Did I Miss Something? Belated Thoughts on a Matchmaker's Skill

For some reason, recently Pepys' diary (another of Mimi's gifts) came to mind and I wondered anew why Mimi had made some of her choices on my behalf. I recall being surprised at the (for the nineteen-forties) candor of much of Mr. Pepys’ notes. Various characteristics of this well-known journal have lingered in my mind, like the fact that Pepys never refers to his wife by name, like his unhesitating references to matters I considered too private for writing about (not considering that he may never have anticipated his words ever reaching such enormous numbers of readers as they have). I remember feeling I ought to hide my mild shock over some of the details of Mr. Pepys’ life and times. I never met anyone more prim than I thought Mimi was.

Now, older than Mimi was when she passed away, it occurs to me to question why she would have given me that particular entrée to history, or the life of a 17th Century man who was not primarily a man of letters. Was her motive to provide a sort of painless introduction to English history? Thinking back on her particularly restricted and maidenly life experiences (that I know of), I’m wondering if she had something else in mind altogether.

Did she envision a future with fewer restrictions on females than she had known, a promise of a kind of daringly inquiring mind that a younger cousin might achieve? Mimi had been reared in the privileged fashion of the late nineteenth century and very early twentieth. She was well traveled at an early age, educated in the arts in general and music in particular. She spoke French, understood a good deal of German and Italian. She was, in a word, worldly. Could she have imagined for me (the daughter of her close friend and relation) a life freer by far than the one she had enjoyed? Was she perhaps laying some groundwork?

Other books, many tea times, conversations not just with my mother, but Mimi's other friends as I remember them should have hinted to me then that she was a bit of a romantic, though never having had a chance to develop dreams she may have had. Some of her friends like a Mme. Schwetzoff, who was a 'White Russian' refugee living in penury in the city and supporting herself with her beautiful needlework and crochet, and a frequent guest at Mimi's for tea.

When Mimi and my mother were studying piano with a noted teacher of the day, she (and perhaps my mother with her) traveled fairly often to Cincinnati. The family lived in Columbus. At the time, my father was with the Cincinnati Symphony and on the faculty of the College of Music. Hence my notion that it was Mimi who brought them together.

I believe I may have heard of The League of Women Voters for the first time from Mimi. On occasional weekends at my parents' house in the country, I didn't wonder at her ease with earthy matters. My mother was a bit ahead of her time in many things, but she was years younger than little genteel Mimi, who incidentally, was closer to my father's age than my mother's.

As it turned out, Mimi waited quite a while before she returned to her beloved Switzerland, and during that time, she exerted further influence on me. A close friend whom I met several times at one of those teatimes also had a musical background. Ethel had become a piano teacher. She was the sister of a widow with three sons, the youngest of whom was five years my senior.

I was in the city through my junior year in college. Mimi suggested I take a ticket to the winter concert series by The Boston Symphony. She and Ethel attended every year. It was an affordable pleasure I signed onto immediately. It turned out that one of Ethels' nephews was a regular too.

That summer, I was staying in the country with a recently widowed friend. In June, Mimi reminded me of Ethel's nephew. She pointed out that his mother was an invalid, his brothers were in other parts of the country, and that he had very little entertainment in his life because of working full time, attending night school, and caring for his mother and their home. Mimi persuaded me to invite him to my parents' house in Connecticut for a weekend getaway.

She was aware that the previous winter I'd broken an engagement with a college classmate and had emerged a bit emotionally bruised. Having more or less sworn off men for the time being, I reluctantly agreed to her suggestion, feeling assured that he wouldn't accept anyway. He'd shown no particular interest in me before, other than displaying very pleasant manners.

He accepted. Those two little old ladies couldn't have succeeded any better. It didn't take us long to figure out the gentle scheming between the two aging unmarried friends. We accepted their kind attentions with gratitude. We were married for over fifty-seven years. We have three children and seven grandchildren thanks to the conspiracy of two little old ladies whose interest in such matters completely escaped my notice at the time.

From this distance, I honestly wonder how much I understood my genial cousin's personality. Certainly I underestimated her sophistication (if that's the right word), and probably her ability to read others. My parents were married for over forty years. She was a pretty good matchmaker.

It's tempting to embroider a little and maybe contrive a bit of literary entertainment from someone who may have been less prim than she seemed. I have to wonder at this distance whether I ever read her quite correctly.

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Did I Miss Something? Belated Thoughts on a Matchmaker's Skill

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