Where do I begin?

I’m sorry to have been away but we have been dealing with private personal matter that I have wished would go away for years, and it finally has.

I would have preferred a beagle, or better yet a collie.

My ex-husband Ardmore R. Stearns has died.

You are now saying to yourself “But this cannot be!” and “Martha Smith-Standish has a skeleton in the family closet?” and of course, “The same Martha Smith-Standish who is a pillar of society, the Same Mrs. Smith-Standish who has been married to Edwin Smith-Standish and has one the most successful marriages in all of Shaker Heights was previously married?”

Shockingly, tis true. 

And what is the point of hiding it.   When the statement appears in the Cleveland Plain Dealer obituary for Ardmore “…Also survived by former wife and caregiver Mrs. Martha (Edwin) Smith Standish of Shaker Heights and his beloved Rottweiler, Gunther Van Blassenburg of Marlboro…” people are bound to talk. I would prefer that they murmur, of course, but tongues will wag, I’m sure.  

It isn’t every day that a doyenne of society gets top billing over a Rottweiler. 

Ardmore and I met when I was at Miss Porters.  He was a prep from Groton and a handsome devil, while I was the popular but level headed president of my class.   After my third year at Mount Holyoke, and his at Yale, he drove up to Wellesley to see me.  My father, a Harvard man, and my step mother were not amused or as entertained by him as I was.  Ardy asked if he could take me to a movie, and they approved, but my father admonished him and told him that “you had better have my daughter home before the late night news.” 

We could have seen Peyton Place at the movies, but we decided to create it on our own.

When we returned, the following day, I was Mrs. Ardmore R. Stearns, and Ardy’s parents were having coffee with my father and step mother.  Needless to say, the tension was so thick in the air that it was dreadfully civilized. 

Without going into details, my father asked me if we removed the love and passion from the moment, “do you respect your husband? And do you think that your husband respects you?”

I couldn’t say that I knew that answer.  So I did what anyone level headed young woman who has regained her sense of self would do: I asked for an annulment.

One can easily fall out of love in a marriage, but as long as there is respect, there one will find a successful marriage.  Anyway, after verifying that I was not with child, the annulment came through.  I moved to Cleveland, started my career in art restoration and soon after was introduced to Mr. Edwin Smith-Standish.  Once mutual respect was established, we warmed to each other and became engaged, and then married, and well you have an idea of what happened from there.

As for Ardmore, he too drifted to Cleveland and went to live with his grandfather – an heir to the B.F. Stearns fortune.  He also started going by his middle name of Richard, so I had no idea that "Richard Stearns" was my ex-husband Ardmore, and since he had never known that Edwin and I were married, then he had no idea that “Mrs. Edwin Smith-Standish” who was so often involved with meaninful and importnat social charities was at one time his bride of a day and a night.

About twenty years ago, the whole house of cards came crashing down when we bumped into one and other at the wedding of his cousin's daughter Felecia to Edwin’s second cousin, Edwin Smith Standish IV (they of the non-hyphenating branch of the family).   To say I was shocked was an understatement.  My Edwin knew I had been married, of course, but evidently everyone in the Stearns family had only known of me by the nickname of “That Ball Busting Bitch, my first wife”.

Our reunion at that moment went something like this:

"Ardmore? What a surprise," I said.

"Martha? What are you doing here?" said he.

Of course everyone around us sensed the drama playing out before them.  So before things became to uncontrollable, Ardy and I agreed to meet later and we talk out our differences.  I told him about my life, and he told me about his.  His wife had left him saying that she had fallen out of love with him.  His grandfather’s fortune was almost depleted, and his sugar was up.  And he was angry at me for being correct all those years ago. 

Now, Reader, I am going to paraphrase what he said and went something like this: “You were right Martha, the type of love we had dims with age, but I never respected my wife and look where it got me. I should have followed your advice Martha.  I should have listened to you.”

"Well, you had your chance," I replied.  But let's look forward, not backward, I advised.  

"We can't let this get out because people will talk,"said Ardy.  "Not that I have anything to hide from anyone but the IRS.  But you know how people like Bonita Dixon love to gossip."

I was stunned.  "Bonita? Not South Woodland Bonita Dixon? How do you know Bonita Dixon of all people?"

"She was my my third wife," said Ardy, "After you it was Arlene Davenport, then Bonita and finally Phyllis Fleischman."

Thank God in heaven that I came before Bonita Dixon, once again.

I can’t say that Ardy and I became friends, because we never really were friends. That rush of hormones we felt that led us on a path to the bedroom, did not a friendship forge.  Still we greeted one and other as acquaintances when our paths crossed at social functions.  Is there anything to be gained by avoidance?  

Ardy really started to annoy me with his affable nature. 

One thing I did discover about Ardy was his annoying habit of being "sunny" all of the time.  Or he would drop over, unannounced, with a box of Entemanns and want to have coffee.  He also started sending me emails with online cards. This was all happening when Bruce and Chip were still at home summers during college recess and Bruce in particularly needled me about Ardy's attentions. Edwin took it all in stride on the facade but went out of his way to avoid golfing with Ardy, which we both agreed was inappropriate. It was this "sunniness" that would have driven me crazy had we been married, and then divorced, I'm sure.

Comparatively,  what was different with Edwin was that he and I became friends, and that led to respect and that to love for each other.  And one of the things that I love about my husband is that he has always given it the old college try with me – be it helping with a project, or picking up the dry cleaners, or knowing when sexual congress is in order.  That is the type of respect that brings true love, and earth shattering orgasms on occasion.

Anyway, over the years as Ardmore’s health failed, Edwin and I have “helped” with his care.  Even his family began to call me by my first name, which was the proper thing to do as I quickly tired of being referred to as Mrs. Edwin Smith-Standish, Ball Baster" and the like.  Changing the diaper of one's ex-husband can earn one many "brownie" points with the patients children as they don't have to change the diaper themselves.

I was there when Ardy died on Sunday last and I will give the eulogy at his funeral, looking Bonita Dixon square in the eyes the entire time.

Still I find myself tinged with a bit a feeling for Ardy.  They say that one never forgets their first love, and I think that it’s true.  But moreover, it is at times like this makes one certain that they did the right thing and made a correct decision in life; that is one place that seldom few know that they have arrived at in their own lives as I have in mine.

Well if you will excuse me, I have to interview new owners for Gunther Van Blassenburg of Marlboro as he will not be staying with us for very long.

Very truly yours,

Mrs. Edwin Smith Standish

Of FDS and Aqua Net

I had lunch yesterday with Mrs. Walter Krupmann, whose Christian name is Murial.  Walter Krupman is in diapers and baby attire (as lines of business - not because he is incontinent) ; Murial’s profession is having lunch with her friends.

Also at the table was Alice Tompkins, widow of Adelbert Thompkins.  Adelbert died years ago in an elevator fall, so Alice likes to tag along every now and then, but she seldom makes a peep. But she does have very expressive eyes.

We've been meeting for lunch every few weeks since we met while working on Hubert Humphrey's presidential campaign.

As we were dining, Murial and I were talking about the usual things – nothing out of the ordinary - and Alice was watching us banter back and forth as if she were at the French Open.  You know “…how is Walter…I’m so sorry that your pool man didn’t work out this year…that certainly is a gorgeous color of blue...and did I mention that my Night Blooming Cerius flowered...” and the like, when Murial said that she had she had something terribly sad to tell us.

Alice sat down her unsweetened iced tea.  Sad news?  Her lip trembled and she looked as if she just might have to let out a sound.

“What is it dear,” I asked, patting her hand and dreading the answer.  Murial is often given to the dramatic; the last terribly sad news that she imparted was that her husband was having a split toenail removed.  Painful? For him. Sad for us? Not so much.

“I need bifocal glasses," said Murial with all the stoicism in the world as if she were holding back a wave of self doubt and tears and had just found out that she had an incurable soap operahish sounding disease. 

This, I thought, is terribly sad news?   Alice cocked her head as if agreement with my unspoken thought.

“Good gracious I have relied on cheaters for years,” I said.  “And when we have bridge parties, everyone except you, Murial, has a pair dangling from a chain around their neck.  You lean forward to make a play and they 'clang' against the metal frame on the card table.  Thats why it sounds like an out of tune band at dupicate bridge with all of us rattling about.”

Alice as if to back me up, displayed her Walgreens cheaters in her hand.  The magnifiers were suspended around her neck from a lovely gold chain.  Alice is one of those women who never places her cheaters on her face, but instead holds them from afar while she looks through them like a surveyor eyeballing a triangulation.

But to Murial, this was her sad news.  This was sign that her arms had lost their length and that she was getting.  Before she could look about at her contemporaries and see that she was the final hold out, but no longer.  "I suppose it happens to all of us sooner or later," she said with resignation. 

Fact of the matter is that she no longer felt young, and for any woman, that is a sad moment.  (For me it was menopause until I relaized that Edwin and I could have sexual congress when it was all said and done without a pill, a condom or a cervical cap.  After that, my day brightened up!) 

I asked “what about contacts,” and she said that the idea of sticking something onto her eyes was distasteful -  so glasses it is.

And how did she come to this realization?

Murial: “It's been coming on for years, but it came to a head when I was scheduled to go to the ‘lady’ doctor and I had a mishap.” 

Me: “I don’t understand.”

Murial: “The mishap?”

Me: “No.  What is a lady doctor?”

Murial: “Dr. Gorman.  She’s a lady doctor.” 

Me: "And because she is a she, you mean she is a lady and a doctor?  Am I understanding you?"

Murial: “No.  She’s a lady, and she’s a LADY doctor.” 

Me: “Oh, I’m sorry – is Dr. Gorman your gynecologist? “

Alice: “Martha, shhhhhhh!  People will hear!”

This annoyed me.  I wasn't announcing it to the room, but in a low conversation tone of voice.  And God knows that I think the world of Alice, but sometimes she just doesn't comprehend that by our form of dress, our hair, our voices and our bodies in general, that people know we are women and thus have the matching genitalia under our clothing.

But back to Murial. EVIDENTLY, Murial was so upset about getting her PAP smear that she got her "FDS and Aqua Net confused.  When I got to the doctor everything was crispy and crunchy ‘down there’.  I simply could have died.”  By this point Alice's eyeballs were the size of saucers.

Poor Murial: she is a captive of the Women’s Hygiene Industry.  I could have told her that products like feminine sprays are an utter waste of money.  A good douching with vinegar and water and regular bathing is all she needs to keep her vagina healthy and clean at our age. 

If nothing else, I told her that she should be thankful that she still has her pubic hair. “Constance Warrington’s fell out when her mother died," I pointed out.  "The doctor said it was stress.” 

Alice, who volunteered with Constance at First Congregational Church, nodded in agreement.  "She's as bald down there as the day she was born."  Now it was us with the saucer sized eyes.  Alice is not prone to such descriptive outbursts.  In her high school yearbook she was the girl that was "least likely to speak above a soft whisper."

But she went on:

“The disturbing thing is that Mr. Warrington finds it quite the object of excitement.  He won’t leave her alone,” Alice added.

There was quite a pregnant pause as we groped for a way to get out of the topic, and our server filled our cups with fresh hot coffee.  As soon as she had left our table, I thought I would bring up the idea of the three of us driving out to Gabriel Brothers and looking for inexpensive shoes.  Nothing diverts a woman's attention than good shoes at a value price. But it wasn't to be.

“That filthy little man!" exclaimed Alice from nowhere, her face scrunching up. "I would have divorced him had that happened to me!”

"Or," said Murial with one eyebrow cocked higher than the other, "pushed him down an elevator shaft?"

"Check please!"

*****

I returned home to find Edwin tying fishing lures in his den.  As I looked around I thought to myself “Thank goodness my husband isn’t in diapers like Murial’s husband, and thank goodness I have the good sense to get my eyes examined, and thank God that I can say 'vagina' aloud!”

Remember dear reader: prize knowledge!  Lower forms exist without.

Very truly yours,

Mrs. Edwin Smith Standish

Those Awkward Teenage Years

Now that the fall wardrobe is down, I have been spending my time shopping for a birthday present for our granddaughter Margery who is turning thirteen.

You know in my day - before the world went to pieces - my mother took me into Boston and we went shopping for my first grown up outfit.  While I was attached to a pink silk party dress with Juliette sleeves, my mother, being the sensible woman that she was sat me down and said "Now Martha, this is a lovely dress - it's a bit expensive, but we can afford it.  Tell me, where will you wear it."

Truth be told, I didn't have an answer for her.  So Mother said to me, "I will tell you where you will wear it; your father and I are taking to you to dinner at the Club.  You are a maturing young woman, and it is now time for you to take your place at a grown up table.  It is our way."

I was elated.  But I burst my own bubble when it dawned on me that my best friend Evadele Miles-Ratner had told me about her introduction to the adults table not a month before.  "Oh, Martha, it's terribly boring. Not only must you be on your best behavior, but there is no one for you to kibbitz with because you are the youngest one there!"

Mother sensed my disappointment and said that "there will be no long faces. This is your place in the world and there are many children in South Boston who would kill, quite literally, for this type of opportunity.  Now smile little lamb and let's select a new pair of white gloves for your outfit."

That's a young me on the left and Evedele Miles-Ratner on the right. 

Later, when Sylvia and I worked as models for Filine's (I know what you are thinking -Martha Smith-Standish worked? Yes I did.  One is only young once.  But I didn't make a career of it, and that is what matters most.) we loved to get dressed up in the latest good-girl fashions. The silk dresses.  The velvets, the muslin, the linen suits!  And the bows! (We must not forget the glorious bows!)  I enjoyed being a girl!

But those days are past, and now I am not a girl.  I am a wife and mother.

Well, fast forward to today and as I was shopping for that present for Margery I felt quite sad that she will not be treated to her first grown up dinner when she turns thirteen.  No, instead her parents, Melissa and Jonathan will be taking her to Disney World with Margery's best friend, a Miss Toemiko Jones, for a weekend of childhood indulgence.


Anyway, what does one buy a thirteen year old going on seven?  Not a grown up dress, but an iPad, which is used for surfing the web, chatting with "peeps", and on rare instances, I am sure, playing something called Angry Birds.

Oh well, it would be lovely to have Margery here so I could buy her a dress, but according to her mother she is beginning to drift towards Goth fashions - all black, accents with chains and dark hair.

Well, such is life - the order changeth with the passing of years.

My husband Edwin Smith-Standish and I attending an international stamp show and the excitement in house is building to a crescendo of anticipation of what we might find and who we might see.  If only Margery could join us!

In any event, I hope that your weekend will be relaxing.

Well now, are we refreshed and rested?

Now that we have labor day under our belts, and we have returned to our home in Shaker Heights,  I am happy to announce that it is officially the fall wardrobe season!

Throughout Shaker Heights today, hundreds of housewives are watching their maids pack away the summer outfits and lug heavy – oh so heavy trunks down from the third floor storage rooms.  Each trunk, I can assure you, is carefully packed with favorite timeless pieces of attire, and a healthy sampling of items bought at finer stores last January when the end of the season sales were in full blast.  

We women of Shaker Heights maybe comfortably well off, but we are not foolish with our husband’s salaries – that is the way of Beachwood, not Shaker households.

Of course there are those who may be surprised by what they find in their closets. 

If you at the type of woman who is like Bonita Dixon, or Phyllis Stein, well then, you’ll insist on wearing white after Labor Day.  And that is quite alright, as it gives the Tuesday Women’s Bridge Club that meets at Madeline Smythe-Carothers’ home something to gossip about.

Edwin has returned to his office for the fall season of litigation and divorces.  After the horrible incident at Melissa and Jonathan’s home, work will do him some good.  I’ve tried to make Edwin see the brights side of the incident by treating it as a very deep chemical peel. 

Enough about suffering.  How can one be pained with the possibility that one’s husband may develop all manner of skin ailments when we are the threshold of the coming Cleveland Symphony season?

Yes, all good this come in fall.  

WASP Labor Day Plans Ruined: Thank God for the Club

During WWII the British - a nation of people that I have nothing but the utmost respect for - with the exception of Benny Hill - helped to boost moral during the war by posting standards that read "Keep Calm - Carry On".  These are words of strength to me, as I have adopted them as my personal inspiration, and as my personal guide for charting the course of my life.

Yesterday, the motto once again came to the rescue.  Poor Edwin was bumbling about in our daughter's carriage house looking for charcoal lighter fluid and accidentally found an old can of liquid DDT which he mistakenly thought was lighter fluid.  Needlessly to say that the contents, which our son in law later said could be as old as sixty-years, created an explosive moment and singed all of Edwin's eyebrows off as he attempt to light the charcoal after saturating it in the toxic fluid.

Worse still, my daughter's lovely back yard was soon infested with Wellesley Firemen in haz-mat suits trying to assess the toxicity levels from the banned chemical.

The Country Club as I remember it.

But after seeing that Edwin was OK, I remembered my motto - I kept calm and carried on.  I found a telephone and called the Wellesley Country Club, where our daughter and son in law are members, and made reservations for a holiday dinner.Normally this is one of their busiest weekends, but I attended Dana Hall School for girls with the grandmother of the facilities manager so they were able to squeeze us in.

There are those who feel that we Smith-Standish's rely too much upon the country club for such occasions.  And this may be true.  But we pay good money for our memberships.  The food is nutritious and palatable, on occasion quite good.

Really, while others may wax poetic about back yard barbeque's and the fun had by all, when one has a potential toxic clean up to deal with brought about by poor eye sight and chemicals enough that could kill a large mammal, why not call upon your country club in your hour of need?

And truth be told, it really is much easier - and it is our way.


As for me, I have wrapped my hair in tissue paper as not to disturb it's styling, and will be turning in for the night.  They expect poor Edwin to be released from Newton Wellesley's burn unit by Wednesday. Will keep you abreast of his condition. 

May your week ahead be productive! 

Mrs. Edwin Smith Standish

WASP Labor Day Observed, in the Smith-Standish Household

Today marks the beginning of the WASP Labor Day weekend in the Smith-Standish household.  Normally we would spend the day in our home in Shaker Heights, however,  I am delighted to tell you that I am writing from my daughter Melissa Smith-Standish Dalrymple's home outside of Boston in the city of Wellesley, Massachusetts.  As I am a native of Wellesley myself, it is a true home coming for yours truly.

Edwin and I seldom enjoy hosting family holidays at our home any more because of the commotion that it brings about.  If we were holding this gathering it would be organized around a traditional Labor Day cook-out it would be held at Shaker Heights Country Club.  After all we pay our money for membership, and they have a pool for the grandchildren and the bar tender knows exactly how Edwin enjoys his Johnny Walker Blue on the rocks.

Really, it's much easier that way.

So this sojourn to my home town is a grand treat for us.

Melissa's cottage in Wellesley, within a stones throw of the Hunnewell Estate

Melissa and her delightful husband Jonathan live in a charming Tudor manor - one that rambles picturesquely, and has every creature comfort that one could imagine.  Both Edwin and I thought that when they first considered this house that it would be a bit too much for such a young couple and our three rambunctious grandsons, however Melissa has really stepped up to the plate, learned to speak Spanish and now has total command of that romance language and the household help.

Our other children - Paige, Bill, and our twins, Charles and Bruce, will join us on Sunday for a cook out and

I should mention that Bill's wife Bridgette will be joining us, as will Paige's husband Dr. Gerald Creighton and their children.  And Chip (that's what we call our Charles) is bringing his fiance, Bunny, and Bunny's son Ozzie.  And then there is our special treat: Bruce and his husband "Master John" have flown in as well.  I have asked Bruce to make "John" leave his chaps in the guest house.

And for a special treat, guess who is operating the grille for this festive event?  None other than Edwin!

I hope he doesn't do us all in with his rare steaks.


After our meal, we'll watch the children play, and then we'll set up two tables for duplicate bridge.  Last year "Master John" won the family trophy at the last labor day event and I am bound and determined to win it back at any cost.

At nine o'clock the children will go off to bed and the adults will gather in the den to plan out our holiday travel schedules to make sure that no one's feelings are hurt if someone can not be with the rest of us at the Country Club on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

And at 10:30, I will retire - and hopefully without Mr. Smith-Standish's cooking reminding me what I had for dinner.

Onto Fall; full steam ahead!

With deep gratitude,

Mrs. Edwin Smith-Standish