Weekend in New England

Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. Damian and I had a wonderful holiday with his family in New Jersey before heading out to Connecticut for a long weekend. 

We rented a quirky guest house in Westport, with plans to recharge, see a couple friends (everyone we know is moving that way so we've become "Connecticut curious") -- and go on a family-history spree to see where my maternal grandmother spent the last chapter of her life before dying by suicide shortly after her 50th birthday.

See how we did BELOW.

Over the (Saugatuck) river and through the woods, to Grandmother's house we went ...

My maternal grandmother was named Annamarie. After graduating from high school in 1938, she fled Omaha for Detroit to be near her oldest sister (Mabel), who had moved there because it was where the jobs were. (Sisters Betty and Dorothy eventually followed as well.) The Motor City is where she met and married my grandfather (Tony), with whom she would have two daughters. (My recently deceased aunt, Dianne, and my mother, Molly.) 

While it's unclear what led Annamarie to leave the father of her children -- some believe Mabel had undue influence on the decision, while others think my grandmother came to realize that settling down with a man 13 years her senior wasn't for her -- she eventually moved back to Omaha where she married a strapping bar owner with two young boys of his own. 

That quickly turned sour -- he physically abused Annamarie while she was pregnant with their son and abused her little girls -- which somehow led to her turning to Catholic Charities USA while pregnant and filing for her second divorce. (This too is said to have Catholic-convert Mabel's fingerprints all over it, given that my German ancestors had hitherto been Protestants.) It was at this point that things really went off the rails. The day she gave birth to my Uncle Patrick, she coldly dumped him, my aunt Dianne, age 7, and my mother, age 6, in the Catholic Charities orphanage that her own father -- a bricklayers' union leader -- helped build so she could "better herself" by going to (a Jesuit) college, having been declared a genius by a church official administering IQ tests.  

Puff piece at a religious university conveniently leaves out the fact that she orphaned her own children 

From there, she began to live a rather fascinating life for a woman in the 1940s -- becoming a popular college student, local theatrical star and producer (the Kingsmark Players) and all-around bon vivant -- at the deep cost of destroying the self-worth of three young people who never fully recovered from her narcissistic behavior, After Annamarie graduated from Creighton University but continued to leave her children in the orphanage, my great-grandparents finally stepped in and threatened legal action to take them if she didn't start to be a parent. 

Leaving on a jet plane (1957)

She eventually relocated them to the Washington, D.C., area so should could take a job with the Social Security Administration in Baltimore -- where she reportedly butted heads with Madalyn Murray O'Hair while climbing the bureaucratic ladder. Sadly, however, the children’s dreams of finally being a “real” family were short-lived, as they came to fully realize their mother was an unhinged woman, prone to fits of rage and cruelty, while presenting an aura of kindness and perfection to the rest of the world. (Undiagnosed mental illness had to be at play.)

My grandmother with my father, left, and my aunt Dianne's first husband (Joe). Neither of them were good enough in her eyes. 

Once my aunt and my mother married the first guys who could get them out of the house, Annamarie shipped her remaining dependent, 12-year-old Patrick, off to military school and bagged herself a handsome doctor from Ireland, nearly a decade her junior. (He, my father and my Aunt Dianne's husband were all roughly the same age.) Tom had immigrated to the U.S. in 1958, and was completing an American psychiatry residency at the Seton Psychiatric Institute in Baltimore when they met at a local dance. Tom proposed to her on St. Patrick's Day 1960, then tied the knot on May 28, 1960, at St. Ignatius Church in Baltimore. They immediately headed West so he could complete his U.S. residency at a hospital in Sedro-Woolley, Wash., having already completed a across-the-pond psychiatry residency at the Bethlem Royal Maudsley Hospital in London.

My mom and her firstborn 

From here things are hazy. When my oldest brother (Kevin) died of SIDS in 1960, my mother became largely estranged from Annamarie and the rest of the family. My mother was devastated by grandmother's heartless comments following the death of the baby, and the rest of the family had grown tired of my father and his erratic, alcoholic behavior. So we largely learned of a our grandmother through stories from the past. (You mean Westport isn't a fictional town where Lucy and Ricky moved?!) 

The family ties were further frayed by the fact that we had no relationship with either of my paternal grandparents, leaving my mother's father -- whom she barely knew, having reached out to him on her own as an adult -- as the only grandparent I ever met.

Annamarie and Tom in front of 240 Hillspoint Road (1962); Kenneth (2024)

From what I gather, Tom became an attending psychiatrist at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, Conn., which must be what brought them to the Constitution State. When they first arrived, they rented a tiny two-bedroom house in Westport on Hillspoint Road facing the Long Island Sound. Over the weekend, Damian and visited the address, where we discovered it had been demolished (records show in 2004) to make room for a multimillion-dollar spread. 

The kitchen on Hillspoint Road. Looks like someone has a big appointment with Father Donahue!

The view from the living room on Hillspoint Road 

Full view of 240 Hillspoint Road. Two doors down you can see one of the few original bungalow-style houses is still standing -- but not for long. 

I always liked this photo of my grandmother and Tom on the Campo Cove "mini beach" across the street from their little house. 

Low tide at the mini beach: My great-aunt Dorothy and daughter Susan (1962); Damian (2024)

Dorothy, Susan and Annamarie on the beach sand wall 

Compo Beach babes: Dorothy and Annamarie (1969); Kenneth (2024)

From there they moved to a modest but slightly bigger rancher on Drumlin Road. 

The current owners were a little thrown off by my attempt at re-enacting this 1963 photo -- sans cigarette -- but were good sports in the end! 

Back in the day they would set up tables in the front yard and eat dinner ...

Drumlin Road: Annamarie and Tom are standing, Ann and Joe (Tom's sister and brother-in-law) are in back, Susan holding their baby (Chantal, maybe), and Dorothy (in curlers!), circa 1963; Kenneth (2024)

My great-grandmother (Ruth), great-Aunt Betty and great-grandfather Conrad visit Drumlin Road

Ernie (Dorothy's husband), Dorothy, Annamarie, Patrick (other side of the car) and Tom

Tom, Annamarie, Patrick, Susan and Dorothy

When they were still living on Drumlin Road, Tom decided he wanted a house where he could have his practice in the home -- an original champion of WFH. Above is one of the houses they were considering. 

Eventually they settled on and purchased this 1940 Colonial on Marvin Place, seen in 1965 and over the weekend. I can remember the family lore about how our grandmother had paid over $100,000 for a house in the 1960s -- I think ours barely cost that 20 years later in Phoenix -- and thought the decidedly not Southwestern architecture and sprawling grounds we saw in these photos looked incredible. 

The door you see behind Damian was the entrance to the ground level, which served as Tom's office. Patients could come and go without ever being the living quarters, which were a flight up. 

Built-ins at the top of the landing. The current owner is also a nostalgia geek and couldn't have been kinder, giving us full access to the place and even helping us take photos. 

Retaining wall then and now 

The back of the house apparently served as the front back in the day. It faces the Saugatuck River and there were no other houses to be found on this bucolic cul-de-sac at the time.

View of the Saugatuck River from behind the house 

Tom, Aunt Dianne and Uncle Joe at Marvin Place, circa 1969

Welcome to Marvin Place

Mail call 

The back of the house as seen from Imperial Avenue

My grandma's kitchen window 

The family room 

Fireplace in dining room

Check out the original details and wainscoting

Backyard fireplace 

Current front and back views: 

The house has been expanded over the years to nearly 5,000 square feet -- and there's now a diving pool and sauna in the backyard -- but I was mainly focused on the original frame. 

Tom and Annamarie on the far right attending Tom's brother's wedding in Ireland in 1965

Aspiring cat lady

Tom (in white dress shirt) and Annamarie (in headband) with family in the summer of 1966

What happened over the next five years is hard to say. My cat-obsessed(!) grandmother was said to be the hostess with the mostess, organizing elaborate dinner parties, hanging out with her friend and neighbor Anjin Mebane Ensher -- a onetime Einstein colleague and co-chair of the Senate campaign of anti-war activist Joseph Duffey -- as well as being involved in the Westport garden club and Westport symphony.

Annamarie on vacation with friends in Curaçao (1969)

My great-aunt Dorothy remembers nothing but fun times with her favorite sister and her doctor husband, traveling the globe, attending the 1964 World's Fair together and their taking their mother (Ruth) to Ireland. 

June 16, 1967: Is there more to this story? 

But people I have spoken to over the years remember a volatile relationship that involved too much drinking -- with my self-awareless grandmother alluding to Tom's checking himself into a rehabilitation facility shortly after they separated in early 1960 in a letter to Dorothy. (Tom is said to have once left Annamarie in the Caribbean with no money, no airline ticket and no passport after a drunken fight, forcing her to reach out to the U.S. Embassy for assistance.) 

The infamous garage where it happened 

And then some time on March 23, 1970, with her husband attending a suicide-prevention conference in La Jolla, Calif., my grandmother turned on the ignition of her Volvo with the garage door closed and never woke up. 

When Tom returned, he found a note written in lipstick on the bathroom mirror that read: "If you're looking for the cause of death, look no further." 

Perhaps not ironically, Mom and sister Dianne both divorced the men of whom Annamarie didn't approve shortly after her death -- couldn't stand for Mom to be "right"? -- later remarrying the men they would spend the rest of their lives with. (My grandmother would never know she had a granddaughter named Jennifer.) 

It's impossible to know what goes on in the mind of someone who takes their own life. Annamarie's sister Dorothy is convinced that she had gained access to barbiturates through her psychiatrist husband, and that in a weak moment that probably involved drugs and alcohol made an impulsive decision that could not be undone.

My mom with brother Patrick and sister Dianne in Omaha for their mother's funeral in 1970. Five years later they would be in the same room together again -- for a wedding -- and then never again. My mother said being around each other was just too painful.

Irony alert: Look at the blue sign on the wall. 

What I do know for sure is that my mother had recently written Annamarie a letter conveying how painful it was to have essentially grown up motherless -- it was returned to Mom after the funeral -- and that my grandmother had expressed regret to my aunt about not knowing her grandsons -- Billy, Terence and me, who are nonetheless noted in her obituary. The feeling is mutual. Although I hate what she did to her kids, I can also see that fathers behave similarly all of the time and society looks the other way. Everyone who knew her, including two of her three children, swears she was really something: "Beautiful, statuesque, intelligent, provocative, engaging, elegant, personable, knowledgeable, witty, sagacious, affable, warm, passionate, gracious" is how her son described her in a letter to me -- high praise from the person whom she routinely beat the living daylights out of for no apparent reason -- before adding: "She just never shared it with us." 

So I hope I can be forgiven for still being “Annamarie curious” even after all these years, and wishing she’d been a part of my life. It's tricky, because my allegiance is to my mother -- the one holdout -- for whom this isn't a juicy story, it's her life.

If nothing else, this memorable getaway with my hubby gives me reason to smile when I think of Westport now. 

Shoutout to Basso Wine Bar, the Spotted Horse, the Cottage (perfect brunch) and to our friends Jay and Spyro for a great dinner at Rive Bistro!

Next time: Turkey Hill and hopefully something will be playing at the Westport Country Playhouse. 

Footnote: If you've read this far it might interest/infuriate you to know that in 2005 I was able to track Tom down, eager to pick his brain about Annamarie. He had just experienced some sort of medical situation and was in a rehab facility, so his niece with whom I connected asked that I hold off speaking to him until he was a little less out of it, which of course made perfect sense. He died shortly thereafter, a longtime friend of Bill. Worth mentioning that everyone I’ve ever spoken to who knew Tom has nothing but wonderful things to say about his character, most notably my Uncle Patrick, who took Tom’s surname when he was his stepfather. 

I never knew Mabel, but her son (Bob) says she and Annamarie were both "nuts." 

And Betty, Annamarie's Johnny Walker-swigging sister, told me I was "better off" having never known my grandmother(!). 

And how about this? Thank you to Westport Pride for making us feel so welcome!

Something tells me Annamarie would approve of my younger man. 

P.S. The Uber driver who took us from the rental car agency to the train station was blaring the King James Bible (book on tape). Is that acceptable?