Thanks to a mother's determination and a stranger on horseback,
MY MOST
INSPIRING MOMENT
By IRVING STONE
Author of "The Agony and the Ecstasy"
A
Poor
Boy
MY mother's name was Pauline,
though I called her Pearl. She
loved me. This was for me the one cer
tain fact in an otherwise dubious world.
My mother had no education. Her father,
though he arrived in San Francisco just after
the Civil War, when millionaires were in the
making, preferred spending his days with his
three brothers, playing pinochle. As a result,
his children were forced into the factories and
shops of San Francisco around the age of 12,
to help keep the family pot boiling. '
But my mother had a mind. In a day before
adult education, she craved books and knowl
edge but had nowhere to find them.
From the very first moment that I could un
derstand the meaning of her words, around the
age of five, my mother began drilling into me
one passionate belief of her life:
"You must get an education. Only through
education can you rise in this world."
Since I was not yet in primary school, I had
no idea what my mother meant. But intuitively
she knew what she meant by education, and it
was her determination that I should learn this
at the earliest possible moment.
She chose my 12th birthday, for that had been
the day she had been obliged to leave school and
go to work in a store. It also fell on a Sunday,
in the Shattuck Bakery, where she asked a few
timid questions and learned the general direc
tion of the college. It took us perhaps half an
hour to find the first open, and hence to us offi
cial, gate. One or two steps inside and we were
in fairyland: green swards in front of classical
structures; a running brook; magnificent shrubs
and ferns; and winding paths under tall, fra
grant eucalyptus trees that led up a slight in
cline to a series of white stone buildings glis
tening in the sunlight against the red poppy
covered hills of Berkeley.
We walked slowly, hand in hand, a little
frightened, past the building with the names
of great scientists on it; then another with the
names of poets, and humanitarians, and then
past the majestic pile of the library. There were
few students around this early Sunday morning,
nor would we have been so bold as to ask them
for information even if they had sauntered by.
Pearl and I were as though in a foreign land.
We had no knowledge of how one got into a
college, what the requirements might be, how
much money it cost, nor what one studied.
Yet our strongest emotion was that somehow
v.e did not belong here, and that if the authori
ties should come along they would promptly
escort us out the sacred gate. We both had the
uneasy feeling that college was only for the
top layer of society and wealth, not for us.
After a couple of hours of wandering about
Goes to College
The forces that fired
young Irving Stone,
so touch inyly described
here, sent him consider
ably beyond the fresh
man class at the Uni
versity of California.
His beloved "Pearl" had
hoped he would become
a doctor, and under
graduate Stone had considered the law profes
sion, but lie finally decided to teach.
Stone won his bachelor's degree in three
years, did graduate work, then taught economics
at the University of Southern California and his
alma mater.
Turning to writing more than a generation
ago, this gifted author has since produced more
than a dozen best sellers, most recently, "The
Agony and the Ecstasy," a biographical novel
of the life of Michelangelo. His other famous
works include "Liist for Life," the story of Vin
cent Van Gogh; "Clarence Darrow for the De
fense," and "Lore Is Eternal," a biographical
novel of Mary Todd Lincoln.
which was her only day off from work.
We rose early, and packed a lunch of cold
meat and rolls. We also had a bag of stale
crumbs for the sea gulls. After breakfast we
took the streetcar down Sutter Street to the
Ferry Building, where we caught the 8:10
Southern Pacific. By 9 we were in Berkeley.
This mysterious but all-important journey, I
had learned in advance, was to the University
of California. My mother did not know the mean
ing of the word "university"; she kept calling
it, reverentially, "college."
Since these were the days before the great
space devoted to college sports in the newspa
pers, I had no idea what a college was. None of
our friends or relatives had ever seen a college,
let alone attended one.
It was one of those sparkling, brilliantly clear
days which only San Francisco can produce. We
leaned over the white rail of the ferry, throw
ing crumbs to the screaming gulls while the
boat made its slow, patient way toward the Ala
meda mole. From there we took the long train
ride through the quiet city of Oakland.
My mother bought some powdered sugar buns
the beautiful grounds and climbing through the
poppies to the top of the hill to gaze down over
the bay, we returned to a little wooden bridge
and sat by the side of the creek, eating our
modest lunch. Then my mother turned to me.
"Son," she said, "you have to give me your
word of honor. I may not be here to see it, and
I may not be able to help you, but today you
must promise me that no matter what happens
to you, you will come to this college."
There was a burning intensity in her voice.
Though I was too young to understand the hun
ger and ambition behind it, I was deeply moved.
"I promise, Ma."
"Once you go to college, you can make a way
of life for yourself. You will have a choice. You
will not be forced into work you don't like, and
at wages that give you little more than a bed
to sleep in and food for your stomach."
"But how do you know all these things, Ma?"
I asked. "How can you be so sure if we don't
know anything that goes on here?"
"Because education makes a man grow,"
Pearl's voice rang out above the noise of the
brook. "With it, he can be free. He will be his
6 Family Wttkly. January II, 1962