Nana Biography

And then, my stepfather became ill, and nobody knew what it was, and it was very costly, and they finally sent him to mayo, and evidently it was something terminal.

You don’t know what?

Some kind of cancer, and my mother brought him out here, and he died out here in California. I think I’ve talked about that before. I felt the sense of loss, but it was not real grieve, it was only grief for my mother. I felt terribly sorry about her, but she seemed to snap out of it. She was a tough girl. She was widowed in her life three times, that’s a lot of sorrow, but she coped. And she never let me feel sorry for her, although I did. I never saw her cry. Which is interesting because when I went back to the funeral with my father With my father, I went back on the plane with her, I made all the arrangements and stayed with my uncle there, and this whole time I never saw her breakdown, but I know she did in private. She was just a courageous woman. So I look back with very fond memories of her and fond memories as a child of my stepfather, later or not, and now that he’s dead, and thinks have stopped, I’m sorry I felt the way I did about him because he was a product of his own environment, and he was a fine man, and he was wonderful to my mother. He loved her very much, and they had a great life together in Kentucky. 

It’s a totally different existence being in an intellectual community like I am now. I never realize what it is like to live around people with a lot of brains. None of my mothers friends were intellectuals, I don’t think. They were all lightweight, attractive, society, people, and especially once from the east, the rich ones that came down during the derby and during the tennis. And I think my mother sort of like that. She was good, looking and attractive, and she attracted me; and she was always popular at parties.

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