A Woman of Independent Means (51 page)

Joyeux Noël,
Bess

Elizabeth Steed Garner, prominent resident of Dallas since 1909, died today at her home, a luxury apartment overlooking Turtle Creek.

She was born in 1890 in the little town of Honey Grove, 100 miles north of Dallas, which her father, Andrew Alcott, helped to found. She attended Mary Baldwin College in Virginia but left without a diploma to marry her grade-school sweet-heart, Robert Randolph Steed, son of a leading Texas educator.

The young couple arrived in Dallas for their honeymoon. With the support of his wife, Mr. Steed became a leader in the burgeoning real-estate business that saw the population of Dallas grow from 90,000 to 150,000 in the nine years he lived here.

The young couple and their three children moved to St. Louis to accommodate Mr. Steed's growing involvement in the field of insurance, and in 1918 he became president of Midwestern Life Insurance Company. However, exhausted by his unstinting efforts in the final war-bond campaign of World War I, he succumbed to the influenza that reached epidemic proportions after the war and died in 1919.

His widow moved back to Dallas, though she continued to travel extensively until confined to her home by failing health. In 1922 she married a young engineer, Samson Arlington Garner, who had moved to Texas from Pennsylvania. She watched with pride as he rose through the ranks to become president of Daltex Steel Company, and when he became chairman of the board in 1960, she was a major stockholder in the company.

A member of the Dallas Shakespeare Club and charter subscriber to the civic music series and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Mrs. Garner devoted herself to the cultural life of the city. Her will provides for the donation of all her works of art to the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts.

In lieu of flowers, friends are asked to contribute to the memorial fund established by the Shakespeare Club in her name for the encouragement of contemporary playwrights.

Mrs. Garner is a member of St. Matthew's Episcopal Cathedral where the funeral service will be held. Burial will be in Hillcrest Mausoleum.

She is survived by a daughter, Eleanor Elizabeth Burton, and a son, Andrew Alcott Steed, both of Dallas; six grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

June 15, 1966
Dallas

City Editor
The Dallas Morning News
Dallas, Texas

 

Dear Sir:

I am enclosing an obituary notice I have composed in advance of my death for you to keep on file in your morgue. If I have omitted any essential details—beyond the cause and time of death—or if you have any further questions, please feel free to call me. I would like to spare my family any intrusion on their grief on the day of my death—and there are undoubtedly many details in my life about which they would be understandably vague.

I am also enclosing a portrait photograph which I would like for you to copy and return to me as promptly as possible. It is not the most recent photograph I possess but it is easily the most flattering, so I trust you will indulge this final vanity on my part and see that it accompanies my obituary notice in the newspaper. Surely it is my right to choose the way I would like to be remembered.

I know that
The New York Times
prepares obituaries in advance on prominent people and usually calls the subject for a personal interview. I assume
The Dallas News
does not follow this policy since I am seventy-five years old and no one has called. If there is any doubt about the prominent position I have occupied in this community, along with both my husbands, you have only to check with your editor, whose father was my neighbor and finally even my friend.

I realize of course that the obituary notice may not be printed exactly as I composed it; however, I would be very interested in seeing any edited version. Perhaps you would be kind enough to submit one for my approval when you return the photograph.

Sincerely,
Bess Steed Garner

 

P.S. I have also drafted my husband's obituary notice, which I am enclosing. In view of his failing health, you would be well advised to place it in a more current file than you do mine.

August 10, 1967
Dallas

Dear Dwight and Totsie,

There was a time when I wanted desperately to move to New York. But the children were young and Sam asked me to marry him and so it is only now, over forty years later, that I am experiencing the exhilaration of an independent life in a high-rise apartment of my own. Of course I am looking down on Turtle Creek, not Central Park, but at night all I see are the bright lights and I could be in any big city in the world.

Many of my friends have expressed a wish to return to the little towns where they were born to spend their twilight years but to me there is nothing to match sunset in the city. I take great comfort in the thought of all the strangers living above and below me in this building—of all the lives I have not touched going on around me. I exult in the size of this city and the rate at which it continues to grow. And living in the midst of it, I no longer feel I have been deprived of anything. I am sorry Lydia died without having had her own apartment. She went from her parents to her husband to her daughter without ever living a life that was completely her own.

My devoted housekeeper, who has shared my life longer than either of my husbands, is enjoying our present life style as much as I am. Fortunately she is a decade younger than I am, and still capable of driving an automobile with impunity. When I sold my house, I bought a new Oldsmobile Cutlass and registered it in her name, though I am responsible for its maintenance until I die. Every afternoon we set out on our rounds and drive till sundown when we pause to see Sam.

He has finally stopped asking about going home and yesterday I understood why. He and our former neighbor, Mrs. Perkins, were seated side by side on the sun porch when I arrived for my afternoon visit, sharing the contented silence of two people who have long since said everything they have to say. Then to my amazement I saw that they were holding hands. They greeted me politely but with no recognition of any earlier role I had played in either of their lives.

From previous conversation I assumed my neighbor still had some grasp of reality. She questioned me extensively at the time I sold my house and seemed quite concerned at what she clearly considered my final abandonment of my husband. She always took pity on him when I left town on an extended trip and during my absences he was a frequent dinner guest in her home. Yesterday I could almost suspect that her seeming indifference to my presence was caused more by her solicitude for Sam than by any reduction in her mental capacity.

When Sam finally spoke, he asked if I saw the family of redbirds nesting outside the window. I did not have to look to know that he was talking about a window he had not seen in almost four years. I realized then that he was back in our breakfast room on Drexel Drive and the hand he thought he was holding was mine. Whatever her motive, I could only be grateful to my former neighbor for providing the illusion of my constant presence and allowing me the freedom of an independent life.

Betsy and her husband have been here with the baby all summer. It is such a miracle to see another generation coming to consciousness. I would be quite content to spend every day in their company but I try to limit my visits to twice a week. I take the whole family out to dinner whenever I can in an attempt to repay the delight my great-grandchild has given me.

She talks all the time and I cannot tell you the thrill it gives me to hear a new little voice saying, “Nana.” I telephone every night just before her bedtime and talk to her until her mother takes the phone away. She never says very much but her mother assures me she listens enthralled, and I love telling her how much she has meant to me, whether she understands what I am saying or not. I have always enjoyed the telephone but the members of my family never seem to have time for the leisurely conversations I prefer. I suppose my great-granddaughter will soon be too busy for me too, but I am thankful that at the age of three she is still fascinated by everything I have to say.

The only other person who will listen as long as I care to talk is Sam. Every night after dinner I retire to my bed and from there I call to tell him good night. One night I was attending the theater with my friends the Townsends and forgot to call, and the next day the nurse told me Sam would not allow her to turn off his bedside light that night. He made her understand that he wanted to be able to see the telephone so he could answer it when it rang. She tried to tell him that the switchboard had closed but he just kept shaking his head and shouting if she got near the light. He finally fell asleep with the light shining in his face.

Since that night, no matter where I am, I have never forgotten to call and say good night. He does not have much more to say on the other end than my great-grandbaby and while her vocabulary grows daily, his diminishes. But I know he is listening and if I ask a question often enough, he will finally make some sort of sound in reply. Of course I have no idea what he is saying but then I never ask a question without already knowing the answer.

Betsy is encouraging me to fly to Los Angeles this fall for the premiere of her husband's new play at the theater complex that has just opened there, and I am very tempted to accept. Why don't the two of you meet me there and you can see what my family has produced in the way of plays and progeny? Both levels of production fill me with pride and I love being included in their lives. I do worry about leaving Sam, though I would of course call him every night long distance. I wonder if he would miss my visits every afternoon. Unfortunately there is no way to be sure.

I cannot get the thought of the trip out of my mind. We have maintained our friendship by letter for too long. And now, with so many of my dearest friends and relatives beyond my reach forever, I want nothing more than to put my arms around you both.

I remember in French class freshman year when we learned the expression “j'ai le coeur gros” to denote a heart swollen with emotion. At the time it seemed like a rather vulgar expression to me but that was before I knew how crude and vulgar life can be at the end as, one by one, we lose everyone we love. Everything in me aches and throbs to be with you. “J'ai le coeur gros” when I think of you and my longing will not be satisfied until the two of you are once again in my embrace.

Je vous embrasse,
Bess