Mr. Jenner. In 1957?
Mrs. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; I will tell you. It is really a very tragic thing. I knew I should have dropped this when she was 6 years old, because he was a very, very wonderful person, her father. But we just had different views on life, and liked to do entirely different things. And he just could not adapt himself to the country.
I know a few people that when they lose everything they are lost. Whatever we had, it is never the same. It never was good enough. Our daughter would never have what we had in childhood.
He was from a very wealthy family, and, fortunately, I was, too.
I said, "For goodness sakes, who cares? We are alive. How many people are dead already? We are here. It is a new country. We will make what we want to make out of it."
I started from $25 a week. And in New York I was making $1,100 a week. That is what you can do in this country, if you put your mind to it, and you work. And if you don't have a negative attitude.
But he could not. Even when we had a nice home in California, with beautiful bay window, and the ocean, you can see Catalina Island and everything. He said, "No; at our house we had 30 people for dinner every day." It is awful. He never could get adjusted to it.
Mr. Jenner. But he wasn't earning a living, was he?
Mrs. De Mohrenschildt. No; he wasn't. He was always—you see, I understand from talking to doctors—he was off for quite a while, which I didn't know. I didn't know it. And it never occurred to me. We were brought up maybe 200 years set back. This was the husband, and that is the way it is, and that is the way it is going to be, so whatever it is that is how it is going to stay. So it never occurred to me there could be different ways, something wrong with him mentally. In fact, my brother many times mentioned he should go to a psychiatrist and find out why he should have such an attitude, but I laughed at my brother.
Unfortunately, maybe I should have listened to him.