AHEAD OF HER TIME: THE 1920s WOMAN

About the Book

Book Description AHEAD OF HER TIME: THE 1920´S WOMAN tells how Mary McGuffy yearns for a life as satisfying as Andy McGuffy’s, her younger brother who fought in World War I. Andy finished high school and is stationed at First Officers’ Training Camp, Fort Riley, Kansas. Discontented with her meager schooling, Mary leaves her home in Ohio and lands a job as clerk at the A&P Tea Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After she falls in love with Tom Dunmore, a Pittsburgh and Lake Erie railroader, they marry and build a happy-forever-after house in West Park, a small town overflowing with people from foreign countries. In 1920, three-year old son, Ben, dies suddenly from the pandemic flu. Mary grieves mightily and also struggles to cope with stubborn five-year old Lily. In rain, sunshine or snow, Tom walks a long way from the railroad yard on Island Avenue and reaches home at midnight where Mary waits to serve him supper. After Ben’s death, she finds that marriage is becoming more joyless than she ever imagined. Gertie Schumaker, Stowe High School teacher, comforts Mary and encourages her to enroll in paper flower and contract bridge classes at St. Mary’s Church in McKees Rocks. Nevertheless, Tom believes that men are the breadwinners and wives should stay home and never hold a job. Disapproval reigns when Mary begins teaching women’s leisure-time classes. She hides her money in a Heinz Pickle jar and pays for Lily’s piano lessons with Sean Foster. The closeness between Tom and Mary begins to unravel. When the Nineteenth Amendment becomes law, Tom says women should never vote, but Mary goes to the polls. After Tom whips Lily for misbehaving, Mary threatens to leave him, even though she knows that women have no property rights in Pennsylvania and she would have to support herself. Upon learning that Mary is pregnant, Tom says they must build another house near the school so their children don’t have to cross streets becoming cluttered with newfangled autos. Mary agrees . . . she can’t bear putting the new baby in Ben’s room. Tom wants Mary to hire a midwife, but Rose Mary Dunmore is born at Ohio Valley Hospital. At first, Lily welcomes the baby. However, resentment festers when Rose loves school and has many friends. Lily detests school, wants to be a concert pianist and fails to measure up to her father’s classroom standards. Tom runs for a seat on the School Board, determined to improve West Park schools. After they move, he builds an icehouse in the backyard and hires a neighbor to run the business. When Tom is elected in 1922, Mary helps him establish Parents for Better Schools. She stops teaching women’s classes and tends Rose at home until she starts school. The historical novel covers 12 hectic years. West Park is snowbound for several days, Radio Station KDKA comes alive, refrigerators replace iceboxes, women are allowed to vote, Diesel locomotives are introduced experimentally, Lindbergh makes the first solo flight across the Atlantic, the Stock Market crashes, people who’ve lost their money jump from buildings to their deaths, the Great Depression leaves thousands jobless, and Amelia Earhart becomes “Lady Lindy” after she flies solo across the Atlantic. Despite these chaotic times, Mary Dunmore presses ahead on her journey seeking fulfillment.

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