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MÉMÉ

One of the things I enjoyed most about living in New York City was that I could be near my maternal grandmother, Martha Richardson, whom I called Mémé. Although Mémé lived in Boston, she would come and stay with us on holidays such as Christmas or Thanksgiving.

Mémé had been born and raised in Boston and had already shown evidence of an extraordinary singing voice at the age of five when she sang the role of “Little Buttercup” in Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore at the Boston Opera House. Throughout her years in convent school she longed for a career in grand opera, but it was out of the question for a well-brought-up young lady of that era to consider a life on the stage. However, her parents, who themselves loved music, eventually allowed her to study singing at the New England Conservatory of Opera.

In the late 1890s, while continuing her studies at the Conservatory, Martha did what her family expected of her and married Samuel Richardson, a reliable older gentleman of English descent. She bore him two little girls, Dotie and Ashie.

Although Martha appeared in recitals and concerts throughout the Boston area, she wanted to become an opera star, and the only way to accomplish that was to go to Europe and study with the great teachers. Already fluent in French, in 1905 she left her husband in Boston and, accompanied by her mother, went to Paris with her two daughters to continue her musical training. Today, it is almost impossible for us to comprehend the shockwaves such actions created in Boston a century ago.

According to one of the newspaper clippings in her scrapbook, now disintegrating with age, my grandmother, without even a letter of introduction, managed to reach the preeminent teacher of the time, M. Juliani, for an audition.

Juliani had listened to hundreds of hopeful and highly recommended singers from around the world, and accepted few of them as students. “Sing!” he ordered Martha.

As her first notes filled the room, Juliani’s eyes opened wide and he half rose from his chair. At the end of her song, he threw his arms around her neck and cried, “Come tomorrow! Don’t fail to come tomorrow for your first lesson!”

On December 17, 1910, Martha Richardson made her debut with the Paris Opera as Leonore in Verdi’s Il Trovatore. The international reviews were unqualified raves. They praised the purity, sweetness and power of her voice and described how, on that evening, the French and American flags hung outside the Opera House in her honor.

During the thunderous ovation, her two little girls, Dotie and Ashie, who were sitting in a box close by the stage, were heard happily crying out, “Maman—Maman!”

After four years of international acclaim, it looked as though my grandmother’s success would go on forever. Little did she know that World War I would abruptly change her life in ways she never could have imagined.

According to newspaper reports, she had been on the streets of Paris with her two children when a German aeroplane overhead dropped a bomb that exploded on the sidewalk in front of her, killing two women.

The very last clipping in her scrapbook is eerily similar to my mother’s story when she too would flee France with my brother, Richard, for the safety of America at the outbreak of World War II. My grandmother told the reporter:

I had not intended to leave Paris immediately, but when I learned that the French Government was removing to Bordeaux, I made haste to prepare for departure. In the hurry that followed, I was obliged to leave behind all of my valuable stage costumes. In less than three hours, I packed four trunks, five valises, and other baggage.

The next day she boarded a ship, La Touraine, and escaped to America, as her daughter also would, twenty-five years later.

The last clipping in my grandmother’s scrapbook ended with,

Mme. Martha Richardson, who for four years has sung leading roles in grand opera in France, has fled from the bombs falling on Paris and arrived safely in Boston with her two young daughters. Madame Richardson was scheduled to sing Aida at the Grand Opera in Paris on September 8, but, sadly, the Opera House closed its doors on September 3.

World War I effectively ended my grandmother’s career as an opera singer. After she arrived back in Boston, she sold her piano and never sang again. My mother told me that only once, at the end of a large dinner party, was her mother inspired to sing Gounod’s “Ave Maria,” moving everyone to tears. She never explained the reason for the eternal silence of her magical gift—not even to her children.

When I first met Mémé, she had a regal bearing and still wore her hair swept up and held in place by diamond combs from another era. Wherever she went, one could still feel the magnetism that had mesmerized her audiences many years before.

I loved Mémé and felt she loved me and thought I was perfect just the way I was. She also treated me like a little adult and encouraged my early love of music. The only time I can remember desperately wanting to stay up beyond my bedtime was during her visits—I was happy just being in the same room with her.

One of the greatest memories I have of Mémé was once when I was four or five, and we were alone at my aunt Ashie’s house, where I went every day to practice the piano. While I was playing the piano, Mémé looked far into the distance and started to sing—just for me. I immediately stopped my childish playing and sat rapt in the magic of this enormously private moment.

From the very beginning, Mémé touched a sensitive chord in my soul. I was no more than five years old, sitting in my parents’ living room in New York, when I saw her discreetly get up and go into my mother’s bedroom. I could sense something was wrong and found her sitting quietly on my mother’s chaise longue with her hands clasped, looking at the floor. Realizing that she was not well, I sat next to her, and for the first time in my life consciously felt the healing energy of love flow between two human beings.

After a few moments, I heard her ask, “Do you want something, darling?”

I looked up and replied, “I just wanted to see if you were all right.”

Mémé took my hand and we sat peacefully together until she felt well enough to rejoin the others. Many years later, after my mother’s death, I found a letter among her papers in which Mémé mentioned that moment we had shared on the chaise longue and how touched she had been. She added, “He will always be loved. Yes, he has what it takes!”

On a Sunday morning in November 1947, when I was six years old, Ashie (whom I always called Tata, a childish pronunciation of “Tante Ashie”) brought Richard and me home from church. As soon as we walked in the door, we saw the devastated look on Mother’s face. Tata, who was very intuitive, immediately said, “It’s Mother, isn’t it?” Without saying a word, Mother fell into her sister’s arms, weeping. That was the first and last time in my life that I ever saw my mother cry.

The phone call had come while we were in church. Mémé, who had been at home in Boston, had awakened early that morning and told her housekeeper that she was not feeling well. She went into the living room, sat down in an armchair, and waited for the housekeeper to bring her a brandy. By the time the housekeeper returned, Mémé was dead.

After Tata went home to pack for the trip to Boston to bury their mother, Lucy took me into my bedroom and explained, “Mémé is in heaven with the stars.”

I said, “I don’t want her in heaven with the stars, I want her here with me.”

I was confused and frightened but Lucy offered no comfort. So I went alone into a dark hallway that connected her room with mine and started to cry. Later, still fighting back tears, I went to my mother’s room, but I was not allowed to go in. I had never seen such a look of sadness on my mother’s face before, and I could only stand helplessly in the doorway and watch while she packed. There was no way for me to accept that Mémé would never hold me in her arms and make me feel special and loved and wonderful again. I remained inconsolable and cried myself to sleep that night.

On the other side of the coin was my other grandmother, my father’s mother, Geneviève, from whom my older brother, Richard, and I never felt any love. Real love—or the lack of it—transcends all the pretty words and cannot fool children. In the summertime, after the war was over, we would go to France and visit her château outside of Angers. Life at my grandmother’s château could be fun because of the animals, beautiful parks, and wonderful places for kids to get into mischief. But as time went on, I saw a darker side of Maman Geneviève that did not coincide with the perfect picture she presented to the world.