Taking a Step Back...

So, I have recently been digging around to find information on some of my family members.  While searching around on the web, I found an homage to my late Great Aunt Jean Montague Massengale  (my mother's mother Mary Montague's sister) on my Second Cousin Jack Montague Massengale's website (http://massengale.typepad.com/):

“Jean Montague, Mrs. John Edward Massengale, was born in Memphis, Tennessee, but grew up in Evanston, Illinois, a pleasant lakeside suburb of Chicago. Her father was an engineer who struggled during the Depression. Like many Americans her age, she never lost the frugality imposed on her by that experience.

Jean won a scholarship to Wellesley College, and never turned back. At Wellesley, she was an art history major, accepted for graduate studies at Harvard University. Instead, on December 8, 1942, one year and one day after Pearl Harbor, she married Jack Massengale. Jack was a high school classmate from Evanston who was nearby at Harvard College on a John Harvard Scholarship, a new type of scholarship given to students from around the country whom Harvard asked to apply in order to increase the diversity of the student body. Jack never graduated from the College, instead taking a commission in the United States Navy before finishing his last semester.

After the war, Jack attended Harvard Law School, while Jean had their first daughter, Sarah Choate. Following law school, Jean and Jack moved to New York City, where Jack became a corporate lawyer, eventually becoming the partner in charge of the corporate department at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, at the time perhaps the leading New York law office for young lawyers who were not in the Social Register, still a requirement at "white shoe" firms like Milbank, Tweed and Debevoise, Plimpton.

I was born in 1951, and Jean and Jack took their children and moved to Darien, Connecticut, where they lived first on Holmes Avenue, and later on Goodwives River Road, near Long Island Sound. Seven years later their son Thomas Haig was born there.

In many ways, Jean was not cut out to be a suburban housewife. When her husband became a partner at Paul, Weiss and the family became more financially secure (first year New York lawyers were then paid less than 1% of their starting salaries now), Jean put many of her frustrations behind her and became a Ph.D. student at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, considered by many to be the best art history program in America.

The average student at the Institute takes seven years to get their doctorate, and as a commuter, Jean took more. But she had found her life's work.
Her Master's Thesis was a study of the great French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon, in which she successfully re attributed a bust of Benjamin Franklin owned by the Boston Atheneum to Houdon. Her thesis advisor was Horst Janson.

In 1968, she took her family on her first trip to Europe. Starting in London, they picked up a Rover 2000 TC ("the car for your teenage son to have an accident in"), and drove to some of the great English houses and cathedrals. Then they crossed the Channel, visited the Loire Valley, and finished in Paris.

The French 18th century was Jean's period, and she enjoyed many summers in Paris and provincial French museums. She became an expert on the drawings of Hubert Robert, François Boucher, and her favorite, Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Jack went when he could, adding vineyards and great French restaurants to the itinerary. Sometimes her children also got to join her.

Jean started to buy Old Master drawings, which she sometimes sold for a handsome profit. In the mid-seventies, she bought a "School of Houdon" bust at Parke-Bernet (now Sotheby's) for $1,100, which she sold to the Chicago Art Institute two decades later for $1.4 million. There is a long story to be told about this, which I hope to tell on the blog: the bust had once been stolen from the Rothschild family by the SS, and I had to make a research trip to Vienna before she could sell the bust. It's one thing to sell your favorite work of art for more than a million dollars. It's quite another to give it back to one of the richest families in the world, But in the end, it was a tale of all's well that ends well.

While a student, Jean amused herself by recording a program on the New York art scene for a local radio station. She also occasionally wrote for scholarly journals.

In 1988, Jean suffered the trauma of her husband's death. Twenty years earlier, Jack had lymphoma, successfully treated with a program of chemotherapy and radiation at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, with much stronger dosages than they would use today. The result was that years later many of Columbia's patients developed ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease. On the one hand, Jack had his life extended by the treatment. On the other hand, Jean found herself after 46 years of marriage with no husband.

She taught herself many things that Jack had always taken care of in the marriage. But it was not always easy being Jean. She missed her husband very much, and she had some strong insecurities from her childhood that at times tormented her. It didn't help that her insecurities had caused her to lean on her husband a great deal. They loved each other a great deal, and there is no question that Jean has now gone to Jack.

Jean loved her children, and did as much for them as she could. She loved her friends, and tried to love the world. On December 1st she died peacefully in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and is survived by her daughter and two sons, Sarah Gregg of Arlington, Virginia, John in New York City, and Thomas in London, and a sister, Mary Smithline, of Framingham, Massachusetts. A memorial service will be held at St. Luke's Church in Darien.”

- John Montague Massengale

I also found a short obituary for my Great Uncle John E. Massengale III in the Times:

"LEAD: John E. Massengale 3d, a lawyer and partner in the Manhattan law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, died Wednesday at Stamford (Conn.) Hospital after a long illness. He was 67 years old and lived in Darien, Conn.

John E. Massengale 3d, a lawyer and partner in the Manhattan law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, died Wednesday at Stamford (Conn.) Hospital after a long illness. He was 67 years old and lived in Darien, Conn.

Mr. Massengale, a 1948 graduate of Harvard University School of Law, joined Paul, Weiss in 1957. Previously he was with the firm of Spence, Hotchkiss, Parker & Duryee.

He was active in community affairs and had been an official in Darien, serving as a town meeting representative, a moderator and a member of the Zoning Board of Appeals. At his death he was serving on the Planning and Zoning Commission.

During World War II Mr. Massengale commanded a submarine chaser.

He is survived by his wife, the former Jean Montague; a daughter, Sarah Gregg of McLean, Va.; two sons, John, of Pound Ridge, N.Y., and Thomas, of Manhattan" (Published: December 23, 1988. NYTimes).

Recently, I have tried to reconnect with my Mother's side of the family, having been disconnected from them for most of my growing up. I find the discovery of my relatives to be rather therapeutic - somehow reaffirming my quirky tendencies, explaining certain genetic dispositions I suppose. Nothing bad, rather just a very persistent mindset that seems to prevail. And an ever present appreciation for the arts, aesthetics, and logic.

I hope to learn more soon and share with others.

Pax,

Monty