Some years after, two of my sisters in their late adolescence were talking in the kitchen when our mother burst into the room and angrily asked, "What is this you are saying about birthcontrol?"

The bewildered daughters tried to deny that they knew anything about it.

But Mother said, "I was in the dining room and heard you say birthcontrol."

Edith laughed and said, "I was telling Frances what wonderful breath control she has."

Poor Mother.

She would like to have known about birth control before she had six daughters, but later in life she confessed that she was glad she didn't because she wouldn't want to miss any of you.

So here I was in France in 1922 ill prepared to be wedded in a few months.

My upbringing on one of the essentials of married life was a poor prelude for two American Field Service fellowship students in Europe who were very much in love.

When we became engaged we had planned very sensibly not to marry for two years.

The first year my finance Walter, would go to England to study at the Lonndon School of Economics and then return to the University of Bordeaux to complete his doctorate.

In the meantime I would continue my studies at the University of Montpellier.

The second year we would return to the states to teach, he at a university on the East Coast and I in California where I had a teaching certificate.

Walter and I had only love and debts to support us. These student debts must be paid, and there must be money in the bank for a research period in France before we could start a family.

We must know how to prevent a pregnancy so that I could teach when we returned to the States.

Now I knew that France, before the First World War, had kept its population down.

But how?

 

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