When Key to Success Is Your Spouse : In ‘Ladies and Gentle Men,’ Christine Gustafson interviewed prominent Orange County women to find out what makes their marriages rewarding.
Writer Christine Gustafson once asked self-made millionaire John Crean to name his key to success. Without hesitation, the owner of the nation’s most successful RV firm responded: “My wife, Donna.”
Later, she asked the same question of the Rev. Robert Schuller, the founding pastor of the Crystal Cathedral, and he said: “My faith and my wife.”
Other interviews--with Dodgers Manager Tommy Lasorda, TV weatherman Dallas Raines, former astronaut Buzz Aldrin and animator Chuck Jones--produced similar responses: The reason for their personal happiness and business success, they said, is their wives.
Gustafson was onto something: What, she wondered, are these women doing in their relationships that makes their marriages so successful?
Thus was born the idea for Gustafson’s self-published book, “Ladies and Gentle Men: Women Sharing With Women About the Art of Relating to Men.” (Orphan Press; $14).
Over a two-year period, Gustafson interviewed 62 women, talking to them about their experiences in being single, dating, married and widowed. Frank Marshall, Gustafson’s husband of two years, took the accompanying photographs.
“The book grew out of my own personal interest,” said Gustafson, who was divorced at 21 and lived through a series of failed relationships. “I wanted so much to have a healthy, loving marriage and I had no idea how to get there, so what these women did is provide a road map for me.”
In turn, she said, “I wanted to provide a road map for other single women who want the same thing. A lot of women are in relationships that they find unsatisfying. These women (in the book) also point the way for women who are already married and want to improve upon their relationships.”
In researching the book, Gustafson and Marshal spent five months touring the United States and part of Canada. They found some of the women through newspaper stories; others were recommended by their husbands or friends.
(Gustafson also returned to one of her early “mentors,” Ruth Peale, wife of the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale, with whom she had been corresponding since she was a teen-ager. Mrs. Peale, who has been married 63 years, describes marriage as “the hardest career in which to be successful, but the most rewarding.”)
Gustafson emphasizes that she’s not an authority on relationships. Rather, she said, “I’m a student, and these women are my teachers.”
A handful of prominent Orange County women are featured in the book, including:
* Jo Lasorda, who says she talks to husband Tommy “every night, no matter where he is. We discuss everything. He has a lot on his mind, so I have to find a way to get his attention--to let him know what’s important to me. . . . When he’s home, we’re together a lot. . . . People grow apart when they go too much their own way.”
* Arvella Schuller, who says that from the beginning she and husband, Robert, “decided that we did not want to be ‘strangers’ within our marriage; not at one year, 10 years, 20 years or ever! And so, we keep on dating each other. One night a week for 42 years adds up to more than 2,200 dates!”
* Donna Crean, who recalls the tough going she and husband John went through in the early year of getting Fleetwood Enterprises off the ground: “John credits me with helping him through this time, though I didn’t really do anything to speak of. I was simply a sounding board for his ideas. I believed in him; always have. . . . If I’m angry with John, I talk about it--get it out and over with. People who carry hurts and grudges over the years become crippled emotionally, sometimes physically. And the effects on a relationship are equally devastating.”
In talking to many of the women, Gustafson discovered a common thread emerging.
“The thing that surprised me is that what came out of the interviews, unsolicited, was the importance of spirituality--individually and together as a couple,” said Gustafson. “I think what (a belief in a higher power) does is it takes people out of their own egos and it helps them to focus on a larger picture. It’s also a source of strength and guidance.”
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As Lois Aldrin of Laguna Beach says of her marriage to ex-astronaut Buzz: “God and hope play a big role in our marriage. Through our faith, we see the rainbow beyond the rain. . . . The Bible says it simply; focus on the good, and the good will increase. I think our marriage is proof of this fact.”
“Ladies and Gentle Men” did not travel a smooth road to publication. Midway through the publishing process, the small Orange County publisher Gustafson and Marshall were working with became a casualty of the recession. Not knowing whether to abandon the book, Gustafson sought advice from friends in the magazine and newspaper field and others she interviewed for the book. “Without exception, everybody said, ‘Finish the job!’ ”
With a loan from one of the couples in the book and help from other supporters, Gustafson and Marshall created their own publishing house, Orphan Press. “It was very much like a barn-raising, much more so than a publishing venture,” she said.
A limited edition of 1,000 copies has been printed, and Gustafson said they’ll print more if those sell out.
So far, she said, the longest-distance order has come from Japan. And the most unusual? From independent presidential candidate Ross Perot’s wife, Margot, whom Gustafson had been corresponding with for a free-lance feature story.
“Ladies and Gentle Men” is available at Martha’s Bookstore on Balboa Island, Upchurch-Brown Bookstore in Laguna Beach, Open Mind Bookstore in Costa Mesa, the Latest Thing Book Shop in Newport Beach and through mail, by calling (714) 723-1334.
