The McDowell times. [volume] (Keystone, W. Va.) 1904-1941, 1940-10-18
BY KATHLEEN NORRIS

BY KATHLEEN NORRIS
y E A contented woman. So
- few women are content!
. This advice is not for the
thirties. Not for the forties.
These years are full of hope and
changes and potentialities and
excitements. The most thor
oughly disappointed and bored
and disillusioned wife of "a may
still feel that a complete change
of circumstances may take
place any day.
Jim might get a promotion
with a big raise. Or some un-
suspected uncle might leave
them a tidy fortune. Or they
might have to move to Rio, on
10 days notice. Or the talent scouts
might seize upon the baby, who is
10 times as fascinating as any baby
star on the screen.
Life holds thrills. A new hat-a
new hair-do, Is a thrill. Just meet
ing q courteous new man Is a thrill.
To have someone suggest delight
full job opens up new trains Of
| thought. A hundred month,
and q summer vacation free, for
just being hostess at big mountain
hotel.
A New Cycle Begins.
d - - ~
use fooling about it, it comes to an
end. No more men are going to
fall in love with you. No new hat is
going to do for you what that 81. SO
hat did 20 years ago. Jim isn't 60
ing to be raised, promoted, sent to
an exciting post. He's there, stout
and middle-aged and comfortable
and quite satisfied to 60 on living.
The children have passed the alb
sorbing and dependent stages; they
need teeth bands and corrective
shoes and plenty of school help, but
there Is little in that to satisfy the
woman who has been dreaming all
her life Of achievements, of fame,
wealth, glory, success.
II you are one of those women,
harness your dreams. Or better
still, wake up and try to appreciate
one important fact.
This is the fact. No matter how
young, beautiful, rich, successful q
woman Is, sooner or later she has
to find content exactly where you
can find it. In her own soul.
What Price Fame.
OF course she likes the excitement
Of success, the fiattery of her public,
the brief, brief hours in which. her
fame eclipses that of the next ex-
quisitely pretty and captivating
woman. But those things last only
hours or days, or months at most,
and then the gnawing inner hunger
for reality begins to fret her. Holly
wood sets are not reality; cameras
swapping in her face wherever she
goes are not reality. She loves
them, Of course, and when they stop,
when she is only yesterdays favor
lite, she suffers agonies of jealousy.
And she knows all along that they
are not real.
She puts on $40 apron and cooks
in q picture-book kitchen. She
adopts a baby, and is photographed
with it. And all the time she is
blindly reaching out for what you
have; a man who needs her, kitch-
en- in which she is queen; a small
person to come stumbling to Moth
er.
At 40 she has nothing left. The
booking agencies in New York, the
casting offices of Hollywood are
filled with unemployed, wistful wom-
en- who were stars a few years ago.
Their sugar-frosting dream is over.
The bubble has burst. And then,
unless they have something very
real with which to go on; family
ties, the right to love and service,
they are dreary derelicts for life.
The lives of very few elderly
actresses are lifted out of tragedy.
Content Is Secret Of Happiness.
Even highly successful profession
al women don't go on to happy mid
die life unless they've discovered
the secret Of content. Too often
young fame distracts them from the