“The Wise want love; and those who love want wisdom.”

- Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound

In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;

In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;

In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;

In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson  “Locksley Hall”

1940’s and ‘50’s

Falling in Love

As a young man I was as interested in girls as much as most, and perhaps more than many. On the other hand, I had to answer the demands of my education, so that there wasn’t much time for dating. A further impediment was that many pretty girls did not share my tastes for things cultural. And then, although not exactly shy, I was not aggressive in pursuing members of the opposite sex. My strict upbringing left me with a multitude of conflicts: I blushed easily, my palms were sweaty in the presence of young ladies. It was only with a mighty effort that I gradually overcame this awkwardness.

At Northwood School for Boys an occasional weekend with a gaggle of girls coming from a sister private school such as Emma Willard would be arranged with time for outdoor recreation, dinner and a dance. I hated to dance. It was a boring and stupid activity, partly because I could only do the two-step to slow music. I liked to be close to girls, of course, because it was about the only way to achieve a nice proximity legally. Several friendships were made in this way, followed by perfumed letters with stamps pasted upside down, indicating a special relationship. A few of us managed to escape one afternoon to a boathouse, closed for the season, on Lake Placid to play ‘spin the bottle’ – a silly little kissing game. I liked to kiss girls.

Which reminds me: in the second grade in Shanghai American School one day at recess I was chasing a girl trying to kiss her (this of course was pre-adolescence, before bashfulness hit). But I tripped and fell on the asphalt, breaking my wrist. I didn’t seem to learn from that experience about the dangers involved.

One time a boy friend and I talked Eunice into playing doctor. We went off to the woods and exposed our bums to each other. She had freckles on hers, but it seemed all quite disappointing. Of course at that age I had little idea of what to expect.

In the ensuing fifteen years there were really no big heartthrobs, a huge amount of time wasted, but it was taken up with school work, family outings on the weekends, or working on hobbies. So it wasn’t until……..

Shirley

In my senior year at Horace Mann School for Boys in New York City life was very different from the splendid isolation of Northwood School in the Adirondacks. There were dinners and dances, but at posh hotels far beyond my modest financial

Nurses

Dartmouth was an all-men’s college in a small town in New Hampshire with few opportunities to meet girls. I had to work to support my education. This ultimately led to waiting on tables in the nurses’ home affiliated with Mary Hitchcock Hospital in Hanover. Unlike the average population, this was a lush source of young lovelies pining for their Sir Galahads! As a generalization, women who went into nursing tended to be empathetic, sweet, hard working, but lacking in imagination. By this time I was a member of Zeta Psi fraternity, with the availability of the frat house, with its ‘sex room’ in the basement. Some of the more attractive nurses were induced into going out with me to a movie or whatever, and some were willing to spend time afterwards getting amorous, but never anything serious.

Margot

One year, on a Dartmouth Spring Break, several of us went on a ski trip to the Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal. We stayed at the Chateau Gai in Ste. Adele, and I became entranced by the innkeeper’s daughter, Margot. She was sweet and warm and pretty, but spoke almost no English. My halting French was hardly able to cope with her Quebecois. We had barely enough time to get acquainted and do a little snuggling before it was time to leave. We exchanged letters, and about a year later I went back to see her. For whatever reasons, sadly the magic was gone. There followed a few letters back and forth for a while, but then it was over. Was there a pattern developing here?

Bertha May

Upon graduation I moved to La Jolla, California to take a job with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography where I was at sea, literally and perhaps metaphorically, a good deal of the time. My landlady there took an interest in me, and introduced me to Bertha May. We went out together for a day at Coronado Beach, one of the most beautiful broad stretches of sand I’ve ever seen. Bertha May was physically attractive, but it turned out that something was clearly lacking between the ears, and she was as amorous as a cold stone. It was clear this wasn’t going to work.

The Michigan Gals

In Ann Arbor Mary, my roommate Randy’s girl friend, decided that I was not dating enough. She took it upon her generous self to find me a mate. Mary lived in a women’s dormitory, and arranged to have one of her housemates call me for a date every weekend. I succumbed to this rather enchanting idea, met many beautiful young maidens, but alas, ultimately found none that I would take out more than once or twice. A fine figure and a beautiful face could certainly turn my head and arouse desire, but the biggest turn-on for me has always been an intelligent and interesting mind (well, along with a fine figure……and a pretty face).

Pat

There was another rich lode of prospects in my lab classes, but I made it a point never to date one of my students until after the end of the semester. As a matter of honor (and common sense) I forbade myself the temptation to take advantage of my lowly position of authority over my students as a ‘T.A.’ There was Pat with whom I had a casual relationship for a while, but it never got very serious; we had strayed apart. Then one evening at some event like a fundraiser or homecoming, there was Pat on a small stage in a top hat, tuxedo jacket and very short shorts promoting her favorite charity. Although she was slightly plump in the upper body, her legs, which I had never seen before, were perfect. I became inflamed. We dated again, she wore a fiery red dress, I was totally taken by her, and took her to bed. We were both virgins, and this was the status-changing event – warm and amorous, and totally delightful. Having sated our lust and love I, like an idiot, told her as she sat in my lap enjoying the warm afterglow, that we weren’t made for each other. To this day I truly regret how callous that was.

Barb

There were others. The smartest girl in one of my classes was Barbara, and at semester’s end we started to date. She had a sweet temperament, witty, funny, well educated, and intellectually curious, and at the top of her class. She apparently came from a rather wealthy Detroit (Ferndale) family, and now lived at home in Ann Arbor. It began to look as if – maybe – our burgeoning amity was meant to be. After an evening out, I took her home, and on her doorstep ventured a kiss (forgot to remember second grade). To my total surprise she responded by pressing her lips so hard on mine that it was almost painful; I had some trouble uncoupling because she kept on! For some strange reason, this was a total turn-off for me. We never dated after that. Again, I was probably acting like an idiot. It’s interesting how someone who considers himself a rational being can often act irrationally.

Phyllis

Later, at the Scripps Metabolic Clinic, I met Phyllis. She became the first true love of my life. I write about her in the chapter on La Jolla.

Reta

Meanwhile, back at the lab, I had noticed in the hallways of the chemistry building in Ann Arbor a comely lass who was the private secretary for Prof. Lawrence Brockway, a physical chemist from whom I had taken an undergraduate course. She filled out the shirts that she wore in a manner that suggested delicious secrets within; she had a nice smile and seemed quite friendly. Her name was Reta Peck. I asked her out for coffee, and that went well. Some days later she appeared in my lab, and asked if I would like to go with her, her roommate and her roommate’s boyfriend to a movie. An unnecessary inducement was some fudge that she had made. In the darkness of the theater, she reached over and took my hand, explaining that she needed it for the scary parts of the show. I was not reluctant to accommodate.

Reta was the warmest and most affectionate woman I had ever met. She filled a deep need for something I had had little experience with, a giving, loving, uncomplicated devotion (irrational again?). A favorite song of mine was George Gershwin’s “Someone to Watch Over Me”:

....There's a somebody I'm longing to see,

I hope that she turns out to be

Someone who'll watch over me....

It reflected a not entirely subliminal longing for closeness and warm love that I never had in my Victorian family. Reta had much more: a joie de vivre, an interest in taking all kinds of courses at the University, and a bright optimism that lifted my spirits. She loved classical music, played the flute in the University Concert Band, and – importantly - she laughed at my jokes.

Another housemate, Guido, and his girlfriend Rosemary were planning to drive to New York City, and wondered if I’d like to go along to share the driving. This provided a semi-chaperoned – well, maybe more like one tenth chaperoned – opportunity to invite Reta to join us. She accepted because her boyfriend was in New York. Hmmm, I hadn’t known about the boyfriend. That took the edge off things a bit, but we were now committed. We were a very compatible foursome, as it turned out, and spent our time on the road chattering away, and enjoying the closeness of warm bodies. We each did our thing in the Big Apple and started home again. It became clear that Reta’s visit with her beau had not gone as well as anticipated, and that she now was beginning to prefer me. Oh, yum! On the last stretch of our journey in the back seat of the car she gave me such warmth as to make it clear that she now had a new boyfriend!

Reta was born and raised in Independence, Missouri to a family deeply steeped in, and devoted to, the Reorganized Church of the Latter Day Saints, or RLDS, now renamed The Community of Christ. Reta’s parents, John and Donna Peck, were of modest means; he drove busses and trolleys in Kansas City. Strong Midwestern values bolstered their religion and politics. They were fiercely loyal to the Republican Party in spite – or maybe because -- of their neighbor a few blocks away named Harry Truman. Prudent investing provided them with a single family home, a small yard and vegetable garden out back.

RLDS members believed in the Judeo-Christian Old and New Testaments as well as the Book of Mormon. I had visited Salt Lake City, taken the tour of the Mormon Tabernacle and learned something of their Prophet, Joseph Smith, their beliefs and origins. The Reorganized church, with headquarters in Independence, was different in that they never practiced polygamy and had been led by the son of Joseph Smith to Missouri, after the great debacle in Nauvoo, Illinois where the Prophet was killed.

Prof. Brockway – “Dr. B” to Reta – of the U of M chemistry department, also a native of Independence, was a lay minister of the RLDS church in Ann Arbor. I became fascinated and started attending church to hear his sermons. Here at last was a kindred spirit who thought rationally about religion and religious ideas. Reta’s church had its attractions, not only because of this young woman, but also because of its ideas.

Getting Hitched

My research was now completed, and Reta kindly typed my thesis while I did the figures of molecular spectra and drawings of molecules. A position as chemist with DuPont in Philadelphia meant that we would be apart in the future. Separation makes the heart grow fonder, they say, and this was certainly true in our case. My earnings and hers were enough to support our shuttling between Ann Arbor and Philly. I finally went to the John Wanamaker department store and bought a platinum circlet and a half-carat, marquise-cut diamond ring for a bit more than I could afford. Then one evening in her apartment in Ann Arbor, I offered her the rings, and was gratified when she smiled and gave me the best hug of my life. We asked Dr. B to preside at our wedding, which subsequently was held at the Stone Church in Independence, Missouri. My father, George Ashmore Fitch, who was to be Best Man, arrived that morning from Taiwan. Mom had come the day before. As we were having breakfast at the Kansas City airport, Dad’s eyes suddenly rolled up, and he passed out. My god, what were we to do? What an omen of our nuptials, what, what, what….?! Well, in a moment, he was awake again, and pronounced himself perfectly well; that the long travel had simply tired him. Whew! So it was on to the wedding. Incidentally, he confessed that this was the first wedding of his six children that he was able to attend.

The weather that day was not helpful: the temperature rose to 110 degrees and the humidity was high as well. Even the candles wilted a bit, as can be seen in this picture. I wanted Reta to learn more about New Hampshire where I had spent many good times. We honeymooned at a lovely hotel in Jackson, just above North Conway in the White Mountains.

Predestination

Reta and I discovered that, unbeknownst to us previously, we were predestined to be together. When she was at Babson College in Florida a woman had been invited to their speaker series to discuss the then current situation in China. After the lecture everyone gathered at the college boathouse for refreshments and further discussion. When Reta later told me about this, it of course piqued my interest. “What did she talk about?” I asked. She: “Well I can’t give you any specifics, but I can tell you what she wore.” And she proceeded to describe in great detail the beautifully embroidered Chinese silk jacket, its color, design, the cut etc. It had to be my mother. I knew that jacket well.

At the time of our wedding Reta’s aunt Lula, who lived in Davison, Michigan, sent a clipping from the local newspaper that she had placed in the bible given to her by the local Methodist minister, Rev. Fred Townsend, my maternal grandfather. The clipping stated that Bob and John Fitch, ages 6 and 8 from Shanghai, China, were visiting their grandfather, the Reverend Fred Townsend -- who lived across the street in Davison!

♣