An Upstairs Maid Rises to the Occasion
In my fantasies as a young housewife with three small boys and not too much extra cash, I often thought what I would do if I vandt den store gevinst (the Danish equivalent for winning “The Big Spin”). I’d have my hair done at the beauty parlor once a week, take dancing lessons regularly at Arthur Murray’s . And at Christmastime, I would throw away all the ribbons and wrappings.
Memories of a certain Christmas always brought to mind the last wish. It was 1947 and two weeks before Christmas. I was 20, attending UCLA and had just started the Christmas vacation when my mother’s best friend Harriet suddenly suffered an excruciating gallstone attack that the doctor said necessitated immediate hospitalization and probable surgery.
This news struck the Griswolds’ (not their real name) household on North June Street in Hancock Park like a bomb. My mother’s friend Harriet was their upstairs maid. The Griswolds’ annual Christmas Day family celebration ranked as the biggest day of the year.
Preparations began months before. The two gardeners and Mariano, the houseman, saw that the house shone and the gardens glowed with red and gold in the greenery. Margaret, the cook, baked plum puddings and fruit cakes. Helen and Olaf, the resident staff at the Griswolds’ oceanfront Lido Isle home, were alerted that they would be coming up to help serve and prepare the traditional oyster stew and roast turkey with all the trimmings, and Harriet created Christmas decorations and flower arrangements fit for an English manor house (which actually was the architecture of the Griswold home).
So when one cog in the wheel of Christmas broke with Harriet’s hospitalization, panic set in. In the austere hospital room at Good Samaritan (no color TVs, soothing pastel walls or phones in every room then), Harriet suffered doubly from the gallstone pain and the heartache of leaving her employers of 25 years in the lurch.
That’s when I volunteered my services as upstairs maid. My one qualification was that I fit into Harriet’s black maid’s outfit with its little white apron. Help was hard to get in the period right after World War II, and Mrs. Griswold accepted gratefully. So I moved into Harriet’s room on the second floor of the mansion. Those 14 days as an upstairs maid revealed to me an unknown world--that of servants to the rich.
I came to know both the back-biting and the compassion that goes on in the downstairs of a big mansion. Mariano, the chauffeur and houseman, unctuously opened doors for Mrs. Griswold, but pushed me out of the way if we should meet going out at the same time. Margaret chided me in a gentle, considerate way for my forgotten chores. The servants used only the back stairway, not the elegant curved staircase in the entry. Even though there was a laundress three times a week, my towels had to last a week, not the daily change I was accustomed to at home.
The day came--2 p.m. Christmas Day, 1947. The table was set for 12. The Griswolds’ only son, his wife and their two children entered in a whirlwind of greetings, blazed their way through the dozens of gifts for them, ate the marvelous dinner in record time and were off to the Union Station: Sun Valley and a week of skiing beckoned.
The remaining guests lingered more politely and departed at a more moderate pace. Finally, it was time for us to have our dinner--Margaret, Helen, Olaf and me. We sat at the big kitchen table where we toasted each other with the Jim Beam highballs that Olaf poured for us.
It must have been about 9 p.m. when the last evidences of the dinner masterpiece had been put in their proper places. We exchanged good nights and “Glaedelig Jul” once more.
I decided a fitting end to my Christmas with millionaires was to go up to my room by the front staircase. A light in the huge living room attracted my attention, and I thought I’d peek in and take one last look at the glory of a room 25 by 50 feet filled with priceless antiques, age-old Persian carpets and lavishly decorated for Christmas. To my amazement I saw Mrs. Griswold busily folding wrappings and winding ribbons by the huge Christmas tree. She was saving the wrappings!
So the rich aren’t all that different from the rest of us, are they?
