Posts Tagged "Janet Van Duyn"
Love Letters, Chapter 9
The final chapter…
I apologize… it’s been a long time since my last post about the set of love letters I purchased on ebay. (New here? Start from the beginning.) Today, I plan to wrap up all the loose ends so I can start the first installment of my own “White Charley and Over-the-Wall-Fred” saga. I decided after all the time I’ve spent digging into other people’s family histories, it was probably time to share a little of my own. I think you’ll enjoy it.
But first… a few final words about my ebay love letters. In Chapter 8, I introduced you to the Leavenworth Mansion of Syracuse, New York. This is where Dr. John Van Duyn and his first wife, Janet, lived with John’s parents (Dr. Edward and Lucy Van Duyn), and his younger sister, Constance. It was also where they raised their three children.
Back in February, I managed to track down John and Janet’s youngest daughter, Barbara. I emailed her and told her about the love letters that had been addressed to her father, and asked if she would mind answering some questions so I could wrap up my story. She very graciously agreed.
First of all, I told Barbara how much I enjoyed her mother’s book, I Married Them. It’s a fictional account of the very funny and eccentric Maclean (Van Duyn) family, as told by the newest member of the fold, John’s wife Janet (the author herself). The men were second and third-generation physicians who were brilliant surgeons, but had little time for bedside manner. Carrie (Lucy) was the matriarch of the household and my favorite of all the characters. She reminded me a lot of my own mother, and I can easily picture her with a snow brush in her hand, fending off would-be parking lot hooligans (see my previous post, “Happy Mother’s Day.”)
In Janet Dunning’s book, I Married Them, the entire cast of characters enjoyed gathering for cocktails each evening in Doctor Mac and Carrie’s (Dr. Edward and Lucy’s) boudoir. It was here where the story really started to come to life.
“The Boudoir was the most lived-in room of the Maclean mansion. It occupied the sunniest corner of the house, across the hall from the bedroom of Carrie and Mac, who used it as a combination dressing room and living room. Nobody ever sat around in any of the downstairs rooms, which were cold and forbidding, definitely unsuited to the Maclean way of life. Visitors were always brought immediately to the Boudoir, and refreshments were served here daily at five. Those refreshments might range anywhere from tea and sandwiches on a silver tray, to lukewarm highballs made from another bottle of Bourbon hidden behind Doctor Mac’s dresser, tap water from an adjoining bathroom, and mixed in a bathroom glass which was cloudy and tasted of toothpaste. No one ever complained about the highballs though, except when they were not available.”
The Boudoir also contained the most unique and important piece of furniture in the house… a chaise lounge that the Van Duyn’s lovingly referred to as their “shay-ZEE.”
“The Shazey, as a matter of fact, was so comfortable it was always in demand. Aunt Grace who was technically an outsider [she was the family's resident artist and semi-permanent boarder], and therefore had a certain perspective on the life of the family, said that if you drew a diagonal line across the Boudoir, all the people in the house would be found in the Shazey corner, like cattle keeping each other warm in a blizzard. With careful arranging, the Shazey had been known to accommodate five people, the best seats awarded to the first comers. Late arrivals had to content themselves with drawing up chairs and getting as close to it as possible.”
After finishing her mother’s book, I was curious whether Barbara Van Duyn had grown up in the mansion, and if so, what it had been like to live there.
Q. Did you grow up in the Leavenworth Mansion?
A. Yes, I lived there until I was seven. After that, we moved to Westport, Connecticut to live with my mother. She wrote the book to make money after my parents divorced. Nana was a lot of fun. She got bored easily and was the type to swing from the chandelier at every Christmas party. Often times, because we lived close to the railroad track, bums would show up on our doorstop asking for food. Once, a bum showed up during a party and shoved his way into the house, begging for a cup of coffee and something to eat. It turns out it was Nana, dressed up like a bum! Another thing I remember is the story of “old man Harold.” He was there at the house every morning by 5am. We all thought it was so wonderful that he would arrive so early every day to stoke the fire so everyone would have warm showers and heat by the time we woke up. As it turns out, he had found a little place to live within the mansion… a hole in the wall with his own little cot. No one even knew he was there! I also remember the lions along the front walk. I used to play on the left lion and would put food in a crack in its base, just in case he came alive.
Q. Why was your father, John Van Duyn, living and practicing in Duluth, Minnesota in 1949? How did he end up here?
A. My father was trying to find a situation to pay alimony to my mother. He had a practice in Syracuse with his father, but after the divorce, he needed to make more money, rather than trying to build up a practice. So, by 1949 he had decided to switch to plastic surgery, and was working for a clinic in Duluth.
Q. Did you know Ruth Ives? Did she and your father ever end up getting married?
A. We loved Ruthie Ives, and we wanted our father to marry her. She was so sweet! As it turns out, my father ended up marrying another woman he met while living in Duluth. They had another child together… a girl named Patti. She was in my life long ago, but we lived so far apart and our lives were so different that we never stayed connected.
Q. I noticed that Paramount bought the rights to your mother’s book, I Married Them. Was it ever made into a movie?
A. No. Paramount paid $500 for the movie rights, but it never went anywhere. Apparently the Irish servants in the community didn’t like how the character Cleary was depicted in the book, so my mother was disappointed and didn’t write anything more until the 1970s. Then, she wrote a series of books for young people about the ancient Greeks and Egyptians.
Q. Are your parents still alive?
A. No. My father died in 1986, and my mother died in 2003.
After a bit more research, I was able to determine that Ruth Ives died at the age of 57, while living in Maine. I’m not sure that she ever married, because she’s listed under her maiden name in the Social Security Death Index. At any rate, I do know that she had a loving brother named Edward (“Sandy”) Ives who lived in Bangor, Maine. Like Ruth, he was a talented musician and a college instructor. He especially loved the folklore and songs of Maine’s north woods, and eventually this became his lifelong work. In 1971, Sandy founded the Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History (now known as the Maine Folklife Center) where he served as its director for 22 years.
At the beginning of this story, my goal was to track down the people mentioned in these ebay love letters and return them to their rightful owners. I have now done that, and the letters have been mailed to John Van Duyn’s daughter, Barbara. My secondary goal was to find a mystery that would result in a happy ending. Unfortunately this story doesn’t have the happy ending I had originally hoped for, but you may be interested to hear that I have since tracked down Barbara’s half-sister, Patti, who still lives in Minnesota, and perhaps they can get together and make their own happy ending.
Here’s hoping.
Read MoreLove Letters, Chapter 7
The General Leavenworth Mansion – Syracuse, New York
New here? Start from the beginning….
This story started with a pair of love letters I found for sale on ebay. They were written in 1949 by a woman named Ruth Ives of White Plains, New York, and addressed to a Dr. John Van Duyn of Duluth, Minnesota. I bought them with the intent of finding the original owners (or their families) and returning them. Easy… especially since I live in Minnesota.
Or so I thought.
As it turns out, Dr. John Van Duyn wasn’t from Minnesota at all. I’m still not clear exactly how he ended up in Duluth, Minnesota in 1949 (still working on that), but I’ll get to that later. What I did learn from the 1920 U.S. Census and other data available on Ancestry.com, is that Dr. John Van Duyn was a third generation surgeon from Syracuse, New York. He belonged to a prominent family there, and lived in a historic mansion at 607 James Street.
(A mansion, you say? Oh yes, a mansion.)
Leavenworth Mansion, 1934 - Syracuse, New York
Work began on the Leavenworth Mansion in 1839, while Leavenworth was President of Syracuse Village. It was designed by architect Deacon Elijah Hayden, one of the first architects in Syracuse, and was completed in 1842. You can read much more the Leavenworth Mansion on the “Syracuse Then and Now” web site.
On September 2, 1945, the Leavenworth Mansion was featured on the front page of the Syracuse Herald-American. The article was the first in a series concerning historic houses in the Syracuse vicinity.
The Leavenworth Mansion was featured in a 1945 article in the Syracuse Herald-American
“Technically, it is known as the General Leavenworth mansion; colloquially it is called the Van Duyn house…”
“From a home standpoint, it might be well to consider that this is where Dr. Edward Seguin Van Duyn makes his residence with Mrs. Van Duyn. He is the present head of a family internationally famous, but “Who’s Who in America” states simply that he is a surgeon, born in Syracuse, Aug. 20, 1872, the son of John and Sarah (Faulks) Van Duyn. He was graduated from Syracuse University with an M.D. degree in 1897 and married Lucy Leavenworth Ballard on Feb. 4, 1903. Their children are listed as Mary L., John and Constance.”
The article goes on to talk about Janet (Dunning) Van Duyn’s book, I Married Them, which was published the same year as the article.
“Now comes the version in a book entitled “I Married Them,” by Janet Van Duyn. On an introductory page is the warning: “This is a work of fiction. While certain aspects of its background and its characters are drawn from experience, it is not intended as a factual or biographed report in any sense.”
“Then the author, described on the publisher’s jacket as ‘blonde, blue-eyed, cool, detached,’ has this to say in her opening chapter, called “The Toast Is Burning:”
“The house on the corner of East Hall Street and Sullivan Hill was no exception; there was plenty of smoke and soot with which to woo the Greek Temple that was the home of the Doctors MacLean.”
“This mansion of an architecture known as ‘pure Greek’ – from which the American Colonial is said to have been adapted – crowned the top of three ragged terraces and was approached by a flight of irregular stone steps guarded, half way up, by two ferocious bronze lions. Built in the eighteen thirties by Col. Jonas Davenport, the maternal grandfather of the man I married, its high Ionic columns and gabled roof gave it a purity of line and dignity which neither the ravages of time nor the onslaught of soot has been able to destroy. A century ago the house had been beautiful and imposing; now even though the blinds sagged and the lawn was unkempt, it still retained a certain grandeur.”
Next time… my favorite excerpts from Janet Van Duyn’s book (it’s very funny)…
Read MoreLove Letters, Chapter 6
Author Janet Dunning’s extraordinary glimpse into “the life Van Duyn”
New here? Start from the beginning….
I’m back! As promised, I have much to share about my Love Letters story. As you recall from my last post, the Van Duyns of Syracuse, New York were a prominent family known for three generations of physicians: Dr. John S. Van Duyn (1843-1934), Dr. Edward S. Van Duyn (1872-1955), and Dr. John J. Van Duyn (1905-1986). The set of love letters that I purchased on ebay were addressed to the youngest of the Dr. Van Duyns, a well known surgeon who was living and practicing in Duluth, Minnesota at the time. (Why? I’ll get to that in a bit.)
Ruth Ives, the author of the letters, was living in White Plains, New York at the time she sent the letters to Dr. John Van Duyn in September of 1949. She’d grown up in White Plains originally, but had spent the previous several years as a faculty member at Syracuse University, which is, presumably, where she met Dr. Van Duyn (also a faculty member there).
My obvious question was (still), did John and Ruth ever get married?
In Ruth’s second letter, she gives a hint that, if they were to get married, this would not be John’s first marriage. She says, “Sunday must have been very difficult for you without the kids; I thought about you lots.” I wondered who his first wife was, who the children were, and what they were all doing living in Duluth, Minnesota in 1949.
I started Googling.
On the front page of the Society section of the December 22, 1935 issue of the Syracuse Herald, the headline reads:
Young Syracuse Physician Marries Daughter of David M. Dunning, Jr. of Auburn
…Dr. Van Duyn 2d Takes Bride in Home Ceremony
…Member of Widely-Known Syracuse Family Marries Janet H. Dunning
…Rev. Dr. Charles F. Thwing, President of Western Reserve University Officiates
One of the most important of the weddings of the holiday season was that of Miss Janet Hutchinson Dunning, daughter of David Montgomery Dunning, Jr., of Auburn, to Dr. John Van Duyn, 2nd, son of Dr. and Mrs. Edward S. Van Duyn of James Street, which was solemnized Saturday afternoon at 4 o’clock at the home of the bride’s grandfather, David Montgomery Dunning, in Auburn.
The Rev. Dr. Charles Franklin Thwing, president emeritus of Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, and an uncle of the bride, read the service. Mrs. Charles Kruger of East Orange, N.J. attended the bride as matron of honor, and Miss Constance Van Duyn of Syracuse, sister of the bridegroom, was maid of honor.
Now that I had a name, Janet H. Dunning, I was able to do some more Googling. It turns out, Janet H. Dunning (aka Janet Van Duyn), is a published author. I found her biography in a 2002 publication titled Contemporary Authors (Publisher: Tom Gale):
Family: Born September 23, 1910, in Auburn, NY; daughter of David Montgomery and Ruth (Bartlett) Dunning; married John Van Duyn (a surgeon), December, 1935 (divorced, 1949); two daughters. Education: Vassar College, A.B., 1932. Politics: “Registered independent.” Religion: “Also independent.” Memberships: British Museum, Egypt Exploration Society (London, England), Browning Institute (Florence, Italy). Addresses: Home: 135 Lyons Plain Rd., Weston, CT 06883.
Writer, beginning 1968. Janet Van Duyn told CA: “I have done some teaching of English and writing. I have done library work (research), storytelling in the New York Public Library (my first job). I stayed cooped up in many types of worthy offices until the children grew up, but I confess I never really enjoyed any job until I was able to pursue my interests in research and writing. That has all happened recently.”
WRITINGS BY THE AUTHOR:
I Married Them (humorous novel), Howell, Soskin, 1945.
The Egyptians (for young people), McGraw, 1970.
The Greeks (for young people), McGraw, 1972.
Builders on the Desert (children’s history), Messner, 1973.
Looking over the list of Ms. Van Duyn’s published works, I wondered about the title of the first book on the list, I Married Them. I wondered if it was, by any chance, a reference to life with the Van Duyn family in Syracuse. On a whim, I did a quick search for the novel, and found a rare copy for sale on ebay. I paid $1.00 for it, plus shipping.
I can truly say, without a doubt, that this $1.00 was the best investment I’ve ever made in my entire life. This book was such a great read! It was published in 1945, ten years after Janet Dunning’s marriage to Dr. John Van Duyn, and four years prior to the couple’s divorce. Although the first page claims that the book is a work of fiction and that “while certain aspects of its background and its characters are drawn from experience, it’s not intended as a factual or biographical report in any sense”, it’s clear to even the casual observer that this is a page-by-page account of daily life with the eccentric Van Duyn family.
I should make it clear that this book isn’t a slam to the Van Duyns by any means… at least that’s not how I perceived it. (In fact, they remind me a lot of my own family.) Instead, Janet Van Duyn is a very talented and witty author who is spot-on at character development and actually made me LOL at several points during the book.
I Married Them tells the story of the “MacLean” (Van Duyn) family of “Parthia” (Syracuse), New York, who lives in a Greek-revival style mansion on the corner of “East Hall Street” (James Street) and “Sullivan Hill” (North McBride Street). The “MacLeans” were a prominent family with three generations of physicians, starting with “Gramp” (John Van Duyn, 1st), his son “Doctor Mac” (Edward S. Van Duyn), and his grandson “George” (John Van Duyn, 2nd). The novel is told from the point of view of “Janet” (Janet Dunning), the new/young wife of Dr. George MacLean who moves in with the family and lives at the mansion after the couple is married. Also living at the house with them are “Pim” (the Van Duyn’s youngest daughter Constance, mentioned in the wedding announcement above… Janet’s maid of honor), “Aunt Grace” (not sure exactly who this is, but she’s a semi-permanent boarder/artist who comes and goes during the story), and “Brunch” the dog (who’s real name is Ted-dee-boop and even makes his own appearance on the Society pages in a photo with Constance at a dog show for the local Kennel Association. See below).
CAPTION: “Among the dogs and exhibitors to take part in the show at the Coliseum next Sunday are: Miss Constance Van Duyn of 607 James Street with the chow, “Ted-dee-boop, upper left…”
I have much more to share about this novel in my next post (including photos of the real life mansion and some my favorite LOL moments in the book), as well as news from one of the Van Duyn’s daughters who knew Ruth Ives and has agreed to answer my questions!
Stay tuned…
Read MoreAbout Me
Join me in my sporadic ramblings as I embrace the curious life. Wife of a turkey farmer. Mother of two teenage boys. Avid ponderer. Treasure seeker. Curator of the written word. I enjoy sparking interest in the mundane and uncovering a compelling backstory.
