Fair and Tender Ladies

Part 3 covers Ivy’s time in Diamond, the company town of the Diamond Mining Company and the largest city she has lived in or ever will live in. In this section, Ivy’s worldliness and education progress further, as reflected in her grammar, her spelling, and how she puts thoughts together in her letters. For the first time, Ivy also begins occasionally dating her letters, providing additional context as to the amount of time she spends in Diamond as well as historical context regarding what else is happening in the world. Ivy lives in Diamond between 1914 and 1918, i.e. the start of World War I.

Ivy still mostly writes to Silvaney, but otherwise there is no single person she writes to more than any other. Her addressees in this section range from family members to suitors and include former acquaintances to whom she writes spiteful notes. Though Ivy still uses poetic syntax in her writing, her references to actual stories and poems begin dropping off during this phase of her life, as she focuses more on family and reality than on imaginative notions.

As soon as Ivy arrives in Diamond, Beulah gives birth to a second baby. Beulah tells the doctor: “I want you to go ahead and fix me up so I can’t have any more” (150). The doctor refuses. Beulah gets angry at Ivy for suggesting they call their aunt Granny Rowe for help, insisting she does not want any of her children to have the same backwoods life that she and Ivy had growing up and that she does not want Ivy’s baby to live that way either. Ivy thinks that Beulah is “putting on more airs” (151) and pinning her hopes on Curtis being very successful in the coal business.

Ivy wonders at the social stratification of Diamond, where how far up the hill a family lives denotes its importance in the company and its social class. For the first time, Ivy also sees people of other races and ethnicities, and she does not understand them. Ivy looks forward to giving birth so that she will have someone to talk to, as she feels lonely even surrounded by people. When Ivy’s baby, Joli, does arrive, Ivy declares: “I have never had a thing of my own before” (159). She wants to spend all of her time with her baby.

Back in Majestic, Ethel’s boss’s wife commits suicide. Ethel then marries her widowed boss, which causes people to talk about whether she might have been having an affair with him before. Lonnie dies fighting in France. Beulah insists that Ivy get a job, adding that Ivy has “always been made too much of” (166). Victor returns from the war injured. With the war’s end, jobs disappear, leaving many men in Diamond out of work and out of money. The flu spreads through town as well, killing many people. The first boy Ivy kissed, Oakley, also lives in town and takes care of the dead bodies produced by the flu epidemic.  

Beulah forces Ivy to dress up and come to the company Fourth of July party. Ivy slips away to wash her feet in the creek. A man follows her and tries to make advances, but she fends him off and runs away. Beulah finds her at the house and tells Ivy that she is pregnant again. Beulah also berates Ivy for running away from the man earlier, as the man in question was the superintendent’s son, Franklin Ransom, and she feels that Ivy gets “everything in the world on a silver platter, and then you throw it down in the mud” (177). At Beulah’s insistence, Ivy begins going out with Franklin.

Oakley gets jealous and tells Ivy she’s “his girl,” which she denies. Diamond continues to deteriorate as more men are laid off and have no other options for work. Ivy also sees the effects of working in the mine on the men who still have work. She becomes friends with her neighbor Violet Gayheart, who tries to warn her about the mine. Ivy feels “beholden” to Beulah and Curtis, and therefore continues seeing Franklin, even though she knows he’s bad news. Ivy reveals that Franklin is rich but “needy” and that he drinks in an attempt to forget having witnessed his older brother’s death (possibly a suicide) when Franklin was 12 and his brother was 14. Franklin invites Ivy up to his father’s house to get her drunk and have sex. She accepts and stays the night, which fuels Beulah’s jealousy. He reveals that he is haunted While in the car, Franklin suggests they go on a trip. Ivy says no and Franklin has a meltdown in response, at first nearly forcing himself on Ivy, then deliberately crashing the car into a bridge.

Beulah and Curtis move to Huntington, leaving Ivy alone in Diamond. Ivy sees Franklin again, and Violet tells her she has to stop because Franklin is “on the other side” (195). Shortly after, there is an explosion in the mine. Ivy, along with the rest of the town, goes up to the mine to watch the men being pulled out. Violet’s husband dies in the mine along with 18 others, including Oakley’s younger brother. Oakley, who was also caught in the explosion, comes out alive, and Ivy is so relieved that she marries him. They resolve to move back to Sugar Fork.