The summer after leaving high school, she saw her opportunity. Steubenville was celebrating the 150th anniversary of its founding—its sesquicentennial. As part of the celebration, the prettiest girl in town would be crowned Queen of Steubenville. First prize was either a trip to Hollywood for a screen test or five hundred dollars. Carolyn entered the contest and campaigned for her votes, knocking on doors and enlisting promises of support. She won, none of the other girls coming close to her beauty. As queen, she presided over all the sesquicentennial activities, riding in the parade on the biggest float of them all with the words HER MAJESTY emblazoned on the side. Carolyn waved from her silvered throne as the people crowding either side of the street cheered for her. For four nights, she appeared in a historical pageant staged at the local stadium, playing the “Queen of the Festival” in front of an audience of thousands. Her photograph—wearing her blue and gold cape and jeweled crown—was front page in the local newspaper. People recognized her as she walked down the street.
When it came time to choose her prize, Carolyn turned down the ticket to Hollywood; she wasn’t interested in acting. Instead, she took the cash prize, using some of it to pay for a one-way ticket to New York City. Carolyn wasn’t going to follow the pattern set by Steubenville, or by anyone else’s expectations.
In New York, she would try her luck as a model.
A girlfriend drove her to the Steubenville train station to catch her train. Dorothy had to stay home and make dinner for Joe and the children that evening; she couldn’t leave them, even to say good-bye to her own daughter. So when Carolyn left, there was no one from her family to see her off. As the station platform and her hometown disappeared into the distance, it was almost as if she’d never been there at all.
Thinking about the day, I wonder how she got up the courage to do it. How did a young, single woman in 1947 find it within herself to leave her family and move to another city without any idea of what came next? How unhappy must her life have been at home with her stepfather on Pennsylvania Avenue that she felt so motivated to escape?
Perhaps my mother believed that staying in Steubenville would require a different kind of courage, one that she knew she couldn’t muster.
* * *
A DAY LATER, Carolyn stepped down from her train at Penn Station, and caught a cab to 140 East Sixty-third Street. She read all the fashionable magazines, so she knew that the Barbizon Hotel for Women was the best place for a girl to stay while in the big city. Barbizon residents were models, actresses, singers, students, and secretaries, girls who, like Carolyn, wanted to make something of themselves. The hotel’s rooms were reasonably priced, and most important, as male guests weren’t allowed much farther than the lobby, she would be safe.
Most of the hotel’s guests, not only the out-of-towners like Carolyn, would have been intimidated at first sight of the Barbizon. From the sidewalk, even if you craned your neck, it could be hard to see the tip of the building, twenty-three stories high, with dark brown brick terraces and setbacks, like a giant, somber wedding cake. Carolyn pushed inside the revolving doors and into the lobby, nearly as wide and as deep as the building, with a curved staircase sweeping up to an ornate wooden mezzanine. Nervously, she walked toward the front desk, where a small, smiling woman was waiting to greet her. This was Mrs. Sibley, the hotel’s manager. Carolyn handed over her references while Mrs. Sibley looked her up and down.
Candidates for residence at the Barbizon were assessed on their references, as well as their age, looks, and background. The management’s preference was for attractive girls in their late teens or very early twenties—and with a waiting list of at least one hundred names, Mrs. Sibley could have her pick. At nineteen, Carolyn met the age requirement. As for her pedigree, Mrs. Sibley most likely assumed that Steubenville was a steel town and that Carolyn’s parents were solidly blue-collar. Fortunately, Carolyn was pretty enough to pass Mrs. Sibley’s test.
Then Mrs. Sibley read Carolyn the hotel rules and regulations. No cooking appliances in the rooms, lest the building burn to the ground. No liquor in the rooms. It was the hotel’s preference that young ladies did not stay out late at night but returned to their rooms at a respectable hour. A warning would be given to anyone who didn’t comply. If, after a warning, the girl continued to stay out late, Mrs. Sibley would have to inform management, who might decide to give her room to another girl. As a guest of the hotel, Carolyn had the use of its swimming pool, gym, library, and roof garden. In the afternoons, complimentary tea and cookies were served in the recital room, on the mezzanine above the lobby. Should she wish to join, backgammon and card games were held in the evenings in the recreation room, and there were regular educational lectures on a range of subjects, to improve the mind.
But Mrs. Sibley and her fellow staff of the Barbizon weren’t only seeking to improve the minds of the young ladies of the hotel. They
