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Hey, weirdos. I'm Ash.
And I'm Elena. And this right here, you bitches, is morbid.
You bitches, it's morbid.
it's valentine's day it's valentine's day it is i sounded pissed about that i'm not it's fucking valentine the the valentine's day of it all i love valentine's day not because like we do anything really no we're not like we'll do like a little something like i woke up to a cute little like array on the counter this morning oh see that's cute yeah we don't always honestly i i gotta like be real here drew is a lot better at valentine's day than i am like i i usually wake up to something and then i'm like oh fuck i didn't i'm gonna like run out later and get you like discount candy i don't know why
i said candy like that but this year i did really fucking good hell yeah i went a little i want to i like up to the ante this year oh see john and i usually like go really hard to like make the kids like a cute little valentine's thing i feel like when you have kids it becomes more about like the holiday yeah it becomes it becomes like super fun again because like it becomes like super kid again yeah that's always fun i know the magic of all the holidays like obviously like christmas is like insane when you have kids but even just like valentine's day and st patrick's day even yeah like we so i
always um like our bathroom that they brush their teeth in that's like essentially like you know the kid bathroom yeah it like because they've demolished would you decorate it i decorate it for all the holidays so like i'll and i don't go like you know it's not like i go nuts like i just get stuff like some little banners yeah and like you know sometimes i'll throw like a balloon in there like that dollar dollar yeah like the dollar section has a lot of cool stuff so like it's super easy to be able to do it or like michael's has a lot of stuff in case you guys think you know what to do yep the little
things are what i literally just put a banner up that says be mine and some of this like tinsel like this is like red tinsel cute and then i think i had like a little heart uh like stuffed animal on the counter i love that and just in their bathroom so we do it for like everything like we try to like just throw like a little banner in their bathroom just to make like the morning exciting when they brush their teeth i like saint patrick's day when you put green dye in the toilet and you see little leprechauns peed and they fucking love that i'm i'm co -opting that when i have so easy yeah and it's
they love it yeah and we do like you know we do uh leprechaun toast for that like where we just put like lucky charms and like frosting on toast so they get to have like a wild ass breakfast that's the i can't wait for it's fun and then like i stayed up until uh 2 a .m last night um making because i got a cricket this bitch is a cricket enthusiast it is fun as fuck when you figure out how to do it it is so satisfying and so i stayed up until 2 a .m i found they had like the girls already had like plain pink shirts like long sleeve shirts that they never really like grab or they're just sitting in their
drawer and i was like oh i can bedazzle these sitting in their drawer and i was like oh i can bedazzle these let me make this a shirt you want to wear set up until 2 a .m making them little valentine's day shirts and they were psyched this morning oh so it was like and then i made their lunches all like uh heart themed like i got these little heart like cutters for their sandwiches and they make them like into uncrustables so they'll like seal off the sandwich it's they're really cool you can find them on like anywhere really i fuck so heavy with an uncrustable and it's fun to make your own because you
can make it different shapes and stuff yeah you can put whatever it just makes like a fun lunch and then like i just got some like heart shape shit and like pink stuff and all that did you cut the strawberries into a little heart shapes no i didn't do that this morning because i did a trail mix instead of strawberries today but it was like a pink theme it's a lot of fun and then john usually and i always forgot he'll get me flowers oh yeah a lot of times yeah like he'll have them delivered and then i end up forgetting and being like oh we don't because we're always like we don't do anything i
know like why'd you do that and he's like i have to no it's relatable yeah i feel like you know you just do what you can you do what you can i got drew like a random lego set so i love that big into lego so i'm like any occasion i'll just get you a fucking lego set yeah usually it's as you get older and as you like kids come into the picture or even if they don't i feel like it just becomes one of those like it's a nice day yeah it's just fun yeah i want to get one of those um duncan donuts donuts today that has the brownie batter in the middle oh fuck yeah why didn't we you get those because I
got I'm getting something delivered I already ordered it what she just she just raised her eyebrows at me and Mikey and Mikey is shimmying right now exciting did you just see the full mobility in my eyebrows yeah they move now yeah guys I stopped getting Botox I stopped getting it I'm I'm in recovery from from Botox yeah yeah you're you're I love your face thank you that's so nice I'm working on loving it too you should I should But, yeah, I ordered some Krabbel cookies.
Oh, yay. And they're all fun Valentine's people.
Oh, I'm excited. There's one that's, like, a strawberry cake.
Oh, bitch. On the – it's, like, you know when you get a cupcake and you, like, rip the bottom off and you make it a sandwich?
It's like that. Yeah.
I love that. Yeah. Hell yeah.
Well, we have, you know, this is an exciting day and bitch.
It's been an exciting week or two.
Yeah. so i i'm i'm i'm without words she threw the roof happening this week retweet so the last episode you guys probably noticed that andrew mcmahon was on the show fucking wild andrew mcmahon from something corporate jack's mannequin andrew mcmahon in the wilderness all of the above you know posters when i was 16 in my room yes those as well uh i have a something corporate tattoo is my first tattoo i ever got uh he came here to the stew like he can't he's i we had such a blast with him like he's i we had such a blast with him like he flew from california here um we went out like we went out
to dinner we got to hang at the studio like he was amazing he's just like a pal i know like immediately i was like wow i do feel like i've known you since i was 16 you kind if I have and I've known him since I was six if we're going by that logic yeah it was great and it was it was very funny because like um he was telling us that he listens to the show so like hopefully you're listening now hi Andrew because it was very like surreal to me oh yeah too because I was such a big like something corporate fan when I was younger and I still am and Jack's mannequin Andrew McMahon in the wilderness and it's
funny that like to be in that phase of life and then to sit with him and talk about being parents together is like surreal in a way I can't describe.
Like 16 -year -old Elena, if you told her you're going to sit in your house or at dinner with Andrew McMahon and talk about parent shit together, I'd be like, what are you talking about?
I'm like, what it was?
Cannot compute. Like, what are you talking about?
It was a great experience.
Yeah, and it was a fun episode.
A very fun episode.
We talked about Dancing Plagues.
If you haven't listened to it go check it out it's you know it's interview and it's also we talk about some like funny like and crazy dancing plagues of history and he's in the interview he has inviting answers oh absolutely it's a great episode and we talk about fucking the devil a lot so you should definitely listen to it you know like a regular regular episode doing butt stuff with the devil or fucking the devil so that was fucking amazing and I hope you guys enjoy that episode a lot and you know hopefully someday we have him back on because it was a blast yes and we forgot to have him sign
andrew if you're listening you do have to come back we forgot to have you sign our hand you know not our hands he's like no thank you he's like i think i'll come back the hands that we have people sign when they come into the office if you guys have seen the movie talk to me which if you haven't go watch it because it's an australian film horror film and it's fucking brilliant 824 right I think it is yeah is it yeah yeah it is right I was like wait uh there's a hand in it that is like a main plot device of the movie and we have the hand in the office it's fun we've been having people sign it like
we had Bridget sign it when she came yep uh and we were gonna have Andrew sign it because we're trying to have all our guests sign it and we forgot so now you have to come back so we'll don't have a choice we'll have our people They'll call your people.
So that happened. That was amazing.
And then we have another amazing thing happening.
You guys are getting a bonus episode.
Yes. This week. In fact, tomorrow it's coming out wide to everybody.
Isn't it wide and? It's a simultaneous release.
So everyone's getting it at the same time.
It's a bonus episode on top of our two episodes.
Happy Valentine's Day.
Happy fucking Valentine's Day because, guys – well, I guess it'll be later, but – This is a fucking banger of an episode.
It's going to be – we haven't actually recorded it yet, so it's going to be really interesting to see if Elena's alive afterwards.
Yeah. You're going to have to see if I survive this one because – That's all we can say.
I'm very excited to record it.
We're going to be recording it in the next few days, and – Ah!
Oh. It's a big deal.
So, like, be on the lookout.
If you're listening to this episode right now.
Set an alarm. Know that tomorrow, in the future, tomorrow, a banger of an episode is being released to everybody as a bonus.
Big things are happening.
It's our gift to you and also a gift to me.
When they say treat yourself, Alayna went.
I treated myself. Went big or went home.
She did not go home.
Yeah, I did not. I went big.
It's wild. so be on my lookout for that it's very exciting very awesome this has been a week that i can't quite grasp i don't think you ever will no i think that's all of our bid nasty yeah i think so aka business bid nasty yeah and with that we'll get into it let's go it was a very exciting intro and super happy we're like oh my god it's valentine's day this is a story about two lovers um it's not happy or celebratory or any of the above but no one expected that i think yeah i would hope not interesting story and i'll tell you up at the top it's going to be two parts um part one is definitely
gonna be a little bit longer than part two because there's a lot of kind of setup that we have to get through okay um so this is going to be titled if you're listening gene harris and the murder of herman tarnower so we're gonna start with gene first Jean Struven was her maiden name.
She was born April 27, 1923.
She was the second of four children born to Albert and Mildred Struven.
Struven. Isn't that a fun last name to say?
I like that. Struven.
From an early age, she felt like she could never really live up to the high standard of her older sister, Mary Margaret, who was described as the family's good girl.
Mary Margaret just seems like a good girl name.
She's gotta be. Despite feeling like the underdog a lot of times gene did remember her early life fondly albert and mildred raised the family in cleveland ohio and they were definitely wealthier than most families at the time they had a maid a laundress the kids all went to private school oh damn yeah they were doing well in 1983 gene said i was raised by my mother but my father was almost never three gene said i was raised by my mother but my father was almost never home which is sad that is sad and while she looked back on most of her memories from childhood with a certain fondness it wasn't
without its traumas her dad albert by all accounts was a very brilliant very successful man but he also was remembered by most as a quote champion tyrant bigot and snob oh so like not somebody i want to hang out with i was gonna say none of those things sound good at all but go off but successful i guess yeah that's usually the case his temper was notorious and bouts of anger rage were set off by by very minor inconveniences which is not great when you have children because I'm sure that comes with a lot of inconvenience I also think that's such like like get it together yeah whenever adults like
go off the handle at the smallest thing I'm like I don't know children can figure it out so I can't yeah well like I we don't tolerate that from children so I don't know why we're tolerating it from adults.
And as a parent, your kind of entire job is to teach kids not to do that.
So how are you going to teach them not to do that when you're doing it yourself?
Yeah, just like figure out emotional regulation, man.
Yeah, it sounds very of the time.
Oh, for sure. Very a father of the time.
Very of the time. Yeah.
Shortly before her dad died in 1980, Jean put it pretty simply when she said, my father should not have had any children.
That's so sad. It is, especially as his child saying that.
Yeah. She did love him.
She admired his intelligence but she also recognized that he was a very unhappy man yeah and a lot of his anger and temper came from basically like taking out his own disappointments on other people like his his feelings of unfulfillment kind of thing exactly one of gene's oldest friends said i think gene admired her father very much and she also hated his guts he was cold ever complaining impossible to please autocratic and nasty it's so sad that like like children just autumn like have this natural thing of loving their parents even when their parents are like so awful to them you know what i
mean like it's it's like it's almost sad you have to learn i think sometimes to unlove your parents for your own i can peace of mind and like well -being that was a deep statement it was a little bit deep yeah you know and relatable but yeah anyway the home environment in general mostly thanks to Albert was one of constant competition because he set his kids up against each other and just tension because he was always angry yeah the only one of his kids she was the oldest and like I said earlier Jean just could never measure up to her no matter how hard she tried which is really sad I hate that idea of kids
like trying to measure up to each other yeah you're all you should all be equal and you should be loved you're each your own thing Yeah.
Like you're your own entity.
And we love you because of that.
Yeah. That should be the message.
And we love you because of that.
Yeah. That should be the message.
But this type of environment was probably where Jean developed some of her worst and what would become most harmful instincts, especially when it came to pleasing men.
I mean, things like that are set up in childhood.
She's being programmed to.
Yeah. That's her whole life is trying to please a man.
But at the same time, she also developed more positive perspectives, especially from her mom.
When she was young, I love this, her mom would tell her, a curtsy doesn't mean one doggone thing.
I want you to always look people in the eye and tell them the truth.
You measure people from the neck up, Jean.
Yeah, bitch. She sounds like a bad bitch.
I love that. I think that quote is fucking great.
Damn. Yeah, you measure people from the neck up.
A curtsy don't mean one doggone thing.
That's badass. I like that.
I love doggone. No, not one doggone thing.
Nope. So while her father was pretty terrible overall, Jean's mother was stern but in a different way and she could learn a lot from her and it was from Mildred that she learned to treat others with respect and kindness and to actually value things like intelligence and talent over just money and social status.
I love that. They had money and they had social status but her mom was like these are important things but intelligence and kindness and respect are more important.
Yeah. So for the rest of her life these two very enormous influences would be at war inside of Jean and play a pretty critical role in her adult life.
Yeah, because they're very, like, conflicting.
Very conflicting. Ideals.
Yeah. In elementary school, for example, she studied hard.
She did really well.
But she never wanted to let her intelligence be seen as a bad thing.
But the lessons that she learned from her parents that helped her succeed academically kind of became a hindrance when it came to making friends.
She was smart. She was very pretty, very well -liked to a degree.
But there was also distance between her and her peers.
one classmate who seems like a very surface -level individual recalled i never could be fond of jean because she wasn't interested in clothes styles all the giggle dumb things that we used to do and boys she hardly seemed to care about them at all it's like yeah first of all not everyone is attracted to the opposite sex jean was but like that's a weird thing yeah well this is like that i don't know if that really should be part of your entire personality style like like your likeability is based on whether you're like obsessing over boys and your appearance and like makeup and shit it's like uh
-oh good luck with that damn school though quickly became gene's refuge where because there she got the approval and praise that she was really craving from her father yeah but never got later she would say i loved school i loved having a star on my forehead when i was little i loved sitting in the sunroom of our big house and doing really tells you that, like, she got everything she needed there.
Yeah. And then going home like creped that.
Yeah. And then going home like creped that.
Yeah. Also, kudos to those teachers.
Hell yeah. We like teachers.
Hell yeah, teachers.
But she threw herself into academics and extracurriculars.
She joined as many clubs as she possibly could, attended as many school events as she was able to, mostly as a means of avoiding her dad.
Yeah. But ultimately, she built up a really impressive resume by the time she graduated high school.
Good for her. yeah i have no idea what this case is by the way so i'm just like fully riding this way i literally don't know what happens i've never heard of this yeah just putting that out there so if i'm sitting here being like good for her i don't know if she does something later i don't know what happens well it's very you know like it's like when we say you can be sad for the child or you can you can say good for her for who she was at one point before all yeah whatever happens i will jean lost her way okay but it's a lot more complicated than not okay it's this is a very layered story I
ultimately don't agree with what she does ever um but there's a lot of layers to it there's a lot of layers to it this is not there's a lot of gray area okay in this story yeah I just wanted to be clear that I'm like I don't know no no one think I'm like praising someone that I know what they did no well and right now you're praising her for the good things that's all you know and when we get when we get to the we're gonna get to a part and I think you and I are gonna feel oh well and I think you and I are gonna have very similar opinions okay there's a fall from humanity oh wow yeah so after but we're
not there yet after her graduation in 1941 Jean enrolled at the Smith College in Massachusetts oh shit she studied economics there and she actually minored in Spanish damn like her high school experience she threw herself into those studies completely in her free time she sang in the glee club and she joined the water ballet team.
Water? Is that just like a synchronized swimming?
I think it's ballet in the water.
I don't know. Probably.
I didn't know water ballet was a thing.
Sounds beautiful. But now that I think of it, is that at the Olympics?
Synchronized swimming.
Synchronized swimming?
I could be wrong. Maybe it is called water ballet.
Artistic swimming. So yeah, I think it used to be called synchronized swimming.
More what it is. I guess you could probably do it solo.
also. Yeah. Because then technically it wouldn't have to be synchronized.
Yeah. So look at us.
We really worked through that there.
Look at us. We logicked our way through.
But while she wasn't engrossed in her schoolwork, she spent her time writing to her boyfriend, Jim Harris, who she'd started dating while she was still in high school.
After graduation, Jim went and joined the Naval Air Corps and was stationed in the South Pacific.
So they really stayed in touch primarily through letters.
And toward the end of Jean's junior year at Smith, Jim got leave and arrived on the Smith campus to surprise Jean and asked her to marry him once the war was over.
Wow. Which is so romantic.
Him once the war was over.
Wow. Which is so romantic.
That does sound very romantic.
It's very short -lived.
Oh no. But she happily agreed.
In 1946 when she was 23 they did finally get married and they settled down in Michigan.
Jim's parents were thrilled to add a daughter -in -law to the family.
They loved Jean but Jean's father could not have been any more disappointed.
A fact he made zero zilch null attempt to hide.
He was outright with the fact that he did not like this guy.
According to journalist Shana Alexander, Albert was furious.
He warned Jean that she was throwing her life away.
He was certain Jim Harris was not good enough for her, and he made sure that Jim too knew how he felt.
Oh boy. Which is shitty.
Well, Well, it's also hard because he spent a lot of time her life basically making her feel she's not good enough for him.
And now he's saying this, this guy isn't good enough for you.
And she's like, I thought you didn't even give a shit about me.
He's like, what do you mean?
Like, where's my standing here?
Right. Yeah. It's, it's just a conflicting message.
Well, and it's also just, it's kind of a continued message of like, nothing you ever do is good enough.
Exactly. Like you can't even pick a guy.
Right. Yeah. It wasn't only that Albert disliked Jim Harris, but he actually thought the entire Harris family were ignorant fools.
Damn. Mostly because of their progressive political opinions and support of the Roosevelt administration.
Damn. It tells you a lot.
Damn. Damn, damn, damn, damn.
Whether or not Jean was throwing her life away was obviously a matter of opinion.
But in hindsight, she did recognize that her marriage had a lot less to do with love than it did with defiance of her father.
Eek. She wanted to go against her.
She liked that it was bothering her.
Yeah. She said, when I got married, I had no conception of love.
Defying dad was the main reason I married Jim.
Also, unlike dad, he was very quiet, which is kind of a baller statement.
She's like, again, I say damn.
She's like, listen, my dad sucked.
He didn't like this guy.
This guy is quiet. I can do what I want.
This guy's quiet. This guy's quiet.
This guy shuts his fucking mouth.
He's going to let me live.
I appreciate the fucker of a dad.
This guy's quiet. This guy shuts the fuck up.
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obviously in the 1940s women didn't have a ton of options for independence so if Jean wanted to get away from her dad and her family home which she very much did marriage was the easiest and the fastest way to do that for sure and at the very was entirely predictable okay yeah it's a safe life yeah to those who knew her well though Jean's marriage to Jim didn't make any fucking sense she was very smart she was an independent woman we know she loved the art she loved culture she was the ultimate conversationalist she was passionate she had a lot of big dreams jim had smaller ambitions and he didn't
seem to want a lot out of life he was he was a simple guy yeah you know yeah he's just jim well people are different we all want different things out of life it doesn't make him a bad guy for not different we all want different things out of life it doesn't make him a bad guy for not no for not like you know for just wanting a simple home life you know whatever fulfills him yeah gene's friend leslie mcdougal recalled she was desperate to marry jim harris i never understood it he was a little man in every way gene had intellect she was brainy everything she got into she did well he loved to putter
to trim the hedge as she got more interesting he got duller oh and in the notes dave wrote damn what a savage read i was dying honestly yeah yeah that is like shit i was like after the wedding though Jean settled into married life and she was determined to be the perfect housewife but she also wanted to keep her regular job uh which was she was a teacher at Grosse Pointe Country Day School and she also found the time to keep a spotless home she cooked all the meals she kept up with all her appearances that she needed to do she was doing it all yeah now while the schedule was uh without a doubt
exhausting very taxing it was important to Jean that she apply her training and her intellect to a job that she saw as valuable.
And to her, there was nothing more valuable than helping to mold the minds of children.
She loved teaching.
Oh, I love that. And she loved being a part of kids' lives.
Well, and it sounds like she had so many like influential teachers in her life.
You can tell when a kid has great teachers because they immediately are like, I want to be a teacher.
Because they see what happens.
Exactly. My kids have like this fucking, like the older girls have an amazing fucking teacher oh she's a queen she's a goddamn queen i wish we could like literally say her name but we obviously i would love to say her name just because she's so amazing but she's she's amazing and they one of my kids is like i want to be a teacher like i love that and it's like that's a sign oh that you've done the right thing yeah teachers you're one who says that would be the best teacher ever oh my god yeah she's so patient and sweet especially with like oh my god yeah i could go on for like an hour also if you're
looking for anybody to follow on tiktok we haven't done a tiktok follow like go we love mr williams with our entire heart and soul he is a fucking phenomenal follower yeah a follower follow and and he's a preschool teacher and also a therapist yeah and he does it all he does it all he really does he also does savage reads he does savage reads he's hilarious i I remember watching him in the beginning of TikTok and being like, I want him to be my child's preschool teacher.
He's so good, and you can tell he cares so much.
Pre -K pause. Pre -K pause.
He always starts with that.
Go follow him because he deserves all the follows.
He's Mr. Williams on TikTok.
And you will not regret it.
You will not. He's hilarious.
Even if you don't have kids, great follow.
Exactly. He's hilarious.
Even if you don't have kids, great follow.
Exactly. He's a great follow no matter what.
Yeah. Well, back to Jean.
Her domestic responsibilities increased a year or two later when Jim's newly widowed father moved in with them.
Jean really loved her father -in -law and she never complained about living with him.
But according to several neighbors, Albert Harris expected to be treated as a guest in the house rather than an occupant who contributed to the work of a running home.
But you know what? You live that long, you lose your wife, your kid's got to take care of you at some point.
At this point, he's probably like, you know what?
Fuck it. Treat me like a guest.
I get to a certain age, and I've raised you all up, you know.
Yeah, you treat me like a guest.
Yeah, come on. But also, it doesn't sound like Jim was, like, really doing a lot, and it's his dad, so that's a little tough.
Yeah. But the workload increased again two years later in 1950, when Jean gave birth to their first child, David, and then a couple years later, a second child, Jimmy.
So they had their hands full.
The expectations of motherhood were made even more stressful by Jean's postpartum depression after Jimmy's birth.
and remember this was not a time even now i feel like we don't have a full understanding of postpartum depression truly picture it in the 1950s that that sounds nightmarish they'd give you like some meth about it yeah that's a that's a nightmarish scenario in the 1950s it's sad so a lot of times jean found herself crying over what most people would consider very small things or no reason at all like she didn't know why she was crying she just was oh that sounds awful it's very sad but fortunately her postpartum didn't last super long well that's good even after it passed friends did notice changes
to her behavior i think it left it well you wonder what yeah it probably leaves some kind of mark i did i fortunately did not go through it i know people do did though and i can't if you're going through it i'm really sorry yeah you'll get on the other side it's one of my biggest fears like when i do end up having kids when people don't take it's like i feel like it doesn't get taken seriously a lot no and when you try to get help for it it's she made it uh such an enormous effort but she was extremely volatile we had a cup of tea together every single day and i never knew whether i'd find a happy
woman a sad woman or an angry woman oh that's tough so it sounds like i think i shouldn't have said that it didn't last very long because i really don't think there's a way of measuring how long she was going through it i think she might have just got better at managing it i was maybe she was just pushing it to the side but it was still affecting her in her daily life but although she never hesitated to join the PTA or engage with neighbors and parents of her kids classmates, her ability to integrate with others did remain somewhat of a problem into her adulthood.
At the time, Grosse Pointe where she was living and teaching, it's a suburb of Detroit, was home to some of the automotive industry's wealthiest families.
And there was a very rigid social hierarchy that was all based on wealth.
Social hierarchy that was all based on wealth, of course.
As a school teacher and the wife of a middle class husband, she never really cared about material things.
And since her childhood, she actually really tried to find value outside of monetary terms.
Yeah. But because of the way that everything worked, she was a little bit of an outcast among everybody else.
That makes sense. Yeah.
And she really struggled to make strong connections because of that.
That's rough. In the early 60s, Jean's dissatisfaction with her life was becoming even more apparent to those around her.
Her friend Bob Scripps recalled, Jean did not lead a very exciting life here.
Her marriage to Jim was a real drag.
He was a genuine tightwad and very conservative.
Really a man of no imagination.
Whereas Jean had so much.
Wow. Everybody's really reading.
That's the thing. I'm like, I couldn't find anything to like outright say that Jim was an asshole.
So I'm just like. It just sounds like he was kind of like.
He was just kind of like a plain Jane, a plain Jim, you know?
A plain Jim. Yeah. Just, just vibing to his own beat.
I'm like, wow, nobody likes you.
Nobody thought you were interesting.
like that's rough that's sad i know i feel i feel a little bad for jim yeah does jim do anything that i shouldn't feel bad for him no okay not that i know i didn't i couldn't find it that's the thing i couldn't find anything that i could yeah like truly negative like he like he's abusive or something no it doesn't sound like it like by the sounds of it i'm just like you know don't care when everybody else thinks jim you know i feel like he needs like a high five i want to like you're happy for a burger i'm like come on let's let's you be happy with you Jim okay yeah I want to take Jim to a theme
park yeah let's find a little excitement here I'm like you know what Jim like there's these things called book nooks that you can make I think you would love them here you go you sit down he strikes me as somebody love a book no the very minimal amount I know about Jim I think he would fuck heavy with a book yeah and I'm saying that as somebody who fucking loves book nooks I sit down and do them at night so I love that that's not a read on book nooks no it's not I got Alina multiple book nooks for her birthday hell yeah Yeah but by then by that point Jean had started taking courses in a master's
program where she was finding a lot of purpose but when she thought about her future as a housewife and a mother in Grosse Pointe that idea became increasingly unsustainable.
She was finding a lot of purpose kind of like pouring into her own cup.
Yeah. But I think she kind of like took a little like a scope out and was like I don't know if this is gonna.
With Jim didn't exactly end it kind of just fizzled out there wasn't a lot of drama there wasn't a lot of anger everything just fizzled it just kind of was like this isn't gonna be yeah forever yeah all right by 1964 she came to the conclusion that she did not want to be married anymore and she reached out to her friend and lawyer jeptha sherman i think it is who helped her navigate obviously a pretty complex divorce process at that time yeah sherman said some people should never marry and gene is one of them she's a super said some people should never marry and gene is one of them she's a superior person and there are not too
many suitable matches for a person like that.
Jeez. I know. People are really talking her up.
They do. So Jean and Jim Harris's marriage officially came to an end in 1965.
And while it wasn't the most amicable divorce in the world, I don't really know if there are many.
There are a few, I feel.
Yeah. Jean was said to navigate it with a remarkable grace.
Her lawyer said she was never accusatory about Jim Harris.
Everyone knew what he was.
He was never guilty of false advertising about himself.
but Jean would never say a word against him she was an admirable client and a real rotten divorce so it all and in that sense it like it seems like he wasn't a bad guy it just wasn't gonna work and maybe he didn't want a divorce so it probably got kind of gnarly then messy yeah but it's like when she won't even say like a bad thing about the guy it's like yeah feels like he just wasn't a bad guy it just didn't didn't really work yeah they just weren't meant to be i don't think they were meant to be no it doesn't sound like that and like obviously there are relationships where like it's your high
school sweetheart and it works out but like for sure not all the time but it's a tough one and the older you get and the more life changes you you change a little bit with this yeah yeah but by that point everybody could see how unhappy jean was in her life so when it came to an end to the divorce and the marriage everybody was rooting for her yeah so after leaving uh jim jean and the kids moved in with one of her close friends Dodie Blaine.
She needed to move in with a friend to make it for a while.
And Dodie had also gone through a divorce around the same time.
So they spent a lot of time reflecting on and discussing what had gone wrong in their respective marriages.
And they both reasonably concluded that they had just simply chosen the wrong man, which I'm sure a lot of people who get divorced can relate to.
But this, of course, led to the question, if their respective ex -husbands were the wrong man, then who was the right man?
Who is he? Who's the right man?
Who's this man's for me?
Well, Jean had given this matter a great deal of, probably, he was a Jewish doctor.
I like that she's just like, I know.
Specific. I know who the right man for me is.
It's giving Charlotte.
It is. Charlotte York from Sex and the City.
Yes, absolutely it is.
During one of their many talks, Jean told Dodie, being Jewish, he'd be a man of superior intelligence and education, and that his, quote, Semitic background would also make him warm -hearted and passionate, yet protective.
She said Jewish husbands really take care of their women.
Wow, she really thought this one through.
She did, yeah. I like it.
So, her desire to find the right man might've fueled her fantasies, but she never let it interfere with the responsibilities of her real life.
After the divorce, she felt a lot of guilt for disrupting her two sons' lives.
And she tried every chance she could to make it up to them.
She wanted to make sure that they had the best of the best and that they would have a great start to their adult lives once they were done with high school.
For a… Yeah, she seemed like they were done with high school.
For a… Yeah, she seemed like a good mom.
That's good to hear that.
Yeah, for a lot of women in her position, it was possible to rely on their parents for help in raising kids as a single parent, but not the case with Jean.
Albert, her father, seemed to have about as much fondness for his grandsons as he did for their father, and, quote, flatly refused to contribute to the cost of their education.
This is their maternal grandfather.
And I'm sorry. I think about how rad it must be to be a grandparent all the time.
All the time. Because like, I love being a parent.
Yeah. Like it's fun.
It's obviously it's like hard, but it's so fucking fun.
But when you're a grandparent, you don't even have the hard stuff.
It's being a parent without any of the responsibilities.
Exactly. So it's just really like, you know, which I guess there's your answer right there.
It's like if you like being a parent, my goodness, you're going to love being a grandparent because it takes away any of the stress that you even were fine with.
But it doesn't sound like he loved being a parent.
But he did not like being a parent.
But it's like, damn, it sounds so fun.
What do you mean? I think it's really shitty to, he didn't like their dad and he took that on them.
It's like, sure, that's their father and like that's half of who they are.
But yeah, it's like that's not their fault though.
Well, that's the thing.
That's not their choice.
So why are you holding that against them?
yeah it's just it's strange to me yeah it really is but also gene hadn't requested any alimony during the divorce process and she was only getting about two hundred dollars a month in child support which for two kids was not a lot no so if she wanted to ensure a bright future and this world -class education that she wanted to give her sons she was gonna have to find a way to increase her income dramatically so now singularly focused the vocational office at smith college for guidance in finding a better job because she's an alum there.
She told them she wanted to move on from teaching and work her way up to school administration because obviously she knew that paid better.
Before long, the vocational office got back to her and they had an offer of a position of director of the middle school at Springsdale, which was an elite all -girls prep school in Chestnut Hill, which is a wealthy suburb of Philadelphia.
Okay. And this would pay about $12 ,000 a year, which right now would be about $117 ,000.
Wow. Okay. That's a great annual salary.
She eagerly accepted, of course, and started making preparations to move to the East Coast.
So a few months later, she was settling into her new life in Pennsylvania and was already thriving at her position in Springsdale.
While she was dedicated to the new position and dove in with a lot of enthusiasm, she still managed to find the time to make sure that her kids were also adjusting to their new home, keeping up with their requirements because they were both on scholarship, you helping with their schoolwork mom duties in late December you know helping with their schoolwork mom duties in late December though she called up her old friend Marge Jacobson in New York and Marge was like girl you gotta come out to New York I am throwing a dinner party this weekend and you know you gotta relax a little bit you gotta let loose
you gotta come to my party oh damn and Jean was like I don't know like it's gonna cost money to go and you know we just got the kids settled.
But ultimately, she did agree to go to the party.
Good. Yeah, she needed a little bit.
Yeah. I wish she had gone to like a different party.
But oh, the party's fine.
But you know, so among the attendees at Marge's party that night was Dr. Herman Tarnower.
He was a prominent New York cardiologist at the time and obviously a friend of the Jacobsons.
Jean didn't know a lot about him.
And other than the fact that he was a friend of Marge and Marge's husband.
Yeah. But she was immediately captivated by him.
He had quite the presence.
He was very charming he had that like commanding presence it seemed everybody around him from his friends to his patients had an unyielding devotion to this man oh he's got charisma charisma uniqueness nerve and talent so that night gene and herman spent the entire evening chatting they were obviously each trying to impress each other with intellect and quick wit banter banter when the party came to an end and they parted ways gene assumed she'd probably never see this guy again But a few days later, she was at home in bed with a backache and a gift unexpectedly arrived from Dr. Herman Tarnower.
Oh, girl. And when she opened the small package, it contained a book on Israeli art and a brief note that read, It's time you knew more about the Jews.
He was a Jewish man.
Okay. Yeah. Although she'd only spent one night talking with Dr. Tarnower, Jean was completely taken with him and was convinced that she had finally found that quote -unquote right man that she described to her friend Dodi all those years earlier.
she nailed it he he's a jewish doctor he really he fits the bill that she described and then a few days from dr tarnhower and it read you were a delight to be with kept wondering if you could keep up with the pace also whether or not you were a good dancer okay i don't love that note okay thank you i don't i mean i was like okay um it's a backhand compliment wondering if you could keep up with the pace like okay that would be my all right that's very condescending and also oh we get it like oh yeah you're so you're so quick and you're such a hot shot like i wonder if you can keep up with me oh
fuck off yeah i very different time i don't love that that would not tickle my fancy no that would not get me but gene gene was swept away by the hey to each their own you know.
So this was Jean's thing and she was very excited when another card arrived a few weeks later this time from Kenya where Dr. Taunauer was visiting.
Asking whether or not she'd be interested in getting together with him in New York.
Asking whether or not she'd be interested in getting together with him in New York in March.
As it's just so happened Jean was actually planning to be at a conference in New York that very weekend.
Sounds kismet. Sounds kismet so she eagerly agreed to meet him for dinner.
Now throughout her marriage to Jim one One of the things that really irked Jean about him was his lack of initiative and like creativity.
He didn't really have any ideas or wants of his own, which made it so that she had to always decide everything.
Yeah, and I can understand why that would be frustrating.
Yeah. So to her delight, Herman was the exact opposite.
He was decisive and firm, happy to choose the restaurant or the evening's activities, and high, as she began to call him, was thoughtful, adventurous and very romantic.
So within a few days of the dinner in New York, flowers arrived at Jean's office and her house.
Two sets of flowers.
Oh. And Hai called to check back in.
It was like everything she wanted in a man, like she described to Dodie a few years earlier, had materialized and been handed to her.
It really sounds that way.
Yeah. So a few weeks later, Jean was back in New York, this time to celebrate Hai's 57th birthday.
And over the course of the weekend, they saw a Broadway show together.
They saw all the New York landmarks, ate at some of the nicest restaurants.
Unlike her ex -husband whose interests were according to her pedestrian and vapid at least to Jean.
High was cultured and seemed to pursue his interest with enthusiasm which is again exactly what she was looking for.
So within a few months of dating Jean and High had completely fallen in love and High disclosed to his friend Mark Jacobson that he was planning on asking Jean to marry him.
Whoa. By then Jean had met a lot of High's friends at the galas and the country club events that they went to on weekends or at the dinner parties that he would held in his very opulent home to those who knew them their affection for one another was obvious so it came as no surprise to marge that high wanted to marry gene even though their romance had been pretty short up to that point yeah it feels that way it was like it wasn't a surprise but it was like a little like right now it was just like oh are you sure okay all right like i saw this coming but like like I would have talked you out of it.
Yeah, I saw this coming, but I was thinking maybe like a little more down the road.
Yeah. But in a letter dated March, 1967 to Jean from High, he expressed those feelings in writing.
So he said, Darling, I love you very, very much.
How can I tell? I miss you.
Are most people who marry in love?
Yes. I hope so. What happens?
So few are really happy.
You will give me all the answers this weekend.
Drive carefully. you will be transporting valuable cargo wow yeah he is he that's that's fucking molasses thick yeah that he's laying it on it's giving i'm in a place of sex in the city it's giving richard oh my god yes it's got richard vibes richard oh my god yes it's got richard vibes richard wow i kind of loved richard you can't not love richard that's the thing you gotta hate him later but yeah i hate him at some point but you'll love him till then i get it you did so that spring and summer the romance deepened which was reflected in their regular communications hi wrote in a letter another
letter in the spring darling my love for you grows deeper all the time i feel that we could be very very happy together may i suggest we try to spend a very very long weekend together around memorial day to see if you can really put up with me for more than a few hours without getting terribly irritated or bored i love this growing up melissa had the perfect life until she discovered her father's dark secret he was the notorious happy face killer experience a thrilling new paramount plus original series inspired by a true -life story.
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And over that long Memorial Day weekend, he did just that, giving her an emerald cut diamond ring.
Oh, damn. Proposing in a very traditional fashion.
Love that. I love an emerald cut.
I love an oval cut.
That's what I have.
But I also love an emerald cut.
You're like, just to be clear.
I'm like, I love both.
Hai's proposal came as kind of a shock to everybody who knew him best and had seen the way that he had dodged commitment time and time again in the past.
Mrs. Arthur Schultz, a friend who had known Hai for years, said he always had very attractive women friends he was always very generous with time and money but he never married gene on the other hand though thought little if anything of high's history with women and just happily accepted his proposal which you can understand yeah since the early days of her marriage to jim harris she fantasized about having a partner who was her intellectual equal but who could also provide a sense of security and she felt like she had found that in high yeah but the problem though is that fantasies don't usually
hold together when they're subjected to all the complexities of the real world no they tend to bend under pressure they do and you know we're gonna get there but jean was ecstatic about high's proposal of marriage and despite the fact that marrying him would require uprooting her life and starting over in new york she didn't hesitate to say yes in the moment what she hadn't thought about though was how uprooting that life would affect her teenage sons who had already had their lives disrupted by their parents' divorce just a few years earlier.
Yeah, you're right.
But it did occur to her at a certain point.
That summer, during a visit with Marge Jacobson, the reality of everything started to sink in for Jean.
And she said, Marge, I cannot marry high for a year.
I cannot take those children out of school again.
I took them away from their father already.
Well, that was, I mean, that was thoughtful.
Yeah, and I feel like that speaks to the kind of mom that she was.
But, you know, her concerns were reasonable, but they turned out to be actually completely unnecessary.
necessary in august just a few months after he'd proposed jean raised the issue of setting a date for the wedding so she could make longer term plans and to her surprise hi hesitated something that he rarely did in conversation and said jean i can't go through with it i'm afraid of it i can't go through with it and i'm sorry wow yeah i didn't see that coming yeah everyone who knew gene expected hi's response to come as a big shock to her actually like it just was to you but she responded very coolly she told friends it hurt for a while i suppose but i'm not very surprised he isn't a marrying man i
don't really know what all the reasons are huh yeah so interesting yeah it took quite the turn it was like i feel like it was so you know hot and heavy for lack of a better term yeah and like really reached a pinnacle point and then burned out like yeah but it doesn't burn completely out yeah eventually it does but it kind of like burns out then goes it's like a heartbeat monitor where it's like up down up yeah and you know and then it kind of flat lines for a minute forever yeah okay so with marriage off the table jean put her engagement ring back in its box wrapped it up and sent it back to
high not wanting to reveal her disappointment to her former fiance damn but to her surprise high called the moment he received the ring and insisted that she keep it And a few days later, he actually drove down to Philadelphia himself, ring in hand, and again insisted that she keep it.
That night, according to Jean's sons, she and Hai locked themselves in the bedroom and argued about the future of their relationship for hours.
From Hai's perspective, Jean deserved to be with somebody who wanted to marry her, and that just wasn't him.
He just simply didn't want to be married.
So in his mind, the right thing to do was to remove himself from the equation.
His decision not to get married appeared to put an end to the relationship altogether.
But in the weeks that followed, they did continue to see each other from time to time.
And in the meantime, and between all of that, Jean threw herself completely into work to try to distract herself from just the disappointment of it all.
And at the same time, her chronic back pain, which she had actually struggled with for most of her life, started flaring up worse than ever.
It seems like stress fed into that.
Yeah. Anxiety and stuff.
Yeah. As soon as High heard about Jean's back pain from friends, he called her immediately and recommended a new painkiller.
and even went as far as sending her a prescription for the pills.
So the distance from High, the painkillers altogether, appeared to have given Jean some clarity around their relationship and she started to consider if she might be willing to compromise her wants, especially if it meant that she was not going to lose him forever.
What seems to have occurred to Jean was the fact that High's desire to no longer see her or marry her didn't mean that he didn't love her, just that he wanted to protect her reputation from anybody who might see their not being married as somehow abnormal because at the time you didn't have like a long -term partner you got married you're living in sin yeah living in sin after all though high tarnauer was a fiercely independent strong -willed man who rarely compromised and that aspect of his of his personality was probably not going to change so late in life and she knew that so one night a few
months after they separated gene wrote high a letter, saying, Dear Hi, what a strange and wonderful and awful three months these have been, and what a lot of soul -searching thoughts they have evoked.
I know a letter from me is not what you want most in the world, but there are so many important things to say.
Everything about us is important to me, Hi, because I've never experienced love before until you.
And love, I've discovered, means wanting to share every thought and sensation, in fact needing to share.
As far as never seeing you again is concerned, I won't let it happen, however much you protest.
If your social engagements continue to be as pressing as they are this weekend.
Perhaps you could work me in during office hours.
Wow. Yeah. Also, I just want to write letters again.
I know this whole letter writing thing.
I'm like, wow, this is so much more like passionate.
Yeah. And dramatic.
Yeah. I love a letter.
Yeah. Shana Alexander, the journalist I mentioned early, wrote to Jean, the letter was a proclamation that she was a modern woman.
To Herman, it may have seemed a license to resume his lifetime bachelor habits but whatever the case the letter worked yeah hi called a few weeks later and did arrange a date to see her and the children in new york in the winter of 1967 thus beginning a new phase of gene and hi's relationship it's impossible to know what dr herman high tarnauer understood his relationship with gene to be but it is clear that they probably would have described it in decidedly different terms to gene everything that was starting back up again was a restoration of the way that things had been even though it was on a restricted
schedule where she could only see him on the weekends or holidays or when he had time to see her yeah for hi on the other hand gene's apparent compromise seemed as shana alexander suggested to have been interpreted as her implicit permission for him to carry on his bachelor lifestyle and just be able to casually see her when their lifestyles or when their schedules would allow yeah so basically she was like it's just gonna be that i'll see him on a limited schedule and he was like it's just that i'll see her on a limited schedule and in between then i can fuck whoever i want yeah this just doesn't
sound like this doesn't sound good yeah basically it became an open relationship yeah without but never having a conversation about it yeah which is never good it feels yeah i'm an open relationship i'm sure can work but there's gotta be to each their own a sit -down conversation where, like, limits and parameters are set up.
No matter what, you both have to be on the same page.
Yeah, because no matter what, you're in a relationship, exactly.
So to Hai's closest friends, the turn in his relationship with Jean and his selfish desire to carry on exactly as he pleased did not come as much of a surprise.
When she learned that the marriage had been called off, Marge Jacobson reached out to Hai to find out what had happened, and she really only got a basic explanation.
He said, Jean understands that we won't marry, but i have promised her that i would take care of her and i mean it she's remembered in my will oh she was in his will damn yeah this is so this is so like it's kind of progressive yeah it's very interesting it's progressive but uh but not at the same time yeah but like the complete opposite of progressive because it's gene giving in to him you know yeah yeah Yeah.
So like it, it comes off as this very like, wow, like they're so forward thinking and they're kind of like removing boundaries to make this work for them.
And it's like, but it's not.
And well, and ultimately it, that's not working for half of them.
You know, like the one of that half of them is completely compromising while the other one is not at all.
Right. And it doesn't sound, I couldn't find any information to see that Jean had other relationships too, that she, you know, filled her time with when she wasn't seeing hi.
so it was kind of like a one -sided open relationship which yeah that's definitely not ideal yeah and and again it's not i don't think it's what she ultimately wanted no i think she just didn't want to lose him this that's it this is this feels like desperation yeah so she yeah she gave up her own wants and needs yeah which was really unlike her yeah but to marge the response was characteristic of of dr tarnauer's typical cold detachment years later she said the truth is i think high was incapable of loving he had tremendous family feeling but without love high only loved himself and was quite
insensitive to everybody else oh that's sad i know that's a sad way to be it is and you wonder what he came from i was gonna say what led to that yeah yeah for gene high selfishness was one of the things that actually made him such a great man in the eyes of others though he was driven to succeed despite the odds and that drive had pushed him to become one of the most well -respected doctors in new york she once told a close friend hi is great to be with because he's so selfish he does what he wants and that makes him a damn good company is there anyone worse to be around than some self -made martyr
forever telling you i did it for the children's sake it sounds like she was convincing herself and i think i'm sorry what i think a lot of people can relate to this sentiment of convincing yourself that you're 100 100%.
That a terrible quality in somebody is actually their best quality.
It's actually – it would be awful if they weren't like this.
It's like that's – that is like the most like desperate.
Please just believe me that this is totally fine and that I would hate this any other way.
To say like somebody who's selfish is the best kind of person to be around.
No. They're actually – they're the worst kind of person to be around.
that's just like diabolically untrue and it's also like it's like this weird form of self -sabotage it really is because it's like no it's you be selfish yeah if you think that's a great quality possess it for a little bit be selfish do what you want to do gene that's the thing you know and yeah and you don't even have to be selfish to do that no but he is you know he was being selfish Yeah.
And I just, you feel it really is like, it's like a form of Stockholm Syndrome.
It really is. It is.
Well, and it's complicated because she let it happen.
Absolutely. So there are a lot of men that if they're allowed to be selfish, they're going to be selfish.
They're going to be selfish.
I was going to say, and on the flip side, there's a lot of women who are super selfish and crazy.
Yeah. So, anyway, going back to the story, one woman who dated Dr. Tarnower described him as, quote, a Jewish bachelor prince accustomed to being pursued.
But at the same time, Hai seemed to proudly reject the need for love and connection as a human weakness.
Shana Alexander wrote, I don't love anybody and I don't need anybody, became his proud and oft -repeated credo.
Oh, man. Yeah, which clearly something happened along the way.
Very clearly, yeah.
Maybe something in childhood.
There's gotta be something in that.
Yeah, maybe like a first relationship.
For sure. Something is there.
Yeah. It's possible that Jean's perspective on Hai's personality was some kind of a defense mechanism like we were just saying.
Or it's also possible that she just completely romanticized his behavior to make it more tolerable.
I think it's a mixture of both.
I think it is too. But whatever the case, it seems unlikely that she expected Hai's selfishness or his callousness would extend to his romantic relationships when it came to the emotions that he claimed to have loved.
Yet in the years that followed, as they continued to see each other on a truncated schedule, Dr. Tarnour was carrying on relationships with several women during the week while Jean was in Pennsylvania.
It's also like, isn't that like, it's just, that sounds like a lot of work.
I mean, yeah. Aren't you tired?
But it sounds like a lot of work, but it also sounds like it was filling his cup in a different way.
and again I think it points back to I think he actually needed to be loved on a mass scale yeah and I think I'm looking at it probably he's not looking at it through an emotional lens no so it's not a lot of work no because there's no heavy lifting in the emotional department and he's kind of getting everything he needs out of it for him it's really not a lot of work he's not carrying on full blown love affairs with people you know what I mean it sounds like no he kind of is or like his version of a love affair which is just to me it sounds like the flowery language and everything kind of comes
naturally to him like he's a the charm thing like when he goes doesn't sound like a lot of work he goes right up to the point of commitment exactly and sometimes even makes that commitment and then yeah i mean proposes well listen to this yeah there was in in some cases these relationships that he was carrying on were short -term casual relationships but some of them were what i'm sure the women considered to be serious yeah there were two women that he proposed to one in 1970 and one in 1971 before ultimately calling off those engagements just like he had with gene damn so like so he would get
right there yeah and i do wonder um i i could see this going both ways i could see it as he maybe was like i i i want to get married like i'm supposed to get married this is what i'm gonna do yeah or it's what those women needed to stick around for exactly the extra mile yeah like he knows what he needs to do to keep it going for as long as he wants to keep it going or maybe he thought that that's what he wanted yeah who knows decided to call it off because it's pure speculation because you know because we don't know and he's not here to say unfortunately oh so whether he was just completely oblivious
or cruel can never be known but hi seemed at least on certain occasions to be under the impression that gene did share his casual attitude toward their relationship in the two instances that he proposed marriage to other women in 1970 and 1971 he actually called gene to announce his engagements which is a little cruel in my opinion but i don't know if he thought yikes you know we're in an open relationship i'm also like did you think that like those women were gonna be down for that it's like he because i'm like is he just trying to like abide by the quote -unquote open relationship of it all and be
like you need to know when i am because who knows if they had they did talk about a thing and again pure speculation possibly had a conversation maybe they had a conversation where it was like if you are getting serious about someone i need to know yeah so like you need to tell me so maybe he's like i'm i'm getting the most serious that's absolutely possible you never know i don't it's possible yeah i don't think that doesn't sound like there was a lot of like discussions around this the form of this relationship i also and again pure speculation i think this became a little bit of a game yeah
and i think there was some satisfaction in stringing along and yeah pull holding off in some i mean some relationships like the like these kind of toxic they're addictive relationship that's the thing they become addictive yes and you become addicted yeah to the the drama the back and forth and the drama and the you know the the love bombing when you make up and how everything's great and then you know like the ups and downs become this like ride that you just can't take yourself off of yeah exactly well to most who knew him those those around him this you know calling her and being like hey i'm
engaged oh that didn't work out but i'm engaged again was just further evidence of his tendency to be a little cruel and a little thoughtless but gene tarnower's consummate apologist tried to maintain a sense of humor about it at least in public situations.
She once joked to a friend, when he told me she had four children, I knew he'd never marry her.
Wow. It's just like, oh.
Damn. Again, I say, damn.
I know. As time went on, though, Jean took whatever Hy was willing to give, but otherwise focused her attention on her career.
In 1972, she left the school she was working at for a position as headmistress at the Thomas School, another all -girls private school.
This was in, I think it's Rowayton, connecticut but the relocation to connecticut brought her closer to new york and a lot of her friends speculated that that was not an accident but she probably took that job so that she would have a shorter commute to see hi that makes sense it should he want to see her though because it was like she's he told her when they were gonna get together yeah yeah the sleep number smart bed is the best bed for couples and there's a good reason for that only sleep number smart beds let you choose your ideal comfort and support on your side of the bed firmer or softer
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anyway I just know this I know this I know this relationship I'm listening to it and I'm like it's sad the desperation on the other side that's rough again, going back to her childhood, think about what was ingrained in her she grew up with somebody who was a man who never saw her who never made her feel like she was enough and who she had to always constantly beg and fight for the attention or any kind of like pat on the back or any kind of compliment.
And it's like, it does carry into, you know.
Well, and then in going even further, so that was her whole childhood.
And then she married a man who she felt was the complete opposite of that.
And that didn't work out.
So she went right back to square one.
Yeah. And she was like, how do I, how do I manage to keep this?
Yeah. You know? And I'm sure she saw it as like her problem when obviously it wasn't for sure it was just that was and sometimes you don't even need to yeah sometimes you don't even need to have that kind of upbringing or anything like that to fall into that no you know what i mean i think it just adds a layer when you do but you're right yeah like sometimes that just happens i have a great father oh papa fucking rocks thinks i'm the bee's knees and always told me i was the bee's knees and like was great and is great and remains great and will be great forever and I still dated somebody and there
was a similar kind of relationship where it was like I was constantly trying to hold on to this awful situation and it kind of was like I'll see you when I see you which was literally like I have control of the situation kind of thing so it's like you don't even need to have that background but when you have that background I'm sure it's if that was if and I'm only thinking of my own thing yeah if it was that was hard to get out of for me who has no psychological reason to be trapped in that way of thinking to have a background and a trauma that builds upon that that's keeping you there must be
like being in quicksand oh yeah i can relate to it not my dad is not gene's dad by any sense but we have a strained relationship yeah i he wasn't a huge part of my childhood and you know like i love my dad but it's not my relationship with my dad is not my ideal relationship no and my relationship with my mom as we all know is not super fuego no so not super in my early years like in my teens and like very early 20s i was seeking out relationships for sure i would get the most attention but they weren't great relationships or any attention yeah any attention was good attention even like you know
yeah but then you either realize that that's a pattern and you divert from that pattern, which I did because Drew is the most amazing man on the planet, or you stay on that road and it doesn't work out.
But it's hard. Yeah.
It is. I mean, I didn't understand, like my John, I didn't understand why he was being so kind and why he was saying truthful things and being open.
I was like totally averse to it because I was like, what?
Like, who are you? Well, and you know what?
I also think, obviously, the father is a big part of the way that women pick partners.
I also think other experiences in life.
For sure. Like, not to like bring it to a dark place, but you were bullied.
Yeah. Your first relationship was not iconic.
No. And then your second one was not even less of a better relationship.
But then you, as you get older, you can, again, divert from that path and kind of start to find the things that you like about yourself.
Yeah. Yeah. And then when somebody is then, you know, confirming those things that they like those things.
It can be a little jarring at first because you're like, but then you're like, oh, shit, I do deserve this.
Yeah, that's the thing.
I think I, I hope and I wish that every woman or person got to that point.
Well, that's what I'm like.
I'm like, everyone listening.
Yeah, you deserve it.
You deserve. If you think you don't deserve it and you're being like, this person's too nice.
I don't deserve this.
You deserve it. You absolutely deserve it.
So shut up. Yeah. Everybody deserves some kind of love.
self take it we've been so like self -help lately we yeah because i just feel like it's just necessary we're in a place of positivity we're trying to i'm trying to bring more positivity more light around everywhere yeah you know we need it the world needs it yeah well so back to the story i know we're really going off it's like old school today some some of you guys missed that so this is i know and we missed that we missed that and we're allowed to go off track so bitch cheer in i do what i want yeah so most of the time like so she took a new job and again she took the job at least in part to
be closer to be a little closer so she took her new job at the time of her move private schools around the country were going through kind of a rough period there was a national recession going on and obviously widespread financial difficulties were causing enrollments to drop which of course then dramatically affected the budgets at the Thomas School and others like it.
In her time at Springside, where she used to work, Jean had actually gained a reputation for being a very tough but very efficient administrator.
So the offer of the new position at the Thomas School came with the understanding that she would be expected to turn things around for the struggling institution.
And one of the big things that they needed from her was to improve enrollment, among other things.
So that was a very high stress, very high pressure job.
And I think in a previous point in her life, it would have been a great job for her yeah at this point in her life it did not suit her in the slightest she had always been a little bit moody and kind of you know irritable at times but after taking the job at the thomas school everybody noticed that she was becoming even more unpredictable she would often lose her composure and even scream at students over the slightest things and things at the school were a lot more dire than she even anticipated and she was very much in over her head it was a lot more than just one person was going to be able to
pass In 1975, the Thomas School actually closed permanently, and Jean found herself out of work, and she was forced to take a job with the Allied Maintenance Corporation, which was a janitorial supply company.
It paid well, the job, but for Jean, who always wanted her work to contribute to the betterment of children, it was a slog.
And even worse, it didn't really carry any of the prestige or social status that she enjoyed as being a headmistress at an elite private school.
So while her professional life had become mundane and disappointing, her personal life was really in no better shape.
Things with high hadn't changed, and her chronic back problems were persisting, even getting worse, and actually caused her to develop a heavy reliance on desoxin, which was a prescription painkiller prescribed to her by Dr. Tarnauer.
Oh. It's an interesting choice of a painkiller.
Yeah. Throughout the 1970s and into the early 80s, desoxin, a brand name for the generic drug methamphetamine, was technically approved for the treatment of ADHD, but was also approved by the FDA for the off -label treatment of obesity and narcolepsy, among other things.
Essentially, they said, just do meth about it.
I was like, they were so wily back then.
They were just like, just do meth about it.
And when you think about it, this is the 70s.
That's, like, not that long ago.
I mean, now. It really is.
Fuck. We're all thinking of it in, like, 2000.
I think of everything, yeah, 50 years ago.
Yeah, damn. Because I always think the 90s were 10 years ago.
So it's, like, this is hard for me to comprehend.
Yeah, I'd be, like, 12 if that was the case, or, like, even younger.
Or just not even exist.
I don't know meth. But let's get back to the meth.
like many stimulants desoxone aka meth had some uh serious physical and psychological side effects including yeah it's a last resort for a lot of people at this point yeah but uh back then going back then they were just like here do this but the side effects included increased heart rate rapid breathing tremors restlessness increased body temperature euphoria but unfortunately dysphoria as well grandiosity repetitive and obsessive behaviors the list goes on oh boy these side effects also tended to be more common in people who were not diagnosed with adhd because this was a medicine to treat adhd
so if you don't have that the side effects are going to be worse yeah for sure gene experienced many of those uh side effects listed above because she did not have adhd and she even experienced other side effects as well oh man according to shena alexander desoxin is not just speed but high speed it hits the central nervous system five to ten times faster than ordinary amphetamines rather in the manner of cocaine wow so it's snap instant like it hits you oh that's so scary it is it absolutely is yeah so aside from that yeah things started looking up in mid 1977 aside from the aside from the meth
of it all things were looking up in mid 1977 gene learned about an opening for another headmistress position at the madeira school which again was one of the most the nation's most prestigious private schools in washington dc the job actually paid less than what she was making at allied maintenance and would require her to move further from new york and that meant further from high tarn hour but for somebody in her field the job was considered a crowning achievement because of the the prestigious nature.
Yeah. Thanks to the desoxyn, Jean's back pain was manageable and helped her accomplish far more than she might have otherwise been able to, which impressed the board at Madeira.
And soon she was installed as the school's new headmistress.
Damn. So the job was a welcome distraction for her because her life had become really lonely at this point.
Her kids had left for school for college.
And after college, they went on to starting families of their own, going to find jobs, that whole thing.
So she was by herself.
And when she wasn't at work, she spent a lot of her time just alone.
And on the increasingly rare occasions when she and High did spend time together, it was clear that things between them had really changed.
Once assertive and vibrant, Jean was very demure now in High's presence and didn't participate in a lot of conversations the way that she had in the past.
And for his part, High seemed more distant and cold with Jean than he had ever been oh no he rarely told her that he loved her and actually uh according to people who knew them kind of seemed to delight in withholding affection from her that sucks I think it got to his head a little bit yeah like the the nature of their relationship yeah yeah okay yeah I could see that you know so the change for that to happen it is yeah the change in Dr. Tarnauer's attitude towards Jean may have had something to do with his ongoing relationship with a woman named Lynn Tyferos who was his lab assistant at the Scarsdale
Medical Group. Lynn and Hy dated kind of casually for a few years but by the time Gene started at the Madeira school in 1977, Lynn and Hy had become more serious.
Like his other relationships, Hy's relationship with Lynn was not a secret and obviously wasn't something he was trying to keep from Gene, but in the past Gene had always tried to maintain a casual attitude about Hy dating other women including Lynn herself but the more and more time they were spending together Lynn and Hy it was clear that something was different here yeah the relationship seemed far more serious and for probably the first time in her relationship with him Jean started to feel uncontrollable jealousy oh no which I'm sure the meth didn't help I'm sure that did not help probably
not Jean's feelings of jealousy were often exacerbated by the overlapping presence of she and Lynn in Dr. Tarnower's life.
Yeah, that's going to be hard.
Oh, yeah. Like, for instance, on one occasion in July 1976, Jean was spending the weekend at Hai's apartment in New York and Lynn just arrived to the apartment with her kids to use his pool.
Oof. So his kids just hop in the pool and Lynn starts painting the patio furniture like around where Jean was sitting.
So Jean tried to ignore her for a little bit but finally turned to Lynn and said, does it not seem bizarre to you Lynn that you're here painting his furniture while I'm here it seems real bizarre it seems bizarre the whole thing seems bizarre to me Jean Lynn apparently didn't understand what she meant and Jean rephrased the question and said Lynn why the hell are you here and in response she said Lynn said I'm here because I'm allowed to be and she kept painting oh damn I'm like girls why do you want this yeah it's like girls that's when you do what what I did you band together up you get those
girlies together have you ever oh my god if anybody is looking for like a good like it's not even like a rom -com I hate to say this but it's a chick flick yeah The Other Woman oh yeah such a good remember we watched that with Ma once yes it's such a good movie absolutely did I love that I'm telling you best thing you can do band together and ruin his life yeah that's all not in this case but no so lynn has never uh spoken publicly about her relationship with herman tarnower and dr tarnower's unable to speak for himself so we only have gene's interpretation of events which are probably biased yeah
but still to the outside observer it did seem that while he might not have orchestrated the run -ins between lynn and gene dr tarnower still got a certain amount of pleasure that came from the drama you know yeah in fact according to Alexander.
Many observers surmise that Tarnower deliberately encouraged each woman to be jealous of the next in order to feed his own ego.
He encourages Jean to think of Lynn as a slut.
To Lynn, he evidently portrays Jean as a bothersome old lady.
Oh, man. By the way, that's a quote.
That's not my words.
Yeah. In 1977, shortly before she started her job at the Madeira School, Jean actually started getting harassing phone calls at home from an anonymous caller.
Sometimes it was a woman's voice on the other line, and sometimes it was a man's.
but it was never a voice that she recognized rather than a prank call from some random person though the calls seemed to be targeting gene specifically telling her that she was old and pathetic quote -unquote and that she should quote -unquote roll over and die holy shit yeah other times the caller would describe a explicit sex acts that dr tarnauer had performed on other women oh and the caller suggested that gene should quote take sex lessons implying that like she wasn't pleasing him anymore wow so she started with getting these calls at home but before long she the call started coming in at work
where the anonymous caller would leave a phone number with gene's secretary and request a return call and when gene would call the number they would start up again with the harassing comments and just hang up abruptly wow yeah also what are sex lessons i don't know i'm sorry that's just like imagine literally taking it to a place of sex in the city again that's not even a good like that's not a good read you should take some sex lessons like i'd be like that's stupid i would say that's a dumb thing to say remember though in sex in the city when they go to that tantric sex class that's all i can think
of i feel like that's a sex lesson i guess so but like there's more but what a bad that feels like something you say when When you ran out of, you didn't plan ahead.
Yeah. You didn't plan your insult ahead.
Yeah. Why don't you take some sex lessons?
Like what? Stupid. It's just like… Where?
Okay. Where are those?
Okie doke. Okie doke.
Whenever Jean received one of these calls, she would immediately call Lynn and accuse her of making the calls, even though she didn't recognize the voice.
Or she figured maybe Lynn arranged for somebody else to make the calls.
Yeah. But every time Lynn claimed she had nothing to do with this and demanded that Jean just stop calling her.
She even went as far, Lynn went as far as complaining to High that Jean had been harassing her, and High took Lynn's side and demanded that Jean stop the foolish behavior or he would end their relationship.
You gotta end the relationship then.
It's okay. If he's taking another woman's side, he's declared.
Yeah. Like that's, you've heard all you need to hear.
Move forward. He quiet quit.
He kind of Yeah, he absolutely, he like loudly quit.
And it's like, that's, get out of there.
Yeah. Well, the calls were soon followed by obscene letters sent to Jean's home and office which were always written in a very unfamiliar handwriting in time she changed her phone number actually multiple times but every time this caller managed to get the new number and the harassment continued geez you have to assume it was somebody that he was seeing absolutely because I don't think Lynn and Jean were the only people he was seeing so doesn't sound like I'm sure he had some kind of um what it wrote a dial is that like what it is where you like Rolodex Rolodex I liked your version What is it?
Rotordial? Oh, we had a Rolodex at mom's office house.
I can picture it. I used to flick through it when I was little.
But I'm sure he had one of those.
100%. And would write down Jean's new number and someone would get it.
Yeah. But before long, the stress started taking a toll on Jean, which only exacerbated her depression and anxiety.
And one day in 1978, she got a call from a former co -worker at the Thomas School, psychiatric social worker Sig Gerhardt, wondering if she might be planning to be in New York City soon.
Gerhardt always respected Jean and really loved working with her.
He said, to me, she represented everything I think an educated woman should be.
But for all her professionalism, he could tell that she was in distress.
He said later, she was in great fear of something, like she was paranoid.
So he had no immediate plans to be in the city, but he told Jean that if it was important, he would make the time and go see her.
So she declined to take him up on the offer, immediately minimizing her needs.
He said she wouldn't open up, she wouldn't tell me what it was, and I never heard from her again.
But it was very clear she was not doing well.
No, it doesn't sound like it.
Yeah. The mysterious phone calls and letters, which would literally never be solved, weren't the only harassment that Jean experienced at the time.
In 1979, after returning home from a trip to the Caribbean with Hai, she found several pieces of her clothing that she kept at his apartment had been slashed and ripped.
And it also appeared that several items of clothing had been speared with something, quote, brown and sticky.
That Jean concluded was feces.
Fuck that. Yeah. Yeah.
Nothing's worth this, everybody.
it's not nothing and no one is worth this yeah no that's what it feces on my clothes i'm out yeah you guys that's if they're that's that's where it is i mean my personally mine is way before that but like your boundary should be there yeah that should be really when you yeah that's when you should know what we we did what we had to do we said what we had to say this is not if it's getting to a point where shit is getting smeared on my clothes i'm gonna go when it's rule of thumb to a point of feces um i'm not peace out i'm not i am ride or die until feces become involved then i'm then when feces
enters the chat you leave i leave yeah that's when i leave the conversation that's really upsetting it is and you just wonder who it was that's that i'm like who the fuck did that we never find out god i don't want to i don't yeah i don't even want to know but like the harassing phone calls gene herself concluded that lynn was behind the district the destruction of her clothing of course but she could never say with complete certainty no she never would be able to but she would devolve a lot further into madness i would say and a lot of just other really sad things that we're gonna get into in part
two oh man i think we really set the scene there we you got to know gene in early childhood we're ramping up and we're we're on a downward trajectory now yeah so we're gonna save that for part two I feel like it's I feel like the pressure cooker is it's strategically placed and I think it's coming yeah it's on and it's full of feces oh no yeah no there's no more feces okay good I was like oh no can you imagine tell me there's not a ton of feces here no that's it So in the meantime, we hope you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it weird.
You want to do it? So weird that you join us for our bonus episode that's going to come out tomorrow on March 7th.
And it's going to be a fucking banger.
Please stay with us even though we said feces a lot.
Feces is better than shit.
Come back tomorrow.
See ya. Shit. Thank you.
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