporter named Feike Feikema, who later wrote critically acclaimed novels under the name Frederick Manfred. She followed that with a story about another brief liaison with the novelist James T. Farrell, when he was a visiting lecturer at the University of Minnesota. She said she was barely eighteen during both of those affairs, and that upon learning of them her mother’s sisters tried to lash her with a horsewhip. cousin jean 89 90 | Cousin Jean From the bottom drawer of her desk, she produced a manila folder containing reviews of Manfred’s books. “He’s gone on to do wonderful work,” she said. “Farrell, of course, was on the way down when I knew him. To tell the truth, I really wasn’t much of a Studs Lonigan fan.” Jean also mentioned that she had married her third husband eight years ago, though they had lived separately for the last five. “Mother and my aunts were partly right,” she said. “I was a sinner, but I didn’t do anything wrong.” throughout my s and s childhood, Jean seldom visited Minnesota, even though her young son, Daniel, lived with Uncle Carl and Aunt Myrna on their farm near Mora. This apparent abandonment of the boy was barely mentioned; it was simply attributed to the way Jean was. As perceived by Great Aunt Hilma, Jean was pretty, and no good could come of this. Pretty was not a desirable quality for a young woman raised among rural fundamentalists—especially her dogmatic aunts. And Jean was not only pretty but also smart and talented. As a youngster she used to perform a dead-on mimicry of Mae West’s signature line: “Come up and see me sometime.” It wasn’t the line that worried relatives; it was little Jean’s comprehension of the vamp. This child would require close supervision. Naturally enough, Jean found the vigilance stultifying. She rebelled in the only avenues open in the late s: she read Sinclair Lewis and smoked cigarettes. Jean’s father, Dan, favored a laissez-faire approach toward his daughter’s perspicacity and probing intellect. He was a man of perpetual middle age, who was unable to maintain steady employment. Whenever minor strife manifested itself at work, Dan’s sensitive stomach rebelled, rendering him useless. He would either quit the job or be terminated. He had no propensity for conflict and thus was browbeaten by his wife and her four sisters, who regularly reminded him of his inadequacies. The women tolerated him because he served for many years as usher at the local Baptist church and eschewed Cousin Jean | 91 alcohol. On several occasions throughout her adolescence, he told Jean he was proud of her but cautioned against divulging this to her mother and aunts. As family breadwinner, Jean’s mother placed her daughter under her sisters’ charge, not trusting Dan to exercise appropriate discipline. When she was a high school senior, Jean won first prize in a national essay competition sponsored by...