THE ASTRONAUT WIVES CLUB
Born Marilyn Lillie Gerlach in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she was the youngest of five children. Her parents were Lillie and Carl. He owned a sweet shop, and her mother was a homemaker.
As a little girl, Marilyn used to sneak into the shop at night and eat as many chocolate bunnies as she could. It left her with a life-long love of chocolate.
Marilyn attended Juneau High School. Whilst there, as a freshman, she encountered Jim Lovell. He was a Junior, who was working in the school cafeteria to make some extra money.
Although Marilyn was attracted to Jim, she was very shy and never spoke to him, only making eye contact.
She was stunned (and thrilled) when Jim invited her to the Junior Prom. They became an ‘item’. He was 16 and she was just 14.
Years later, Jim confessed to her that she had been his second choice for a prom date as the first girl he asked turned him down.
Marilyn said one of her fondest memories was when Jim came round to her parents’ house and the two of them sat chatting on the porch for hours on end.
On her first visit to Jim’s house, she watched him fire home-made rockets into a vacant lot next door. Jim’s mother said, “He’s crazy – this is insane”, but he continued. What Marilyn was witnessing was Jim’s obsession with engineering, physics and astronomy.
Marilyn went to train to be a teacher in her home state. Meanwhile, Jim signed up for the American Navy.
He was sent to the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Marilyn immediately quit her course and went up to join Jim. She transferred to the George Washington University and qualified as a teacher.
Marilyn typed Jim’s thesis.
Despite his flying skills and technical expertise, Jim could be remarkably forgetful. He once suggested they go to a jewellery shop to choose an engagement ring. Marilyn pointed out that he had forgotten to ask her to marry him. Later, Jim said, “She’s always been mad at me about this”.
The couple got married in Annapolis just two hours after he had graduated. They were to have four children: Barbara, Susan, Jeffrey and James Junior.
Jim became a Naval Test pilot and the family moved around the USA for his work.
In 1962, Jim was selected as one of the ‘New Nine’. They were the second wave of US astronauts, following the original group, the ‘Mercury Seven’. Neil Armstrong was chosen alongside Jim.
The Lovell family had to move to Houston in Texas. They lived in an area specifically designed for the families of the astronauts. It was dubbed ‘Togethersville’.
The wives of the chosen men called themselves the ‘Astronaut Wives Club’. Marilyn became particularly friendly with Annie Glenn (wife of John), Betty Grissom (wife of Gus) and Rene Carpenter (wife of Scott).
Marilyn was highly respected because of the support she gave to all the other women.
Due to the long hours they worked, and the stress caused by their flying missions, many astronauts and their wives ultimately divorced. Contrary to this, Marilyn and Jim Lovell seemed to get closer. She said Jim had sacrificed his home life for, “the nation’s great adventures”.
However, when Jim was selected for the Gemini programme in the mid-1960s, she hid from him the fact she was four months pregnant. This was because NASA believed a wife’s pregnancy would put extra pressure on an astronaut, so they were often withdrawn from the mission.
Jim piloted Gemini 7 in 1965 and was also on-board Gemini 12 when it flew the following year.
Jim was part of the crew on Apollo 8 in December 1968 – the first manned spacecraft to orbit the moon. One of their main tasks was to find a suitable landing spot for a manned moon mission.
This journey was the first time ever that man had seen the dark side of the moon.
Whilst in space, orbiting the moon, Jim discovered a triangular shaped mountain on the surface. It was 4,600 feet tall. He named it ‘Marilyn’s Mount’ and said, “I found it and I’m going to name it.” It was to become an important landmark for Apollo 11, the first moon landing (and for the subsequent Apollo 12 mission).
Jim said, “It was a stepping stone or landing mark the crew could use to land. It stood out by itself.”
When Apollo 11 landed on the moon in July 1969, it came down in the Sea of Tranquility at exactly the spot Jim had chosen. It was about 50km away from Marilyn’s Mount.
Jim Lovell and his fellow astronauts on Apollo 8, Frank Borman and William Anders, all have craters on the moon named after them.
Jim was away for Christmas in 1968. On Christmas Day, there was a knock at Marilyn’s door and a box decorated with moons was delivered. Inside was a mink coat and a Christmas card. The card read, ‘To Marilyn – from the man in the moon’.
She called it, “The most romantic card in the Universe.”
In 1969, Jim was selected as the captain of Apollo 13. He promised Marilyn that it would be his very last trip into space.
Marilyn was very superstitious. She was worried that the journey was numbered Apollo ‘13’.
Additionally, just prior to his selection, the couple had been to the cinema to watch a movie called ‘Marooned’. In it, three astronauts were trapped in space, unable to return to earth after a rocket explosion. The Captain’s name was Jim. She saw it as a bad omen.
Finally, the night before the rocket was launched, Marilyn was in the shower when her wedding ring slipped off her finger and went down the drain. She saw it as another portent that things would go wrong – and she didn’t tell her husband.
Apollo 13 was launched on the 11th April 1970, and was intended to be the third manned mission to land on the moon.
It did not receive as much media attention as the previous two missions. The public had become moon-weary. Instead, the headlines were all about The Beatles splitting up.
Jim had been chosen to walk on the moon along with Fred Haise, whilst Jim Swigert would remain in orbit.
Two days after takeoff (on the 13th April), an oxygen tank exploded. The command module, ‘Odyssey’ began losing power. Jim reported on his radio, “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”
This is one of the most misquoted phrases, often recited as “Houston, we’ve got a problem.”
Marilyn had no idea anything had gone wrong, until a friend at NASA phoned her. He said, “Marilyn…I just want you to know that all these different countries have offered to help, you know – in the recovery and whatever.” She had no idea what he was talking about and thought he’d been drinking.
It was a couple of hours later that NASA contacted her and formally explained the crisis.
The moon landing was aborted. The astronauts had to transfer to the lunar module ‘Aquarius’ for an attempted return to Earth.
The crisis captivated the whole world. Marilyn, as a wife and mother of four, found herself at the centre of the media’s attention. Would she become a widow?
In private, Marilyn was in a panic – frantic. Yet as a mother, she knew she had to be seen to stay calm. Years later, her son Jeff said, “I never knew Dad was in trouble. Mom saw to that. We all lived normal lives because of her and her ability to juggle a lot of balls at the same time, without dropping any.”
Marilyn watched the ABC coverage constantly. She wasn’t helped when announcer Jules Bergman (who reported the whole crisis), rated her husband’s chances of survival at 10%.
She said, “For four days I didn’t know if I was going to be a wife or widow.”
Her daughter Susan, aged 12, became hysterical when a priest arrived at their doorstep.
Marilyn calmed Susan by saying, “Do you really think the best astronaut either one of us knows, is going to forget something as simple as how to turn his spaceship around and fly it home?”
Reporters surrounded the Lovell home, camping on the lawn, filling the driveway. They had notebooks, cameras and microphones. On one occasion, noting that a reporter had not moved for many hours, she brought him out a plate of ham sandwiches.
Even in the middle of this major world-wide event, sexist attitudes were present. One American newspaper reported Marilyn as, “Cute, active and efficient”.
Marilyn was then phoned by President Richard Nixon. She was initially reluctant to take the call, but when she came on the line, he said to her, “I just wanted you to know, Marilyn, that your president and the entire nation are watching your husband’s progress with concern. Everything is being done to bring Jim home.”
As the Apollo 13 astronauts headed back towards earth on the 17th April, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin arrived at her house, and they watched the re-entry into the atmosphere in Marilyn’s front room.
When the modules’s parachutes billowed out of the spaceship as it fell to earth, Armstrong opened a bottle of champagne.
President Nixon phoned her again, saying, “I wanted to know if you’d care to accompany me to Hawaii to pick up your husband?”
Marilyn responded, “Mr President, I’d love to.” She then told Nixon, “I just knew he’d come back.”
Jim had landed in the South Pacific Ocean and was rescued by the NASA vehicle, Retriever.
Before she set off to Hawaii to reunite with her husband, Marilyn appeared on her lawn in a red, white and blue striped dress. She told reporters, “Isn’t this a great day? I am very thankful and humble, thankful to the men at Mission Control for making it possible for my husband to return to Earth.”
Marilyn went on to say, “I never experienced anything like this before, and I never care to experience it again.”
All of this was immortalized in the Ron Howard 1995 film, ‘Apollo 13’. It received nine Oscar nominations. Kathleen Quinlan played Marilyn and was nominated for Best Actress. Tom Hanks played Jim Lovell.
The film was based on Jim’s memoir, ‘Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13’.
In playing her role, Kathleen Quinlan visited Marilyn twice. They became great friends.
Marilyn was portrayed again on screen in 1998, in the docu-drama ‘From the Earth to the Moon’. This time, she was played by Elizabeth Perkins. The programme concentrated much more on the effect the crisis had on the astronaut’s wives and families.
Jim quit the Navy in 1973, and subsequently worked for a marine company and in telecommunications. He and Marilyn moved to Lake Forest in Illinois.
Marilyn was asked about her time in Houston and said, “They were the best years of my life.”
She also reflected, “Those were exciting, marvellous times in our lives. Yes, there were some difficult, anxious times, but I wouldn’t want to trade those exciting days. And I always had faith in the space programme.”
She featured prominently in Lily Koppel’s book, ‘The Astronaut Wives Club’ (2013).
In her old age, Marilyn said she loved chocolate as much as her family and friends. Daughter Susan said, “Get her a Cadbury’s Easter Egg and she’d be your friend for life”.
When Marilyn died, the couple had lived in Lake Forest for 40 years and she had been married to Jim, who survives her, for 73 years.
At her death, the Irish Times said, “Marilyn Lovell made the astronaut’s wife, a heroic archetype – the American housewife accepting her husband’s absences imposed by work…confronting the possibility of his death with dignity.”
RIP = Return, If Possible
