Style and containers

[Steve & Patti Getzinger <psatg bluemarble net>]

When going through Havoc's book I came across H&V boxes as containers. 
It is on page 1 of the section Containers and Widget Layout. When I 
checked I found them listed as a level up in GtkBin. I am attempting to 
apply a style and make it recursive to the children. What I have found 
is it is like a hit and miss for me. I can apply set the bg of the 
window and get all children set. Window defined as a container. Notebook 
is also defined as a container but if I try to isolate it bg doesn't 
work. Applies to things like edges of entry boxes but not the back of 
the pages as desired. It did when applied to the window :) I checked the 
gtkrc.h file and found:

base
fg
bg
text

and have tried all them along with each state with no go. When I put an 
event box into a box it works. Do I need to place an event box under all 
widgets I wish to apply the style to? By the way it is bg that is giving 
me fits. If I set fg and notebook as the container it works as does text 
with a minor exception. I am generating some labels and they do not set.

Any ideas on what I am missing here?

TIA
Steve