The Astronaut Wives Club: A True Story - by Lily Koppel
“As America's Mercury Seven astronauts were launched on death-defying missions, television cameras focused on the brave smiles of their young wives. Overnight, these women were transformed from military spouses into American royalty. They had tea with Jackie Kennedy, appeared on the cover of Life magazine, and quickly grew into fashion icons. … THE ASTRONAUT WIVES CLUB tells the real story of the women who stood beside some of the biggest heroes in American history.”
I don't think this book is very well written. The author strings together recollections and quotes in chronological order based on what was going on in the space program. The narrative suffers because not all the wives were interviewed. There are no sources given which makes me wonder about all the quotes used in the book. There isn’t much analysis.
That said, I enjoyed the book because it gives a wonderful glimpse into the culture of the early 1960s. Society had determined very definite roles for “good” women and especially for “good” wives. Not too surprising, things were different for the men. When President Kennedy gave National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) the task of beating the Russians in the space race, the nation’s best test pilots were chosen to be the first astronauts.
In 2013 it’s easy to forget how scary a prospect this was. We didn’t know anything about space travel - if people could survive orbiting the earth, going to the moon, landing on the moon and returning to earth. And if they survived the trip back, would they bring toxic microbes with them? It was all unknown. These women truly did not know if their husbands would survive what they were being asked to do – and what they wanted to do. Some of the astronauts died in this quest.
“As her husband trained for every possible aspect of spaceflight, each woman had to prepare for the day when she would have to face the television cameras, when the world would be scrutinizing her hair, her complexion, her outfit, her figure, her poise, her parenting skills, her diction, her charm, and most of all, her patriotism. She had to appear calm and composed while her husband was strapped atop what was essentially the world’s largest stick of dynamite, seconds away from being blasted off into space.” (xiii)
As I read the book I often thought of Mom and her friends who were about the same age as the wives of the original astronauts. Did Mom, Ann, Ruth, Dorothy and others sit around the table with Life magazine and compare their lives with the lives of the astronauts’ wives? Or did they see past the facade and realize it was all a mixture of NASA public relations and a sweet deal between the government and Life magazine? The astronaut wives were awed with Jackie Kennedy. Did Mom and her friends ever discuss her?
Reading about these women in the early 1960s, you can feel how constrained the women could have been with society’s expectations as to what a “good” marriage, and good wife, looked like. Women who wanted to be something other than what society expected were considered very different. It’s going to be difficult for our children and grandchildren to understand how different things were then. I graduated from high school in 1964, just when all sorts of boundaries were being pushed and societal expectations were being questioned - especially the role of women.
These women were military wives. They knew the drill. They were used to making do with little money and not so desirable housing arrangements. They were used to their husbands not being home. But being the wife of an astronaut brought a whole other dimension to their role and expectations of NASA, Life magazine (who had an exclusive contract with NASA for all publicity related to the astronaut program), and society in general.
NASA had a protocol officer who instructed the wives about their role. From instruction given to the “New Nine” (the group after the original seven astronauts) - “good breakfast .. eggs, bacon... Feed him well. Praise his efforts. Create a place of refuge. Adjusting to normal conditions after a week in the pure oxygen bubble of a space-training capsule could knock a husband out, so he shouldn’t be expected to do menial chores around the home. ... keep the astronaut away from stress. He should never have to worry about the plumbing, or the dental bills,...” (page 106)
Meanwhile their husbands were not held to the same high standards as their wives. The wives and children, and the husbands when they were home in Texas, were expected to exude the “goodness” and health of their marriages and families. Many of the astronauts had a different lifestyle at Florida’s Cape Canaveral with the “Cape cookies.” This behavior was overlooked and suppressed by the press for the men while the women were held to different standards. Every once in a while a man would step so far out of bounds that he was dropped from the space program - but it took a pretty egregious action for that to happen.
An aside about our Ohio connection - John and Annie Glenn were evidently wonderful solid people whose marriage and family really were good. They were admired by many. Annie wasn't interviewed for the book but her friends and "fellow wives" had wonderful things to say about her and John. Neither Neil Armstrong nor his wife were interviewed.
Astronaut C.C. Williams died in a plane crash before he went into space. His widow Beth said about the astronaut wives, “These were women who were in the public eye and yet pushed to the background all the time. ….” page 264
The book made me think about military families and all that’s asked of them. Cokie Roberts’ interesting book “Founding Mothers” also came to my mind. She tells the story of the women and children who supported the “Founding Fathers” of this country.
If you’d like a glimpse of how things used to be, this book would be an interesting place to start.
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