Sorry, guys. This is going to be a sad one. I got some very bad news last week. My beautiful, gifted, fabulous cousin, Joan Hertzberg, died tragically of complications from a yet-to-be determined brain disease.
This is especially ironic because my cousin Joanie was brilliant. The smartest one of us all. She attended Niles West high school and then went on to Vassar. And then- as part of the historic first class to go co-ed at Williams College- she took on the guys head to head and became the valedictorian of the whole shebang.
She got her Ph.D at UC Santa Cruz and became a psychotherapist out in San Francisco. She was one smart cookie. Who would have ever dreamed that it would be her brain that would let her down?
Our mothers were sisters, and when we were growing up, my brother, Kenny, and I spent every Sunday with that side of the family. My grandmother, grandfather, my Aunt Anita- her mom- and her husband, my Uncle Herbie, and my two cousins, Stuart and Joanie, were together each and every week.
After dinner, the older generation broke out the omnipresent deck of cards for the inevitable game of hearts, gin or klaberjass– a Dutch/Hungarian card game. (My mother and my aunt were card sharks of major proportions. My mother still plays poker every day now.) Us kids were left to our own entertainment devices.
And hence, our dashing older cousins were our constant playmates, role models and partners in crime.
My handsome cousin Stuart was the oldest of all the grandchildren on that side. He was two years older than me and my cousin Joanie was seven months older than me. She was born on April 13th, and I November 14th. But for most of my early childhood, she always seemed about a foot taller, ten years older and whole lot bossier, too.
Example: Until I was about three or so, I had a beloved totem object- a security blanket, if you will. In this case, it happened to be a real blanket. And I called it my “bobbie.”
I clearly remember Joanie leaning over me and wagging her finger sternly in my little face.
“That’s not a ‘bobbie,'” she said scornfully. “That’s a banket.”
See what I mean? Destined for the Ivy League even then.
But as we grew older- although the height difference was never bridged. She topped out at a statuesque 5’9″- we became good friends, as well as cousins. We would double date, sleep over at each other’s houses. I knew her friends, she knew mine. She was tall, dark, imperious. A real glamazon.
Picture Sigourney Weaver. Fearless. Sarcastic. And funny.
If you made her laugh, you felt like you’d really accomplished something.
I remember one summer’s outing when we were both about twelve. Our great aunt and uncle took us to Ravinia. And, as we stood around gabbing and gossiping, my great uncle kept nagging us to go see some art exhibit that was currently featured in one of Ravinia’s pavilions.
Nether one of us bored pre-teenagers had the slightest interest in seeing the art exhibit. And so we told him so. Repeatedly.
But this great uncle had no children of his own, and although he was an opera expert, he was completely tone deaf when it came to micro-managing adolescent girls with mascara on their minds.
He kept interrupting us.
“Go see the art exhibit.”
“No.”
“Go see the art exhibit.”
“No!”
Finally on the last “go see the art exhibit” exhortation, I drew myself up to my then-height of four feet nine, and looking down at him, (did I mention that he was, um, really, really short?) I said:
“Make me.”
This put Joanie away. I can still see her laughing helplessly as our mean little great uncle fumed helplessly.
She took her turn being outrageous, too. I remember one outing at a shopping mall as we descended on the escalator and she gave a smiling benediction to all the other patrons riding up towards us.
She’d bow and smile and wave regally and say to them, “I’m not really a fairy princess, you know. Just a real pretty girl.”
And she was.
She was the sister of my childhood and maid of honor at my first wedding.
And when the officiant offered us – the bride and groom- a cup of wine during the ceremony, Cousin Joanie leaned in and said softly “I’ll have a frozen daquiri please.”
That cracked up the entire wedding party.
Later at the party, everyone asked me what was so funny.
She was.
And now to think that all that glamor and humor and intelligence is no more.
What a shame.
One last thing…
When she turned thirteen, it happened to fall on Friday the thirteenth of that year. Somehow, the local paper had picked up on the fact and coupled with the coincidence that her name contained thirteen letters, had her pose for a picture.
I remember that photo so vividly. There she was, standing under a ladder, sporting an open umbrella, and smiling to beat the band. She was young, beautiful and no bad luck could ever touch her.
Well it did. Her terrible luck.
And all of ours.
For all who knew and loved and lost her way too soon.
Her father was her greatest booster. He loved his “Joanie Pony” madly. He was simply crazy about his darling daughter.
He had good taste.
Sorry for your loss. It is a timely reminder that some of us are fortunate enough to have cousins who were our best childhood friends, as I am and as, clearly, you are.
I lost my cousin closest to me in age (like you, our mothers were sisters; my mom had two, and we remain close to those Levy cousins, none of whom bear the Levy name). Leigh was 38 when we lost her, with two beautiful children, virtual babies then.
Why am I saying this? Next week, we (all of us Shindlers) and the cousins (and some cousins’ kids) gather for the wedding of Leigh’s son, her older child. This is the 7th wedding of the cousins’ kids, and we all reunite, reminisce, laugh, cry, hug and argue. It’s a real family outing. All of our spouses don’t quite get it, but, hey, who cares?
We all revert to Sundays at our grandparents’ house, where the nearest adult was the one who provided discipline. Sometimes, I long for those simpler days.
Leigh would be 61 now, and I still miss her. But, in so many ways, I’ll be with her next weekend.
Thanks for reminding me why I am going to the wedding!
Thanks my friend. And thank you for this beautiful tribute to your cousin. (I was especially touched because “Leigh” is my daughter’s middle name.) She sounded wonderful and you’re lucky that she had children to follow in her footsteps. My cousin never had any, marrying late in life. So she just seems so…gone. And yes, it was a different era. Nowadays, I don’t think kids have the close ties to family that so many of us had back then. I don’t see my children every Sunday. And I know you don’t always, either.
Lovely lovely tribute. Thank you for sharing it with all of us. And sorry for your loss. Dance the hora for me.
Joanie was lovely and your piece did her proud. Always heartbreaking to lose a loved one way too soon.
Yes-as you know only too well. Life can be a tragic-comedy sometimes. It’s good to have family and friends to help carry the weight. Thanks, ML.
She was incredibly smart and funny. I was so happy that the two of you taught me how to dance when I was 12. Not sure if you were laughing at me or with me but it really doesn’t matter. Who would have thought that she would die so young. Very tragic
And we made you act in all our plays! Came in handy at Ojibwa, right? (But who taught you to drop the cane?) Thanks, bro. She was one of a kind.
Very touching and beautifully said. So sorry for your loss Ellen. She was a such a special blessing in your life.
Thank you for your kind thoughts and kind words, Nancy. She was an irreplaceable part of my childhood- and my heart. But that’s the price we all pay for loving people. I so appreciate the fact that you took time out to write this. Hope your birthday was as special as you must be.
Ellen, I am so sorry for your loss. Cousins are very special to me since I had no brothers or sisters. I lost my cousin Andy when I was 8 and he was only 10. Andy fell off a top bunk bed and never recovered. I still remember his goofy smile when we used to get in trouble. He has always been in my thoughts after all these years.
And same to you, Steve. So sorry. Cousins are special.
I remember Joanie so well when she came over to play. She was so pretty & smart & you two were better than sisters ! How does something like that happen to such a young vibrant person???? I am so sorry for your loss….life is so fragile.
Thanks, Ellen. You asked the big question here. And yes this was tragic and we have to count our blessings every day. Thanks, neighbor.
Back in the early 1970s, I attended a college that had a student body of about 1,200 men and fewer than 100 women. We women were all beauties because we were not men. We were all smart because our thoughts represented the “female point of view.” But there was one among us who was smarter and more beautiful than all the others. When she graduated in 1971 along with six other women and 300 men, she was valedictorian and Phi Beta Kappa.
Her name was Joan, and she was the queen, worshipped and feared. I can still see her—slim and tall, sauntering across campus, her thick black waves pulled loosely back like a pre-Raphaelite maiden’s. I can hear her too—her voice a husky melodious rumble.
Her combination of competence and confidence offended chauvinists, of whom there were many on campus, but endeared her to the rest of her peers.
For some reason, she chose me as a protegee. She arranged for me to inherit her wonderfully appointed lodging, which had once been the library in a professorial manse. It had a working fireplace, oak paneling and a little toilet-and-sink closet, as well as a “Lay Lady Lay” brass bed she had purchased. She negotiated for me to be the first female member of the college honor society, which acquired members by nomination, not grades. And she gave me insightful but largely unusable academic and personal advice—unusable because I wasn’t her and shared few of her attributes. And finally, she bequeathed to me her trademark bellbottoms—lovely, flowing, russet—that she wore virtually every day. I had admired and coveted them. One day she handed them over and said, “You wear them.”
I tried. And actually, I think I looked beautiful in them. I too had long curly waves, though mine were blond, and like her I was tall. But the bellbottoms were so closely identified with her that when I wore them I became a wannabe, a pathetic fangirl. This was made clear to me when one of the young men who was in her thrall came up and said, “Why are you trying to look like Joan? You’re not anything like her.” So I gave them back. Because that’s what I really wanted—to be like her. I wish I had kept them though. Ever since then, lo these 40 years, I have been trying to replace them. I know I look silly, a 64-year-old woman with severe gray hair tripping over wide hems. But it’s to recapture an image from my youth of a truly splendid woman who embodied all I admired.
What a lovely reminiscence of a wonderful woman. Thank you so much for conquering time, space and computer technology to bring it to us. Thank you, Megan!
She came to Williamstown in the dazzling golden autumnal light of the Fall of ’69, that brief season between Woodstock and Altamont, between the man on the moon and Kent State. She had to be Joanie, like that Joni Mitchell the smart college radio deejay was playing and deconstructing obsessively.
Because I had been with the first boys at Vassar that Spring, I was welcome to drop by the pioneer girls’ house in town with the other guys with curls over their collars. We all liked to see what we could bubble up collectively, such as “When you close your eyes and visualize the color spectrum, what do you see?”
Joanie indeed called a blanket a blanket. Speaking the truth is not for everyone, and some of the boys grumbled about it. The one who walked around with his fists jammed in his pockets “like the body language of a serial killer” was a bit upset. What I want to testify is that it wasn’t just that her mind was so incisive, it was that her spirit was consistently warm, consistently gentle.
I grokked her bellbottoms, her big brass bed. “Do you know what you do to girls?” she asked. “No. I mean, a little.” Then came a few puerile gestures at seduction on my part, and she told me firmly, gently, that they left a lot to be desired.
Soon came the first of December and my luck with the war draft lottery, a high number that had me resolving that night to bolt for California with the first of the year. After I was arrested from sleep and charged with Failure To Disperse, like hundreds of kids that night of the Isla Vista riots at UCSB, I wrote Joanie a long letter describing the events, and she responded nicely that she was passing the letter around for everyone to see.
I hitched back east that summer and stopped in Williamstown. She was with a guy. I think she was a little chastened that so few were so open. The guy confided in me that she was “figuring out what it means to be a free agent.” A sage pursuit.
By the end of the summer of ’70, I was working as a psychiatric aide at McLean Hospital in Boston, living in a communal situation across the street, all of us reading R.D. Laing, me beginning to realize that my squishy ego boundaries were also why a lot of stuff seemed to happen to me. Not so bad being me, after all. I owe her for helping to set me on my path. Hers was a Major Vector, a shooting star.
As a proud grad of UMass Amherst, I am delighted to know there will be a scholarship in her honor at UMass Lowell.
Another wonderful tribute to my sui generis cousin, Joan. Thanks, Timmy, for this fascinating look at her – and the times we lived in. The vividness of your portrait helps bring her back to those of us who love her still- and miss her always.
Last night, well now it’s so late, that it’s the night before last, I learned that Joan had died and from the obits and your blog, learned that she had a brain disease. I still can’t believe Joan is gone not just because she was a year younger than me, but because she was so present. Even when she was quiet and looking in that way that was a cross between being bored and internally critiquing, she had presence. I had tried to connect with Joan after I retired from working for the State of Texas in October 2013 and didn’t get an answer. I didn’t know why, but chalked it up to how some folks want the past to stay that way. It wasn’t until I read the obits that I learned that my reach out and her death coincided. I was one of Joan’s roommates in the mid 70’s in San Francisco. We lived in a flat that was two stories. Joan had the top floor all to herself with a window seat looking out on to Alamo Square. She had therapy sessions in the room typically 70’s style with everyone sitting around on cushions on the floor. Those were fun years and the group of us housemates would often hang out sipping Joan’s cardamon enhanced coffee or eating some of her eggs with pieces of tortilla. Sometimes Joan’s friend Jerry, from Santa Cruz, would drop in and they would reminisce about hanging out at the Catalyst from when Joan was attending USC. I moved out when I went to nursing school, and Joan and I had a disagreement over some bowls that was silly, but seemed to me to represent that we were too close to move apart easily. Joan was everything I wasn’t but somehow we had clicked and became friends. I lost touch with Joan while in nursing school, but not completely. The man I was about to marry just before graduating nursing school was involved with a cult. Joan and Pat and our friend Marty came to the wedding at the house. They didn’t say anything about trying to ‘get me out of the cult’ but it seemed to me they were there to support and protect me if necessary. My sense was that they could tell I was head over heels with my boyfriend, and not the philosophy, but it took some hutzpah to come to the wedding. I always treasured that memory, and my memory of my time as Joan’s roommate. After hearing the news, I dug through my albums. I found two photos of Joan. I posted them on my FB. One is a simple photo of me and Joan just looking at each other and laughing and there’s another of Joan, her friend, Pat and me just sitting. I remember the feelings I had when those photos were taken. Joan honored every moment, that’s what made being with her so special.
Thank you, Amy, for this wonderful portrait – and tribute- to my unique cousin, Joan. Funny this came in today. I had the most vivid dream about her two nights ago. I can not believe she is gone. It doesn’t seem possible even now. A great personality. A greater loss for all who loved her.
I’m not sure if this post is For Your Eyes Only…and it’s fine with me if it is.
About the vivid dream you had..that’s amazing, but not completely. It was that same night, that I was feeling so intense, having just learned of Joan’s illness and death.
It may sound a little Twilight Zone’ish , but I believe that we connect with spirit more often than we are aware.
It was your post that opened the door to my learning about Joan. Perhaps it was my emotional connection with what happened while reading your post, that brought her into your dream.
My sense is also that the spirit of those who have passed on connects with those who love and care about them. We help each other, even though we seem far apart. Joan’s spirit was always so fantastic. In my humble opinion, she can feel and appreciate your love, even now.
I hear you, Amy. For me- and in me- Joan’s glorious spirit will never die.
The stories of Williamstown in the early ’70s and way too early death take me back to my visit in September, 1971 to my Winnetka friends Trip Abnee and Peter Gundlach. Trip died 7-25-2008; Gunny much earlier, in about 1985. Both were smart and involved in the Williams Trivia Contest and had a really good time there. Don’t know if they knew Joan, but it was a small school and I’d be surprised if they didn’t meet at some point. As we now traverse senior citizenship, we will hear these stories more and more, and not just our parents or aunts/uncles any more. Let us continue to cherish those who have meant so much and hope somebody cherishes us, too, and tells some good stories.
Sorry for your loss, Dave. Old friends are irreplaceable and so glad you remembered them here. When Joan’s death was mentioned in the Williams Class notes, people went to the Internet to find out more. They came upon this post and I heard from many of them about how terrific she was. And you’re right. I bet they all knew each other. Thanks for taking the time to add this terrific comment.