The Astronaut Wives Club: A True Story (14 page)

Greeted by the doorman, the wives took the elevator to the tenth floor. As soon as the door opened, Picasso, Louise’s bearded collie, began running around sniffing the ladies’ ankles. Betty volunteered for the job of writing out the nametags for the new wives in her careful cursive. Soon the foyer was full of fresh faces. As Betty handed Susan Borman her nametag, which read “Sue,” she faced a glacial blue stare.

“My name is
Susan
,” said the blonde, “not Sue.”

Betty looked her square in the eye. She reached for the nametag and slowly ripped it up. “Okay,
Sue
.”

She thought she probably should have just kept her mouth shut, but she could already sense the attitude of the new cohort.

On the ride over, the Gemini wives had also discussed what to expect. They had all sorts of what-if and how-to questions they were eager to ask the Mercury women. Now, feeling the tension in the room, they were afraid of saying something stupid or naïve.

Susan Borman plowed ahead with her agenda. If only she could get the rest of the wives as organized as they had been in their military days. Back at Edwards, Susan
never
missed an official tea or Officers Wives Club meeting. She shone on these occasions. “This is fun,” she said. “Let’s start doing this on an organized basis…How about a newsletter?”

Betty locked eyes with Jo, Jo looked at Marge, and all their eyes rolled.

Susan tried again. “What advice do you have for us?”

The room fell silent. Then Marge volunteered to take that one. “Just plan to cry a lot!”

The Mercury wives decided that was enough coffee talk for now. The tense meeting broke up and the gals folded themselves back into the car for the ride home.

“Well,” blurted Betty, thinking of all those beehive hairdos, “they’re a showy bunch!”

“And how did you like that newsletter bit?” asked Marge.

They got the giggles and couldn’t stop laughing. Despite their differences, today they had found out that they were a very cohesive group. Well, they assured each other, these babes in the woods—in space—would be just fine. After all,
they’d
somehow been able to figure it out.

The Galaxy Ball

E
very weekend the New Nine astronauts and their wives were guests at Houston society parties. While the men were training and competing for assignments on the first Gemini flights, the women competed for invitations to the most desirable social events.

Everyone wanted to be invited to the fabulous parties thrown by Joanne Herring (played by Julia Roberts in
Charlie Wilson’s War
) at her mansion in River Oaks, the city’s most affluent neighborhood. A fixture on the Houston society circuit, Joanne was throwing a major party for the opening of the Broadway musical
Camelot
that was coming to Houston. Joanne was notorious for her decadent parties: for her second husband, oil baron Robert Herring, she’d hosted a wild toga party that featured copious amounts of Chianti, “Nubian slaves,” and even a “Christian girl” being “burned” at the stake. Joanne was a good friend of Texas congressman Charlie Wilson, who often attended her parties. She was also quite knowledgeable about Middle East politics and later served as honorary consul to Pakistan and Morocco. She often invited Third World dictators like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and the Philippines’ Marcoses to her parties. At one of these affairs, surrounded by heart surgeons and oilmen, Marilyn Lovell met “sheiks and what have you.”

One of the bizarre “perks” the New Nine wives received were $1,000 gift certificates to Neiman-Marcus from an anonymous priest, who had anticipated that the ladies would be going to plenty of these sorts of affairs, and would not always be able to afford the right clothes. So, the new Astrowives bought dresses for the launches and press conferences and social events they’d be expected to attend.

Later, before she was to go on a NASA world tour, Jane Conrad recruited her mother to go shopping and spend the gift certificate with her at Neiman’s in downtown Houston. Mrs. DuBose had come from a wealthy Philadelphia “Mainline” Social Register family. “Mimi” had once been chauffeured in Rolls-Royces and taken on transatlantic ocean liner voyages. Her mother took her to Europe for a month to forget a cowboy she had fallen in love with on a dude ranch. On the Continent, Mimi met Gary Cooper, who had his eye on her, to no avail. She was going to give up all the trappings of her privileged youth for love. Jane thought it was the most romantic story she had ever heard, her mother leaving a life that featured movie stars and elegant ocean cruises for a rugged life of adventure with a cowboy.

Neiman’s featured all the latest fashions—Yves Saint Laurent’s “young natural” daytime attire, which tomboy Jane looked great in. For the nighttime, the look was ultrafeminine—long gowns featuring bare shoulders, bare backs, and plunging necklines outlined in fur, feathers, sequins, or beading.

While Jane was trying on all sorts of confections—with their price tags further reduced by darling Lawrence Marcus, who adored the astronaut wives—Jane’s mother wandered over to the shoe department to sit down for a rest. Who should happen by but Henry Fonda (Jane’s mother was a magnet for Hollywood stars). The dear woman was all “twizzled” and although it would have been nice to tell the famous actor about her daughter’s husband, the astronaut who would probably be going to the Moon, she would
never
brag about that. Her mother was aware that one of the first rules Jane had learned about being an astronaut wife was: do not advertise. None of the wives ever volunteered that information unless specifically asked about their new Astrowife “status.”

Jane was the only wife invited to join Houston’s prestigious Junior League, largely because of her pedigree. She had grown up on a ranch in Uvalde, Texas, outside San Antonio, which was overseen by her rancher father and paid for by her mother. Jane loved ranch life—she even had her own horse to ride—but after high school, she chose to go East for college.

At Bryn Mawr, Jane had her formal “coming out” as a debutante. She first saw Pete at a deb dance at the Gulph Mills Golf Club in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. She noticed the funny-looking fellow with a blond crew cut, and wasn’t even sure why she was so attracted to him. At five foot eight, she was almost two inches taller than Pete. He had bright blue eyes and a big gap between his two front teeth that she found irresistible. It wasn’t until several months later, at a Princeton party, that she finally met him. Spotting him across a crowded, smoke-filled room, she dragged her date over and made him introduce them.

It was only then that Jane noticed the anchor and rattlesnake head tattooed on his left forearm. He explained to her that he’d had it inked during World War II when he was fifteen. Although he was from the same ritzy part of Philadelphia as her mother, he’d wanted to look like a sailor, though he was too young to see combat in World War II or Korea. He was currently attending Princeton on a Navy ROTC scholarship, since his father had lost most of his money in the stock market crash and drank away the rest. When Jane took Pete home to the ranch, he got along so well with her daddy that she often wondered if that’s why Pete proposed to her.

Nancy Robbins, a prominent Houston socialite, who collected Madame Alexander dolls (and now a token Astrowife), sponsored Jane for the Junior League.

Since none of the other astronaut wives had been invited to join, Jane made light of it by saying, “I had
no
intention of joining the Junior League, but these friends of mine worked to get me in, so I couldn’t refuse. I guess it’s an honor, and I’ve always liked volunteer work…”

She laughed, but secretly she did consider it an honor. To join the Junior League, Jane had to take a course three days a week for six weeks, to learn about the city and the various charitable programs the league was involved in. Once she became a member, she worked one day a week as a waitress at the Junior League tearoom in downtown Houston. It was a social commitment and all profits went to charity. She hoped she’d be able to work as a league volunteer in one of the hospitals as soon as all four of her young boys were in school. For now, she had caught the eye of Joanne Herring, host of a daytime talk show on Houston’s KHOU-TV. After interviewing Jane about what it was like to be married to an astronaut, woman to woman, Joanne took quite a shine to her and invited her to a fancy River Oaks Country Club luncheon, where she introduced Jane to one of her literary darlings, Truman Capote.

Jane happened to be wearing one of her new suede hats, and was all ready to answer any questions he might have about the space program. The pale-faced Capote looked her over, from her new heels to her odd-looking hat that fit her head like, well, a
helmet
, and asked drolly, in his high nasal twang, “Are you trying to be an astronaut like your husband?” Suddenly Jane didn’t feel so stylish. It felt like a slap in the face!

Since that joint session of the wives at Louise’s apartment, the New Nine and the Mercury women had continued meeting for coffee, but in separate camps. It was springtime 1963, time to melt the frosty relations between the two groups of women. Enough was enough; it was time for a détente.

At the invitation of the Austin Rotary Club, the wives were flown by the Air Force to Austin, and were met at Bergstrom Air Force Base by the city council and the University of Texas Silver Spurs, an honor group of college boys wearing chaps and cowboy hats, boots, and spurs. Colonel Homer Garrison, president of the Austin Rotary Club, was there on behalf of the city.

“I’ve never seen a Texas Ranger in uniform,” said one of the wives, so he hurried right home to change into his.

Unfortunately, his wife had informed him that it was too blasted hot here in Austin in the high-eighties spring temperature for his winter uniform (and his summer uniform was
dirty
), so the colonel assigned two muscle-bound Rangers, fully uniformed in broad-brimmed hats, knee-high boots, and silver star badges, to escort the ladies throughout their visit.

The wives were driven to the governor’s mansion for coffee with the First Lady of Texas, Nellie Connally, who gave them a tour of her Greek Revival–style mansion. The wives counted twenty-five rooms and seventeen bathrooms!
This
was a dream home!
How many kids do y’all have?
Nellie wanted to know, so the wives commenced a “countdown of brats.”

They crossed the street to the pink granite Texas State Capitol. One senator told the ladies he was so happy to see them, because “I’ve never
met
women who make love to men from outer space!”

Everyone was letting loose a little now that Project Mercury was coming to a close. On May 15, 1963, Trudy’s Gordo was to fly the last of the Mercury missions. The Mercury wives drove over to El Lago, and Louise roared up in her new Plymouth Sport Fury convertible. They were all wearing matching headscarves and bearing gifts. Marge brought Trudy the dozen long-stemmed roses Deke had just given her for their anniversary. Betty had swiped two bottles of “Gus’s good champagne.” The wives didn’t think he would mind.

All of the New Nine had been invited to this last launch party of Project Mercury. They were out in the living room watching the TV while the Mercury Seven set up camp in Trudy’s bedroom.

Huddled together like schoolgirls, the wives listened to a high-frequency radio Wally Schirra had lent them. He’d explained this nifty gadget, saying that when Gordo was flying over Houston, they’d be able to pick up the chatter between Mission Control at the Cape and Trudy’s slow-talkin’ Okie. They’d hear him twenty-two times in all, once for each time that he passed overhead while he whizzed around the Earth. Trudy hoped Gordo might send her a personal message, but all the wives could hear when Gordo soared overhead was static. During his fourth orbit, Trudy was just able to make out three of his words: “Roger,
Faith Seven
,” the name of his ship. She was making preparations to jet off to Hawaii with her daughters for a reunion with Gordo after he splashed down into the Pacific.

“Gordon is a good pilot,” Trudy thought. She always knew he’d do a bang-up job. Who knows, being a damn good pilot herself, maybe she’d be the first female astronaut. But the prospect did not look promising.

The summer before, John Glenn had testified before the House Space Committee against sending a woman into space. Sitting in the back of the room, Annie had nodded in complete agreement with her man. What woman could imagine going to the bathroom, let alone having her
period
, in that
can
?

But only a month after Gordo’s twenty-two orbits around the Earth, Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova waxed his tail by orbiting Earth forty-eight times, doubling Gordo’s achievement. And comrade Valentina was
pregnant
at the time.

Still, Gordo had closed out Project Mercury in style, taking it easy the whole time, even catching a nap in the capsule on top of his giant Atlas rocket before liftoff.

Following the flight, Mercury director Walt Williams announced that the project had achieved its goals. “The program is closed,” he said. “When we started it, our object was to prove man’s capability in space. I think the record shows that man is capable in space. Man has a place in space.”

Jackie had invited all the Mercury families for cocktails on May 21 at the White House to commemorate the project’s successful conclusion. After the gathering, over the course of a White House dinner, the president gave the recap to journalist Benjamin Bradlee, who later wrote, “He said two or three times that evening that he finds Rene Carpenter the most attractive of the wives.”

The wives had made what, unbeknownst to them at the time, would be their final official visit with the Queen of Camelot. Smiling, laughing, a little tipsy, they posed for a group photo, not realizing they would never again be as close as they had been during Mercury. Though the Mercury astronauts had originally been slated to fly some of the upcoming Gemini and Apollo missions, almost half of them had already been removed from active flying status. NASA still would not overlook Deke Slayton’s heart murmur. Soon Alan Shepard was diagnosed with Ménière’s disease, an inner-ear disorder that causes vertigo. In keeping with the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy, Louise saw his affliction as Alan’s
dis-ease
with himself. Until he reached a healthy balance in his own life, she believed, and perhaps gave up his dalliances with other women, he’d be stuck on Earth, just like Deke.