I had an e copy of this book for quite a long time and
then a friend gave my partner a hard copy. After immersing myself in the events
of 1969 and all of the Apollo missions, I turned to this book and was
completely blown away.
This book is about so much more than being the wife of
an astronaut. It also brings these men (and they were all men at the beginning)
firmly back to earth and dispels some of the hero worship people are wont to
believe about the moon men.
The book covers the wives of the Mercury, Gemini and
Apollo mission astronauts. The period the book covers is from the 1950's to
1970. While people are familiar with the astronauts and their backgrounds in
the military, as test pilots and as engineers, less are aware of the role of
their wives in their success.
Astronauts were like rock stars. The derring do coupled
with their clean cut good looks and the accolades and favors bestowed on men
willing to sit on top of rockets that were potentially going to kill them is
impressive. What was more impressive were the wives who in the background,
provided support and encouragement; put their lives on hold and moved around
the country with children in tow to support these endeavors and who also put up
with absentee spouses who maintained girlfriends on the side and serially
cheated.
The wives were often featured in magazines and most
chose to look the other way because they benefited from their husbands
celebrity. State of the art homes, fast new cars and modern conveniences were
supposed to fill in for the things they put up with. They had no real support
except for one another and out of this; tight knit camaraderie grew between
wives and families.
There were tragedies: some families lost astronauts in
terrible accidents. Some astronauts divorced their wives and left to join other
women since wives were in Houston and girlfriends were in Cocoa Beach. At least
one wife was unable to deal with the loss of her husband in a rocketry accident
and committed suicide after years of desperate unhappiness.
Some of the women were superb pilots and drivers of fast
cars in their own rights, but recognition was not forthcoming – a wife is
nothing compared to an astronaut. Each woman had a wonderful personality with
all the complexities each human being possesses.
Not only did these truly amazing women hold down the
home front, they did it with style planted firmly in the glare of the
flashbulbs from Life magazine. They were painted as style makers and breakers
and shaped by the publicity machine of NASA. They were able to hold their own.
They were also in the middle of major changes in a woman’s role in society.
Women in the 50’s were the happy homemakers and by the 60’s, women’s liberation
was on the rise and the astronauts wives were not immune to the same influences
that the rest of the American society were undergoing.
Some of the most poignant moments in the book did occur
when the astronauts were on missions. NASA installed squawk boxes in the homes
so that the wives and the children could listen to the conversations between
their husbands and fathers and mission control. At different points in the
orbit, the astronauts were not in contact and if there were problems or
potential disastrous problems (and there were) mission control would silence
the box. Frankly, when the box was silent, a wife’s worst fears must have been
going through her mind.
All these years later, although marriages have come and
gone and deaths have occurred among many of the men and some of the women, The
Astronaut Wives Club lives on. They support one another and only another wife
or child can truly understand what that period in the space race was like.
This was so good I read it in one sitting and have given
the book to several other people. You will not be disappointed. This is a
fascinating bunch of women. They may have looked like June Cleaver or Carol
Brady but they were more interesting like Marlo Thomas or Jessica Lange in the
movie “Blue Sky”. Loved this book!
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