Chapter 17

This is Gemma Kane, speaking with Dr Morton Stein, my college journalism professor, at his home in Los Angeles, California. Today is Wednesday, May 10, 1961, and the time is 2:15 PM.

Gemma: You’re looking robust. Are you still teaching?

Dr Stein: No, but I still write angry letters to the editor. How was the drive up the Pacific Coast Highway? People use route numbers nowadays, but I like the old names.

Gemma: I was a bit rushed. I had another interview in San Diego this morning. Luckily, driving along the ocean clears my head.

Dr Stein: (Grins) I’ll do my best to re-muddle it. You can clear it again on the drive home.

Gemma: (Smiles wryly) I was pretty muddled when I started your class. Hard to believe that was over thirty years ago. The parents of most students in the class weren’t born in California so our first assignment was to interview them about where they were from and what brought them here.

Dr Stein: I used that assignment up until I retired. The stories never ceased to be interesting.

Gemma: I got a bad grade because my mother was so vague about herself and had absolutely nothing to say about my father. You scribbled “Probe for details!” in red at the top of my paper.

Dr Stein: Funny, I don’t remember that. What sticks in my memory is how tenacious you were about gathering information and tracking down sources. For years I used your paper on the 1932 Norris-LaGuardia Act, giving workers the right to join unions, as a model for other students.

Gemma: That exercise became a model for my own future work on labour issues.

Dr Stein: (Grins) I’ve followed your career. Your articles on using the Taft-Hartley Act to break the steel strike were especially impressive. I’m proud to claim you as my student.

Gemma: (Blushes) Can I be your student again today? As I said on the phone, I’d appreciate any advice you can give me on how to go about finding my father.

Dr Stein: Let me turn the question back on you, like I used to do in class. (Adjusts eyeglasses, laces fingers in front of chest) What do you think has made you a good investigative journalist?

Gemma: Being pugnacious. Sticking my nose where folks don’t want me to go.

Dr Stein: Okay. Think about what your mother was afraid of and go there.

Gemma: She was afraid of people, men especially, stealing me away from her. (Laughs) Do you suppose that means my father was a thief?

Dr Stein: What does your gut tell you?

Gemma: That she was a poor young woman, alone in this country, and she wanted something to call her own. Gemma, gem. I was her precious possession.

Dr Stein: Thieves don’t just steal money or possessions.

Gemma: (Ruminative) They steal hearts.

Dr Stein: So, assume your father stole your mother’s heart. He wasn’t a casual tryst.

Gemma: That should make me feel better, knowing I was a love child, but I was still a mistake.

Dr Stein: Don’t think emotionally. Think analytically. What other qualities do thieves have?

Gemma: They’re secretive, dishonest, manipulative, out for themselves, possibly violent ...

Dr Stein: Whoa, you’re painting your father as a very bad man. You’ll talk yourself out of finding him for fear he’ll be someone whose paternity you don’t want to acknowledge. Revise your statement. Do thieves have any positive traits that might help you track him down?

Gemma: (Smiles) He could be clever, smart, charming, and seductive.

Dr Stein: That’s more like it.

Gemma: But it doesn’t narrow the field. Lots of men my father’s age have those qualities.

Dr Stein: Not most immigrants, circa 1910. Their lives were limited. Home and work, work and home. Odds are your father was a poor immigrant like your mother, or the son of immigrants.

Gemma: (Despairing) There were millions of them.

Dr Stein: One thing you do know is that your mother was in the Triangle fire. Nose around—find other survivors, remaining family members. True, most were nameless, but there was enough hubbub and outrage to leave some records.

Gemma: (Excited) I’ll revisit my earlier notes. Check out the burial societies that raised money, and the witnesses interviewed by reporters. There are bound to be court records too.

Dr Stein: (Thumbs up) As I said, you’re dogged and persistent.

Gemma: You taught me well.

Dr Stein: I suspect you also learnt more from your mother than you give her credit for. After all, I had you for a few years in college, but your mother influenced you your whole life.

Gemma: I suppose my father, by his mere absence, influenced me too.

Dr Stein: Half your genes are his. Look inside yourself for clues to his identity.

The interview ended at 2:40 PM.