CHAPTER 26 - BARBARA
From Richard's memoirs, recovered from his original WordPerfect files
In this chapter I step a little further away from my immediate family for the following reasons: Most families have cousins and other relatives nearby that the children visit with while growing up. In my case I only had two cousins who I knew anything about. The three daughters of my Uncle Dale and Aunt Daisy (Mother's sister) were Uncle Dale's by his first marriage so they were my step-cousins. All Mother's older brothers were so much older than Mother that even she did not know much of their families.
Uncle Arthur, Mother's youngest brother, had two daughters, Nancy Augusta and Barbara. Nancy was a strange girl and I never really got acquainted with her. Barbara, on the other hand, was more my style and she and I had a fine relationship though we saw each other only a few times and only for short periods.
On our way home from visiting my Grandmother in Ohio we stopped in Sterling, Colorado to visit with Uncle Arthur and his family. My parents always exchanged Christmas gifts with Arthur's family and, as such, we kept in touch.
Barbara Smith was born 9 January 1919 in Denver, Colorado. She graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and attended the Art Center School in Los Angeles, California. A free lance artist, she began her career by illustrating “Hannah's Sod House,” a children's book about the Western prairie where she grew up. She also illustrated two other children's books, “Zoo's Who” and “The Fiddler Crab and the Sand Dollar.”
When DeVonne and I, Dicky and Reggie were living in Huntington Park, California Barbara was going to the Art Center School in Los Angeles. She came by to visit with us for a couple of hours or so and that was the last time I ever saw her in person. Still, from time to time I would hear from her by Christmas Cards or an occasional letter.
On 7 September 1943 she married Pedro G. Guerrero in Sante Fe, New Mexico. They had four children: Susan, Marc, Ben and Barbara.
I have two letters from Barbara, both dated May 1975. She was living in New Canaan, Connecticut and contemplating a divorce from her husband. I had answered both letters and even telephoned her to offer her encouragement in putting her marriage back together again. But, it had gone too far for a reconciliation. After that I never heard from her again.
Excerpts from her letters follow:
March 24, 1975
“My dearest Cuz,
I have just been going through a lot of family records and pictures and found the enclosed which I thought you might like to have. . . . .
I know I haven't corresponded with you for several years, but I've been in a depressed state which I often rise above. My husband and I have been separated for the last two and one half years. It was his idea, not mine, and I'm not saying that I was so great or that the marriage was so great. It's just tough going after 30 year, age 54, and knowing that I have to make a new life for myself, like it or not. I forgot to mention the four kids. They are o.k. (number four is about to leave the nest) as long as they think that mother is o.k.. And I'm frankly not o.k., not always anyway, and hate myself for it. I do all those things which you Mormons think are wrong, drink, smoke, drink booze, coffee, but not tea. It's pretty self-destructive, and I'm beginning to see that.
All I want from you is a life-line, a connection with the past, just a letter from you saying you care, or would like to care, or would like to know me. Or something. Just as a cousin, not as a Bishop, please. I know this is weird, and I feel weird. It was just opening up this huge Pandora's box of nostalgia that made me think about you and wonder about you. . . .
Love to you as always,
Barbara”
May 14,1975
“Dearest Cuzz,
I can't tell you how pleased I was to receive your letter. It was comforting to see that name of yours on the outside. . . . I'm I must have mentioned (in the above letter) how I have always felt about you - my favorite cousin too - and how I suddenly felt the great need and urge to talk to you. As to your surprising and welcome phone call, my daughter was on the other side of a paper-thin wall, and I find it impossible to talk about anything personal or important when anyone is listening, particularly an involved child. . . .
You know, Dick, considering the fact of how seldom we have seen each other, it is very curious that we are so fond of each other. I'm sorry about the unhappy insides of my letter to you, but I'm almost sorrier that I didn't write you sooner, like three years ago at the beginning of this thing, because it is so very helpful to know that someone out there cares. . . . So, I'm afraid that there is nothing left for me to do, after 3 years, but go for divorce, which is the last thing in the world I want. I don't mind your preaching. Preach on. As you say it takes two to want reconciliation. I have wanted it in the worst way and have been frank in saying so, but I never get a direct answer from him . . .He seems to like things the way they are, having the best of both worlds, and I can't take it much longer. Divorce will, of course, do nothing for my mental state except to secure my estate for my kids. . . . Well I wish we could talk about all this eyeball to eyeball (the phone gets too darn expensive) I think you are a very helpful person. I realize that everything you say is right, that I do have some good time left and that I must get on with my life, and that it is important for the children, but oh boy, it's harder to do than say. . . . Of course, most of those 30 years was good, and I agree with you that if we had it once, we could indeed get it back. BUT AS YOU SAY, IT TAKES TWO. . . .
As for my bunch here, . . . Susan, my oldest, has her masters in Journalism from Boston U. and is happily employed as a reporter at the Danbury, Conn. News Times. She's a good writer and stubborn. Held out for this job she wanted against parental advice in a poor-job market, and finally got it. Marc, #2, is getting his Masters in bilingual-education at Stanford. He's an especially nice guy. You'd like him. Ben, #3, is the most creative talented person I have ever known (artist) so much so that it scares me. He's trying to get himself graduated from Putney School in Vermont at the grand old age of 19, but is home doing a special project for Putney, working as a cook at a restaurant, and generally trying to pull himself together. Barbara, #4, is about to graduate from local high school & desperately wants to go to San Jose State, but we haven't heard. The younger two are seriously affected by the breakup of our marriage. Fortunately Ben was away when it happened, and Barbara, poor Barbara, has been rather stuck with it, hating and resenting me, I'm sure, and somewhat idolizing her father who treats her like a princess on the rare occasions when he sees her. It's very difficult and I'm sure I'm not handling it well at all. Say what you will, peer-group companionship, somebody my own age, is very important.
Well enough of all this. Do write. I do so love you.
Barbara”
On 17 December 1977 I received a letter from Susan, Barbara's daughter, informing me that her Mother had died in May of 1976 in a fire in their home. I quote:
Dear Dick Clarke:
I have just come across (your) last year Christmas card to my mother which I put aside to answer until I could bear it . . . and then couldn't.
But I assume you know by now - I pray you know - that Mama died in May of 1976 in a fire in our home. She slept through it and never knew what happened. No one else was home and our family home of 25 years burnt completely to the ground.
I should have written but could not - it was too hard. I hope you understand.
Mama spoke often of her affection for you and we children always wanted to meet the Clarkes. She talked a great deal about you the year before she died.
I do hope this letter hasn't caught you out of the blue. If it has I apologize for my foot-dragging and timing.
And I have a favor to ask. Someday, after Christmas, could you drop me a line or two about yourself and my mother; your reminisces, etc. For instance, I'm not even sure how we are related.
Your (second?) cousin,
Signed: Susan Guerrero
I answered Susan's letter and gave her a little of the background of Barbara's and my relationship and indicated to her that Barbara and I had always considered each other as our “favorite cousin.” Shortly after that I received a detailed letter from Pete, Barbara's husband, about her death. His letter reads as follows:
“Barbara was in the habit of putting a pot of water to boil on the stove (we didn't always know the purpose -- nor did she) usually for coffee or tea. She boiled hundreds of gallons of water more that she could ever use; she burned the bottoms of more kettles a year than most families own in a life-time. It was a family joke: lists of presents for mother were always led off by a kettle. By an endless series of cussed coincidences Barbara was completely alone that Friday night. She called me twice that night, (she and I lunched together in the City that day, I was spending the night in my apartment in New York and was not going out to New Canaan until Saturday), -- on one of her calls she told me that she had figured out that that particular night was the first time in over twenty years that she found herself completely alone and she loved it.
“We have theorized that she put on the kettle, went upstairs to watch television, read, or talk on the phone. The record of the calls she made that evening indicates that she made about six or seven calls between 8:30 and 10:30 PM. They were scattered calls, toll calls, to New York, New Jersey, and if my memory serves me, one or two to the west coast. People whom she called have reported back to me that she was in high spirits. I can attest to that myself. In any event the kettle boiled dry. It was aluminum. It melted, it dripped molten aluminum onto the storage space below the counter-top burners; the fire gained momentum from there.
“She was found fully clothed lying across the bed. She had obviously gone to sleep, was aroused, attempted to stand up and was felled by the fumes.
“Her ashes are buried on the property under a beautiful red Japanese maple. It was her choice. Bar had gone to a very maudlin funeral service for a close friend a few years before and she was determined not to have that happen to her. She carefully orchestrated a full service for herself and by a complete fluke placed it in a bureau that miraculously escaped the fire. We followed her instructions to the letter.”
Pete enclosed a number of newspaper clippings, some of which I quote here:
“Barbara Smith Guerrero had lived in New Canaan for the past 25 years and was active in Democratic politics. She was a former vice chairman of the Democratic Town Committee and when she resigned from the committee last fall, she was described as the 'conscience of the Democratic Party.' After moving to New Canaan she concentrated on watercolors and exhibited throughout New England. She was on the board of Rangemark, the watercolor master class founded by her teacher, the late Barse Miller.”
“Barbara Guerrero will be remembered by her fellow Democrats in New Canaan as a friend and activist. A former vice chairman and member of the New Canaan Democratic Town Committee since the early fifties, “Bar,” above all else, believed government to be a positive force as a vehicle for the expression of individual values such as fairness and justice to which she was deeply committed.
The focus of her political activity was the town in which she and her family lived. Every cause she served, no matter how national or international in scope, had its direct application here in New Canaan - the civil rights marches of the fifties, the Vietnam war protests of the late sixties.
Barbara always asked what can we do in New Canaan and was among the first to organize a response. To her official party roles as officer and member of the Democratic Women's Club and as a frequent New Canaan delegate to State Democratic Conventions, Barbara brought many creative gifts and good judgment.
This fall, after more than two decades of service on the Democratic Town Committee, Barbara declined renomination to her post, insisting that someone new should have opportunity to serve. With characteristic concern for the affairs of the party of her choice, Barbara spent May 11, primary day in Connecticut, at Morris Udall headquarters calling in the vote.
Her Democratic colleagues are grateful for her energy and example.”
Signed: Terry Cody Spring
Member, Board of Selectmen
“Friends of Barbara Guerrero who would like to perpetuate her memory in the town she lived in and loved for 25 years are invited to contribute to a memorial in her name at New Canaan Library. Contributions received will be used in the new library building in a form determined by her family and library officials that will be appropriate to Barbara's special appreciation of beauty in literature and art.”
“The 10 winners of the Metropolitan Opera National Council's New York District auditions will receive prizes this year given in memory of the late Mrs. Barbara Smith Guerrero who died may 21, 1976 in a fire in her house in Brookside Road.
The New York auditions, part of a nation-wide contest involving some 800 singers, will be held January 24-27. The national first prize is a contract to sing with the Metropolitan Opera Company. For the past several years Mrs. Guerrero was a volunteer worker at the auditions in New York, helping both with administrative work and with support for the singers during their auditioning ordeal. The prizes have been donated by Mr. and Mrs. John S. Zinsser, Jr. of Brookside Road.”
Saturday, 12 June 1976, a memorial service that had been prepared by Barbara was held as follows:
“An Hour of Music and Recollection in Loving Memory of Barbara Smith Guerrero - January 9, 1919 . . . May 21, 1976
569 Brookside Road, New Canaan at two o'clock.
The quotations below are from two notes of instruction and request which Bar wrote to her children -- Susan, Marc, Ben and Barbara -- on July 16, 1974.
“... As to ceremony, I should like to have something very simple as soon as possible after my death. If it is summer or spring, I want the people I care about and who care about me, sitting out on the lawn or in the little garden (not in chairs), listening to music I care about and talking about me informally, maybe exchanging stories or anecdotes about me . . . Nothing ribald, nothing in the way of celebration, nothing joyous. Death is none of these. Just warm and commemorative.”
“I want no preacher, no religious symbols, no 23rd Psalm. I wish I did, but I don't believe that our Lord leads us into green pastures. If, in truth, He does, then I'm sure He will forgive the substitution of the Beethoven Pastoral, #6. #6 will do the same job, and more to my liking. I have loved it since I was a child.”
“As to other music, I want J. S. Bach's “Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring' to be played over and over again while everyone is arriving into the garden. I want George Friederic Handel's almost anything (but both 'Royal Fireworks' and 'Water Music' should be included). And I should like lots of good horn music . . .”
“You might wind things up with the Doxology (Old Hundredth). How's this for a concession to religion? Love to all of you.”
The Program followed:
PRELUDE:
J. S. BACH: “Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring,” Chorale from Cantata No. 147I. HANDEL: from The Royal Fireworks Suite, Largo alla Siciliana
II. PURCELL: Two Trumpet Tunes
MOZART: from the Horn Concerto No. 4 in E Flat, Andante-RondoIII. HANDEL: from The Water Music Suite, Air, Allegro deciso
IV. BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 6, “Pastoral,” Second Movement, Andante molto mosso
V. DOXOLOGY (Old Hundredth). 16 Century. It is suggested that we join together in singing this ancient hymn of praise:
“Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heav'nly host:
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.”POSTLUDE:
J. S. BACH: “Sleepers, Awake.”
NOTE: Nancy, Barbara's sister, died of cancer 24 May 1977, one year and three days after Barbara.