Luckily for us, Mom's father John Edgar Duncan loved to make movies. Mom is helping him with the captions here. She told me that he made many of the captions for his movies when he was recovering from a major heart attack at home. It gave him something quiet to do at home. (He was a doer,)
Jack enjoyed the informal evening so much. It was probably the first birthday he had celebrated with his sister, Dorothy, since the 1940s. Jack and Dottie were always smiling.
Jack enjoyed the informal evening so much. It was probably the first birthday he had celebrated with his sister, Dorothy, since the 1940s. Jack and Dottie were always smiling.
I can tell that this is a photo of Jack instead of brother Don.
The friend was Pat Breon Kelly. She used to be a neighbor when the Duncans lived on Lincoln in Grosse Pointe. She was in our high school class. One time Jack said, "I wonder what happened to little Patty Breon?" I said, "She was in my class in high school - all grown up."
I think all who knew Dorothy even a little knew that she shunned speech that was anything less than true.
At the premiere of Amy's and my Yale musical, "Turning Blue!," my family had the pleasure of meeting Dorothy for the first time. While we all milled outside the Dramat on York Street, my mother turned to Dorothy and remarked, "What a talented person your daughter Amy is!"
Quite true. But, as Amy's qualities are also so ineffable as to be beyond mere social rhetoric, Dorothy smiled, acknowledging the compliment with words to which I have often gratefully recurred.
"Amy is Amy," she said. We all stood hushed, awed by so crystal an oracle.
We dug up a bunch of plants at 60 Bayview that Mom could take with her on her journey to Connecticut. She's carrying a spirea that I took a cutting from in 1978 from the parking lot at the legendary flea market at Roosevelt Field. She always wanted to do things by herself, and was never afraid of physical effort and getting her heart to pound.
It was a hard journey from 60 Bayview to 83 Mallett, then to 28 Apple Blossom, where she was rewarded with a gorgeous house in a lovely location. In this tiny clip which I took by accident, she gives us the "Keep on Truckin" sign to tell us that she MADE IT without any chips off her great sense of humor.
