Garland in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates

[Garland in California, 1931–1933]

[130] X [Garland in California, 1931–1933] Isabel Garland Lord In 1927 Garland’s daughter Constance married Joseph Wesley Harper (1903– 1963), a grandson of one of the founders of Harper and Brothers. They moved to Hollywood to live in a house next door to Joe’s mother in the 2000 block of DeMille Drive, a gated community in Hollywood in the shadow of the mansion of film director Cecil B. DeMille. Isabel and Hardesty followed in 1929 and, in January 1930, Garland began construction of a house for Isabel, conveniently located next door to the Harpers, with the idea that he and Zulime would spend winters in Hollywood. But when Zulime developed Parkinson ’s disease in August 1931, the seventy-one-year-old author soon realized he needed help with her care. In November he moved permanently into the house he had built for Isabel. The proximity proved to be more troublesome than father or daughter had envisioned, as Lord remembers. that fall there was a big change in our lives. Father’s letters from Onteora , where Mother and he had been spending the summer in Grey Ledge, grew more and more forlorn. Mother was not improving; she was getting worse and was, in fact, nearly helpless. It was impossible for her to live in the big house with inadequate care. There was only one solution. “Mother needs her daughters,” Father wrote in bitter surrender. “I have taken her away for the last time. I’ll continue to come East when I can, but from now on your mother will make her home with you and Jimmie.” What were we to say? The original agreement was that they would be three or four months’ visitors. Fond as we were of them and grateful for their generosity, it was impossible to lead any life of our own while they were there. Guests had to be carefully screened to please our parents, early hours observed, menus adjusted to their needs and likes. Perhaps the hardest thing of all was their unhappiness every time we went out. They wanted us there all the time, and I was quite sick with sympathy, mixed, I am afraid, with a little resentment at the change in their faces when I said, “We’re not going to be here for dinner tonight.” Each time we drove away, [131] it was with the picture of two silent figures on each side of the fireplace, and the wistful appeal on their eyes haunted me through the gayest evening. Our first impulse was to cut and run, but how could we do that? How could you walk out on a frail, sick darling, whose love was twined around and around you like a vine? Father had built the house for me, for my happiness . What kind of ungrateful children would we be who could walk out on responsibility like that? Jimmie was quite desperate, but the more we talked it over, the more we realized where our path lay. We must never let them know that we felt anything but joy and satisfaction in their company. Having no children, they became, in a curious roundabout way, our children, and the future was gray with duty and self-sacrifice. We met them with open arms at the train, and on the surface life resumed itself smoothly and pleasantly, but underneath was real tragedy. Mother was now in the ugly grip of Parkinson’s disease. Her hands and feet shook constantly, and she was in morbid dread that in time her head would shake, too. Thank God, it never did, and strangely, after Father died, the shaking all but disappeared; she was once more able to hold a cup and a fork and her beautifully modeled face took on an unearthly beauty. At this time, she refused to see anyone and would stay in her room when we had anyone to tea or dinner. Father was bewildered, miserable. He haunted her bedroom, sitting by her hour after hour, sometimes reading aloud or listening with her to symphonic music on her bedside radio that was never turned off, day or night. Often he would lean forward and take her poor, quivering hand in his big paw, holding it for as long as she would permit him. In her own wretchedness Mother was cool, almost unkind to Father. In the car, when Jimmie and I took them on long drives up and down and across California, Father always sought Mother’s hand, humbly...