Posts Tagged "Lucy Leavenworth 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 8
I Married Them by Janet Dunning Van Duyn
New here? This is the eighth chapter of a story that began with a pair of love letters I purchased on ebay. Start from the beginning….
Happy Valentine’s Day! I have lots to report this week, including a phone call with Dr. John Van Duyn’s youngest daughter. I also have an update to my Villa Am Meer story, which I’ll (hopefully) post later this week.
But first! A book report on I Married Them, a humorous novel by Janet Dunning Van Duyn.
** SIDEBAR **
If you’re like me, you’ve probably been wondering how to pronounce the name Van Duyn. Is it Van-Doo-Win or Van-Doo-Ween? Well, the answer is neither. The actual pronunciation is Van-DINE.
** END SIDEBAR **
A few things first… just to recap. Janet Dunning was the first wife of Dr. John Van Duyn (see Chapter 6 for full details). They were married December 21, 1935 in Syracuse, New York. After they were married, John and his new wife Janet moved into the Leavenworth Mansion at 607 James Street. They lived there with John’s parents, Dr. Edward S. Van Duyn and his wife Lucy (Leavenworth), as well as John’s younger sister, Constance. I Married Them is a fictional novel that depicts the real life of the prominent but eccentric Van Duyn family.
I first learned of this book’s existence when I found a biography of Janet Van Duyn in a 2002 book called Contemporary Authors (Publisher: Tom Gale). I did a search online and found a used copy for sale on ebay. I won the auction and paid $1.00 for the book, plus shipping.
The book starts like this: “The train moved sluggishly across the New York Central trestle on East Hall Street, throwing up little puffs of smoke which hung depressingly in the morning sky.”
Aboard the train is Cleary, the eighty year old Irish seamstress for the MacLean (Van Duyn) family. She’d been the family seamstress for over sixty years, coming to work by horse car, cable car, “or whatever the current conveyance may be” to do the sewing (and whatever else had to be done) for the MacLean family.
“Most of East Hall Street is wide and beautiful, with great arching trees and venerable houses. The houses ranging along it in dignified rows from the trestle all the way up to the hill are solidly built painfully respectable, and appallingly homely.”
“The house on the corner of East Hall Street ad 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.”
As Cleary arrives at work, she recalls how fearful she was of the bronze statues that guard the front walk.
“Cleary wasn’t the only one who had been frightened by these austere creatures. Many of Parthia’s small children had dashed tearfully into their parents’ arms at the sight of them. Older children were braver, of course, and sometimes downright impudent to these twin guardians of the MacLean family seat. They kicked them, rode them, used them as targets for sling-shots, and even went so far as to knock them from their pedestals regularly every Halloween.”
As Cleary arrives at work, she asks Binnie, the cook, for a cup of weak coffee. Binnie tells her they’re out of cream and asks Cleary to run over to Viglione’s to get some.
“Viglione’s was the Italian grocery on Sullivan Hill. It was used by the MacLeans as a kind of auxiliary ice box, for it seemed impossible to keep enough food in the house to satisfy the various appetites of all the family and their friends. The problem was neatly solved by never having much of anything on hand and letting people run over to Viglione’s when they wanted something to eat. The MacLeans lived off Viglione’s by a sort of symbiosis, a fundamental and easy arrangement. It was just a step across the hill from the side door, and what was the use of loading up pantry shelves when one had a grocery store practically in one’s own kitchen?”
By page 15, author Janet Van Duyn had set the scene so well, I felt I already had a strong sense of who this family was, even though none of the main characters had even been introduced yet.
Chapter one, “The Toast is Burning,” introduces the characters one-by-one in a chaotic breakfast setting, which appears to be just another “day in the life” of the eccentric MacLean family. Cleary begins the day by preparing a tray for “Doctor Mac,” the elder of the two doctors living in the mansion (the eldest, Dr. MacLean Sr., has already died at this point). As she climbs the stairs to his bedroom, the author gives this description of the historic Syracuse home:
“The hall was very dark, since it ran straight through the center of the house and was blocked off in the middle by a double door separating the front from the back. At the front were two parlors on each side of the hall, called the Red Room and the Green Room. They were high and spacious affairs, containing huge carved antiques which Colonel Davenport had had made to order. The Red Room had a red carpet and long red portieres; the Green Room had the same in faded green. In each room hung an elaborate crystal chandelier, and each had a marble fireplace over which gaped an enormous gilt mirror. These mirrors were so large they almost covered the side walls, making the rooms seem twice as spacious as they really were. When the doors were wide open the hall was flooded with light; when they were closed, as they were now, one groped his way through nubian blackness, hoping for the best.”
Click this link to see real photos of the mansion, including scans of the original blueprints…
Leavenworth Mansion, first and second floors
As the breakfast scene progresses, we learn that Doctor Mac often had his breakfast in bed because of a chronic cough he inherited from his service in World War I. On this particular day, however, he decides to join the rest of the family in the breakfast room, “the small bright cubicle behind the Green Room which the MacLeans used for all family meals because it seemed cozier and more convenient to the kitchen than the large state dining room across the hall.”
Here’s how Janet Van Duyn describes each of the characters, in order of appearance:
Dr. George MacLean – (Dr. John Van Duyn in real life, the recipient of my ebay love letters.) “There was a commotion on the stairs that sounded like the noise of several people descending rapidly. It also sounded like the special noise my husband, George, made whenever he had a tilt with stairs. He came bounding into the room looking like an Arrow collar model gone wrong. Like Doctor Mac, George was also a physician and was making impatient preparations to follow in his father’s footsteps. Someday he’d become one of Parthia’s leading surgeons.” (George is a high-energy, fiercely-competitive, absent-minded professor. He reminds me of Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life, especially with this line, “Aw, just leave me Dick Tracy, won’t you Binnie? I’ll take it up to him later.”)
Pim MacLean – (Constance Van Duyn in real life, John’s younger sister. She attended the same boarding school as the author and was the maid of honor in John and Janet’s wedding. She was also an actress, puppeteer, and fortune-teller in her day.) “The seductive Levantine Princess—at least that—paused in the doorway, fluttered a hand condescendingly in Binnie’s direction, then advanced into the room with a dignity which remained impressive despite the clack-clack of common flapping mules. She was arrayed in a brilliant Japanese kimona and the large orange poppies embellishing it flashed and danced as she swayed voluptuously over the table. Stately and perfectly poised, with slanting green eyes, and an aggressive chin gallantly supported by a firm jaw, she gave the general impression of being what a Levantine Princess loos like before breakfast—until you noticed that her neck was draped with what appeared to be a string of freshly caught fish—silver perch.” (Pim is easily bored, especially with her frequent male suitors.)
Doctor Mac – (Dr. Edward S. Van Duyn in real life. ) “He was a short, stocky man with thinning white hair. On his face was a perpetual scowl, but it denoted absorption in what he was doing, not ill-humor. When he walked he bent over slightly, as if he thought that by doing so he would arrive at his destination more quickly. At the moment his destination was obviously breakfast, and no more fuss. He stumped over to the table and began to cough. The toaster had started to smoke again. He flipped out a slice of blackish toast and burned his fingers as he did so.” (Doctor Mac is a curmudgeony old coot who plays a mean hand of bridge, but has very little patience and even less bedside manner.)
Carrie – (Lucy Leavenworth Van Duyn in real life.) “Carrie now came into the breakfast room. She’d taken the time to dress, a good three minutes at the outside. Her dress was on wrong side out, her hair was combed and arranged in front but hung in long, gray locks down her back. My mother-in-law was a handsome woman, with straight, prominent features and flowing light brown eyes. Her body was thin and wiry and she had the kind of slimness that makes clerks in specialty shops say enviously: “Madame does not need a corset; the Lord has given her one.” (Carrie is the tie that binds this family together, yet she’s as funny and eccentric as they come. She’s loves to entertain and jumps at any opportunity to swing from the chandeliers, even if she’s entertaining heads of state.)
Next time… a few more of my favorite excerpts from the book, as well as my conversation with Dr. John Van Duyn’s daughter.
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.
