and since she won’t be reading this blog, I will spill the beans…
I have few living relatives…but those that are seem to reach their 90’s. At least if they are women. That’s the good news for me because I am one.
Aunt Jean and I have been writing casually for years. That is something that you do. However, she and I have discovered so much in common over the past year, that we keep the letters going every month, health issues allowing.
Aunt Jean is Hungarian. She was born there, and her family was that class of land owners who were rather from the feudal times. That isn’t remarkably unusual in pre-Communist Hungary, but it’s interesting to know her history.
Her family owned a villa and a vineyard in I believe in the Northeast part of Hungary, near the Russian border. Of course with the Revolution of ’56, they lost the property, but the Russian government gave her (as the surviving relations-owner) a plane ticket their every year. She goes back every year to look over the family property (or what was…) and the vineyards, and she is treated like royalty when she does by the townspeople. Feudalism dies slowly in those parts of the world. That’s why it’s called “Old World” I guess.
Aunt Jean is quite the international traveler. Apparently she is well connected in Europe and knew the Gabor sisters. Some bad blood passed between Za Za Gabor, and they have to be seated at opposite ends of the table because they snipe at each other in Hungarian. Or so the stories go.
Aunt Jean is quite the matriarch in our family, and probably the most interesting woman. She told me in her letter yesterday:
“As per your comment on us being much alike! you are quite right. Hope you are sitting down, Jane-Elizabeth as you read this letter! As a teenager, I too wanted to be a dancer on stage!! Dancer with the Radio City Rocketts!!! A far reach! Only the wish was there. Not strong enough to pursue it!!!…As I grew older, another wish was to write articles and be my profession. One great wish was to write the plight of the black people of Africa. (came up with the title, but can’t spell it..will mention it in my next letter..)”
I am in awe of this woman. She raised two girls (cousins) one who died, (Carole) years ago, and Pam who lives now..in her late 60’s I believe. Life and marriage got in the way of her ‘life-plans’…but Aunt Jean is a writer of great repute in any case. She is known for her letters …sometimes over 30 a month, (and they are hand-written and long letters) and she keeps correspondence going all over the globe. At 95, with painful shingles and failing eyesight. Her writing is beautiful and testimony to a careful education in those things that were valuable to a woman of her class.
Aunt Jean is probably the biggest and strongest family influence in my life as a writer. She ‘loves my poetry’ (tanka) and even though it’s erotica, she doesn’t buck. I have a feeling that Aunt Jean probably doesn’t know what erotica is, but she does love Tasha Tudor, and 65 years ago bought her books for her two daughters. She wrote just a few weeks ago, mourning Tasha Tudor’s passing at 93. She still has Tudor’s books on her coffee table.
Aunt Jean writes “Jane-Elizabeth! Yes, this is the most amazing time of technology and digital time we live it. Not enough people stop and pause to think about it as the cycle of the Earth turns~! What will it reveal next? As I watch a plane take off, I marvel at the power it has to lift tons and tons of people and all else!! Each generation born, has new technology already in mind. Hope you can read most of this letter. I keep trying!!”
Dear Aunt Jean. If I could do and appreciate a fraction of what you have done in your life,…I will die a good and completed woman. Your spirit and deeds are remarkable for any time, but your ambition shows a keen intelligence and drive, and that you held these wonderful ambitions all your life, and especially that you sacrificed it all to marriage and raising my cousins, is merit enough.
I love you so much Aunt Jean, and as you say: “Coming in haste (answering my last letter fast…) because the future is fading faster than the setting sun!! At this age, I have to ignore Emily Post!~
Well, I wish you another 95 years because you are one of the most fascinating woman I have ever met. I am so proud to be your niece and to have so much that we share in common. You called the other day, and I feel so ashamed that I have not kept up with our phone calls. Life gets in the way. And I am also ashamed that my Hungarian has fallen off, and you can’t really understand my accent anymore. And that the only words I can remember you wouldn’t use in ANY company….
I love you, Aunt Jean, and my first book, “A Seasonings of Lust”…the one that you have pushed me and pushed me to publish….and even though it is all erotica, and your toes would probably turn up if you read it, well,…
It’s dedicated to my dearest Aunt Jean…because you are the roots of it.
Lady Nyo and Jane-Elizabeth (Aunt Jean, being the only one in the family that consistently calls me my proper name…except my mother when she is mad at me…)
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