Although Gladys had a large-enough home, Elinor’s relationship with her mother had always been fragile, and Elinor most likely thought it was better to start fresh somewhere else. The young couple and their child stayed at Ruth’s place temporarily in New York when they first married, but a family of three could overstay their welcome within days, so Frederick took odd jobs to make enough money to find a place of their own.

If they were outraged by Frederick’s decision to return to America for a black woman, Karl and Margarete didn’t voice it to Charlotte. The story of how they learned of their son’s decision isn’t clear. Once he was back in Vienna he could have called or written to his parents about his plans, but that part of the story is unknown to surviving relatives. Chris Albert, born years after Stephen, even wondered with amusement about how his father broke the news about Elinor. “Did he say, ‘Now I’m going to go back to America because she’s pregnant’ or ‘because I love her,’ or ‘Oh, by the way she’s black and about six feet tall’? Who knows what.”30

There were always gaps in communication and unshared moments within the Albert family. Charlotte was barely in touch with her parents even though they were raising her daughter. The war only intensified the difficult dynamics in this already emotionally fractured family.

Whatever Frederick did or did not reveal to his parents didn’t alter his decision—that much is clear. Elinor and Frederick’s precarious plan to bring him back to the United States had worked. They were living together as a family. But they hadn’t thoroughly considered how they were going to raise their son, or where’d they live or work. When they got married, Frederick was almost twenty-two and Elinor twenty-six and neither had spent much time functioning in the real world as independent adults. Their entire lives had been structured for them—first by their parents, then by their schooling, and finally by their respective armies. Neither Frederick nor Elinor had lived on their own, really, let alone as a mixed-race couple with a baby who was half German and half African American. They were sure of their devotion to each other, but it is unlikely that they understood just how much and how frequently that love would be tested.

9. Searching for Acceptance

9.

Searching for Acceptance