Aunt Penny

“Jennifer, this is your Aunt Penny. I was thinking about your hesitation regarding the enamel cookware set I said I would buy you for your birthday. I realized you must be thinking of that cheap cookware they used to sell at the Five and Dime. No, no, this is Chantal. It is good, expensive cookware. Now, regarding the finish, I know you said you like the stainless, but I think that’s kind of trendy right now, and besides, the blue is prettier.

Well, I hope you’re out enjoying the good weather. When you live in Maine, you have to get out when you can. I know. Remember, I grew up in New Hampshire. Don’t call me back, I’ll try you again tomorrow. End of message.”

A shock of her dark hair went white when she was twenty-five. With this dramatic stripe set against her gray-green eyes, slim straight nose and full lips, she was a stunning young woman. A woman who refused at least two proposals and never married. Instead, she climbed the corporate ladder during the 1950's and '60s when there were few other woman on the rungs. Her hair turned completely white when she was in her forties, and she kept it short and swooping up. In her sixties, her high forehead was still smooth. Teetering over slim legs, her formidable paunch later in life was the result of Crohn's disease, a love of fine food with lots of butter, and years of three-martini lunches in the corporate world. 

 

Until I was nineteen, most of what I knew of Aunt Penny were the exquisite Christmas gifts she sent from California. From the San Francisco Music Box Company there was a white porcelain unicorn with a gilded horn, and a shiny black lacquer jewelry case with purple lotus flowers painted on the cover. There were green satin pajamas embroidered with Chinese dragons. There were cultured pearls in little silk pouches. There were crates of grapefruit and oranges. My mother regularly told me: be nice to your Aunt Penny. I obeyed and was always prompt with thank-you notes.

“Jennifer--Sandra, your mother, was a sweet woman, and you have her disposition, but she got pulled into that fundamentalist Christian church and your father followed like a puppy dog, because he loved her. And she was stronger than him. She was obviously everything to David.      

My mother died when I was young, too, you know, younger than you were when Sandra died. Your Aunt Jane and I were sent to live with my Aunt Dorothea. David, because he was the male, stayed with our father. David was never good at staying in contact with me, or Jane. So don't expect your brother Geoff to take care of you now. He's just like your father, and you are not a princess. ”

The first time I remember meeting Aunt Penny, I was twelve. She came to our house in Massachusetts. She had arranged the meeting to introduce my father’s “other daughter” to my older brother Geoff and me. My father, Aunt Penny’s older and only brother, had been married 10 years before meeting my mother. His one-year marriage to Barbara had been successful in producing a child, Linda, my half-sister, but unsuccessful overall—they divorced within a year. Before this meeting, I had never met my half-sister.

My mother died three years after that strange family reunion. My father died four years after her. By then, Aunt Penny was a self-made millionaire on the threshold of retiring from an executive position at a large pharmaceutical company. She had not planned on having an orphaned niece on her hands. My brother had already graduated from college, but I was just beginning. And there I was in front of Aunt Penny: perhaps a worthy investment. My acne scars clearly would require minor cosmetic surgery, and my high school education—small, private Christian schools—would necessitate my going to a large university, perhaps UNH, where she matriculated. My Boston accent could be remedied with some discipline. She flew me out to Los Angeles to begin the hefty task of my improvement.

“Jennifer, what are you using on your face now? I hope it's not cold cream; it will utterly clog your pores. I'm sure that's what Mrs. Kippin uses. That family is very generous to be letting you live with them in New Hampshire right now. Have you properly thanked them? They are lovely, but by god, they are the Archie Bunker family reincarnate! That huge recliner and the linoleum in the living room! They are certainly not helping you get rid of that accent you still have—really, Jennifer, it just sounds so uneducated. Of course I had to meet them myself to thank them in person for letting you stay with them. But you realize, you are a adult now, Jennifer--nineteen years old. I know these church people have helped you a lot, but they do not have all the answers in the universe. I hope you are reader like your brother. Have you read any Stephen Hawking? Or Richard Dawkins? Those Christian schools probably taught you nothing about evolution and real science--just that Creationism balderdash. I'm a biologist and I know, Jennifer. It's pure bunk. The universe is billions of years old and genes run the game. You need to reeducate yourself. Novels are fine, too, of course. I'm never without one. Somerset Maugham is one of my favorites. Have you read any Somerset Maugham?”

“Who?” I reply.

Of Human Bondage is on my lap, as I sit in Aunt Penny's Florida room in Florida. I helped her pack up her California house and unpack it again in Ponte Vedra Beach. She retired at 65 on the dot, not a week longer. She was done with12-hour days and traveling to Japan and Washington D.C. several times a year. She also quit a life-long smoking habit the same year, cold turkey, without a relapse. Each time we slide into her royal blue Cadillac, she pops a breath mint in her mouth, calling it her “cigarette.” The Cadillac sails along the pristine lanes of her gated community and the white leather interior smells like money. The seats are cavernous and slippery; I feel like a doll-girl sitting in them. She lets me drive the car though, but only after a dinner out when she's had one too many martinis—which is after every dinner out. She usually does not drink until five o'clock, but it is every day, and the booze either makes her mean, sentimental, or some combination of both. The unpredictability of where she will land emotionally is the scary part of spending time with her. Her brother—my father—was an alcoholic; she is clearly an alcoholic, but a successful one, a highly functioning one.

I sip red wine as I read, my feet on the edge of the ottoman, knees propped up holding the book. The afternoon light is coming through the wooden shutters onto my face and hair. I feel Aunt Penny watching me from the kitchen. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her raise her camera, adjust the zoom and take a picture of me.

“Jennifer, I can't believe you are getting married! You will be only twenty-four next year! There is graduate school to think of. Who is this Michael? Do you know his family? Well, you can always get a divorce. I want to come up for your graduation and give you a party; the Hilton in Harrisburg is nice enough. Invite all your friends, and Michael's parents. We'll need to size each other up. But the Harrisburg area is the rust belt, Jennifer; it's so unattractive. I hope you go somewhere else for graduate school. Are you looking for a job in the meantime? You'll need a sincere suit; appearance is half the game. Heels too, for god's sake, Jennifer, don't wear those awful clod hoppers you tromp around in.

I didn't help you with college because I wanted to see if you could finish on your own. Years ago, things didn't work out very well with Linda when I helped her with school—her drug problem, you know. Thank god she got through that stage. But I will help you with graduate school, when you get in. Just send me the bills.”

Aunt Penny started coming to Maine for a week in the summer, when Michael and I moved there for me to go to graduate school; she loved coming back to New England. She came here as a girl with Aunt Dorothea. The family had a house in Salisbury Cove back then. Now retired, she would rent a house down near Bar Harbor, and invite Michael and me to come from Bangor, have dinner, and stay over for a night. The year she rented the house right on Salisbury Cove, it was late September. (She didn't want to fight the summer crowds and it was still plenty warm.) It was 2001. Michael and I had already been to the rental house and had a pleasant visit with Aunt Penny over the weekend. It was now the work week. The evening of September 11^th, we drove down to stay with Aunt Penny and together watch the coverage of the Twin Towers. Two days later, with no flights leaving Portland, she left Maine in her rental car and got herself home to Florida in three days. She was 76.

Obituary: Marietta Carr

Marietta Carr died Aug. 8, 2003. She was 78. Carr received a B.S. in zoology from UNH in 1947 and worked at a number of hospitals before joining Abbott Laboratories, North Chicago in 1967. She was named the first woman manager at Abbott in 1968. She joined Alpha Therapeutic Corp., where she was vice president of regulatory affairs—the first woman vice president of a pharmaceutical company—from 1978 to her retirement in 1990.

She is survived by her nephew, Geoffrey Carr; nieces Jennifer Carr Isherwood-Iobst and Linda Carr Farrell, and cousins. Memorial contributions may be made to the Marietta "Penny" and Jane Carr Endowed Fund c/o The UNH Foundation, 9 Edgewood Road, Durham, NH 03824.