Evelyn's Biography (part 8/9)

In 2002, enrolled at Mount Royal College in a Women's Studies class, we were asked to interview a woman in our life and write their biography. Leading up to grandma's 75th birthday, I would like to share what I wrote:


Part 8/9

Although obtaining information was not readily available about birth control, it was not difficult to obtain either. Evelyn read a lot and that is how she personally knew about diaphragms.

First of all I found out about menstruation from a film that Kotex puts out called, very personally yours and it was shown to all of the girls in grade seven or eight and the boys separately. So, I came home from school and told my mother that we had a film on menstruation and she said “oh, I was going to talk to you about that any time now, I’ve actually ordered a book for you and when it comes I will give it to you.” Well, then I don’t know how long it was. It was a Saturday morning when I started to menstruate and I just remember that I was so excited. I came out of the bathroom and I said to my mother, I’m a woman at last, and I was fourteen. And then I began to hear all sorts of horror stories that mother told me. A Jewish custom with girls is when they start to menstruate their mother slaps them on the face. Another girl didn’t know what was happening, thinking that they were bleeding to death. I remember thinking that if I had daughters that they were going to know and they are not going to have to feel that.

Evelyn did not think that she had known any other girl who felt that much excitement about getting their period. She knew that she wanted her children to have the same experience that she did, so she did everything that she knew how to educate them. Her dad, Dean, had actually bought Evelyn’s first bra for her. She told me that it was his acceptance of her growing up. “It was a really pretty peach one,” she said. To her it meant that her father was proud of her for growing up, for her becoming a woman, and to her that was very special. Her father used to tell his daughters to “stand up and be proud that you’re women”, as most young girls who were tall usually hunched over. Evelyn tells a story about her oldest child and daughter, Nola.

When [Nola] was about eleven I got a book on intercourse and conception, and I gave it to her. We were out some place and she was reading it. She brought it to me and she opened it to a page that talked about intercourse, in very dry terms, and she said to me, is this right? I said yes, and she closed the book and walked away.

The only other information Evelyn’s mother gave to her came right before she was married. Her mother asked if she had kotex with her because often a woman would menstruate during this time due to stress or poor timing.