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Her name was Arline. She was my father’s mother. She died in 1949 when my father was 16.

We knew very lit­tle about her grow­ing up. In the early 1980’s, after my grand­fa­ther died, a let­ter arrived at the house from my father’s aunt Marie who was six years younger than her sister.

My par­ents were going through an acri­mo­nious divorce that still leaves scars. My mother read the let­ter as val­i­da­tion that the men in that fam­ily were mean and hurtful.

There’s some­thing else at work. Read on;

Arline was a lovely lit­tle girl, very pretty and the apple of her father’s eye. My mother always called her “lit­tle peace­maker” as she set­tled argu­ments and I never recall quar­rel­ing with her although I did with my brother.

Our father’s death must have been more tragic for her as I was so young that although I remem­ber him I didn’t real­ize the loss. We moved to Bridge­port which would have been trau­matic, from afflu­ence and a lovely home to a first floor flat in the city. Arline returned to par­ties by train to New Milford.

My mother enrolled us in St. Augustine’s School. In high school, Arline took col­lege courses and received high marks, espe­cially in Eng­lish, Latin and French. In her quiet man­ner she was well-liked by teach­ers and class­mates. She was elected vice pres­i­dent Junior and Senior years. (The pres­i­dent was always male.). At grad­u­a­tion she was voted the Pret­ti­est and Most Pop­u­lar Girl in her class.

She stud­ied Den­tal Hygiene at Dr. Fones school — the founder of Oral Hygiene. She lived at home until 1924 or 1925, then worked in Green­wich, CT with Evie Maker, a classmate.

She always had many friends and suit­ors didn’t seem ready for mar­riage. E never dis­cussed it. Jack courted her for many years, off and on (he was in camp dur­ing the war and after­wards). They were mar­ried Novem­ber 16, 192?

Eco­nomic con­di­tions were not too good and they lived in New York, New Haven, Philadel­phia and Flush­ing due to changes of jobs.

Arline had dif­fi­culty in becom­ing preg­nant and treat­ment with an obste­tri­cian. You were con­ceived and born in Novem­ber 1933 but even with treat­ments she was unable to have another baby.

In 1934 Jack went to work at Sea­grams. In 1935, you and your par­ents moved to Inter­vale Place in Rye.

Sum­mer vaca­tions 1937 and 1938 were spent in New Hamp­shire with friends from Seagrams.

Arline, a very pri­vate per­son, rarely dis­cussed per­sonal prob­lems but I recall she told me that it was not relax­ing. You were a typ­i­cal lit­tle boy, very active, and these peo­ple were child­less. Jack was court­ing their approval to advance in the busi­ness. I can imag­ine the assure that Arline was under and I am sure that I couldn’t take it.

The woman (was it Green — I never met her) vis­ited for a week in Rye. As you know your mother enter­tained beau­ti­fully but your father was per­snick­ety neat and tight on the bud­get, and I sup­pose so anx­ious to get the pro­mo­tion that the stress must have been unbear­able. Arline suf­fered insom­nia for weeks and sleep­ing pills were prescribed.

Jack called me in Bridge­port and I went down by train as Tom was trav­el­ing by car in busi­ness. I was shocked by her appear­ance, out of touch with real­ity and con­fined to bed. She seemed like a hurt child and told me that Jack had said awful things to her. I reas­sured her that they were all bad dreams and not true — I never knew. The doc­tor said to “put her away.”. You can imag­ine my anguish.

Psy­chi­a­try was in its infancy, but I heard of a psy­chi­a­trist named Dr. Grif­fin in Bridge­port so sug­gested we con­tact him. He made arrange­ments at Bridge­port Hos­pi­tal. We drove up that night and Arline was a patient for a week. He diag­nosed it as schiz­o­phre­nia but I always doubted it. Maybe because I didn’t want to believe it.

Jack trans­ferred her to the Hos­pi­tal for Ner­vous Dis­or­ders in White Plains.

I went to visit her, which was heart-breaking and I can’t tell you the length of time she was there. After an inter­val she was dis­charged and Namie went down to stay for a while. She suf­fered a relapse and had to return to the hos­pi­tal. That time “shock treat­ments” were used and even­tu­ally the recov­ery was com­plete, never to reoccur.

The next years were happy ones. We moved to Rye in 1941 as Tom was work­ing in the New York home office of Met­ro­pol­i­tan. Your new home was built on High­land Road and your Dad was doing well finan­cially at Seagrams.

In June 1949, tragedy struck.

Arline had been treat­ing with Dr. Peter­son in Rye and then a spe­cial­ist in New York for a per­sis­tent sore throat and dif­fi­culty in swal­low­ing food with cough­ing spasms.

She was treated for sinus prob­lems although she sus­pected it might be can­cer. The doc­tor replied, “It is pos­si­ble but not very probable.”

Arline attended a lun­cheon at Cov­eleigh Club and many friends remarked to me that she never looked pret­tier than she did that day. She went into New York for din­ner and the­ater with your father. On their return she suf­fer a cough­ing attack and hem­or­rhaged. She was rushed to Port Chester Hospital.

By 7am, the Emer­gency Room was filled with her friends to donate blood before tak­ing com­muter trains to New York. The trans­fu­sion saved her life.

The pre­vi­ous week Arline had con­sulted with a local gen­eral prac­ti­tioner who sug­gested a series of tests to diag­nose the trou­ble but Fate inter­vened before the first tests.

She was unable to swal­low food so an oper­a­tion to insert a tube lead­ing directly to the stom­ach for nour­ish­ment. An exploratory showed that the can­cer involved other organs so it was too late to operate.

She was told it was bron­chi­tis but when her con­di­tion wors­ened I think she sus­pected but no one ever men­tioned cancer.

Arline was loved and admired by all, a truly kind and gen­tle per­son. Your father was at a loss and mourned her for years.