My thankfully short marriage to Richard Lee Barteaux had a profound impact on the course my life would take.
I had been introduced to Richard by a friend of his, who I knew casually, named Thomas Buckley.
My direction had always been college, with a major in Geology and Ancient Studies, though I was also interested in Water Resources and related subjects. These subjects had fascinated me for years; I did not watch television, I read books, many brought home, at my request by my father, Dr. Arthur F. Pillsbury. Mother's major in college at UC Berkeley had been Theoretical Math, with a specific interest in Pure Projective Geometry.
My only date prior to this was with a school acquaintance who took me to the Christmas Formal at Venice High School, where we had met. My interest in attending the event was only awakened when I saw a beautiful pink formal. This was a surprise to me, as I had never been interested in how I dressed, generally. My preferred dress since early childhood had been jeans, when we were at the Cabin my family owned in Cedar Slope of blue corduroy overalls for everything else, unless I was forced to wear a dress or skirt to school or to some other occasion, for instance when my sisters, who were much older than myself, married.
While we were living in Rome and I was attending Saint Stephen's Episcopal School in the Parioli District of Rome, I realized I would need to conform to the dress code. No pants allowed for girls. These items were purchased for me, sturdy and simple, and I wore them without complaint. Being in Rome had fulfilled a long wish to explore the city with its many historic locations. Roman history, along with Egyptian, had been a consuming interest of mine since I was about 7 years old.
Returning to Los Angeles after spending about 18 months in Rome, visiting multiple sites with my family, and then touring Europe with Father, Dr. Arthur F. Pillsbury, my mother Mary Alice Reasoner Pillsbury, and my two brothers, Charles Arthur Pillsbury, older than myself by four years, and Stephen Martin Pillsbury, two years younger, had been wonderful. I took notes in my diary on these and collected small metals from each destination. I reasoned these were small, would remind me of these sites, and took up practically no space in my luggage.
Returning to school at Venice High School was not a joy. No one seemed to share my interests. I spent a lot of time in the Library, as I had before Dad and the family flew to first England, to see historic places there, and then on to Rome. But I did have my poetry as a continuing interest and made one or two friends. I also renewed my acquaints with friends from the street where we lived. I had been born while we lived there, which was a change for my parents, as until then they had rented homes from sabbatical families, also from UCLA. They were, I knew, happy not to have to move every few years.
I was a senior at Venice when Tommy (Thomas) introduced me to Richard, who asked me to go out to dinner with him. I accepted. I later realized this was the worst mistake of my life. He called me, always about other unexceptional outings, eating out, mostly, though once he took me to see a park where he had played when he was a child. It did not occur to me during this very short period that he was strikingly dull. It was fun, different. Then he asked me to marry him. At this point, we had known each other for about 2 months and his parents were taking him to Hawaii with them in a week or so. Then, he asked me to marry him. I responded with yes, after I finish college, maybe. Accepting this, he immediately took me to a jewelry store and bought me an engagement ring.
This was a shock. But I realized I could always return the ring, and he had said he would be away in Hawaii and would write to me. He did. I also gave him our address at our cabin in the Sierras at Cedar Slope, as Dad always took us there for as long as possible during the summer. We had been busy building a cabin for ourselves, next door, actually, a ways up the slope.
After this, Richard introduced me to his parents, Dean and Betty. They were very different than most of the people I knew. Betty began sending me presents. One of these was a portable iron, another was a set of cooking pots. She then gave me a set of very ornate silverware. I did not know what to say, though I did send her a thank you note using my informal stationary, as I knew was proper. I did mention the major I would be talking in college; this she also ignored - and when I shared stories of the cabin with her she just stared at me.
These trips to Cedar Slope were always a delight. Along with clearing the building space for our own cabin, I loved fishing for trout, and generally brought back my limit, which I then cleaned. Trout were one of our usual breakfasts at the cabin. Mother never came, so we cooked on the wood stove in Uncle Chuck's cabin and took showers in the minimal bathroom on the porch there. Showers had to be fast, because hot water came out of the tank on the back of the wood stove.
Uncle Chuck also had lots of projects for us, which I also enjoyed. We built out an area for sitting on year, moving wheelbarrows full of rocks and dirt and putting in place the needed construction with wood to hold it in place.
I did wonder how Richard would like the cabin, if he visited me there.
After his return from Hawaii, he did exactly there. Later, I would be very sorry I had told him where this was.
Richard was not interested in any of our ongoing projects. He had arrived in his greenish GTO and thought it was more interesting to either drive up and down the mountain or take short walks. My walks were never short, so this was annoying. He was also uninterested in assisting in putting in the leaching field for the sewage system, which was my own project that year.
Since I could see he was not having much fun I assumed he would soon go home. But instead, he insisted we had to get married right away. He had kissed me once or twice and said he needed me desperately.
And somehow, suddenly, he decided we needed to elope to Mississippi. This proved to be a very bad idea. But his mother seemed to be delighted when she learned we were married. I was not, nor were my parents.
