On Dec. 22, 2000, died My Lady Esther -- my dear wife of 52 years, my love of 53 years, and my best friend.
Esther was a smart, sassy woman. making me realize that I like smart, sassy women, and don't feel intimidated by them. I've often said that knowing Esther made other women seem a liitle boring.
As part of her sassiness, Esther suffered fools gladly, so she could fool them right back, although, often, they didn't know they were being fooled. One thing she fooled was her own disability.
We "normals" cannot adequately understand, or even imagine, the invasion of privacy, the threat to individuality and integrity, suffered by those who must frequently accept prosthetic support. Esther knew and surmounted it all -- to the end.
Her father thought she couldn't "mainstream" in public school; shouldn't go away to college; shouldn't work in Cuba or later in New York City, moving there. Should not get married and have childen. Should not go with me to Puerto Rico to a college he helped found and would visit one or two times a year. Ettsetttery. But she did all of these things. I'm consoled by rememboring that whenever she asked me about a new venture, I encouraged her and said I'd support her in any way I could. One venture, which at first surprised me, was to have children. Esther gave me two handsome, loving, talented sons, who gave us four beautiful grandchildren. Esther often laughed with pride at their activities.
Hower, citing her disability, her college Dean had not allowed Esther to major in Education to fulfill her aspirations of becoming a teacher. Decades later, both the President and the Dean, in separate letters, apologized for their predecessors. But Esther had already ignored this limitation, teaching in many different schools.
Starting to work with Esther in the office, we -- essentially the same age -- soon realized -- as we later agreed -- that we were kindred creatures. Esther lived her teens in Montclair, NJ; I, in Springfield, MO, later in Tulsa, OK. But we were reading the same short stories, the same novels, the same poetry and dramas. Listening to the same music -- classical and popular. Listening to the same radio programs. We both heard Benny Goodman's first "swing session" in New York City. We both heard that first broadcast of Glen Miller's Band at the Meadowbrook, near Esther's home. We both heard the first broadcast of Bing Crosby's "Kraft Music Hall" and Bob Hope's comedy program. Whenever I later recalled this, Esther would ask, "Well, why didn't you write me about it?"
Soon after our engagement, I -- as World War II veteran -- received a Bonus of $500 -- a lot of money, in those days. Money for a good time. The City Center Ballet, under Balanchine, was a year or two old, and a City Center Opera Company had been established. We went to ballets, operas, concerts, Broadway plays, movies, restaurants, art galleries, museums. Years later -- when busy with work and family duties -- we were renewed by the memory of those happy days of our year of engagement.
Esther had her college degree, but I did not. Immediately, after marriage, I began studies, under "The G. I. Bill", on a physics major at Columbia University, working by day, going to school at night. After the first year, we agreed this would take too long. So I attended Columbia full-time by day, and did partime work. Esther continued to work at the Literacy Office.
Then I worked fulltime by day at an insurance brokerage and attended New York University Graduate School, majoring in mathematics. Esther still with Literacy. I suggested that she begin graduate work, but she put it off.
However, when I was in the Mathematics Department of The University of Maine at Orono, I persuaded her to complete courses for a Master's degree in Comparative Literature. Having suffered many breaks in her legs, she was mostly confined to wheelchair, able walk only short distances on crutches. The Buildings of her classes had no elevators. I'd support her walking up, on Australian crutches, one or two flights of stairs; then I brought up her wheelchair. But the day she had defended her Thesis and all was complete, she broke her good leg again. So the local newspaper displayed a photograph of Esther, cappped and gowned in wheelchair with leg in cast, receiving her degree.
These studies inspired her important research. One subject was Marguerite d'Angouleme (1492-1549), popularly known as Maguerite, Queen of Navarre, author of a classic, The Heptameron. Will Durant, in his 11-volume work, The Story of Civilization, says that Marguerite d'Angouleme represents two Ages, both The Renaissance and The Reformation -- a recognition apparently granted to no man in all literature. Besides her poetry and prose, Marguerite was patron of many notable Renaissance artists and writers, protecting some from censure or even execution. A professed Roman Catholic, yet Marguerite was intermediary with European Protestants. Some historian have said that if Marguerite had lived longer, she might have prevented the terrible St. Bartholomew Massacre of French Protestants in 1577. The Massacre was apparently instigated by her son's wife, Queen of France, with the acquiescence of her nephew, Charles XIII, boy King of France. But Charles' father, King Henry II, is on record as saying, "If it were not for my aunt, Marguerite, I should doubt the existence of as such a thing as perfect goodness on the earth." So, had she lived long enought, Marguerite might have begged her great-nephew to prevent this Massacre, which drove surviving Huguenots into many lands.
Besides noting some Huguenot influence on Presbyterianism, I single out one Huguenot who escaped to England, Abraham De Moivre. Among many accomplishments, De Moivre created the formula for the first annuity. Those of you on annuities, or with relatives or friends on annuities, can thank Abraham De Moivre. This mathematician also created the "bell curve", which should be called "The De Moivre Curve". So many Huguenot artisans were eventually driven into England that their work transformed England from an importing to an expoerting nation. One surving Huguenot who came to America was the ancestor of our patriot, the silversmith, Paul Revere.
After my retirement in 1990, I drove Esther to Duke University, Durham, NC, for a weeklong celebration of the works of Marguerite d'Angouleme. There Esther heard of a definitive biogrphy of Marguerite. After searching ten years, I succeeded, a few months ago, in obtaining for Esther a copy from France of this biography.
The other great research interest concerned authorship of the 1554 anonymously published classic, Lazarillo de Tormes, subject of the paper for which Esther won First Prize in a contest given by the National Spanish Honor Society. Lazarillo de Tormes is progenitor of The Picaresque Novel in literature, a genre including Daniel Dafoe's Moll Flanders, Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, and Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. In each chapter of the book, this young rogue serves a different master. One chapter details his service to an eccentric old knight. Miguel Cervantes said that this chapter inspired his classic, Don Quixote.
Esther thought the author might be one of twin brothers who were "conversos", Jews forced to convert to Catholicism. One brother was Secretary to The Pope. The other, Juan de Valdes, whom Esther thought could be the author -- was often denounced as a Protestant. A friend of Marguerite d'Angouleme, yet he prudently sneaked into Italy, to become spiritual confidant of the great Michelangelo. I downloaded for Esther a long scholarly speculation that Juan de Valdes partially influenced the design of Michelangelo's famous unfinished statuary, The Pieta.
There is a statistical method for investigating authorship, used to settle for many the authorship controversy about many of The Federalist Papers, which contributed to the framing of our Constitution. This method, applicable to the Lazarillo authorship oroblem, requires word count of, say, 70 commonly used words; frequencies of these words often characteristically vary from author to author. Esther tried to tabulate these counts on cards. There is software that quickly counts, by running chapters through it. I have these chapters in my files, and I've tried for 15 years to obtain this software. I'll continue to do so, for there are historical, religious, and philsophical connections that augment the literary ones. Two years ago, I learned of a different mathematical method for this purpose which has confirmed the previous findings regarding The Federalist Paper controversy, and I'm trying to obtain the software for this.
I have 14 websites ONLINE, and 30 more planned. Some of these explicitly involve research Esther initiated, and all of them implictly involve interests she shared with me. I've work enough to last the rest of my life -- even if I survive to age one hundred.
In May, 1997, in a Saturday twilight, I suffered a stroke, fell, and could only raise my head. Esther was bedridden and couldn't help. Lights were off; our only telelphone across the apartment. I scooted 12 hours on my back to reach the phone, for several calls to rescue us. I kept my brain busy and constantly told Esther where I was and what I was doing. She was taken to Home Care and I to hospital and rehabilitation, until we were re-united. But, during that ordeal, I realized that I was activating the lesson Esther taught me over the 53 years we loved together.
In the last months, as her limitations increased, Esther sometimes uncharacteristically gave way to concerns, saying, "I'm so much trouble to you. You'd be better off without me." And I'd object, "Don't say that. If I lost you, I'd become a disreputable old recluse." And Esther would beg, "Don't say that. Promise you won't become that!" So I promised. And I will keep my promise, as I kept my marriage vows.
As with Esther, I will fall and pick myself up and be grateful for support of others in doing so, as I continue to activate the lesson I learned from this sassy, smart, beautiful, sweet woman who still graces and blesses my life.