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73 C H a p t e r 6 Holding On 1935–36 as dana told lillian ross, he dealt with Janet’s death by training his voice and working like a “maniac.” He ran two miles a day to build up his diaphragm and learned operatic roles in French, German, and Italian. He found no consolation in religion, and when his father wrote a pious letter asking his son to trust in God, Carver (as CF still called him) replied that God “had nothing whatever to do with it.” CF’s unsparing theology now showed itself in stark relief, explaining much about his son’s journey away from home: All your life you have wanted to have our own way; you have thought much of self-gratification; you have left Christ out of your life’s program by your own admission. What would be your hope if it had been you instead of Janet? The Father loved the Prodigal son, but he let him go away, and there was no rejoicing for the Prodigal till he came back—he only lost what he had in the far country. When he came to the end of his resources, “no relief anywhere”, he came back to the father’s house. That was the only hope for the Prodigal,—and the only way out for you. God knows all your sorrow and He cares; but He cannot help if you shut him out. We are praying for you everyday. After Janet’s death, the bills came due. Dr. Edward Kellog, writing on February 20, 1936, wrote to express his sympathy for Dana’s loss: “I can well understand the difficulties that you are having at this time. However, it is unfortunate that you did not advise me of them sooner inasmuch as no reply was received to several bills sent you the account was placed in the hands of a collector.” What money Dana had went to paying for voice lessons, as the receipts he kept shows. H o l d i n g o n ( 1 9 3 5 – 3 6 ) 74 As Dana later told Ida Zeitlin, a writer for Modern฀Screen, Janet’s mother (called Aggie) believed she could still do something for her lost daughter by taking Dana and his two-year-old son into her home. “In a way it was a family tradition when the Andrews moved in since Aggie and her husband had resided with her parents in their home in Eldora,” noted Aggie’s great-niece, Sheila Simpson. While Dana seemed in perpetual motion pursuing his career, Aggie watched over David. Returning at night he would find her sleeping on a couch near his son’s room. Only then did she retire to her own bed. Janet’s father had been a well-known singer and had studied music briefly in Boston, but had become a banker after dropping out of college in his third year to support himself. His thwarted ambition may well have contributed to his identification with his son-in-law’s aspirations. Dana could not afford to visit home, and his parents did not have the money to travel to California, but Aggie, apparently wanting to maintain family connections, sent a fur coat Janet had worn to Dana’s sister Mary. And Dana received still more help from outside the family. Stanley Twomey, a partner with John Wardlaw in the Wardlaw Motor Inn, told Dana he was wearing himself out working at the gas station and going to singing lessons. “I want to put you on salary,” Twomey said, “Your job’ll be to go on with your singing lessons and spend the rest of the day figuring out how to get into motion pictures.” When Twomey asked how long Dana thought it would take for him to get a movie contract, Dana said, “six months at the outside.” It would take much longer, but Twomey and Wardlaw backed him all the way, and Dana promised to provide them with a substantial return as soon as he secured a contract. The extraordinary story of how two businessmen invested in an amateur singer and actor would become sensationalized in movie magazine profiles, which reduced the facts to a fable in which Dana was heard singing while pumping gas, attracting the attention of his employers, who promptly funded his studies. But Dana had been working at the Wardlaw Motor Inn for more than two years when Janet died, and he had become...

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