tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14230569896255131732024-03-21T11:14:35.238-07:00* History's Demand, Miss Wilder, Paul Keane: 1975 -1995Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1423056989625513173.post-5089388712735688872013-11-09T15:46:00.002-08:002019-09-10T14:41:28.424-07:00* To the Memory of Miss Isabel Wilder <div style="text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmnm3lZeMywtkIAdsXbG3s7S24yPNdvTChMQwYw5il_59n9PEwYHl-a0nmObVQD19mACaUb1tqvioWPHaIsVCz2UcfHvehqyKV5hRPpU53ccGYJVwQuikXqNHQlEmaOOfg9c09mnnYomT2/s1600/062.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: blue;"><img border="0" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmnm3lZeMywtkIAdsXbG3s7S24yPNdvTChMQwYw5il_59n9PEwYHl-a0nmObVQD19mACaUb1tqvioWPHaIsVCz2UcfHvehqyKV5hRPpU53ccGYJVwQuikXqNHQlEmaOOfg9c09mnnYomT2/s320/062.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: small;"><b>Around 1987 Miss Wilder asked me to take charge of removing overgrown shrubs around her family plot in Mt. Carmel Burying Ground and replacing them with dwarf shrubs. Mr. Frank Esposito, a landscaper in charge of the Burial Ground, effected the change. The Wilder plot is 100 yards from my own family plot.</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><i> No questions asked; </i></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><i>No comments sought; </i></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><i>No statements revealed (until now).</i></span><br />
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<b><span style="color: blue;">I am usually someone who loves to hear stories and elicits them from others.</span></b><br />
<span style="color: orange;"><b><br /></b><b><span style="color: blue;">There has been one notable exception: my twenty-year friendship with Miss Isabel Wilder, herself a novelist and the sister of the celebrated American author, Thornton Wilder.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: orange;"><b><br /></b><b><span style="color: blue;">I promised myself when I met her after her brother's death in 1975 that I would NEVER initiate a conversation about her brother, nor would I seek more information if she initiated such a conversation in my presence.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: orange;"><b><br /></b><b><span style="color: blue;"> I would listen. </span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: orange;"><b><br /></b><b><span style="color: blue;">Period.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: orange;"><b><br /></b><b><span style="color: blue;">Hence my recollections of Miss Wilder's comments about her famous brother are few,----and undeveloped----- as I kept my promise not to pry. </span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: orange;"><b><br /></b><b><span style="color: blue;">Years after she died a friend of hers told me I was a fool not to ask. <em>"She lived to be asked about her brother. She enjoyed it"</em> was the Wilder acquaintance's little sermon to me.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: orange;"><b><br /></b><b><span style="color: blue;">I had exactly the opposite opinion: I thought she had been "Thornton's sister" all her life: I wanted to have an authentic friendship with her, not with Thornton's sister. </span></b></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><b>I waited ten or twelve years before I told her of that promise to myself. </b></span><br />
<span style="color: orange;"><b><br /></b><b><span style="color: blue;">She was 85. and she was absolutely silent when I told her. (A rare occurrence since she had opinions on just about everything). I believe she was thinking it over---the ten years I mean ---to see if I had kept my promise or was just talking through my hat. </span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: orange;"><b><br /></b><b><span style="color: blue;">I never knew--since in tradition ---I didn't ask.</span></b></span><br />
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<strong><span style="color: blue;">However, she definitely spent time considering what I had just told her.</span></strong><br />
<span style="color: orange;"><b><br /></b><b><span style="color: blue;">I felt the same way about her nephew when I was introduced to him around 1976: It must have been a terrible burden to be the only male heir to Thornton Wilder (of the five Wilder siblings, there were only two offspring, those of the oldest brother, Amos: Tappan A. Wilder (Tappy) and his sister.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: orange;"><b><br /></b><b><span style="color: blue;">Tappy would inherit Miss Wilder's role as literary executor on her death in 1995 and has since created (LINK) </span><a href="http://www.twildersociety.org/"><span style="color: blue;">The Thornton Wilder Society</span></a><span style="color: blue;"> . Some would say he embraced the burden. Perhaps I was wrong.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: orange;"><b><br /></b><b><span style="color: blue;">Here are a few comments I did not pursue. I am glad I didn't : history's demand to reveal everything will have to defer to my own rules for our friendship, from which, until this writing, I have never deviated.</span></b></span><br />
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<li><b><span style="color: blue;"><i><span style="color: orange;"> </span><span style="color: purple;">"Thornton drank himself to death"</span></i><span style="color: orange;"> [ I'd have guessed it more likely he "smoked" himself to death from Gilbert Harrison's biography.] </span></span></b></li>
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<li><b><span style="color: blue;"><i><span style="color: purple;">"He never would have died if he knew the mess he was leaving me in</span></i><span style="color: orange;"> [as his literary executor].</span><span style="color: purple;">" </span></span></b></li>
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<li><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="color: purple;"><i><span style="color: orange;">[The year he died] </span><span style="color: purple;">"</span>He told me to sell the house</i> </span><span style="color: orange;">[50 Deepwood Drive in Hamden, <em>'the house The Bridge built'</em> as Thornton dubbed it after using royalties from </span><i style="color: orange;">The Bridge of San Luis Rey </i><span style="color: orange;">to pay for its construction] </span><i><span style="color: purple;">and get an apartment in <span style="color: orange;">[ the New Haven high-rise ]</span> the Crown Towers. </span></i></b><b><i><span style="color: purple;">I said, 'What about you?'. He said, 'I'll get an apartment down the hall.' "</span></i></b></span></li>
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<li><b><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: orange;"> When she took me to hear her nephew Tappy (Tappan A. Wilder) give a talk on town planning (?) at the New Haven Historical Society, she nodded to me as he took the lectern and said, </span><i><span style="color: purple;">"He's our purchase on the next generation<span style="color: orange;"> [as the only male heir to pass on the Wilder name</span><span style="color: orange;">] </span></span><span style="color: purple;">."</span></i></span></b></li>
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<li><b><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: orange;">On our way once driving from Hamden to her younger sister Janet Dakin's house in Amherst, Miss Wilder wanted to stop for lunch. I drove past a Burger King and said <em>"You'd never consider that."</em> She replied, </span><i><span style="color: purple;">"Thornton loved places like that"</span></i><span style="color: orange;"> and we went back for lunch at BK. </span></span></b></li>
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<li><b><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: orange;">In her home on Martha's Vineyard, which Thornton bought for her as</span><span style="color: purple;"> <i>"payment for my work for him"</i></span><span style="color: orange;">, the upstairs of the cape-style house on Katama had one large room. In it was a ten or twelve foot long plain drawer-less oak conference table. </span><i><span style="color: purple;">"Thornton bought it from the telephone company to use as a desk."</span></i></span></b></li>
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<li><b><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: orange;"> For years Miss Wilder drove a Studebaker Lark. It was just the right size for her and she loved <em>"Larky"</em> as she called it. When Studebaker went out of business, she couldn't find a replacement. </span><i><span style="color: purple;">"Thornton bought me the Mercedes for Valentine's Day.It was about the same size as Larky,"</span> </i><span style="color: orange;">Miss Wilder said of her '68, four-door grey Mercedes which I often drove, ferrying her to destinations far and near. </span></span></b></li>
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<li><b><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: orange;">I drove Miss Wilder on errands in her ten year old Mercedes. One day in Hamden on Whitney Avenue heading toward New Haven, Miss Wilder ordered a detour: </span><span style="color: purple;"><i>"Take a left"</i></span><span style="color: orange;"> she said after the Wilbur Cross Parkway entrance near Howard Johnsons. The left took us into Millbrook an upper middle class neighborhood of homes between Whitney Avenue and the exclusive neighborhood of Ridge Road. As I drove through the neighborhood Miss Wilder told me to slow down,</span><span style="color: purple;"> <i>"I had my chance"</i></span><span style="color: orange;"> she said as we drove by a particular house which she pointed out. </span><span style="color: purple;"><i>"The man in that hosue asked me to marry him. I turned him down.". <span style="color: orange;">I remained silent, but felt honored that she shared that intimacy with me.</span></i></span></span></b></li>
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<li><b><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: orange;">One day Miss Wilder asked me to take her shopping at a large supermarket. As I pushed the cart near the cheese section, Miss Wilder sudeenly commanded me, </span><span style="color: purple;"><i>"Turn around. Turn around and close your eyes."</i></span><span style="color: orange;"> I never contradicted Miss Wilder (well, only once in 20 years did I contradict her.*) so i turned around and covered my eyes, although I left a little space between my fingers so I could peak, even though I had turned around. To my astonishment, Miss Wilder lifted her dress in the middle of the store and took cash (bills) out of a garter on her upper leg, </span></span></b></li>
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<li><b><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: orange;">In 1980/81 Miss Wilder took my friend Pat Levy and me to lunch at the Lawn Club. Pat was viiting from New Jersey. No stranger to the musical stge (she produced a film on her friend Dizzie Gillespie's visit to Cuba), she struck up a conversation about actors and acting.. Somehow she and Miss Wilder got onto the topic of Sir Lawrence Olivier, one of Pat's favorites as a devotee of Shakespeare from our college days in the 1960's. Pat was amused at Miss Wilder's opinion about <em>'Larry'</em> who Miss Wilder knew socially: <em> </em></span><span style="color: blue;"><em>"What a bore. All he ever talked about was acting. Acting, Acting Acting. What a bore"</em></span></span></b></li>
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<span style="color: blue;"><b><i>* I don't recall the conversation but it was after I had known her quite a while and she was criticizing something I had said done. Usually I just swallowed her criticism, but for some reason this particular tidbit irked me and I recall saying quite distinctly, "That's not fair Miss Wilder, not fair at all." Uncharacteristically, her reaction was silence, rather than rebuttal. I think she was surprised that I spoke up for myself.</i></b></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: blue;">Mis Wilder gave up driving at 85 in 1985, giving the Mercedes to her nephew who by then lived in Chevy Chase. The last time I saw her driving was that year, clutching the steering wheel for dear life as she sped down Whitney Avenue, apparently making one last call at the family cemetery plot in Mt. Carmel Burying Ground, a hundred yards from my own family plot. </span></b><br />
<span style="color: orange;"><b><br /></b><b><span style="color: blue;">She had no idea that I saw her driving that day (I was in my own car, at a stop sign on Hamden's Carmel Street perpendicular to Whitney Avenue as she flew by entering Mt. Carmel and the land of the Sleeping Giant). She was wearing a hat and I think she had on gloves as she held the wheel tightly with both hands.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: orange;"><b><br /></b><b><span style="color: blue;">I knew intuitively that she was on an errand important to her; the hat gave it away, and so did her uncharacteristic speed.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: orange;"><b><br /></b><b><span style="color: blue;">It was the beginning of the end of my days in Hamden and New Haven, my birthplace and home.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: orange;"><b><br /></b><b><span style="color: blue;">I would be flung by vicissitude to Oregon for a year and then Vermont from 1985 to the present. The history of Miss Wilder's deepening emotional (and financial) investment in my growth and development literally grubstaking (wrong word: it was a gift not a loan) me while I interned at Bethel, Vermont's Whitcomb High School to become a certified Vermont English teacher in a Vermont town much like Grover's Corners, is a record which can be found in (LINK) </span><a href="http://iwpk7595.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: blue;"> my donation of her notes, cards and letters</span></a><span style="color: blue;"> to Yale's <i>American Literature Collection</i> of the Beinecke Rare Book Library, 2013. </span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: orange;"><b><br /></b><b><span style="color: blue;">I have spent most of my life trying to preserve history, (LINKS) </span><a href="http://ypukentstate.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: blue;">from Kent State, 1970</span></a><span style="color: blue;"> to the aftermath of the (LINK) </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wmclz-x5Fdg"><span style="color: blue;">Boston Marathon bombings, 2013.</span></a></b></span><br />
<span style="color: orange;"><b><br /></b><b><span style="color: blue;">In the case of Miss Wilder, I declined to do so, except in the matter of (LINK) </span><a href="http://wilder1985.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: blue;">our town's memorial to her brother</span></a><span style="color: blue;">, from 1976-1985.</span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: orange;"><b><br /></b><b><span style="color: blue;">Now, that I am about to enter my 70th year, I choose to comment here and there, but with a son's care for the feelings of a great lady.</span></b></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1oZNSFB-GEhYBhCOn7bDRknOz2wF9F-eomQxaLeed4xgIIxSTePyCsYzcZ0nnlvixGiKVeQMxsLU9ADJIvNF3RfVJ2jXHtxFMA6NlW6N-CvQTAer4bf0yQvAs-sgrIUfFuKOgV_r2164L/s1600/Oh+lost!+And+by+the+wind-grieved+ghost,+come+back+again.+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: blue;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1oZNSFB-GEhYBhCOn7bDRknOz2wF9F-eomQxaLeed4xgIIxSTePyCsYzcZ0nnlvixGiKVeQMxsLU9ADJIvNF3RfVJ2jXHtxFMA6NlW6N-CvQTAer4bf0yQvAs-sgrIUfFuKOgV_r2164L/s320/Oh+lost!+And+by+the+wind-grieved+ghost,+come+back+again.+001.jpg" width="301" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: small;"><b><i>April, 1985: Miss Wilder with my parents <br />at the dedication of Thornton Wilder's desk, portrait, and memorabilia<br /> in our town, <br />Hamden, Connecticut</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<b><span style="color: orange;"><br /></span></b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0