Glenna Stearman Park, Names

Glenna Stearman, 1960

I grew up as the middle sister of three sisters and with one brother, Ronald, who was 10 years older than I me.  All my siblings were smarter than I me, as Mr. Michener, the chemistry teacher, told me.  During the first quarter of the fall, he took me aside and told me that it was the last day we could drop, and if I did not drop his course, he would flunk me.  Then, he lamented about the two previous Stearmans who made straight A+s at East and got to carve their names in the wood paneled classroom wall.  I thanked him and dropped. 

After many years of identity crisis, I had a residency at the MacDowell Art Colony in New Hampshire (below), and I was invited to carve my name on the wood panel in my assigned studio, under the list of other award-winning artists who had worked there.  Michener’s wall was not a big deal to me, but it was a rather endearing point of honor for the really smart kids.  I got to carve my name when I was 53 and had presented national and international shows.  By then, I carved Glenna Park instead of Stearman.  Park was shorter and no longer an issue. 

Getting that name, Park, was a real process.  When I was about 6 or 7, I asked my mother about why girls changed their names.  She said it was part of marriage and that I would change mine someday.  That was one of the single most shocking moments of my youth.  She told me that boys ask girls to marry them, and that girls had to decide if they wanted that name.  Suddenly HALF MY CLASSMATES MIGHT BE MY NEW LAST NAME.  For many years throughout school, I tried on names.  My note books were full of my name and some boy’s last name.  They did not sound right to me, and I generally felt stressed that I was not yet who I was going to be!  I wasted a lot of paper.

In grade school and middle school Helen Olson and  I enjoyed Debbie Snyder’s mom’s trunk of beautiful dresses that she saved from her modeling days in Kansas City.  On Friday nights we talked about how we thought we would someday glide through our own homes, as music played—just like Doris Day descending a stair case in Pillow Talk.  We were learning the basics of married life from the movies we saw on all other Friday nights.  In Roosevelt days, our Friday night group expanded to include Mary Lohrenz, Brenda Benjamin, and sometimes Gretchen Stoskopf and Patty Pierce.  Our parents dropped us off at the Uptown, The Crest, or the Boulevard.  Our costumes changed.  We wore zip-up-the-front (boy’s) jeans, our father’s white dress shirt with rolled up sleeves with the tails out, and  Penny loafers with  white socks.  Only, my mom would not allow me to wear zip-up-the-front boy’s jeans.  I had to wear slacks. (Left, Helen Olsen and Mary Lohrenz; Right, Debbie Snyder and Brenda Benjamin)

Boys entered the scene by coming to the movies, sitting in the back, spotting a girl, then coming down the aisle and asking her a girl to sit with him.  They would go the the back of the theater to “make out.” I was still working on names and had no patience for public display of affection.  A couple of my friends and I scrunched down in the seats and made it clear we were not on the menu.  On the way home the other girls entertained us with how many times they were kissed. I was startled with how little attention they paid to last names. 

The first time I was kissed was in grade school at a party at Diana Woodward’s house. (Left, Diana Woodward) We played spin the bottle.  Don’t remember the boy, but think his family moved`away.  I was not into that game.  I liked to dance and remember working really hard on the “Bop”. The “Jitterbug” was easier and more popular.  In middle school we added Friday night dances to our entertainment.  The Bunny Hop was a benign line dance where we sometimes danced with boys.  It was less drama than the movies and we just hung on as the line “cracked the whip.”

Still I worried about who I would become.  I tried on a new crop of names every year, and I was more upset about how complicated social life was becoming.  I kept my lists secret in junior high.  Mom sent me to a class where I would learn to “walk like a lady” in high heels.  I wobbled when I walked and looked awkward.  Mom also made me learn the etiquette of gloves and when to wear the various lengths of gloves-wrist, elbow, and long evening gloves.   She moved me to hats right away—the small veil in the morning, broad brim after noon and the small cloth and no veil at night.  When I complained, Mom informed me that the Queen of England did this and I would, too. 

My younger sister rebelled and became a cowgirl.  She kept her boots in the same closet with my pretty dresses.  When she brought her saddle into our bedroom that had silk bedspreads, I raised hell and the saddle went to the garage.  Her horse-smelling clothes did not mix well with my French perfume. We shared a room most of our lives at home.  By college, she moved out and went into nursing at Wesley.  My older sister took off for Colorado College and beyond.  I do not think my sisters were so obsessive about losing their names.  I was still making lists but not so obvious.  I think boys were more serious about school and careers since they were raised to know they had to support more than themselves. 

I went to Wichita University because I couldn’t get into any other place.  My first year I had a Geology major, and a solid D average.  My older A+ sister, Suzanne, was married and working on her PhD in genetics at the University of Pennsylvania,  She was horrified by my situation and told me that she was going to send me anywhere I wanted to go to school.  I had no clue.  I suggested the University of Hawaii, thinking that it might be fun.  She put her foot down and told me I was going to art school and there was a good one in Philadelphia.  She did my interview as my sister and talked them into giving me a spot in the freshman class.  I showed up in September and immediately gave up thinking about fashion design (high school idea) and grew to love painting and sculpture. I was a terrible artist but the teachers worked me hard and I became a B and C student.  I loved figure drawing from nude models.  Loved seeing art historical figure paintings.  Went home at Christmas and my mom was horrified that I did nudes, both male and female, and told me I had to come home 2nd semester.

In that same holiday, a boyfriend from my prior freshman year at Wichita University asked me to marry him and presented me with a diamond, saying he wanted me back in Wichita and to get married the next summer.  He was going to be a minister and I would be a minister’s wife; I could not paint nudes as a minister’s wife.  The diamond ring was big and beautiful.   I got on the plane saying “yeh, yeh” and as soon as I was with my sister, we put the ring in a safety deposit box. Then, I called home and said I was going to stay in Philadelphia.  Second semester, I signed my own name on paintings and I decided that painting was mine.  I did not worry about anything except studying.  I went to school from 8:00 to 5:00 every day and did homework every night.  Weekends I went to museums and then socialized with my sister and friends at the lab where she worked.

At the end of the semester I had a mutually agreed upon break-up and a scholarship to art school. Circumstances, however, found me at Wichita University as an art major. In my junior year I met my husband who was a graduating senior.  His name had only four letters and was easy to say.  The reality was that he knew who he was and what he wanted.  By then, I was learning who I was and what I wanted.  We married when I graduated. (Right, Glenna and Joel Park on their first date, March 1, 1963)

Joel went to graduate school in the Air Force and then worked for four more years. He got out of the service and went to the University of California San Diego for a PhD.  I spent that time having three boys which gave me the name of “Mom.” At that time the feminist movement was evolving in my graduate program, where I earned an MFA and, in some circles, the name “bitch.”