Post by smith on Apr 30, 2005 17:22:08 GMT -5
Although a Republican, my grandmother had been an active suffragette. She had three sons. One was my father. Another was lost near Lisbon while serving as an officer aboard Admiral William Halsey's first command.
The third son was Ludlow, who gained early folk hero status for me because of his acquisition of the entire family attic for a large-scale train layout. By the time I found it, the rolling stock was down to an engine and several cars, but Ludlow had made his own rails and switches and had covered all the attic floor with them in the manner of a major freight marshaling yard.
As if this were not honor enough for one uncle, Ludlow had also been married to Katherine Hepburn, a marriage that soon proved incompatible with Hepburn's stage and movie career. They were divorced three years before I was born.
GERTRUDE SMITH,
THE AUTHOR'S GRANDMOTHER
My father always seemed annoyed at the mention of Hepburn, perhaps out of loyalty to his brother, and I felt tension when my mother would speak fondly of her and of the lively dinners at Granny's house when she was present. Granny also liked Hepburn. The three strong women had much to talk about.
Even Ludlow, it would turn out, was still fond of his ex-wife. Ludlow would show up at Hepburn events. In later years, very quietly, the two would see each other and, after the death of Spencer Tracey, spend time together. Once - only once when I was young - I met her. My father reluctantly took his family backstage at a Philadelphia performance. She looked down at us and explained how she really loved Lud but had loved her work more. It sounded reasonable to me.
A cousin of mine recalls as a youth being seated in the front row during a performance and noticing that Hepburn seemed to be playing directly at him. He was flattered, but not completely surprised. After all, Hepburn had lived for a time at his grandmother's house when his mother was young. Afterwards, he was taken backstage to meet the actress. Hepburn remarked that she had noticed him in the audience. My cousin was delighted until she added, "You were the only person in the audience chewing gum."
Over the years my father and Ludlow grew apart. Ludlow seemed disinterested in seeing his brother. My parents finally invited themselves for a visit in Connecticut on the way to Maine. There they found a man struggling with a deeply alcoholic second wife and they understood and the barrier was broken.
By then, however, it was too late for me to get to know this charming and bright man who had been an early expert on computer installations for banks and who, to the end, still had a model railroad layout. I saw him a few times, always with a sense of denied discovery.
So there were many stories I never heard. Like the one Hepburn told in her autobiography of Ludlow and a friend renting a stone hut near the Bryn Mawr campus, where among other things Luddy, as she called him, took nude photos of Kate. Like the time Luddy, before they were married, accidentally set himself ablaze while lighting a fire with kerosene with Hepburn leaping from the tub and directing their housemates, in the nude, as they saved both my uncle and the house.
Hepburn by her own account lost her virginity to my uncle at a friend's apartment;
Things like that weren't meant to happen in my family.
In her autobiography, Hepburn regrets her treatment of Luddy, saying that "the truth has to be that I was a terrible pig." She then describes the uncle I never knew:
I guess that I knew that Luddy was in love me. But you see, my hitch was that I was in love with myself. I wanted to be a star. . .
Luddy could make anything work -- my life -- the car -- the furance -- the this -- the that. Carpenter - mechanic -- plumber. It was great. But mostly--from the beginning-- he was--what shall I say? --he was there...I could ask him anything. He would do anything. You just don't find people like that in life. Unconditional love.
I think I, too, would have liked him very much. Love in my family was always conditional.
My grandmother was furious at the breakup and demanded that Hepburn write a letter taking full blame for the divorce, which she did. Still, when my grandmother died years later, one of my sisters reports that Hepburn called Ludlow to talk about his mother, because she loved her so much.
My father was also angry over what happened, as my sister Eleanor Morris would recall to the Scotsman after Hepburn's death:
One day - aged 13 - [Eleanor] undertook to visit her uncle’s film-star first wife, who was in Philadephia appearing in Peter Pan. "My friend Barbara and I went to see the show, and afterwards we went to the stage door and asked to see her. She was very sweet, just wonderful, we thought she was divine [in the show] and we told her. It was all very charming and cordial."
Things were much less cordial the next day when, at Sunday lunch, she told her family about her adventure. "My father’s reaction was pure anger. He had a teutonic temper and let me know that I had done the most terrible deed. I was put on probation for six months, not allowed to go anywhere except to church or to school, and the rest of the family were served notice that no one but no one was to have anything to do with Katharine Hepburn."
Ironically, the injured party, Ludlow, thought otherwise. After my father died, Ludlow and Kate made several visits to my mother in Maine, usually in the fall after children and visitors had left. On the first, she stopped by the home of an older neighbor to ask for directions. Mrs. Nason, every bit as comfortable in her being as the stranger, said, "Why you're Katherine Hepburn. You must come in and have lunch." Hepburn settled for directions.
Ludlow and Kate traveled with Hepburn's aging secretary and carried a toaster oven so they could avoid eating in public. Visiting my mother, however, had other risks, in 1978 verging on the mortal as my mother, who drove with exuberance on the back roads, sideswiped a truck coming the other way, totaling her car and in the process nearly killing herself, Hepburn, my sister and the aging secretary. Hepburn wrote my mother enthusiastically about the visit and the "adventure to which of course you added by the traumatic incident on the highway of Wolf's Neck. I do hope all is well. And let's face it. If you disliked the car, it was a most direct way of getting rid of it.".
The third son was Ludlow, who gained early folk hero status for me because of his acquisition of the entire family attic for a large-scale train layout. By the time I found it, the rolling stock was down to an engine and several cars, but Ludlow had made his own rails and switches and had covered all the attic floor with them in the manner of a major freight marshaling yard.
As if this were not honor enough for one uncle, Ludlow had also been married to Katherine Hepburn, a marriage that soon proved incompatible with Hepburn's stage and movie career. They were divorced three years before I was born.
GERTRUDE SMITH,
THE AUTHOR'S GRANDMOTHER
My father always seemed annoyed at the mention of Hepburn, perhaps out of loyalty to his brother, and I felt tension when my mother would speak fondly of her and of the lively dinners at Granny's house when she was present. Granny also liked Hepburn. The three strong women had much to talk about.
Even Ludlow, it would turn out, was still fond of his ex-wife. Ludlow would show up at Hepburn events. In later years, very quietly, the two would see each other and, after the death of Spencer Tracey, spend time together. Once - only once when I was young - I met her. My father reluctantly took his family backstage at a Philadelphia performance. She looked down at us and explained how she really loved Lud but had loved her work more. It sounded reasonable to me.
A cousin of mine recalls as a youth being seated in the front row during a performance and noticing that Hepburn seemed to be playing directly at him. He was flattered, but not completely surprised. After all, Hepburn had lived for a time at his grandmother's house when his mother was young. Afterwards, he was taken backstage to meet the actress. Hepburn remarked that she had noticed him in the audience. My cousin was delighted until she added, "You were the only person in the audience chewing gum."
Over the years my father and Ludlow grew apart. Ludlow seemed disinterested in seeing his brother. My parents finally invited themselves for a visit in Connecticut on the way to Maine. There they found a man struggling with a deeply alcoholic second wife and they understood and the barrier was broken.
By then, however, it was too late for me to get to know this charming and bright man who had been an early expert on computer installations for banks and who, to the end, still had a model railroad layout. I saw him a few times, always with a sense of denied discovery.
So there were many stories I never heard. Like the one Hepburn told in her autobiography of Ludlow and a friend renting a stone hut near the Bryn Mawr campus, where among other things Luddy, as she called him, took nude photos of Kate. Like the time Luddy, before they were married, accidentally set himself ablaze while lighting a fire with kerosene with Hepburn leaping from the tub and directing their housemates, in the nude, as they saved both my uncle and the house.
Hepburn by her own account lost her virginity to my uncle at a friend's apartment;
Things like that weren't meant to happen in my family.
In her autobiography, Hepburn regrets her treatment of Luddy, saying that "the truth has to be that I was a terrible pig." She then describes the uncle I never knew:
I guess that I knew that Luddy was in love me. But you see, my hitch was that I was in love with myself. I wanted to be a star. . .
Luddy could make anything work -- my life -- the car -- the furance -- the this -- the that. Carpenter - mechanic -- plumber. It was great. But mostly--from the beginning-- he was--what shall I say? --he was there...I could ask him anything. He would do anything. You just don't find people like that in life. Unconditional love.
I think I, too, would have liked him very much. Love in my family was always conditional.
My grandmother was furious at the breakup and demanded that Hepburn write a letter taking full blame for the divorce, which she did. Still, when my grandmother died years later, one of my sisters reports that Hepburn called Ludlow to talk about his mother, because she loved her so much.
My father was also angry over what happened, as my sister Eleanor Morris would recall to the Scotsman after Hepburn's death:
One day - aged 13 - [Eleanor] undertook to visit her uncle’s film-star first wife, who was in Philadephia appearing in Peter Pan. "My friend Barbara and I went to see the show, and afterwards we went to the stage door and asked to see her. She was very sweet, just wonderful, we thought she was divine [in the show] and we told her. It was all very charming and cordial."
Things were much less cordial the next day when, at Sunday lunch, she told her family about her adventure. "My father’s reaction was pure anger. He had a teutonic temper and let me know that I had done the most terrible deed. I was put on probation for six months, not allowed to go anywhere except to church or to school, and the rest of the family were served notice that no one but no one was to have anything to do with Katharine Hepburn."
Ironically, the injured party, Ludlow, thought otherwise. After my father died, Ludlow and Kate made several visits to my mother in Maine, usually in the fall after children and visitors had left. On the first, she stopped by the home of an older neighbor to ask for directions. Mrs. Nason, every bit as comfortable in her being as the stranger, said, "Why you're Katherine Hepburn. You must come in and have lunch." Hepburn settled for directions.
Ludlow and Kate traveled with Hepburn's aging secretary and carried a toaster oven so they could avoid eating in public. Visiting my mother, however, had other risks, in 1978 verging on the mortal as my mother, who drove with exuberance on the back roads, sideswiped a truck coming the other way, totaling her car and in the process nearly killing herself, Hepburn, my sister and the aging secretary. Hepburn wrote my mother enthusiastically about the visit and the "adventure to which of course you added by the traumatic incident on the highway of Wolf's Neck. I do hope all is well. And let's face it. If you disliked the car, it was a most direct way of getting rid of it.".