The widow of TS Eliot died last week at the age of 86, and her story reveals a singular arc of dedication, begun in early adolescence.
Valerie was sent to school at Queen Anne’s, Caversham, near Reading, where the ethos was sporting rather than intellectual. At the age of 14, however, she was visited by a sudden illumination when she heard a recording of John Gielgud reading Eliot’s Journey of the Magi. Thereafter her obsession with the poet became a family joke.
The headmistress of Queen Anne’s may also have smiled wryly when Valerie Fletcher told her, on leaving, that she was determined to become TS Eliot’s secretary. For six months she worked at the Brotherton Library of the University of Leeds, and then as private secretary to the novelist Charles Morgan. But her aim, as she artlessly phrased it, was always “to get to Tom”; and in August 1950 she duly succeeded in becoming his secretary at Faber & Faber.
Not only did she doggedly become a fine secretary and guardian of his life's work, but she managed to hide her tremendous affection for him, so that when he finally hovered near an engagement, he had to ask if she even liked him.
Her life's goal wasn't some dark machination to coopt the poet, but a gift borne of devotion to him as a person. I admit I've never heard of such a tale, but then there are few men of the calibre of Eliot who pass our way. There was nothing in it for her other than the great satisfaction of serving a man she adored, easing his later years, and offering him joy.
When the new-marrieds returned from their honeymoon in Menton [1957], the change in Eliot was startling. “You look as if, like Dante, you’d passed into Paradise,” someone told him. “Exactly,” he replied. “I’m the luckiest man in the world,” he would say, “I do not deserve such happiness.” If Valerie had to endure the disdain of some of Eliot’s circle, she rejoiced that through unstinting devotion all her intuitions were justified.
“He obviously needed to have a happy marriage,” she observed after her husband’s death in 1965. “There was a little boy in him that had never been released.” At parties the Eliots would hold hands and gaze at each other like lovesick teenagers, in defiance of the 38 years that lay between them.
The wounds in Eliot ran deep, stemming from a short and stormy earlier marriage to a woman who later had to be committed to a mental hospital. It's not clear how much Valerie knew of those details, other than that his first wife had died in 1947. For years he had been wracked with guilt, and '[h]is conversion to a gloomy Anglicanism in 1927 had only reinforced the mould."
But with Valerie came a wholesome affection and selfless love. It was in giving that she received a great deal, and they both benefited by the trajectory of her life. There is no indication of what sort of faith life she had, but may God smile favourably on her fidelity and oblation. RIP, dear sister.
[BTW, it would appear that she worked closely with this lovely woman.]
Comments
“People have realized that the complete removal of the feminine element from the Christian message is a shortcoming from an anthropological viewpoint. It is theologically and anthropologically important for woman to be at the center of Christianity."
This is just another of the unintended consequences of the cultural acceptance of contraception and abortion! Men's sexuality has been robbed of its creative essence. It is now viewed as something that imposes a burden on women (when conception happens to occur), something used to control women or something that is purely recreational. Why would men bother?? In taking away their responsibility, we've also robbed them of their significance! In the big picture of humanity, men have been made into nothing more than a nuisance women have to figure out how to control in order to bring about the next generation. Men don't see it as their task to protect the vulnerable because they see themselves as the vulnerable ones. A few well preserved vials of sperm would make men entirely obsolete in the world's ethos today!!
That is astounding Robin, and good for you for standing up. At the heart of that matter, I think, is even worse than a gender mixing message. There is an increased sharper and sharper focus on the "self." Solid Catholic teaching returns our focus away from ourselves to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The original sin, Eve denied her womanhood when she desired to be like "gods." Since the only god she knew was the Father. Where was Adam? He stood impotent... in other words, they were divorced. There's a young girl at Robin's son's high school who was just told that she is the center of the universe and it's a tragic disservice to her.
Ditto what Mary said! A lot of high schools have very poor math and science depts, for boys and girls. I also am educated as a chemical engineer, but chose to teach the two years before we had children because its hours were more suited to spending time with children. (I was looking ahead). When it came time and I was pregnant with our first, I realized that I did not want to leave him with someone else, and was able to stay home full time. I am not sure it would have been that easy if we were used to another engineering income and not just a private school teacher income. Also some of my first job offers were out on oil rigs - I had no interest in that at all even though I enjoyed my engineering classes and did well in them. No one discouraged me from an engineering job, on the contrary I got a lot of flack for my decision not to pursue an engineering career.
I've been lurking, but this is one that irritates me. Beats the heck out of me what these "barriers" are. I was educated as a chemical engineer, where 1/3 of our class was women. However, in electrical engineering, only 1 or 2 out of 30 were women. Is it possible that women are Just Not Interested in some areas? Nah, it must be The Man keeping us down so we must legislate (and, I agree -- when they say "legistlate", I hear "quota"). And actually, I have a friend that was also a chemical engineer. When she lost her job, she decided not to go back into engineering and started working from home so she could spend more time with her 3 kids. Also, if nothing else, there are all kinds of incentives for women to enter science and engineering -- scholarships not available to men, guaranteed housing on campuses that do not guarantee housing to the general population, etc. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that schools in general are not preparing students for the hard sciences. It is truly a sad state of affairs, the lack of science education these days.