Madelyn Kennedy Bourbeau
Remembrances
My mother’s sister Madelyn played many roles in life and played them well – daughter, sister, cousin, and friend; girlfriend, wife, widow, and girlfriend again; student, beautician, manager, and business owner; and mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, aunt and God-mother.
She was an integral part of my life longer than anyone. I never knew one of my grandparents and the other three had all passed away before I graduated from college. My mother died when I was 25 – she never had the pleasure of meeting her daughter-in-law or enjoying her grandchild. My father died when I was 41 and my daughter, only 4 at the time, has some memory but not a lot. My father’s only brother joined him when I was 47 – a career military man, he was someone we took pride in from a distance but the connection was intermittent at best.
Aunty Madelyn was a part of every significant event in my life for 49 years. Days after my birth, she became my Godmother. Each summer she would join us for a week at Hampton Beach. She, my uncle and my cousin would suddenly appear in the wee hours of a Saturday morning, having gotten a sudden urge to visit home and driven to Massachusetts from Washington, DC. My two childhood excursions out of New England were to see her. She was there when I graduated from high school. When I attended Georgia Tech, I would get a ride to her house from a classmate and then fly the rest of the way home. She was with us when I got married – the first time and the second. She sent the baptismal gown first made for my cousin, then used by me, when it was time for my Madeleine to be baptized. She sat on our patio and introduced us to her boyfriend after my uncle had died and she had moved to Florida. She called or I called (never often enough), and when I took a business trip to Florida in late 2004, we had dinner together at one of her favorite spots. She was so full of vim and vigor – even at 85 – it is hard to believe that she is gone so suddenly.
My grandfather worked for the railroad. My grandmother had a pass to travel by rail. When I was 6 or 7, my grandmother and I took the train from Lawrence to Boston and then from Boston down to Washington, DC. I believe that my mother joined us but that she came down by plane to minimize the amount of time away from work at the Arlington Trust Company. As a youngster, the memory I came away with was “President Kennedy’s Christmas tree.” This was my first time out of New England and my first time visiting my Aunt, Uncle and cousin instead of them visiting us.
In my eyes, they were always my “rich” Aunt & Uncle. They always wore stylish clothes, drove a nice car and brought presents even when it wasn’t Christmas or a birthday. Over the years I would hear about their trips to places around the world. It seems that Spain had a particular charm – especially for my Uncle. Her favorite, however, was, I think, the Bahamas. Later, when I spent almost a year working in the British Virgin Islands, we spent time discussing the similarities between these two British protectorates.
One of my Aunt’s favorite stories was how when I was young, she asked me to do something. I asked here why and we got into a discussion of why I should do it and how it should be done. She said that after a while it dawned on her that she was holding a debate with a 7-year old and told me to just do it!
In the late 1960s, I went to visit them for Thanksgiving. It was my day of three Thanksgiving dinners. My mother and stepfather had moved to Derry NH. So I started with a noontime Thanksgiving with them. Then at about 4:00 PM, I had Thanksgiving dinner with my father and stepmother. Then I was driven to Boston for what I think was my first flight and was certainly the first time I had flown by myself. In a matter of hours, I was being picked up at Washington National. They had been waiting to eat with me and we had dinner at a Valley’s Steak House at about 10:00 PM. This was quite a new experience for me. I rarely stayed up that late and was amazed to find out that in Washington it was not that unusual to eat dinner at 9:00 or 10:00 at night. In my grandmother’s house dinner was served at about 5:30 every night like clockwork and if you were not ready then you didn’t eat.
It may have been at this time that my Aunt told me a story about how things worked in Washington. She explained that there would be times when my Uncle would call one of their favorite restaurants and ask for a reservation in the name of Bill Bourbeau only to be told that nothing was available that evening. He would hang-up the phone and hand it to my Aunt. She would call and ask for a reservation in the name of Madelyn Kennedy – suddenly a table was available. We were not related to the Boston Kennedy’s (at least not the American generations), but nobody in Washington wanted to take a chance!
My Aunt first worked in, then managed, and finally owned Fairlington Beauty Salon in Alexandria, VA. And lived in a townhouse not far away. During my visit, I spent a day helping her out at the “shop.” We had lunch at a small restaurant around the corner. It was this day that I discovered that when something needed remedying quickly – mopping up a spill, getting a towel, etc. – Auntie Madelyn would snap into action. Things would happen quickly, but her focus was totally on the situation at hand and not the people around her. At this point everyone – young & old, male & female – became Gertrude. It was the first of many times I was called by that name. In the evening, Aunty Madelyn, Uncle Bill and I walked to the local movie house. It was a balmy evening compared to what I had left behind in New England. We were going to see Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple.” I remember walking along with them in the dark with all the lights of the movie house marquee. It was exciting and I felt very grown up – it was a new and wonderful experience.
Unfortunately a memory of this trip was a bookend to the previous trip. In the family photo album is a picture of a somber youth in a dress overcoat standing alone behind President Kennedy’s grave – watching the eternal flame flicker out of the center of the oval of stones. Not in the picture, behind some shrubs behind me was the plain white cross that marked the new grave of Robert Kennedy.
I think it was when my Grandmother passed away in 1971, that Aunty and I started to discuss family history. Just the two of us were sitting in a booth at a restaurant on South Broadway in Lawrence. In this conversation and others I heard a number of stories . . .
Once she graduated from St. Patrick’s High School, she went to school in Boston to learn to be a beautician. She would walk out to the corner of Broadway and wait for the bus to take her to Boston. Sometimes she would be standing in deep snow without proper footwear. At one point her feet got a bit frost bitten. She said that from that day on her feet were overly sensitive to the cold and that this was one of the reasons she was happy to eventually move south.
She told me about her Uncle Joe who was an architect. I was shocked to find out that he had designed the school I had attended from kindergarten through second grade and I had never known. More amazing, he had designed the exterior of Sacred Heart Church – the French Church up the street. She explained that her grandfather and grandmother had been one of the founding families of the parish.
Her grandparents had emigrated from Quebec, met in Lawrence and had been married for over 50 years when my great-grandfather died. He was a builder and had built many of the houses in the Shawsheen sections of Lawrence and Andover. She told me that around the time she and my Uncle Bill had gotten married, she was telling her grandfather about how excited they were to have found this great apartment in a double or triple-decker. He asked her the address. When she told him, he confirmed that it was a good apartment. Surprised she asked “Oh you have been in that house?” “I built that house” was his reply.
She came up for my high-school graduation. Just before graduation there was a senior event of some type. About three of my classmates and I ended up crashing in my room at some very late hour. My Aunt said that the next morning she tried to open my bedroom door. She counted three pairs of feet on the floor and saw me in the bed. Based on this she concluded we had had a fun and safe evening.
In the early 1970s, the husband of one of her favorite personal clients became President. She would tell us what a wonderful down-to-earth person Betty Ford was and she proudly displayed the formal White House Christmas greeting she received from the Fords.
In 1980, I took a job at the US Department of Energy in Washington and bought a townhouse in Greenbelt, MD. If you were to look at the Washington Beltway as the perimeter of a clock, my new home was at about 2:00 and my Aunt and Uncle lived at about 8:00 – we were at opposite ends of the DC world. Even though my father’s brother lived relatively close in Suitland, MD in the 5 years I was there I never visited him – while I was a frequent visitor to my Aunt’s house. I was able to visit her when she was in the hospital for kidney stones and looked sicker and in more pain than I had ever seen her. We were able to console each other when my mother died. And I was there to comfort her when my Uncle had his first heart attack. After leaving DC, the next time I saw her was at my Uncle’s funeral following his second heart attack
The next few times I saw Aunty was when I got married in 1990 and when my sister Kerry got married several years later. Although I did not call often, when I did call we had long conversations. She was never afraid to express her opinion or her love and pride. Much of the information that I have recorded on that part of the family came from her. Unfortunately some of the details were lost at one point. I was amazed at the names, relationships and people’s hometowns that she remembered even when in her 70s and 80s.
One piece of advice she gave was in the form of a story about herself. She said that making a marriage last over a long period was not easy – that you need togetherness and also time to yourself. She described how over the years she and my Uncle had developed a system that worked for them. My Uncle worked a standard Monday – Friday schedule. My Aunt on the other hand chose to work Tuesday – Sunday. In this way she could take care of personal things on Mondays that had to be done during business hours. Another benefit was with regard to the relationship. Both she and my Uncle had clear strong tastes and ways of doing things and they were both pretty particular. They were not, however, the same and could come to loggerheads. The work schedule did a lot to ease this. My Uncle had one day a week – Saturday – to putter around and do his thing without interference. My Aunt also had one day a week – Monday – to do the same. And they made it a point of having Sunday be a day of rest during which they enjoyed each other’s company. It led to decades of good relations.
One conversation was typically Aunty. She was always planning something, going out dancing, etc. I called her one night and she started off the conversation by saying that now that she was in her 80s, she just couldn’t do what she used to do and was slowing down. We continued the conversation and about 20 minutes later she said she had better get back to packing – that the next day she and some friends were driving from Florida to Washington for the weekend. I told her that if this was “slowing down,” I hopped that I was that spry when I reached her age!
When our daughter was born, my wife suggested the name Madeleine Morrisette. She explained that she really like my Quebec great-grandparents family name and Madeleine could be both for my Aunt Madelyn and for one of her favorite authors and a friend of her Uncle’s Madeleine L’Engle. And she really preferred to spell the first name in the traditional French way rather than the anglicized version. Who was I to disagree with my wife? I think that this tickled Aunty, and while she could not make it up for the Christening, she did send up the christening gown that my grandmother had made. I think that she only saw Madeleine once – on a last visit “home,” but she did speak with her on the phone.
In 2004, three Hurricanes hit Florida. The first made landfall right near where my Aunt’s condo was located. She stayed through the storm and we kept in touch by phone. Once the storm was over, she said it was the most frightening thing she had ever experienced and next time when a storm was coming she would not stay. With the utilities all out, as soon as she could after the storm she went up to my cousin’s in Ohio for a few weeks. When the third storm of the season followed the same track as the first, she kept to her word and evacuated.
In early December 2004, I had a job interview in Florida. I made the arrangements in a way that would give me the opportunity to visit Aunty the night before the interview. When I called, she said that it was wonderful I would be there but that she had organized a trip to a Christmas concert and would have to leave a bit early. Once I arrived, I was honored to discover that she had decided to forgo the concert in order to have more time with me. We went out to dinner and had a great visit. Although I did not get the job, just having some one-on-one time with her made the trip a huge success.
In October of 2005, I was visiting relatives in Ireland when another hurricane was heading for Florida. Although this one was heading for the west coast of Florida, the track once again was heading toward Aunty. This time I watched the news confident that she was likely in Ohio and out of harms way. Upon my return, I called and was horrified to find out that she had decided to stay based on what turned out to be the false assumption that the storm would have significantly dwindled before reaching her area. The hardest thing on her was that her Condo was on the top floor of the building. Without electricity she had to climb up 3 flights of stairs on bad ankles. But as usual she persevered.
In February I received word that Aunty had been diagnosed with a heart valve problem. It was not necessarily life threatening but it was reducing her energy and stamina and unless corrected these things would continue to deteriorate. For her, the inability to be active would be worse than death. The operation to fix the problem had a 97% success rate. Although she was busy planning the complex’s upcoming St. Patrick’s Day festivities, she decided to get the procedure done as soon as possible. A few days later, I received word that during the operation it was discovered that her arteries had calcified to the point where the stitches would not hold and she had died on the table. She went to sleep anxious to get on with her planes and never woke up – if the alternative was years of limited activity then I am sure she is happy that things turned out as they did.
Aunty Madelyn led a full, rich life. She loved her husband, she loved her son, she loved her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She had a special bond with her sister – often one would pick up the phone to call the other only to find that the other had called seconds before and the phone had not had time to ring, and many times they would call based on a feeling that something was amiss with the other and would be right. She took on an almost surrogate mother role when our mother passed away at a relatively early age. She was loved by her co-workers and then by her employees. She had style, grace and dignity. When my Uncle died, she grieved and then went on living a full loving life. I hope we are all able to say the same someday.
My mother’s sister Madelyn played many roles in life and played them well – daughter, sister, cousin, and friend; girlfriend, wife, widow, and girlfriend again; student, beautician, manager, and business owner; and mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, aunt and God-mother.
She was an integral part of my life longer than anyone. I never knew one of my grandparents and the other three had all passed away before I graduated from college. My mother died when I was 25 – she never had the pleasure of meeting her daughter-in-law or enjoying her grandchild. My father died when I was 41 and my daughter, only 4 at the time, has some memory but not a lot. My father’s only brother joined him when I was 47 – a career military man, he was someone we took pride in from a distance but the connection was intermittent at best.
Aunty Madelyn was a part of every significant event in my life for 49 years. Days after my birth, she became my Godmother. Each summer she would join us for a week at Hampton Beach. She, my uncle and my cousin would suddenly appear in the wee hours of a Saturday morning, having gotten a sudden urge to visit home and driven to Massachusetts from Washington, DC. My two childhood excursions out of New England were to see her. She was there when I graduated from high school. When I attended Georgia Tech, I would get a ride to her house from a classmate and then fly the rest of the way home. She was with us when I got married – the first time and the second. She sent the baptismal gown first made for my cousin, then used by me, when it was time for my Madeleine to be baptized. She sat on our patio and introduced us to her boyfriend after my uncle had died and she had moved to Florida. She called or I called (never often enough), and when I took a business trip to Florida in late 2004, we had dinner together at one of her favorite spots. She was so full of vim and vigor – even at 85 – it is hard to believe that she is gone so suddenly.
My grandfather worked for the railroad. My grandmother had a pass to travel by rail. When I was 6 or 7, my grandmother and I took the train from Lawrence to Boston and then from Boston down to Washington, DC. I believe that my mother joined us but that she came down by plane to minimize the amount of time away from work at the Arlington Trust Company. As a youngster, the memory I came away with was “President Kennedy’s Christmas tree.” This was my first time out of New England and my first time visiting my Aunt, Uncle and cousin instead of them visiting us.
In my eyes, they were always my “rich” Aunt & Uncle. They always wore stylish clothes, drove a nice car and brought presents even when it wasn’t Christmas or a birthday. Over the years I would hear about their trips to places around the world. It seems that Spain had a particular charm – especially for my Uncle. Her favorite, however, was, I think, the Bahamas. Later, when I spent almost a year working in the British Virgin Islands, we spent time discussing the similarities between these two British protectorates.
One of my Aunt’s favorite stories was how when I was young, she asked me to do something. I asked here why and we got into a discussion of why I should do it and how it should be done. She said that after a while it dawned on her that she was holding a debate with a 7-year old and told me to just do it!
In the late 1960s, I went to visit them for Thanksgiving. It was my day of three Thanksgiving dinners. My mother and stepfather had moved to Derry NH. So I started with a noontime Thanksgiving with them. Then at about 4:00 PM, I had Thanksgiving dinner with my father and stepmother. Then I was driven to Boston for what I think was my first flight and was certainly the first time I had flown by myself. In a matter of hours, I was being picked up at Washington National. They had been waiting to eat with me and we had dinner at a Valley’s Steak House at about 10:00 PM. This was quite a new experience for me. I rarely stayed up that late and was amazed to find out that in Washington it was not that unusual to eat dinner at 9:00 or 10:00 at night. In my grandmother’s house dinner was served at about 5:30 every night like clockwork and if you were not ready then you didn’t eat.
It may have been at this time that my Aunt told me a story about how things worked in Washington. She explained that there would be times when my Uncle would call one of their favorite restaurants and ask for a reservation in the name of Bill Bourbeau only to be told that nothing was available that evening. He would hang-up the phone and hand it to my Aunt. She would call and ask for a reservation in the name of Madelyn Kennedy – suddenly a table was available. We were not related to the Boston Kennedy’s (at least not the American generations), but nobody in Washington wanted to take a chance!
My Aunt first worked in, then managed, and finally owned Fairlington Beauty Salon in Alexandria, VA. And lived in a townhouse not far away. During my visit, I spent a day helping her out at the “shop.” We had lunch at a small restaurant around the corner. It was this day that I discovered that when something needed remedying quickly – mopping up a spill, getting a towel, etc. – Auntie Madelyn would snap into action. Things would happen quickly, but her focus was totally on the situation at hand and not the people around her. At this point everyone – young & old, male & female – became Gertrude. It was the first of many times I was called by that name. In the evening, Aunty Madelyn, Uncle Bill and I walked to the local movie house. It was a balmy evening compared to what I had left behind in New England. We were going to see Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple.” I remember walking along with them in the dark with all the lights of the movie house marquee. It was exciting and I felt very grown up – it was a new and wonderful experience.
Unfortunately a memory of this trip was a bookend to the previous trip. In the family photo album is a picture of a somber youth in a dress overcoat standing alone behind President Kennedy’s grave – watching the eternal flame flicker out of the center of the oval of stones. Not in the picture, behind some shrubs behind me was the plain white cross that marked the new grave of Robert Kennedy.
I think it was when my Grandmother passed away in 1971, that Aunty and I started to discuss family history. Just the two of us were sitting in a booth at a restaurant on South Broadway in Lawrence. In this conversation and others I heard a number of stories . . .
Once she graduated from St. Patrick’s High School, she went to school in Boston to learn to be a beautician. She would walk out to the corner of Broadway and wait for the bus to take her to Boston. Sometimes she would be standing in deep snow without proper footwear. At one point her feet got a bit frost bitten. She said that from that day on her feet were overly sensitive to the cold and that this was one of the reasons she was happy to eventually move south.
She told me about her Uncle Joe who was an architect. I was shocked to find out that he had designed the school I had attended from kindergarten through second grade and I had never known. More amazing, he had designed the exterior of Sacred Heart Church – the French Church up the street. She explained that her grandfather and grandmother had been one of the founding families of the parish.
Her grandparents had emigrated from Quebec, met in Lawrence and had been married for over 50 years when my great-grandfather died. He was a builder and had built many of the houses in the Shawsheen sections of Lawrence and Andover. She told me that around the time she and my Uncle Bill had gotten married, she was telling her grandfather about how excited they were to have found this great apartment in a double or triple-decker. He asked her the address. When she told him, he confirmed that it was a good apartment. Surprised she asked “Oh you have been in that house?” “I built that house” was his reply.
She came up for my high-school graduation. Just before graduation there was a senior event of some type. About three of my classmates and I ended up crashing in my room at some very late hour. My Aunt said that the next morning she tried to open my bedroom door. She counted three pairs of feet on the floor and saw me in the bed. Based on this she concluded we had had a fun and safe evening.
In the early 1970s, the husband of one of her favorite personal clients became President. She would tell us what a wonderful down-to-earth person Betty Ford was and she proudly displayed the formal White House Christmas greeting she received from the Fords.
In 1980, I took a job at the US Department of Energy in Washington and bought a townhouse in Greenbelt, MD. If you were to look at the Washington Beltway as the perimeter of a clock, my new home was at about 2:00 and my Aunt and Uncle lived at about 8:00 – we were at opposite ends of the DC world. Even though my father’s brother lived relatively close in Suitland, MD in the 5 years I was there I never visited him – while I was a frequent visitor to my Aunt’s house. I was able to visit her when she was in the hospital for kidney stones and looked sicker and in more pain than I had ever seen her. We were able to console each other when my mother died. And I was there to comfort her when my Uncle had his first heart attack. After leaving DC, the next time I saw her was at my Uncle’s funeral following his second heart attack
The next few times I saw Aunty was when I got married in 1990 and when my sister Kerry got married several years later. Although I did not call often, when I did call we had long conversations. She was never afraid to express her opinion or her love and pride. Much of the information that I have recorded on that part of the family came from her. Unfortunately some of the details were lost at one point. I was amazed at the names, relationships and people’s hometowns that she remembered even when in her 70s and 80s.
One piece of advice she gave was in the form of a story about herself. She said that making a marriage last over a long period was not easy – that you need togetherness and also time to yourself. She described how over the years she and my Uncle had developed a system that worked for them. My Uncle worked a standard Monday – Friday schedule. My Aunt on the other hand chose to work Tuesday – Sunday. In this way she could take care of personal things on Mondays that had to be done during business hours. Another benefit was with regard to the relationship. Both she and my Uncle had clear strong tastes and ways of doing things and they were both pretty particular. They were not, however, the same and could come to loggerheads. The work schedule did a lot to ease this. My Uncle had one day a week – Saturday – to putter around and do his thing without interference. My Aunt also had one day a week – Monday – to do the same. And they made it a point of having Sunday be a day of rest during which they enjoyed each other’s company. It led to decades of good relations.
One conversation was typically Aunty. She was always planning something, going out dancing, etc. I called her one night and she started off the conversation by saying that now that she was in her 80s, she just couldn’t do what she used to do and was slowing down. We continued the conversation and about 20 minutes later she said she had better get back to packing – that the next day she and some friends were driving from Florida to Washington for the weekend. I told her that if this was “slowing down,” I hopped that I was that spry when I reached her age!
When our daughter was born, my wife suggested the name Madeleine Morrisette. She explained that she really like my Quebec great-grandparents family name and Madeleine could be both for my Aunt Madelyn and for one of her favorite authors and a friend of her Uncle’s Madeleine L’Engle. And she really preferred to spell the first name in the traditional French way rather than the anglicized version. Who was I to disagree with my wife? I think that this tickled Aunty, and while she could not make it up for the Christening, she did send up the christening gown that my grandmother had made. I think that she only saw Madeleine once – on a last visit “home,” but she did speak with her on the phone.
In 2004, three Hurricanes hit Florida. The first made landfall right near where my Aunt’s condo was located. She stayed through the storm and we kept in touch by phone. Once the storm was over, she said it was the most frightening thing she had ever experienced and next time when a storm was coming she would not stay. With the utilities all out, as soon as she could after the storm she went up to my cousin’s in Ohio for a few weeks. When the third storm of the season followed the same track as the first, she kept to her word and evacuated.
In early December 2004, I had a job interview in Florida. I made the arrangements in a way that would give me the opportunity to visit Aunty the night before the interview. When I called, she said that it was wonderful I would be there but that she had organized a trip to a Christmas concert and would have to leave a bit early. Once I arrived, I was honored to discover that she had decided to forgo the concert in order to have more time with me. We went out to dinner and had a great visit. Although I did not get the job, just having some one-on-one time with her made the trip a huge success.
In October of 2005, I was visiting relatives in Ireland when another hurricane was heading for Florida. Although this one was heading for the west coast of Florida, the track once again was heading toward Aunty. This time I watched the news confident that she was likely in Ohio and out of harms way. Upon my return, I called and was horrified to find out that she had decided to stay based on what turned out to be the false assumption that the storm would have significantly dwindled before reaching her area. The hardest thing on her was that her Condo was on the top floor of the building. Without electricity she had to climb up 3 flights of stairs on bad ankles. But as usual she persevered.
In February I received word that Aunty had been diagnosed with a heart valve problem. It was not necessarily life threatening but it was reducing her energy and stamina and unless corrected these things would continue to deteriorate. For her, the inability to be active would be worse than death. The operation to fix the problem had a 97% success rate. Although she was busy planning the complex’s upcoming St. Patrick’s Day festivities, she decided to get the procedure done as soon as possible. A few days later, I received word that during the operation it was discovered that her arteries had calcified to the point where the stitches would not hold and she had died on the table. She went to sleep anxious to get on with her planes and never woke up – if the alternative was years of limited activity then I am sure she is happy that things turned out as they did.
Aunty Madelyn led a full, rich life. She loved her husband, she loved her son, she loved her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She had a special bond with her sister – often one would pick up the phone to call the other only to find that the other had called seconds before and the phone had not had time to ring, and many times they would call based on a feeling that something was amiss with the other and would be right. She took on an almost surrogate mother role when our mother passed away at a relatively early age. She was loved by her co-workers and then by her employees. She had style, grace and dignity. When my Uncle died, she grieved and then went on living a full loving life. I hope we are all able to say the same someday.
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