Ann Hutchinson Neidecker received this memoir from her Aunt Olivia, March 16, 1990. Aunt Olivia was the sister of Winifred Mackay Hutchinson Pearson, Annette Mackay Pyle, Donald Sage MacKay 2nd, and Stewart Mackay. Olivia was the youngest child of the Reverend Donald Sage Mackay from Aberdeen, Scotland and Helen Lawrence Smith from St. Albans, Vermont. "The enclosed is meant to be added to Aunt Annette's memories of her family in the early days of the 20th century."
Ann Hutchinson Neidecker. (Ann's mother Winifred Pearson died on August 1, 1979.)
Olivia's (Bo) introduction:
"The events and recollections that I have written are seen through the eyes of a little girl, me, who was sure that she belonged to the most wonderful family in the world. Read the result if you have time, and then put it away some place. Who knows? A descendant of yours may come across it in some remote corner of an attic in the distant future; read and smile at the stiff but lovable characters that Aunt Annette has so well described, of her aunts who were so conscious of etiquette, good manners, and who were so priggish and snobbish, and yet so firm in their principles.
"Future members of the family, if they come across these pages, may well write them off as quaint and laughable. And yet one of them may feel a closer affinity to their ancestors. Whatever, I had fun writing about us."
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MEMORIES OF FAMILY
BY OLIVIA SAGE MACKAY, YOUNGEST SURVIVING MEMBER OF THE MACKAY FAMILY…"BO".
Janet was, during my early years, the most important person in my life. Janet was my nurse. In 1906 when I was born she had already been with our family for many years. Sturdy, loyal to the Rev. Donald Sage Mackay family, a highly principled Scottish woman she bore the irregularities of life with courage. My mother, Helen Smith Mackay, on the other hand, came and went, in and out of my life…tantalizing, charming and glamorous. Her arrivals were always exciting, but I wondered where did she and my brothers and sisters go and what did they do while I stayed securely tied to Janet? It didn't seem fair to me that my brothers and sisters should get more of my mother's attention than I. But still, I had Janet who spoiled and scolded me and gave me love and security. Of my father, I unfortunately have no memories whatever. He died in New York City in the summer of 1908 when I was two years old.
That was a terrible summer for my mother. I don't remember it, naturally, but there must have been a dreadful sense of doom. We were in Blue Hill when word came from the city of my father's sudden death from pneumonia. The shock of that had hardly passed before my sister Aileen, three years older than I, died that August of a sudden, mysterious illness. In those days little was known of germs and viruses, so the doctors never really knew what carried her off and very nearly carried me off as well. They thought we had perhaps eaten poisoned berries, but, where, under Janet's care, could we have gotten them? It always seemed strange to me that I should live and my sister be taken. Why me? My mother simply thought it was God's will. Whatever it was, I'm glad I don't remember anything of that sad summer.
The Blue Hill house was closed up, and my mother and all five of us children plus Janet and Janet's sister Annie MacKinnon, departed by ship that fall for Europe. (1908) My mother's brother, George Smith, the oldest of five children in her family, insisted that we all come and visit him and his English wife, Mary. They lived in a large villa in Florence, Italy. I don't remember our stay in Florence or how long we were there - perhaps a few months. I know we did not stay at the villa but took an apartment nearby. Poor Janet hated it all and grumbled incessantly. Everything to do with Italy, in her opinion, was dirty and a threat to our health and morals. But she bore up bravely for the three years we lived over there. I imagine, for my mother, the recent shocks had not yet worn off, or perhaps she was restless and looking for escape. Whatever it was, she seemed to need a more active, more stimulating life than living with our very English, very proper Aunt Mary.
So when I was three, we left Florence and moved to Rome. Here, my mother very grandly took over the whole top floor of the Hotel Imperial. I have a dim memory of a long, wide corridor, which I could run up and down to my heart's content. Janet and I had our meals in our suite while the rest of the family went down to the dining room. Janet's sister had long since returned home. She was not made of such stern stuff as Janet and was frightened by foreign ways, the dark, uninhibited Italian men and the untidy streets. She went back to Newark, New Jersey, where her other sister Mary had a boarding house that catered to a few young gentlemen who worked in offices. So Janet had sole charge of me and my brother Stewart, much to his disgust as he was six years older and thought of himself far too mature for the nursery. Winifred was then at the awkward age of fifteen, much too old to be with us, and yet not old enough to share Annette's life style. I imagine that my mother had her hands full with her oldest daughter at that time. At eighteen, Annette was a very pretty, vivacious girl, and very popular with all-too-impressionable young Italians. When we first arrived in Italy, my mother, at Aunt Mary's advice, entered Annette and Winifred in a finishing school in Switzerland, mainly to brush up on their French. But alas, this lasted a very short time. My mother was asked, suddenly, to remove her two daughters. Their mischievous pranks, it appeared, had disrupted the morale of the school and were a bad example to the other girls. So the two girls returned to Rome in disgrace and were promptly put into a rigid day school, run with English discipline by a Miss Pride. Here, much chastened, they behaved themselves, to my mother's relief.
Donald, seventeen, our older brother, was in a boy's school near Geneva and was no problem. Donald was tall and handsome and good fun. He resembled his father in looks, was a scholar and felt the responsibility of being the man of the family. Because of his strict upbringing as the oldest son and the nervousness it engendered, he was subject to severe asthma attacks. Many were the games that Donald invented for me when I got bored. Winifred, too, could be teased into painting the most enchanting paper dolls, complete with wardrobe. Annette was a vivid and imaginative storyteller and could keep me enthralled and begging to hear more. Stewart, handsome and precocious at nine, was completely bored by my company and we bickered continually until Janet threatened us with the back of a hairbrush.
The following summer we spent in Venice. After a few weeks at the Daniele Hotel, my mother found an apartment in an old palaccio on one of the canals. There, Stewart and I came down with typhoid fever, which was rampant at the time. My case was fairly light and I don't remember any particular discomfort, but Stewart nearly died. I believe it was a very near thing and my poor mother must have been beside herself with worry. But our little Italian doctor pulled us both through. I had a great affection for him because he brought me a little hard candy in his pocket every day. Aside from this interval, we must have had a very pleasant summer. I have a picture of all of us in a gondola. i believe it was our own private gondola and gondoliere. Almost every day we took the little steamboat out to the Lido where we spent long, hot days on the sand and swimming in the Adriatic. There were always swarms of young people around. Annette had turned nineteen and Donald was seventeen. (1910) I remember that my mother cooked us very sandy scrambled eggs in our cabana for lunch. For the first time, I was one of the group. I was spoiled and petted by all and loved it, despite the row of sun blisters that came and went on my shoulders and nose, much to Janet's horror.
I remember one small incident that summer that made a great impression on me. Stewart, my supercilious and tease-loving brother, fell into the canal as he was going down the wet, slimy steps to get into our gondola. I watched in horror as he was led back by Janet, dripping water and brown seaweed, being scolded and shaken for being so careless. I had never seen Stewart in tears before, but as my poor ten year old brother went by me, shocked by the cold water and humiliated, he was weeping. I suddenly had a small, mean feeling of satisfaction that he, too, was not above tears.
We went back to Rome for the winter, and my mother concentrated on Annette's social life. I imagine that Annette had quite a whirl. She was always very popular, with a bevy of ardent suitors, all strictly passed on by my mother as to family reputation and manners. Winifred, I think, had a rather frustrating time. She was just too young for the social whirl and too old for the nursery. She went to school, was taken to museums, art galleries and operas and perhaps she enjoyed them; but all of that was another world from mine. I became very friendly with the hotel chambermaids and the elevator boys, and Janet would take me for walks under the cold winter skies of Rome. We once saw the King driving by in his carriage, surrounded by cavalry. Janet told my mother later that the King had smiled and bowed to me particularly. Since we were a tiny part of the crowd that had gathered, I'm afraid that her imagination worked overtime. Dear Janet, she always wanted me to be noticed. In those years abroad which seemed hateful and sinister to her, she would sigh and say that I was her only "wee bit of comfort". But she was loyal to the Mackay family, which she thought was without equal —- my father had been the finest minister and a true man of God, and now, since my father's early death, my mother had become Janet's responsibility. Leaving us never entered her mind I'm sure, not until she felt that she would no longer be useful.
We spent the summer of 1910 up in the Dolomite mountains. My mother and the older children took a donkey trip of a few days through the forests. Their guide was a small, sturdy little man with an abundance of black hair. He was the owner of the string of donkeys and I watched him beat them smartly over their skinny little rumps to start them off. I was fascinated by the size of the poor beasts; even Stewart's legs hung down below his saddle with his feet almost touching the ground. This time I didn't mind being left behind, I liked the tiny inn with its faintly barnyard smell, the crowing of roosters in the early morning, and I even enjoyed the bees that flew in and out of the open windows while I was at breakfast, fighting to get the honey on the toast. It was due to the guide's skillful persuasion, however, that my mother bought a goat from him. She decided that her children should have fresh milk. Milk and water in those days in most of Europe were considered dangerous to drink unless boiled. I don't remember what happened to the goat. I suppose my mother gave it back to the former owner when we left. i don't think the milk was very popular with any of us.
At some point we acquired a little dog —a Pomeranian called "Giscard", given to Annette by one of her admirers. I fell in love with Giscard at once and played with him, petting him despite his obvious dislike. He bit me repeatedly but I still loved him. When we left for America, Giscard came with us. What finally happened to him I don't know. I think he lived happily with us until Annette gave him to a friend; later our lives became disrupted and pets were out of the question.
The last year we were in Europe, 1911, we went to Paris to meet two aunts who had come over on a trip. I remember getting off our train from Rome, running down the long train platform and flinging myself into the arms of a perfectly strange and much surprised gentleman. For some reason I thought it was my Uncle Beecher, whom I adored. I remember my terrible embarrassment when he put me gently down and I saw my mistake. Everyone laughed, including the gentleman, which only made things worse. At any rate, the gentleman and my mother became acquainted. He later sent me a large and imposing black teddy bear, almost as big as I was. I was very proud of it, and from then on I scorned dolls and started a collection of bears of all sizes, tiny ones right up to my portly black. Winifred immediately gave it a name. With her impish sense of humor, it was an outlandish Italian name, which I ignored and called him "Blacky" instead.
Finally, just before World War I. my mother decided it was time to return home. Annette at twenty-one was at a marriageable age (1912-1913) and ready to be presented to society in New York before it would become too late for her. The other children needed a proper education. Donald was to go to college, Winifred and Stewart to boarding schools. There was also vague talk of war. Uncle George advised us to leave Europe as soon as possible.
We sailed back to the United States, and on arrival went almost directly to my mother's sister, Aunt Annie, in St. Albans, Vermont. There I was left. Janet was indispensable to my mother and went with her. So Aunt Annie's personal maid, Agnes, took Janet's place as nursemaid to me. Agnes and I became good friends. She had a warm, Irish sense of humor and was most companionable. She was also much less strict than Janet.
That first Christmas was spent with the whole family in St. Albans. I'm afraid I was still very spoiled, and the sudden change from life in Europe to stern New England was bewildering. My aunts' strict plans for my upbringing frightened me. From now on there was to be no more spoiling or indulging. My Uncle Ed, Edward Curtis Smith, and his wife Nan lived in a large, imposing house across the street from Aunt Annie and Uncle Beecher. Uncle Ed, like his father, (John Gregory Smith, my grandfather before him) had been Governors of Vermont. His house and Aunt Annie's were known as the Governors' Mansions. Uncle Ed had four children, roughly the same ages as my older brothers and sisters. Dorothea, the youngest, was Stewart's age. They were beautifully brought-up children and frowned on our European ways.
Uncle Ed and Aunt Nan had always given a Christmas Eve party for all the Help and their children. There was always a big Christmas tree in the hall and a Santa Claus who gave out presents to all and sundry. As part of the family we all participated of course. At five years old, I was very much looking forward to my present from Santa Claus. However, before the present was given, each child was expected to put on a little act, sing a song or recite verses. These had been learned and rehearsed by the children diligently for weeks before the great event. It was quite an honor for them to perform before the ex-Governor and his lady. Of course, no one had thought of me as a participant or thought to prepare me. I knew no poems, had never been taught any suitable little tricks. So when my turn came to receive my present and perform, I froze in horror. My name was called. What could I do? I felt tears of terror well up in my eyes. Winifred came to my rescue. "Sing, 'Hello Central, are you there?'", she whispered. "You remember the song we taught you?" My tears were forgotten. Yes, I could sing quite a number of popular songs my older sisters had taught me, always laughing hysterically at my rendering of them. Of course, these were songs completely inappropriate for a child to sing on Christmas Eve before a gathering of conservative elders and strictly brought-up children. The song I sang (I wish I could remember the words) wasn't exactly risque, but it was definitely on the sophisticated side. At any rate, I felt I was giving my best performance, accompanied by all the little gestures that had always so amused my sisters. But instead of the anticipated round of applause at the end, there was complete silence, broken only by the stifled giggles of Annette and Winifred. Even my mother looked appalled and sent angry glances in my direction. Santa Claus, who was no doubt one of my cousins, was the first to recover. He gallantly clapped his hands and, picking up my present, gave it to me. I curtsied as Janet had taught me and returned to my mother, wondering what had gone wrong. I often wonder how my poor mother explained my performance to her disapproving sisters and brother, or whether she merely laughed it off. She probably did. She was not one to take criticism of her children from anyone.
The summer of 1914, we spent in our house in Blue Hill, Maine. In fact, at that time we had two houses: our big house with 22 rooms and a cottage just up the hill, and we also had a little bungalow in a private cove on the water, used mostly for picnics and changing into bathing suits. My mother loved the bungalow and we spent much time on the flat, sun-warmed rocks, the air smelling of seaweed and clover and hay from the fields behind us. The little cove was a paradise, secluded and private, facing Blue Hill mountain across the bay. At low tide we could dig for clams; at high tide we could swim or, like me, paddle and explore the little pools in the rocks and crevasses. I climbed up the small, cliff-like banks of the cove in my bare feet and found small curved ledges where I could sit and look down upon the world. As I watched, Annette and Winifred would appear from the bungalow, decked out in black bathing suits that came down to their knees, with elbow-length sleeves and high necklines. They wore black stockings to cover their legs, rubber shoes to protect their feet, and large, fluffy bathing caps to keep their hair dry. They minced down over the rocks and timidly put one foot in the water which, I must say, was of Arctic temperature. Annette was always the first to plunge in and swim the breast stroke up and down the cove. Stewart and Donald soon appeared, wearing baggy one-piece bathing suits, also with sleeves. They were striped like a convict's outfit and hung limply well below the knees. Without a moment's hesitation they jumped into the water and splashed Winifred. She in turn waded in and swam after the boys and they would have a ducking contest. I never tired of watching from my safe ledge in the rocks. I was never allowed to go in the water unless Janet or my mother were there to watch me. I couldn't swim. No matter how diligently people tried to teach me, my head fought to stay well out of water while one foot sank to find solid ground. I was a great disappointment to myself. I dreamed of cutting fearlessly through the water, feeling wonderfully free and weightless. If Stewart could master it, why couldn't I? It wasn't until I was nine or ten years old at summer camp that I overcame my fears and actually swam. In the meantime I took a vicarious pleasure in watching. Annette managed to ignore the splashing game of the others and continued swimming sedately from one side of the cove to the other.
In the years to follow, as adults, she and I spent the summers in Blue Hill, she with her family in the big house and I and mine usually in the bungalow, which we had enlarged to include three tiny bedrooms. The rest of the family by that time were scattered and seldom came to Blue Hill as they had their own homes elsewhere. What I remember most with admiration was Annette walking the mile from the big house down to the bungalow at 8 o'clock in the morning, getting into an often still-wet bathing suit and plunging into the icy water with the early morning mist still clinging above it, swimming up and down the cove. I envied her stamina but had no desire to emulate it. she was made of sterner stuff than I.
But to regress a bit: before leaving Europe, my mother acquired a French maid whom she brought back to the states with her. Typically French and very temperamental, she lasted just two weeks after we moved to Blue Hill for the summer. City life was acceptable to her, but, apparently, life in faraway Blue Hill was the absolute end. My mother paid her off and she departed for New York. Her name was Mimi and we named a piglet after her.
That summer in Blue Hill was a busy and happy one. My mother had decided to have a small model farm on the place. There was plenty of room behind the barn for chicken houses, a pig sty, etc. The chickens would provide fresh eggs, the pig would have litters of piglets, the guinea fowl would turn into delicious gourmet dinners and a cow would give us plenty of creamy fresh milk. To me at six years old it was also fascinating and exciting. A tennis court was also built. My mother even bought a horse, a Morgan harness trotter, who never won a race as far as I can remember. However, there was joy in the air. We had a flood of guests taken care of by a Japanese butler, a Scottish cook named Tilly, various help that came in by the day, and of course, Janet.
Among the guests who came and went over the summer was Dean Pearson, who many years later was to marry Winifred, and an Italian count, Count del Sara, who had become enamoured of my mother. To her amusement, the Count followed us around, even to the United States and up to Blue Hill. He is the only one of our guests whom I remember well, mostly because he made such a fuss over me, picking me up, swinging me in the air, laughing and singing Italian songs. He had a little black mustache and always smelled of a delicate scent. One night at one of the many dinner parties my mother gave that summer, she came into my room, Count del Sara with her. I pretended to be asleep and kept my eyes squeezed tightly shut. As she bent over me, I could smell her special perfume, Parma violets, and could see through my eyelashes how elegant she looked in her low-cut evening dress and sparking jewels and how handsome Count del Sara was in his dinner jacket. I heard my mother whisper to him, "Isn't she the picture of innocence lying there, listening to every word I say?" They both laughed and left the room. I never understood how she knew I was awake.
Our Japanese butler, Ito, was a very good photographer as well as an artistic table-setter. I remember the delicate little baskets filled with fruit or shrimp that he cut out of orange and grapefruit rinds and the beautiful flower arrangements. My mother decided to have him take a picture of me posed as the little girl in a popular painting of that time called "Innocence". What a "pleased-with-herself" little prig I looked. I came across it one day and remembered that long-ago summer.
Between visitors, my mother made trips to St. Albans and later to New York to get our apartment ready for the great event of Annette's "Coming Out" party the following winter. "Coming Out" or being presented to society, was an important part of the life of a girl of good family in those days. There were usually two parties: the first was to meet, or to be presented to, the friends of her parents; the second was a ball given at home, if you were lucky enough or rich enough to have a big house, or in a hotel or a private club if this were not the case. You were then eligible for all the parties of all the other debutantes who were "coming out" that year. it was a whirl of gaiety and excitement, meeting many young bachelors among whom you were expected to select a husband. Sadly we were never to know what sort of a season Annette would have that winter because my mother didn't live to carry out her plans.
Soon after we returned to New York City from Blue Hill, in the fall of 1914, we moved into our duplex apartment on Park Avenue. One day Mother noticed my too short dresses and tight winter coat. We began a few exciting shopping sprees. One purchase was a gray squirrel coat, a fur that was fashionable at that time, with a little fur hat to match. I was very pleased with myself in it, but even more exciting was a trip to F.A.O. Schwartz, the big toy store on Fifth Avenue, where I was allowed to pick out my Christmas presents. As usual my mother was generous to a fault, so among the teddy bears and other things, I chose a rocking horse with a saddle and bridle that could be taken off and on. It was a beautiful beast, brown with a white star on its forehead and white-stockinged, galloping hooves. Everything was sent on to St. Albans, as we were to spend Christmas with Aunt Annie, and everything was there for me on Christmas morning — gallant rocking horse and all. But Mother was never to join us. She died only a few weeks before we were to leave New York.
One afternoon my mother told me she was going out. I was eight years old then and alone as Janet had gone to her sister in Newark for a few days, Annette was out at one of her debutante tea-dancing parties but would be home later to change to go out again that evening. the rest of the family was still at college and boarding schools. The apartment suddenly seemed enormous to me. The big studio living room went up two stories with a balcony that went around three sides where our bedrooms were. Downstairs, under the balcony, were a den, a dining room, kitchen and pantry. Our servants lived in rooms in the basement of the apartment house. I felt frightened at the thought of being alone. it was still strange to me. I begged to be taken along and I cried, but my mother kissed me and said that Dora, a part-time maid would be up from her room soon and would give me supper and put me to bed. As she went out the door, she smiled back at me,Sand that was the last time I saw her.
i suppose Dora came and put me to bed but I don't remember. I only recall that she was brusque and grumpy, resentful at having to look after a child. She obviously didn't care for children. It was late that night when I suddenly woke up. The telephone was ringing beside my mother's bed where I was, and it seemed to have a shrill, frightening sound. I lay in the warm bed, waiting for someone to answer it, wondering why it kept on ringing. Where was everyone? I finally got up and went out into the balcony hallway. I peered down into the silent living room. One lamp was lit, casting frightening black shadows about the huge room. I called out but my voice sounded small in the scary stillness. I called louder, but there was only the echo of my voice. I was suddenly very frightened. Where was my mother? Where was Annette? It was all so deathly still, and the telephone kept ringing insistently off and on. I picked up the receiver. I had never spoken into a telephone before as they were still new in those days, but I said "Hello."
The voice at the other end was a man's voice, a stranger. He wanted to know to whom he was talking. "Olivia," I said and went on to say that I was alone, that I didn't know where my mother was. i was afraid and wanted my mother. After a pause, the voice assured me that my mother would be back soon and that I mustn't be frightened. He sounded kind and understanding and I wished he would keep on talking. He asked me for the names of the rest of our family and I told him. Then he asked where they were. I said that my sister Annette was out at a party, that Donald (only it came out "Arnold" in the newspaper, as the man turned out to be a reporter) was at Williams College, Winifred at Briarcliff Manor and Stewart at the Fay School. And I added tearfully that I wanted my mother to come back. After a pause, the voice assured me again that my mother would be home and not to be frightened, to go back to bed. Feeling slightly reassured, I hung up and climbed back into bed.
Later, I learned that Annette and her escort of the evening had come home fairly late from a dance. Annette had gone upstairs, seen my mother's bedroom door open and realized that I was alone and sound asleep. When she went back downstairs, she told her date that she ws worried about her mother not being home. the young man, whose name I can't remember, was a godsend to us that night. He refused to leave us alone and after a while, he began to call the hospitals. Perhaps she had had some sort of accident and had been trying to call the apartment. But noone of my mother's description had been admitted to any of the energency wards. Then reluctantly they called the police department. A voice told them to hold on. After a long time, the voice came on again, "Yes, a woman answering my mother's description had beem brought in by police ambulance a few hours earlier. She was dead on arrival. The police inquired if Annette was a relation and on hearing that she was a daughter, asked if she would come down and identify her mother and answer a few questions. They told her that our mother had apparently been brought in the ambulance from a doctor's office where she had died suddenly of a heart attack and that she had no identification on her, Her purse had a few odds and ends and some money but nothing else.
Annette's young escort insisted on staying and accompanying Annette down to the police morgue where she identified Mother's body. It was a terrible shock to a young girl of twenty-two on the eve of an exciting winter season of parties and new friends. Now, she was suddenly in charge of four under-aged brothers and sisters — Donald, almost twenty-one; Winifred, seventeen; Stewart, thirteen; and myself, only eight.
The next day Janet came back. Uncle Ed and our two aunts came down from St. Albans to take charge of the funeral. It was decided that it would be held in the apartment with burial afterwards in Greenlawn Cemetery. My father was buried there as was my older brother Murray, who had died many years before in Scotland at the age of seven, his body brought back to be buried in the family plot along with my sister Aileen, who had died at five.
I remember the funeral. The big living room was filled with rented chairs. Janet sat with me on her lap in the last row in the back. Both her sisters, Annie and Mary McKinnon were there and many of my mother's and father's friends. Of my own benumbed feelings I only remember that I was sad because everyone else was sad. Stewart and Winifred were quietly weeping; my aunts and uncle looked grim. I don't wonder. They must have been thinking, "What was going to become of us children?" I couldn't take in the fact that my mother was lying cold and still in a coffin there in front. It seemed like just yesterday that she had kissed me and smiled at me. Where was she now? We all drove out to the cemetery in hired limousines. I wore my new fur coat and hat and hoped, wherever my mother was, she could see me. I don't remember the internment. Janet must have led me away from the grave. Perhaps we sat in the car. I remember it was a very cold, grey day with a few snowflakes falling.
Our life style suddenly changed. To me it was a frightening and bewildering change. Annette, on Aunt Annie's and Aunt Julie's advice, thought we should all stay together. The three oldest would go on with their schools and college and Annette would keep me with her. I think there must have been some argument about that but Annette held out. Uncle Ed became my legal guardian and we would all spend our vacations in St. Albans and Blue Hill. We spent that Christmas in St. Albans. Everyone tried to make it a pleasant time, but there was a big gap for all of us. The thrill of the Christmas spirit was gone. Everyone had sad, tear-stained eyes. I still didn't understand what had happened. I only knew I missed my mother, her gaiety and laughter. For once, Janet did not fill the gap.
Our aunt Nan gave a family dinner party on christmas night. I was told by her butler that I was a very lucky little girl. I was to have the honor of sitting on Aunt Nan's left, a seat of honor given to elders or important guests. Whatever the butler's good intentions of cheering me up, it only made me feel glummer. aunt Nan had a depressing effect on me. It called forth a feeling of rebellion and intimidation. I was sure she had dire plans of bringing me up properly: less expensiv e toys and fur coats, no more little song-and-dance routines. I was to learn to be obedient and docile. I don't know where I got those ideas. I'm suree aunt Nan was no ogre. she might have been disapproving but she was kind at heart and meant well. she was kindness itself that evening and tried hard to cheer me up. Unfortunately it oinly resulted in slow, silent tears running down my cheekswhich I was ashamed of and wiped away with my napkin.
The memories of the next few years are scattered. we had to give up our Park Avenue apartment. as it turned out, my mother had been playing the stock market and had lost a great deal of money. What was left was divided evenly between us five children. Fortunately, it was enough to pay for our education and upbringing. Money went a long way in those days. After that sad Christmas of 1914, Winifred and Stewart went back to their schools and donald to Williams college. i don't know what Janet was dping during those uncertain times, she seemed to appear and disappear and I missed her terribly. Annette and I moved around New York from one cheap hotel to another. we never seeemed to have anywhere ti settle down. i hated the hotels. I think annette felt lost and unsure of herself. Her life had taken a totally diffrent direction, even more than the rest of us who still had the routine of school and college with its feeling of security and direction.
Nights for me were particularly lonely and frightening. annette often went out. she was doing some kind of work at setllement huses for the poor, and she also kept up with her old friends. Before she left she would bring me the newest OZ book to read for the evening. (I was going to The Froeble League School on East 71st. Street.) She would make me promise not to fuss with the window for fear of falling out. she'd assure me that sghe would be back early. My heart sank as I saw the door close behind her. the newsboys in the streetrs would shout out all sorts of disasters and war news or other horrors nearer home. Their voices shouted, " Extra, extra, read all about it!" Then they'd yell out a spate of gory information — "headless bodies found in ditches, mad men escaped from jail, hundreds dying in battle." All of this filled me with fear, but I had to hear more and would open the window a few inches to hear it all.
There were a few bright spots however. I spent many weekends with Janet and her two sisters in Newark, NJ where they ran a boarding house for "young gentlemen". they never took more than two or three young gentlemen at a time and I caught brief glimpses of them —pale, sober young men who spent their days in offices. I ate hearty Scottish meals in their clean, warm kitchen : Big bowls of porridge in the morning, eaten from a bowl with the words "Waste not, want not" written in gold at the bottom.
I always was able to read those words,
During these weekends Janet took me calling on several of my father's wealthier parishioners. He had been minister at the Presbyterian Church in Newark before he moved to St. Nicholas on 48th Street and Fifth Avenue in New York. I dreaded those visits. I was sighed over and told how sad it was to be orphaned so young. So sad for our whole family. A terrible tragedy, and so on. Janet was determined not to have Dr. Mackay's children forgotten, and I, "the wee baby" was trotted around as an example of the tragedy. I don't know what she hoped for from these visite. I was also taken to visit my father's 5th Avenue friends. One of them, Mrs. Andrew Carnegie, lived in a vast mansion on upper Fifth Avenue. She gave me tea and cakes and a very beautiful doll dressed in a Highland costume, complete with tiny pearl buttons and real lace. The doll could be dressed and undressed even to its underwear. It had beautiful real hair to comb. Another elderly lady was Mrs. Russell Sage; for whom my mother named me, Mrs. Sage's first name being Olivia. She was also my godmother. She too treated me to tea and oatmeal cookies and another doll. Nothing came from all these visits. They were just very old ladies who lived out their lives quietly amid their wealth.
One family I did enjoy lived in Newark - the Wright Clarks. Their daughter Margaret was my age and we became great friends in those early years. They had a lovely house and Mr. and Mrs. Clarke were warm and charming people. One of the big attractions of those visits was an attic filled with all sorts of toys. There we were put on rainy days to make as much noise as we liked. Then suddenly, after the wandering hotel life, Annette's friends Florence Partridge and her mother, rented a large and beautiful old house in New York at 5 East Ninth Street. They suggested that Annette and I move in with them and share expenses. the house was a five-story red brick, five blocks from Washington Square with its little park. there I went after school to roller-skate and play with new friends from the neighborhood.
There Janet came back to me for a while. I was nine years old, really too old to have a nurse. It was there at last that Janet finally decided to make the break and leave us for good. I was not told this, I suppose to avoid a scene. Janet had another position with some people who had a little boy a few years younger than me. For a long time after she left, I thought about that little boy with envy and resentment. He had taken Janet from me and I wasn't prepared to share her with anyone. The night before she left I had a startling premonition. She had listened to my prayers and was tucking me into bed when suddenly, with absolute clarity I knew she was leaving me. It was so vivid and so terrifying that I clung to her, begging her to stay with me. She patted me and told me not to be such a baby. I was growing into a young lady now and going to school. I no longer needed a baby nurse but would have a maid or a governess to take me to school and out to the park, when she left, after promising to come and see me often, I cried myself to sleep.
So, it was no surprise the next morning when Mrs. Partridge introduced me to a young woman who was to be my nursemaid. She didn't last long. I suppose I showed her my resentment at losing Janet. After she left, a French governess was employed. She took me to school every day, called for me at lunch and then took me to the park. We were to speak nothing but French the whole time. After the school year was over, she got married and I never saw her again. I was delighted because she had been very strict and the French conversation bored me. How I came to regret my stubborn attitude.
That winter, Annette became engaged to a young doctor named Edwin Pyle. I was very excited and couldn't wait to tell my schoolmates this romantic bit of information. Then Annette told me it was off. Then it was on again. Finally the day of the wedding came - March, 1917. It was to take place in our father's church, the
Church of St. Nicholas at Fifth Avenue and 48th Street. I begged to be included in the wedding procession, but I was too young to be a bridesmaid and too old to be a flower girl so I had too be content with being escorted up the aisle on the arm of a handsome young usher, to sit beside Aunt Annie and Aunt Julie. On the way up the aisle I heard whispers, "That's the bride's little sister." I felt very proud in my new dress and big straw hat with velvet streamers down my back, Many years later the Church of St. Nicholas was torn down to make room for a part of Radio City.
At this time, Winifred was attending Smith College, Sttewart was at the Hill School, and Donald was at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City, having graduated from Williams College. He was preparing to follow in his father's footsteps and become a minister of the church. But later he decided that he was better suited for teaching, ending up a full professor of Philosophy at the University of California in Berkeley. But first he had to go through the horrors of World War I.
Donald became a captain in the Rainbow Division which almost immediately was sent to France. There he won the Distinguished Service Cross for bravery. He never talked about it but we learned later from the War Department and other sources how it happened. After one of the heavy German bombardments at the front was over, Donald and another volunteer climnbed out of their trench, crawled through the barbed wire in the darkness, across to No Man's Land where one of their comprades lay badly wounded.
