2001-09-18 - 11:07 p.m.

Aunt Annsie (3)

As I wrote here a couple days ago, I received a sympathy letter from my mother's sister, Annsie, in early 1999, almost two and a half years after my mother died. There followed a pretty intense correspondence as we practically exchanged life stories.

In the 1950s and 1960s Annsie worked for IBM, and was one of its first women executives. She did not talk about it in great detail, but I got the distinct impression that it was no bed of roses. There was a lot of resentment to this female invader of an old boys' club.

Annsie idolized her father, who was an executive at GE for many years. When he died unexpectedly in 1966 she was devastated. She had made friends with a fellow employee named Peterson, and he stood by her in her hour of grief. The friendship deepened and they eventually got married. However, in the 1970s he was diagnosed with cancer and spent several years struggling with it. Aunt Annsie somehow managed to juggle taking care of her ailing mother, her sick husband and working as an executive at IBM. This heavy load explained the almost hostile tone of the letter to my father.

Shortly after Gammy died, Mr. Petersen finally lost his battle with cancer. Annsie had to deal with the problems of Gammy's estate while she was reeling from the death of her husband. She admitted that she didn't know how she got through it all.

Shortly after she retired from IBM she was diagnosed with cancer herself. A lifelong smoker, she had throat cancer. Eventually they had to remove her larynx, so she was effectively a mute. This was why she didn't want me to call her on the phone.

I'm trying to remember what things were like in the early days of our correspondence. I remember being very excited - it was like I discovered a family that I never knew I had. Not only did I have a cool aunt, but she told me about the cousins on her side of the family, people I had no idea existed. They were the children of my grandfather's brother - my mother never mentioned any relatives on her side of the family at all.

A while back I'd had quite an interest in my family's genealogy, and Aunt Annsie knew quite a bit about her family's history and she was able to fill in many gaps in my knowledge.

But, slowly, my relationship with Aunt Annsie began to go bad. To try to be completely honest, I think that all the stuff that Aunt Annsie had been through had turned her into a bitter old woman, and made her very hard to get along with.

I think it all started over family objects, the same things that Annsie and my mother fought over. She wanted the items that my mother had gotten in Gammy's will, and she was willing to pay me generously for them. The trouble was - nearly all of this stuff was long gone.

Cleaning out the family home was not a nostalgic journey for me - it was pure hell. I tried to save everything that looked important or had direct relevance to our family - everything else I sold or threw out. It was an intensely painful experience for me, and I just wanted to get it over with. Also, Dad was extremely strapped for money and I needed to sell what was valuable just to make ends meet for him.

So most of the things she was looking for were gone. There was one item in particular she was searching for - a Patek Philippe wristwatch that had belonged to her father. I didn't remember selling it - or even seeing it - but it was nowhere to be found.

Something I neglected to mention - Annsie was not just corresponding with me, she was writing to Harry and Janis too. In her letters to me, she began to complain how bad Harry was at writing back. Well, he was insanely busy.

I mentioned it to Harry to prod him into writing Annsie more, and he then told me that Annsie in her letters to him had some less-than-complimentary things to say about me, too. I think the words "philistine" and "mercenary" were used. Annsie did not approve of the way I handled my mother's estate and the family heirlooms entrusted to me.

I would have happily given Annsie the things she wanted, but they were no longer around. That's what happens after two and a half years. Nobody told me what any of this stuff was, so how was I to know what the sentimental value of it was?

Once Harry and I became aware of the fact that Annsie was being nice to each of us, but nasty behind our backs, we sort of cooled off in our correspondence to her. Then the whole thing blew up.

Concluded, tomorrow