Cousin Bea
© John K. Taber, 2002
We received an unexpected call that Cousin Bea just died. Perhaps it should not have been unexpected because she was 98, but as she endured so long it was still a surprise. She hoped to reach 100, and almost made it.
I was in my junior year at Berkeley, 45 years ago, when the bell to my apartment rang. At the door was a frumpy middle-aged woman. “Are you John Taber?” she asked. “Yes, I am” I acknowledged. The frumpy woman announced “I’m Beatrice W., I’m your first cousin once removed.” Or, maybe she said first cousin twice removed.
What does one say to an announcement like that? There is a general understanding of aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces, and cousins, but with today’s atomized family, the remoter reaches of kinship like second and third cousins or removed cousins are beyond ordinary understanding. “Well, do come in” I said, the only response I could think of on meeting my removed cousin.
That was how I met Cousin Bea. She brought me up to date on the kinship. She was my mother’s cousin, and my mother’s girlhood friend in Manhattan in the period before World War I. Actually, try as Bea might, I didn’t grasp the kinship. Just as the explanation grew crucial, Cousin Bea jumped to another distant relative, and I lost the thread. I took her word for it. Shortly after WW I, my mother’s family moved to California, and eventually contact was lost.
But she had a daughter, Clare, my second cousin, living in Berkeley that I should look up, she said. I had no idea. So I promised I would look her up. Cousin Bea loved to get people together.
And so I met Clare. She was my age, also attending Berkeley but for an advanced degree, struggling as a divorced mother with a four-year-old daughter. We liked each other. Nothing came of that, and eventually Clare married a great guy who pushed and encouraged her to get her doctorate, while I moved to Texas and married a great gal. But we kept up the ties over the years.
My wife Sonja took a shine to Cousin Bea, maybe because she was a direct link to my otherwise lost past. When my aunt died I inherited the family photos. “Who are all these people in period clothing?” I wondered. That’s the trouble with family photos. By the time you inherit them the identity of most of the people in them has been lost. It would help if people dated pictures, and wrote who the subjects are and where the pictures were taken, and on what occasion on the back. But nobody does.
Cousin Bea identified them for us. Of course, some of her identifications were mistaken. Over the years she forgot some and misremembered others. Still, she made a dent in the pile of pictures, though we can only be sure of some of them.
Bea did not like to shut up. She was fine for a visit but I imagine that if you had to live with her you would either flee to a remote part of the country or strangle her.
Sonja was interested in the family relationship. Almost always Cousin Bea’s explanation would get fuzzy, because, I supposed, when we asked for clarification, the interruption annoyed her. So on a visit to us, my wife taped her. After several days of taping, my wife asked Bea if she would like to hear herself. Of course she would. Her face showed her pleasure in listening to herself, and her annoyance at having to shut up to listen to herself. The expression of cross purposes on her face was as perfect a picture of Cousin Bea as any of us can think of.
Sonja, with paper and pencil in hand, kept on interrupting Bea as she mentioned long forgotten relatives to get the relationship down. The arrows and layout are somewhat confusing, but after Bea’s death I could use my wife’s notes and Bea’s writings to puzzle out the relationships.
Cousin Bea had a talent for bringing people together and reuniting them. I remember my mother when she finally saw Bea – they were both middle-aged by that time, and had not seen each other since girlhood. They embraced, and there were tears in my mother’s eyes. “Beatrice!” my mother said with a catch in her voice, “I thought I would not see you again this side of the grave.”
Once a year, Sonja shipped a Weihnachtsstollen (a German Christmas cake) to Bea which my wife baked herself. Cousin Bea loved the Stollen. Maybe it reminded her of her own girlhood in New York. She told us the tale of my grandfather’s sarcastic German term for weak American coffee: Blümchenkafe (flower coffee). By that she said, my grandfather, whom I never met, meant coffee so weak one could see the floral decoration at the bottom of the china coffee cup.
But the last year my wife had to send her store-bought Stollen. We’re not getting younger ourselves, and the Stollen was work. It was imported, and very good, but it was not to Bea’s liking. Bea thanked her, but let Sonja know Bea preferred the real thing, home made.
Cousin Bea was a trencherman. The writings she left dwelt on menus of a bygone era. On a visit to us I was determined to treat her to a rich steak dinner, aged and marbled meat, as in her youth. We took her to Ruth’s Chris Steak House. At the age of 89 she devoured a rare filet mignon, sizzling in butter, with evident pleasure. She loved red meat, she told us. She wiped out the lyonnaised potatos, and polished off the asparagus. She even managed a roll or two. For dessert she had crème brulée. She astonished us, but at the same time we all took pleasure in her pleasure. It was a memorable meal.
Her pictures reveal a beauty in her youth. She was bright and accomplished. She attended Cornell, taking her degree in the Classics – Greek and Latin in 1926. She played the piano very well, probably good enough to be a professional. She continued to play until near blindness kept her from reading the score, and arthritis became too painful to work the keys.
In those days there was not much a beautiful, intelligent and educated woman could do. If she had completed high school she could become a telephone operator. If she had some training she could become a nurse. With a college degree, the only practical field open to her was teaching. So, she taught high school in New York.
Cousin Bea had many adventures some successful, many not. A memorable defeat was her hamburger stand in Florida. In spite of the fact that it was supposed to make her and her husband, Jack, independent and wealthy, they went broke, and had to abandon the stand. Her most successful was her retirement from teaching to Albuquerque. She and Jack picked the location well. In the 70s, Albuquerque was big enough to support elderly people, with an ideal climate for the elderly, near desert, dry and neither too cold nor too warm, and relatively inexpensive.
They traveled a lot around the country, visiting their children and grandchildren, quarrelling with them too. Jack was nearly deaf, which is why I suppose he did not seem to mind his wife’s talking, while Bea’s eyesight was increasingly poor. With Jack’s eyesight and Bea’s hearing they managed driving the US.
Cousin Bea involved herself in the community. She was active in the senior center. She still loved to teach, so taught Spanish to the seniors, one of the many languages she had mastered. She helped organize her church, and once a year was a lay reader of Bible passages, which she read in Greek, a tour de force.
One day at a senior picnic she pronounced something to Jack, who rose as if to reply and fell over dead from a stroke. Death was instantaneous. She missed Jack, but at the same time I suspect she harbored a grudge against him for finding another way not to listen to her.
And so we laid Bea to rest next to her husband.
John J. W. 1903 – 1982
Beatrice B. W. 1903 – 2002
Together forever
Vale, Cousin Bea.
I was in my junior year at Berkeley, 45 years ago, when the bell to my apartment rang. At the door was a frumpy middle-aged woman. “Are you John Taber?” she asked. “Yes, I am” I acknowledged. The frumpy woman announced “I’m Beatrice W., I’m your first cousin once removed.” Or, maybe she said first cousin twice removed.
What does one say to an announcement like that? There is a general understanding of aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces, and cousins, but with today’s atomized family, the remoter reaches of kinship like second and third cousins or removed cousins are beyond ordinary understanding. “Well, do come in” I said, the only response I could think of on meeting my removed cousin.
That was how I met Cousin Bea. She brought me up to date on the kinship. She was my mother’s cousin, and my mother’s girlhood friend in Manhattan in the period before World War I. Actually, try as Bea might, I didn’t grasp the kinship. Just as the explanation grew crucial, Cousin Bea jumped to another distant relative, and I lost the thread. I took her word for it. Shortly after WW I, my mother’s family moved to California, and eventually contact was lost.
But she had a daughter, Clare, my second cousin, living in Berkeley that I should look up, she said. I had no idea. So I promised I would look her up. Cousin Bea loved to get people together.
And so I met Clare. She was my age, also attending Berkeley but for an advanced degree, struggling as a divorced mother with a four-year-old daughter. We liked each other. Nothing came of that, and eventually Clare married a great guy who pushed and encouraged her to get her doctorate, while I moved to Texas and married a great gal. But we kept up the ties over the years.
My wife Sonja took a shine to Cousin Bea, maybe because she was a direct link to my otherwise lost past. When my aunt died I inherited the family photos. “Who are all these people in period clothing?” I wondered. That’s the trouble with family photos. By the time you inherit them the identity of most of the people in them has been lost. It would help if people dated pictures, and wrote who the subjects are and where the pictures were taken, and on what occasion on the back. But nobody does.
Cousin Bea identified them for us. Of course, some of her identifications were mistaken. Over the years she forgot some and misremembered others. Still, she made a dent in the pile of pictures, though we can only be sure of some of them.
Bea did not like to shut up. She was fine for a visit but I imagine that if you had to live with her you would either flee to a remote part of the country or strangle her.
Sonja was interested in the family relationship. Almost always Cousin Bea’s explanation would get fuzzy, because, I supposed, when we asked for clarification, the interruption annoyed her. So on a visit to us, my wife taped her. After several days of taping, my wife asked Bea if she would like to hear herself. Of course she would. Her face showed her pleasure in listening to herself, and her annoyance at having to shut up to listen to herself. The expression of cross purposes on her face was as perfect a picture of Cousin Bea as any of us can think of.
Sonja, with paper and pencil in hand, kept on interrupting Bea as she mentioned long forgotten relatives to get the relationship down. The arrows and layout are somewhat confusing, but after Bea’s death I could use my wife’s notes and Bea’s writings to puzzle out the relationships.
Cousin Bea had a talent for bringing people together and reuniting them. I remember my mother when she finally saw Bea – they were both middle-aged by that time, and had not seen each other since girlhood. They embraced, and there were tears in my mother’s eyes. “Beatrice!” my mother said with a catch in her voice, “I thought I would not see you again this side of the grave.”
Once a year, Sonja shipped a Weihnachtsstollen (a German Christmas cake) to Bea which my wife baked herself. Cousin Bea loved the Stollen. Maybe it reminded her of her own girlhood in New York. She told us the tale of my grandfather’s sarcastic German term for weak American coffee: Blümchenkafe (flower coffee). By that she said, my grandfather, whom I never met, meant coffee so weak one could see the floral decoration at the bottom of the china coffee cup.
But the last year my wife had to send her store-bought Stollen. We’re not getting younger ourselves, and the Stollen was work. It was imported, and very good, but it was not to Bea’s liking. Bea thanked her, but let Sonja know Bea preferred the real thing, home made.
Cousin Bea was a trencherman. The writings she left dwelt on menus of a bygone era. On a visit to us I was determined to treat her to a rich steak dinner, aged and marbled meat, as in her youth. We took her to Ruth’s Chris Steak House. At the age of 89 she devoured a rare filet mignon, sizzling in butter, with evident pleasure. She loved red meat, she told us. She wiped out the lyonnaised potatos, and polished off the asparagus. She even managed a roll or two. For dessert she had crème brulée. She astonished us, but at the same time we all took pleasure in her pleasure. It was a memorable meal.
Her pictures reveal a beauty in her youth. She was bright and accomplished. She attended Cornell, taking her degree in the Classics – Greek and Latin in 1926. She played the piano very well, probably good enough to be a professional. She continued to play until near blindness kept her from reading the score, and arthritis became too painful to work the keys.
In those days there was not much a beautiful, intelligent and educated woman could do. If she had completed high school she could become a telephone operator. If she had some training she could become a nurse. With a college degree, the only practical field open to her was teaching. So, she taught high school in New York.
Cousin Bea had many adventures some successful, many not. A memorable defeat was her hamburger stand in Florida. In spite of the fact that it was supposed to make her and her husband, Jack, independent and wealthy, they went broke, and had to abandon the stand. Her most successful was her retirement from teaching to Albuquerque. She and Jack picked the location well. In the 70s, Albuquerque was big enough to support elderly people, with an ideal climate for the elderly, near desert, dry and neither too cold nor too warm, and relatively inexpensive.
They traveled a lot around the country, visiting their children and grandchildren, quarrelling with them too. Jack was nearly deaf, which is why I suppose he did not seem to mind his wife’s talking, while Bea’s eyesight was increasingly poor. With Jack’s eyesight and Bea’s hearing they managed driving the US.
Cousin Bea involved herself in the community. She was active in the senior center. She still loved to teach, so taught Spanish to the seniors, one of the many languages she had mastered. She helped organize her church, and once a year was a lay reader of Bible passages, which she read in Greek, a tour de force.
One day at a senior picnic she pronounced something to Jack, who rose as if to reply and fell over dead from a stroke. Death was instantaneous. She missed Jack, but at the same time I suspect she harbored a grudge against him for finding another way not to listen to her.
And so we laid Bea to rest next to her husband.
John J. W. 1903 – 1982
Beatrice B. W. 1903 – 2002
Together forever
Vale, Cousin Bea.
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