Fair and Tender Ladies

Silvaney is Ivy’s oldest sister and a twin to Ivy’s brother Babe. She has silver hair and “something is wrong with Silvaney, she had brain fever as a baby, now she will never be rigt in the head” (10). Due to her condition, Silvaney scares easily and cannot learn or attend school. Ivy is extremely close with her, to the point that Ivy feels as though Silvaney is almost her own soul made manifest. Ivy is devastated when Mr. Brown has Silvaney committed to an insane asylum. Throughout her life, Ivy writes more letters to Silvaney than anyone else, openly acknowledging that writing to Silvaney is like writing to herself and allows her to speak freely. Ivy continues writing to Silvaney as a form of catharsis even after Silvaney dies. After not writing to Silvaney for an extended period of time, Ivy addresses her final letter before death to her. 

Ivy’s second oldest sister, Beulah, is the diva of the Rowe children. She resents her upbringing and works to get away from Sugar Fork, although doing so leaves her lonely and miserable. At a fairly young age, Beulah gets pregnant by Curtis Bostick, whose mother does not want him to be with Beulah. Curtis marries Beulah anyway, taking her away to Diamond, where they try to become higher class. Ivy and her sister Ethel both describe Beulah as “putting on airs” (151). Beulah encourages Ivy to date Franklin Ransom, shows jealously once she does, and then scoffs at Ivy when she finally rejects Franklin, as she cannot understand Ivy’s rejection of a man with power and money. Beulah eventually cuts ties with her entire family as a way of trying to escape everything she hated about growing up poor in a small farm town. She dies without any of her blood family knowing until several years afterwards. 

Ethel is Ivy’s third sister and the closest in age to her. Unlike Ivy, Ethel is pragmatic and unimaginative, refusing even as a child to play along with Ivy’s games: “when I say I have some scrumptious cake she says it is only pone and when I say, hear the lovely music Miss Ethel it is violins, she says my name is nothing but Ethel, plain Ethel, and that is birds” (11). When Ivy and her family move to Majestic, Ethel gets a job working in a shop, which appeals to her practical nature. She eventually marries the storeowner and continues working in one capacity or another for most of her life. Unlike Beulah, “Ethel has not changed a bit from living in town, she is still as funny and honnest as the day is long and the fancy life has not turned a hair on her head” (78). Ethel remains Ivy’s steady voice of reason over the course of her life, giving sound, practical advice even when Ivy doesn’t want to hear it. 

Victor is Ivy’s second-oldest brother. He has a promising job in a lumber company before he joins the army and leaves to fight in World War I. He returns from the war injured in body and spirit—missing a leg and suffering from shell shock that causes him to drink heavily. As an old man, Victor moves to Florida with Ethel and then eventually dies in a VA hospital. Victor represents the effects of war on young men and how those effects remain for the rest of someone’s life. 

Garnie is Ivy’s third-oldest brother. He becomes interested in religion—or at least in the draw of a particular preacher—from a young age. The preacher takes Garnie under his wing, though the man in question is not a very good Christian himself, as he commits adultery frequently. Garnie returns to Sugar Fork decades after leaving in order to convert as many people as possible. He traps Ivy alone in her house, calls her a whore, and very nearly beats her before Oakley arrives and drives him away. Ivy then finds out that Garnie is impotent, beats his wife, and generally behaves in un-Christian ways. Garnie represents all the worst aspects of religion, particularly the blatant hypocrisy practiced by preachers who use religion to scare people into giving them money while simultaneously comporting themselves in despicable ways. 

John Arthur, Ivy’s father, marries Maude against her father’s wishes and brings her to Sugar Fork. By the time Ivy starts writing letters, John Arthur has developed a heart disease. Ivy notes that he is “little now too, hardly no meat atall on his bones, but his hair is still thick and red and his eyes are so blue” (7). John Arthur dies when Ivy is a child, leaving his family struggling in the wake of his death. Ivy writes two letters to her father after his death in moments when she feels particularly lost and overwhelmed, setting the precedent for her to continue writing to lost relatives as a form of catharsis. 

Maude, Ivy’s mother, comes from a well-to-do family but runs away with John Arthur out of love. After years living a poor farm life, Maude “does not look pretty now, she looks awful, like her face is hanted, she has had too much on her” (8). While she loves her husband and children dearly, Maude is unhappy, and her unhappiness only increases after John Arthur, Danny, and Babe die. She stubbornly clings to the possession of her home in Sugar Fork, as selling it, she feels, would be an acknowledgement that her choices in life amounted to very little. Ivy, like her mother, gets “stuck” in Sugar Fork, though from Ivy’s perspective being there is positive. 

Beulah and Curtis push Ivy into dating Franklin, the son of the mine owner. He is spoiled, privileged, aggressive, and “hasn’t got any sense” (187). He has “a long thin face with a large straight nose and a cleft chin and level eyebrows over dark eyes that look liquid” (187). Though Beulah pushes Ivy into seeing Franklin, she is also deeply jealous of Ivy because of it. Franklin represents everything that Beulah wants in life—wealth, leisure, privilege—and when Ivy rejects him for trying to kill them both, Beulah is disgusted with Ivy for having and throwing away something Beulah herself could never have. Franklin represents the worst of capitalism: a man who uses others as he sees fit with no concern for their well-being, has no care for the consequences of his actions, and cannot handle being told “no.” He eventually commits suicide by flying a plane into a mountain in front of an audience.  

Curtis Bostick gets Ivy’s sister Beulah pregnant at a fairly young age. His mother forces him to avoid her, but Curtis loves Beulah and eventually marries her against his mother’s wishes. Curtis has aspirations of being a businessman, in part to try to provide Beulah with the rich lifestyle she would like to have. Ivy lives for a time with Curtis and Beulah in Diamond. After Beulah’s death, Curtis comes to Sugar Fork looking for Ivy, telling her that he wants to be with her and has for a long time. 

Oakley is from Sugar Fork and meets Ivy when she is a child. He gives Ivy her first kiss. When Ivy moves to Diamond, she runs into Oakley again, as he and his brother are working in the mine. Though Oakley claims Ivy is “his girl,” Ivy rejects him, given that they have not been dating and she feels he has no reason to say that. After Oakley is injured in an explosion at the mine, Ivy marries him, and they move back to Sugar Fork. Oakley overlooks Ivy’s indiscretion with Honey Breeding and remains with Ivy until his death. 

Honey Breeding is a womanizing drifter with whom Ivy has an affair as a 40-year-old woman. He is “skinny, wirey, with pale thick curly gold hair on his head and thick gold eyebrows that nearabout grow together, and hair all over him like spun gold on his folded forearms” (245). Breeding reminds Ivy of the fantastical men from the stories she loved as a child, so she latches on to him after her life has become mundane and repetitive as a wife and mother. Ivy’s affair with Breeding is, as Ivy sees it, her final adventure in life. When Ivy returns from being with Breeding, she goes back to life with Oakley and her children and never deviates again. 

Lonnie is Ivy’s early sweetheart. He is the father of Ivy’s first child, Joli, as a result of his and Ivy’s first time having sex together. Lonnie loves Ivy and wants to marry her, but she refuses because she does not love him. Lonnie is killed fighting in France in World War I. While Ivy feels some sadness over his death, she admits that she still didn’t love him and wouldn’t have wanted to marry him when he returned. 

Molly, who is Mrs. Brown’s niece, is Ivy’s first real friend outside of her family. While Molly is of a higher class than Ivy and has many more material possessions and access to things Ivy never will, her home life is unstable. Ivy simultaneously wants what Molly has and pities her for being so unhappy. Molly resurfaces when Ivy is quite old, asking for Ivy’s help starting a settlement school in Majestic. 

Ivy’s schoolteacher, Louisa Brown encourages Ivy to start writing letters. Mrs. Brown wants children but is unable to have them with her husband. Ivy stays with Mrs. Brown for a while to keep Mrs. Brown’s niece, Molly, company. Mrs. Brown has an affair with John Arthur’s brother Revel, from which she becomes pregnant. Upon learning of Mrs. Brown’s infidelity, Mr. Brown attempts suicide by hanging. Ivy loses touch with Mrs. Brown after the affair becomes general knowledge. 

Geneva Hunt owns the boardinghouse that Ivy’s family moves to in Majestic after Ivy’s father dies. She is “big and soft and easy-going with curly yaller gray hair and dimples and lots of chins” (96). Geneva is an old friend of Ivy’s mother’s and has much more relaxed attitudes about sexual relationships than many of the adults in Ivy’s life. Geneva helps care for Ivy and her family, and when Ivy gets pregnant by Lonnie, she attempts to help Ivy procure an abortion. Geneva often scolds Ivy about doing whatever she wants without considering the consequences while simultaneously exhibiting the same type of behavior, including having multiple affairs. While Ivy has many influential adults in her life, especially women, Geneva is one of the most influential. Ivy follows Geneva’s behavioral lead more than any other adult’s.