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A
Lament: With Apologies to Shakespeare
©2001 Gertrude Martin
Friends, Americans, Countrymen,
lend me your ears,
I come to praise Clinton, not to accuse him.
The evil that men do oft transcends the good,
So has it been with Clinton.
The noble Kenneth Starr hath told you Clinton is evil, a liar
and a perjurer.
If it were so, these are grievous faults
And grievously hath Clinton answered them.
Here, under leave of Ken Starr and his ilk
for Ken Starr is an honorable man
Come I to speak in Clinton's behalf
He is our leader, true and just to us,
But Ken Starr says he is evil,
And Ken Starr is an honorable man.
He hath brought more equality to our nation,
And hath provided jobs for many.
Did this Clinton seem evil?
When that the poor hath cried, Clinton hath wept
Evil should be made of sterner stuff.
Yet Ken Starr says he is evil
And Ken Starr is an honorable man.
You all did see that he did defend
Those whom we had deserted.
Mandela, the U.N., the mentally ill,
Yet Ken Starr says he is evil.
And sure he is an honorable man.
I speak not to disprove what Ken Starr spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did admire him once, not without cause.
What cause withholds you then to admire him still?
Oh judgement! Thou art fled to brutish beasts
And men have lost their reason, Bear with me;
My heart is on the stand there with Clinton
And I must pause till it come back to me.
When
I Was a Child: Memoir
©2001 Gertrude Martin
When I was a child, the South
seemed very different from the North. I only realized fully how
many differences there were when my family, except my father,
moved to Columbus, Ohio seeking better schools. Savannah's racism
and my parent's response to it circumscribed our lives in those
days.
My father's father had died when he was quite young and, as the
eldest son, he had to work early in his life, first selling newspapers
to help his mother support his three sisters and two younger
brothers. He had completed what I think would be his high school
years at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. His younger brothers
both attended Fisk College in Nashville, Tennessee.
My mother, whose family was also relatively poor, like my father
was born in Savannah. She, her two sisters and one brother also
attended Fisk. Her younger brother moved to New York City and
passed for white. He later married a Ziegfield's Follies girl
who I met once and who represented glamour and mystery to me.
My father was an entrepreneur from an early age. His first job
was working for a cotton factor in a building on the Savannah
River. This area has been gentrified and now attracts many visitors
to the city. His next step was to open a small dry goods store
with his brother Duncan. There was also an ice cream parlor before
or after this venture.
By the time his children were born, my father had become secretary
treasurer of a small bank. He was active in civic affairs, a
member of the Masons, the Eastern Star, the Knights of Pythias
and one or two social clubs. Somehow, although my father had
more dealings with whites than many of his contemporaries, he
didn't buckle under nor curb his quick temper in any situation.
I think his attitude made his children more independent and more
enterprising.
My mother, on the other hand, was softer and had a great sense
of humor. Sometimes, she was fearful that our father might antagonize
the wrong people. But she too didn't seem to want to limit her
children in any overt way. When we moved to Ohio, I felt strongly
that I must make their sacrifice for us worthwhile. It was difficult
for my parents to live apart, to have to spend for two households
since my father lived alone in our large Savannah house.
There were four of us. My sister Laura, who was two and one-half
years older than I, my brother, Walter, almost exactly three
years younger and the baby of the family, Lillian, nine years
younger than I. Laura and I were very close; we went most places
together and shared a bedroom until I married.
In a cruel twist of fate, both Laura and Walter died as young
adults. She at 29 after the birth of her only child, and Walter
at 34 as the result of an automobile accident. Laura died the
year that my mother returned to Savannah after selling the house
in Columbus. That year, the dorms at Ohio State were desegregated
and Lillian, my younger sister, had moved into a suite in one
with our cousin, Nancy, and a friend.
My sister had given birth to a son in one of the segregated hospitals
in Savannah in October, 1941. Ten days after his birth, her doctor
ordered a blood transfusion before she left the hospital because
she was anemic. Tragically, she was given the wrong type blood
and died hours later.
Almost exactly ten years later, my brother, Walter, died after
an automobile accident. He was alone in the car and drove into
a tree. He had been drinking as he did more and more. He had
married after law school to a beautiful young woman. The marriage
broke up within five years, but I don't think he had ever recovered
from the divorce. He had quickly remarried a woman who was almost
the opposite of his first wife. We thought that his accident
might have been an unexpressed suicide attempt.
If so, fate worked in his favor. He was taken to a white hospital,
but given no treatment after a search of his wallet revealed
his so-called race. He was sent to the less well equipped of
the two black hospitals where his wife was called. A nurse herself,
she had him moved to the other black hospital, again without
treatment. He died there within two hours.
With their deaths, I lost the structure of my early life and
I seemed afloat, unanchored. It is only in recent years that
I have realized the full extent of my loss and the sorrow and
guilt that never left me. Sometimes, I almost believed that,
if I had been there when my sister had her baby, it would have
made a difference. But how could that be? She had depended on
me although she was older and I felt responsible, somehow.
Both the sister and brother I lost had returned to Savannah as
newly married, young adults and had lived at home with my parents.
After a time, my sister and brother-in-law bought a home and
moved out. My brother and brother-in-law worked for my father,
a kindly but stern employer. He was a successful self-made businessman
and he and my mother were very generous. But I think to return
to Savannah after living so many years in the North was a mistake
for both couples. Now, about fifty years after my sister's death,
Savannah is a different city, but there are still vestiges of
the old South. At least, I feel I can go home again.
During these tragic years in Savannah I was living in Detroit
and had two young children: Trudy was three and Anita was fourteen
months old. So I couldn't spend much time with my parents, yet
I knew they needed me. I felt that I had no time to grieve. I
wanted to challenge Laura's doctors, but my father did not want
me to do that. I felt, then and now, that he and my mother had
to live in Savannah and I would not do anything to distress them.
Who knows what ill feelings could have resulted especially since
the doctor was white? I realized soon, also, that the doctor's
ordering a transfusion was medically sound. I later learned that
it was the nurse who gave the transfusion who made the fatal
error. Years later, my cousin Susan, who lives in Savannah, told
me that Laura's doctor had been her doctor for many years and
that he cried when he talked to her about Laura's death.
My brother-in-law's mother came to Savannah from her home in
Columbia, Ohio to care for my sister's son, Bowles. My mother
was still a relatively young woman, only 53, but Laura's death
had a profound effect on her. Her health began to fail and a
sadder, older person replaced the sparkling, witty one she had
been. Her first grandson was very dear to her, but because his
family lived across town and she did not drive, she did not see
him as often as she would have liked. In addition, perhaps inevitably,
there was a distancing from her by her son-in-law. But he continued
to work for my father's insurance company and did so until my
father's death when we sold the company. And when Bowles, Sr.
remarried less than a year after Laura's death, my mother found
it hurtful. Yet, throughout their lives she and my father continued
to see young Bowles as often as possible. When Bowles went away
to school in his junior high years, my parents paid his way.
Laura's death left a void in our family that was never filled.
My mother's sadness was with her until her death 20 years later.
When my brother died after the automobile accident ten years
later, her health deteriorated more. I think parents are never
able to accept the death of a child. There is always a sense
that one's children should outlive the parent. My father was
an extremely reticent man and it was only after my mother's death
years later that he talked at all freely to me. My younger sister
was 18 in 1941, an independent, assertive young woman who was
able to comfort my mother when she was home on vacations. Like
me, she was close to Laura but in a different way since Laura
was almost 12 years older than she.
As in many families those days, my brother occupied a very special
place in my parent's eyes as their only male child. He was close
to his sisters, but we saw less of him than of each other. Although
he and my father were very different, they were similar in that
neither talked of his emotions. But during the days we were together
after Laura's funeral my brother was a source of love and support.
As for me, I returned to Detroit, to my family, and to my other
responsibilities, working for my husband's understaffed weekly
newspaper. I was plagued by a series of nightmares, which were
all the more disturbing, because I don't remember dreams and
these I could not forget. I suppose it was good that I was busy
and perhaps it saved me from a deeper depression. There were
times when I felt impatient and wished I could be with those
who were as close to Laura as I was.
Adventure
in Zaire
©2001 Gertrude Martin
Recently, I saw the dateline
Gbadolite, Congo in a newspaper and I was transported back to
1979 when, by a surprising twist of fate, I traveled to Gbadolite,
home of Mobutu Sese Seko who died in 1987.
It all started when my husband called me from his White House
office to ask me if I would like a trip to Zaire, now called
Congo. He was then a special assistant to President Carter. He
knew that I was always ready to travel, especially to an exotic
country like Zaire in Africa.
When I learned the whole story of my projected trip, it was surprising,
amusing and shocking. It seemed that the State Department having
coddled Citizen Mobutu (as he liked to call himself) over many
years as it had coddled other dictators was ready now to give
him his comeuppance. So instead of sending a high-level official
to represent the United States at a solemn ceremony in Zaire,
they had decided to show displeasure by sending two of the lowliest
representatives they could find. One was to be Simone Smith (not
her real name) and I was the other. The solemn occasion was the
reinternment of Mobutu's late wife in a lovely new church that
he had built in Gbadolite.
Of course, I jumped at the chance. I could not imagine what that
event would be like, but it would certainly be a rare experience.
Simone and I received quite a bit of written material about Mobutu
and Zaire. We were not given an official briefing, although we
would be given an audience with Citizen Mobutu. We were to be
escorted by a lowly young black State Department employee, Jason
Mason (not his real name). We were told to bring a black dress,
which we should wear when we met Mobutu. Like me, Simone was
black, which may have been considered a part of our lowly status
by the State Department.
Two weeks or so after I learned about the trip, we three strangers
boarded a plane headed for Lisbon, Portugal where we would stay
overnight. We flew coach but the plane wasn't crowded, so it
was a pleasant trip. We arrived in Lisbon in the late afternoon.
Once we were settled in our hotel, Jason suggested we have dinner
at a private club. I could only surmise that the State Department
had membership rights there. The dinner was spectacular, not
only delicious but well served. It was also the most expensive
one I've ever had and that holds until today. It was a bit of
a surprise to learn that we each had to pay for our own meal,
a very high price, but I didn't really mind since it had been
so very good.
We left Lisbon the next day in the early afternoon. I had spent
the morning walking and shopping. We arrived in Kinshasha, Zaire's
capital in the early evening. We were met by the Embassy driver
and whisked to the Ambassador's residence where we met Ambassador
Walter Cutler and his wife. They were charming, down-to-earth
hosts who made us feel at home immediately.
Mrs. Cutler was fine-featured woman, about five feet, six inches,
slender and well dressed, simply, but becomingly. She was about
forty years old and extremely gracious. The Ambassador was probably
five feet, ten inches, also simply dressed, but he commanded
attention with his courtesy and interest in us and all aspects
of our trip.
The size of the Embassy and of the staff amazed me. I quickly
learned that the latter included CIA staff, Department of Agriculture
workers and others not directly involved in diplomacy.
At dinner, the Cutlers outlined for us the schedule for the next
two days in Gbadolite. They lived alone in the residence since
their children were away at college. I think they genuinely enjoyed
Simone and me and the out-of-the-ordinary event for which we
had come.
The next day dawned sunny and warm. We were dressed in hot, long-sleeved
black dresses for our audience with the dictator. He was a black
man of medium height, with a stiff, military bearing. He was
dressed in a dark, well fitting suit and was wearing his trademark
fez-like hat, made of leopard skin. He greeted us with reserve
but managed not to seem hurried. He and Ambassador Cutler, who
escorted us there, were relaxed with each other. Simone and I
were in and out in a few minutes so we had no opportunity for
faux pas. It was difficult to see in this unprepossessing man
the powerful cruel dictator who had amassed a fortune and taken
the U.S. for very costly ride over the 15 years he had already
been in power.
Back to the Embassy and a change of clothes. Then we were off
to the airport where Citizen Mobutu's plane awaited us. We, the
Cutlers, the CIA Embassy representative and a strange man, whom
we would soon meet, were the only passengers. His name was Maurice
Templesman and we later learned he was a wealthy diamond merchant
quite at home with Mobutu and with Zaire and its diamonds.
Templesman became well known later as Jacqueline Kennedy's constant
companion and financial advisor who was reported to have doubled
her fortune. He was a portly man who was probably in his late
forties then. But photographs of him indicate that he has not
aged much over the years.
The flight was about an hour and a half, as I remember. Kinshasha
is in the extreme South and Gbadolite is on Zaire's Northern
border. We were met by two limousines and finally arrived at
the spanking new motel where we soon found the toilets did not
flush, but the air conditioning worked. It was not until the
next day that the toilets worked.
That evening, we were invited to Mobutu's huge mansion where
we met some of the many dignitaries assembled for the re-internment:
a Princess of France; Mme., Giscard d'Estaing, wife of then Premier
of France; Princess Anne of England, and the President of the
Central African Republic and many Catholic dignitaries from cardinals
to priests. The food was sumptuous and I could believe that it
had been flown in from France or even from Mount Olympus. Dollar
signs raced through my head as I looked around at all the assembled
dignitaries.
The next day dawned gray as befitted a reinternment. We went
early to the church, which was already filling up. We were ushered
to our assigned seats where we had a good view of the interior
of the church. It was large but the altar and the stained-glass
windows were lovely in their simplicity. The organist was highly
skilled and the music that peeled forth was solemn and beautiful.
Mme. Mobutu's casket was below the altar, a truly handsome one.
I never learned how long she had been buried. Priests, bishops
and a cardinal or two were already lighting candles and finding
their seats. Altar boys were busy with the incense holders. The
service was a bit overwhelming for me but, like many others in
the audience, I knew it was one I'd never forget.
Finally, the prayers were over, the air was heavy with incense
and the music subdued as a procession formed following the casket
down a winding, narrow stone stairway to the mausoleum below.
The air was damp and cool and little time was wasted getting
the casket in its place above ground and the final prayers said.
It was a bizarre scene and an eerie quality seemed to envelop
us.
We went immediately to the airport where, to my surprise, the
Ambassador's plane awaited us. There was no explanation why we
were not returning on Mr. Mobutu's plane. The same small group,
the Cutlers, the CIA official, Mr. Templesman, Simone and I returned
to Kinshasha together. This time, Simone was seated next to Mr.
Templesman and Mrs. Cutler and I chatted as we flew back to the
Embassy. Simone later reported that Mr. Templesman was charming.
We, Simone and I, stayed up late, reviewing the day's events
trying to remember it all. The next day we began our journey
back to Washington, only a scant five days since we started out.
We flew non-stop to Washington this time. There was a dream-like
quality to it all but I couldn't forget that we, lowly though
we were, had been a part of the glorification of a dictator.
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Spring 2001