Beth Bettencourt begins on a Tuesday in 1962 like this:
Why do all the bad things happen at night?
Things that go bump never rear their ugly heads in the bright of day. No. They wait. They wait and wait and then, when evening’s shadows have given way to the cloak of midnight, they make noises, jarring even the soundest of sleepers from their rest. Like boyfriends—who swear they love you—oh, how they love you. Come night, they disappear, never to return. Or, to return, but no longer as the love of your life.
And so it was that Tuesday night in early November 1962. Night came.
The McCall’s magazine cover you see here is from November 1962. This was a time of Camelot in the United States, a portion of the 1000-day presidency of John F. Kennedy. A time when an admired family lived in the White House, when grace and elegance was found in its nature and in the form of the First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy. You may notice that her sister, Lee Radziwill, has an article in this particular month’s edition.
McCall’s Magazine, known as the First Magazine for Women, was published by the McCall Corporation and was one of the “Seven Sisters” magazines–magazines that were aimed at homemakers. These seven were: Better Homes and Gardens, Family Circle, Good Housekeeping, Ladies’ Home Journal, Redbook, Woman’s Day, and McCall’s. If you grew up in the 1960s as I did, there’s no doubt that your mother was a regular subscriber to at least three of these magazines. I vividly recall the excitement of reading my mother’s magazines after they came in the mail.
In my novel, which is set to release Spring 2026, Beth Bettencourt depends on these magazines as well.
From the novel:
I went to the living room to glance through the latest edition of Ladies Home Journal, which had come in the mail the day before. I read an article on how Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Nixon planned to celebrate Thanksgiving, then flipped through a few pages of advertisements to find another article about big city schools and the children within their classrooms. I wasn’t sure which I found more intriguing, a holiday dinner at the White House or the issues that come from overseeing schoolrooms filled with so many children.
Within a half hour, Molly called out to me from the kitchen, letting me know that Marty was heading back up to the house. I dropped the magazine onto chair after I stood, then started for the door, nearly running into Molly in the process. She held a diaper in one hand—Molly swore nothing cleaned better than diapers—and a bottle of Jubilee Kitchen Wax in the other. “Just making sure you heard me,” she said.
Ladies’ Home Journal, you may have noted, is one of those Seven Sisters magazines. If you can read the cover at the right, you’ll see the very article Beth reads in the scene is listed on the cover.
What about you? Do you remember your mother (or yourself) reading any of those magazines? Did you have a favorite . . . or a favorite feature?
Yes, of course… my mother had them all and I remember them all. Especially Better Homes and Gardens which would become a defining moment much later in my own life:)) Life has a funny way of playing out before in pictures and words.
Can’t wait for Beth Bettencourt to discover her ‘defining moment!’