Category: Chapter 4: Fay and Alfred

Fay and Alfred

While Mabel and Lew were sheltering Barb and Shirley in Boyne City, Fay was free to explore life as a single man, unencumbered by responsibility. Some time before the final separation with Thelma, Fay befriended Alfred O’Donnell, a younger, handsome man who hailed from Beaver Island. Like Fay, Alfred loved a party and they were well known as a duo who knew how to have a good time. They quickly became inseparable and spent many hours into the night at the local nightclubs and bars.

If there was music, they were there. Life was a ball.

Alfred was the youngest boy of James and Bridget O’Donnell, a well-known, and somewhat infamous, family of Irish fishermen who populated Beaver Island. My mother referred to Alfred’s mother as that “crazy Biddy O’Donnell.” The island was a ferry boat ride away from Charlevoix in the middle of Lake Michigan and was considered an extension of the town.

Beaver Island had been established by the Mormon monarchy referred to as the Strangites in the mid-1800s who were replaced by Irish fisherman hailing from Donegal, Ireland as well as other local islands like Gull and Mackinac. Alfred was a small town boy and never finished high school, but he was drop dead handsome and everyone remembers him as completely charming.

But in other ways, his lifestyle did not pass without notice in this small town and he would ultimately pay a heavy price for his reputation. He was a party boy who left his wife and loved cocktails and dancing. He didn’t make any effort to conceal his love of a good time. NeverHome was always filled with people and the parties were legendary.

As time went on, most of the people coming and going from NeverHome were men. Although she didn’t completely understand at the time, my mother is clear that Fay was almost always in the company of many men. On the rare occasion when he came to visit his marooned daughters in Boyne City, he would always bring someone along, usually another man. He didn’t seem to hide the fact that he preferred the company of men, but his messages were always mixed.

Perhaps he was determined to live a life where he could have it all.

My father said that everyone in Charlevoix knew that Fay was a “fairy” and that people talked about both Alfred and Fay. It’s hard to tell what was hindsight in my parents telling of Fay stories.

There’s a photo of Fay during this time where he and Mabel are standing together outside an unidentified house. Mabel is dressed like a man with a boater on her head and Fay is dressed as a woman, complete with wig, tights and jewels. Mabel, of course, is looking up at Fay and Fay is looking beyond her.

It’s clear that they were dressed for a play and yet it is this image that could always get my parents and aunt and uncle  all riled up about Fay. To them, this was what Fay flaunted and it caused them trouble. But at the time, it may very well have seemed like a pretty regular thing. There’s a long theatrical history of men dressing as women on stage. It seemed to be Fay’s preference.

Gay Code Words

Although my father used the term "fairy", there were a number of other unfortunate, and sometimes funny, terms used to describe gay men:

  • A sunset lover
  • Smooth elbows
  • A man with specific mannerisms
  • Sleeps diagonally
  • A perplexment
  • Rides the carousel
  • An evening botanist
  • Classically athletic
  • Fraternally-minded
  • Wears a light wristwatch
  • Gives a careful handshake
  • Gives too much change for a dollar
  • A fluent swimmer
  • A keen-eyed birdwatcher
  • Fond of his mother
  • Elegant
  • Built on an uncertain foundation
  • Fluttersome
  • A real jackdaw
  • Avowed bachelor
  • An aesthete
  • In the way of uncles
  • Son of the moon
  • A boy from Eton
  • Always rings twice
  • Has a silk bathrobe
  • Not quite up-to-code
  • Stays ahead of the game
  • Salutes another flag

Fay told my mother once that if his life had been different, he would have been an actor. She seemed to like this idea.

Thelma, Keith and the Girls

Meanwhile, Thelma was focusing on getting her very unhappy daughters back in Charlevoix and within two years she had a new apartment and a new boyfriend. Keith Wagner, who became our Grandpa Keith, was 4 years younger than Thelma and had been part of the Thelma and Fay gang when everyone was getting along. He’d still been living with his widowed mother and maybe he thought at 27 it was time to get on with it. Thelma could certainly be a charmer herself, but she was not unencumbered. Keith was not only getting Thelma, but Barb and Shirley as well, something that was not the norm of the day.

The relationship among Thelma, Keith and Fay would stay constant and friendly throughout their lifetimes. Here, Fay as Assistant County Clerk signed Thelma and Keith's marriage certificate - even though Keith's name is spelled wrong!

Whatever trepidations Keith might have had, he and Thelma were married that same year. He was always known as the quiet grandpa, who’d rather read than do anything else, and Thelma did most of the talking. My mother always felt grateful to Keith for taking them all on, which couldn't have been an easy path.

Keith and Thelma would go on to be married for 60 years.

After they were married, Keith rented a small house on the prestigious Park Avenue that belonged to the city and they all lived there until the war changed their lives. A little house under the water tower and next to the Tower Hotel, this was the place my mother and aunt called *home* and remembered it with great fondness as it felt stable in a way that they hadn't known before. It would take Keith and Thelma years to own their own home and feel secure, but for now my mother and aunt were delirious with joy that they were back home.

My mother was entering high school so she felt all grown up and Shirley became entrenched as a popular girl who would spend the rest of her life in that town. They both loved to laugh and say they lived on Park Avenue like in the song from “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” so life was pretty good.

Fay was also a known fixture in town and that gave him a certain status, which helped make his situation a bit more tenable for my mother. He was still a government official and now a local business owner.

Some of the 1940s news stories from the Charlevoix Courier that mention Fay

As an example of his standing in town, during the 1941 local production of the “Womanless Wedding,” where the cast consists of all the prominent men of the town, Fay was invited to act a role. This burlesque-like play was a common theater production throughout the United States before WWII used to raise money for charitable causes or civic organizations. The irony of the play is that although it features a number of men in drag, it was designed to reaffirm traditional values since it was so absurd. 

Whatever the message, Fay loved being on stage and getting dressed up.

Avoiding the War

As it did for everyone in America, Pearl Harbor changed everything. The draft had started in September of 1940 and some young men had already been called in to serve through the lottery, but suddenly all men of draft age, those between 21 and 36, were at risk of being sent to war. And now it wasn’t just a year commitment, men were being drafted for the duration of the war plus six months. Of course, no one had any idea what that meant.

Typical Draft Board

When the war for Americans started in 1941, Alfred was 30 and Fay was already 36 and it didn’t seem as if they would be taken in the draft. The local draft boards had a lot of power then and Fay was convinced that his standing in town would ensure that Alfred wouldn't be drafted. He never worried about himself since he was so close to ineligibility because of his age.

It was clear, however, that neither Fay nor Alfred wanted to go to war. I was surprised to discover this, as my impression from movies and books was that everyone was eager to go to war to save the world from madmen.

When I asked my mother why her father was so reluctant to join the fighting, she looked at me aghast and told me no one wanted to go to war.

Selective Service Classifications: WWII period  (October 4, 1940 to January 17, 1947)

As the war raged on and life stateside became affected by shortages and young men leaving town to be shipped overseas, the draft rules started to change and Alfred started to get *Nervous*. The number of men being inducted was increasing and he felt that he would be called up at any point.

Fay reassured Alfred that it wasn’t a problem and went in front of the local draft board to plead Alfred’s case. By this time Fay was an expert on draft classifications and he was sure that Alfred’s bad back would be a strong enough argument to get him deferred. It was not. Fay’s *impassioned* defense of Alfred’s medical condition did not go over well and it was clear that Fay’s influence was more of a detriment than help.

By November of 1942, the draft age was reduced to 18 and increased to 37. All men from 18 to 64 had to register. Alfred was really worried that his number would come up soon.

My mother found work at Maybelline with the help of Alfred’s sister, Ann. It was a short walk from their apartment and she worked on the factory line adding paint cakes and trimming brushes to the product boxes for their signature mascara product.


IN ANOTHER TWIST TO THE STORY, IT TURNS OUT THAT THE MAYBELLINE FOUNDER WAS A GAY MAN AND HAD MOVED OUT TO CALIFORNIA TO AVOID THE HASSLES HE AND HIS LOVER COULD NOT AVOID IN CHICAGO. I ALWAYS WONDERED IF FAY AND ALFRED KNEW TOM AND EMERY AND IF MY MOTHER'S JOB WAS JUST SERENDIPITY.

She thought the work was a lark and she made good money – an important criterion in this family. Always the master of efficiency, my mother was noticed on the line and was offered an executive assistant position. The one catch was that she would have to move to California, where the executives now lived. She’d already made up her mind to be a nurse so she turned down the offer. She often wondered what would have happened if she had taken the job.

Maybelline Factory in Chicago where Barb worked as a secretary

Not long after they settled in, Alfred decided not to risk being called, so he joined the Merchant Marines before he could be reclassified. I’m sure Fay’s ♥heart♥ was broken and he was furious, but Alfred couldn't wait it out. It also seems an odd choice. The Merchant Marines may not have been in direct battle, but they were on the front lines and their ships were often used to transport troops as well as other essential materials needed for the war across the Atlantic. Some of those ships didn't make it.

Alfred was stationed in New York aboard the cargo ship SS Robin Sherwood where he served as a second cook. His maiden voyage left the Brooklyn naval shipyard and ended up in Cardiff, Wales where they unloaded the 472 members of the 604th Engineer Camouflage Battalion. They avoided the Germans by sailing well north of Iceland.

 

Aboard a Typical Merchant Marine Ship in the mid-1940s

 

The SS Robin Sherwood

It turned out that Alfred knew what he was doing after all and he returned from the Merchant Marines at the end of the war unscathed. But, he never returned to Charlevoix after the war.

While Alfred took the safest route he could find, Fay’s fate took a darker turn. In a move that was viewed by my family as one of retribution for stepping over the acceptable social line, the Charlevoix Draft Board called Fay into service – one month before he would have been too old to be eligible.

On March 17, 1943,*one month* before he would turn 38 and be ineligible, Fay was drafted into the Army.

He had been in Chicago trying to outsmart the war for less than three months. This act of retribution would put Fay in mortal danger.