Old Family Photos 1

My oldest brother has begun digitalizing the old family photos he has been hoarding for decades and sending them out to the family.  I am loving the ones I've gotten thus far.   This one is of my mother, 'Gentle Annie', as a toddler, maybe around 1915 or 1916:

With Dad, In The Past...

My oldest brother, Bev, was the family photographer for many years.  He has just begun going through hundreds of old negatives of family photos, scanning them in to digitalize the images. (Hooray for Bev!)

One of the first images he did, which he sent to me last night, was the one below, which shows me with my father.  I look to be around six years old, which means the photo would have been taken in 1961 or 1962.

Dad and I both have odd expressions on our faces, which makes me wonder just what was going on in that moment almost 50 years ago.

And here is a second photo, taken just before or after the one above. In this one both of us are looking down at the little pad of paper, or book, which my father is holding. Had I  drawn a picture for him? I don't actually remember being artistic as a child, but I like the idea.

50 Years Ago Today

Here is a photo of me taken a few minutes ago (the cats put that scarf on my head- they like it, because it makes them laugh, so I left it on for the photo.)



And here is what I looked like 50 years ago, as shown in my first passport photo.

That passport was obtained when I was two years old, before my family moved to Istanbul, Turkey, where we lived for a little over a year. It was exactly 50 years ago today, June 18th, 1958, that we sailed away from the United States, on the SS Saturnia, seen below.

I had my third birthday on the ship, and, according to a note written by my mother in my baby book, I was taken swimming in Palermo, Sicily.

Restoring Grandpa Herman...

I wanted to put the great new photographic portrait I got of my grandfather Herman Aaron here on my blog. But the photo, probably over a hundred years old, was a bit deteriorated and stained, so it needed retouching to look its best. Below is the cleaned up image. This is only the second photo I have ever seen of him, so it means a lot to me. While he died long before I was born, I feel a real connection to this man. The photo is undated, but I'm guessing it was taken near the turn of the last century, when he would have been 38 years old.

click on image to view larger

And below is a list of passengers, showing Grandpa Herman, and Grandma Julia, along with my 14 year old father Gloster and his older sister Jean, on a return trip from Europe, sailing on the SS Olympic, in 1927. They are at the top of the list. Click on the image to see it large enough to read their names.

Photos Of Dad As A Young Man

My Aunt Jean's Daughter, Julie, was cleaning out her Mother's attic, and came across some old photos which she sent to me. Aunt Jean's was my father's sister, and included in the wonderful package of photos from Julie were two of my father as a young man. I'd never seen any images of Dad younger than his mid-twenties, so it was a real treat to get these! The first one, where he looks like a teenager, did not scan well, the background and hair being stained with glue or something, so I did some photo editing of it.



This second photo has also deteriorated over time. The hair is looking peculiar, but I decided not to mess with it. Dad's hair was black, though, not the lighter color it appears to be in this photo. This was taken when he was 21, and a student at Yale University. I think he looks a lot like his mother, Julia, in this photo.



And also, this seems like as good a place as any to include his obituary, taken from the New York Times, May 1967:

click on the image to view
it larger for easier reading

Another Branch of the Family Tree

I'm a very visual person, so my ancestors always become more interesting to me once I've seen an image of them. The couple below were just names in one somewhat obscure branch of the family tree, until my brother Bev found photos of them.

And now, I'm pleased to present, from my paternal grandmother Julia's line, one of my 32 pairs of Great, Great, Great, Great Grandparents, Mary and Thomas Gloster.

Mary Hayes Willis Gloster (1780-1854) and
Dr. Thomas Benn Gloster (1763-1819)

And here is a clearer version of that photo of her, which I found later:

Now, here's a little bit about these two, from info collected by my Cousin Mary, who may or may not actually be a cousin, but either way IS a dear friend, and wonderful at digging up genealogical data.

"Mary Hayes Willis, daughter of John and Mary Willis, was born July 13, 1780, and married in Orange County, North Carolina, May 30, 1795, Dr. Thomas Benn Gloster. The Bible of Dr. Thomas Gloster was taken to Tennessee by his descendants. It gives much information of interest on the family in Warrenton. The following from the Bible:

"Thomas Benn Gloster, son of Arthur and Catherine Gloster, was born in the city of Limerick, Ireland, St. Michael's Day, September 16, 1763, left Limerick July 1, 1785. On February 20, 1786 he arrived in Warrenton, North Carolina, one of the United States of America." He died there January 13, 1819.

Dr. Gloster and his wife, Mary, had two children: Arthur Brehon Gloster, born 1799, and Elizabeth Willis Gloster, born 1796.

That Elizabeth married John Anderson, son of Daniel & Maizy (Mary) Anderson of Scotland in 1815. They had five children, and then moved to Tennessee. My line comes down from their second child, Thomas Gloster Anderson (b. about 1820, d. 1882).

Two things jumped out at me from this --> My Great, Great, Great, Great Grandpa Thomas left Ireland exactly 170 years, to the day, before MY birth in 1955. And he married Mary when she was only 14 years old, and he was 31. That seems a young age for her to get married, but perhaps it was not unusual back then. She had her first child the following year.

UPDATE: Here is a memorial that has been put up for the cemetery where Mary Hayes Willis Gloster and others (including my gr. gr. gr. grandparents John Anderson & Elizabeth Willis Gloster Anderson) were buried:

Mm

Grandma Helen's Débutante Ball

I've been going through the online archives of the New York Times, looking for anything relating to family members, and I've found quite a few items. I realize these may be of little interest to my readers, but I find them weirdly fascinating, and besides, hey, it's my blog! So, here is the first one, about the coming out ball of my maternal grandmother Helen. She died when I was 12, and I only remember her as an old lady who seemed a little scary and disapproved of me because of my poor table manners. But my older brother Richard says he has quite fond memories of her. First a portrait of her, painted after she had already married my grandfather:

Helen Dunscombe Auerbach Emmet
painted by my great, great aunt,
Lydia Field Emmet

NY Times, December 3, 1910

"Mrs. Joseph S. Auerbach gave a dance last night at Sherry's for her débutante daughter, Miss Helen D. Auerbach. The dance was preceded by several dinners, from which the hostesses took their parties to the dance, which was an early one, the guests being asked for 10 o'clock.

Mrs. Auerbach and her two daughters, Miss Katharine H. Auerbach and Miss Helen, the débutante, in white satin, received the guests near the entrance to the small ballroom, which was decorated with pink tapestries and pink roses and azaleas, and where the cotillion was danced.

There was general dancing to the music of the Rosenberg Orchestra until midnight, when a seated supper was served at small tables placed in the adjoining suites of rooms and the cotillion followed.

William Baylis, Jr., dancing with Miss Helen Auerbach, led the cotillion. In the several favor figures, gold pencils and scarf racks were given to the men and the girls received fancy work bags and fans.

Those invited included a number of the married friends of Mr. and Mrs. Auerbach, and also a number of young married people and most of the débutantes of the season. "
Then it goes on to name a long list of the guests who attended. I've never heard of any of them, and you probably haven't either, so we'll just leave that part off.

One interesting point concerns the other Miss Auerbach, Grandma Helen's sister, Katharine. She was my great aunt, but I didn't know she'd even existed until about 10 years ago, when my Aunt Kate (another Katharine) happened to mention her. She had been presented to society at her own débutante dance just the month before my grandmother was.

These dances happened in 1910. Three years later, Great Aunt Katharine became engaged to William Baylis, Jr, the man my Grandma Helen was dancing with in the article above. And then, five years after that, while still a young woman, she died, in the Plaza Hotel in New York City. My Great Aunt Katharine died, along with over twenty-one million others, of influenza, in the great flu pandemic of 1918.

emergency hospital during 1918 influenza epidemic,
Camp Funston, Kansas

Photo from the National Museum of Health and Medicine

This Story - The Ghost Of Me

Several years ago, parts of an earlier me, the child me, were coming back around, clinging onto me and demanding attention... Demanding, I suppose, the attention they didn't get in my childhood. For those who like the term 'wounded child'- well, it was she who was with me, haunting me, pressuring me to speak for her, and to listen to her.

And so I began, with surprising difficulty, to write down some memories from the darkest times of my childhood, hoping to exorcise this wounded child from my psyche. Hoping she would forgive me for not traveling back in time and rescuing her from her pain. Ahhh, but then there is that old time travel paradox- if I had gone back to soothe this child that was me, then who would I be now? What would I have changed, if my burden had somehow been made lighter back then? I don't know the answer, but I offer up the memories I recorded in response to the demands of that former child, that ghost of me, in honor of what she survived.

Death Enters (and makes itself at home)…

Looking back, this story seems to have begun in January 1967, when I was eleven years old. Valerie, my mother’s nurse, picked me up from school, along with my older sister, Wylie. I climbed into the front seat of the station wagon, and Wylie got in the back. Valerie did not pull away from the curb right away, but sat still, looking forward through the windshield.

After a little while, she softly said: “Your Mum’s passed on”. Valerie was from England, and while I knew that ‘Mum’ meant our mother, I didn’t understand what she was telling us. I said: “What?”, and she explained that our mother was dead. Then she drove us home. I cried, but Wylie did not. A few years later Wylie ‘found’ Jesus, and then became a nun. But on the day Mom died, I think she was very much alone.

We went home, to a home that was broken. Mom had been sick for some time- I don’t know how long, because I don’t remember very well what happened before she died. She had Lou Gehrig’s disease, ALS. Her mind stayed clear, imprisoned in a body that grew progressively, relentlessly, more weak and dysfunctional.

To me, she was very frightening at the end. She couldn't talk anymore, could only make groaning noises, and her walk had become a monster’s stagger. I remember once we were both in the front hall, and the clip that held shut her feeding tube popped open, and the liquid stuff they fed her began pouring out onto the floor, spreading out in a brown puddle across the black and white floor tiles. She moaned, and tried to stop it, but her hands didn't work well enough. So I, child horrified, reached out and grabbed the slimy tube, and held it closed, as I screamed for someone to come help.

And how much more horrible must it all have seemed to my little sister, Temple, who was six when Mom died? Temple was the beloved, and spoiled, baby of the family, and Mom craved her affection.

When Temple came home from school each day, Mom would want a hug from her. Temple would stand in the doorway of the room and ask where her present was. If there was no present, Temple would turn away and leave the room. This makes Temple sound like quite the little bitch, but her childhood world also was falling apart then. And it never came back together for her, either. She became a drug addict and alcoholic and finally killed herself in 1990, when she was 33. She died in a bathtub of blood, with a bottle of vodka nearby.

After Mom’s death, Dad gave me a choice. It didn't seem like any choice at all to me. He said our house was being sold. Temple was being sent to live with relatives. I could either go live with him, in an apartment in New York City, or go to a boarding school in upstate New York. I had a pure terror of cities, and couldn't imagine surviving in one, so I had to choose the boarding school.

(The names of the school, and the people there, have been changed for privacy.)

The Cold (enters my heart)…

No Comfort School, in the Adirondack Mountains, was deep in winter when I arrived. It seemed cold, and dark, and hostile. I was in the sixth grade, and the school went from fourth to eighth grade. At that time there were just over 80 students.

And snow, there was lots and lots of snow. I remember having a bloody nose, and going outside and bleeding onto the snow, screaming red on pure white. I buried my blood deep in a snow bank, and dug it up now and then during that first winter there, to find it still bright frozen red. For some reason that gave me great pleasure.

But not much else pleased me during that long winter. I was a fat child, and painfully shy. My first roommate, Annie, was the adopted daughter of a famous actor. At night I thought of my mother, and cried myself to sleep, and this annoyed Annie. She complained about it, and I was moved into a different room, with Bess, a younger, unpopular girl. She had some kind of skin disease, and did not have such a rich daddy.

Before long I stopped crying. Instead of feeling heartbroken, homesick, and scared, I began feeling a rage building up in my core, surrounded by an icy numbness. I had become like the frozen blood. I pushed other children out of my way as I walked down the halls, and before long they moved away from me in fear. I enjoyed the feeling of power that gave me. I needed a target for all the anger I was feeling. The children weren't really worthy opponents, and for the most part I recognized that they were merely other victims- kids who’d been exiled from their wealthy homes because they no longer matched the décor, or because they had grown past the cute and cuddly age. So I set my sights higher, onto the cruel and controlling adults. They, the authority figures, became my sworn enemies. And I, at age eleven, entered into the war zone with a cold determination.

At the top of my hate list was Marr. She was the headmistress of the school. She was, even now, in my memory, a VERY creepy woman. She had a large head, curly gray hair, and false teeth which made an irritating clacking noise. She seemed to take special pleasure in making predictions of the bad end I was heading for.

I’ve always been a loner, preferring the company of cats and books to that of other humans. One day Marr found me in the school library, comfortably curled up, reading a book about a psychotic teenager. She took the book away from me and studied it for a while. Then she returned it, and told me, rather smugly, I thought, that if I kept staying by myself, reading, instead of being outside playing with the other children, I was going to wind up schizophrenic, just like the girl the story. But that was OK with me, at least it was more appealing than playing with the other children, or doing anything Marr wanted me to do.

I remember another time when Marr had called me into her office. There had been many of these little chats. Mostly I would refuse to speak, and just stare at her with silent hatred. This time Marr began to talk about strength of character, and emotional strength. She explained to me that some children were strong in a good way, but that I was strong in a bad way, a very bad way. I was pleased. It is always good to hear your enemy admit you are a powerful adversary.

One day, after I’d been at the school for about three months, I was told Marr was in my room, waiting to talk to me. I went to my room and found her sitting on my bed. She patted the bed, and told me to sit down. I remained standing. She told me that my father was dead. I broke down sobbing with grief, before I remembered myself and regained control. I was furious with Marr. She, my enemy, had violated me by bringing me such intimate and devastating news.

One friend I made that first year at the school was another sixth grader named Kitt. She was an exceptionally beautiful little black girl, with lovely long hair waving down to her waist. She was a sweet and kind child, with none of the darkness and anger that I was so filled with. One day in the spring she was out in the woods riding in the pony cart. A dog suddenly darted out from the trees, barking. The pony, scared, leapt forward, swerving, and the cart it was pulling tipped, and Kitt tumbled out. The leg of her pants got caught in the cart’s wheel, and she was dragged along down the trail.

When they got the cart stopped, Kitt was unconscious. She died later that day in the hospital. I remember a week later, when we were having a memorial service for her, a small group of us students who especially loved her had gathered together, crying. When Kitt’s mother saw us, she came over to us and comforted us. Kitt’s little sister was with her, and she looked exactly like Kitt, only smaller. Her mother told us that Kitt would not want us to be sad, but rather would want us all to remember the happy times we’d had with her. I remember being very impressed that this woman was able to comfort us, in the midst of her own great pain. I thought of it a lot afterwards.

Another time, early in my second year at No Comfort, when I was in the seventh grade, I was told that my older brother, Richard, was on the phone for me. He had never phoned me before. I got on the phone and said: "Who's dead?". It was my grandfather. He had shot himself. His wife, my grandmother, had died a little while earlier, and he didn't want to go on living without her. My cousin Jerry, who had Hodgkin's Disease, had also shot himself, just before my mom died. So suicide, especially by gunshot, has become something of a tradition in my family.

And, by this time I had gotten the message, learned the lesson, that if you love someone they are quite likely to die. So, it was better all around not to love anyone. Thirty years later, when my lover said she was dying of cancer, it made perfect sense to me.

Chickens (and chicken shit)…

No Comfort School was ahead of the times in the area of nutrition. They said: ‘A healthy mind needs a healthy body’. They served us all organic food, no refined flour or sugar, and much of the meat was raised on the school property.

We had our regular daily chores to do, and there were also certain special chores that happened once in a while. One of these was the dreaded and disgusting Chicken Plucking Day. This was when the chickens were killed, beheaded, de-gutted, and plucked. Even now, thirty-seven years later, I can remember the smell of it.

And I remember the time one spring when I tried to ditch Chicken Plucking Day. I had hidden in a bathroom, but I was found by one of the male teachers. He told me I had to get out there, NOW. I replied that I’d go as soon as I put on my shoes. He said no, I had to go NOW, without shoes. So, fighting the urge to vomit, I went and stood barefoot in the blood and feathers, plucking chickens.

Another time, I was hanging out in a hallway on a Saturday afternoon, doing nothing in particular, with a red haired girl named Sally. A teacher saw us, and advised us to find something worthwhile to do with ourselves. A little later, the teacher saw us again, still doing nothing. He said that since we hadn’t found anything to do, he would find something for us. Then he ordered us to go up to the barn and shovel out the chicken coop. The chicken shit was thick and stinky. There was a LOT of it. Sally was so discouraged by the sight, and smell, of it all, that she collapsed in sobs right onto the enormous compost pile. But I was beyond that sort of release by then. I was hardened. I was a half grown puppy, bearing her teeth and growling with fear and mistrust at the world around me.

© 2007 All Rights Reserved.

Mom & Her Siblings, 1923 and 1942

click on any image to view full size

The Emmet children in 1923-
with her brother and three sisters.

And the family again in 1942,
at Mom & Dad's wedding.

My mother, the bride, 1942

In The Cage

In an earlier post, I included an old letter my little sister Temple wrote to me. In one section she spoke about what she'd been told of our early childhood, before our parents died and we were sent away to different places. She said: "it sounded like we were real animals". Well, maybe our parents thought so too, as they put us outside in a sort of a cage. You can see us in it below.

I'm guessing the cage, or pen, was around 8 feet square. I only have vague memories of being put in there, but there is this photo for evidence. Perhaps one of my older siblings will clear this matter up for me. I don't know if they were put in there as young children too. Temple and I were probably put in there to keep us from wandering off. It was probably well intentioned. Still, I haven't talked to anyone else who was put outside in a cage as a child. Were YOU?

Holding my sister Temple, in our outside cage, 1960

(wire mesh side of cage visible behind me if you look closely)

Grandma Julia in 1915

click on photo to view larger

Above is the photo of my grandmother Julia, taken in 1915, which hangs on the wall above my computer. The book she is reading is 'A Woman's Hardy Garden', first published in 1903 and last reprinted in 1999.

I never met her, just as I never met her husband, my grandfather, Herman Aaron. Her son, my father, was 4 years old when that photographic portrait of his mother was made. I was born 40 years later. My father is shown below, as a young man, in a World War II era photo.

click on photo to view larger

The generations roll on, we come and we go, leaving behind dust that smells of time long gone, like the dust that floated out to tickle my nose when I removed my grandmother's photograph from its frame. I honor my ancestors as best I can, by placing their images here.

© 2007 All Rights Reserved.

Old letter: Temple 'In Recovery'

I've been slowly digging through a musty box I hauled out of the garage, filled with old letters from various people. Today I pulled one out from my now dead younger sister Temple, written a few years before she killed herself, from inside a residential drug & alcohol rehab facility in New Jersey. I've shortened the name of the place to 'The Lodge', just to maintain its privacy.

It's interesting to me to read this seventeen years after she wrote it, since I now work with youth who are 'in recovery' (or avoiding recovery, as the case may be), and so I recognize some of the language Temple is using as standard 12 Step terminology. Temple did actually stay sober for a while after being at this facility. Paige, who she refers to in the letter, is one of our older sisters. She was the one who helped Temple the most during the time Temple was trying to get sober towards the end of her life. While this is a private letter, I thought it might hold some more general interest for others... a peek into a moment in the life of a young woman struggling to overcome some of her personal demons. And Temple always loved the spotlight, so I’m sure she’d approve of her words being publicized on my blog. So, here's what she had to say to me on July 1st, 1990:

Hi! I'm sitting in a lecture (it's a very boring lecture) and thought about it being your birthday and so… Happy Birthday!

I’m sticking with things here, though it’s hard. Paige came by yesterday and we had a really nice visit! (The last one was a disaster.) She brought me some clothes because I’ve been yelled at for wearing ‘inappropriate’ clothes. We have a ‘look’ here- The Lodge look is pixie hair cuts, long skirts, long sleeved blouses, stockings and usually blazers. It’s scaring me ‘cause I’m wearing Paige’s old suits (blazer & skirt) and I’m starting to like them! My favorite is a lime green jacket/blazer with a long white pleated skirt. I look like Aunt Kate, or any typical rich Princeton society lady. I call Paige’s clothes my ‘sober clothes’.

Paige was telling me what we were like when Mom was dying. We sounded like real animals- spoiled rotten brats! I’ve been doing my life story – it’s something I’ve always said I’d do – but always gave it just a half assed try. It’s difficult – gives me migraines (and we aren’t allowed any aspirin here) but it’s supposed to be good therapy, let’s us see our behavior patterns. I notice character defects that I have, popping up as early as 6 years old. Maybe I’ll end up publishing my ‘memoirs’ someday. It could be a good book to teach addicts and alcoholics what to avoid. I’m just about to start writing about the ‘boat years’ with Kate & Tina. Should be interesting. I think the hardest part to write about will be the first Miami years, at 18 years old, when I was into free basing, etc… Oh well…

I’ve been trying to practice rigorous honesty because they say you can’t get sober without it. So I’m going to have to write myself up for writing you this letter during lecture. Mrs. D. has been in my face all fucking week and I’ve been feeling like I’m in reform school rather than at a rehab.

I miss my cats! We see deer here all the time – they are so beautiful. A guy & girl got kicked out yesterday for passing a note to each other (fraternization) and we all just found out that they actually had sex here! That’s virtually impossible to do here. Also 6 people have walked out in the last 2 weeks so the place is in a lot of turmoil now.

Did I tell you about __________ ? (Name of famous rock & roll star edited out by Jaya – Temple had met him in another residential rehab center she was in before The Lodge.) I just got another letter from him. Well… Write Please! Love ya, Temple

Temple Climbing Out Of Ruin
Ireland 1977

© 2007 All Rights Reserved.

Grandpa Died in the Hotel Dorset

Construction of the Hotel Dorset, a 19-story, 240,000 square foot building in New York City, was completed in 1927. It was was then demolished back in 2000, to make way for renovation and new construction of the Museum of Modern Art.

Between the Hotel Dorset's being constructed and being demolished, my paternal grandfather, Herman Aaron, died there, on April 20th of 1939. He was 77 years old, and had lived in the United States for 74 of those years. He came over from Germany when he was a child of 3, sailing from Hamburg on the SS Teutonia, and arriving in his new country on June 2, 1865.

He died before I was born, so of course I never met him. Nor do I remember hearing anything about him as I was growing up. I'd never even seen a photograph of him until a couple of years ago, when my sister Wylie sent me some information which included a copy of his obituary. This had a photo of him. When I saw it, for reasons I still can't fully explain, tears came to my eyes... somehow there was a connection between this man and me, and one that stirred up my emotions. Below is a portion of that obituary.

I was also sent a copy of his death certificate, which said that he was buried at the Kensico Cemetery. I found their website, and it looks like a lovely, peaceful place:

My Childhood Home...

Before my parents died, when I was eleven, and I was sent away to boarding school, I lived in Kingston, New Jersey. This is near Princeton, where Princeton University is. Our house was later sold and turned into a bank with some offices above. I remember one of the upstairs bedrooms, , became a psychiatrist's office. Since I was having emotional challenges during this period of childhood, it seemed appropriate. Below is the flyer announcing the opening of our house as a bank, from back in 1967.

(click to view larger image)

And here is an edited view of the house:

Across the street lived my best friend, Andy (Andrea), who was a year older than me. Her family had some cows. I remember once Andy and I got into a fight and began picking up the 'cow pies' (dung piles) and throwing them at each other. Some were all dried out, but not all of them. A good bath was needed by us both after that!

Andy and I also made friends with a little black steer who lived in the barn. He was a cute fellow, and we named him Blackie. We would visit him almost every day, as he grew larger. One day we went to visit and Blackie was not there. This was very strange. Where could he be? We asked one of the men who was working there about it, and he told us Blackie had been taken off to be slaughtered. This was a great shock to us, as we'd never realized that might be Blackie's fate. It was around this time that I considered becoming a vegetarian, like my big brother Richard... but then, when I realized that would mean no more of my favorite cheeseburgers, I quickly abandoned the idea.

Andy's father was a doctor, and later he would be the one to stitch up my knee, after I put it through the kitchen window as Andy and I were trying to get into my house, to look around after it had been sold. Andy and I also liked to sneak peeks at some of his medical books, to look at the disturbing photos of various diseases, mutations, and injuries. This fit in well with what we called our 'bloody murder' games, which we played now and then, where we would pick off scabs we had to see who would bleed the most.

Andy's mother was the one who taught me how to spell my name when I was little, by refusing to let me in to visit Andy until I spelled it. Andy would lean around her as she barricaded the door, and try to give me hints in silent sign language. I also remember we would hunt through their house before Christmas, trying to find where Andy's mom had hidden her Christmas presents.

And I recall the BIG white chocolate Easter bunnies Andy got each year. I was jealous of those bunnies, even though she would usually share them with me. They took Easter more seriously than my family did, because they were Catholic. The only time I've ever been to Catholic church services was when I went with Andy's family a few times. That was back when services were still being given in Latin. I think I enjoyed that strange and incomprehensible aspect of it as a young child. And just a few days ago, the current Pope, Benedict, announced he'll be allowing the option of the Latin masses again. I approve of this decision. Bring back the mystery of my childhood - more Latin, and more white chocolate bunnies!

Learning to Love Reading

Reading is one of my favorite ways to spend time, even though it can be difficult to do here at home as there is often a cat between me and the book I'm trying to read. The photo below is one I treasure, showing me sitting on my father's lap, reading with him. This must have been taken in 1957 or 1958.

Istanbul

Istanbul, Turkey, is a place where I almost died. Just as I turned 3 years old, my family moved from the US to Isanbul. We had a house that was right on the Bosporus, a body of water that connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara. One day I tumbled into the Bosporus, and would have drowned if not for my older sister, Paige, who was around 14 at the time. She heard the yells of our servant, who could not swim, and rushed out to dive in and save me. (Thanks, Paige!) The image above is the Bosporus, as seen from Satellite, and below is one of me at three, on the very edge of the Bosporus, tempting fate.

Last night I found a family Christmas card handwritten by my mother while we were living in Turkey. Mom has been dead for 40 years now, so it is rare for me to come across her handwriting. Her note is below. I have no idea who Aunt Jane was, but I was the baby she refers to. (My younger sister Temple was born just over a year later, after we returned to the US.)

And here is the front side of the card:

Here is a photo of me with both my parents while we were living abroad, taken in 1958 or '59. It looks as if whatever I was saying to them was amusing. I'm guessing now that I was having a vision of the future, and telling them all about the internet, and how someday I would put photos of them on my blog.



UPDATE: Aha! The mysterious Aunt Jane my mother was writing that Christmas note to has now been identified, thanks to my helpful brother Richard. She was Jane Erin Emmet de Glehn (1873-1961). She was the youngest sister of my great grandfather, Robert Temple Emmet. She was married to the artist Wilfred Gabriel de Glehn (1870-1951) and was also an artist herself, one of several women artists in the Emmet family, including Jane's sister Lydia Field Emmet. Below is a painting by John Singer Sargent, from 1907, showing Jane painting, with her husband nearby:

'The Fountain, Villa Torlonia, Frascati, Italy'

And below is an older Jane, painted by her husband:

And finally, here is one of Jane's own paintings:

Remembering Clunker...

When my mother died, in the winter of my eleventh year, I was sent off to a boarding school for kids in 4th - 8th grade. It was up in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, and was called North Country School. I entered during the sixth grade, and was kicked out at the end of eighth grade for being a bad apple, a bad influence, and just a bad kid.

A few months after entering North Country, my father died, making me an official orphan. My Aunt Kate (1915 - 2003) bravely stepped up and took over as my guardian for the next few years. She decided the task was beyond her when I was kicked out, and the task was passed onto my oldest sister. But during most of my time at North Country, Aunt Kate was my parental figure. She was the one I would call, sobbing into the phone, begging please please PLEASE not to be sent to the summer camp, Camp Treetops. I was sent anyway. It was clear to me that I was a burden that needed to be stuck away out of sight all year round... boarding school and summer camp was just the ticket.

One memory that stands out from that period was my enormous embarrassment when Aunt Kate would come to pick me up in Clunker. She was a wealthy woman, as was typical of the parents of children at North Country, but she loved driving this ANCIENT old car around. It must have been from the 1930s or 1940s. Today I would think that old car extremely cool, but as a child it just looked shabby and ridiculous to me. I hated riding in it. I remember there was cardboard on the floor, and you had to keep your feet spread to the sides, as the floorboards were starting to corrode away. The original exterior paint was gone, leaving Clunker a dull primer grey.

Clunker vanished into the haze of distant memories long ago, and Aunt Kate herself, while unforgettable, has been gone for 4 years. Now I imagine they might be together again, both of them young and shiny, riding along those mountain roads in some happy afterlife.

Remembering Temple

Tomorrow, April 21, would have been the 47th birthday of my little sister, Temple. She killed herself 14 years ago, slitting her wrists after drinking a bottle of vodka. She was thirty-three years old, five years younger than me. While Temple had been having trouble in her life since she was a teenager, battling addictions to various substances, and perhaps mental illness as well, I always thought that someday we'd be old ladies sitting on the front porch together, laughing about it all. But it just didn't turn out that way.

Summer 1960 ==> Me, holding Temple the cat,

and Wylie holding our baby sister Temple.

Temple and I were the two youngest of six children. I used to pull her around in a little wagon, up and down the long central hallway of our house. She was a typical bratty little sister, putting pink lipstick on my white and grey cat, dumping out the little bottles that came with my chemistry set, and stealing the money from the 'Please Help Us Feed Our Cats' collection box I put out at one of our parents' cocktail parties. Our personalities were very different- while I dressed in oversized sweatshirts and played with cats and cowboy guns, Temple wore pink ballerina outfits and played with make-up and other girly stuff. My favorite children's story was Alice in Wonderland. Temple's was The Wizard of Oz. She had the soundtrack to the movie on a record, a red vinyl record, which she played over and over again. I seem to remember that one of my parents finally broke the record in two because they just couldn't stand hearing it any more.

Temple at 15

An odd footnote to Temple's life... A few years ago, just for the heck of it, I entered her name into Google and did a search, to see if anything would come up. I got a hit for a cheesy low-budget vampire movie, called 'I Married a Vampire'. Temple was listed as one of the actors. I ordered the video. If anyone reading this has actually watched this movie, Temple plays the supporting character Portia. It was an awful flick, but it was very cool for me to watch Temple in it, and hear her voice again. It was like having her pay me a strange sort of visitation, 10 years after her death.

So... Just to let you know,

I'm still thinking of you, kid...

Happy Birthday, Temple!

A photo montage that was
made for her memorial service

(click on it to view larger image)