2 - Stanley and Frances ... or the Guardian Angel

Stanley and Frances circa 1956

     Mother and Daddy had a sort of guardian angel, a close family friend and neighbor who had a special affection for them both and always had their interests at heart.

     Stanley Hartly was a charming, fun loving gentleman of some fortune.  He was a generation older than my parents, and he always seemed extremely sophisticated to me.  I thought he looked just like the white-headed bon-vivant on the masthead of The New Yorker magazine.

     He once gave me his hand-me-down camel hair overcoat for which he had reportedly paid 100 dollars in 1939.  That was a big amount back then, and it still sounded like a fortune when I inherited the coat in the 1950's.   I cannot remember what finally happened to it, but I was still wearing it the early years in Paris.

     Sixteen years separated my father from his oldest brother, and it was perhaps for that reason that they never seemed to have much in common or any special affection for one other.   Linwood first worked in Virginia with a large company which mined sand and gravel.  When Daddy finished high school he joined his brother in Richmond where he worked for several years before World War II called him away.

        As for Stanley, he had his house on a large plot on the outskirts of town, and when my father came back from the war, he proposed turning over some of his land so that our family could build and become his neighbors.

     He didn't stop there.  He aspired to a better future for my father than working for the sand company in Richmond, and he eventually talked my dad and his brother into leaving their jobs, and bringing their sand business know-how to Aberdeen.

     The time was ripe, there was a lot of building all over the country after the war, and Stanley proposed putting up the money --all of it-- to create the company.   This became Pleasants Sand & Supply, and it turned out to be a decent investment with some fairly prosperous years for the company in the 1950's.  As I said, Stanley was the silent partner, did all the financing, and few outside of the family ever knew of his connection.  My father and his brother were the working partners and official owners.

     The story takes a little detour here.  I hadn't mentioned there was someone else involved in all this.  My Aunt Frances.  It wasn't common knowledge, but she was even better friends with Stanley.   It was always kind of complicated, because both had responsibilities at home.  Stanley had an invalid wife, at least in the early years.  And Frances?  Well, as the only single sibling of six brothers and sisters, she felt an unnecessarily important responsibility to her parents.  And then, later, there was Rose (see Goodbye Rose).   Tennessee Williams would have felt right at home.

     So, Frances became another silent partner.  Stanley gave her 25% of the business.  It was just a gift, and quite a godsend it was, as all she had to do was cash her dividends.  Frances certainly did nothing wrong; but it  nearly drove my parents crazy as the decades passed by and she continued to pocket the money.

     Mother thought Frances should have at some point renounced her quarter interest, but only an idiot would have contemplated such a move.  Frances was not much of a businesswoman, but she certainly was no idiot.

     She could be, however, indelicate.  She tended to spend her money lavishly, and when there was none left, she continued to spend it anyway.  There were times when my parents were trying to budget for the running of a family of five, when things might have been a little tight.  It was inevitably at a time like this that Frances would appear, asking if Daddy couldn't release the quarterly dividends a few weeks early ... as she was a little low on funds that season.

     It didn't help that the parents saw Frances as a bit of a snob, and Mother especially could be allergic to some of her "ways".

     Frances had a soft spoken, polished manner of speaking, for instance, which Mother perceived as affected.

     "Why can't she just say 'thank-you' like everyone else," I remember Mother complaining.  "Why must she always say, 'thank you SOOO much'?"

     The story doesn't really have an ending.  The four of them continued to enjoy each other's company all their lives, despite the friction that Frances sometimes generated.   Stanley became a widower in the mid-50's, but as far as I know there was never any serious talk of re-marriage.   He saw Frances periodically over the years, often with Mother and Daddy,  when he would invite them all out for the evening to a place called Hernando's Hideaway in a neighboring county.   Or sometimes for a weekend on the coast.

     Stanley died in 1975, not quite 30 years after the company had been created.  He left my father his part of the "sand pits", after which Daddy bought out the shares of Linwood and Frances.

With Frances, Versailles 1986

  
     Not too long before her death, Frances visited with me in Paris.  We always had a special relationship and were still close in our way.  I can't remember what provoked my question, but I recall asking her if Stanley had been the love of her life.  (She was a particularly discreet person.  I would like to have asked other intimate questions, but I wouldn't have dared, and at any rate I would have never received a straight answer.)

     "Such an impertinent question!" she said.  There was a harshness in the words, but she was smiling, and I am certain that my curiosity somehow pleased her.  "It was all such a long time ago, you understand ... and much too private."



Your input is welcomed:  frank.pleasants@libertysurf.fr

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

 Frances is also featured in "Goodbye Rose," Hotel Musings No. 61; and in "A Two-Dollar Hamburger Under a Silvery Dome," Hotel Musings No. 4  (to access, click on highlighted titles).

1 - Doctor Bowen and Janette

Doctor Bowen, Christmas 1973

      Doctor Bowen was the archetype of a country doctor: he was chubby, somewhat unkempt, and he seemed to perpetually have a wet, half-smoked cigar hanging out of the corner of his mouth.  His bedside manner did not always include an excess of tact, and over the years he had his share of detractors as well as staunch defenders.  I never remember him having any kind of secretary, and his office was consequentially a mess, stacked almost to the ceiling with years' subscriptions of detective magazines and old medical journals.

      Janette was the daughter of Aunt Zadie, my paternal grandfather's sister.   Zadie and Janette and sister Louise and their brother Ralph (see Aberdeen Hotel musing) and their extended families all lived in particularly close proximity in various houses on the same block around Aberdeen's Main Street.   Janette was the only one of the Leach family who never married, and thereby lies the tale.

      Doctor Bowen had done part of his residency at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, where he had roomed with a Sandhills native.   When Moore County Hospital was completed in Pinehurst in 1929, his ex-roommate enticed him into joining the team as a resident surgeon.   He subsequently found himself one afternoon  at the Pinehurst Country Club in the offices of a certain Mr. Nelson, one of the village's millionaire movers and shakers, seeking advice about an appropriate place to live.    He had begun his employment living in the hospital, a situation he quickly tired of as he felt it too close to work to maintain any kind of decent privacy.

       It so happened that Janette worked as secretary to Nelson.   These were the early years of the Depression, her family had recently given up the Aberdeen Hotel, and she volunteered that her mother would be agreeable to rent a room in the family home in nearby Aberdeen where the new doctor could find a certain anonymity several miles away from the hospital.

      Doctor B. thus discovered both the Leach family and Aberdeen where he soon set up a private practice which he maintained for the rest of his life.

      I do not know if Janette and Doctor B. were already friends before he arrived in Aberdeen.   I suspect not, as the rather draconian rules of propriety prevalent in little Southern towns of the day would have certainly discouraged the bringing of a boyfriend into the bosom of the family, as it were.  Still, at whatever stage their friendship blossomed into something more, it appears in hindsight surprising that townspeople never seemed to raise the slightest eyebrow.

      After a respectable number of months living with Janette and her family,  Doctor Bowen purchased a handsome diamond ring and popped the eternal question.

Janette ... once a little girl

     Janette was a pleasant enough looking young woman, and she had not yet reached an age to be thought of as an old maid.   So it  probably never occurred to her that she had better waste no time in getting herself to the altar.  She was undoubtedly delighted with the ring, but proposed speaking with her mother before making any official decision.  There is no record of Doctor Bowen's response, other than that he acquiesced to await the family verdict.

      Aunt Zadie was of another era.   She had some doubts that the young doctor's financial means would quite come up to her expectations, and she counseled that it might be in everyone's interest to slow down, to wait another year or so before taking the final plunge.   Janette rather obliviously reported back that she was pleased to be engaged, but that she and her mother felt it best to put off making any hasty, precise marriage arrangements.

      Doctor Bowen, who had been exceedingly patient up until this point, reflected briefly on the turn of events, then retorted : "So be it.  Wear the ring as long as it pleases you, we will be engaged, if that is your wish. But make no mistake about it, it will be a cold day in hell before I ever ask you to marry me again!"

      There was of course no cold day in hell, he didn't, and they didn't!

      From that day on, Doctor B. and Aunt Zadie maintained an at-best polite, often frosty cohabitation.  He nevertheless did become a permanent fixture within the household.  By the time I came along (he delivered me, as he did my twin brothers) I never questioned why he was there or quite how he fit into the family.     

     The Leaches changed houses a couple of times over the years, always in the same neighborhood, and Doctor Bowen made the move along with the rest of them.   In later years, he bought the neighboring house of Ralph (who moved with his family a few doors down), but never lived there.  It just sat empty until he decided a few years later to rent it seasonally to a Danish sea captain.

      Little Polly was Ralph's daughter and Zadie's grand daughter.   Her family lived next door, and as a child she would regale me with tales of Doctor B's eccentric behavior.  She used to laugh about watching him pace back and forth in his room clad only in  boxer shorts, with the ever-present cigar hanging out of the corner of his mouth.  But most memorable for us children was the fact that he always seemed to be counting a seemingly inexhaustible wad of paper money which he would then stash  in boxes and drawers around the house.

      (My grandmother's family had owned the local bank which in 1934 –along with many depression-hit monetary institutions across the country-- closed its doors, never to reopen; and to the best of my knowledge no client's money was ever recuperated.    So it was hardly surprising that those with a steady income like Doctor Bowen in the 1930's would harbor a lifelong suspicion of banks.)

      By the time he died some 40 years later,  nothing had basically changed. Janette never removed her engagement ring, though in later life she would voice to family members her humiliation in wearing it throughout the decades, and she once confided that she felt the need to turn the gem side inwards when they occasionally traveled out of town together.

      At the end of his life Doctor Bowen had only one remaining relation, a nephew to whom he intended to leave a modest bequest.   However, in the days following the funeral, no will had been located, and Janette saw fate just about to deal her yet another slap in the face.

      My main source for this part of the family history is Little Polly.   In her recounting, pieced together over the years, the surviving nephew from South Carolina was virtually in the driveway waiting to claim the inheritance while Ralph ordered the house turned top to bottom until the will could be located.  Janette had seen the artisanal document being written, and the family knew it had to be there somewhere amidst the piles of memorabilia and boxes full of cash and general rubbish.   Rugs and carpets were pulled up, mattresses up-heaved.   Janette, who in later years had developed a penchant for bourbon, was in a state of both grief and confusion, but her brother was fully in charge and determined to protect his sister's (and by extension the rest of the family's) interests.

     The will was ultimately located, inexplicably hidden under someone else's mattress, and Janette was declared  beneficiary of the considerable estate.   A lifetime of unfulfilled dreams of a certain officialization of her situation was finally realized, even though it was too late coming and undoubtedly offered her little satisfaction.

TO PAY OR NOT TO PAY ...

     

Doctor Bowen at his office circa 1955

    My mother never dared ask other family members if they were billed for his services, for fear of calling attention to the fact that we were not.

     For whatever reason, he never charged us for a lifetime of medical attention.  Mother would periodically go into a kind of heavy anxiety, fearing he was going to wake up and send us a bill.   That he or his survivors might one day present an invoice for all the years of office visits, house calls and various operations (Doctor Bowen was considered an exceptional surgeon) for our family of five !

     In those days it was just another example of living in a small southern town where intertwining family ties created privileged codes of behavior.   Like many things growing up in Aberdeen, they were thought best left unspoken.

Your input is welcomed:  frank.pleasants@libertysurf.fr

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

Doctor Bowen is also mentioned in "Linwood and Doris" from Musings and Meanderings No. 14 and in "A Date With Dephie" from Musings and Meanderings No. 17; Aunt Zadie and the Leach family are also featured in  "Babe Ruth's 60th Home Run" from Hotel Musings No. 26; Little Polly is mentioned in "The Caldwells Come To Paris", Hotel Musings No. 57  (to access, click on highlighted titles).

Lunch at the Connaught with Teensy

The Connaught Hotel, London

The Connaught seen from Carlos Place (photo courtesy of the hotel)

The Connaught has always held a special place in the London Hotel firmament  [constellation?].    Historically the most elitist and probably the most snobby, it tended towards a more staid and older clientele, guests often coming as much for its discretion and privacy as for its understated luxury.

Grant in Hollywood circa 1938

It was always more where famous people went when they didn't wish to be seen.  Cary Grant might have stayed at the Savoy if he were promoting a movie, but he definitely returned to the Connaught for some more anonymous peace and quiet.

I doubt if I had even heard of it the two years I lived in London.  It wasn’t until about 1990 that I discovered the Connaught Grill with its enticing prix-fixe menu.  It was a particularly amazing value for money at Sunday lunch, when a good English chef prepared some of the simple, old fashioned family-style dishes (like lamb roast or steak and kidney pie, and above all their spectacular bread and butter pudding).  It was always packed, and people-watching was as entertaining as the food.

A unique Connaught restaurant highlight was the mid-meal changing of the table cloth.   Every time I would imagine it just wouldn’t be possible.  Then before you realized what was happening, there were two, three or four waiters ever so discreetly removing plates and cutlery, then replacing –one corner at a time—the entire table cloth (albeit with a hidden, second cloth laying [lying?] in wait underneath the first).

Each time it seemed like an extraordinary feat.  I’m afraid that after many decades, the new guard seems to have now abandoned this signature tour de force.

I only stayed at the Connaught once.  Needless to say, I had found a special promotion which made it somehow possible to justify the extravagance.  Unfortunately, that trip remains connected in my memory with a particularly negative experience.  No fault whatsoever of the hotel.

The Connaught's imposing stairway  (Trip Adviser photo)

I had an old college friend from North Carolina, later transplanted [relocated?] to Texas, who has remained close through most of my adult life.  He was very much like a brother, and I think the fact that he was born in the elegant Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulpher Springs, West Virginia (a fluke of wartime requisitioning, but still what a sensational start to life!) was no small factor in cementing our long friendship.

His second wife, Teensy (well, we’ll call her that anyway) never quite appreciated my presence, and it was often fairly mutual.  I guess I didn’t always make the best effort, and she certainly didn’t either.

They were to be in London with their three teenaged children, and my old friend talked me into arranging a trip at the same time.  That was when I found the Connaught special.  They were close by at a friend's apartment off Grovesnor Square for the week, and I took the Eurostar over for the weekend.

It had been several years since I had last seen them, and as the trip was shortly after Christmas, I launched out on a special invitation in guise of belated Christmas gift.

I invited the family to join me at the Connaught for lunch, though with a couple of important stipulations: 1) that we all limit ourselves to the luncheon prix fixe menu and 2) for the three teenagers, no coca-colas (need I point out the financial ruin of a few soft drinks in that calibre of restaurant?).  Instead, I invited the group to my room before lunch for drinks, including cokes for the kids, which I had purchased from a neighborhood grocery store.   

I was immediately aware of a certain tension in the air.  Teensy was clearly unhappy that I was there, which was particularly unfortunate since I was the host.  I got the distinct impression that she saw me as ruining her London holiday.  Sensing disaster in the air, I made a silent vow to remain as dignified and polite as I could possibly manage.

I think I did quite well, and after a few minutes of extreme tension, I told myself I would turn this bad moment into a game whereby I would react to the negative vibes with a maximum of grace, act as though everyone was cordial and happy,  and that I would undoubtedly never have to receive her again.

Once in the restaurant, Teensy in her first moment of vocal aggresivity, suggested that she might prefer to look at the more expensive à la carte menu just in case something else might tickle her fancy.  Ultimately, she didn’t quite dare go any further, and opted like the rest of us for the luncheon menu.

As I was ordering wine and water for our party, she burst forth with a new defiance (?) [challenge].  Turning to her youngest daughter, who began to squirm uncomfortably in her chair, she asked, “Wouldn’t you like a coca-cola?”  When the little girl, who knew exactly what was going on, replied in the negative, Teensy kind of lost her cool, and reiterated a bit louder, this time to the rest of the family:  “Are you sure you don’t want any soft drinks?”

That’s pretty much the end of the story.  The point was made.  No one actually had soft drinks, and it wouldn’t have been the end of the world if they had.  Suffice it to say we lunched under a certain strain.  Between the lamb and the dessert, the tablecloth was miraculously changed, but no one was in much of a mood to appreciate this special slight of hand.

It’s all far in the past now.  I never saw Teensy again, and my college friend has since gone onto another wife. 

The Connaught seems to have successfully moved with the times.  The bars and lobby areas are now generally packed with exceedingly young, underdressed, blazé whiz kids who probably excel in the worlds of finance and computers.  

A kind of social democracy arrived in London way back in the Swinging Sixties, but it took quite a few decades before finally reaching the Connaught.  The Grill has since changed names, with a new, very French restaurant in its place; and in the process it has lost the special charm it once had for me. 

The Connaught bar (Photo courtesy of the hotel)