My Father

I was startled one day years ago when I happened to witness my father’s manicure. As a teenager, I’d never had one myself and my mother did her own nails. Yet through a shop window, I saw my father seated enthroned, a young woman on a stool, bowed over his naked foot. I learned later that this was a bi-weekly ritual, part of his working day.

Sometimes what parents do is so much more powerful than what they say. I’d heard a lot of injunctions against the sin of vanity and much disapproval of women who wore conspicuous amounts of make-up or revealing clothes. I wondered if a manicure was some kind of health measure that lay outside the bounds of vanity.

I never asked my father about his manicures. It didn’t seem appropriate to raise such a frivolous topic with a dedicated newspaper publisher.

He had another luxurious habit: he loved a particular kind of candy, called Modjeskas for Madame Helena Modjeska. Born in Poland in 1840, she came to the U.S in 1876 after a decade as reigning actress in Poland, specializing in tragic and Shakespearean roles.

After one of her performances, seventeen secondary-school students presented her with a bouquet wrapped with a white and red ribbon, the Polish national colors. The Russian Imperial authorities accused the students of staging a patriotic demonstration and they were expelled from their school and refused further education. One young man, Ignacy Neufeld, later killed himself. Madame Modjeska went to his funeral.

In 1883, she visited Louisville on tour and enchanted many audiences members, including the owner of a small candy store next to the theatre. He created Modjeskas as a tribute to the beautiful and exotic Polish actor.

She continues to intrigue; her house, designed by Stanford White in California, is open to the public; Susan Sontag fictionalized her story in In America and was accused of plagiarism, and Willa Cather recreated her in her novel, My Mortal Enemy. Less fortunately, the U.S. Helena Modjeska, a 7,000 pound cargo ship, ran aground on Godwin Sands in 1942.

While in Louisville in 1883, Madame Modjeska produced the first U.S. performance of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and played Nora. Perhaps this was the performance that fascinated the candy store owner.

The store survives to this day, run by the fourth generation of owners, and still produces the sticky-sweet candy, made of marshmallows enclosed in a caramel casing.

I never liked them. They stuck to my teeth and were terribly sweet. But my father’s delight in buying them, consuming them, and giving them as presents, was, I thought, both shameless and admirable. He loved indulgences.

As we approach in the Christian church year the season of Lent, of reflection and repentance leading up to the celebration of Easter, I remember that my father always felt he must give up something for that season. He announced that he was giving up candy, adding that he would be glad to lose a few pounds.

So no Modjeskas for that dark season. But I knew as soon as Easter arrived, he would be back at the shop, dapper in his bespoke suit, buying a large box.

In My Family Barry Bingham Sr. Henrik Ibsen 20 Favorites of 2022 Louisville Willa Cather