Chapter 1
A Wandering Family
Gloria Marie Steinem was born in Toledo, Ohio, on March 25, 1934. Her parents, Leo Steinem and Ruth Nuneviller, had met at the University of Toledo in 1917. They both worked on the college newspaper. After college they married. Ruth taught college math for a year. It wasn’t the career she really wanted. But she had promised her mother that she’d try teaching.
After a year, Ruth quit and got a job doing what she wanted to do. She became a reporter for the Toledo Blade. At that time, people didn’t think a woman could be as good of a reporter as a man. So Ruth used a man’s name, Duncan Mackenzie, for her work at the newspaper. Ruth loved being a journalist, but she took a year off when their daughter Susanne was born in 1925.
Leo worked odd jobs after college. The year that Susanne was born he bought some land in Clarklake, Michigan. Clarklake was in a rural area about fifty miles northwest of Toledo. Leo built a resort in 1928. It was called Ocean Beach Pier. Leo hoped big-name bands would come and play for all the guests. But Leo’s timing was bad. The Great Depression hit in 1929, and many people lost their jobs. They weren’t able to spend money on things like weekends dancing at a lake resort. In 1930, to help save money, the Steinems sold their house in Toledo and moved to Clarklake.
Ruth liked city life, and it was hard to give up her job at the newspaper. But she agreed to make a home at Ocean Beach Pier.
Soon after the move, Ruth gave birth to a baby boy who did not live long. That same year Ruth’s father died, too. Lonely and isolated in the town of Clarklake, Ruth had a nervous breakdown. The medication she was prescribed helped, but she slept for hours when she took it. Ruth was no longer able to work or look after her children the way she once did.
For years, Susanne had been begging for a baby sister. When Gloria arrived on March 25, 1934, everyone in the family was excited. Leo thought that perhaps a new baby would help make Ruth happy again. Ruth loved her new daughter, but she found it difficult to look after Gloria.
Gloria spent a lot of her childhood “running wild” at her family’s resort in Michigan. She was free to play on the beach and catch turtles and minnows. She sometimes searched for coins that people had dropped in the lake. Gloria would also spend time in the dance hall watching the dancers and musicians. Ruby Brown, a dancer at the resort, taught Gloria how to tap-dance. Gloria was pretty good at it, and once she learned the basic steps, she couldn’t stop dancing. Gloria even dreamed of becoming a dancer when she grew up, just like Ruby.
Summers in Michigan were fun. But by October or November it was too cold for the Steinems to stay at the resort. The buildings didn’t have heat. In the winter months, Gloria and her sister were taken out of school. Leo Steinem would pack up his family and they would drive to warmer places—California or Florida—in a trailer.
On the way, Gloria’s father would make money buying and selling antiques. Ruth homeschooled Gloria and Susanne while the family was on the road. But the sisters were out of school for long periods of time and weren’t learning as much as other children their age.
Gloria missed out on having friends and being involved in school activities. But she loved following her father around as he made his antique deals. Leo Steinem was fun and full of stories.
Leo also encouraged his daughters to be independent. Later in life, Gloria would say that her father treated her like a friend. He asked her advice and enjoyed her company. She also knew that she was loved, and her father honored her as a person. Gloria saw that some people in the world—like her father—believed that men and women and boys and girls weren’t really so different. What mattered most was what a person could do.
