Her favorite restaurant was Chicago`s Shangri-la, but the early days of her marriage to a physician hardly measured up to the name.
”I must have seen half the movies in Chicago,” she recalls. ”There were no beepers in those days, but they always knew how to find my husband. I always told him that I married him despite the M.D., and the first years of our marriage were really rough. He was doing general practice, treating heart attacks and delivering babies, and he worked at least four nights a week. The only times I saw him were on Wednesdays, Saturday nights and Sundays–and then only if he didn`t get an emergency call.
”It got even worse when at age 35 he decided he didn`t want to keep up this pace. He decided to switch from general practice to dermatology; that meant taking a three-year residency at Cook County Hospital. He would spend the afternoon he was off back at his clinic caring for his old patients; he had to spend his nights sleeping at the hospital. For three years he spent only one night a week at home.
”But that`s the way it was for a medical wife of my era. We were married in 1946, and men were expected to work hard. Their wives were expected to stay home and uncomplainingly raise a family. All my friends who were married to doctors lived the same way.”
This medical couple, who prefer anonymity, have now been married for 40 years. The rewards of their sometimes-painful life together are obvious: Their Lake Shore Drive condominium takes up the entire top floor of a prestigious building, commanding an awesome view of Lake Michigan and Oak Street Beach. He is a noted art collector, specializing in ”works on paper,” and the walls are lined with original lithographs and drawings by Picasso and Van Gogh. Antiques and fine china complete the decor. When one walks in the front door, he is standing face to face with a priceless oil nude by Matisse, the only oil in the doctor`s discrimininating collection. Coffee is served by a housekeeper.
As she reminisces he sits in another room, working the phones. At age 66, he says he is ”retired,” but he still finds time to run two Chicago hotels and two Chicago banks (real estate and banking are also among his passions), as well as spending two nights and Saturday afternoons practicing dermatology at the large group practice he established on the city`s Southwest Side. Not to mention his leadership role in civic, commercial and cultural activities.
She is a bit wistful. Waving her hands, she says: ”Oh, if John (as we shall call him) were not so intense–obsessed really–we probably would not have all this. I`m into comfort, but I also like simple things. Sure, the art collection is nice, but we don`t need all of it. And we don`t need all these antiques. Sometimes I think that our life gets cluttered up trying to impress a lot of people who really don`t care that much about us and about whom we don`t care that much. It can be a waste of time.
”I like to get away to our condo in Miami Beach because it`s so much simpler. This year we`ll be going for the Christmas holidays and taking two of our grandchildren. I`m going to stay in Florida right through the middle of February. I`ve found that when I return to Chicago with John, he never wants to go back to Florida; if I stay in Florida, he`ll come back to join me. I used to love to walk on the (Miami) beach, but it`s no longer safe, and John refuses to take walks with me. He thinks that if you take strolls on the beach, you must be a `surfer.` He will only walk to places where he can do things. So now I no longer walk on the beach; I swim in a pool instead.”
Theirs was marriage made in an era when the doctor was married to medicine. The patient came first–and often last. Their three children, two daughters and a son, were born during the first five years of marriage, and the family quickly got used to the doctor`s absences. He switched to dermatology so he could have a ”more orderly” life, but he quickly got into real estate and banking to fill up his time.
He was always a good provider, and the family lived in a lovely five-bedroom suburban home, where Mary (as we shall call her) ”became a full- time gardener,” in addition to chairing committees for numerous civic groups, teaching school and working in her husband`s office. ”I was always good at finding things to do.”
Both John and Mary stressed education to their children, and John–to Mary`s occasional dismay–also demanded self-reliance. The children are all achievers: The son is an attorney and bank president, as well as a pianist, sailor and musician; one daughter is an attorney, the other a teacher and real-estate appraiser. All three are married; John and Mary have six grandchildren.
Since Mary used to be a social worker and teacher, she respects achievement and its rewards, but she adds, ”I guess I like low-key. If we do something, fine; if don`t, that`s fine, too. John tends to be consumed by his passions, and this can cause problems.”
The object of her ruminations enters the room and promptly takes over the interview.
”When I was younger,” he begins. ”I`m still young, but I used to be younger. Well, sure, in the early days I worked very, very hard. But today nothing bothers me. I used to think that Mary was much calmer than me, but now I think it`s the other way around.”
She interjects: ”Aha, that`s what you say, but I don`t believe it.”
He tells a story. ”I love to listen to loud music. Our neighbors used to think I was nuts, turning the stereo up full blast; but with classical music I wanted to hear everything–the treble and the bass and the cymbals. That`s the way it sounds in the orchestra. My son told me, ”You know, Dad, I think I owe my love of music to your putting Horowitz on full blast. It made me appreciate the passion of the music.”
Mary says: ”You could hear it a block away. The neighbors thought he must be off his rocker. I guess I just like my music a little softer. He could use a little gentleness, a little softness.”
John explains: ”I`m a very forceful, opinionated person, but so is she. That`s why we`ve stayed together for 40 years. My passion is life, and everybody says of me, `He loves what he does.` Well, you could be known for things a lot worse.”
Mary: ”I`ve always done what I wanted to do. I had to or John would have overwhelmed me. We even vote differently. I`ve liked a lot of losers.”
John interjects: ”I`m a capitalist to the core and a limousine liberal, but I`ve backed a few losers, too.”
He softened a little. ”You know, Mrs. Smith (as we shall call them) is a very wealthy woman for one reason. When we decided to get married in February, she insisted that it be February 15, not February 14. She wanted two presents every year, for Valentine`s Day and our anniversary. That decision has made her a wealthy woman.”
Mary smiles. ”Oh, yes, I have a lot of wonderful gifts. John is very successful at what he does, and it is very important to him to be consumed by what he does. His work is his passion. My passions are family and friends.”
John: ”On our 30th wedding anniversary, we had a party for 130 people, and about 50 were people who Mary knew before we met. She has a genius for friendship, and some of her best friends today she knew when she was 10. Oh, I picked her because she was self-relaint, and pretty and smart and with a sense of humor, too. I knew that she could put up with me, and, besides, I never thought of myself as the hardest-working guy in the world anyway.”
He says he`ll never give up medicine. ”I`ll tell you why. It`s the only area in life that is not adversarial. In medicine the patient and the physician are working together for the same result. A few days ago I saw a 14-year-old boy with an anal wart the size of a cauliflower. It was red and angry and painful, and he was afraid to tell his parents. At first, I thought that it was an (sexual) abuse situation, but it turned out not. With drugs, I`ve been able to shrink it. I can`t explain how gratifying this is. It`s like the teenager with psoriasis who`s afraid to go out of the house. I cleared up his face, and he thought it was a miracle. I thought we both might cry.
”You know, I`ve practiced for 40 years in a Bohemian section of the city, and these people live differently than the folks on Lake Shore Drive. They`re not as fortunate, and I pay close attention to their skin. You see babies with blotchy skin, signs of poor hygiene and nutrition. When my son`s daughter was born, I told him how fortunate she was to be born in a good hospital with good genes and to have a loving family to take good care of her. ”I don`t get aggravated by anything anymore because when you`ve seen people who are sick and dying, you realized that all the rest of it is unimportant.”
What drives him?
”You mean the monkey on my back?” he responds. ”My father was a doctor, and he taught me to be self-reliant. Maybe I`m trying to please him. Whatever I do I want to do right. I got out of general practice because that 20 or 30 seconds you wait for a baby to start breathing after delivery was starting to seem longer and longer. I didn`t want to do it when I was 50.”
Mary interjects: ”You said you wanted to retire at 45, but that was before the real estate and the banking.”
John: ”I got into the hotels and motels to help out Mary`s father and brother, who were in the business, and we quickly realized that to buy a hotel you had to pay a lot of interest to the banks. So we bought our own bank. And I had a good business mind because we had always operated a medical group practice. I never felt any particular stress.”
Mary: ”Well, you had a heart attack.”
John`s voice rises: ”I did not have a heart attack. There were some enzyme changes, perhaps indicating some ischemic changes, but all I know is that the EKG today doesn`t show any damage to the heart muscle and I`m rated
`normal` by my life insurer.”
Mary: ”Well, the medical records said it was a heart attack, and you started to cut out the red meat and the eggs and the salt.”
What would he call it? John concludes: ”I had a cardiac event, but there was no neuromusclar damage. I feel terrific.”
John continues: ”I don`t play golf, so I`ve always found other things to occupy my time. Sure, I wish I could have done more. I would have liked to spend more time with my family.”
Mary`s voice rises: ”Don`t forget those three years you spent at Cook County with only one night a week at home. And our house was robbed once when I was all alone.”
John responds: ”Well, you weren`t in the house and nobody was hurt. That`s the important thing.” Reflecting on the early days, he smiles: ”You know, after we had been married for five years, I said to Mary, `Jeez, don`t you ever wear anything but a nightgown?` I never saw her except very late at night and very early in the morning.
”Later on, I wished that Mrs. Smith would have included me more often at the family dinner. I ate a lot of meals at home alone.”
Mary: ”Well, it was your choice. You never made it home on time, and the kids had to eat at a regular time. I said, `Give me a time, and we`ll eat together,` but you could never make it.”
The happiest times, they both agree, were vacations with the children.
Mary adds: ”Sometimes I wanted to go without the kids, because if they came along it wasn`t a vacation for me, but he would say, `No, I don`t see enough of them, and I want to bring them along.` Our family was always last on his house-call list. When our children got sick, he would tell me what to do. When his partner`s wife had to go to the hospital to have a baby, the neighbors had to take her. Her husband was delivering a baby! It was a way of life.”
John leaves the room, and Mary sums up: ”Sure I`d do it all over again. We`ve been mostly happy. What I like most about John is his loyalty and his passion. What I would change is his obsessiveness.”
She is growing impatient: ”I have to cook an ethnic dish for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, and I`m running late. We`ve had some problems with our children and our in-laws because of competitiveness–sibling rivalry and rivalry between the in-laws. I wish it were otherwise, but I`ll make the best of it. I enjoy my time with my daughters, and when I`m with my son, I enjoy that, too. I wish that we could all be together, but I can`t tell 40-year-olds what to do.”
John returns to conclude, ”It was always thus.”
