Earl, who attended the College of Charleston, looked up from a paper he was writing and sighed. “Because she can only afford to raise one,” he explained again.
“But it’s not right. Mildred is always saying that the Best family split them up like a litter of kittens. Sisters need to be together.”
“Well, maybe we should bring Mildred here,” Earl said, watching Gertrude’s reaction with smiling eyes.
She shut up and stomped out of the room.
Earl laughed as he went back to his writing. Sometimes his spoiled bride begged to be put in her place.
For the next year, Gertrude suffered in relative silence, fearful that Earl would get the notion that raising all the girls together was the right thing to do. But she wasn’t nice to her niece. Earl, who had grown up without a father, was a strict disciplinarian, because he was determined to raise Louise right. As the years passed, Louise came to hate her aunt and resent her uncle for letting his wife treat her like the orphan she was.
Toward the end of 1933, Gertrude missed her monthly cycle and feared she might be pregnant. She and Earl were living in Wilmore, Kentucky, while Earl studied at the Asbury Theological Seminary, on his way to earning another certification that hopefully would bring more income into the family.
“How will we support two children?” Gertrude whined after sharing her news with Earl, hoping this would force him to send the girl away.
“We’ll manage just like we do with one,” Earl reassured her.
Gertrude decided she wanted a girl – a girl of her own. Maybe when Earl held his own daughter, he would realize that the other one didn’t belong. She began sewing dresses for the baby from yards of lace and cloth, never once entertaining the idea that her baby could be a boy. That just wouldn’t do.
On July 14, 1934, Gertrude gave birth to a son, Earl Van Best Jr. Earl decided to call him Van.
When the midwife tried to place my father in Gertrude’s arms, her cheeks turned red and tears streamed from her eyes.
“Look, dear. He’s a fine, healthy boy,” Earl cajoled, trying to get Gertrude to hold her son.
Gertrude wouldn’t look at him. “Take him away,” she insisted, turning over in her bed to face the wall.
Earl didn’t understand. Mothers were supposed to love their children.
A few days later, Gertrude was still in bed when her husband brought the baby to her again.
“I’m not well,” she said when Earl moved toward her with the child in his arms.
“Just look at him,” Earl begged. “Hold him for just a minute. He’s a sweet fellow.”
“No. Leave me alone. I don’t want it.”
Every day for weeks, Earl brought the baby to her, and every day, she refused to hold him. Finally he could take it no more. He was tired of washing diapers, feeding his son every four hours, listening to him cry for the comfort of a mother’s arms, doing all the things Gertrude should be doing. Enough was enough.
“Get up,” he ordered after another sleepless night. “Get out of that bed and take care of your child like a good Christian mother. I will not allow you to act like this. Get up!”
Gertrude knew she had pushed him as far as she could. She got up and reluctantly assumed her role as a mother to the boy. She fed him. She changed and washed his diapers. She bathed him. But she didn’t mother him any more than was absolutely necessary.
Happy that his wife was better, Earl left her to her duty. In a letter to his mother, he explained that he and Gertrude had very definite ideas about rearing a child. “When he cries, we let him whoop it out,” he wrote. “If he is comfortable, we try to forget about him and let him alone. I believe to walk them around and humor them when they get blue from crying is one of the worst things that can be done for them. He will be a fine boy if we don’t coddle and fondle him into being a regular sissy.”
In 1935, my grandfather became an ordained Methodist minister and accepted a missionary assignment to Japan, taking his wife and their one-year-old son with him. Louise happily joined her sisters at Estelle’s house. Earl’s assignment was to help create a universal Christian church in Japan that incorporated all denominations. As a representative of the Methodist Board of Missions, my grandfather had been invited to meet with Emperor Hirohito (the Mikado), along with representatives from other Christian denominations, to discuss bringing more American missionaries to Japan. Earl would later write about his efforts in his master’s thesis. It took five years to accomplish, but in 1941, church union became a reality in Japan.
Earl was very proud to have been a part of this effort, but the highlight of his time in Tokyo was meeting the Mikado, and he liked to impress Van with stories of the meeting. He took his son to see the Gilbert and Sullivan opera The Mikado, among others, and sent the playbills back home to his nieces.
By 1940 Van had grown into a six-year-old who was already showing signs of becoming a polymath, much to my grandfather’s delight. He had picked up Japanese effortlessly, as easily as he had acquired the German that Earl often spoke with him. While other American children were learning to write from the left side of the page to the right, Van was learning to write in three Japanese scripts – kanji, hiragana, and katakana – going from right to left in columns. Earl insisted that Van take advantage of the unique opportunity living abroad afforded him. Gertrude fed his artistic side, teaching him to play piano and organ, teaching him to draw – more to keep herself occupied than out of any affection for the boy. There were no kisses on the cheek or affectionate hugs. There was no sympathy when Van got hurt. “Dust yourself off. You’re a man. You have to be tough,” Earl would say. Perversely, Gertrude would decorate Van’s clothes with lacy collars and ruffles, doing her best to turn him into a “regular sissy.”
Van tried to be tough. He tried to please his father, but Earl’s philosophy of “Spare the rod, spoil the child” resulted in whippings for minor infractions. And when Van cried, the rod became more vicious.
Van understood early on that learning was paramount to his well-being, and so he studied to stay out of trouble. He learned. And he made his father proud.
Earl had equally high expectations of Gertrude, but she needed constant attention and strained against the restrictive bonds of her marriage. My grandfather had suspicions about her activities when he wasn’t around and occasionally voiced them, but Gertrude always assured him that he was being silly. Wanting to believe the best, Earl allowed himself to be consoled. Not many men could resist when Gertrude turned on the charm, and her husband was no exception.
Between his wife’s flirtations and the instability in the region, my grandfather knew it was almost time to send Gertrude and Van home. Japan had formed an alliance with Italy and Germany, and Earl realized that did not bode well for any peaceful resolution to tensions that were building around the world. My grandmother couldn’t wait to go home. She had not bargained for the strict lifestyle she endured as the wife of a missionary in Japan. For five years, she and Earl had lived at Aoyama Gakuin, a university established in 1874 by the Methodist Episcopal Church. Her life might have been more bearable, but she was an artist and musician, a free spirit, and Earl and his Christian ideals were much too rigid for her creative soul. Gertrude liked to have fun. Earl had responsibilities, which he took very seriously – namely, saving heathen souls from the fires of hell.
On October 28, 1940, Earl waved good-bye to his wife and son from a dock in Kobe as they boarded the ocean liner Tatuta Maru, bound for the United States. By January 1941 they would be back in Japan, their return spurred by Earl’s family, who had no problem informing him that he needed to keep a closer eye on his wife.
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese Imperial Navy bombed Pearl Harbor. Two thousand four hundred and two Americans lost their lives in the attack, and more than