Show KATHLEEN NORMS Marriage Can Be Successful Jt TENNESSEE Alice writes me of her distress over her daughter's determination to She says that a recent article of mine gave Gwen such encouragement that she has become quite said that couples could be married on an income as low as a writes certainly can know very little of conditions today if you can advise young people to take any such Gwen's fiance Is Just past he gets a The way rents are here now they couldn't rent more than a room for Gwen's father and I are he cannot and my present husband and I have two small girls to care and an uncertain Gwen is very dainty about her clothes and the care of her but she has had no training in cooking or and knows nothing of the value of used all the arguments and pleading we can think but Gwen is determined to ruin her life and jump into marriage without the slightest Idea of what she Is I would like to ask you how many youngsters of these ages you have known who did marry on such an Income in these days of high Do you know what you're talking Daring Beginnings For one answer to this reproach I would like to show Alice Marble some of the scores of letters that that article brought Not in years have I had such a rush of Most of them come from middle-aged couples who took the chance years and enjoyed the adventure of working their way up from daring beginnings to success and And by success and plenty I don't mean the sensational marketing at pushcarts ers who accumulated great I mean the hundreds and thousands millions among us who started with nothing and had all the fun and excitement of conquering poverty and all the trials and disappointments and humiliations that rigid financial limits and all the The two-room home high up long flights of stairs in a big the marketing at push carts with every tomato and half pound of lean beef the museums and concerts and all the long the happy associations over dinners of spaghetti in basement the long walks along crowded piers and through bustling or in the green shade of the And then the beginnings of The poem or the story understudy part the humble Job of correcting proof In a magazine the miracle of selling the radio at said a ed friend of ours years at once Sara's got a backer for her play and I've sold my patent that you all thought was so crackpot for sixty like the beginning of good someone after we had all gasped Never Recovered Happiness like the end of he predicted And he was Sara couldn't stand and he couldn't stand and neither ever recovered They had had eleven Joyous Impecunious hard-working years perhaps that's as much felicity as any of us To ba not all such couples achieve world fame or great But ambitious men and women win their These places may be In kitchens making jam for the in lofts making in publishing houses reading in big firms directing advertising inconspicuous success is nevertheless and the fruits at it are So the truth appears to be that there is no income upon which the right man and woman may not Gwen's mother would do better to concern herself with regrets that she didn't build in Gwen a stronger She would do better to start now to teach her how to cook and let her run the family finances for a month or Gwen has been badly and no matter how angelic a nature her husband can he can't possibly make a success of this Not with very dainty about her personal but entirely ignorant of the method of making into a stew or using up sour |