Lady at the O.K. Corral Read Online Free Page B

perfumed coiffure. Young Josephine could not resist opening and sampling the precious powder, which spilled out of the package and blew away.
    Josephine found the strict discipline of school disagreeable, and was not much of a student; her sister Henrietta, known to all as Hattie, was the family’s star scholar. The sisters’ education was, however, a sign that the family had finally risen to the middle class. Neither Josephine nor Hattie was put to work to support the family, nor is there evidence that Mrs. Marcus worked outside the home.
    As a child, Josephine was infatuated with the stage; the abundance of San Francisco theaters and their low ticket prices made it a favorite pastime. Among her closest playmates were the Belasco daughters, whose brother David was already on his way to becoming one of the most famous playwrights of his era. It was a heady time for Jewish performers like Adah Isaac Menckens, who stunned even worldly San Franciscans with her onstage appearance in flesh-colored tights. Rebecca took Josephine and Henrietta to the opening of the Academy of Music, never dreaming that its owner, Elias Johnson (Lucky) Baldwin, would one day be Josephine’s close acquaintance. San Franciscans also loved artists and art; one painting by the Jewish artist Toby Rosenthal was so popular that thousands of people lined up to pay twenty-five cents to see it. When it was temporarily stolen, people filed past to pay their respects to an empty picture frame (it was eventually returned).
    Josephine’s rebelliousness began to emerge in small ways, such as having her ears pierced by her Chilean classmate’s abuela , though her mother had forbidden it many times in the past. Josephine dragged Hattie with her, taking advantage of the young girl’s admiration and willingness to follow her older sister blindly. Looking back on her adolescent self, Josephine acknowledged that she needed discipline, but chafed against it. She contrasted the “tolerant and gay populace” to the “merciless and self-righteous” child-rearing philosophy embodied in the public schools.
    Even if her father had risen more quickly beyond his humble origins and lowly profession, even if they’d had servants and membership in the right clubs, the Marcus family would still have been outsiders in the upper reaches of San Francisco Jewish society, where a less than perfect German accent signaled “second class.” Everywhere around Josephine were intense signs of the social stratification that determined one’s future. The odds were stacked against her: she was no longer the poorest of the poor, but she was not likely to win a German husband. She went to the wrong schools and was invited to the wrong parties. Nor did she have the talent or sheer will to break through all those barriers and still distinguish herself as an educator, lawyer, artist, or political activist, careers pursued by some Polish Jewish women in San Francisco.
    Seeing the signs of a surging American economy and upward mobility all around her, a proud and energetic young woman like Josephine would have resented the assumption that she was inferior by birth. How ironic that in a city with an impressive lack of anti-Semitism, the Jewish community could be blamed for imposing antique prejudices on its own members. For some notable successes such as David Belasco or Gertrude Stein, San Francisco would be celebrated as the epitome of bohemian sophistication and freedom, exotic and freewheeling. For Josephine, San Francisco meant a predictable, dull life of lowered expectations.
    To be one more struggling Polish Jew from an unremarkable family was simply not enough. It was adventure Josephine craved, and none of the Jews she knew were a match for her. So she would barely acknowledge her Jewish birth, and no Jewish organization would ever count her as a member. She would reinvent her parents as a wealthy German merchant and his proper German