The Chaperone

This chapter covers 1935-1937. The Dust Bowl storms are in full swing in Wichita, and many of the residents are affected both by the weather and by the stock market crash of 1929. Alan and Cora’s finances have withstood the crash, however, and Joseph’s salary doesn’t take much of a hit. Cora attends a brunch hosted by a friend who has devised to get the attendees to sign a petition demanding that condoms and other contraceptives not be displayed publicly. Cora herself uses birth control and is supportive of its availability, so she leaves the brunch. At the brunch, Louise’s name comes up as a potential financial backer for the effort, and Cora says she hasn’t been in touch with Louise since the summer they were in New York together. Cora becomes involved in founding a home for unwed mothers in Wichita called Kindness House and discovers a talent for fundraising. 

During this time, Louise’s movie career has begun to stall with the advent of “talkies,” or movies with synchronized sound, as opposed to silent films. In 1937, Cora runs into Myra, who has returned to Wichita and her husband. Myra is unsympathetic of her daughter’s career struggles and still bitter that she never got the chance to fulfill her own ambitions. Prohibition has been abolished in nearly every state but Kansas, which continues to be dry. Cora has come around to the viewpoint that people will continue to drink, whether or not it’s illegal, in a reversal of her previous beliefs. 

This chapter takes place in 1942. Greta, now a wife and mother, lives in Wichita. The city’s population has doubled since 1940, with the aeronautic industry’s World War II government contracts attracting new workers and their families to the city. Cora notes the city’s “growing pains,” such as less efficient city services and crowded public places. One of Alan and Cora’s sons, the doctor, enlists in the military and is sent to the Pacific. Before he goes, he visits Cora and tells her that Louise has come back to town and is living with her parents. He also makes remarks about a gay man whom Louise associates with in a way that makes it clear he doesn’t know his father is gay.

Cora visits Louise, who is clearly miserable living with her parents and away from the culture of New York, and tells her that she should go live where she has a chance of being happy. Shortly afterward, she gets a postcard from Louise with a New York City postmark and that simply says “Thanks.”

The final chapter is an overview of the last 40 years of Cora’s life. She becomes a champion for readily available birth control, publicly supports legislation that legalizes it, and celebrates the passage of such laws. Alan, Joseph, Raymond, and one of Cora’s sons all die before she does, but she spends her remaining years with grandchildren and great-grandchildren, as well as with Greta’s family. She lives at least into her nineties. Louise never regains her fame of the silent film era, but she writes a fairly successful memoir. One of Cora’s grandsons, a film scholar, interviews her about Louise for a book he’s writing. As Cora’s life ends, with Greta and her surviving son by her side, she feels as though she’s on a train—an echo of her two meaningful train trips.